"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver
Altuve is my fantasy leader for the 2nd year running. Photo via mlblogs.com
Standard disclaimer; I do this post every year. If you don’t play fantasy, you probably won’t care about the 3,000+ words contained herein. You won’t hurt my feelings by not reading. I’ll include a jump so it doesn’t blow out your mobile reader. Back to our regularly scheduled programming next week with final roster analysis once the last bench spots are announced.
Last year’s version of this post.
The USA has never advanced past the 2nd round of the WBC before, and they get a clutch performance to beat the defending champs (and best team on paper) to advance in 2017. Here’s a quick review of the Round 2 results and a look ahead/predictions for round 3.
(quick links for the WBC: Official site here, wikipedia site here with schedules, and another wiki site here with rosters).
Predictions for round 2:
Round 2 Results:
Pool E: Predicted Japan and the Netherlands
Actuals: Israel continued its hot streak early and downed Cuba in what I predict is the 3rd place game, while Japan held serve and beat the Netherlands in extras. Netherlands turned around the next day and destroyed Israel, handing them their first tourney loss. Japan handled Cuba to more or less guarantee it spot in the WBC finals on 3/14/17. On the pool’s final day, the Netherlands destroyed Cuba 14-1 while Japan remained undefeated and my predictions held out; Japan and Netherlands advance to the final round.
Pool F: Predicted DR and USA.
Actuals: Puerto Rico played an inspired game and downed the DR in the first pool game, which puts the DR’s chances of advancing in jeopardy early. USA held serve and beat Venezuela on a couple of late homers and then the DR beat Venezuela the next night to essentially eliminate them. The DR needs some help; they would be benefitted by a USA loss to Puerto Rico …. which they got. The US kept trying to catch up but could never recover from an early 4-0 deficit and dropped a 6-5 decision to Puerto Rico to guarantee PR’s advancement and to setup a do-or-die rematch between USA and DR. In that game, US starter Danny Duffy wiggled out of jams early and the US’s big bats came through and they downed the defending champs DR 4-2 to advance to their first finals. Puerto Rico and USA advance.
(tangent; really? Danny Duffy? That’s the best starter the US could come up with? The USA’s three primary starters in this tourney were Chris Archer, Marcus Stroman and Duffy. Here’s a quick link to 2016’s fangraphs pitcher WAR leaders and thus here’s a quick list of all the US-born players they could have selected ahead of any of these three guys: Kershaw, Snydergaard, Scherzer (who we know was set to attend but got injured), Porcello, Verlander, Sale, Kluber, Bumgarner, Price (also currently injured), Hendricks, Lester, Strasburg, Hill, Arrieta, Grey. Stroman was 21st in the majors in pitcher WAR last year, behind every one of these guys. I mean, come on. How can we alter this event so that the US can put out a rotation of Kershaw, Snydergaard and Bumgarner??)
Round 3 Predictions:
Now we’re to the semis. Honestly I think the two best teams are unfortunately matched up against each other in the first semi (Netherlands and Puerto Rico). I’ll go with the Netherlands in one semi, the USA in the other, and then the Netherlands to beat the US in the final.
ps. Yes I agree with all prior commenters; having Daniel Murphy and Tanner Roark on this team has been a complete waste. I just hope it doesn’t affect their regular seasons…
Scherzer may have the best shot of our 4 “finalists” for awards this week. Photo via washtimes.com
Quick break from Nats off-season stuff to talk about the “silly season” of baseball. Its awards week, with all the major BBWAA awards to be given out this week.
Here’s my predictions for how the awards will go. This is not necessarily how I believe the awards should go … once again, I think narrative wins out over Mike Trout‘s 10+ WAR season, and we may see an east coast bias in the AL rookie award. But lets see how it goes.
Here’s the list of finalists, published last week.
The writers have to submit their ballots at the end of the season; I finished this post in early October but waited until the awards season to arrive to publish it. Thus, it contains no inclusion of any post-season accolades or accomplishments since the votes were already in before the playoffs started.
How do I think the voting will go?
Actual Award Results added as they were awarded:
My prediction results: 4 for 8. Got Seager, Franconia, Scherzer, Bryant. Missed on Fulmer, Roberts, Porcello, Trout. Historically i’ve been pretty good at these predictions; this was a very bad year for me. Which is good, because it means that the electorate is improving and that generally my over-thinking of voters picking bad results should lessen.
