I'm generally not comfortable with the whole concept of predictions. When people find out what I do for a living, they ask me to predict the pennant or World Series champion, and then I just hem and haw, equivocating for long enough that the topic is dropped. I'm a believer in uncertainty. I worship at the church of uncertainty. Everything in baseball is probabilistic, and you never find probabilities of 100 percent.
I don't always like this about myself. Sure, it's intellectually honest, but it's also obnoxious. It keeps me from going out on a limb. I want to be bold. I want to make commitments. Conveniently, this assignment showed up, and it forces me to take a stand. It forces me to take 30 stands. There's no backing down now -- I'm tasked with 30 predictions, one for every team. And none of that weak stuff, like "the Astros will win at least 90 games." I have to be firm, and I have to take a chance.
These aren't just based on gut feelings. I try to have good reasons for all of them. And these aren't just predictions that fall in line with what everyone expects to happen anyway -- these are predictions that require a little more than that. I'm sure many of them will turn out to look silly. But here are 30 stands, 30 positions I'm taking today.
Prediction: The Angels will finish with a top-10 park-adjusted ERA. This isn't just about Shohei Ohtani, although he's a part of it. This also isn't just about the intriguing six-man rotation, although that is also part of it. The Angels don't have many starters they can count on to make every single start, but where they might be short on reliability, they're long on talent. And, very importantly, with the likes of Ian Kinsler, Andrelton Simmons, Zack Cozart and Martin Maldonado, the Angels will field arguably baseball's No. 1 defense. Run suppression should be more of a strength than a weakness.
Prediction: Kyle Tucker will be starting in left field by the middle of June. I don't have anything against Derek Fisher or Marwin Gonzalez, but no matter who's playing left on a regular basis in Houston, he's essentially a placeholder for one of the top hitting prospects around. Although Tucker has just a half-season above high-A and although he's just 21 years old, swing changes unlocked his power in 2017, and there aren't many obstacles remaining in his way.
Prediction: Justin Smoak will hit 40-plus home runs. Smoak is already off to a good start, hitting home runs against the Yankees' bullpen in consecutive innings over the weekend. I don't think he's going to take much of a step back. When I ran a recent query examining the whole of baseball history, I couldn't find a single hitter with a bigger season-to-season drop in strikeout rate than Smoak managed between 2016 and 2017. With his disciplined eye and improved contact skills, Smoak has finally developed into the force he was supposed to become as a prospect.
Prediction: The A's will make it into the playoffs. I'm not going to lie: This one's made with a little bit of stubbornness. I liked the A's as a dark horse a month or so ago. Since then, they've lost both Jharel Cotton and A.J. Puk to elbow surgery, considerably thinning out the rotation. Still, I can't give it up. I love the core developing around Matt Chapman and Matt Olson, and while Chapman will help to stabilize what has been a troublesome defense, I suspect Jonathan Lucroy will be of service to the pitchers. It won't be easy, and the A's won't push the Astros or anything, but I'm looking for a surprise wild-card berth.
Prediction: A.J. Minter will be one of the top relievers in baseball. Many people don't know Minter, because he hasn't even appeared in 20 major league games. But setting an embarrassingly low 2017 minimum of 10 innings pitched, only Craig Kimbrel finished with a higher strikeout rate than Minter did. Minter had two walks and 26 strikeouts in 15 rookie innings, and with his fastball/breaking ball combination, he's awfully reminiscent of Kimbrel himself, though he throws from the other side. Health is the only question; a healthy Minter will be dominant.
Prediction: The Brewers will have the best bullpen in the National League. This one is a little bit soft, because there are some projections that already think the Brewers have the best bullpen in the National League. But I think the bullpen could be utterly dominant. Corey Knebel is almost impossible to hit against (and here's hoping his trip to the DL after Thursday's game with a leg injury will be brief). When he's throwing strikes, Josh Hader is almost impossible. Matt Albers turned himself into an asset last season, and Jacob Barnes is good for more than a strikeout an inning. If Boone Logan comes back healthy, he's a proven value, and I expect big things out of prospect Freddy Peralta in the nearer-term future. I think this bullpen could end up giving the Yankees' crew a run for their money.
