2023 Predictions
This is not a sabermetric piece (although a bare minimum of “sabermetric” considerations go into it, as described below). This is simply a fun exercise that I have been doing for as long as I’ve been a baseball fan, undertaken with the understanding that:
1) it’s going to be “wrong”
2) point estimates are not really what you would want here
3) many readers will completely ignore any such caveats and disclaimers
I do start by trying to figure out the regulars at the nine offensive positions, five starting pitchers, and four relievers, using publicly-available projections with my own subjective tweaks (usually to estimated playing time, not performance) sprinkled in, and filling in the remaining plate appearances and innings that a team would need to fill with an estimate of the level of performance that would be needed to reconcile the league totals for runs and runs allowed to where I expect them to fall out. It’s certainly less rigorous than the full-scale projections run by BP, Fangraphs, Clay Davenport, etc., but more rigorous than simply blindly guessing. I also consider the projections produced by the three outlets I named to see if anything jumps out that the more crude approach is missing.
I’m going to do something a little different this year and list my “on paper” wins number for each team, which sometimes will not match the order of finish which indicates I subjectively overrode it. One year will not be sufficient to draw any conclusions, but I am curious to see if my subjective tweaks make my guesses more or less accurate. My money is on the latter.
NL EAST
1. Atlanta (94)
2. New York (89) (wildcard)
3. Philadelphia (86)
4. Miami (78)
5. Washington (67)
They don’t jump off the page like Dodger teams of recent vintage, but more than any other team in the majors it is hard to find the on-paper weaknesses for the Braves. They look to me be as complete a team as there is, one that could plausibly lead the league in both real runs scored and allowed. Losing Edwin Diaz only knocks one win off my number for the Mets, but it’s notable that he was one of the key pitchers who seemed least likely to get hurt. There’s a lot to be concerned about with the pitching staff on that front just from age, but it’s hard to see many teams from the middle of the NL pack that would be well-positioned to take a wildcard spot from them unless utter calamity ensues. Calamity seems to be stalking the Phillies as well, but they always stood out as a team that was close to being built on a stars and scrubs model, benefitting from the halo of playoff surprise and flashy free agent signing. One can imagine a scenario where they are one of the more disappointing teams in the league. Miami appears to have a lot of pitching talent, but behind Sandy Alcantara it’s not particularly well-seasoned to expect big major league innings totals (except for Johnny Cueto, who might be too well-seasoned). Trading from that apparent depth was not a bad play, but color me a skeptic on Luis Arraez replicating his 2022 value. Washington clearly has a ways to go, but it seems early to declare the Juan Soto trade a disaster.
NL CENTRAL
1. St. Louis (88)
2. Milwaukee (87) (wildcard)
3. Chicago (76)
4. Pittsburgh (71)
5. Cincinnati (72)
My on paper estimates here did not include Jordan Walker as a starter for the Cardinals; I’m not sure one should expect him to outproduce what was expected from Dylan Carlson et. al., but it may give St. Louis some extra variability. They are in some ways a mirror image of their chief rivals Milwaukee, with good hitting/average-ish pitching versus good pitching/average-ish hitting. The Cubs are kind of interesting in that they seem to have a lot of starting depth – not good depth, necessarily, but if you throw more young starter darts at the wall, maybe some will stick. I flipped the Pirates and the Reds just because I look at the Reds rotation fronted by Hunter Greene and see a potential disaster, while I look at the Pirates rotation and see comfortable, predictable badness. It’s not a pretty picture either way.
NL WEST
1. Los Angeles (90)
2. San Diego (92) (wildcard)
3. San Francisco (81)
4. Arizona (75)
5. Colorado (70)
As you can see, I have San Diego slightly ahead of Los Angeles on paper, and the frontline player difference is even more jarring. But that’s a narrow margin in a crude methodology that doesn’t take organization depth or the minor injuries that have befallen the Padres already into account, and the Dodgers seem much better positioned to plug holes and make upgrades over a 162 game season. While it’s easy to overstate the impact of a star, the Giants are in fact a team that could have really used a Judge or a Correa and might be in playoff position if they had succeeded in signing one. If I had to pick a team to overperform my on paper number, it would be Arizona – pitching is a question (I have always been a Zac Gallen fan, but I think a repeat is a lot to ask for), but I think Carroll and Thomas give them more upside than is allowed for here. You don’t need me to tell you that Colorado possesses an odd collection of players, but I’m not sure what else to say about them.
AL EAST
1. Toronto (87)
2. Tampa Bay (87) (wildcard)
3. New York (87) (wildcard)
4. Boston (83)
5. Baltimore (76)
As you can see, I have this as a very tight three-team race while other sources think New York is a decent bit ahead of their pursuers. I feel like it has become a tradition for me to point out that the Yankees’ offense isn’t as good as a lot of people seem to think it is. I will repeat that statement this year even though in 2022 Aaron Judge single-handedly made that statement false. But it really is New York’s defense that stamps them as a top contender, and the rotation is already leaking oil. I’m not sure one should expect Stanton + LeMahieu + Rizzo + Donaldson + Hicks + Trevino to improve on their collective 2022 performance, it would be foolish not to expect Judge to be less valuable, and what does that leave? Anthony Volpe single-handedly saving the day? The Yanks huge start gave them a halo, with people thinking we saw “the real Yankees” at the beginning and an injury-reduced outfit at the end. I think it’s more likely the season totals reflect their actual performance and you should bet on lesser performance in 2023. I don’t think it’s at all difficult to imagine a scenario where the Blue Jays have a stronger rotation and a better offense than New York. Tampa Bay looks like their usual self, with an average-ish offense and a plug and play pitching staff. It wouldn’t be a shock to see Boston have a bounceback season, although I had more confidence in that before realizing that Corey Kluber would be their Opening Day starter. Baltimore is a good bet to be the team that most disappoints mainstream expectations. They have made progress, Adley Rutschmann is a legitimate start, but their underlying performance in 2022 was that of a 76 win team and it isn’t clear to me where significant improvement will come from.
