The 2021 baseball season is finally here. All 30 teams open on the same day, and MLB is returning to a full 162-game schedule after 2020's shortened 60-game season. And it all starts Thursday afternoon.
You have questions. I have answers. Let's get to it.
So something happened on the eve of Opening Day, huh?
The 10-year, $341 million contract extension star shortstop Francisco Lindor agreed to late Wednesday night with the New York Mets was indeed something.
It was the first megadeal handed out by new Mets owner Steve Cohen.
It was the first contract agreed to by one of the five frontline shortstops due to hit free agency after the 2021 season.
It was the third-largest guarantee in baseball history, behind Mike Trout's $426.5 million extension and Mookie Betts' $365 million deal.
It was Lindor, who had been pushing for $385 million while the Mets were offering $325 million, finally moving off his ask with his self-imposed Opening Day deadline bearing down.
It was, more than anything, the vows taken between the franchise player who had wowed his new organization with his on-the-field and off-the-field excellence and a team that had promised to be ascendant taking an expensive step in that direction.
The agreement culminates a harrowing week in which Lindor and Cohen met for dinner and entered into a staring contest that butted up against an artificial deadline. Lindor remaining with the Mets always made too much sense for it not to happen.
The repercussions would've been brutal. Mets fans, so beaten down by decades of heartbreak and incompetence, would've wondered when, exactly, Cohen was going to put his money where his mouth -- and tweets -- were. They would've accused Lindor, fair or not, of putting greed ahead of the betterment of the franchise.
All the good feelings of Cohen taking over from the Wilpon family would've run into the cognitive dissonance of wondering how things were any different under new stewardship.
Well, they are. Now Lindor, 27, dynamic and charming, is a Met for more than a decade. The deal starts in 2022, tacking it onto the $22.3 million he'll make this season. Lindor has no opt-out clauses. He has a 15-team no-trade clause until 2026, when his 10-and-5 rights will kick in and give him full no-trade protection.
He'll receive $1 million more than 22-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr., whose earth-shaking, 14-year, $340 million deal with the San Diego Padres earlier this winter set the tone for the free-agent class that includes the Los Angeles Dodgers' Corey Seager, the Colorado Rockies' Trevor Story, the Chicago Cubs' Javier Baez and the Houston Astros' Carlos Correa.
Lindor could have passed up the deal and bet on himself, but to what end? Even with a typically great season, free agency -- especially free agency at a time when the collective-bargaining agreement could be on the cusp of expiring Dec. 1 -- might not have given him the sort of wealth the Mets were willing to give today.
They stretched that extra $16 million because for all of the potential pitfalls, guaranteeing the presence of a star is a must. And doing so in New York, where the Mets want to own the city, is doubly so.
They're not there yet, but locking up Lindor is the right sort of first step. There's more work to do. Outfielder Michael Conforto and starters Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman will be free agents after this season. Jacob deGrom, the best starting pitcher in baseball, and Pete Alonso, the slugging first baseman, will be around, and ensuring Lindor's presence gives the Mets the sort of core that can win championships.
And that's the point, right? If Lindor hadn't signed the deal, the Mets still would've been World Series contenders this year, even in a National League where it's the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the field. But knowing Lindor will be there this year and next year and all the way through 2031 is the most comforting sort of feeling, one that can be achieved through a canny trade and trucks full of cash.
It took some time. It took some effort. It took $341 million. But Francisco Lindor is not just a New York Met anymore. He's the New York Mets.
Considering what has gone on with extensions around the rest of baseball this winter, how big of a surprise is this?
This offseason has been almost barren. Before Lindor, there was Tatis' deal, Lance McCullers Jr. and Salvador Perez getting $80 million-plus within the past week, Kansas City giving Hunter Dozier $25 million and Minnesota pitcher Randy Dobnak getting $9.25 million. And those are all the extensions this winter.
The Dodgers didn't meet Seager's price, and the Astros still haven't met Correa's -- and nothing is up with Baez or Story. Reigning NL MVP Freddie Freeman was a prime candidate. Nope. His peer at first, Anthony Rizzo, felt lowballed by the Cubs, though the sides are still hopeful that they can work something out.
It wasn't just older players. Minnesota signed Dobnak but couldn't lock up Byron Buxton or Jose Berrios. The White Sox's talks with Lucas Giolito and Andrew Vaughn, their rookie wunderkind, didn't go far. Adalberto Mondesi turned down multiple incarnations of deals from Kansas City. Jarred Kelenic didn't take Seattle's offer -- and wound up in the minors for it.