Links to other awards that I didn’t necessarily predict:
Note: I made some prediction mistakes based on the publication of the 3 finalist links; I’ll note those in the discussion links below.
Discussion:
Running Diary of Awards candidates.
End of April; Here’s MLB’s players of the month link.
Mid May Check-in:
Half-way point of the season: Cliff Corcoran’s First half Awards, Jeff Passan‘s mid-way awards article. The Ringer’s Mike Baumann‘s mid-season awards post.
Mid August check in:
Mid September check-in:
I think Lester has at least two more Game 1 starts in him… photo via Grantland (RIP)
LDS quick thoughts:
Quick good links: MLB Post-season Schedule. and MLB.com’s Probable Pitchers.
Here’s a preview of the NLDS. Thanks to wrapping up the NLDS early, Chicago can re-set their rotation but likely goes with the same set of arms.
Its definitely saying something about your SP depth when last year’s Cy Young winner is relegated to being your #3 starter in a post-season series, but such is the strength of the Chicago pitching this year. The Cubs will face a distinctly weakened LA pitching staff, shredded by the stress of the NLDS win over Washington, putting them at a severe dis-advantage. LA will be incredibly lucky to get a split in Chicago; Lester (a lefty) should dominate the Dodgers in Game 1 and then the Cubs should have their hacks against Kershaw in game 2 (Cubs 7th in the league against lefties in terms of BA). Then LA has no choice but to throw two more lefty starters in game 3 and 4, again playing more into Chicago’s strengths. This isn’t like last year when NY’s strong RHP-centric starting pitchers blew away Chicago (who don’t hit Righties as well); this is a tough matchup for LA in general.
Prediction: Chicago in 5 or 6; i’m not sure it even gets back to Chicago for a game 6.
Here’s some thoughts on the ALCS. Two teams that (rather easily) swept their divisional opponents. Here’s how the pitching match-ups project (assuming these teams keep the same rotation from the LDS):
A couple of interesting Nats connections here: Estrada was our 6th round pick in 2005 out of Long Beach State; he toiled in our system for years before being released and establishing himself as a superb starter elsewhere (first Milwaukee, now Toronto). Stroman was our 18th round pick in 2009 out of a NY high school; he projected as a shortstop then; he went to Duke, remade himself as a starter, and was Toronto’s 1st rounder 3 years later.
The Cleveland slate of starters keeps changing; Kluber is a Cy Young candidate; he will lead off for Cleveland instead of Bauer (and, as of this 10/14/16 note, Bauer is getting pushed further due to a “Drone” injury to his finger). Meanwhile, Sanchez is probably Toronto’s best starter and Stroman was their opening day starter; I’d think both guys would get the ball before Happ. I may have to re-write this section before all is said and done. My gut feeling is that Cleveland’s superior record was attained thanks to a weaker division and the strong work of two starters (Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco) who are no longer there, and the step-down to Tomlin/Clevinger will cost them in the end. Meanwhile Toronto emerged from an AL East with four near-playoff quality teams and is battle tested. They had no problems going on the road to Texas and won’t either in the hitters park that is Cleveland. Toronto gets a split in Cleveland and then batters Cleveland’s #5 starters in Toronto. From there, its about what Kluber can do; can he get the series back to Cleveland? It could be a quick one.
Prediction: Toronto in 5.
Lastly, i’m stealing this thunder from Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk/NBCsports.com, but this final four will award a winner who has been waiting an awful long time to win a world Series.
Here’s the final four teams:
Lots of history at stake here; imagine a Cleveland-Chicago series. For the historians that’d be the best. I think the best series quality wise would be Chicago-Toronto.
Here’s something Harper didn’t do a lot of this past series: swing. Photo via fansided.com
So, even though the team just got swept in a 4-game set, I’m not really that concerned. Why?
Well, first, the Cubs are fantastic, and I thought one win out of four would have been a good, expected result. The Cubs missed Strasburg, our best guy (even if he’s not the “Ace” thanks to Scherzer‘s contract) while we stood up to the Cubs’ Ace Arrieta. The Nats scored a bunch of runs against a good team and on other days may have gotten a win or two. Am I right?
Game by Game:
Total score of the series: Cubs 25, Nats 16. Lot of runs on the bullpen. Zero of our lefty relievers really stepped up. Both our 8th inning guys couldn’t shut anyone down. And clearly nobody respects anyone else in the lineup besides Harper.
