The questions and discussion…
1) The Arizona Diamondbacks had an 88-loss season in the 2022 season and few people expected them to make the playoffs in the 2023 season, Yet the D’backs managed to squeeze into the 12-team postseason with an 84-78 record and rode that momentum all the way to the World Series.
Which team is your long shot pick to make the playoffs in the 2024 season? Why?
Based off of last season’s results, and the predictions for this season, while this isn’t the long-shot that the Arizona Diamondbacks were heading into the 2023 season, and even mid-way through the season, I think they’re still a long-shot for the way the season looked last year, and a lot of opinions around the league of them this off-season. I think the Cardinals are going to make the playoffs as a Wild Card team.
They have a competitive division, but there’s no pull-away type team. The Brewers regressed. The Cubs look relatively the same. The Reds are hoping they can expand off of last season’s first-half success for an entire season with their young group of players. The Pirates have a lot of potential, but probably won’t be much competition like usual. But the Cardinals are known for winning. They’re known for getting hot at the end of the season to make their push. They know how to win as an organization and are always among the top of the division and in the playoff conversation. The Cardinals improved their rotation. They grabbed Lance Lynn, Sonny Gray and Kyle Gibson for their rotation. They just grabbed Crawford right as spring training was starting. They have young players.
They’re in.
Last season the Cincinnati Reds went 82-80 which was an improvement of 20 wins over their 2022 season. This season that progress continues. Their young lineup that includes Elly De La Cruz (22 years old), Matt McLain (24), Christian Encarnacion-Strand (24) and Noelvi Marte (22) each debuted last season, along with pitcher Andrew Abbott (24) and every one of them contributed to the Reds winning record. Now with a year in the big leagues under their belt I predict they continue getting better.
If their starters can stay healthy they should do fairly well in that department also.
Plus they made some under-the-radar moves on the free-agent market this offseason, signing Jeimer Candelario (not impressed with this; one see my answer to question 4 below), Frankie Montas, Nick Martinez, Emilio Pagán and Brent Suter.
Overall I think they become the Miami Marlins of the 2024 season and sneak in as the last Wild Card in the NL.
2) In your opinion which team (or teams) that made the playoffs in 2023 won’t be a playoff team in 2024? Why?
The Brewers won’t be back to the playoffs this season. They traded away their ace to the Orioles because they won’t be able to afford him, and they would rather get something than nothing for the return of losing him. They don’t have Woodruff for the entire season, so Freddy Peralta will be their ace coming into the season. Which, while not speaking poorly about Peralta, isn’t going to be enough to push their pitching over the top. They’re going to have to pull a lot of offensive firepower out, which they suffered with last season. They did add Hoskins as a power-hitting first baseman, but they just don’t have enough outside of that. They need a big rebound from Adames, and he might get traded along with Devin Williams at the trade deadline as they’ve been rumored to have been involved in those discussions this off-season. The Brewers just didn’t do enough, including losing manager Craig Counsell to a division rival .With a new manager, a new ace, and not a whole lot of offensive help to off-set losing Burnes and making changes, I don’t think the Brewers are going to be good enough this season to reach the post-season, which really hurts my heart to say that.
The Miami Marlins.
In the 2023 season the Marlins had a minus-57 run differential which was the worst ever for a playoff team. According to their runs scored and allowed total, the stats say the team should have finished somewhere in the neighborhood of being a sub .500 team by almost ten games. Instead, they were able to go an exceptional 33-14 in one-run games, which is one of the best ever records in those types of games.
Frankly, they ain’t going to do that again and therefore will miss the playoffs in 2024.
3) Which free agent signing will be the biggest success this season? Why?
The biggest successful free agent signing from this off-season is going to be Shohei Ohtani. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to see him pitch this season as he recovers from arm surgery over the past off-season, but we will see him hit. And while he dominated at the plate as an Angel, he really didn’t have a lot of other scary hitters around him outside of Mike Trout, who was injured, again, more than he was healthy. Placing him in the middle of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup is going to be huge. He’s going to constantly have pitches to hit because walking him isn’t going to be a good option when you have Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, Max Muncy and others surrounding him which is just a monster offense. The other supporting cast he has around him is going to provide him a lot of opportunities to hit home runs, drive in a lot of runs and score a lot of runs. He’s going to bring that offense a ton of success, and he’ll be completely worth that $700 million contract, even without getting to pitch for 2024.
Shohei Ohtani.
Hitting in the powerful LA Dodger batting order and having the protection he never really had with the other LA team Ohtani will explode statistically this year and outperform every other player in the NL bar none.