Consider the 2018-19 offseason. Nearly a billion and a half dollars in extension money went to eight guys. Trout got $426.5 million, Nolan Arenado $260 million, Chris Sale $145 million, deGrom $137.5 million, Paul Goldschmidt $130 million, Xander Bogaerts $120 million, Ronald Acuna $100 million, Alex Bregman $100 million. Hundreds of millions more went to Aaron Hicks, Eloy Jimenez, Miles Mikolas, Justin Verlander, Kyle Hendricks, Blake Snell, Randal Grichuk, German Marquez, Luis Severino, Ozzie Albies, Max Kepler, Aaron Nola, Brandon Lowe, Whit Merrifield.
It was an outlier year, but it illustrates the power of the extension. So what happened this past winter?
The Dec. 1 expiration of the collective bargaining agreement looms large. Players believe the competitive-balance tax threshold -- the luxury-tax number -- will rise significantly, potentially juicing spending. They don't want to lock into deals that might immediately be seen as under market.
The loss of more than 100 games per team in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season also offered owners a perfect excuse to plead poor and let their offers reflect that. Only Dozier's and Dobnak's deals are regarded as team friendly.
This was a perfect storm. Labor uncertainty. Players taught to scoff at early extension offers. Owners unwilling to move the market the way San Diego did for Tatis.
So let's talk about the season. What are you excited to see?
So much, but for now I want to focus on something very special that's happening.
Let's go back to 2019. That year, 20-year-old Juan Soto, 20-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr. and 21-year-old Ronald Acuna Jr. each posted more than 4.0 wins above replacement as calculated by Baseball-Reference. It was the first time in the live ball era three players in their age-21-or-younger season went for 4-plus WAR in the same year.
Then last season, all three went out and were even better than the year before. Taking their WAR per game and extrapolating it to a full season, all three were in the range of eight-win players. Only 17 times in history has a player 22 or younger put up an eight-win season, and here were three talents capable of doing so at the same time.
In other words: It is almost impossible to put into words how excited I am to see Soto, Tatis and Acuna try to settle the debate over who is the heir apparent to Mike Trout's decade-long stranglehold on the title of Best Player in Baseball. A title, by the way, that Trout shows absolutely no signs of ceding.
Regardless of whether any gets that capital-letter designation, Soto, Tatis and Acuna are why it's easy to be a baseball fan in 2021.
Now you've got me excited. So who's gonna win the World Series?
Patience.
Are you serious?
There are more important things to talk about first, like collective bargaining.
Bargaining. Passan, don't do this to me.
Sorry, but I have to. Because as much as Soto and Tatis and Acuna and Trout and Mookie Betts and Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole and Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani and dozens more are an integral part of the 2021 season, the 2022 season will not exist unless a new collective bargaining agreement is reached, and the threat of that not happening is very real.
Now, do not mistake this for some doomsday prophesying. This is not a labor-anarchy stan account. There are some very real problems between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association. There are some very real solutions, too. Here is where things stand.
While typically bargaining begins about a year before the expiration of the basic agreement that governs the sport, the sides have yet to discuss in person any of the topics expected to be at the heart of discussions. That, sources said, is expected to happen soon -- almost certainly with leadership from both sides meeting face-to-face in April. Further, sources said, there could be meetings in the coming weeks, and certainly months, with some of the negotiations' stakeholders -- players and owners.
Tony Clark runs the union, and Bruce Meyer is its lead negotiator. They typically sit across the table from commissioner Rob Manfred and his deputy, Dan Halem. Player leaders include Andrew Miller, Max Scherzer, Cole, Zack Britton, Marcus Semien, James Paxton, Jason Castro and Lindor. The league's labor-policy committee includes chair and Rockies owner Dick Monfort, Rangers owner Ray Davis, former Padres owner Ron Fowler, Red Sox owner John Henry, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and Twins owner Jim Pohlad.
The meetings could go in plenty of directions. The sides could celebrate their teamwork in making it through spring training, and to the cusp of widespread vaccinations across the game, without even a hint of a COVID-19 outbreak -- and use that as an illustration that despite their differences and mistrust, the ability to work together to achieve mutually beneficial results does exist.