Anyway; before I get all gloom and doom, the Nats just finished their hardest road trip of the year 5-5, when prior to the season I would have been happy with them going 3-7. Thanks to sweeps in St. Louis and surprising series win in KC, i’ve still got them projected to win 95 games right now (easy math: team goes .500 against the rest of the league and interleague, plays .600 ball in their division).
Now … if they get swept in New York….
The best pitcher on the best rotation in the league. Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
I’m returning to a fun post that I did in 2013 and again in 2014 (but couldn’t find the time to do while switching jobs in 2015): Ranking the MLB rotations 1-30 ahead of the new season. I normally wait to do this post until all the significant starter free agents have signed; when Yovani Gallardo signed, he was the final QO-attached starter who might make a difference in a team’s ranking, so it was time to publish.
This is not a scientific analysis necessarily; i’m not looking at PECOTA or ZIPS to project war to do my rankings. Rather, this is an eye test of the guys projected to pitch 1-5 for each team in the coming season. So feel free to disagree. For what its worth, I am pretty confident in my top 10 and my bottom 5 rotations … but am not exactly going to argue vehemently that the rotation i’ve got ranked 22nd is appreciably better than the one I have ranked 24th.
At the bottom i’ve put links to other pundit’s rankings, which are similar but different.
As always, I show my work; here’s the rotation ranks worksheet that I use to track rotation players. As an added bonus to what is shown below, the worksheet color codes new acquisitions, puts in “depth” for each team and tracks who the team lost from last year. it also has a list of as-of-yet-unsigned hurlers, though none would move the needle if/when they sign for 2016.
I’ll put these into sections and put in comments as we go.
| Team | Rank | Projected 2016 Rotation 1-5 |
| New York Mets | 1 | Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Bartolo Colon |
| St. Louis | 2 | Adam Wainwright, Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez, Jaime Garcia, Mike Leake |
| San Francisco | 3 | Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Matt Cain, Jake Peavy |
| Cleveland | 4 | Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar, Trevor Bauer, Cody Anderson |
| Washington | 5 | Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Joe Ross, Gio Gonzalez, Tanner Roark |
Discussion 1-5: My top 5 is pretty similar to other people’s top 5 rotations. I don’t think anyone would argue against the Mets being at #1; if Zack Wheeler comes back healthy he can replace either the ageless Colon or the oft-injured Matz and perhaps even improve what is clearly the class of the league. I have St. Louis #2 since everyone seems to forget just how good they were last year; yes they lose Lynn but they gain back Wainwright.
I could see why people could argue against having both San Francisco and Cleveland higher than Washington, and indeed over the course of the winter I had Washington above both. But I’m convinced that both of SF’s new acquisitions Cueto and Samardzija will completely thrive playing in the NL West, and you can do worse than Cain/Peavy as your 4/5. They have some depth in case those two veterans get hurt and I see SF as a sneaky NL West challenger in 2016.
Cleveland you say? Kluber is a former Cy Young winner who hasn’t forgotten how to pitch, Carrasco and Salazar are two of the best young arms in the league (I’m seeing Carrasco in particular going very high in fantasy ADP rankings for 2016), and their 4/5 are comparable to Washington’s back end. If you wanted to argue that man for man Washington was just ahead of Cleveland i wouldn’t disagree; i’ve been burned over-ranking DC’s rotation in the past so perhaps I was gun shy this time around.
| Team | Rank | Projected 2016 Rotation 1-5 |
| Chicago Cubs | 6 | Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jason Hammel, Kyle Hendricks |
| Arizona | 7 | Zack Greinke, Shelby Miller, Patrick Corbin (TJ), Robbie Ray, Rubby De La Rosa |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 8 | Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir, Alex Wood, Kenta Maeda, Mike Bolsinger |
| Seattle | 9 | Felix Hernandez, Taijuan Walker, Hisashi Iwakuma, Nate Karns, Wade Miley |
| Chicago White Sox | 10 | Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Carlos Rodon, John Danks, Erik Johnson |
Discussion 6-10: So, is Washington > than the Cubs? I think so: I don’t view Lester as a real #2 any more, Lackey is approaching retirement and their 4/5 are basically 5th starters easily found on the waiver wire; i’d take the Nats’ 3-4-5 over the Cubs any day. Still, Arrieta‘s 2nd half was legendary and it is possible that Lackey puts up a 3-win season, so they’re still quite good. Both Arizona and the Dodgers are propped up by virtue of their Aces; the back side of both rotations looks downright scary. In fact, you can say the same for Seattle and the White Sox too; all four of these teams have league-wide top end Aces and then 5th starters who seem like they could be replaced by someone in AAA. That’s really the difference between these teams and the top 5 ranked teams; its the back of the rotations, not so much the front.
