Every year Baseball Musings posts predictions for each division before the season starts. The AL West produced the World Series champion, and the review of those predictions starts there. For you convenience, the final standings are here.
Baseball Musings picked the Mariners as the division winner. The prediction was for a good offense and upside from the pitching staff:
The biggest upside should come from Felix Hernandez. The King saw his strikeouts drop and his walks rise as he battled injury, and the wall pitchers seem to hit when they turn 30. If it’s a one-year anomaly, the Mariners core should be enough to bring them a division championship.
It turned out not to be a one-year anomaly.
The post had the Astros on the Mariners tail:
The Astros will contend this season, but I just love this team long term. They own a 17.4 WAR up the middle, the best in the division, and their three of those four players are in their prime or much younger. The Astros can keep moving in pieces around Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, and George Springer until they find a winning combination.
The Rangers prediction was probably the best of the bunch:
The Rangers finished 2016 with the most wins in the American League, going 95 and 67. That was 13 wins over their Pythagorean projection, which is why their core win total comes in so low. Stripping out the luck, the team does not look that good.
The worst part of the prediction:
This looks to be the most competitive division in the majors this season, with three teams very capable of winning the west. If the Rangers luck holds out, they may compete as well.
The Astros blew away the division. The other four teams were only separated by five games at the end of the season, so in that regard the division was competitive, just at a much lower level. The Angels, Mariners, and Rangers were all in the wild card hunt. All the upside potential in the division fell on the Astros, and they left the others in the dust early.
I consider this an okay prediction.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2AdWwBb
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