They also could fall back on old grievances that fester -- from players who feel like teams have taken advantage of them economically and operated in bad faith, and from owners whose wins in collective bargaining have piled up in recent years and are loath to give in to players when the current economic system suits them well. Actually, it's likely both of those things happen. Though with little time to figure out what the next annal of baseball is going to look like, time is of the essence, and as one person familiar with the labor dynamic put it: "It's just a question of whether we're going to drive off the cliff together or realize we've got something too good to f--- up."
The last labor stoppage in baseball ended in 1995. For more than a quarter century, they have not "f---ed up." The next seven months will determine whether that streak continues or if the specter of a lockout, which soothsaying sorts predicted five years ago before the ink even dried on the current agreement, is more fear personified than fear-mongering.
Is all they're worried about economic issues?
It's more than that. MLB, in particular, sees a potential existential crisis in the direction of the on-field product. It is, at times, slow and plodding and devoid of action. And it's almost entirely self-inflicted. The consequence of baseball's sabermetric revolution was greater knowledge. Teams endeavored to translate that knowledge into actionable, on-field changes. Those changes, in many cases, won games. They also increased strikeouts to the point where balls in play can feel like rare sights.
MLB is experimenting with some rule changes in the minor leagues this season that could eventually find themselves in the big leagues. None is particularly radical, though, and not all that likely to steer the wayward game back on course by itself.
OK, smart guy, what's a big, bold idea then?
Limit the number of pitchers on an active major league roster.
Seems simple, right? Well, the consequences of it would be enormous -- and would fundamentally change the game in so many ways.
Let's start with a premise: There are too many strikeouts in modern baseball. Some argue this is not a bad thing. I believe baseball is a better game with action -- with balls in play and players running and fielders making plays. As much as I love watching a guy blow a 100 mph fastball by a hitter or buckle knees with a curveball, the proliferation of strikeouts has left the game imbalanced.
I can't say for sure that limiting pitchers would change that, but there's an awfully good argument to be made for it. Currently, teams carry 13 or 14 pitchers on their 26-man rosters. Under this rule, it would be 10 or 11.
Megasized pitching staffs exist because of how pitchers are trained today. They are taught to miss bats. That is their duty. If they do not generate swings and misses, they either need to be extreme ground-ball specialists or junkballers who induce poor contact. Otherwise, employment is far from guaranteed.
Today, here's how pitching works. An analyst studies a pitcher's data. The pitcher learns what the data says his best pitch is and he goes into a lab with data scientists to study its shape and spin. He gets tips, works on it and spends every waking hour hunting that extra mph, those excess RPMs. He then throws that pitch all the time because it will strike batters out.
With fewer pitchers, that assignment changes. The necessity with smaller staffs turns to generating outs. That is their duty. If they do not get outs, their bullpen gets taxed. If a small relief corps is wiped, the onus on the starting pitcher to grind through innings is even greater. The necessity for innings almost certainly would disincentivize the sort of behavior that leads pitchers to believe in -- and coaches to teach -- the max-effort, high-velocity, ultra-high-spin arsenal with which nearly every pitcher today believes he needs to arm himself.
The greater the emphasis on innings and outs, the greater the emphasis on strike-throwing at slightly lower velocities. The greater the emphasis on strike-throwing at slightly lower velocities, the likelier hitters are to swing at pitches and actually put them in play. The more balls in play, the better the game.
All of it trickles down. If MLB starts to reward pitchers who can throw 200-plus innings, the game's development arm will rescue itself from the one-inning, balls-to-the-wall velocity hunting that pervades amateur showcases and is ruinous to so many young pitchers. As anachronistic as it sounds to want to go back to the days of yore, when strikeouts just weren't such a thing, the idea of figuring out how to work through a lineup, to generate weak contact early in the count, to see a complete game as something that's realistic, is yearning for something fundamentally good and for more than a century fundamental to the game itself.
This would be a long-overdue recalibration -- something that would take at least five years of weaning, maybe even more, considering the ripples it would have in the amateur world and on the lives of the pitchers who in the past decade have been taught to worship at the Altar of the K.
Bring it back to 2021, old man. What's the story of this season?
There are so many good answers. The Dodgers trying to repeat and the Padres on their heels and Trout wanting to win a playoff game for the first time and a thousand more. But let me dabble in a bit of hypocrisy from the last question by throwing a curveball.
