Swinging into the New Season

As spring rolls around, we will be getting almost nonstop baseball from March to October as teams try and win the World Series. Fans will be filling the stadiums, excited to see how their players have prepared and what their teams have done to improve themselves. Some teams are better than others though between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) and this article will predict how each division will play out and then the playoffs.

NL West

1 LA Dodgers (#1 Seed) 

2 Arizona Diamondbacks (#5 Seed)

3 San Diego Padres

4 San Francisco Giants

5 Colorado Rockies

The Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani, who is considered one of the best players in baseball right now, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto which almost solidifies them to be the best team in the league, so winning the division should be a lock. The Diamondbacks made it to the World Series last season and young superstar Corbin Carroll will get even better, but it’s very hard to see them be too much better as a team this year. The Padres, Giants, and Rockies will all probably miss the playoffs even though the Padres do have a few really good players and the Giants will have superstar Matt Chapman, but that’s pretty much it.

AL West

1 Houston Astros (#2 Seed)

2 Texas Rangers (#5 Seed)

3 Seattle Mariners

4 LA Angels

5 Oakland Athletics

Despite losing to the Rangers in the playoffs last year, the Astros should win the division once again as they added to their bullpen with Josh Hader and the rest of their roster is still as strong as ever. When asked about how the Astros will do this year, Astros fan Sam Horacio said, “Man we’re winning the World Series. The Rangers just beat us last year, but we’ll be back even stronger now with a new closer.” Even though the Rangers won the World Series last year, they are losing players in the offseason and their players are getting older. The Mariners should just miss out on the playoffs, but I could also see them make it if Julio Rodriguez makes a huge step. The Angels and Athletics both have terrible rosters except for the Angels having Mike Trout, arguably the best player in the league right now, but he won’t be able to carry a whole team.

NL Central

1 Chicago Cubs (#3 Seed)

2 Cincinnati Reds (#6 Seed)

3 Milwaukee Brewers

4 St Louis Cardinals

5 Pittsburgh Pirates

The NL Central will be a brawl with 4 maybe all 5 teams having a chance to win the division this year. The Cubs get back Cody Bellinger and their young roster improves which makes me believe that they’ll win the division, but the Reds have Elly De La Cruz who will probably progress a lot to get the Reds into the playoffs. The Brewers and Cardinals are dark horse candidates as the Brewers improved on offense, but lost a lot of pitching and I just don’t think the Cardinals will play as bad as last year. The Pirates are huge long shots, but they have a young roster that can break out onto the scene to sneak into the playoffs.

AL Central

1 Minnesota Twins (#3 Seed)

2 Cleveland Guardians

3 Detroit Tigers

4 Kansas City Royals

5 Chicago White Sox

The AL Central is probably going to be the worst division in the league and should be wide open for the Twins to win it especially with Royce Lewis most likely improving on a great year. The Guardians and Tigers are similar teams, pretty good, but not good enough to make the playoffs. The Royals and White Sox will probably be a couple of the worst teams in the league and will be excitedly waiting for next year’s offseason.

NL East

1 Atlanta Braves (#2 Seed)

2 Philadelphia Phillies (#4 Seed)

3 New York Mets

4 Miami Marlins

5 Washington Nationals

The Braves continue their regular season dominance over the NL East with an amazing roster that keeps on getting better every year. The Phillies will be the second-best team in the NL East, especially with a fully healthy Bryce Harper and heavily rumored to get Jordan Montgomerey to improve their pitching. When asked about Montgomery becoming a Phillie, Phillies fan Zach Dion said, “I don’t know if he really wants to come to play for them, but I know that we need one more pitcher to make a rotation a great one.” The Mets and Marlins will just miss out on the playoffs even though they have pretty good rosters, they just didn’t improve on them enough in the offseason. When asked about how the Marlins will do, Marlins fan Juan Reynaldo said, “I think we can sneak into the playoffs like last year. We didn’t really lose anything and we got Tim Anderson who I’m excited to watch.” The Nationals are like the Pirates as they are a young team that could break out, but it shouldn’t result in anything.