Prediction: Miles Mikolas will lead the pitching staff in WAR. You could read this in one of two ways. I mean it in the good way. I don't think Carlos Martinez is going to be bad, all of a sudden. I just have plenty of faith in Mikolas, who got himself straightened out pitching in Japan. While Mikolas allowed three home runs to the Brewers in his first start, he also threw 70 percent strikes, and he struck out five batters without a walk. I think Mikolas will look like perhaps the bargain of the winter.
Prediction: Jason Heyward will be an above-average hitter. Heyward is still just 28 years old. While he was a below-average hitter in 2017, he also improved his wRC+ by 17 points. He still draws a good number of walks, and he still puts plenty of balls in play. I refuse to believe that Heyward has forgotten how to be good. I know he's still able to hit the ball with authority. This season, I'm looking for him to be an acceptable regular. He won't live up to the contract. He won't opt out after the year. But I think, finally, Heyward will make himself dependable.
Prediction: Ketel Marte will be a 4-WAR player. This is setting a very high bar. Marte has been worth 1.9 career WAR, over almost 1,000 plate appearances. But this season, as a 24-year-old, I think Marte finds the right blend of his athleticism and his bat-to-ball skills. He should profile as a quality defender at second base, and he has a surprising amount of raw power to go with his speed. As an across-the-board contributor, he's going to be one of the most critical Diamondbacks.
Prediction: The Dodgers will be better than average at every position. For me, this always comes down to WAR, and my hunch is that, at every position, the Dodgers will rank in the top 15. It's as much about the depth as it is about the starters, and while you might fairly ask questions about second base and left field, the Dodgers have plenty of options to cover at second, and the same is also true of the corner outfield, meaning no one will be allowed to slump for very long.
Prediction: Chris Stratton will finish with a sub-3.50 ERA. There wasn't so much pressure when Stratton was just a guy at the back of an otherwise familiar-looking rotation. With Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija out, though, Stratton has effectively moved up. With a naturally cutting fastball and a high-spin, swing-and-miss curve, Stratton has weapons for hitters on both sides. Throw in some help from the ballpark and he should have a pretty strong season.
Prediction: Yonder Alonso will slug over .500. It's easy to be skeptical of Alonso. Before he slugged over .500 in 2017, he'd never before slugged over .400. And then, even in the breakout, Alonso's season mostly came down to an extraordinary May. The first- and second-half splits tell a story, but then, between halves, Alonso's walk rate stayed the same, and so did his strikeout rate. Even down the stretch, he continued to hit the ball in the air. I think Alonso's emergence is real, and the Indians will be ecstatic to have him.
Prediction: James Paxton will receive some amount of Cy Young support. A couple of years ago, Paxton made a change to his delivery and figured out how to throw strikes, a big step forward from a lefty who always had exciting stuff. His only real challenge is staying on the mound. I expect this to be the year Paxton makes 30-plus starts, and he'll be one of the five or so best starters in his league.
Prediction: Brian Anderson will establish himself as a quality regular. Anderson might be playing right now only because Martin Prado is hurt, but as far as the Marlins are concerned Prado hardly means anything anymore. The 24-year-old isn't well-known, but he's showing the ability to hit hard to all fields, and he should be a perfectly fine defensive third baseman. Much of the attention is going to go to Lewis Brinson, but he's not the Marlins' only interesting major league prospect.
Prediction: Noah Syndergaard will win the NL Cy Young. In 2016, Syndergaard finished eighth on the ballot. In 2017, he was limited to seven starts. In 2018, Syndergaard has started twice, with two walks, 17 strikeouts and his normal elite velocity. To pick Syndergaard is to not pick Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw, but the stuff that Syndergaard is able to throw on a regular basis is completely unfair. Pitchers aren't supposed to be this talented, and Syndergaard will pitch the Mets back into contention.
