Connector Staff
First and foremost, for clarification, all predictions presented in this article are as of Thursday, Sept. 18.
With this baseball season being the third to feature a second Wild Card team per league, a greater number of teams, throughout the season, consider themselves to be more in the playoff race than out of it. But now that the calendar summer is winding down, the baseball regular season is too, and only a select few teams remain in the race, if they have not already clinched a playoff berth. October nears, and that means postseason baseball.
In the American League, the Baltimore Orioles have already clinched the East, while the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have won the West. The Central division has been a tight race since the Kansas City Royals experienced a remarkable turnaround, going from playing good to great baseball earlier in the summer. The Royals have long been poised to aspire to excellence as a ball club, and with the likes of James Shields, Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler, and Yordano Ventura at the helm this season, they seem ready to make a real playoff run for the first time in twenty-eight years. For this, the Royals will make the first Wild Card spot, as the Detroit Tigers will win the Central.
The second Wild Card spot will go to the Oakland Athletics. On July 31st, Oakland general manager and sabermetrics patron Billy Beane made a bold move in trading prized Cuban slugger Yoenis Cespedes for our beloved Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes.
While, obviously, the Red Sox were not expecting a significant turnaround in the team’s overall performance from Cespedes, he has showcased an affinity for the city and the team, and proves to be a valuable asset in the future, so long as he is extended, or is signed in free agency following the 2015 season.
Meanwhile, in Oakland, Lester has pitched admirably and even dominantly, while Gomes is doing what he does, as a part-time slugger and clubhouse presence. But with the loss of Cespedes, their former cleanup man, the A’s offense fell into a spiraling decline of production and power (partly remedied by trading for Adam Dunn), and began an awful stretch of bad baseball. Despite this, though, I believe the Athletics have enough pitching and just enough hitting to squeeze into the playoffs. The Mariners are playing extremely well, but the A’s are ahead of them this late in the season. Though, in reality, it’s a toss-up between the two.
Because we’re mostly all Sox fans, we tend to have an American League bias, and due to my admittedly-long American League analysis, I have to limit my National League opinions to fewer sentences.
The Washington Nationals have already clinched the East, while I believe the St. Louis Cardinals will hold onto the Central, and the Los Angeles Dodgers will win the West. The first Wild Card spot will go to the San Francisco Giants, and the second to the Pittsburgh Pirates. I may be following the current standings to formulate these predictions, but this late in the season, to do so is rational.
Ultimately, to get to the point, I believe it will be an Angels versus Dodgers World Series. Californians have all the fun, apparently. But, the Angels will come out victorious, as they have the balance of power, pitching and clubhouse chemistry that will prevail the other teams’. And if I’m wrong, that wouldn’t be the first time.
