MLB 2026 Watchability Index: Ranking most fun teams to watch - ESPN

We're back with our third annual MLB Watchability Index — and it couldn't come at a better time.

MLB is coming off a smashing success of a postseason with maybe the greatest World Series ever played and the highest ratings in years. The World Baseball Classic helped build momentum and excitement heading into this campaign. Two of the biggest stars in the history of the game in Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge continue to do miraculous things for the two biggest franchises in the sport. And to top it all off, baseball has what could be one of the best rookie classes in a long time, including a teenage sensation who is making the Pittsburgh Pirates relevant again.

Thank goodness baseball would never do anything to derail all these positive trends, like go into a potential lockout this winter that would threaten the 2027 season.

We've tweaked our formula just a bit this year after paying a large consulting fee to a research firm that promised no AI was involved. The formula remains on a 40-point maximum scale with the following categories, all fitting into the general idea of «What makes baseball exciting?»

Star power (15-point scale): Stars win games. Winning games is exciting! Each team is awarded anywhere from 0 to 15 points based on its total points from our MLB Rank top 100 list. (Ohtani, as the top player, was worth 100 points and so on down to one point for the 100th player.)

Young talent (10-point scale): We love young players. This category focuses on players in their first or second seasons in the majors plus potential call-ups from the minors. Konnor Griffin, we want to see what you have for those Pirates.

Baseball stuff (10-point scale): We've consolidated and expanded this category to include all those things that