The Major League Baseball season is nearly upon us, so it is time to guess who’s going to win what in 2018. In the 2016 version of this post, I correctly predicted that the Cubs would beat the Indians in the World Series and got to rub it in everyone’s faces when it happened. Last year, I got five of six division winners and seven of 10 postseason teams, but paid the price when the postseason came around and I stubbornly stuck with my original World Series pick — Red Sox over Dodgers — instead of reorienting on a clearly superior Houston Astros team.
Much of this will certainly be wrong, and I will wear that when the time comes. Unlike previous seasons, these picks are a bit different than some I published elsewhere earlier in the offseason. This winter’s weirdly slow free agent market and some late spring-training developments changed my mind in a couple of places.
These are not the consensus predictions of USA TODAY Sports, just one man’s best guesses. And I fear there aren’t many surprises contained herein, but I’m not about to attach my name to bad guesses on account of sensationalism, and MLB’s current feast-or-famine state made a lot of these feel easier than in most seasons.
AL East champion: New York Yankees
Giancarlo Stanton (left) and Aaron Judge, who hit many homers. (Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports)
Brian Cashman’s masterful work in swiftly rebuilding the Death Star while keeping it functional during repairs will have the Yankees empire back atop the AL East in 2018. Even if gargantuan baseball-mashers Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge both regress a bit after astonishing seasons in 2017, the Yankees are going to score a ton of runs. They’ve got at least a little bit of uncertainty in the starting rotation, but the organizational depth to patch holes that may arise with aces at the trade deadline.
AL Central champion: Cleveland Indians
(David Richard/USA TODAY Sports)
Rinse, repeat: The clear class of a division with three clubs still in the throes of rebuilds, the Indians should have a fairly clear path to their third straight division title. The Twins have the best shot of giving them a race, but Minnesota can’t come close to matching Cleveland’s depth in pitching. The Indians have the top four guys in their rotation locked up through at least the 2020 season, and most of the organization’s best prospects are nearly ready for the Majors. This is very much their window to contend, and they’re capitalizing on it — with assists from the Royals, Tigers and White Sox.
AL West champions: Houston Astros
Houston Astros pitchers Justin Verlander, left, Gerrit Cole, center, and Dallas Keuchel. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) ORG XMIT: FLVR
On paper, the reigning champions remain the best team in baseball by a fairly wide margin. They returned almost the entirety of a historically good offense, and they’ll benefit from a full season of Justin Verlander and the addition of Gerrit Cole in the rotation. This will sound like a knock on the rest of the division, but it’s more of a testament to Houston’s incredible depth: Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa could both decide to sit the entire 2018 season out, and I’d probably still pick the Astros to win the AL West. It’d take an existential rash of injuries and disappointing performances to derail them.
AL wild cards: Red Sox, Angels
Zack Cozart, left, and Mike Trout. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) ORG XMIT: ANS104
The Sox seem an obvious pick after adding J.D. Martinez to a club that won its division in 2017 despite down years from many of its best players. Taking the wild card in the AL East will probably be tough haul, since none of the teams seems in full-blown tank mode, but it says here the likes of Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. bounce back at the plate and David Price does so on the mound. The Angels probably saw most of their bandwagon empty out during Shohei Ohtani’s spring-training struggles, but their other offseason additions — re-signing Justin Upton and acquiring free-agent Zack Cozart among them — much improved the cast of characters around the best player in the game.
NL East champion: Washington Nationals
Bryce Harper (Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports)
Of the division winners listed here, the Nationals seem the most likely to fall flat after a weirdly sleepy offseason. But the bottom line is that they’ve got Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon set for their lineup with Daniel Murphy due to return at some point, and they’ve got Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer fronting their pitching staff. A couple of key injuries could derail them, and both the Phillies and Mets seem like they might be a lot better than many expect. But the Nats still have the strongest odds in the East.
NL Central champion: Chicago Cubs
Known Cubs fan Bill Murray, who always deserves a randomly placed photo inside a baseball post. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
The Cardinals underperformed last season and look solid all over, and the Brewers’ offseason additions of Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain make their lineup appear real strong. But the Cubs still have the offensive core that won them the World Series in 2016, with tons of defensive flexibility — and excellence — backing a pitching staff that will replace Jake Arrieta with Yu Darvish. On any given night, they’ll have 2-3 guys on their bench that would be starting for just about every team besides the Astros.
