Bradford Doolittle Sep 22, 2026, 07:00 AM ET Close MLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013 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.

Jump to: American League | National League 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 Mc Gonigle 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 Mc Gonigle, 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. Mc Gonigle 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.