Editor's note: Last week, ESPN's Keith Law made his predictions for which players are going to break out in 2018. This week, he makes his predictions for every team's finish, which team will win the World Series and which players will be taking home the major awards.

National League East

The Nationals appear to be the class of the division, again, by a wide margin, with above-average or better regulars at five of eight positions, two aces in their rotation and no real weaknesses other than catcher and maybe their fifth starter. They will also get help from within whenever they recall Victor Robles and could get a late-season boost from Erick Fedde or Joe Ross (due back in August, roughly, after recovering from Tommy John surgery). The Mets have a best-case scenario for this year in which they approach 90 wins, if their front four make about 100 starts, if Michael Conforto gets into 120 or more games, if Amed Rosario hits like he did in the minors and not like he did in the majors, if they stop sabotaging themselves with bad roster decisions. I doubt it happens, but it's at least within the realm of possibility.

The Phillies are sneakily better, not playoff-good, but .500 is also a not unreasonable hope for this roster, if Scott Kingery and J.P. Crawford have big rookie seasons (as I somewhat expect for both players) and one of their young regulars takes a step forward, although their rotation's No. 3-5 spots are going to drag them down and the team might cycle through numerous candidates throughout the year. Atlanta's tremendous pitching depth is still bubbling under the surface; if I lived in the area, I'd drive to see Gwinnett County rather than go to Boondoggle Park in Marietta. By the time August rolls around, they should have several of their top pitching prospects somewhere on the major-league staff -- Mike Soroka, Max Fried, Kolby Allard -- but they don't project to score enough runs this year to sniff .500. The Marlins are a dumpster fire. The only reason to watch this team in 2018 is to see if they become the first club since the 2004 Expos (#RIP) to fail to draw a million fans.

NL Central

The top three teams in this division all made major moves this winter, two to improve, one to hold serve, but I think in the end the Cubs' incumbents are still better than what the Cards and Brewers bring to the table, especially with a few young hitters on the Cubs (Addison Russell, Ian Happ, Kyle Schwarber) looking like they are at least candidates for big breakouts. They're going on a wing and a prayer in their bullpen, especially with Brandon Morrow as their closer. As good as he was last year, it was just 43 innings, and he had not thrown that much with an ERA under 5.00 since 2012. The Cardinals boosted their offense with the addition of Marcell Ozuna, but I kept waiting for them to trade their upper-level prospect depth for an upgrade to their rotation, which was depending too much on veterans with injury histories and players with limited track records. Adam Wainwright's injury might have a silver lining if it gets Jack Flaherty more turns in the rotation, however. The Brewers also seem to be short a starter or two; ZiPS only has them with one starter projected to cross 2.0 WAR, and I would take the under on Zach Davies' projection. The offense is improved and the defense is much improved, but I don't think this is the rotation of a 90-win team. The Pirates and Reds remain builders rather than contenders, with the Pirates shedding two of their most famous (but not necessarily best) players this winter, and the Reds making a curious long-term commitment to block their No. 1 prospect. The Reds' bullpen was very impressive late last year; if they could just find five guys to get the ball to their relievers, they'd be in business.

NL West

The Dodgers seem like the class of the division again, even without any significant upgrades this offseason -- and no, adding Matt Kemp is definitely not an upgrade, although deleting Adrian Gonzalez is. I worry about their lack of starting pitching depth; none of their projected five starters made 30 starts last year and only Clayton Kershaw qualified for the ERA title. Walker Buehler is here to help at some point but isn't going to shoulder a full load himself. The Diamondbacks lost J.D. Martinez but I think they've mitigated that departure with some quiet, low-dollar additions in the wake of his signing with Boston. They could get an in-season boost from starter Taylor Clarke, among the most impressive rookie pitchers in spring training this year.

