MLB Teams That Look Most Likely to Surprise for 2015 Playoff Spots

In the last three years, we've seen the Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates snap long playoff droughts, and the Kansas City Royals come within one swing of winning the World Series.

So yeah, you could say Major League Baseball has a thing for surprise contenders these days. So much so, in fact, that the very idea of "surprise contenders" doesn't really mean what it used to anymore.

Thanks in large part to the second wild card and all the spending money in today's MLB, the room for would-be contenders for 2015 is awfully crowded. Dayn Perry of CBSSports.com wrote in December that there were only five teams that stood out as clear non-contenders. Though the cast has changed since then, that number is probably still accurate.

So if we're going to pick surprise contenders for 2015, really, all we can do is target the potential contenders that A) have a legit shot at playing in October and B) seem to be getting overlooked relative to the others.

I managed to cut my list down to four teams. And as much as it pains me to be so predictable, yes, this is the point where we're going to start talking about them.

Houston Astros

David Goldman/Associated Press

As you well know, the Astros have spent the last four years making like martians and slowly but surely drawing their plans against MLB. It hasn't done much good at the major league level, though, as the Astros have lost at least 92 games four years in a row.

But things are looking up. The 2016 season is a reasonable ETA for the Astros to finally make it back to October. But if everything comes together in 2015, they could easily get ahead of schedule and emerge as baseball's most shocking contender.

Though the Astros will need quite a leap from last year's 70-win performance to make it happen, they quietly put themselves in a position to do so over the winter. They brought in relievers Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek, infielders Jed Lowrie and Luis Valbuena, outfielders Evan Gattis and Colby Rasmus and catcher Hank Conger. Meanwhile, their only notable departure was Dexter Fowler.

The additions of Gregerson and Neshek could be huge. Both posted ERAs well south of 3.00 in 2014, music to the ears of a bullpen that was MLB's worst last year. Factor in how the Astros already had solid starting pitching and how they now have arguably MLB's best pitch-framing duo in Conger and Jason Castro, and they should pitch just fine.

POS	Player	K%
C	Jason Castro	29.5
1B	Jon Singleton	37.0
2B	Jose Altuve	7.5
3B	Luis Valbuena	20.7
SS	Jed Lowrie	14.0
LF	Evan Gattis	24.2
CF	Colby Rasmus	33.0
RF	George Springer	33.0

What will make or break their season is their offense. Gattis, Rasmus and Valbuena are swing-and-miss guys joining a lineup that already had Castro, George Springer, Chris Carter and Jon Singleton. As FanGraphs can show, that gives the Astros six regulars who struck out more than 20 percent of the time in 2014.

To balance out all the whiffs, the Astros will need these guys to make good on the one talent they all have in common: power.

"Clearly, if they're strikeouts without power, we're not going to score as many runs as we would like," assistant general manager David Stearns told ESPN.com's Jayson Stark. "But our expectation is, we're going to hit a lot of home runs and we're going to score plenty of runs. If we do that, then we'll take the strikeouts that come with it." 

If the Astros pitch and hit as well as they could, there's really only one thing that could bar them from October: their schedule. FanGraphs' Jeff Sullivan (via FoxSports.com) projected it to be among baseball's six most difficult slates in 2015, and ESPN.com's Buster Olney highlighted how it figures to be especially tough early.

Still, this Astros team shouldn't be written off as, well, just another Astros team. There's more talent than usual in Houston these days, and it could do some damage in 2015.

Milwaukee Brewers

Al Behrman/Associated Press

Never mind under the radar. The Brewers basically aren't on the radar. That's what happens when you have an offseason fit for a library while sharing a division with the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and new-look Chicago Cubs.

But it's worth remembering that the Brewers hardly had a disastrous year in 2014. Before they flew off the rails in mid-August, they had sat atop the NL Central for much of the year. That's a performance that could potentially be recaptured in 2015.

And this Brewers team might be up to the task.

If you're looking for the potential upside on the Brewers, it's on offense. Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy are coming off huge seasons. Scooter Gennett and Khris Davis are looking to build off solid breakthrough seasons. Aramis Ramirez can still handle solid production even as he gets older and more banged up. New addition Adam Lind is a slayer of right-handers.

Span	HR	SB	OPS
2011-2012	74	63	.990
2013-2014	28	15	.805

Then there are the reclamation guys. According to The Associated Press (via ESPN.com), Ryan Braun says he's finally healthy, which could translate into him turning back the clock to his MVP-level days. After finishing off a trying year with a strong September, 24-year-old Jean Segura is as big a bounce-back candidate as there is.

The bigger question is how the Brewers will pitch, especially knowing that they no longer have Yovani Gallardo and his ever-lasting steadiness in their rotation. However, there's room for optimism there, too.

In Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza and Wily Peralta, the Brewers have three starters who made the grade as above average by ERA+ in 2014. There to take Gallardo's place is Mike Fiers, who used a rising fastball and deceptively good cutter to carve through lineups en route to a 2.09 ERA down the stretch in 2014.

As for the bullpen...well, put it this way: If the Brewers can get a repeat performance from Francisco Rodriguez, a bounce-back year from Neal Cotts and a healthy season from Jim Henderson, it could be good enough.

People aren't wrong to view the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs as the class of the NL Central. They're pretty darn good. But it was the Brewers who were the class of the division for much of 2014, and they're better positioned to take back the throne than people think.

Tampa Bay Rays

Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Since the middle of last summer, the Rays have lost an awful lot of important names. David Price departed at the trade deadline, and the winter saw Andrew Friedman, Joe Maddon, Ben Zobrist and Wil Myers follow him out the door.

It's no wonder the Rays are being largely ignored on the national landscape. The funny thing about them, however, is that they're not nearly the empty shell that their recent losses would have you believe.

At the least, one thing the Rays should have in 2015 is a dangerous starting rotation. They're coming off a season in which they had four qualified starters with a K/9 rate of 8.0 or better: Price, Alex Cobb, Chris Archer and Jade Odorizzi. That was twice as many as any other team.

Pitcher	IP	K/9
Alex Cobb	166.1	8.1
Chris Archer	194.2	8.0
Jake Odorizzi	168.0	9.3
Drew Smyly	47.2	8.3

And though Price is missing from that collection, Drew Smyly showed a ton of promise down the stretch after he arrived in Tampa Bay. Also waiting in the wings is Matt Moore, who's coming back from Tommy John surgery.

The Rays should also be able to handle relief pitching. Jake McGee and Brad Boxberger were lights out in 2014, posting ERAs of 1.89 and 2.37, respectively. Joining them is Kevin Jepsen, who had a 2.63 ERA. And don't put it past the Rays to work their Fernando Rodney magic on Ernesto Frieri.

Assuming the Rays pitch as well as they should, they won't have to hit much. But don't be shocked if they improve greatly on last year's AL-worst performance. John Jaso and Asdrubal Cabrera should be upgrades at designated hitter and shortstop. Nick Franklin and Steven Souza are breakout candidates. Evan Longoria and James Loney are bounce-back candidates.

Of course, before the Rays can embark on any of this, they'll have to get healthy. Smyly, Moore and McGee are down for the count and could stay that way for a while. The Rays may have to hold Smyly back at the start of the season, and word is McGee and Moore won't be back until at least May.

On the bright side, the Rays don't figure to have it too tough right out of the gate. Olney rated their early-season schedule as only the 10th-toughest in the American League, with a bonus being that they'll largely be avoiding cold-weather parks.

The Rays should thus be able to avoid being overwhelmed as they wait for their full team to come together. Once it does, they'll be positioned to make a push for the AL East.

New York Mets

Elsa/Getty Images

Is it stretching things to refer to the Mets as a surprise contender? It might be given that, you know, seemingly every Met from skipper Terry Collins on down has made playing in October a goal for 2015.

At the same time, nobody's putting them on anywhere even close to the same level as the Washington Nationals. And in the realm of potential National League wild-card contenders, they haven't drawn nearly as much buzz as teams like the Cubs and San Diego Padres.

The Mets, however, are deserving of at least as much buzz as those two teams. And maybe more.

The one thing that stands out about the Mets is their rotation. It's getting Matt Harvey back, which will be huge if he's anything even close to the lineup-wrecking force that he was in 2013. With Jacob deGrom coming off a Rookie of the Year campaign and Zack Wheeler coming off a strong second half, the front three of New York's rotation has the potential to be as good as any front three anywhere.

Then you have steady innings-eater Bartolo Colon and two solid No. 5 candidates in Jon Niese and Dillon Gee. Somewhere down the line, meanwhile, is top prospect Noah Syndergaard's debut. If he's as good as expected, the awesome front three the Mets have would be an awesome front four.

Pos	Player	2014 OPS+
C	Travis d'Arnaud	105
1B	Lucas Duda	137
2B	Daniel Murphy	111
SS	Wilmer Flores	90
3B	David Wright	101
LF	Curtis Granderson	105
CF	Juan Lagares	102
RF	Michael Cuddyer	149

Question is, will the Mets hit enough to support their rotation?

They just might. Though their lineup is not without question marks, a quick scan of what their projected regulars did in the OPS+ category in 2014 reveals that they could have an above-average hitter at every position except shortstop.

If the Mets pitch and hit as well as they could, their schedule shouldn't stand in their way. Sullivan put the difficulty of their projected schedule in the bottom six, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post was right to highlight the difference 38 games against the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves could make.

Given the might of the Nationals, odds are the Mets are going to have to settle for the wild-card race in 2015. But as long as that were to mean their first trip to the postseason since 2006, here's to thinking they would accept that in a heartbeat.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.

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