Predicting the 2017 Season—American League

Though the baseball season is well underway, I still have preseason loose ends to tie up. Earlier this month, I issued my usual—and simultaneously unusual—National League predictions for the 2017 baseball season. For those new to the blog, these aren't your average team previews. Instead, I predict the final win-loss records in each division but also issue a few wildly specific predictions for each team. Then, at the end of the season, I'll look back and see how insightful—or hilariously off the mark—I was. Here's part two of this doomed exercise: the American League.

AL East

1. Boston Red Sox (102–60, 1st playoff seed)

• Pablo Sandoval will scream back to relevance with 25 home runs and a positive number of Defensive Runs Saved.
• Blake Swihart will rake in AAA as Sandy León sits below the Mendoza line. A change will be made by Memorial Day.
• All of Boston's unreliable starting pitchers from last year, including Drew Pomeranz and David Price (when he pitches), will right the ship. While Price is out, Eduardo Rodríguez will provide similar value.
• Boston's staff will lead baseball in complete games and shutouts.
• Carson Smith will return as the AL's best reliever in the second half.
• The Red Sox will defeat the Nationals in a five-game World Series. More Boston fans than Washington fans will attend the games in DC.

2. Toronto Blue Jays (87–75, 1st Wild Card)

• José Bautista will bounce back so convincingly that he will be as valuable as his 2016 self and Edwin Encarnación combined.
• The Jays will have a losing record in games started by Kendrys Morales.
• Marcus Stroman and J.A. Happ will swap 2016 ERAs.

3. Tampa Bay Rays (85–77, 2nd Wild Card)

• Chris Archer will again be one of the best pitchers in baseball, and Blake Snell will join him in a monster breakout year. The Rays will have the league's best rotation.
• Jake Odorizzi will pitch a shutout over the Blue Jays in the Wild Card game, but then Tampa Bay will be swept by Boston in the ALDS.
• Steven Souza will finally have the 20/20 breakout season everyone expected, Colby Rasmus and Matt Duffy will both match their career-high WARs, but the Rays will still have the division's worst offense.

4. New York Yankees (83–79)

• Greg Bird and Aaron Judge be the mini modern Mantle and Maris, going back and forth all season as the Yankees team leader.
• Luis Severino and Michael Pineda will both lower their ERAs below 4.00.
• Clint Frazier will be traded away at midseason for rotation help after not conforming to the "Yankees way."

5. Baltimore Orioles (80–82)

• With a .330 average, 40 home runs, 120 RBI, and a Gold Glove to satisfy traditionalists and 8.5 WAR and 30 DRS for the stat nerds, it will finally be Manny Machado's turn for an MVP award.
• Every Oriole starting pitcher except Wade Miley will give up more runs in 2017 than in 2016—yes, even Ubaldo Jiménez.

AL Central

1. Cleveland Indians (93–69, 2nd playoff seed)

• After the injury bug bit nearly their whole rotation last fall, the 2017 Indians will become the rare team to use only five starting pitchers the entire year. It will be a big factor in getting them to the ALCS.
• On the strength of his creative bullpen use, Terry Francona will win a second straight Manager of the Year award.
• Michael Brantley will get injured again and finish the year with fewer than 200 plate appearances.

2. Kansas City Royals (82–80)

• Jorge Soler will lead Kansas City position players in WAR.
• Eric Hosmer will have the 20th-best season for a first baseman in the American League—and will get the first-largest contract for one this offseason.
• Another injury-plagued season for Lorenzo Cain will end up being a blessing in disguise for the Royals, who will afford to keep him this winter after all.
• With a 2.50 ERA and 240 strikeouts, Danny Duffy will win his first Cy Young Award.

3. Detroit Tigers (76–86)

• Jordan Zimmermann will rue signing with Detroit as he becomes a pure contact pitcher (setting a career low in strikeout percentage), but the Tigers' league-worst defense fails to convert them into outs.
• After the Tigers' 10th blown save of the year—in May—Brad Ausmus will finally be shown the door.
• With the team hovering around .500 at the trade deadline, ownership will finally give the OK to blow it all up and rebuild.