I could be slightly wrong about Seattle’s depth; if Iwakuma is really hurt and if Felix‘s decline phase has really started, then Seattle’s a notch down. If Rodon takes the step forward that he can, then the White Sox can really become a force of a rotation quickly.
| Team | Rank | Projected 2016 Rotation 1-5 |
| Pittsburgh | 11 | Gerrit Cole, Francisco Liriano, Jeff Locke, Jon Niese, Ryan Vogelsong |
| Houston | 12 | Dallas Keuchel, Collin McHugh, Lance McCullers, Mike Fiers, Scott Feldman |
| Boston | 13 | David Price, Clay Buchholz, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez, Roenis Elias |
| Tampa Bay | 14 | Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Erasmo Ramirez, Drew Smyly, Matt Moore |
| Detroit | 15 | Justin Verlander, Jordan Zimmermann, Anibal Sanchez, Daniel Norris, Mike Pelfrey |
Discussion 11-15: So again looking at edge cases, I have the likes of Seattle and Chicago > Pittsburgh based on the strength (or lack there of) of the back-end of Pittsburgh’s rotation; Niese? Vogelsong?? Really? I just have a hard time believing that Pittsburgh is going to reach 90 wins with this 2016 rotation. Houston is one Cy Young winner and four guys who look like 4-A replacements. I like the Price signing … but Price is not exactly Kershaw-esque when it comes to putting up constant shut-down performances; Price gets just lit up some times. Last year he had outings where he gave up 10 hits/8 runs in 2+ innings and a 13-hit 6 1/3 outing. 75% QS rate, which sounds good but isn’t in the 82-85% range like Kershaw and Arrieta. My point is this: Price goes to the AL East, to pitching in a hitters park, and he can take some big numbers. The rest of Boston’s rotation is weak too; would you trust Buchholz at this point? Porcello is their #3 and he’d be in the Syracuse if he played for us.
In fact, Maybe I have Tampa and Detroit too low; Tampa in particular could be a monster if Moore comes back strong and Archer is as good as he could be. If Verlander can capture his 2nd half form … then Detroit could take a big step up too.
| Team | Rank | Projected 2016 Rotation 1-5 |
| Texas | 16 | Yu Darvish (TJ), Cole Hamels, Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Nick Martinez |
| Miami | 17 | Jose Fernandez, Wei-Yin Chen, Jared Cosart, Tom Koehler, Adam Conley |
| Kansas City | 18 | Yordano Ventura, Edinson Volquez, Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy, Chris Young, Kris Medlen |
| Los Angeles Angels | 19 | Garrett Richards, Jered Weaver, Andrew Heaney, Matt Shoemaker, ? |
| New York Yankees | 20 | Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, Ivan Nova |
Discussion 16-20: Texas is an interesting one; Darvish won’t be ready for opening day, but if he comes back this ranking could rise. Likewise, I might have Miami too low considering that Fernandez is one of the top pitchers in the game; i just don’t trust the rest of their rotation, and the Chen signing made zero sense for a team that can’t seem to decide if they’re trying to win or not. The strength of Kansas City’s pitching staff isn’t their starters; its the bullpen (best in the league along with the Yankees), and the Kennedy signing seemed to make no sense. Thanks to two early ST injuries, I literally have no idea who the Angels 5th starter is going to be now … perhaps they should now be lower. Lastly you have the Yankees: every guy in their rotation seems like a huge question mark; Tanaka has a torn UCL, Sabathia is a shell of who he once was, Pineda had a shoulder injury that cost him all of 2012 and half of the next two seasons, Nova just came off of Tommy John surgery, and Eovaldi (himself on his 2nd elbow ligament) can’t find the plate. If these guys are ranked 20th … imagine what’s coming below.
