MLB Preview 2018
- MLB Preview 2018: AL West
- MLB Preview 2018: AL Central
- MLB Preview 2018: AL East
- MLB Preview 2018: NL West
- MLB Preview 2018: NL Central
- MLB Preview 2018: NL East
- MLB Picks Recap: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Good
The picks that hit.
Freddie Freeman for Division MVP.
Bryce Harper is going to get all the press this season as he’s due up for a mega-deal in the offseason. But with that comes all the pressure to put up huge numbers. Meanwhile down in Atlanta Freddie Freeman put together eerily similar numbers to Harper last season.
Give me the guy that has none of the pressure and just gets to go out and play baseball.
– Jason
Freeman helped Atlanta win the division. Harper struggled early in a contract year. He still wound up with good offensive stats. But Freeman was consistent all year.
The Braves Competing
The Braves keep pace in the wildcard race behind the aforementioned monster season of Freddie Freeman and the emergence of Ronald Acuna.
– Jason
They were the first NL team to wrap up a playoff spot. Of course they’ll have the fewest wins of a division champion. But a division title is a division title.
Matt Adams hits 20+ Bombs
Matt Adams hits 20+ bombskies and bats over .275. Ultra bold prediction especially since Zimmerman started taking yoga so he’ll have a career year somehow.
-David
Adams hit 18 homers with the Nationals before coming back to St. Louis to hit 3 more. Leaving him at 21 for the season.
The Giants Finish 4th
The Giants finish in 4th place after Johnny Cueto misses time from being kicked in the face by Jason LaRue. And Pablo Sandoval confuses Bumgarner’s dirtbike tire for a donut and eats it.
Jason
It may not have gone exactly this way. But they finished 4th none-the-less.
The Giants off-season moves don’t work out. McCutchen and Longoria struggle in a new environment, and the Giants finish in last place again.
Tim (Counts because the Padres don’t)
They did finish with the 4th worst record in the MLB. If it weren’t for the Padres being awful they would have been last.
Red Sox Over Yankees with a Price Resurgence
The Yankees are a classic case of a team everyone expects to win their division. They went 7 games in the ALCS last year. They added the NL MVP to their roster. And they’ve got a lot of young talent that now has postseason experience. And minimal injury history.
But let’s not forget that Boston won the division last year. They added J.D. Martinez. Chris Sale is their best starter and they have 2 Cy Young winners at 2 and 3. I get the feeling that David Price is finally starting to settle into the Boston scene. And that’s my game changer. Of course he could fall apart and the Yankees could stay healthy and win the division by 10 games.
– Jason
The Yankees won 100 games. The Red Sox won 108 games. Price isn’t going to garner Cy Young votes, but he pitched well to a record of 16-7 and he turned it on down the stretch.
Machado Dealt. Yankees and Sox Battle
Machado gets traded at the deadline as the East turns into a two horse race between the Sox and Yankees.
– Steve
Yep. Baltimore finished 61 games back. Machado was dealt to the Dodgers.
The Royals Lose 100
The Royals will lose 100 games.
– Steve
The Royals lost 104 to be exact. Which would be more notable had the Orioles not lost 115 games.
Gerritt Cole is Good Again
Change of scenery will be good for Cole plus being the number 3 starter behind Verlander and Keuchel will take some pressure off.
– Tim
Cole finished at number 5 on the fWAR leaderboard. Just behind Verlander at number 3 and ahead of Keuchel at number 19. Pretty good season.
He had a terrible year last year playing on a bad team. I think he bounces back with the Astros and pitches lights out. Secondary pick Marco Gonzales for the Mariners.
– Steve
See the above. But also Marco Gonzalez finished at number 20 on the fWAR pitching leaderboard.
Arenado for NL West MVP
Picking Nolan Arenado over Goldie because the Rockies will actually be in the hunt come late September. Only reason why the D-Backs were in it last year was because of J.D. Martinez, but he went bye-bye so can’t give my MVP to Goldie mainly because he’s not on a contender.
– David
Rockies in contention. ✅ D-Backs out of it. ✅ Arenado really, really good. ✅
Arenado actually had a down year with 35 homers and only 106 RBIs. Instead of his usual 130+.
Darvish Shut Down
Yu Darvish starts out hot but fades down the stretch, and finishes just 1 game above .500
– Tim
Darvish only managed 8 starts for the Cubs before getting shut down. He actually finished 2 games under .500.
The Entire AL Central Article
The Indians wrapped up the division without really even trying. They finished with a +170 run differential. The rest of the league managed to be outscored -590.
Lindor is number 5 in offensive WAR. Kluber is number 9 in pitching WAR. Bauer may have been better, but it’s close enough we’ll count it.
The Bad
The picks that weren’t completely terrible.
The Entire NL Central Article
For those counting that was 3 for the Birds to take the division and one for the Cubs. Which still could be wrong.
We had 2 Phams, a Bryant, and a Votto for MVP. And it’s definitely Yelich.
We picked every Cardinal starter not named Miles Mikolas for division Cy Young. Oops.
What can we say, we’re homers.
Kershaw Unanimously Takes the Cy Young
Is he a thing this season? Looks at Fangraphs. He finished 21st in pitching WAR. Just behind Marco Gonzalez.
The Dodgers Unanimously Winning the Division
They may still win the division. But no one expected that to require game 163 against the Rockies.
Lindor’s Walk Up Song
Francisco Lindor’s walk up song for at least one game is “The Thong Song” to match his new look.
– Tim
I can neither confirm nor deny.
The Mariners Make the Playoffs
The Mariners squeak out a wildcard berth ending their 16 year playoff drought, and putting the record for longest playoff drought in American Pro sports back where it belongs, with the Cleveland Browns.
– Jason
This was looking good for awhile. But it did not age well.
The Wrong Met
2 Thor’s and 2 Scherzers for NL East Cy Young. Scherzer pitched well enough to do it. But DeGrom was just a little bit better.
That’s a lotta Dingers!
Judge and Stanton combine for 125 bombs on the season.
– David
The Yankees did set an MLB record for homers in a season. But Judge missed quite a bit of time and only put up 27 homers. Stanton threw in 35 for a total of 65 homers. They made it just over halfway.
The Ugly
These picks were horrible.
The Nationals Unanimously win the NL East
Some of us wanted to pick against them, but last years NL East results were uninspiring. The Nationals did manage to claw their way back into second place finishing 2 games ahead of the Phillies.
The Marlins win more games than the Braves.
Oops. The Braves won the East. The Marlins finished dead last.
The Giants Will Be Good
The Giants squeak into the playoffs as a wild card behind a resurgent Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria.
Steve
The Giants were not good. They traded McCutcheon. They did keep the NL playoff races interesting by going 2-16 against the Rockies, Brewers, Braves, and Dodgers in September.
Alex Reyes finishes the year with 25+ saves.
Welp, the jinx was put on this one.
The Cardinals send their entire starting outfield to the All-Star game.
Hahaha. Oh man. The outfield was real bad in the first half.
Tampa Bay Loses 100
Tampa Bay loses 100 games.
– Tim
The Rays won 90 games. They were the last team eliminated from playoff contention in the AL. Quite the feat considering the 2nd wildcard team won 97.
The Double Bad Prediction
The White Sox fire out of the gate with their young bats tearing up the league, but peter out in the second half. Bonus bold prediction: someone takes a flier on Miguel Cabrera at the trade deadline.
– Jason
The White Sox did not fire out of the gate. They didn’t fire at all. Cabrera played 38 games. He was not traded.
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