Prediction Review, 2018 AL East

Just before the season began, I wrote a preview for each division. I believe it’s good to review one’s predictions to remind yourself how difficult it is to see the future. Here is the prediction for the AL East.

On the Yankees:

When the core number is that big, there usually is downside. Player regress from good years, and some of the older ones, like Brett Gardner, CC Sabathia, and Neil Walker might fall off. The Yankees, however, are not counting on them to carry the team. There is still plenty of upside in Greg Bird, Aaron Judge, and Gary Sanchez. Giancarlo Stanton gives them another great slugger in his prime. Didi Gregorious is still in his prime. On top of that, they Yankees have untapped potential at the minor league level that might be better than some of their penciled in starters.

Walker and Gardner did fall-off, while Gelyber Torres and Miguel Andujar proved nice additions from the minors. Greg Bird and Gary Sanchez were disappointments.

On the Red Sox:

The wild card here is J.D. Martinez. He is coming off a career year at age 29, a career year that was not a full season. Martinez, in fact only played 150 games once in his career. That was the only year he broke 130 games. If he can keep up his 2017 pace for 150 games, the Red Sox offense will be great. If Porcello and Price bounce back, the rotation will be great. The Red Sox will need all three to win the division.

Price stayed healthy and Procello improved his ERA a bit, but Martinez provided a lot of offense that gave the pitching staff plenty of support.

I underestimated the Rays, but I didn’t think they were tanking:

All that said, I think the ceiling for the Rays is around 80 wins. If you ceiling is 80 wins, however, the front office needs to do a better job of tanking.

I way overestimated the Orioles:

The Orioles are my bet for playing much better than their core projection. Chris Davis and Chris Tillman turned in awful seasons in 2017. If they are just not awful, the team is much better.

They were both worse than awful.

For the Blue Jays, I identified Aaron Sanchez as a key:

The biggest upside for the Jays comes on the arm of Aaron Sanchez. His outstanding 2016 season was followed by blister problems in 2017. If Sanchez returns to a 3+ WAR level, the Jays rotation will be even with the Yankees and Red Sox. That would put them at a level where a playoff appearance is possible if everything else goes right.

His WAR came in under 1.0, and the Jays were also rans.

I do like the summary:

For the first time in many years, the AL East shows little balance. The Yankees and the Red Sox are the clear favorites, while the other teams need everything to go right to catch the two power houses. This used to be normal in this division; I prefer the balance.

I had the division split right but the order wrong. I’d say this was a grade B prediction.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2E60l1l