He wins the NL MVP easily in my opinion.
4) Which free agent signing will be the biggest bust this season? Why?
The biggest bust free agent is going to be just a couple hours north, but in the same state. Jordan Hicks is going to be the biggest bust free agent signing.
While I think Hicks isn’t a bad player, the Giants paid a lot of money to a pitcher who was a reliever that they’re going to attempt to become a starting pitcher. And I don’t think they’re going to have a lot of success with that, and they should leave him in the bullpen. If they get him as a starter for the season, I think they’re going to see poor results from that. It’s a completely different mindset, style, preparation, etc. when you make that switch. And they’re going to eat their money for this signing.
Jeimer Candelario and the Cincinnati Reds reached agreement on a three-year, $45 million deal and Cincy is going to be sorry it did.
In 2023, Candelario batted .251 with an .807 OPS… the highest of his career for a full season. He also set career bests with 22 homers and 70 RBIs over 140 games for Washington and Chicago, while his 39 doubles were tied for sixth-most in MLB.
However Candelario runs either very to or very cold. For instance he hit .150 over his final 31 games of 2023. And early in the season before he got hot to pad his stats he had a .143 batting average. And this comes after he spent just about the entire 2022 season trying to snap out of a cold spell. He has never been an All-Star, but he’s going to get paid like a top-15, maybe even top-10 third baseman, and for that the Reds are going to rue the day they signed him to his deal because I don’t think he comes anywhere near to replicating his 2023 numbers.
5) Who are your pre-season MVP picks in the AL and the NL? Why?
Juan Soto and Ronald Acuna Jr are both going to be MVPs this season.
Acuna Jr is coming off an insane season in which we’ve never seen before. And I think that he’s going to find the same success this season in a powerful offense and be able to win back-to-back. He’s fast, he can hit for contact, and hit for power, and just be the most vital part of an offense every game.
As for Juan Soto, I think getting Aaron Judge to hit behind him is going to be incredible for his success. He’s a patient hitter, known for drawing walks. While he might not get walked as much, I think they’re going to actually pitch him better than what he’s seen in recent years with Judge behind him. Nobody wants to keep putting players on base, so with Soto seeing quality pitches, and moving to a more hitter friendly ballpark, with the short porch in right field, and his history of career batting success at Yankee Stadium, I think he’s going to have a great season, turn their offense around in a bigger way than one person should, and end up taking home the America League MVP Award.
In the AL, I think it’s going to be a neck and neck battle all of the way to the end of the season between two teammates… the Yankees newly acquired Juan Soto and their captain Aaron Judge.
Soto played in 162 games last season hit .275, with an OBP of .410 (2nd in NL/3rd in MLB), a slugging average of .519 (8th in NL/11th in MLB), an OPS of .930 (5th in NL/9th in MLB) with 35 HRs (10th in NL/14th in MLB) and 109 RBI 3rd in NL/4th in MLB). Not too shabby. And, oh yeah, he led all of MLB with 132 walks.
Now in the Yankees lineup, hitting most likely second in the order ahead of Aaron Judge, I’m expecting most of those numbers to go up and in Yankee Stadium with the short right field porch I think the left-handed Soto hits between 45 and 50 HRs.
Now, even if Soto was not in the lineup Judge will have a rebound season from last year’s injury shortened year when he was still an early contender for the AL MVP before suffering his toe injury in Dodger Stadium that limited him to just 106 games. He also had a hip strain earlier in the season that caused him to miss 10 games. But prior to the toe injury, he got in 49 games, and he was slashing .291/.404/.674 with an AL best 1.078 OPS, and an AL leading 19 homers and 40 RBI. In fact prior to that injury in Dodger Stadium when he came off the IL from the hip problem he was red hot batting .326 with 13 of his then AL-best 19 homers. Overall in just those 106 games he still placed 4th in HRs (37), OBP (.406) and Slugging (.613) in the AL while his OPS (1.019) was 2nd in MLB.
With Soto hitting in front of him and assuming he stays healthy all season I think he threatens to slug over 60 HRs once again as well close in on 150 RBIs. I’ll lean to Judge edging out Soto for the AL MVP.
In NL I’m going with what will be the player most folks will go with in Shohei Ohtani. Batting somewhere in the Dodger order between Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman I see Ohtani hitting at least 50 HRs and most likely leading the NL by a fair margin like he usually did in the AL in most other offensive stats. I think he easily wins the NL MVP over all the other contenders.
Extra Innings…