The story of 2021 is going to be baseball reintroducing America to giant venues packed with people.
Baseball's place in the COVID-19 world has been very interesting. It was the first American professional sport to prove it could run an entire season outside of a bubble. Where it fell in the COVID-19 calendar -- its 2020 season in between spikes in cases and deaths -- was rather fortuitous. And now comes it serving as a conduit to ... normalcy.
On Monday, the Texas Rangers will be playing their first game in front of fans at Globe Life Field, their glistening new(ish) stadium. All 40,300 seats at the stadium are for sale. While some tickets remain, the crowd will be far and away the most packed of any at any similarly sized event since the beginning of the pandemic.
Others have not been so bold, but that's coming. Capacities will increase, and at some point -- perhaps as early as May? -- stadiums will be fully opened for business, as opposed to the Rangers', which is at this point a one-day-only affair. It's inevitable. And no doubt baseball will find itself in the middle of criticism from those who believe the country is not yet ready to reopen while simultaneously being showered by huzzahs from those who see full stadiums as harbingers for a big summer ahead.
Ughhhhh, politics in sports. Can you please stop?
Nope! Because guess what? MLB currently finds itself ensnared in a whopper of a political controversy, and it's trying to figure out exactly how it plans to handle it.
When Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a bill putting new restrictions on voting, the almost immediate reaction from critics was: Whither Major League Baseball?
The 91st All-Star Game is scheduled to be played at Atlanta's Truist Park on July 13. Other leagues have moved jewel events in protest of other controversial legislation. Will the sport whose commissioner and general managers last year said "Black Lives Matter" take action here? Can MLB, a sport that has struggled in recent years with a declining number of Black players, stand to alienate those in the game now?
Complicating matters even more is a reality about baseball: It is a fundamentally conservative sport. Many of its players and owners skew that way politically.
So what happens? Where does this go? The league is conducting preliminary conversations now on how to handle the calls for the game to be moved to another city, sources said. This is not the sort of decision that can take an extended period of time, though. If baseball did move the game from Georgia, it would need to do so expediently to handle the logistical deluge such a decision would cause.
Speaking of MLB dabbling in controversy, how much will the new baseball and foreign-substance protocols really impact the game?
The baseball is a great unknown. In recent years, remember, the ball has flown almost as if it took a couple gulps of helium, and home runs spiked accordingly. In the manufacturing process for the 2021 ball, MLB tried to ever-so-slightly deaden it. It's impossible to know how it's going to play or what the unintended consequences could be. Whatever effect it has will be fascinating to see and compare to recent years.
The foreign-substance situation is quite the mystery, too. MLB last week announced plans to randomly test balls for foreign substances, and to use Statcast to look for anomalies in spin-rate data that may tip off which pitchers are using sticky stuff for a competitive advantage. Thing is, sources said, the league isn't planning on using any of the information to bust pitchers for cheating, unless they cheat so egregiously that not disciplining them would look like MLB doesn't care about how its players are cheating.
The ultimate goal, sources said, is to gather data and get a better sense of the prevalence of using foreign substances and the type of gunk used. Going back to earlier: A game without the monster spin rates that in some cases are achieved with the help of foreign substances is a game likelier to include more balls in play. If the new rule can scare some pitchers away from using substances anymore, that's just gravy.
How else is the game going to be different from last year?
The universal designated hitter and expanded playoffs are taking a gap year before their inevitable return in a new collective bargaining agreement. The DH should be here this year, but the league and union squabbled over trading one for another and eventually both of the kids were left out in the cold because Mom and Dad couldn't get along.
Making a return in 2021: seven-inning games in doubleheaders -- which, with the prevalence of vaccinated people in baseball, should occur less frequently than last season and may just be a product of bad weather -- and a runner starting on second base in extra innings, a rule that looks likely to stay.
Some have held out hope that, like on the eve of last season, the union and league would come together with a surprise announcement that the playoffs are expanding -- and couple that with the addition of the DH in the National League. Nope. Not happening. Stop holding your breath. You're turning blue and look ridiculous.
I'll stop if you answer me this. Everyone seems really excited about Shohei Ohtani. What does his final 2021 stat line look like?
That is a ridiculously good question because it asks for exact stats and I'm but a simple, impressionable human who has seen Ohtani destroying spring training pitching for the past month and also throwing 99 mph and is thus woefully biased. But it's a fun-as-hell exercise, so why not?