Prediction: Bryce Harper will re-sign. Does it count if it actually comes after the season? It's probably a stretch, but I'm allowing myself this one because it's such a big deal. For the longest time, I've been assuming that Harper would leave as a free agent. I think he's still going to get to free agency -- no way he's signing an extension before that -- but now my feeling is that Harper will stick around with the only organization he has ever known. We could be looking at a true career one-team player.
Prediction: Austin Hays will be the team's best player in the second half. There's no good reason to expect that Hays will be as good or better than Manny Machado. But the Orioles probably will fall out of the race, and then Machado will become available in trade talks. This is two bold predictions in one, then, but Machado will get dealt, and Hays will be promoted when there's a clear shift toward youth. Hays is only 22, yet he has torn through three stops in the minors. He's going to give Baltimore hope that the imminent rebuild might not sink to too low a depth.
Prediction: Franchy Cordero will lead the team in WAR. Cordero isn't even playing right now, thanks to a groin injury. And even if he were in the lineup, he'd be jockeying for playing time with Manuel Margot, Wil Myers, Hunter Renfroe and Jose Pirela. Yet Cordero is obscenely talented, in terms of running real fast, as well as hitting real hard. Last year, no Padres player had a faster sprint speed, and no Padres player had a higher average batted-ball velocity. Cordero led all pro hitters in triples, and he's going to get a 2018 opportunity. I expect that he'll seize it, and that he'll do plenty across the board in between all of the strikeouts.
Prediction: The Phillies will finish within three games of the playoffs. This isn't a sexy prediction, but I couldn't bring myself to go all the way. I don't think this is the year for the Phillies to get back to the postseason, but I do think it's the year for the team to play competitive ball all the way through. You can see a core that's almost fully developed with Rhys Hoskins, Aaron Nola, Odubel Herrera, Cesar Hernandez, J.P. Crawford and Scott Kingery, and that doesn't even touch on the boom-or-bust potential of Maikel Franco and Nick Williams. There's coverage in case either of those two players slump. The Phillies have just about come together.
Prediction: Tyler Glasnow will post a better-than-average strike rate. I don't know if it'll happen as a starter, and I don't know if it'll happen as a reliever. But I have faith that Glasnow figured something out during his trip last summer to Triple-A. When Glasnow is rolling, he pairs a high-90s fastball with a dynamite curve, and he also gets an extra couple perceived miles per hour due to the extension he gets in his delivery. Glasnow should be very hard to hit. I think the Pirates will find they have a special one on their hands.
Prediction: Tim Lincecum will save at least 10 games. Lincecum has never actually posted a worse-than-average contact rate. He's always made it hard to get the bat on the ball, even when he was struggling. It was more a matter of his hitting his spots. Lincecum now has improved his athleticism, and he also should benefit from the shorter outings that working in relief allows. Even though he's still a month or so away from joining the team, it shouldn't take too much for Lincecum to climb up the bullpen depth chart. Keone Kela might close well enough, but he's just not that big of an obstacle.
Prediction: The Rays will win at least half their games. I was even higher than this on the Rays before they lost Brent Honeywell, Jose De Leon and Nathan Eovaldi. That's awfully hard for a team to recover from. Nevertheless, the Rays are being underrated, because of what some people interpreted as a teardown. The club remains surprisingly talented, and there are young reinforcements getting action in Double- and Triple-A. Kevin Kiermaier and Chris Archer are the stars, and beyond them the Rays are less about All-Star talent and more about flexibility. That just happens to be something they have in spades.
Prediction: Mookie Betts will have a 30/30 season. Betts already has eclipsed 30 home runs once, and he has gotten up to 26 steals. This isn't really that much of a reach. But last year, Betts finished at 18/26, and I don't find that representative of his real talent. His bat-to-ball skills are nearly unparalleled, and because Betts has stolen at an 88 percent success rate over the past two seasons, he could afford to take more chances. That kind of success implies that a runner has been acting conservatively, which Betts doesn't have to do. Look for a big rebound season that gets Betts on some more MVP ballots in November.
