The 94-win Toronto Blue Jays going on to win the American League pennant was far from shocking. I mean, they won the AL East and were the No. 1 seed in the American League, so considering how the regular season went, everyone should've known how good this Blue Jays team is. Based on how this year was expected to go for them, though, the Blue Jays representing the American League in the Fall Classic is one of the most shocking developments in decades.
The 2024 Blue Jays won 74 games and finished in last place in the AL East. While they did get better in the offseason, it was a winter defined more by their misses than their hits, and it felt as if they'd likely finish in last place again — with a ceiling of maybe a Wild Card berth, at best. Clearly, that couldn't have been further from the truth.
Winning the World Series would be the perfect capper to a near-perfect season, but even getting to this stage is a tremendous accomplishment when considering preseason expectations. Those expectations have the Jays among the four unlikeliest teams to make it this far in MLB history.
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4) 2025 Toronto Blue Jays
What makes the Blue Jays' season that much more impressive is that the guys they brought in to take them over the top really didn't make much of an impact in the regular season.
Player | 2025 fWAR |
|---|---|
Anthony Santander | -0.9 |
Jeff Hoffman | -0.4 |
Yimi Garcia | 0.1 |
Max Scherzer | 0.4 |
Eric Lauer | 1.4 |
The five biggest offseason additions combined to record 1.6 fWAR, and 1.4 of those came from Eric Lauer, a player signed to a Minor League deal. Anthony Santander, by far the most notable signing of the bunch, missed most of the year due to injury and struggled mightily when on the field both in the regular season and in October. Jeff Hoffman has been a godsend in October, but his regular season was very up and down. Yimi Garcia has been hurt for most of the year and won't throw a postseason pitch. Max Scherzer pitched really well in his lone postseason start, but was a non-factor for much of the regular season. Lauer is the only one who has been consistently solid, and again, he signed as an afterthought deal.
The reason the Jays have had the season they have comes from internal improvements. George Springer has completely revived his career, and his home run in Game 7 of the ALCS sent Toronto to the World Series. Alejandro Kirk followed his worst-ever season with arguably his best all-around campaign. Bo Bichette is another player who struggled mightily in 2024 and returned to All-Star form in 2025. Guys like Nathan Lukes and Ernie Clement emerged out of nowhere to be key contributors.
You could've talked me into the Jays making the playoffs with star contributions from guys like Santander and Hoffman, but the team being as good as they have despite minimal contributions from their big-ticket additions is the biggest reason why they're on this list. The fact that they still had a good amount of foundational talent, though, is why they're only fourth.
3) 2013 Boston Red Sox
The 2013 Boston Red Sox were supposed to be rebuilding. They replaced Terry Francona and Theo Epstein with John Farrell and Ben Cherington, and they traded Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett in a massive deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers at the 2012 trade deadline in an effort to clear payroll. Don't tell the 2013 Red Sox they were supposed to be rebuilding, though.
Low-ish cost additions involving guys like Mike Napoli, Koji Uehara, Shane Victorino and Johnny Gomes, surrounded by the veteran core of David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester and Dustin Pedroia, couldn't have worked out any better.
The Red Sox were pegged by many to be a last-place finisher in the AL East, and instead, with seemingly the entire country rooting for them following the Boston Marathon bombings, they not only won the AL East but won the World Series.
2) 1987 Minnesota Twins
It had been nearly two decades since the Minnesota Twins had made the playoffs entering the 1987 campaign. In fact, only four of those 17 playoff-less seasons saw the Twins finish with even a winning record. They won just 71 games in 1986 and hadn't finished with a winning record since 1979. Then, out of nowhere, they went from decades of losing to the World Series.
It didn't exactly go as you might've expected. The dynamic duo of Frank Viola (17 wins) and Bert Blyleven (15 wins) combined to win 32 of the team's 85 regular-season games. They went 29-52 on the road. They had a negative run differential. But despite all that seemingly went against them, the Twins never backed down.
This team wasn't supposed to be very good, and as the nuggets above suggest, I'd argue they weren't even all that great when compared to other World Series teams. What matters most, though, is getting hot at the right time. The Twins, thanks largely to Viola and Blyleven, were able to win the World Series in a year nobody expected them to even make the playoffs.
1) 2008 Tampa Bay Rays
Not only had the Tampa Bay Rays gone the first 10 years of their existence without a single postseason appearance, but they hadn't finished a season with a winning record. In fact, they had just one 70-win season under their belt before the 2008 campaign. Suddenly, everything changed.
Don't get me wrong: This team had a lot of talent, especially after trading for Matt Garza to pitch behind Scott Kazmir and James Shields in the rotation. They had one of the top prospects in baseball, Evan Longoria, nearing his debut. However, who expected Longoria to be as impactful as he was right away? Who expected the bullpen to be as dynamic as it was? Who expected the team to come through with clutch hit after clutch hit?
The bottom line here is that going from 66 wins to the American League pennant is unheard of, especially without marquee additions from the previous offseason. The Blue Jays went from worst to first, too, but they won 74 games with much more established talent, and they spent money over the preceding offseason. The Rays had never won before, and once they did, they went all the way to the World Series. Sure, they fell short, but getting there was special.