4. Chicago White Sox (73–89)

• Tim Anderson will respond to his recent contract extension by virtually evaporating as an offensive force. He will show next to no power, will walk fewer than 10 times, and will split the season between pinch-running duties and AAA.
• Carlos Rodon will shave a run off his ERA and step neatly into the role of White Sox ace after José Quintana is traded.
• Lucas Giolito will put it together at AAA and make a tantalizing White Sox debut: giving up two runs and striking out 14 over seven innings (in other words, he will finally be the Stephen Strasburg clone Nats fans always wanted him to be).

5. Minnesota Twins (68–94)

• This will be the year that José Berríos and Byron Buxton right the ship. With them leading their respective sides of the ball, the Twins will begin to look like a franchise with a direction again.
• Brian Dozier will be a completely different hitter, hitting just .210 with 10 home runs and nearly 200 strikeouts.
• Miguel Sanó will slug 40 homers but have a WAR of 1.0 thanks to atrocious defense.

AL West

1. Houston Astros (89–73, 3rd playoff seed)

• For his next trick, José Altuve will captivate America this summer with a hitting streak that hits 50 games.
• Alex Bregman won't be terrible, exactly, but he'll put up a decidedly meh first full season in the bigs.
• Carlos Beltrán will continue sipping from the fountain of youth. His full-time DH-hood will enable him to hit 30 homers.
• For the third straight year, Lance McCullers will put up an ERA of 3.22—but he'll do it over 200 innings and lead the AL in strikeouts.
• Chris Devenski will step into the starting rotation and post a 1.50 second-half ERA.

2. Seattle Mariners (83–79)

• Félix Hernández will post a career-low strikeout rate and flirt with his career-low ERA of 4.52 from 2006. 
• Drew Smyly will make up for it, though, pitching to a 3.20 ERA thanks to an uber-low BABIP driven by the M's' great outfield defense (40+ DRS).
• James Paxton will finally pitch to his 2.80 FIP.
• Jean Segura will be be huge bust. Without the aid of an inflated BABIP and Chase Field, he will return to the .270-ish wOBA that has characterized three of his five MLB seasons. Mitch Haniger will turn out to be the more valuable addition from that trade, even in the short term.
• Prospects Tyler O'Neill and Dan Vogelbach will be on-base machines from the time they are promoted to the majors. Only with them playing significant roles will the Mariners be a complete enough team to break their playoff drought, now at 16 years. 

3. Texas Rangers (77–85)

• A team that benefited from incredible luck last year will be one of the unluckiest this year. They will have a losing record in one-run games, and they will lead the AL in days spent on the DL.
• Jurickson Profar will win the batting title.
• Carlos Gómez will revert back to his Astros form, and he will begin losing playing time to a resurgent Delino DeShields Jr., who will sport a .350 OBP and 30 stolen bases.
• Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross will both be lucky to post ERAs under 5.00 in Arlington.

4. Los Angeles Angels (75–87)

• Garrett Richards will win AL Comeback Player of the Year.
• Cam Bedrosian will not relinquish the closer's role to Huston Street when the latter returns from the DL.
• Mike Trout will post a down year: just 8.0 WAR.

5. Oakland Athletics (73–89)

• Revenge of Billy Beane! All of the A's' major free-agent signings—Matt Joyce, Rajai Davis, Santiago Casilla, and Trevor Plouffe—will be worth at least 1.5 WAR.
• Sonny Gray will continue to be a 75 ERA+ pitcher. His days of consistently getting outs are over.
• Jharel Cotton may not actually win Rookie of the Year—Andrew Benintendi will benefit from East Coast bias—but he will deserve to, with 160 innings of a 3.40 ERA.
• Sean Manaea will be the first of the 2017 season to throw a no-hitter, and he'll go to the All-Star Game to boot.

Predicting the 2017 Season—National League

They may be a week late, but it will take more than an ill-timed cross-country roadtrip to keep me from cogitating on the upcoming current baseball season. I don't do season previews in the usual sense—no doubt you've already read a zillion of those from analysts more plugged in than I. Instead, I predict the final win-loss records in each division but also issue a few wildly specific predictions for each team. Then, at the end of the season, I'll look back and see how insightful—or hilariously off the mark—I was. First up: the Senior Circuit.