Ohtani the Batter: 130 games, .301/.365/.580 with 31 home runs, 104 RBIs, 91 runs scored and 14 stolen bases.
Ohtani the Pitcher: 20 games, 80 innings, 71 hits, 25 walks, 90 strikeouts, 3.75 ERA.
Total WAR: 5.5
This is admittedly optimistic. Especially the pitching part. I buy Ohtani's bat, not just because of his almost peerless spring training performance (.552/.576/1.069 with five home runs in 33 plate appearances) but also because the elite exit velocities he generates back it up.
As for pitching, a pure guess. He's dealing with a blister now. That shouldn't necessarily be of the utmost concern long-term. What is? His lack of innings. Since he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018, Ohtani has thrown only 1 2/3 innings.
Related to Ohtani's potential success and whom it could affect: Over/under of 1 on Mike Trout 2021 postseason at-bats, which side are you taking?
Not yet. Gotta wait for playoff picks.
You're truly the worst.
And?
Fine. What are some milestones we may see this year?
With 134 hits and 13 home runs Miguel Cabrera would be the first player ever to reach his 3,000th hit and 500th home run in the same season.
Jon Lester is seven wins from 200 and Aroldis Chapman 24 saves shy of 300. Justin Upton needs 150 strikeouts to join the illustrious 2,000-K club, and while Albert Pujols is unlikely to play 138 games, doing so would get him to 3,000.
The coolest threshold, and one very likely to be broken: Zack Greinke needs 61 innings to reach 3,000 for his career. That doesn't seem like much. There are already 136 pitchers there. But only two -- CC Sabathia and Mark Buehrle -- started their careers after the year 2000 and reached the mark. Longevity, especially among pitchers, is a testament. That Greinke continues to carve with his fastball that hovered at 87 mph last season is pretty amazing.
Enough about the old guys. Who are some young bucks I need to keep an eye on?
Here are 20, one for each question I'm answering.
Starting in the big leagues:
Andrew Vaughn, 1B/OF/DH, White Sox
Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B, Pirates
Randy Arozarena, OF, Rays
Sixto Sanchez, SP, Marlins
Ian Anderson, SP, Atlanta
Nick Madrigal, 2B, White Sox
Dylan Carlson, OF, Cardinals
Triston McKenzie, SP, Cleveland
Tarik Skubal, SP, Tigers
Jonathan India, IF, Reds
Cristian Pache, OF, Atlanta
Michael Kopech, RP, White Sox
Starting in the minor leagues:
Bobby Witt Jr., SS, Royals
Jarred Kelenic, OF, Mariners
Shane McClanahan, SP, Rays
Wander Franco, SS, Rays
Logan Gilbert, SP, Mariners
Adley Rutschman, C, Orioles
Alex Kirilloff, OF, Twins
Matt Manning, SP, Tigers
While we're on the subject of young guys, how good is this year's draft?
Quite. College baseball is having a little bit of a moment right now. Jack Leiter, son of former big league pitcher Al, is currently in the midst of a 16-inning hitless streak for Vanderbilt, which also has Kumar Rocker, a huge right-hander with a dynamic slider who will go alongside Leiter very high in the draft -- maybe even first and second, unless Pittsburgh or Texas prefers Dallas-area prep shortstop Jordan Lawlar, who is No. 1 on Kiley McDaniel's draft board.
Somehow, even with Leiter and Rocker, Vanderbilt isn't even No. 1 in the country. That honor belongs to Arkansas, which features, among others, Robert Moore, son of Kansas City GM Dayton Moore and potential high first-rounder in the 2022 draft.
For now, though, the Leiter and Rocker Show is a legitimate draw even for casual baseball fans whose appetite may not be satiated even by a full 162-game major league season.
With the draft scheduled for All-Star week for the first time, the next big event on the baseball calendar will be the July 31 trade deadline. Who's getting moved this year?
As always, that depends on who's good and who's bad. With four fewer playoff berths than last year's 14-team bonanza, the calculus changes on who will add and subtract in July. There are some obvious choices, too.
Texas could move Joey Gallo. Multiple teams continue to hit the Rangers this spring in hopes of prying him away. They were loath to trade him too early, and with Gallo looking like one of the best players in the Cactus League this spring, waiting feels wise.
