The best possible sports season is winning every game of the year and the postseason to come away with a championship. The worst possible sports season is losing every single game. Easy, right?
While both
of those results are possible in the National Football League, teams in Major League Baseball play too many games for either to happen. Even the best teams in the league lose dozens of games, and the fact of the matter is that every season exists in the wide, wide valley between losing and winning every game.
So what constitutes the realistic best season? I decided to carve up types of seasons into eight broad categories and power rank the worst to the best results.
A few caveats: I’m not taking expectations into account here. Expecting a bad team to be good or vice versa can totally color a season’s results. Additionally, I’m not taking playoff success into account here. Obviously, a team that wins the World Series had a great year. That is not interesting to me. I am interested in some good old fashioned arguments about generalities.
Let’s get started.
8. Sucking the whole year
- Examples: 2023 Royals, 2019 Royals, 2005 Royals
Royals fans know what this is like. Kansas City has stunk so many times over the last three or so decades, and we know the symptoms: a giant losing streak or streaks that punt the team out of contention by Memorial Day and a long, dark summer ahead.
There are some benefits to this. The navigational and parking situation at Kauffman Stadium is awful when there are 35,000 people attending a game. When there are, like, 3,500 people there? Sublime. Tickets are cheap. Bathrooms don’t have lines. You can enjoy baseball the sport without any pressures of hoping for a victory.
But if you’re not going to a game, yeah, this is the worst thing by far.
7. Choking away a playoff spot
- Examples: 2024 Twins, 2019 Guardians, 2023 Mariners
There are multiple ways to fail to make the playoffs, but choking one away is by far the worst. Other than the oppressive stench of piling losses, this is the worst way for a baseball season to go because of the complete frustration and anger at failing when it matters most.
Royals fans haven’t experienced this one a lot, but a Kansas City example would be the 2014 Chiefs. That Chiefs team went 7-3 in its first 10 games, but they lost four out of their next five to slip out of the playoffs. For a baseball example, take a look at last year’s Minnesota Twins…who had a nearly 96% chance of making the playoffs on September 2 and a 79.3% chance on September 20 and missed it.
6. Being bad, not making the playoffs
- Examples: 2021 Royals, 2008 Royals, 2000 Royals
There’s a fine line between being awful and being bad, but I think it’s clearly there. It is not very fun losing 85-90 games or whatever, but it is way more enjoyable than losing 100+ games. I also think that it’s more enjoyable to watch a simply bad team than it is to watch your favorite squad stumble out of the playoff picture.
Some Royals examples include some of the less sucky bad teams in the new millennium. Were these teams great? No. Did they truly wound us? Also no. For the most part.
5. Being good, not making the playoffs
- Examples: 2013 Royals, 2003 Royals, 2017 Cardinals
It is better to be a good team and not make the playoffs than be a bad team and not make the playoffs. Shocker. “Good” is a little subjective, but pretty much any team with a winning record of, like, north of 83 wins counts.
Note that this is a subtle difference from teams that choke away a playoff spot. Those teams often end up as good, but they are characterized by the choke. Teams in this category, meanwhile, simply lack the choke. They just didn’t quite get it done for whatever reason.
4. Being mediocre, not making the playoffs
- Examples: 2025 Royals (maybe?), 2017 Royals, 2016 Royals
This is maybe a hot take that a mediocre team not making the playoffs is a better season than a good team not making the playoffs. Let me explain: in both situations, the playoffs don’t happen, but teams are more likely to make substantive changes to get them into the playoffs if they only win, say, 79 games versus winning 84 or 85 and staying the course.
We’re sort of witnessing that right now: last year, the Royals did get into the playoffs, but they needed more talent to do it again. Royals brass didn’t do enough to get that talent, and now the team isn’t going to make it. Funny how that works.
Also, in this scenario, you get a goldilocks situation: a competitive team without the logistical hassle of sellout crowds and high ticket prices.
3. Competing all year, squeezing into the playoffs
- Examples: 2024 Royals, 2023 Blue Jays, 2022 Rays
Teams in this category don’t have dramatic swings in playoff probability, instead waxing and waning as the year goes on. By the end of the year, they’ve done it: getting to the playoffs promised land, baby.
Every team goes through stretches of good and bad, but the stretches for these teams are a little more muted than in other scenarios. You know the team is on track for a playoff season, and securing it is satisfying. Still, there is some uncertainty surrounding if the team will make it or not. That’s why it’s right behind:
2. Holding a playoff spot all year
- Examples: 2025 Tigers, 2021 White Sox, 2015 Royals
These teams are simply good. They do well all year and mostly wrap up doubt by Independence Day. The trade deadline for these teams is about acquiring players who will help them succeed in the playoffs rather than hoping they’ll get to the playoffs.
Royals fans haven’t experienced this a lot–really only once in the last 40 years. That 2015 team won 95 games and was good from wire to wire. That’s fun, and you know when you turn on the TV or go to the game that you’re more likely than not going to watch some competitive baseball.
1. Surging into the playoffs at the end of the year
- Examples: 2024 Tigers, 2014 Royals, 2007 Rockies
There are very few things as fun in sports as a team absolutely catching fire and going on an insane run from rags to riches. It’s an American dream, so to speak, and it is absolutely worth the consternation from earlier in the year because the payoff is so, so glorious.
Look: the 2015 Royals team was great. But that 2014 Royals team was just something special. Only July 21, they were 48-50. One month later, and they had rattled off five winning streaks of three or more games, and won six of eight to close out the year. That is, in my opinion, more fun than a great team being great all year.
The other two teams on the example list for this one are great examples of an even more dramatic ascension. The Tigers were 55-63 on August 10. Then they won 13 of their next 16 games, and then won 15 of 18 after September 7. And those 2007 Rockies won 14 of their last 15 games of the year, winning a one-game tiebreaker to send them to the playoffs.
Those are the seasons you remember. That’s why it’s the best type of season.
