The Major League Baseball 2024 regular season is now in the books. As usual all the pundits, including me, gave prognostication a bad name. Here's a postmortem of the regular season followed by my postseason predictions.
There are a few things about which we can be thankful, plus a few rants.
1. We don't have to watch any of the perennial lambs go to the slaughter once again. The Tampa Bay Rays should be renamed the Crayfish. That’s appropriate for a team that spends about $75 on its roster.
2. Minnesota should be christened the Twinkies. Every year they are big pretenders in a division as soft as the aforementioned pastry, but I doubt they would win a postseason series were Kirby Puckett to rise from the grave.
3. Seattle once again came close to making the postseason, but my advice is never bet on the Mariners; they will rain on your dreams every time.
4. The Cubs did a terrible thing by winning the 2016 World Series. They were lovable losers. Now they're just bums.
5. There's hope in Boston even though Bay Staters would like to eviscerate ownership for being cheap. I'm not a Red Sox fan but this team has a future. They got close to the postseason in today's “Every Kid Gets a Wild Card” setup. They have nice young talent and a better bullpen could have easily gotten them a Wild Card in 2024.
6. Much has been made about the White Sox historic 121-loss season. That was ugly, but we ought to hang a Hollywood-sized LOSER sign in Anaheim where the Angels lost 99 games and finished six games behind Oakland, which didn’t even pretend to compete. What a freaking waste the Angels have been of Mike Trout’s career! If I were he I'd hang ‘em up now and wait for the Hall of Fame to call.
7. Will MLB ever learn that nobody cares about summer baseball in Florida? Another 100-loss season for the Miami Dead Fish and another of drawing AA-sized crowds in both Miami and Tampa.
8. When MLB talks about its colorful past, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are mentioned because what else is there to talk about? It could ask the same about Denver, except it doesn't have a colorful past.
9. Back up the van in Toronto, San Francisco, and St. Louis.
And now for my predictions that will probably collapse by the end of the week.
American League Wild Cards:
Tigers over Astros: Houston was Jekyll and Hyde all year and Detroit figured out it's best to be hot in the autumn.
Orioles over Royals, though I'd not be shocked if it went to the other way.
National League Wild Cards:
Mets over Brewers: Milwaukee’s pitching is mediocre and the Mets can hit.
Padres over the Braves, though I’m not sold on either of them. San Diego needed a surge to get there and the Braves dithered for much of the season.
AL Division Series:
Guardians over Detroit: Just like it was in the Central Division. Cleveland is the best small ball team in MLB.
Orioles or Royals over the Yankees. New York had the best record in the AL, but it still can't score if Judge or Soto don't hit home runs. Between them they knocked in 1/3 of all the runs the Yankees scored this year! The Yankees also have a terrible bullpen and a robot manager who thinks it's creative to flip Soto and judge in the order. I'm a Yankees fan, but I do not believe in this team.
I'm picking the Guardians to win the American League Pennant.
NL Division Series:
I think the Phillies will sweep whomever they play.
The Dodgers over San Diego in four. The Padres are another perpetual disappointment team.
Phillies over Dodgers in five games to win the NL pennant because Mookie Betts doesn’t pitch and neither can Othani (this year).
World Series:
Call me a sentimental fool but I think that Cleveland will win the World Series because Stephen Vogt is a better manager than Rob Thompson. That matters in the World Series.
Codicil: Should the Yankees make it to the World Series, they will lose for the reasons I stated above.
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