So your team missed the playoffs. There are worse things, right? Their 2026 MLB season is ending in disappointment, but there are some positives, too. There always are, in every team's campaign, even if they might not always be readily apparent. Not everything has gone wrong.
As the proverb goes, every cloud has a silver lining, a 19th-century saying that has its roots in "Comus", a 1634 poem by John Milton, no relation to Eric. Little known fact, but Milton -- the one who wrote "Paradise Lost" -- wasn't much of a baseball guy.
Some baseball loyalists -- we'll call them "Mets fans" -- tend to fixate on the clouds. Others -- we'll call them "Brooklyn Dodgers fans" -- zero right in on the silver lining and start saying things like, "Wait till next year!"
For teams that have already crossed the mathematical elimination threshold in 2026, the wait for next year begins after the regular-season games are over Sunday. But even those teams head home buoyed by some kind of silver lining, one that hopefully will imbue the looming winter vigil with a hint of anticipation for the inevitable spring to come.
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American League
Athletics
Silver lining: Henry Bolte
After a promising start, the Athletics imploded under the dual pressures of injury and underperformance. All of this makes silver-lining hunting more difficult, especially if we don't want to play the "at least they're one year closer to Vegas" card.
Still, Bolte looks like a keeper. He's a walking toolkit with a range of raw skills that includes an MLB-leading sprint speed and 95th percentile bat speed. Despite a raw plate approach that features too much swing and miss, he has still managed a .272/.357/.396 line that for a 22-year-old is bursting with promise.
Add a version of Bolte that improves in his second year to a lineup full of 2026 disappointments ripe for a collective bounce-back, and the Athletics might get back on track quickly, at least on offense. As for the pitching ... we're silver lining people today.
Detroit Tigers
Silver lining: Kevin McGonigle is who we thought he'd be
The Tigers have turned out a few highly rated prospects in recent years, but if you reference prospect ratings for Detroit from four and five years ago, you see a lot of players who have struggled to establish themselves, have gotten hurt, have fallen short or are succeeding for other teams.
On the current roster, Riley Greene remains a cornerstone player, but his rise has been a slow burn. Not so for McGonigle, who entered the season as one of the game's top prospects and has been even better than advertised, right from the very first game.
McGonigle is not only the best rookie in baseball in 2026, he arguably has had the best first season by a Tigers hitter in more than a century. Sometimes hype isn't just hype.
Kansas City Royals
Silver lining: Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone established themselves as regulars
Jensen put up some exciting numbers during his late-season debut in 2025, then went out and validated that flash by establishing himself as the Royals' catcher of the future. His 25 homers broke the franchise record for a player 22 or younger that was set by Hall of Famer Carlos Beltran in 1999.
Meanwhile, for all his obvious power potential, Caglianone's 2025 debut was so poor -- a .157 average and 48 OPS+ over a decent sample of 232 plate appearances -- that you had to wonder if the Royals had rushed him. Instead, he's in the AL top 10 in batting (.282) and has a 130 OPS+.
The Royals will enter the 2027 season feeling pretty good about at least seven lineup slots. There's plenty of work to do elsewhere, but this does simplify J.J. Picollo's offseason plan.
Los Angeles Angels
Silver lining: The rotation was much better
Starting pitching has been a bugaboo in Anaheim for years, but the rotation was markedly better in 2026, even as most of the rest of the roster collapsed to what could still become the first 100-loss season in Angels history.
The collective starter ERA for the Halos has improved from 4.91 (28th) last season to 4.14 (12th). OK, OK. Some of that was the strong showing from Jose Soriano, which interim GM John Mozeliak leveraged into a trade deadline deal that sent him to Toronto. But even if you filter out Soriano's numbers, the rotation ERA is still 4.30.
Individually, Reid Detmers has never been better, Grayson Rodriguez has shown signs of finding himself and 22-year-old right-hander Walbert Urena looks like one cool customer.
Minnesota Twins
Silver lining: The offense got a lot better
The Twins have scored more often this season than they did in 2025, rising from 23rd to 10th in the MLB rankings. There's no one glaring category that explains this rise, but under the hood you can see that as a group, Minnesota swings at first pitches about 2% more often than it did in 2025, and has improved its WOBA against hard stuff from .327 to .343.
Though this is all to the good, three of the four Twins to top 20 homers are 30 years old or older, with only Brooks Lee bucking the trend.
They'll need more from their younger hitters such as Luke Keaschall, Kaelen Culpepper and Walker Jenkins to turn this collective revamped approach into an organizational identity.
Seattle Mariners
Silver lining: Change is (maybe) going to come
It sounds as if Dan Wilson is entering his last week as Seattle's manager, and though it's usually an oversimplification to blame a manager for a flawed team, the fact remains that the Mariners have just not gotten enough from a roster that looked like a World Series contender entering the season.
The talent that fueled March's optimistic projections is mostly still there, though one of the few Mariners to outperform forecasts -- Randy Arozarena -- is entering free agency.
