20. Tampa Bay Rays: C
The Rays were among my sleeper teams in the AL at the start of the season, with a budding young star in Junior Caminero and a drool-worthy potential rotation if Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Ryan Pepiot, Shane Baz and Taj Bradley could all get (and stay healthy). The Caminero part of that equation has worked out as well as anybody could’ve expected. The rest … well, not so much.
McClanahan got hurt yet again, raising serious questions about his future as a big-league starter. Baz and Bradley struggled throughout, with the latter getting shipped off to Minnesota at the trade deadline. Only Pepiot has produced above-average production on a real workload this season, and this team simply doesn’t have the firepower offensively to win that way – especially not with Brandon Lowe a likely trade candidate this winter. The current generation of homegrown talent hasn’t panned out, and the future is awfully murky.
-CL
19. Miami Marlins: B
Finishing with a losing record is far from ideal, and barring a near-undefeated finish to their season, that’s exactly what the Miami Marlins will do. With that being said, did anyone expect this team to be mathematically alive in the NL Wild Card race with just a little bit over a week to go? Sure, some of that has to do with virtually none of the teams in the race seemingly wanting to win, but the Marlins deserve credit, especially for sitting a game over .500 in the second half as of this writing.
While they’re unlikely to make it to the playoffs this season, the future looks a whole lot brighter now than it did a year ago today. From Eury Perez to Edward Cabrera to Sandy Alcantara, Miami has loads of pitching, and they’ve got more in the pipeline too. With Jakob Marsee, Agustin Ramirez and Kyle Stowers on the team as well, runs shouldn’t be nearly as impossible to come by as they have been in recent years.
I’m not going to say the Marlins will be a playoff team in 2026, but they took a major step this season, and appear to be on the right path at long last.
-ZR
18. Texas Rangers: C-
The Texas Rangers are a hard team to grade because they’ll likely miss the playoffs, but it doesn’t feel like it’s entirely their fault. The Rangers have dealt with a myriad of injuries, particularly down the stretch, and as lame as it is to use that as an excuse, it is a very real one. With that being said, missing the playoffs with MLB’s best pitching staff according to ERA is a bad look.
To put it simply, the Rangers just haven’t gotten enough from their veterans. Marcus Semien, Adolis Garcia, Josh Jung, Jonah Heim and Joc Pederson all have OPS figures below .700. Jake Burger is just a shade above that mark as of this writing. Corey Seager is the only veteran to have a good year, and he’s missed substantial time due to injuries.
The Rangers got a healthy season from Jacob deGrom, a Cy Young-caliber season from Nathan Eovaldi when he was healthy, and good years from Merrill Kelly and Jack Leiter. They even got respectable work from Patrick Corbin, and yet, missing the playoffs is the likely outcome. Just a shame.
-ZR
17. Kansas City Royals: D+
Perhaps this is harsh, considering that Kansas City has been just about the most average team in the sport this season – constantly hovering around .500 and a perfectly even run differential. The thing is, though, that average feels awfully disappointing when you were in the ALDS less than 12 months ago.
There’s still plenty to build on here: The infield looks set for the future after huge years from Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino, and with the emergence of Noah Cameron (and renewed health from Cole Ragans) this rotation should once again be pretty strong. But the problems remain the same: This team simply does not have enough firepower, particularly in the outfield, and at this point it’s hard to have a ton of faith in Kansas City’s front office to address them.
-CL
16. San Francisco Giants: C
Coming into this season for the San Francisco Giants, not much was expected from the team. Sure, the team added shortstop Willy Adames in free agency but there were still a lot of question marks on the roster and they were in the same division as the Dodgers, Padres, and Diamondbacks. After the first few months, it seemed that first-year president of baseball operations Buster Posey was working the same magic he produced on the field for so many years as the Giants were right there with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.
Then, he made the trade heard round the world for Rafael Devers which completely recalibrated the expectations for the team. They went from over-performing underdogs in a stacked division to a team that should almost certainly make the playoffs otherwise the year would be a disappointment. The team completely fell apart the next few months and manager Bob Melvin’s job security came into question.
Fortunately for Melvin, the team showed life in the last month of the season and reinserted themselves into the playoff conversation before fading off yet again at the end. It has been a truly bizarre roller coaster season that has seen the team set franchise-best and franchise-worst marks while ultimately ending up right around .500 same as they have the three seasons.
They will enter 2026 with hope thanks to the surge towards the end of the year that showed what the club is capable of when firing on all cylinders, but also with some serious questions about whether this team as currently constructed can be consistent enough over 162 games to be a playoff team. A .500 team deserves a C grade even with all of the ups and downs in between.
-Nick San Miguel, Around the Foghorn