1-30 Rankings: Actual Performance vs Pre-Season Expectations

I put together my own overall rankings of all 30 teams, based on 2012 performance vs. expected performance.

For instance, the obvious surprise teams like the Orioles and A's rank very high. Teams like the White Sox that ended up better than expected also rank high even though they missed the playoffs. Teams like the Marlins and Angels which entered the season having spent tons of money on free agents and missed the playoffs are at the very bottom. Teams like the Rangers and Yankees who, even though are post-season bound, are still fighting to win their divisions with two games left and are ranked around 10th.

I've put the Twins and Indians more towards the middle---terrible seasons, but ended about where people expected.

Again, just my opinions. Thoughts?

1. Orioles
2. Nationals
3. Athletics
4. Giants
5. Reds
6. Braves
7. Padres
8. White Sox
9. Yankees
10. Rangers
11. Tigers
12. Cardinals
13. Mariners
14. Pirates
15. Mets
16. Astros
17. Cubs
18. Indians
19. Twins
20. Blue Jays
21. Royals
22. Rockies
23. Brewers
24. Diamondbacks
25. Dodgers
26. Rays
27. Phillies
28. Angels
29. Marlins
30. Red Sox

I would have gone with Marlins at the bottom. I might have also had the Dodgers and Red Sox right next to each other, because they had the same problem this year, with the same personnel: the highly-paid vets that they had on the payroll weren't enough to overcome the rest of the team not being as good. i think your ranking of the Twins and Indians is also about right.

I agree with most of the list -

I think the Angels did about as well as they were expected to do, but because the Athletics did so much better than expected they are outside of the playoff picture. The Angels had worse than expected results from Pujols (though overall, not a bad season) and much better results than anyone expected from Mike Trout. To me, it evens out. My memory is not that they were runaway favorites to take the AL West from the Rangers, it was going to be a battle.

I would also place the Cubs a bit lower on the list, I think a bad season was to be expected, but not 100 losses. Personally I didn't think that Theo Epstein coming meant instant winning seasons, but a lot of opinion said that a turnaround was expected. I wouldn't switch places with LAA and CHC, but I think they should be closer together on the list.

The Nationals don't belong in the top 3...they were expected to finish first in the NL East in many national papers with a wild card prediction by pretty much everywhere that I read.

I agree with the comments on the Angels. I would have expected them to win 90-93 games, and they'll probably win 89-90.

And, I thought the Nats would be really good.

Interesting list though. Definitely a fun way to look at it!

Would be interesting to see a 1-30 based on Vegas preseason over/under versus final season record.

Here's how I would break it down

Performed Better than Expected:
1. Baltimore
2. Oakland
3. Washington
4. Cincinnati
5. Chicago White Sox
6. San Fran
7. Atlanta
8. Pittsburgh

Performed About As Expected:
9. Texas
10. Milwaukee
11. LA Angels
12. Detroit
13. New York Yankees
14. LA Dodgers
15. Tampa Bay
16. Saint Louis
17. Arizona
18. Seattle
19. San Diego
20. Kansas City
21. Minnesota

Performed Worse than Expected:
22. New York Mets
23. Toronto
24. Cleveland
25. Houston

Much Worse than expected:
26. Chicago Cubs
27. Colorado
28. Miami
29. Boston
30. Philadelphia


Philadelphia gets the worst of the worst for me because I saw several WS predictions for them. Even though Colorado was not expected to be a playoff team, I don't recall many people saying they would barely get past 60 wins. Washington kind of surprised me, but when I went back to look at preseason projections from several sites, they were sitting at somewhere between 10th and 15th on most lists - I'd call their season much better than expected for that reason. The White Sox were picked last in several polls, so that's why I put them so high on the list, even though they missed the playoffs.

I feel Washington should be at the bottom of the better than expected and Pittsburg should be higher, Minnesota should be in the Worse than expected as many expected the Twins to bounce to close to .500. I would also move Seattle higher as it was assumed they could lose between 90 - 100 games. Cubs would be in my worse than expected, not much worse and the Indians would be in the worse than expected group.