It's almost here! With the 2018 now less than twelve hours away from kicking off (the season's first game will be between the Cubs and Marlins with a 12:40 PM start time), team sites and fan blogs are busy churning out MVP and World Series projections (MLB's Joe Posnanski has a particularly entertaining column on his craziest predictions for 2018). While my personal musings may lack some of the wild speculation of others, here are my five personal predictions for the 2018 season.
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| Bryce Harper is going into a walk year in 2018, a situation that has yielded some fantastic results in the past. |
With 768 big league games under his belt, Bryce Harper has evolved into one of the game's best young talents. Pairing a powerful bat (career .515 slugging percentage) with an unusually patient approach at the plate (455 career walks in 3,262 plate appearances), Harper has accomplished much in his MLB career to date (five All-Star appearances in six seasons). Given his long list of accolades, it is somewhat surprising that Harper has yet to tally a 100 RBI season. The closest he came was 99 in 2015, the best year of his career to date in a season in which he blasted 42 home runs. Even though RBI's are a product of luck and good timing as much as skill (heck, Jorge Cantu accomplished the feat...twice!), they are still a stat that resonates when speaking about a player's legacy. For Harper, a 100 RBI season would also be a good leverage point going into off-season negotiations as he'll be a free agent for the first time after 2018 in what might be the wildest off-season of all time. Provided he can stay healthy, Harper should have plenty of opportunities to drive in runs with a very good lineup in front of and behind him. That is one big caveat, however, as Harper has never played more than 153 games in a season and averages just 128 games per season.
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| Aaron Judge's historic performance in 2017 overshadows his frightening propensity to strikeout. |
In 2017, Yankee slugger Aaron Judge put up a truly unbelievable season, winning both Rookie of the Year honors as well as the American League MVP Award. With 52 home runs and 114 RBI's, Judge established himself as a legitimate middle of the order slugger. However, there is one problem to Judge's game and it isn't a small one. He strikes out. A lot. Like, historically a lot. It's a part of his game that can't be ignored when we try to project how he'll do in the future. After last year's All-Star break, Judge went down on strikes an incredible 41% of the time while batting a measly .228 (Yankee's fans clamored for his benching in August for good reason). While he managed to maintain his power numbers through the end of the season (33 extra base hits in the season's second half), Judge's regular season strikeout total was just an appetizer to the main course: his ALDS performance. In twenty at-bats during the ALDS vs. the Cleveland Indians, Judge struck out sixteen times! This trend looks like it will continue into this season as Judge took the long walk back to the dugout ten times in thirty-three Spring Training at-bats. To be fair, power hitters tend to strikeout a lot. Adam Dunn...462 career home runs, 2,379 strikeouts. Jim Thome...612 home runs, 2, 548 strikeouts. Reggie "Mr. October" Jackson...563 home runs, MLB record 2,597 strikeouts. It happens. But expecting him to crush 48 home runs and drive in 113 runs as MLB projects? That's not going to happen, especially with the adjustments he'll need to make as pitchers attack him differently in his sophomore campaign. I can see him hitting in the .255-.265 range with 35 home runs and 95 RBI. Still a great season, but I think the Judge will hold court a lot less in 2018 than he did in 2017.