NL West champion: Los Angeles Dodgers
(Robert Hanashiro/USA TODAY Sports)
Both the Diamondbacks and Rockies emerged as contenders in 2017 and the Giants’ flurry of offseason activities made them a popular pick to unseat the Dodgers in 2018 until news broke that Madison Bumgarner will start the season on the disabled list. Los Angeles doesn’t have the absurd rotation depth it did last year, but Dave Roberts has shown himself well-suited to maximizing the pitchers on his roster, and the platoon-laden offense looks deep and dope even in the absence of injured third baseman Justin Turner. This may be their last year with Clayton Kershaw under contract, and they should have the financial and organizational flexibility to add any pieces they may need in July.
NL wild cards: Diamondbacks, Mets
The Diamondbacks enjoy tacos. (USA TODAY Sports)
No one’s sleeping on the Diamondbacks this year, and losing J.D. Martinez to free agency won’t help their offense. But Arizona quietly had one of the best starting rotations in the game in 2017 and returns the whole unit intact for this season. Every starter but Zack Greinke is still in his 20s, and Greinke — after a trademark shaky start to the preseason — appears to have rounded into form in late March. The Mets were my biggest whiff last season when I picked them to win their division and they wound up with 70 wins, but a smartly endeavored offseason and a largely healthy pitching staff have them primed to climb back in the race in 2018. Before spring training started, I might’ve picked the Rockies and Cardinals, but the Mets’ starters stayed healthy and a Diamondbacks’ starter served me tacos, so here we are.
AL MVP: Mike Trout
Mike Trout (Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports)
The AL MVP pick should always be Mike Trout. Mike Trout is the most valuable player in baseball. There are a lot of great superstars in their primes in the American League right now, and Trout’s selection here is no mark against the likes of Francisco Lindor, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. It’s just that only one guy gets to be Mike Trout, and all evidence suggests Trout is somehow getting better at the plate. My guess is he hits 50 homers this year and possibly becomes the first player ever to also steal 30 bases while doing so.
AL Cy Young: Chris Sale
Chris Sale (Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports)
I’ve picked Chris Sale to win the American League Cy Young Award every year I’ve done this, and I’m not going to stop until he takes one. He finished in second last year to the very deserving Corey Kluber, who should give him a run again in 2018. But at some point Sale’s going to win a Cy Young Award. He and Kluber are probably the safest bets in baseball to throw 200-plus ace-like innings in 2018.
AL Rookie of the Year: Shane Bieber
Recording artist Justin Bieber (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)
OK, so here’s the one pick on this list that’s way, way, way off the map. Right-hander Shane Bieber will not open the year in the Indians’ rotation and probably won’t be their first or second or third option to fill in when a need arises. Heck, he’s not considered a Top 100 prospect in baseball by any major outlet, he did not appear in a Cactus League game, and we literally have no photos of him in an Indians’ or and Indians affiliate’s uniform in our archive. But all Bieber did as a 22-year-old in his first full season of professional ball last year was throw 173 2/3 innings across three levels with a 2.86 ERA and a totally outrageous 16.2 strikeout-to-walk ratio. This is an extreme longshot, but I am — and I apologize — a Belieber. The fact he threw so many frames last season means he won’t likely face many restrictions in 2018, and the guess here is that he pitches his way into the Indians’ rotation by early in the summer and infects all of Cleveland with Bieber Fever. His sleeper status and his pop-star namesake make it extremely difficult to find recent updates on this Biebs, and for all I know even people inside the Indians’ organization would chuckle at this notion. But the dude literally allowed only eight unintentional walks in his first full professional season. That’s so nuts. Maybe I just wanted to make some Bieber jokes and reap whatever pageviews come with including the other Bieber’s photo here, or maybe you’ve gotta belieb.
AL Manager of the Year: Alex Cora
Alex Cora (Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports)
I’m cynical about the manager of the year awards, since they tend to reward guys for piloting teams that outperform expectations even when the front offices and players deserve at least equal credit for the surprise success. But Cora, in his first year as a manager, inherits a situation ripe for this honor: The Red Sox had a good team last year but still somehow seemed a disappointment to many, with a handful of off-field controversies along the way. They added the best hitter on the open market, but just repeating as a 93-win team will seem like a success. And there’s some confirmation bias in play: Baseball writers, who vote for the postseason awards, have been touting Cora’s managerial qualities since his days as a utility infielder, and if the Red Sox are good, we’ll all be like, “yup, see? Told you.”
