What Are The Most Overhyped MLB Teams?

Opening Day is fast approaching. RotoWire.com was interested in seeing which MLB team has historically been the most overhyped during the preseason but failed to live up to the expectations. Using SportsOddsHistory.com, we found the difference between each club's preseason win total compared to the result for the past five seasons. 

We then calculated the total difference across the years and ranked teams from those that consistently disappointed with a large under - to teams that outperformed and hit the over. Based on this metric, these are the 10 most overhyped MLB teams over the past five seasons:

Top 10 Most Overhyped MLB Teams

T-8. St. Louis Cardinals 

The Cardinals are generally a safe bet to be competitive, having finished under .500 only twice this millennium. Unfortunately, their worst season in that span made it into this recent five-year sample, as the Cardinals underperformed preseason expectations by 18.5 games in their 71-win 2023 campaign. A perfect storm of weak pitching (4.79 team ERA – seventh-worst in MLB), internal turmoil and injuries turned the 2023 Cardinals into one of the most overhyped MLB teams in recent years.

Outside of that down year, the Cardinals have otherwise been a steady franchise that tends to meet expectations in the weak NL Central division. St. Louis' -10.5 mark over this five-year span also has an asterisk since the Cardinals played only 58 games during what was supposed to be the 60-game COVID-shortened season in 2020, so they are really two up on the next two teams in the loss column. They finished 2.5 wins under their projected win total of 32.5, but bets on St. Louis' over/under for that season were voided.

T-8. San Diego Padres

The Padres experience has been a rollercoaster ride over the past five seasons. San Diego fell 15.5 games short of its preseason win projection in 2021 and 11.5 games short in 2023 but exceeded projections by 6.5 games in the 60-game 2020 season and 9.5 games in 2024. Frequent roster turnover has played a part in the Padres' unpredictability, as late part-owner Peter Seidler greenlit significant additions to the payroll in hopes of the team winning a championship before he passed. Players that have both taken a full lap of the revolving door in San Diego over the past few years include Juan Soto, Josh Hader, and Blake Snell.

Expectations are high coming off a 93-win season for a San Diego roster that has undergone fewer changes this offseason compared to the previous few. Perhaps the Padres are just destined to underachieve in odd years, much like their NL West rival Giants overachieved in even years to begin the previous decade with World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014. If the Padres are overhyped again in 2025, it will likely be due to age-related decline, as they have the fourth-oldest average roster age in MLB heading into the 2025 season.

T-8. New York Yankees

Expectations are perennially high for a Yankees organization that has 27 World Series titles and hasn't endured a losing season since 1992. The modern version of the Bronx Bombers hasn't quite lived up to those lofty standards, as GM Brian Cashman has consistently put together aging and injury-prone rosters throughout an extended title drought that dates back to 2009. 

Star power and the next-man-up mentality has helped the Yankees paper over their regular-season flaws at times in recent years, but it all fell apart in a disastrous 2023 campaign, when New York finished 12.5 games below projections, barely keeping its streak of winning seasons alive with an 82-80 record.

Ace Gerrit Cole took home the Cy Young Award in 2023 but 2022 and 2024 AL MVP Aaron Judge missed 56 games in between due to a torn ligament in his toe. Cole's slated to miss the 2025 campaign after undergoing Tommy John surgery and Juan Soto moved crosstown to the Mets after just one year in pinstripes, so the Yankees can ill-afford an extended absence from Judge in 2025 as they look to put their embarrassing performance in the 2024 World Series behind them.

7. Miami Marlins 

Miami actually overachieved slightly during the 2020-23 span but fell flat on its face last season, finishing 15.5 wins below its projected total of 77.5. The Marlins' win total dipped by 22, from 84 in 2022 to 62 in 2024. A low-spending team that perpetually jumps from rebuild to rebuild, the Marlins are back at square one with their previously optimistic trajectory having been halted.

Expectations have been lowered accordingly, so it will be hard for the Marlins to finish among the league's most overhyped teams in 2025 given how little hype they have to begin with. That said, this team could be harder to predict than most given the variance associated with playing plenty of unproven players, which will be the case since Miami has the league's youngest roster entering 2025.

6. New York Mets 

The 2023 Mets are the poster child for the saying "money doesn't buy championships," as new owner Steve Cohen opened up his wallet only to see his team finish 18.5 wins below their preseason over/under of 92.5. That was arguably the most overhyped team in recent memory, as giving over $40 million per year to a pair of pitchers pushing 40 backfired spectacularly, and both Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were dealt away for meager returns at the 2023 trade deadline.

The other four seasons since 2020 net out to meeting expectations, but the Mets had a significant delta from their win/loss projections in all four years, hitting the over by 12.5 wins in 2022 and 7.5 wins in 2024 while finishing 6.5 wins and 13.5 wins below expectations in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Expectations have risen again for 2025 after Cohen won the bidding war for Juan Soto, but the Mets won't have an easy path to success while playing in the NL East with two other contenders in the Braves and Phillies.

5. Minnesota Twins 

The Twins seem to be perennially decent but never great. Their 2023 AL wild-card round win over the Blue Jays is their only playoff series win since the start of the 2003 season, and Minnesota has a 5-24 record in playoff games over that span, including 2-16 against the Yankees specifically. We're talking about the regular season here, though, and the reason the Twins have been overhyped over the past five years comes down specifically to the 2021 campaign.