Prediction: The Reds rotation will finish with a top-15 WAR. Last year, the Reds' rotation ranked 29th in WAR. The year before that, they ranked 30th. The year before that, they ranked 22nd. The Reds' rebuild has sort of sputtered along, with a lack of significant development on the pitching side, but this will be a year of greater promise. I love Luis Castillo, but I'm also fond of Tyler Mahle. I see some reasons to believe in Sal Romano and Amir Garrett. There are several young pitchers still to sort through, but in 2018, the Reds should be able to identify a real, capable five-man unit. It has been a long time coming.
Prediction: Carlos Gonzalez will be dangerous again. Gonzalez re-signed for cheap because, aside from the final month and a half, his 2017 was ugly. Yet at peak exit velocities, Gonzalez showed he still had an elite skill. The bat speed hasn't left him. And I buy into the explanation that last year, Gonzalez simply had too much trouble getting half-decent sleep. It sounds almost too easy, too convenient, but teams now understand more than ever the value of a good night's rest. It's not a coincidence that better sleep is being emphasized, and Gonzalez should perform more consistently at the plate now that he has shaken off his persistent brain fog.
Prediction: Jake Junis will be the team's best pitcher. As good as Danny Duffy can look, I think Junis is ready to establish himself on the biggest stage. Mostly considered a non-prospect, Junis just had a fine rookie campaign, and in the second half in the big leagues he walked just nine batters -- with 52 strikeouts -- in 63⅓ innings. Junis' specialty is a positively Kluberian breaking ball, which he'll spin up there with enthusiasm, and he throws a total of five pitches while hanging around the zone. As a control guy with marginal velocity, Junis is exactly the sort to be underrated every step of the way. There will be no underrating good major league statistics.
Prediction: Jordan Zimmermann will resemble his Nationals-era self. That five-year, $110 million contract has looked like a disaster so far, with Zimmermann coming off a 6.00-plus ERA. But it's not as if he has really lost that much stuff. Zimmermann has just been worse around the margins, mostly because he hasn't felt healthy. In his first start of 2018, he struck out eight of 24 Pirates. The last time Zimmermann struck out at least a third of his opponents in a start was in August 2015. Zimmermann also issued only one walk. A career rebound is afoot.
Prediction: Fernando Rodney will last the entire season as the Twins' closer. This is something that'll come up every single time Rodney issues a walk. The Twins signed Rodney to close. Rodney has long been a closer. The Twins also signed Addison Reed. Reed has been a closer too, and he throws more strikes than Rodney does. A lot of people are just waiting for Rodney to lose his job, but I think they'll be waiting and waiting and waiting. To his credit, Rodney continues to throw hard, and he continues to miss bats, even now that he's 41 years old. He's no Mariano Rivera, but he's also not a liability, and as a Twin, I suspect he'll continue to both frighten and excite.
Prediction: Lucas Giolito will average at least a strikeout an inning. Giolito's first start was not good. And overall, he has averaged just 5.7 strikeouts per nine innings in the big leagues. That's not at all what was expected of a guy who was the top pitching prospect in the minors. He's a work in progress, but I saw an encouraging spring, and Giolito has significantly lowered his arm slot, getting back to old and more familiar mechanics. No longer so over-the-top, Giolito's arm follows a natural path, and I think his control and stuff will improve as a consequence. This should be the year for Giolito to blossom into something legitimately good.
Prediction: The Yankees will win it all. It's not bold, in that the Yankees are known to be good. But it is bold, because there are seven very good teams, and the Astros are the defending champs. Obviously, the Yankees are going to be able to bludgeon the baseball. They have a chance of hitting 300 home runs, which is unbelievable. But I continue to come back to their bullpen, which includes Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, Dellin Betances and Chad Green. Their bullpen is the best and deepest around, and that should be an advantage, again, come playoff time. Last year, the Yankees fell a little short. It might've only made them mad.