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| 2018 will most likely be the last time we see perennial All-Star Manny Machado in an O's uniform. |
Last season, I wrote an article about the dangers of selling out too soon in a playoff race with my focus being on the Baltimore Orioles, who were stuck in a 42-46 rut. It was a frustrating season to be an O's fan; after starting the season on a 22-10 hot streak, Baltimore would end the season at 75-87 with a last place finish in the AL East (their first cellar dive since 2011). 2017 seemed to be the beginning of the end for the O's playoff aspirations. The rapid decline of shortstop JJ Hardy (who put up the worst statistical season of his career), the bottoming out of a pitching staff that relied on the likes of Wade Miley and Ubaldo Jimenez, and down years from sluggers Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo were the primary culprits behind the O's fall from grace. Honestly, it was surprising that Baltimore didn't try to cash in last season on some of their pending free agents (Wellington Castillo particularly comes to mind given he was on a one-year deal in the first place and was in the midst of a career year). Now, with the 2018 season just around the corner, the clock seems to have struck midnight on the Cinderella story that was the rebirth of the Baltimore Orioles. After a dismal fourteen year stretch of losing baseball, the Orioles were good again in 2012 and have been a perennial playoff contender ever since. Their success has largely rested on the shoulders of superstar Manny Machado, whose powerful bat and defensive prowess have made him one of the best players in baseball since he burst onto the scene to take over the hot corner from the brick hands of Wilson Betemit (just look at this web gem from his time in Detroit!). He is in the final year of his contract, though, and with his expected foray into free agency after the '18 season, Baltimore fans need to prepare for the reality that, like Taylor Swift said, the Orioles and Machado are never getting back together. With a price tag projected to climb into the realm of $300.0+ million dollars and with big-money investments already in Adam Jones and Chris Davis, the O's simply can't afford to pay Machado enough to return. Knowing this, expect to see the Orioles flip Machado by the trade deadline should they fall out of the playoff race. Given the strength of the division (the Yankees and Red Sox are absolute juggernauts and Toronto is no slouch if they can stay healthy) and the American league as a whole (the AL West is stacked), I imagine that by the end of the season's second month, we'll see the Orioles five to seven games back from the division lead. So there it is, Baltimore fans, the sad, ugly truth. I hope you enjoyed the ride while it lasted because the Red Sox and Yankees are going to own this division for a very, very, very long time.
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| Though the Brewers have no shortage of power, their starting pitching will relegate them to third wheel in the NL Central. |
In 2017, the Milwaukee Brewers finished a surprising 86-76, thirteen games better than their record from the season before. Powered by the bats of Eric Thames, Domingo Santana, and Travis Shaw, the Brew Crew jacked 224 balls out of the park, good for a seventh place finish in all of baseball. Solid pitching performances by starters Zach Davies, Jimmy Nelson, and Chase Anderson as well as closer Corey Knebel are also to credit for the Brewer's turnaround from cellar dweller to playoff contender (they missed the second Wild Card spot by a single game). All that being said, the Brewers are NOT going to contend for a playoff spot in 2018. Despite the additions of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich, the Brewers will finish no better than third in the division as the Cardinals and Cubs will easily outpace them (I'm estimating a five to ten game gap between the top of the division and where the Brewers will end up). The big difference comes down to pitching; the Brewers will be without ace Jimmy Nelson for at least the first half of the season and, rather than commit to what ended up being a surprisingly affordable Jake Arrieta, they signed journeyman Jhoulys Chacin to hold the line until Nelson returns. Chacin had one of the best seasons of his career last year in San Diego, but, then again, who doesn't have the best season of their career pitching in the cavernous depths of Petco Park? The Cubs additions of Yu Darvish, Brandon Morrow, and Steve Cishek and the Cardinals additions of Dominic Leone, Luke Gregerson, and Marcell Ozuna far outweigh the gains the Brewers made in their signings and these moves will be reflected in the standings come September and October.
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| From beating cancer to etching his name in World Series history, Anthony Rizzo represents a lot of what makes baseball special and has made news speaking out on gun violence in schools across America. |
For one moment, I'm going to take this blog in a slightly different direction and speak to my last prediction for 2018. I don't often discuss politics and I don't plan on making it a habit to do so on this blog as, well, I'm here to talk about baseball. This isn't a political column. However, given recent events in our country, I feel moved to speak my mind so allow me this one paragraph.
Professional athletes are afforded a lot of privileges in life. They get to play a sport that they presumably love for a living. They get paid incredible amounts of money to play said sport. It's a life where things seemingly aren't so complicated. Given the public platform upon which professional ballplayers stand, I believe that we're going to start seeing a growing movement of professional ballplayers tackling social and political issues, on and off the field. Astro's teammates Justin Verlander and Lance McCullers have already taken initiative in addressing domestic violence by calling out former Astro's prospect, Danry Vazquez. Anthony Rizzo, a graduate of Stoneman Douglass High School, has made his opinions clear on gun violence in the United States after a senseless shooting left seventeen dead at his alma mater. Whether you agree with his explanation or not, A's catcher Bruce Maxwell captured the national spotlight (if only for a minute) by taking a knee during the national anthem last year, becoming the first baseball player to do so. Many major league ballplayers seem to want to be agents of change and are appealing to fans across the country to be more accepting and to seek social justice for those whom it's denied.
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