NL MVP: Anthony Rendon
Anthony Rendon (Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports)
I waffled on this one quite a bit, and maybe Rendon’s a bit of a hipster pick here. I don’t know. But Rendon, fairly quietly, was the best position player on the Nationals last season, he has been on the field for at least 147 games in three of the last four seasons, he’s an outstanding defender at third base, and his 2017 offered a lot of evidence that he is now a vastly improved offensive player after already being a pretty darn good one. Playing alongside Bryce Harper could cost him some votes if Harper stays healthy all year, but a Nats’ postseason berth with anything but a 2015-caliber performance from Harper would cast their other homegrown offensive superstar into the spotlight.
NL Cy Young: Noah Syndergaard
Noah Syndergaard (Scott Rovak/USA TODAY Sports)
The smart money for the National League Cy Young Award should always be on Clayton Kershaw, since he’s undoubtedly the best pitcher on the planet, he appears fully healthy entering the season, and he has won three Cy Youngs and finished in the Top 5 of balloting in every one of the past seven seasons. But Syndergaard seemed primed for something special in 2017 when his season was cut short by a lat injury, and by all accounts, he’s entering 2018 looking stronger than ever under a new pitching coach and manager who will presumably take every possible to keep him on the field and end the Mets’ longstanding tradition of botching decisions on player health. Even if Kershaw proves better on a start-to-start basis, the Dodgers will again be careful with him as they cruise toward October. The Mets should have more of a fight on their hands for a postseason spot, meaning they’ll likely need to lean on Syndergaard throughout the regular season.
NL Rookie of the Year: Ronald Acuna
Ronald Acuna (Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports)
I wanted to pick Scott Kingery, or really anyone but Acuna, if only because the whole baseball world seems to be picking Acuna. But that’d be disingenuous: He’s the guy here. I’m no scout, but basically everyone who has seen the guy play raves about all aspects of his game, and his 2017 stats in the minors back them up: Dude went from Class A Advanced to Class AAA ball as a 19-year-old and got better at every stop. He’s starting the year in the minors so the Braves can maintain an extra year of contractual control over him, but he won’t be down long. He’s young yet, and he does still strike out a lot, but this feels very much like it’s going to be the year Ronald Acuna becomes a big thing.
NL Manager of the Year: Mickey Callaway
New York Mets manager Mickey Callaway speaks during a news conference ahead of the official start of spring training baseball practice Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Port St. Lucie, Fla. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Callaway worked wonders in Cleveland as the Indians’ pitching coach and now takes over a Mets club that looks primed to rebound from a 70-win campaign. He comes off as a smart and engaging dude, he’s armed with a combination of old-school knowledge and new-school data, and, most importantly, he’s got a nearly full stable of healthy and talented arms to start the season. Again, it won’t necessarily mean he’s the actual best manager, but much of the actual best managing happens behind closed doors.
ALDS winners: Astros, Indians
Take all these predicted postseason outcomes with many grains of salt: The winners of short five- and seven-game series are never necessarily the better team so much as the one that happened to play better and get luckier over the course of one week of play. But you can’t go about building a whole predictions post and exclude what you think will happen in the playoffs, even if you believe said playoffs to be more or less a crapshoot. The Astros and Indians are both good, so why not the Astros and Indians? Ol’ Shane Bieber’s gonna give the Yankees fits in the first round.
NLDS winners: Dodgers, Nationals
My first instinct was to pick the Dodgers and Cubs to match up in the NLCS for the third straight year, but I don’t believe there’s any good reason the Nats have failed to advance past the NLDS in franchise history and it’d be kind of nice for that stigma to go away so those of us who know postseason series to be arbitrary can stop having to explain that to Nats fans. Plus, you know, Scherzer and Strasburg in a short series.
ALCS winner: Indians
If the Indians return to the World Series but LeBron James isn’t around to give them his blessing, does it even matter?
NLCS winner: Dodgers
I want Clayton Kershaw to have a Bumgarneresque postseason so that old story can die.
World Series winner: Dodgers in six
Again, it’s all pretty much random once you get to October. But I’m going with Dodgers over Indians. It seems reasonable enough. Now I just need to remember to stick with it when people ask me for the next month, and then be willing to abandon it if I change my mind before the playoffs start.
