Here we go again!
Opening day this year is 29th March - the earliest ever - and every one of the 30 mlb teams is in action on opening day this year.
Reigning World Series Champs Houston Astros travel 250 miles to Dallas for their ‘local’ derby against the Texas Rangers to open the defence of their title. Other notable match ups on opening day include the California games between the Giants @ Dodgers and the Angels @ The Oakland A’s. It seems most teams have been given a relatively local game to start the season, so spare a thought for the Cleveland Indians who’ve got a 2,400 mile trip to Seattle to play the Mariners to start the season.
So, enough of that - who’s your tip this year?
Like last year, I’m going to set out my groups of contention - favourites, contenders, outsiders, long shots and no hopers.
I didn’t do bad last year - underestimated a couple (eg the Brewers) and overestimated a couple (eg the Giants) but I did ok. If you’re wondering, I had the Astros as ‘outsiders’, so not great, but I did tip the Dodgers who fell at the last.
So, favourites? Four teams stand out to me - Dodgers, Astros, Yanks and Indians. Less convincing, but still up there are the Cubs and the Nationals. I can’t see any of these 6 being challenged for their divisions and once you get to the postseason, anything can happen - but I expect the teams to beat to be the first four on my list.
Contenders? It looks to me that the Red Sox, Angels, Rockies, D-Backs, Twins and Brewers could all be in with a shout. These are basically my tips to come second in each division, with the exception of the NY Mets, who should walk away with second in the NL East, purely by being 4th shittest in the worst division of all. So their spot in ‘contenders’ went to one of Rockies/D-Backs who had a great fight for the Wildcard last year and I expect similar again.
Outsiders? Mets, Cards, Rangers, Blue Jays, Giants and Mariners. As mentioned, the Mets should walk away with second in the NL East, but can they convert to a wild card spot? The Cards are my best bet from this group, because they may well do better than the Brewers, but I can’t see them overhauling the Cubs. This group does show how the West divisions are stronger at the mo. I only expect the Mariners and Giants to get 4th place in their respective divisions, but with a season just a little better than expected, they could sneak a wildcard spot.
Longshots? Reds, Braves, Phillies, A’s, White Sox, Rays and Orioles. Seven in this group, just because I can’t split the Rays and the Orioles in the AL East, but I expect them to be fighting for 4th place. I don’t see much to get excited about with any of these apart from the fact that some of them are in ‘rebuild’ mode (Phillies, Braves, White Sox, A’s), so we may see some fruits of this labour this year. Having said that, they don’t look that bad. Unlike...
No hopers? Tigers, Royals, Marlins, Pirates and Padres. Utter shite. No, that’s unfair. The Padres and, to a lesser extent, the Tigers and Royals are building for the future, but they’ll probably be losing sides for a while. The Pirates and the Marlins though. What a mess. I had to look to see if Roland Duchatelet had bought these two teams to add to his sporting ‘experiment’. Both have traded away their best talent and replaced them with, well, not very much. Sound familiar? No hopes this year. Their supporters must be praying the rebuild starts in earnest next year.
My money's on the Dodgers this year, but I’ll be looking out for my beloved Redsox and Cubs as always. Plus, with my move to Washington in August, I’ll probably take an interest in the Nats this year too.
Please feel free to tear my groupings apart if you disagree, but as I said last year, there's no right answer until the end of the final game in October, and it all starts on Thursday.
Let's play ball!
2
Comments
Not sure on the Yanks - think Judge may suffer second season syndrome, and Stanton won’t be as devastating as he may be expected to be. Sox had lots of players have down years - and also have a full year of Devers and JD added to the mix. With a rotation including a rejuvenated Price alongside Sale, Porcello and E Rod they will be close.
Dodgers and Astros won’t turn bad overnight.
Indians have the remaining hoodoo now Cubs and Red Sox have won it.
Should be fun
I really don’t think Judge will have a poor year. I think he’s a superstar in the making and I’m extremely pissed off that he’s a Yankee!
Being in Texas now, it made sense to cheer on the Astros. Call me a glory hunter but I'm sticking with it. I'm sure they'll revert to being useless now I've jumped on the bandwagon!
Sometimes the club picks you - sounds like that’s what happened to you with the Astros and now you’re stuck with them!
The rotation looks very good now with the addition of Cole and the bullpen looks stronger with the additions of Smith and Rondon.
Plus, it looks as though McHugh and Peacock will be part of the bullpen. Like to see them add a more dominant left hander than Sipp.
Batting line up remains pretty much the same.
Funny old world.
Early nods to the Red Sox, Mets, Angels, D'Backs and Pirates who are all opening gaps to their respective division rivals, but there's a long, long way to go...
The pick of recent games is the crazy comeback from the Cubs against the Braves last night. Playing in freezing rain, they were 10-2 down in the 7th inning and looked like they'd been knocked on their arses. scored 3 in the 7th, then scored 9 in the eighth - though strangely, those 9 runs were scored off just 3 hits!
Won 14-10 in the end. Love it.
Let's hope we can keep it up, very long season but promising so far
Why he didn’t pair up with a national league team I will never know
He would have killed the NL! I think he wanted to play on the west coast and was happiest with the Angels as an organisation out of the teams bidding for him.
Come the end of the season, I’ll be more than happy to have predicted the AL East wrong if it looks like this!
And that's something that you can only do so much about. Add to the fact the Cubs have largely been good for a while now, plus their World Series win and it swings that pendulum even more. It's not dissimilar to Charlton, where it's hard to attract new fans because most of your fans are from another generation because there is another/are other big name team(s) in town.
But yeah then there's the years of being shit and poorly managed and trading good players for promising minor leaguers and all that. I haven't followed baseball super closely in the last few years so I apologize if I'm doing anyone or anything a disservice, but from what I understand the pattern is pretty familiar. It was great having Ozzie Guillen and then Robin Ventura as managers, Ventura was one of my favorite players growing up. But that's kind of small comfort. And you look that roster and they're just not very good in most positions.
Only other team that completed this feat was the Cubs in 1907, 5 years before Arizona was even a state. Cubs went on to win the World Series that year, I'm hoping the same happens for the DBacks
To do that without their main offensive threat from last season deserves all the plaudits