It's too common to point at the Rockies and say they're going to struggle to prevent run prevention because of Coors Field, but I think their pitching is fine -- it's their offense that concerns me, with above-average offense expected at maybe three positions (including rookie Ryan McMahon at first). Their offseason plan focused on the bullpen and they didn't add any regular position players, just bringing back Carlos Gonzalez, a below replacement-level player in 2018, on a one-year deal. The Giants tried to go all-in this winter with trades for Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria, but their lineup still lacks OBP, and now they're without Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija to start the season, with very little starter depth in the system. Their Opening Day starter is Ty Blach, who had the worst strikeout rate of any qualifying starter in 2017, and he's their nominal No. 3 at the moment. The Padres' future is incredibly bright, but very little of their tremendous prospect depth will see the majors at all this year, and virtually none of it will have any impact until 2019. Even if Eric Hosmer repeats his career year of 2017, it still won't make them a competitive club.

American League East

It’s popular to gift this division to the Yankees, but I think it’s going to be the tightest division race in the majors, even though I’m also predicting both teams in the race will make the playoffs. The Yankees do have a powerhouse offense and a young core that will keep them contending for the next five years, but they are depending heavily on a rotation full of guys with greater-than-average risk of some kind of falloff. Masahiro Tanaka missed some time last year and his elbow could go at any moment. CC Sabathia remade himself into a finesse pitcher, but his margin for error given his reduced stuff is tiny. Luis Severino was awful as a starter in 2016 and among the best in baseball last year, but with by far the highest workload of his career. Jordan Montgomery outperformed all expectations last year but was noticeably worse the second time around the league. Sonny Gray has been inconsistent and has had trouble staying healthy the last few years. You don’t have to be a raging pessimist to foresee the rotation becoming a problem for this team.

And I still have them edging out the Red Sox. Boston had one big hole on their roster and filled it with the best fit, J.D. Martinez. I think they’ll get more from a healthy Xander Bogaerts and from a full season of Rafael Devers. But their rotation is just as much of an Achilles heel as New York’s and they don’t have the Yankees’ tremendous upper-level prospect depth to backfill their roster or to fuel in-season trades.

The Blue Jays seem caught in between contention and building, not as good as the two teams ahead of them, perhaps good enough to see the playoffs in another division if they get a good year from their rotation and a late-season boost from a certain son of a Hall of Famer. It just doesn’t seem probable in this division, though.

Tampa Bay has been crushed for “tanking,” but it’s not at all clear their series of trades this winter left them more than two or three games worse off, if that, and they got cheaper and younger and added a few prospects along the way. Their problem, aside from playing in the AL East with one hand tied behind their backs, is a lineup that might only have one or two hitters who produce above-average offense for their positions. Jake Bauers may not be the savior, but he’s better than the first-base options (with C.J. Cron moving to DH) on the roster. The Orioles did improve their outlook this year with the addition of Alex Cobb on a reasonable deal, but otherwise this team is very much the same as the team that won 75 games last year, with maybe half a season of Zach Britton and I assume no Manny Machado after the trade deadline.

AL Central

Boring. You’re boring us. Quit boring us! I have Cleveland as the most likely team to win its division this year, a reflection of how good they are and how far they are ahead of the rest of the pack. They’re a starter short of a good rotation, but because everything else here is above-average, they can fade that weakness for now and hope that Danny Salazar gets healthy or someone like Shane Bieber or Aaron Civale emerges before midseason.

Minnesota had the best offseason of any team if you look at how much value they added and how little they spent to do so, an impressive bit of general-managering that should make the team competitive again this year, although I do have them two games out of a playoff spot. They don’t have many stars, perhaps just one in Byron Buxton and a borderline one in Brian Dozier, but they are solid throughout the roster and seem well situated to handle the usual attrition of a long season because of those quiet acquisitions this winter. The rotation isn’t terribly impressive on paper, but I would give Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi and Kyle Gibson all a chance to improve significantly over last year.