NL East

1. Washington Nationals (97–65, 2nd playoff seed)

• Bryce Harper will post another monster season even better than his 2015. He will surpass Mike Trout with over 10.0 WAR. He'll again be the runaway MVP.
• Over half of the Nats' lineup will be worth more than 4.0 WAR: Harper, Adam Eaton, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and Daniel Murphy. Jayson Werth, improbably, won't be far behind, with one last gasp as an offensive catalyst.
• For the third straight season, Mike Rizzo will swing a deal for a closer at the trade deadline—and this time it will be for no less than Drew Storen. Disaster will, predictably, ensue.
• Washington will advance beyond the NLDS for the first time and defeat the Cubs in a thrilling seven-game NLCS. Unfortunately, they'll run into a buzzsaw in the American League champion.

2. New York Mets (91–71, 1st Wild Card) 

• Jacob deGrom will be fully healthy and join Noah Syndergaard as a top Cy Young contender, as both exceed 200 innings (and 200 strikeouts).
• Steven Matz will also break out with an ERA below 3.00. Matt Harvey will be respectable again, but that will only make him the team's fourth-best starter.
• With Lucas Duda suffering through lingering back problems, Jay Bruce will play a lot of first base. He will finally win over Mets fans by giving them a .750 OPS there, as well as enabling a strong season by Michael Conforto with the move.
• Amed Rosario and Asdrúbal Cabrera will end the season on the left side of the Mets' infield, with José Reyes banished from Flushing for good.

3. Miami Marlins (77–85) 

• World Baseball Classic number-eight hitter Giancarlo Stanton will be the first Marlin ever to top 50 home runs, leading the National League.
• While Wei-Yin Chen will return to a 120 ERA+, Edinson Vólquez will again have negative value.
• Led by Kyle Barraclough's 5.0 K/BB ratio, the Marlins will trail only the Dodgers for the NL's stingiest bullpen.
• By the end of the season, Jeb Bush will be the proud new owner of the Marlins.

4. Atlanta Braves (71–91) 

• Jaime García will finally pitch a full season and do it well, setting himself up to be one of next winter's better free agents.
• Jim Johnson will fall apart for the second time in his career, as his fastball velocity dips to below 90 miles per hour. Opponents will hit .350 off him before his midseason release.
• The safest prediction on this page: Dansby Swanson will be your 2017 NL Rookie of the Year.
• Traffic woes and shoddy construction will get SunTrust Park off to a rough start. Attendance will be well below estimates; the park will draw fewer fans than Turner Field did last season.

5. Philadelphia Phillies (64–98) 

• Vince Velasquez will prove he belongs in the starting rotation, pairing his well-known 25% strikeout rate with 18 quality starts.
• Velasquez, Jeremy Hellickson, Aaron Nola, and Jerad Eickhoff will at times this spring resemble a poor man's Phearsome Phour, but how many of them will be around at the end of the season? The guess here is not Nola (Tommy John surgery) or Hellickson (traded).
• Clay Buchholz will lead the league in home runs allowed (32).
• The no-name offense will be the lowest-scoring in baseball.

NL Central

1. Chicago Cubs (100–62, 1st playoff seed) 

• Wade Davis will struggle with his control in his recovery from injury. By the end of the season, Koji Uehara will have more saves.
• The rotation will be the closest thing to a weakness on the North Side. Kyle Hendricks will regress to league average, and the fifth starter's job will remain unsettled for most of the year.
• Jason Heyward has a big bounceback in him. He'll hit .290/.350/.450, paired with his usual 20 Defensive Runs Saved, for a 5.0 WAR season.
• Ben Zobrist, on the other hand, will run into a brick wall. His modest value with the bat will be offset by the worst defensive season of his career.

2. Saint Louis Cardinals (89–73, 2nd Wild Card) 

• Yadier Molina's pedestrian .250/.300/.380 slash line will inaugurate the decline phase of his career.
• Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha will both rebound to above-average ERAs (say, 3.70), and Lance Lynn will pick up where he left off before surgery, but Carlos Martínez has permanently supplanted them as the Cardinals ace.
• A bone-headed strategic move by Mike Matheny will be the reason for the Cardinals' extra-innings loss to the Mets in the Wild Card Game.