| Team | Rank | Projected 2016 Rotation 1-5 |
| San Diego | 21 | James Shields, Andrew Cashner, Tyson Ross, Robbie Erlin, Colin Rea |
| Toronto | 22 | Marcus Stroman, Marco Estrada, R.A. Dickey, J.A. Happ, Drew Hutchison |
| Oakland | 23 | Sonny Gray, Jesse Hahn, Chris Bassitt, Kendall Graveman, Rich Hill |
| Baltimore | 24 | Ubaldo Jimenez, Chris Tillman, Yovani Gallardo, Miguel Gonzalez, Kevin Gausman |
| Atlanta | 25 | Julio Teheran, Matt Wisler, Manny Banuelos, Bud Norris, Williams Perez |
Discussion 21-25: As with all the edge cases, perhaps you can squint at San Diego and say they could be ranked higher. Perhaps; but take any of those 5 guys at this point and put them in a hitter’s park and they’re not half as good. I like Stroman (former Nats draft pick!) but the rest of the Toronto rotation looks like guys who are just holding on. I’m not sure even Oakland’s management knows who some of their rotation candidates are.
I might be selling Baltimore a bit short; I’ve just never been convinced that Jimenez can repeat his earlier glory, and Baltimore’s notoriously awful coaching staff has seemingly ruined yet another young vibrant arm in Gausman. Atlanta’s rotation may not look that great right now, especially considering that they’re purposely tanking in 2016 … but they have a couple of sleeper potentials and their prospect depth (including two high end hurlers in Michael Foltynewicz and Aaron Blair) put them above the bottom 5.
| Team | Rank | Projected 2016 Rotation 1-5 |
| Philadelphia | 26 | Aaron Nola, Jeremy Hellickson, Charlie Morton, Vincent Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer |
| Cincinnati | 27 | Anthony DeSclafani, Michael Lorenzen, Raisel Iglesias, Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb |
| Minnesota | 28 | Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana, Ricky Nolasco, Kyle Gibson, Tommy Milone |
| Milwaukee | 29 | Matt Garza, Wily Peralta, Jimmy Nelson, Taylor Jungmann, Zach Davies |
| Colorado | 30 | Jorge De La Rosa, Chad Bettis, Jordan Lyles, Jon Grey, Tyler Chatwood |
Discussion 26-30: The bottom 5 rotations feature two teams clearly tanking (Philly and Cincy) who are throwing out mostly kids and 4-A one-year acquisitions. Its telling that these two rotations are better than the bottom 3 rotations, each of which belongs to a team that just seems to have no idea how to build a modern rotation. Minnesota has for years favored soft-tossers and not pursued high-end arms and now they have a relatively highly paid rotation of guys who, well, are not effective. Milwaukee is in the same boat, having shelled out money for Garza just to watch him implode.
Lastly we come to Colorado, who still is searching for a strategy upon which to build a rotation. The latest seems to be to pursue high velocity fastball guys who can just throw their ball through the light air and fool hitters. But they’re not there yet and their Ace for 2016 is a 35yr old with a career 4.55 ERA. Its not looking pretty in Colorado for 2016 and the fact that they havn’t sold off all their quality outfielders for parts speaks to the incompetence and indecision of their front office. You’re not going to win in 2016; you’re in a division with the Dodgers, Giants and Diamondbacks, all of which spent big (either last off-season or before) and are putting out quality lineups.
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Some other pundit’s rotation ranks for 2016 for comparison purposes.
http://espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post?id=12054
http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2016/1/12/10755692/baseball-rotation-rankings-mlb
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/164500586/top-10-pitching-staffs-major-league-baseball
Harper & Donaldson deservedly win MVPs. photo via si.com
There’s few long running posts I have managed to do year after year in this blog; this is one of them. Every year I predict the awards, then report on how my predictions went after the fact. And then I brag about how good a job I did in reading the tea leaves and predicting the awards.
This is that post for 2015 🙂
Here’s the same prediction posts with my BBWAA award prediction results for 2014 (6 for 8), 2013 (8 for 8), 2012 (7 for 8), 2011 (8 for 8), and 2010 (8 for 8).
For 2015, here were my original predictions and the actual winners for the major BBWAA Awards plus the “Comeback” awards for 2015:
My Final Predictions with discussion: We went 7 for 8 in predictions for 2015. I missed on the NL manager of the year.
In my 2015 post I also predicted the “Comeback Player of the year awards,” given a couple of weeks ago.
Other Awards given that I don’t try to predict anymore.
That’s it for the silly season! On to the fun business of player moves for 2016.
