A few days ago Lance took a look at the preseason predictions from some of the experts over at Baseball Prospectus. He walked through their predictions and how the O’s fit in with the rest of their division-mates. That sparked the idea in me to do a poll of the BSL baseball staff, to see what our expectations are going into this season.
We’ll start with the America League, where there was a lot of consensus among the staff here:
Like I said, there’s a lot of consensus here. 5 out of 6 have the Rays winning the AL East, and all 6 of us have the Tigers winning the Central. The AL West was split half and half, but all 6 of us had both teams making the playoffs.
Lance and Tucker picked the O’s as a wild card winner, which I found pretty interesting. I think the Orioles will be competitive, but I don’t have them winning a wild card. That’s not to say that they won’t be in contention late into the season, just that I don’t see the team being able to get into that play-in game like they did last season.
I have the Athletics in the playoffs making it 3 teams from the AL West that would be in the playoffs. The A’s have improved their lineup slightly, while keeping their young and very effective pitching staff largely in tact. To me, they’re waiting in the wings, with a talented rotation and solid lineup. They won the division last year, so I won’t be counting them out this season.
In the National League there was, once again, a pretty solid consensus among the staff on who the best teams were:
All 6 of us had the Nationals winning the NL East. We also all had the Reds in the playoffs, though half of us had them winning the division. 4 out of 6 had the Giants coming out of the NL West, but oddly enough neither the Giants or Dodgers got a single Wild Card vote from a member of the staff.
The Braves got a lot of love in the wild card, which makes sense because I think a case could be made for them being the second best team in the National League. Two different picks here as well, with Lance picking the Pirates to be a wild card, and Jon Shepherd liking the Diamondbacks to do the same.
The Diamondbacks were a team I considered myself, but I think the Reds, Cardinals, and Braves are all just too good to not make the playoffs. It’s all going to come down to the rotation in Arizona, which I think could end up including several youngsters by season’s end. The Pirates, likewise might need to get good seasons out of several young players like Starling Marte and Gerrit Cole if they want to make the playoffs like Lance suggests.
When it comes to player awards, there was a little bit of difference in opinion. The exception is the Cy Young award for both leagues where some big names got multiple votes:
Mike Trout was the sexy pick for AL MVP, though Lance and I bucked that trend by selecting Matt Wieters and Albert Pujols respectively. After a “bad year” where his triple slash was .285/.343/.516 I think Pujols bounces back and posts his typical eye-popping numbers this season. Wieters is an interesting selection. Yadier Molina finished 4th in NL MVP voting last season, so it’s clear that voters have some reverence for catcher defense. He’ll have to hit closer to .300 than .200 this season if he wants a shot at the MVP though.
Price and Verlander were popular picks for the AL Cy Young with 5 of the 6 analysts choosing one of the two to win. Lance again went against the grain, selecting Max Scherzer. Scherzer certainly has that upside, but I think he’s less likely to win than the other choices.
One interesting note about this. My top 5 went: Verlander, Darvish, Price, Hernandez, Dickey. I thought long and hard about putting Darvish as my pick (which you may or may not believe after his performance yesterday), but I ultimately went with Verlander’s consistent dominance over Darvish’s upside. I picked up Darvish in one fantasy league, and had him stolen by my brother in another because I gushed about him too much and my brother stole him before I could draft him. If you’re interested, here’s a great piece by Jack Moore detailing why I like Darvish so much this season, and another by Dave Cameron talking about his velocity in his nearly perfect game.
Rookie of the Year is kind of a crapshoot, and the AL has primarily a split between guys who have huge upside and guys in the majors already. Hicks looks like a decent bet as he’ll get a ton of playing time this season, and Jon’s selection of Jackie Bradley, Jr. looks spectacular in a tiny sample size so far this season. I avoided Archer and Wil Myers solely because the Rays seem to like to torture prospect enthusiasts, though both have plenty of reasons to be in the discussion.
In the National League, there was some differing opinion on who the MVP would be. I can’t complain about any of the selections, but I did have a few reactions to the choices some of the staff made. Kevin and I both went with Braun who I think will have great stats once again, though I doubt he wins the MVP because of perceived off-the-field transgressions. Votto was the other choice I considered, and is a great choice.
I LOVE the Harper pick by Jon, I think that he really breaks out this season and becomes a top 5 player in the National League. I couldn’t convince myself to pick him for MVP, but I think he’ll be in the conversation from now until at least 2020. As for Lance’s pick, I’m not a huge fan of McCutchen’s so I’ll hold off on judgment. Suffice it to say that I think McCutchen is slightly overrated, but that’s neither here nor there.
The NL Cy Young was split almost evenly between Kershaw and Strasburg, though I missed the boat on that one. I really like Bumgarner this season, but also in general. I do however think he’ll have to have a terrific season to make it more of a three man race. Strasburg and Kershaw are obvious favorites for this award, and rightly so.
We were a little bit all over the place with the NL Rookie of the Year selections, and I think that has more to do with uncertain roles for those players in 2013. Only Ryu and Gyorko are likely to play most of the season in MLB, but Taveras, D’Arnaud, and Cole all have the talent to win the award even if they only get a few months in the show.
I think this was a fun exercise, and we’ll see how all these predictions pan out. There was a lot of consensus from us, especially on the playoff teams, but I think that comes from a few factors. Several teams, like the Nationals and Tigers have truly separated themselves form the pack this season, at least on paper. It’s also likely that we all value at least some of the same things in players or teams, so our thought processes are likely to be relatively similar.
How do you think we did? Are there teams that we omitted that you think are locks to make the playoffs? What about potential award winners that we might not have given enough love?
Jeff was the owner of the Orioles blog Warehouse Worthy, which focused on making advanced statistics a part of the conversation for the average fan. Outside of baseball, Jeff is a graduate of Loyola University where he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Business Administration. The Maryland native currently works for an Advertising Agency in downtown Baltimore. Previously a contributor to Beyond the Boxscore, he joined Baseball Prospectus in September 2014. You can reach him at jeff.long@baltimoresportsandlife.com.