Minnesota fell 15.5 wins short of expectations in 2021, winning just 73 games. That decline was due to poor pitching, as the Twins posted the league's fifth-worst team ERA (4.83) in 2021 after holding the second-best mark (3.14) in 2020. The Twins can usually be counted upon to go a few games above .500 and compete for a playoff spot in the perennially winnable AL Central, and that's the expectation once again in 2025.

4. Texas Rangers 

Rangers fans certainly won't be complaining about this five-year stretch, but that's due to a 2023 World Series title stemming from a successful postseason run that isn't encapsulated by regular-season over/under totals. Texas exceeded expectations in the regular season that year as well, topping its preseason over/under of 81.5 wins by 8.5.

Outside of that one season, the Rangers have consistently underachieved relative to expectations, coming up between 6.5 and 10.5 wins short of preseason projections in each of the other four seasons during this five-year span. 

With the second-oldest roster in MLB heading into 2025, the Rangers could wind up overhyped again this season. Only the Dodgers have an older team, and unlike Los Angeles, Texas lacks the organizational depth to paper over the increased risk of injuries and statistical decline that comes with an aging roster.

3. Washington Nationals

Washington's arc over the past five years perfectly encapsulates a team watching its contention window slam shut, so the Rangers could end up in the same spot soon if they aren't careful. After serving up some karmic justice against the Astros' bangs, whistles and buzzers in the 2019 World Series, the Nationals finished a whopping 41.5 games under their expected win total over the following three seasons. 

That abrupt downturn was spurred on by an exodus of talent. Anthony Rendon left in free agency after the 2019 championship, and Trea Turner and Max Scherzer were traded to the Dodgers in 2021, officially signaling Washington's transformation from a contender to a rebuilding team. Uninterested in spending his prime in a rebuild, Juan Soto declined a 15-year, $440 million contract extension offer in 2022, so he, too, was traded.

On the bright side, the Nationals have actually exceeded expectations since the bottom dropped out in their 55-win 2022 season, as their back-to-back 71-win campaigns in 2023 and 2024 topped their projected win totals by 16 over that two-year span. 

If you just became a Nationals fan at the turn of the decade, you would be left sorely disappointed with this five-year period, but the championship immediately preceding this fallow stretch makes it well worth it, and there's reason for optimism based on the team's recent trajectory.

2. Los Angeles Angels

Every year, the Angels went into the season thinking "we can compete if Mike Trout can just stay healthy this year," only to watch the star outfielder inevitably get hurt and the team struggle. A top-heavy roster with enough starpower not to be written off has served as a honeypot for optimistic Angels bettors, of which there's no shortage in the large LA market. The Angels are the only team to hit the under on their preseason win total in every season since 2020, and they have fallen at least 6.5 games short of their preseason win projection every year during that span.

Trout has played in only 319 of a possible 708 games (45 percent) over those five seasons, and even a pair of AL MVP campaigns by Shohei Ohtani weren't enough to keep the Angels from consistently falling well short of expectations. Getting sub-1.0 WAR production each of the past four season from Anthony Rendon at $35 million per year has certainly contributed to LA's downfall, but it's only fitting that one of the most overhyped free-agent signings in recent memory plays for what is perennially one of MLB's most overhyped teams.

1. Chicago White Sox

The White Sox looked like a young team on the rise heading into 2022, having exceeded their projected win total by 3.5 in 2020 and 2.5 in their 93-win 2021 campaign. Expectations were high for 2022, with a win total set at 92.5 in the weak AL Central, but that team ended up being quite overhyped, finishing .500 at 81-81. Unfortunately for Chicago, that was just the beginning of the team's precipitous downfall into infamy. 

Betting markets anticipated a slight improvement in 2023, with an over/under of 82.5 wins, but the bottom dropped out instead, as Chicago slipped to 61 wins, finishing 21.5 under the projected mark. It seemed like the team had found its floor, and its projected win total for 2024 came in at 61.5, but the White Sox sank to a new low with 41 wins, with Chicago's 121 losses last season setting a new single-season MLB record.

While last season is the story of a bad team hitting an all-time low, expanding our view back to Chicago's downfall after the 2021 season shows that the White Sox have been the most overhyped team in recent years. Since the start of 2022, they have underperformed expectations by 53.5 wins. That slide started under 77-year-old manager Tony LaRussa in 2022 but really took hold under Pedro Grifol, who posted an 89-190 record (.319 win percentage). Shortstop Tim Anderson rapidly regressed from an All Star to arguably the worst everyday player in the league, and the White Sox experienced a team-wide decline in both hitting and pitching results. Chicago's OPS fell from seventh in 2021 to 18th in 2022 before dropping further to 29th and 30th out of 30 MLB teams in 2023 and 2024, while team ERA went from fifth-best in 2021 to 16th, 26th and 28th. 

The 2025 hype meter is about as low as it gets since Chicago has the league's lowest projected win total, so another team will likely take the dubious distinction of being the most overhyped MLB team, at least as far as this season is concerned.