3. Pittsburgh Pirates (81–81) 

• The most important question for the 2017 Pirates will be answered early, when Andrew McCutchen wins Player of the Month for April. He'll finish with a classic McCutchen season: .300/.400/.500.
• Jameson Taillon will zoom past Gerrit Cole as Pittsburgh's best pitcher, and his 2.50 ERA will put him squarely in the Cy Young conversation.
• The Pirates will have the NL's best outfield—but its worst infield.
• Jung Ho Kang's personal and legal problems will prevent him from returning to the Pirates, and the once-revelatory third baseman will wash out of Major League Baseball.

4. Milwaukee Brewers (72–90) 

• Yeah, Keon Broxton and Domingo Santana may strike out a combined 300 times, but who cares? They will both be fantasy studs, especially in OBP leagues. Look for 20 homers and 30 steals from Broxton, and a mirror-image 30/20 season from Santana. Both will get on base at .350 clips despite .250 batting averages.
• As quickly as Jonathan Villar's stock rose, it will come crashing down. He'll hit just .240, and his runs scored and stolen bases will both be slashed in half.
• Junior Guerra may not be the second coming of Zack Greinke, but he'll continue to give the Brewers a chance to win every time out. He'll be the Jordan Zimmermann of Milwaukee's rebuilding effort: not the best pitcher on their next winning team, but still good enough to contribute to it.

5. Cincinnati Reds (61–101) 

• Anthony DeSclafani will endure another frustrating season of injuries. His recovery from a sprained UCL will last nearly all season, until he debuts in late September—and throws a no-hitter in his one and only start.
• This will finally be the year that gets Bryan Price fired. Then again, if 2015 and 2016 didn't do it...

NL West

1. Los Angeles Dodgers (92–70, 3rd playoff seed) 

• Every Dodgers starting pitcher will miss at least eight starts. Even last year's reliable Kenta Maeda will be plagued by some of the "irregularities" found in his physical when he first signed out of Japan.
• Every year, Clayton Kershaw has found a way to top his seemingly untoppable season from the year before. How will he do it this year? By tossing a 21-strikeout perfect game—by every measure, the best pitching performance in baseball history.
• A 2.79 ERA. 6.3 hits per nine innings. A 9.7/4.8 K/BB ratio. Kershaw's first full season, or Julio Urías's?
• Yasiel Puig will match his 137 wRC+ from September of last year, after a demotion to the minor leagues.
• LA's uncertain left-field situation will be solved when Cody Bellinger forces himself into the lineup in mid-siummer.

2. San Francisco Giants (84–78) 

• Despite the addition of Mark Melancon, the bullpen will still be a weakness for the Giants. Ironically, their fans will look on longingly as the likes of Santiago Casilla and Sergio Romo dominate elsewhere in California while the San Francisco relief corps comes in below average.
• Handing starting jobs to Eduardo Núñez and Jarrett Parker will prove to be a fatal move for a team in need of offensive help. As age saps talent all around the diamond, San Francisco will post its worst offensive season since the 2011 squad's 91 OPS+.
• On the bright side, one Giant will finally get his due: Madison Bumgarner will take home the Cy Young trophy.

3. Colorado Rockies (83–79) 

• Once he recovers from his broken hand, Ian Desmond will be a beast in Coors Field—though he'd be much more valuable anywhere else on the diamond.
• David Dahl will surpass outfield-mates Carlos González and Charlie Blackmon in WAR.
• The rotation of Jon Gray, Tyler Chatwood, Tyler Anderson, and—eventually and especially—Jeff Hoffman will be the best in Rockies history.
• Bud Black will, justly or not, be credited with both the Rockies' friskiness and their pitchers' improvement. He'll win Manager of the Year.
• Greg Holland won't notch a single save this season.

4. Arizona Diamondbacks (74–88) 

• The D'Backs will be better almost automatically, as Greinke, Shelby Miller, and A.J. Pollock all revert to the mean.
• Robbie Ray will take a huge step forward, shaving more than a run off his ERA and leading the league in strikeouts.

5. San Diego Padres (68–94) 

• Even with the help of Petco Park, the Padres will have the worst rotation in baseball. 
• In just 30 innings pitched, Carter Capps will have the highest WAR of any Padre pitcher.
• The Padres will run out 61 different players in 2017, breaking the MLB record for most men deployed in a season.
• Travis Jankowski will pull a Kevin Kiermaier, amassing eye-popping value on the strength of defense alone. Oh, and he'll lead Major League Baseball in stolen bases.