I'd be surprised if Seattle's lead baseball executive, Jerry Dipoto, is replaced, as disappointing as this season has been. Still, if the club does move on from Wilson, a lot is riding on Dipoto's pick as a replacement.
National League
Cincinnati Reds
Silver lining: Full-on Elly
According to my rating system, Elly De La Cruz's 136 AXE ranks fourth among NL position players, above the 130 threshold that I deem "MVP worthy."
That De La Cruz possesses this kind of potential was never in doubt. But we've seen preternaturally talented players fall short of expectation numerous times in MLB history. His AXE after July 2 was 117, ranking 81st in the majors. The 19 points he has added to that rating since then mark the sixth-biggest leap in MLB over that span.
Second-half spikes don't necessarily carry over, but in De La Cruz's case, it feels like the beginning of an amazing run. His production is starting to align with his potential.
Colorado Rockies
Silver lining: The redoubtable Rumfield
TJ Rumfield was traded twice before he reached the majors, the second time in January when the rebuilt Rockies front office acquired him from the New York Yankees for pitcher Angel Chivilli. He's been a font of stability for the Rockies since, currently ranking fourth in AXE (116) among NL rookies.
His splits are unassailable -- he has hit lefties and righties, before the break and after the break and, most importantly for this franchise, at Coors Field and away from it.
It's not just that Rumfield has been a great find for Colorado, it's that his presence demonstrates an ability for the new brass to find players like him who can help solve some of the ongoing altitude-related riddles that have long plagued the franchise. That bodes well.
Miami Marlins
Silver lining: Joe Mack taking over at catcher
Mack has quickly become one of the better defensive backstops in baseball.
Despite not making his MLB debut until May 4, he is tied for first among NL catchers with the Mets' Luis Torrens by Statcast's outs above average metric. He ranked third in the most recent ratings in SABR's SDI metric, a component of the Gold Glove process, and that was on Aug. 9, so he probably has improved his standing even more.
If Mack were to win a Gold Glove, he'd be the first rookie catcher to win one since another Marlin, Charles Johnson, did it in 1995. Heady stuff.
New York Mets
Silver lining: Darn good rookies
If you're going to be among the most disappointing teams of the year, you might as well make some progress toward not repeating the flop the next year.
A great way to do that is to create some runway for young players and see what you have. The Mets have a trio of top-10 NL rookies by AXE -- Carson Benge (118, 2nd), Nolan McLean (116, third) and A.J. Ewing (110, ninth) -- plus Zac Thornton at No. 20 (104 AXE).
The Mets also just passed the Cleveland Guardians for the most rookie WAR in baseball. This year has not been totally wasted.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Silver lining: The project to improve the offense paid off
The Pirates might finish with their first winning record since 2018, mostly thanks to a leap from dead last to fifth in runs per game.
Pittsburgh targeted an improved offense with an uncharacteristically aggressive approach to the last hot stove season and it paid off. No team saw a bigger increase in WOBA or isolated power, and only Colorado had a bigger uptick in on-base percentage.
The Pirates' pitching is what seemed to justify the proactive approach to bettering the offense, and it has fallen short. If the hurlers had lived up to forecasts, the Pirates would be figuring out their postseason roster right now.
San Francisco Giants
Silver lining: The graduation of Bryce Eldridge
Oh boy. This exercise was harder for some teams than others, especially as I pledged to myself to not get flip with any team's outlook. So, for example, I'm not going to throw out a "well, the ballpark is nice" quip no matter how many times it appears in my head.
Every team has something that went right. I went with Eldridge for an obvious reason: His OPS+ of 132 at age 21 is special. The list of Giants that young with an OPS+ that high (minimum 100 games) bodes well: Mel Ott, Larry Doyle, Orlando Cepeda.
The Giants need plenty of answers, but Eldridge seems to be one of them.
St. Louis Cardinals
Silver lining: The kids can hit
It's funny how an infusion of youth can change how a team is perceived. The Cardinals' team WOBA is nearly unchanged from last year, yet it feels as if the future of their offense is so much brighter than a year ago.
St. Louis' hitters were the third youngest in the NL as a group in 2025 but ranked just 12th in runs per game. This year, they are more than a year younger on average, older than only Washington, but have improved to eighth in scoring.
With Leo Bernal seemingly ready to seize the catching position, next year's club might be younger still, even as the players continue to improve collectively. The trajectory error has been pointed in the right direction.
Washington Nationals
Silver lining: Runs, runs, runs
The Nationals have cooled off severely since the trade deadline. Nevertheless, Washington made a quantum leap on offense this season under its new brain trust.
Last season, the Nats were 20th in runs per game. This season, only the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers have scored at a higher clip. Only Pittsburgh saw a bigger uptick in isolated power, a category in which the Nationals ranked second.
The best part: Washington did this with the youngest collection of hitters in baseball, with an average age of just 24.8, per Baseball Reference.