AL CENTRAL
1. Minnesota (80)
2. Cleveland (82)
3. Chicago (82)
4. Kansas City (72)
5. Detroit (68)
I always have the hardest time picking how Cleveland will finish since I do have a fan bias, especially when they are expected to contend. On paper I have the Guards and the ChiSox even, with the Twins further behind, but subjectively it seems like the Twins are a better bet. While they have a number of injury concerns, Cleveland is dependent on Jose Ramirez and its frontline starters to a great degree (and after I wrote this lost Triston McKenzie for what looks like 6-8 weeks), while Chicago needs improved health from position players and has shaky depth in the rotation. As a Cleveland supporter, Minnesota’s trade for Pablo Lopez filled me with the closest thing to dread I know how to feel about off-season baseball transactions. Last year this division was a tight three-team race headed into September until Cleveland went nuclear on their two rivals in head-to-head series, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it similarly tight in 2023. Kansas City’s rebuild has stalled with their young starters flopping, while Detroit’s has stalled with their young hitters flopping. The latter might have a better chance of getting on track so if one of these teams surprise, I would bet on it being the Tigers.
AL WEST
1. Houston (92)
2. Los Angeles (86) (wildcard)
3. Seattle (84)
4. Texas (81)
5. Oakland (65)
Even with Justin Verlander departing and Jose Altuve known to be on the shelf for a significant chunk of the season, the Astros look like the class of the AL. Am I dumb enough to pick the Angels to contend yet again? Yes, I am. I don’t believe in curses and this roster really should be competitive. They did a decent job to get competent big leaguers like Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela to plug what had been black holes. Starting pitching does not inspire confidence but the AL in general is filled with teams with question marks. It feels like Seattle should be higher in the on-paper wins estimate, but they were around four and a half games better than their underlying performance last year and if you start from there, it makes more sense. I was actually surprised that Texas projected out as well as they did as the splashy additions of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi come with plenty of injury risk. I already cited Baltimore as the team most likely to underperform mainstream expectations, but Texas is right there with them. Oakland seems to be flailing around, but it seemed that way in the middle teens and they pulled another contention window out of a hat, so who knows...but not in 2023.
WORLD SERIES
Atlanta over Houston
This is the first time since 2019 that I did not pick the Dodgers to win the World Series, the first time since 2018 I did not pick them to win the NL pennant, and the first time since 2016 that I did not pick either the Astros or the Dodgers to win the World Series. And yet I still have the Dodgers as the #2 contender in the NL and the Astros as the AL pennant winner. These two teams have not gotten enough respect in my opinion for their status as dynasties; the crapshoot of the modern playoff format obscures just how great they have been (and if my predictions for 2023 hold, will continue to be). One of the pieces I have in the hopper will attempt to quantify team performance over time (nothing earth-shattering, but applying my CTR methodology to past seasons) and I will be curious to see if my assertion here is borne out by a more systematic evaluation.
On a more general note, a few meandering thoughts on the rule changes. I am not at all a fan of the shift restrictions, as the primary beneficiaries (at least offensively) appear to be left-handed pull hitters, which seems inconsistent with the notion that more balls in play are needed. Does making the world safe for Joey Gallo do anything to help spray hitters? Are we really next going to have a moral panic about a team choosing to leave left field undefended to try to throw Gallo out on balls hit into right field? I realize that it’s easy to say “hitters need to adapt and learn to beat the shift” and it’s hard to do that when pitchers are throwing in the high 90s with disgusting breaking pitches designed in a lab, but maybe in keeping with baseball tradition we should just let Joey Gallo call for a high or low pitch instead.
That sounds like “crotchety old guy yells at clouds”, but can you really be a reactionary when the change you are defending is barely a decade old? As I see it, the reactionaries won the day on that front.
On the pitch clock, I think that speeding the pace of the game up is generally good, but completely unnecessary in late, tense situations. I also don’t have any burning desire to have games last twenty less minutes, except to the extent that it may facilitate watching more games in one day without overlap. But I also don’t see a pitch clock as an incursion on the sacred principle of “baseball is not played with a clock”. To me, this has always been embodied in the fact that it is always theoretically possible to overcome any deficit in a baseball game as long as you have an out remaining, while in sports with game clocks it becomes physically impossible at some point to overcome deficits. In watching games this spring, I have not found the pitch clock to be much of a change in the experience except to the extent that a) the pace does feel faster, which I view as neutral to good and b) the announcers won’t shut up about it, which is annoying, predictable, and a separate matter from whether the change should have been implemented or not. Announcers will always find a hobby horse to ride.
Formalizing a rule on timely initiation of the action may indeed be unnecessary, but it does not imperil the timelessness of baseball. The horrible spectacle of a runner on second in extra innings has done that to a much greater extent, because while it does not impose a clock per se, it does force an acceleration of the conclusion of a game by changing the fundamental nature of how teams go about scoring runs. It cheapens the most critical part of scoring a run, which is putting men on base, by awarding one for no achievement by the offense or failure by the defense. People who praise how it results in more opportunities for “situational hitting” fall into the trap that so many advocates of “clutch” batting statistics like hitting with RISP do - failing to recognize that batting with no one on base is also a “situation”, and particularly in the subset of nobody out, one of the most critical situations that a team faces.
Ties would be far less of an abomination and would not turn team statistics into a mess that requires play-by-play logs to sort out with any acceptable degree of precision and consistency across teams and across time.