After months of ill-advised attempts to predict the future, the 2017 season is already here. We can soon get on with the business of actual baseball, and all those reluctant predictions by prognosticators – such… Read more »
Season Previews
Bryant Snyder and Kyle McCarthy collaborated on this preview. The Yankees are spoiled. They’re brats. The team made the postseason every year from 1995-2007 (and had the best record in 1994 until the strike… Read more »
For Pirates fans, 2016 was an unwelcome reminder of the franchise’s post-Barry Bonds past. For the first time since breaking the 20-year streak of losing seasons, Pittsburgh finished under .500. This was particularly unwelcome since… Read more »
AD and Mark Sands collaborated on this preview. Despite extended absences from the team’s two young sluggers, J.D. Martinez and Nick Nicholas Castellanos, deciding to allow Mike Pelfrey to pitch 119 innings, using Mike Aviles… Read more »
The 2016 Rays were a disaster, even by the measure of the franchise’s boom or bust track record. After being picked by PECOTA to be the projected division winner, they finished last in the AL… Read more »
By now, the consensus on the 2016 Texas Rangers is out there: they overachieved. Last year, the Rangers “Orioled” their way to the best record in the American League. The Pythagorean standings said they were… Read more »
What the Marlins represent to Major League Baseball heading into 2017 seemed clear until last week. The story of a team attempting to recover from the loss of a true franchise talent writes itself. Jose… Read more »
We all know how the 2016 season ended for the Orioles. I don’t want to write about it. So, I won’t. I have forgiven Buck Showalter. I love him. I understand that long term relationships… Read more »
Another year, another set of major question marks for the New York Mets. Just two years after a miracle run that ended with a classic Mets blowup in the 2015 World Series (they led in… Read more »
Coming off a run to the ALCS that marked their first playoff appearance in 22 years, the Blue Jays faced questions relating to a repeat of their success. Would regression and the nearly inevitable loss… Read more »
JJ Keller is a true-blue Seattleite and Mariners fan; Louie Opatz has recently arrived to Seattle and is a depressed Twins fan. The duo began an email correspondence in late January — picture that Keanu… Read more »
One of my favorite pieces of writing about writing is Marxist cultural critic Raymond Williams’ article on science fiction (I searched “Raymond Williams baseball” on Google to see if Banished to the Pen could rightly… Read more »
Taking a look around the AL West, it would be easy to suggest the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros have playoff potential. The Seattle Mariners are a Jerry Dipoto tradefest, which at least creates… Read more »
The 2016 Angels were a team riddled with injuries. Some of their best pitchers went down for nearly the entire season while some of the best position players suffered more minor injuries that caused them… Read more »
Going into the 2016 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks were one of the hot picks to take that next step and make the playoffs. They were 79-83 in 2015, and then they added starting pitcher Zack… Read more »
Since the turn of the millennium, the Cardinals have won 71 more games than the second best National League team (Dodgers). They have the most postseason wins (65) across the league. And they’ve won 197… Read more »
Get the full list of our 2017 team previews.
Although baseball is always changing, one thing remains constant: PECOTA hates the Royals. If history is any indication, we should take these projections with a grain of salt, at least when it comes to Kansas… Read more »
The ending to the 2016 Giants season was perfect, at least from a narrative perspective. All season, the Giants were plagued by an equally incompetent and unlucky bullpen. According to Grant Brisbee’s Pain Index,… Read more »
For some teams, spring is a time of excited, hopeful anticipation, heralding the beginning of a new baseball season, in which they might place into motion the culmination of their work in order to contend… Read more »
Gone are the years where the Nationals were the laughingstock of the Major Leagues. Where the rats crossed home plate in RFK Stadium more than the Washington players on the basepaths. Where their Segway-riding GM… Read more »
Seth Moland-Kovash and Jim Turvey collaborated on this preview. The Minnesota Twins are projected, by PECOTA, for the largest increase in wins of any team in Major League Baseball. The 2016 Minnesota Twins put their… Read more »
Here is an understatement: Last year was a disappointment for the Astros. After an 86-76 season in 2015 with a wild card game victory and a heartbreaking ALDS loss to the Kansas City Royals, 2016… Read more »
Corey Smith and John Tutty collaborated on this preview. The 2017 season is one that Phillies fans should have been looking forward for some time now – Ryan Howard, the last piece from the… Read more »
Dan Vermilya and Simon Gutierrez collaborated on this preview. A Ben Zobrist double in the top of the 10th inning of Game 7 of the World Series paved the way for the passing down… Read more »
This year’s White Sox preview is a joint effort between Brandon Lee and Eric Oliver. For the last 26 years, the Chicago White Sox have been operating with a single mantra: “be pretty okay, and… Read more »
Simon Gutierrez and Scott Ross collaborated on this preview. The 2016 Red Sox were a testament to both the articulately blunt machinations of legendary wheeler-dealer Dave Dombrowski and the delicate, thoughtful construction of the… Read more »
Inspired by FiveThirtyEight’s regular Slack chats, Brandon Lee, Nick Strangis, Ross Bukouricz and Darius Austin got together to do a different kind of 2017 Cubs preview through the medium of Facebook.
In 2016 the Cincinnati Reds scored 716 runs. That isn’t so bad. In fact, that’s more runs than some of the playoff teams in 2016, namely the Giants and Mets. That’s the good news. The bad… Read more »
A rebuild is a tricky proposition for a baseball team, particularly for a small market club without the locked-in revenue of a large TV deal to get them through the lean times. The club needs… Read more »