If he stays healthy, he tends to perform, and when James Paxton performs, it's a beautiful thing. While Gallo would be a longer-term play, with team control that runs through 2022, Paxton is a dynamic rental option for Seattle to move because every team, even the best, needs more pitching.
Some players' fortunes depend on their team's success: say, Jorge Soler in Kansas City or the Los Angeles Angels' troika of free-agent-to-be starters, Dylan Bundy, Andrew Heaney and Jose Quintana.
Josh Hader's availability could depend on Milwaukee's success in the NL Central. Cincinnati's Luis Castillo and Colorado's German Marquez should be incredibly popular, but the cost on either will be understandably prohibitive.
As for the biggest names:
Kris Bryant, 3B, Cubs: Rumors of him moving have persisted for years. Should the Cubs drop out of contention, he's a genuine candidate to move.
Trevor Story, SS, Rockies: Well, yeah, of course they should get whatever they can for him. He's not signing long-term. Giving him a qualifying offer wouldn't fetch a ton of compensation. The market for elite shortstops at the deadline typically isn't particularly robust because most good teams have good shortstops. Of course, Story isn't just good. You could argue that there isn't a better all-around shortstop in baseball.
Carlos Correa, SS, Astros: He's a bit of Bryant and Story. If Houston struggles, it could move him. If he and Story are available at the same time, the market would be that much more saturated.
Max Scherzer, SP, Nationals: Look, this is a long shot. But he's a free agent-to-be. And the Nationals were prepared at one point to deal Bryce Harper to Houston at the 2018 deadline, so it's clear they have the fortitude to get rid of icons.
How good is the free-agent class this winter?
Very -- even with Lindor off the market. There still could be a four-headed shortstop monster, Seager, Story, Baez and Correa. Freeman will be available. Both halves of Bryzzo -- Bryant and Rizzo -- too. Michael Conforto should get paid handsomely.
Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander all should be on the market, if you're into a shorter-term, bigger-money deal. Noah Syndergaard should be back in plenty of time from Tommy John surgery. And that doesn't even address the guys with opt-outs, like Nolan Arenado -- who isn't expected to exercise his after moving from Colorado to St. Louis -- and Trevor Bauer.
Wait, so Bauer just signed with the Dodgers and can peace out after one year?
Pretty much. He's getting a $40 million salary this season coming off the NL Cy Young Award and is set to make $45 million next year, so long as there's a season to play. Would he leave that? Very unlikely.
So while George Springer tries to show the Blue Jays they spent $150 million wisely by leading them back to the playoffs and J.T. Realmuto stabilizes the Phillies in hopes they'll be different from last year even though their roster is sort of the same, Bauer is part of a mega-rotation with the Dodgers that includes Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Julio Urias and Dustin May and is so good that David Price and Tony Gonsolin -- the latter of whom, one scout said, looked this spring like a front-of-the rotation starter -- will start the season in the bullpen.
Tough for Bauer -- for anyone -- to turn down that combination of money and talent.
All this has been great, but can't you just give us your picks?
No.
I counted. That was the 20th question. This column is called 20 Questions. You have to answer now.
Damn. You're good. Fine. Here you go. You earned it.
AL MVP -- Mike Trout, OF, Angels
NL MVP -- Juan Soto, OF, Nationals
AL Cy Young -- Tyler Glasnow, SP, Rays
NL Cy Young -- Jacob deGrom, SP, Mets
AL Rookie of the Year -- Andrew Vaughn, 1B/OF/DH, White Sox
NL Rookie of the Year -- Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B, Pirates
AL East -- New York Yankees
AL Central -- Chicago White Sox
AL West -- Oakland A's
AL wild card -- Tampa Bay Rays
AL wild card -- Minnesota Twins
NL East -- Atlanta Braves
NL Central -- Milwaukee Brewers
NL West -- Los Angeles Dodgers
NL wild card -- San Diego Padres
NL wild card -- New York Mets
AL champion -- New York Yankees
NL champion -- Los Angeles Dodgers
World Series winner -- Los Angeles Dodgers
Three quick things.
Glasnow and deGrom have the best raw stuff of any pitchers in baseball. Can't go wrong going with stuff.
Sorry, Mike Trout. No playoff ABs this time, either.
Yeah. It's boring. It's chalky. I don't care. The Dodgers are the best team by a fairly reasonable margin, and the best team is the right pick for World Series champion.