First pitch is two days away, so now's as good a time as any to do a quick set of predictions for this season. You can find predictions online from Fangraphs, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, SBNation, Baseball Prospectus.
For mine, I'm going to try to guess final standings (without records), and some major awards. Will there be some bias? Maybe, but why not predict the teams you root for, especially when they have a good chance. American League East - Toronto Blue Jays Central - Cleveland Indians West - Houston Astros Wild Card - Kansas City Royals Wild Card - Tampa Bay Rays National League East - New York Mets Central - Chicago Cubs West - San Francisco Giants Wild Card - Washington Nationals Wild Card - Pittsburgh Pirates World Series Toronto Blue Jays vs San Francisco Giants Is this a biased pick? Absolutely. But ESPN had 6 of 31 experts pick the Giants to make it, and 8 picked the Blue Jays, including Jayson Stark who picked this exact matchup (and he thinks the Jays will win it). Champion San Francisco Giants Sorry to my Jays fan friends, but if both of these teams get this far as currently constituted, I believe in the Giants pitching a little more (ok, a fair bit more). But I also wouldn't be surprised if it were the Blue Jays in this scenario, I feel like it would be a 6 or 7 game series. Awards American League Most Valuable Player - Mike Trout - Los Angeles Angels - It's not exactly gripping analysis to pick the best player in the game, but there's a good chance he doesn't actually win the award because his team may not be a playoff team, and that seems to be held against him (when, imagine them without him). National League Most Valuable Player - Bryce Harper - Washington Nationals - I think these two guys are going to be winning a lot of these as they go. I wanted to pick somebody like Buster Posey, but Harper is 23 years old and terrifying. Trout, by the way, is 14 months older than Harper. Neither is going away anytime soon. American League Cy Young Award - Chris Archer - Tampa Bay Rays - If I have the Rays making the playoffs, Archer and the pitching staff would be a big reason why. He's a fairly popular pick on the major websites too, though Chris Sale is probably even more popular, and it's easy to see why. On the Jays, could Stroman win it? Maybe. Apparently Pedro Martinez thinks he's that good. National League Cy Young Award - Madison Bumgarner - San Francisco Giants - Damn right I went there. I mean, this award is probably Clayton Kershaw's to lose, but sometimes voters get tired of that (sometimes), sometimes guys just have a slightly off (for them) year... Max Scherzer is also a popular choice, and Jose Fernandez would be a not that shocking dark horse. American League Rookie of the Year - Byron Buxton - Minnesota Twins - Another popular choice, he's been a top (#1 or #2 prospect) for a couple of years now, and is about ready to make good. A lot of people have the Twins with the top three favourites for this award, in Buxton, Byung-Ho Park, and Jose Berrios. They might be bigtime contenders in about 2018. National League Rookie of the Year - Corey Seager - Los Angeles Dodgers - A fairly overwhelming favourite, and Keith Law's number 1 prospect this year. I think the Dodgers have just enough regression in them this year, but they won't be missing for long, not with that team and that budget. Two more days!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
November 2015
Categories
All
Greg JacksonA baseball fan in general. Interested in statistics and analytics. Usually follow the Giants and Blue Jays, fan of all MLB in general. |