The White Sox are the most interesting team in the AL, not playoff contenders yet but rolling out young players who are either former first-rounders or top international prospects at four positions and three rotation spots. They’ll probably get more interesting as the season goes on as well, with Michael Kopech or Eloy Jimenez possibly debuting this year. They could be very inconsistent over the course of the season, but White Sox fans should look at this as a year of growth and development toward real contention in the not too distant future.

The Royals made some nice bargain moves this winter, bringing back Mike Moustakas and signing Lucas Duda to what appear to be tremendous deals for the club, but it doesn’t add up to a .500 season. Alex Gordon in center field could be a disaster, and they might get very little offense from multiple positions -- possibly even second base, as Whit Merrifield’s 19 homers was among the biggest outliers in baseball last year. The Tigers are going to be bad, maybe very bad, probably the worst run-prevention unit in baseball, and if Miguel Cabrera can’t bounce back from his worst year, they might be the AL’s only 100-loss team.

AL West

The Astros return the World Champion roster plus Gerrit Cole, and they should get help from Kyle Tucker sooner rather than later. It would take a run of terrible luck to dethrone them in this division and they’ll be just as tough in October, especially given how A.J. Hinch rejiggered his pitching staff on the fly. I’m bullish on the Angels, and also I want Mike Trout in the postseason. They get a full year of Justin Upton, they added Zack Cozart and Ian Kinsler to upgrade two positions, and while Shohei Ohtani hasn’t looked great on the mound this spring, even in mediocre starts he still showed a wipeout slider and doesn’t seem that far off from helping this rotation. (I still don’t think he can hit, though.) If Albert Pujols can’t rise from the dead, though, they need to find a DH whose bat isn’t infested with maggots.

The Mariners seem like they have completely maxed out what they can get out of the last spots on their 25-man roster, but they will sink or swim with the guys at the front of it -- especially King Felix and Robinson Cano, two all-time greats on the back nine of their careers. You could paint a scenario in which they get to the mid-80s or even upper 80s in wins, if Mike Zunino has a breakout year, if Dee Gordon becomes a 70-grade defender in center, if James Paxton makes 30 starts, if Mitch Haniger gets 550 at-bats. It’s actually not that ridiculous a proposition; the roster has a lot of guys who were at one point expected to be a lot more than they’ve become.

Shin-Soo Choo has guaranteed that the Rangers will make the playoffs. I admire his team spirit, but he’s actually part of the problem, and their rotation isn’t strong enough right now to make them an 85-90 win team. Turning around Matt Moore, who hasn’t been the same post-Tommy John, or getting Mike Minor’s first healthy year as a starter in forever, would help matters, but neither is all that likely. Oakland is building, and 75 wins may be a bit optimistic given the likelihood that they’ll churn the roster some more at the trade deadline. Losing A.J. Puk for the year hurts too; he was probably going to spend half the year or more in Oakland, given how good he’d looked this spring.

Postseason predictions

ALCS: Cleveland over Houston

NLCS: Washington over Cubs

World Series: Cleveland over Washington

Awards

AL MVP: Mike Trout is the favorite, as always. If it’s not him, Francisco Lindor.

NL MVP: Bryce Harper was on his way last year until he got hurt. Health is a skill, and it’s the one skill Harper hasn’t shown in his pro career, but in a walk year on a team that still seems good enough to win the World Series, he might fight to play more through minor injuries.

AL Cy Young: Chris Sale nearly won it last year, and since he’s really just a machine in human skin, I see no reason to expect him to be any different this year.

NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw is the favorite, as always. If it’s not him, I’ll go with my pick from last year, Noah Syndergaard.

AL Rookie: I’m still going with Shohei Ohtani, despite the panic-inducing spring he’s had. Tyler Wade looks like he’s going to get part or most of the playing time at second base for the Yankees, and there aren’t many AL prospects likely to earn substantial playing time this year.

NL Rookie: Ronald Acuña should be up in about two weeks, and he’s the best prospect in baseball. I wouldn’t sleep on Ryan McMahon, however, who gets the boost from playing half his games in Coors Field and happens to be a very fine hitter at any altitude.