So... getting excited yet?
Well, why not. I'm beginning to feel it. There will be much to watch out for.
Something one should always watch out for are the seismic shifts in the earth's tectonic plates, harbingers of massive and unexpected upheaval. It's always wise to keep a careful eye out for that.
Up the ladders and down the snakes. That will be the tale some of the 2006 teams will be telling. Who's it going to be? Last year, seven teams (three in the AL and four in the AL) improved by at least 10 wins over their performance in 2004. The Big Gainers were:
AL
Chicago +16
Cleveland +13
Toronto +13
NL
Arizona +26
Milwaukee +14
Washington +14
New York +12
There were not as many Big Losers, just four overall:
AL
Texas -10
NL
Los Angeles -22
San Francisco -16
Chicago -10
Obviously it's very difficult for a team to do this sort of thing two years in a row. Last year's Big Gainers, the White Sox and Diamondbacks, should both be extremely happy if they can just match last year's performance. (I rather doubt that the people around the Diamondbacks realize that.) If the White Sox were to improve by another 16 games, they'd go 115-47, and Kenny and Ozzie will be on their way to the Hall of Fame.
The teams most likely to appear on this list again next year, it seems to me, are the Mets and the Blue Jays. Both teams have made significant upgrades for 2006; for both teams, the target figure (90-93 wins) does not seem particularly outlandish. Both the Mets and the Blue Jays significantly underperformed their Pythagorean expectation in 2005. And in the specific case of the Blue Jays, 2005 was not really a step forward as much as it was a return to their established level, recovering from the blip that was 2004.
Not that I would actually wager on both of these teams to improve by another 10 games...
A disastrous season - the 2004 campaigns of Arizona and Toronto, Detroit's 2003 season - obviously provides the greatest scope for this type of improvement. Detroit's 29 game improvement in 2004 is one of the largest single season leaps forward over the last 50 years, and they still lost 90 games.
Historical footnote - over the last 50 years, the only single season improvements greater than that of the 2004 Tigers were posted by the 1999 Diamondbacks, the 1962 Phillies, and the 1993 Giants.
Arizona's 26 game boost last year was one-half illusion, created by their status as the seventh luckiest team in Major League history, and one-half genuine improvement brought about mainly by all the home runs hit by Chad Tracy, Tony Clark, and Troy Glaus.
The biggest collapses last year were Disaster seasons created mainly a series of catastrophic injuries in the case of the Dodgers, and the catastrophic absence of a single player in the case of the Giants.
Anyway... on to 2006. Your mission, should you choose to accept it.
Tell me two teams in each league who will WIN 10 more games in 2006 than they won in 2005.
Tell me one team in each league that will LOSE 10 more games in 2006 than they lost in 2005. And the Florida Marlins are not eligible in this category! Sorry! We already know about them! Choose someone else!
I shall start the bidding below.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20060326234044904