2022 Predictions
I write an annual predictions post mostly for my own purposes as I like to have a record of my own thoughts, not because I think it would be of any general interest to an audience. There are inherent problems with flattening everything by simply predicting rank order, which are piled on top of all the myriad problems inherent with attempting to forecast baseball seasons in the first place.
I just use publicly available player projections for runs created/allowed and outs for the projected starting position players, rotation, and four relievers. I might make some adjustments as I deem necessary to the projections, but I limit myself severely as projecting individual performance is not an area of sabermetrics in which I feel I have any insight beyond what would be taken into account by a system like Steamer or ZIPS. Then I fill in the remaining innings and outs with a background level of performance necessary to force the league total of runs to a reasonable value, and use basic winning percentage estimation techniques to estimate team wins.
I will sometimes deviate from the pure math in cases in which I have a “gut” feeling (for obvious reasons I try to avoid this), and I also will consider team projections from other sources (BP, Fangraphs, and Clay Davenport all publish easily accessible standings projections). So while I have a “system”, it’s in all regards inferior to those available from other sources. Again, this is an exercise in personal fun that I post so that I can keep track of them rather than thinking any reader will be edified.
AL EAST
1. Toronto
2. New York (wildcard)
3. Boston (wildcard)
4. Tampa Bay
5. Baltimore
On paper, the Blue Jays look terrific. You can nitpick that they lack the ace that 2021 Robbie Ray was, or that they have a left fielder with questionable health for a center fielder and just traded their best defensive alternative, but to me they look like the class of the AL. Are we supposed to have noticed that the Yankees offense was quite pedestrian last season and that for 2022 it looks like the balance might be titled even more towards their pitching? The Red Sox offense should be good but the starting pitching is sketchy, while I think one’s outlook on the Rays should come down to whether one believes they can get better run prevention than what it looks like on paper. I may well not be extending them sufficient benefit of the doubt. The most ridiculous prediction I will make here, and the only thing I can think to say about the Orioles – Kelvin Gutierrez will have a Renato Nunez-style power breakout, minus the superior homer conditions of 2019.
AL CENTRAL
1. Chicago
2. Minnesota
3. Detroit
4. Cleveland
5. Kansas City
The White Sox are clear favorites in the division, but once again look to be a cut below the top AL teams from the East and West. Their wheeling and dealing was interesting, but even with Sonny Gray the Twins don’t look to have the pitching to be a favorite. The Guardians would be interesting if they weren’t completely punting on offense from as many as five positions. Perhaps you can dream on Amed Rosario moving to left, freeing up two of the many good but not great middle infield prospects to seize jobs and have breakouts. Then you still have to hope that the pitching is as good as you could dream it to be in 2020 rather than Shane Bieber plus a collection of #4 starters that at one point got our hopes up. It was frustrating to see them do nothing to improve the offense, particularly when a player like Austin Meadows with three years of club control was available for a fairly reasonable price and a division rival like the Tigers, who already are counting on an infusion of hitting talent from prospects, swooped in and got him. The Royals are kind of the like the Guardians in the sense that you can dream their pitching into being much better than it likely will be, except they’ve had less actual major league success.
AL WEST
1. Houston
2. Los Angeles (wildcard)
3. Seattle
4. Texas
5. Oakland
After watching them struggle to cobble together a rotation in the ALCS and World Series, it seems foolish to suggest that the Astros could have one of the deeper rotations in the AL to pair with what still could be a strong bullpen and a lineup that should score a lot of runs even losing Carlos Correa. In each of the last three seasons, I have picked the Angels as a wildcard team. You would think that at some point I would learn my lesson. Their pitching staff is sketchy, you can’t expect Shohei Ohtani to replicate his superhuman 2021 performance, Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon must sadly be viewed as injury concerns, they appear to have punted on shortstop? But it’s hard to pick four teams from the East, and as mentioned above the Twins don’t strike me as a great bet. So that leaves the Mariners, a team that outran they Pythagorean record by fourteen games in 2021. I think they’ve improved significantly, but if you start from their 76 win underlying performance, significant improvement does not equate to a playoff spot. I’m trying to think of a parallel to the Rangers offseason spending, and the closest I can think of is when the dreadful 2003 Tigers added Ivan Rodriguez, won 71 games, and then added Magglio Ordonez. It still took until 2006 for them to win, and I don’t know if Texas Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, and Jeremy Bonderman on the way, although maybe Kenny Rogers is available? This seems like as close as the A’s have ever gotten to a total teardown; we’ll see if they can pull another quick retool to retention as they pulled off twice in the 2010s.