AL East

1 Baltimore Orioles (#1 Seed)

2 New York Yankees (#4 Seed)

3 Toronto Blue Jays (#6 Seed)

4 Tampa Bay Rays

5 Boston Red Sox

The AL East is going to be heavily contested with the Orioles winning it once again with their amazing young roster improving with getting Corbin Burnes who is one of the best pitchers in baseball right now, although I could see the Yankees winning the division with a healthy Aaron Judge this year paired with Juan Soto who they signed in the offseason. The Blue Jays will get into the playoffs with their really good roster. The Rays and Red Sox will just miss out though, but I could see both teams making some moves to potentially get ahead of the Blue Jays.

Playoffs

NL Wild Card

Chicago Cubs vs Cincinnati Reds: 2-1 Cubs

This divisional matchup in the wild card will make for a really good and close series, but with the Chicago home field advantage and Cody Bellinger having prior postseason experience, the Cubs should win.

Philadelphia Phillies vs Arizona Diamondbacks: 2-0 Phillies

This matchup is a rematch from last year’s NL Championship series where the Diamondbacks won in a full 7-game series. This year the Phillies won’t run out of steam and they will be able to get over the hump this year.

AL Wild Card

Seed Minnesota Twins vs Toronto Blue Jays: 2-0 Twins

This was the exact wild card matchup for both teams last season with the Twins winning 2-0 once again this season as the Blue Jays don’t have the best playoff history in recent memory and they lost Matt Chapman.

New York Yankees vs Texas Rangers: 2-1 Yankees

The Yankees make the playoffs this season as opposed to last season playing the reigning World Series champions, the Rangers, and I think they will just barely come out on top with the Rangers aging roster getting out of reach of their World Series window and the addition of Juan Soto helps a lot.

NL Divisional Series

LA Dodgers vs Philadelphia Phillies: 3-2 Phillies

The Phillies are a playoff team with their home stadium being one of the greatest home field advantages and the Dodgers are known for choking in the playoffs against teams they should beat. Although adding Ohtani and Yamamoto could get them over the hump.

Atlanta Braves vs Chicago Cubs: 3-1 Braves

The Braves are going to be hot going into the playoffs and the Cubs still have a lot of holes in their roster so the Braves should be able to pretty much dominate in this series setting up a huge rivalry in the NL Championship series.

AL Divisional Series

Baltimore Orioles vs New York Yankees: 3-2 Yankees

The Orioles once again get bounced out of the playoffs early in the rivalry matchup in the divisional series, but they do put up a good fight against a very power heavy Yankees. I just don’t think the Orioles are quite ready yet, but next year, if they find themselves in this same spot it could very well go very differently.

Houston Astros vs Minnesota Twins: 3-2 Twins

Again for the Twins this will be a rematch from last season with the Astros beating the Twins 3-1 last season in the divisional series. This time though the Astros get cocky and the Twins shock them in a full 5 game series pulling off the upset.

NL Championship Series

Atlanta Braves vs Philadelphia Phillies: 4-3 Phillies

This isn’t the first time the Braves and Phillies met in the Phillies and it most certainly won’t be the last as both teams have been very good the past few years. This time however, history repeats itself as the Phillies home–field advantage will make it so they don’t drop a game at home, and the Phillies will come out on top in game 7 of the series. Although I’m saying the Phillies will win the series, I could very well see the Braves pulling out a win in this one.

AL Championship Series

Minnesota Twins vs New York Yankees: 4-2 Yankees

The Yankees will just be able to get over the Twins as the Twins just don’t have enough pitching to make it to the World Series in the playoffs as they are heavily carried by their offense. The Yankee’s home run power will be able to defeat the Twins’ offense despite the Twins’ underrated home-field advantage.

World Series

Philadelphia Phillies vs New York Yankees: 4-1 Phillies

This is a rematch from the 2009 World Series where the Phillies looked to be back-to-back World Series champions, but the Yankees thwarted those plans and won their most recent title. This time the Phillies should get the best of them. Both teams use home run power as their way to win games, so the difference in this series will be the pitching, which I believe the Phillies have a greater advantage with Zach Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Ranger Suarez being great postseason pitchers and the Yankees really only having Gerrit Cole.