Hopefully his MVP vote goes better for Harper than this day did. (Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)
Everyone does an “Awards Prediction piece.” This post for me is kind of a running diary throughout the season, with the final predictions written at season’s end but then not published until after the WS ends/Awards season starts.
A few awards have already been given out, ones that I don’t necessarily try to predict anymore:
I put all these dates and links plus a whole lot more into my “off-season” calendar, which will publish soon now that the season is officially over.
(random self promotion related to the Sporting News: they recently published one of my quora.com “answers” titled “Are there Any cities that should have an MLB team,” an answer that I wrote referencing back to this blog for previously published/researched information).
My Final Predictions:
These are not always who I think *deserve* the awards necessarily, just how I think the voters will vote. There are some really close races. Here’s my thoughts:
So, how did the major awards evolve over the course of the season? By my sense, the awards kind of went like this from April to September:
As with last year’s version of this post, instead of printing links to writers early and mid-season predictions, I’ll just throw those links into the monthly reviews for context. This post is more like a season-long diary of the evolution of these awards; the sections were written in each month as the season progressed.
BaseballMusings maintains a Cy Young tracker stat, which is useful to identify candidates but not really a predictor.
April:
Here’s some early candidates out to fast starts.
Opinions this month: Symborski‘s ZIPS predictors after one month.
May:
Harper NL Player of the month, after getting 2 straight player of the week awards. Scherzer wins NL Pitcher of the month.
All Star Break
Mid August
September
(Whoops! forgot to post this on friday. I have a good excuse; it was my kid’s 3rd birthday and we have family in town. I swear I didn’t “cheat” on the Harvey prediction in game 1 from last night … and I still think the Cubs win the series).
Post season predictions so far:
Lets get to it; this series is going to be fun.
Mets-Cubs:
Thoughts: Here’s a fun stat: The Mets went 0-7 against Chicago this year. *Winless* in seven games. New York dodged a major bullet by only having Snydergaard have to throw one inning in the NLDS game-5 clincher; when he got up in the third to warmup, that could have blown their NLCS rotation plans (even though he apparently threw 100 pitches between the pen and the game). Now as it stands, even though the Mets havn’t announced anything their rotation for the NLCS lines up so that their three best arms each will get 2 potential starts, with their best arm (deGrom) in line for crucial game 3 and game 7 outings. I see Harvey dominating in game one behind a raucous New York crowd, Arrieta being Arrieta in game 2, then having the strategic fun start. Do you throw Matz in game 4 with Chicago’s heavy lefties or go to the veteran Colon? Can New York steal one in Chicago somehow? Maybe the deGrom game 3?
I dunno; if the Cubs have already shown themselves capable of handling the Mets pitching staff, why would we think anything would change? Something just “feels” different about this Cubs team; they’re a bunch of kids on offense who have no connection to failings of yesteryear and their pitchers all made their bones primarily with others teams. I can see the Mets sneaking one or two games but think this is Chicago’s year. Prediction: Chicago in 6.
Good reference links for the above analysis:
As we did with the ALDS, Lets look at the NLDS series with pitching matchups and make some quick predictions:
New York Mets-Los Angeles Dodgers:
Prediction: I like Los Angeles in this series, in 5 games. I can’t see NY winning either game in LA, I see them easily winning Harvey’s start but then the Matz/Colon question for Game 4 could come back to haunt them. Matz hasn’t pitched in 2 weeks and Colon is 42 … but Colon dominated the Dodgers in his sole start against them this year. Meanwhile, Wood has plenty of experience with the Mets lineup from his time in Atlanta but has performed pretty poorly against them this season, so I could see this going game 5 in LA.
Chicago Cubs-St. Louis:
St Louis won the season series against Chicago … but lost 4 out of 6 in their two September Series. St. Louis is banged up, they have questions about some of their starters, and their all-important catcher will be playing with a split on his thumb. Hmm. Meanwhile. Chicago’s bats are just all-out fearsome; Schwarber-Bryant-Rizzo, each of which can hit the ball 450 feet at any moment. Lester pitched excellently his last time in St. Louis and Lester doesn’t scare anybody, while Garcia could control Chicago’s lefties in game 2. Honestly, I think Chicago gets a split in St. Louis and then takes care of business at home; they’re going to win Arrieta’s game 3 start (StL wastes perhaps their best starter against Arrieta) and then the season is on Lynn’s shoulders. Lynn’s last two Chicago starts: 6ip (total), 9 runs. Prediction: Chicago in 4.