NL EAST
1. Atlanta
2. Philadelphia (wildcard)
3. New York (wildcard)
4. Miami
5. Washington
The Braves are a very popular pick this spring, and they should be better than they were last year. But this is one of those cases where even if better than they were last year comes to fruition, it likely corresponds to a markedly worse postseason outcome than last year. I flip-flopped the Phillies and Mets after learning of Jacob DeGrom’s latest shoulder malady, although I’ve only penciled in 130 innings for DeGrom to begin with. But they are very close on paper in my analysis, and BP and Fangraphs has them reasonably close (Davenport’s projections do not like the Mets at all). The Marlins young pitching is exciting; their offense is not. They won a World Series once with a team kind of like that, although it unearthed a phenom to bolster the attack, and I don’t see the next Miguel Cabrera anywhere (sorry, JJ Bleday). I seem to like the Nationals better than most, but in the “don’t think they’ll be at the very bottom of the NL sense”, not the “won’t finish last in a tough division sense”.
NL CENTRAL
1. Milwaukee
2. St. Louis
3. Cincinnati
4. Chicago
5. Pittsburgh
This looks to me like the weakest division in MLB, with the Brewers the favorite based on brilliant young pitchers who logged their first full season in a rotation last year. I guess Christian Yelich and Keston Hiura could remember how to hit – stranger things have happened (see below for San Francisco). The 2022 edition of Baseball Prospectus was much improved; I guess with The Party entrenched in power and systematically purging its enemies there’s less need to turn comments about baseball players into weird political diatribes (lazy virtue signaling about any player remotely connected to domestic violence notwithstanding). But one of the stranger essays castigated the Cardinals for bringing back Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright, as if they weren’t decent contributors last year and instead were a guy who had a dead cat bounce in a very limited role like say, Albert Pujols. So I imagine if rewritten now that essay would be fire and brimstone. I don’t think the Reds are anywhere near as bad as people seem to think they are, which makes the decision to slash payroll all the more disappointing – this is not a bad time to try to strike in the NL Central. The Cubs have some interesting hitters who could outperform expectations (Seiya Suzuki, Nick Madrigal) and then some of the opposite (Frank Schwindel, Patrick Wisdom), plus the special category of “formerly all-world defenders who could hit that now are shells of their former selves” (Andrelton Simmons, Jason Heyward). The Pirates at least have some interesting prospects on the horizon, I guess.
NL WEST
1. Los Angeles
2. San Diego (wildcard)
3. San Francisco
4. Colorado
5. Arizona
Is it boring to pick the Dodgers in perpetuity? I suppose, but it’s also the obvious choice. Even factoring in Tatis’ injury, I think the Padres can sneak into a wildcard spot. LA, Atlanta, and Philly look to have the top offenses in the NL, but outside of that group, I don’t see any that clearly should be better than San Diego. The Padres have some pitching depth as well. I’ve been trying to find a historical comp for the 2021 Giants, and it’s hard to do. Most teams that improved their W% so dramatically in one season were dreadful in year one and upgraded to bad in year two. It’s rare to see a team go from average to great in one giant leap (and if anything, average might overstate the true quality of the 2020 Giants, who nearly snuck into the eight-team playoffs over the sixty game schedule). The closest I could identify were the 1912 Red Sox, 1999 Diamondbacks, and two other Giants squads (1954 and 1993). But the 1912 Red Sox had a breakout from young pitchers (including one of the best seasons ever from Joe Wood), the 1999 Diamondbacks brought in Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, and Steve Finley to supplement an expansion team, the 1993 Giants added Barry Bonds, and the 1954 Giants got Willie Mays back from the army and hit big on a bet on young Johnny Antonelli who they acquired from the Braves. The 2021 Giants, breaking out largely thanks to veterans finding the fountain of youth, are somewhat sui generis. They basically stood pat in the offseason and look like a .500 team from where I sit. On the one hand, I agree with the consensus view that the Rockies seem to be foundering around without a plan. On the other hand, the weird consensus that has arisen around supposed “tanking” and criticism of teams “not trying to win” is easily as incoherent and garbled as anything the Colorado front office has ever done. My back of the envelope estimates have the Diamondbacks allowing the most runs in the NL (Clay Davenport has them second so I’m not really an outlier), and yet I look at the names in their rotation and it doesn’t look so bad. This sums up why I do back of the envelope estimates even for an exercise in whimsy.
WORLD SERIES
Los Angeles (N) over Toronto