By: William Robinson
It’s that time of the year again where we do the thought exercise of trying to come up with predictions for the 2023 MLB season. I feel like I’ve done one of these for the past several seasons and I feel like I’m pretty bad at it, but who knows even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and again. So, without further ado here are my predictions for this season.
NL East
Atlanta Braves 95-67
Philadelphia Phillies 92-70
New York Mets 90-72
Miami Marlins 80-82
Washington Nationals 52-110
I predict that the Braves will win the division again. This is probably the most complete team in baseball. Unless it suffers injuries to Ronald Acuna Jr, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Max Fried and Spencer Strider then I can’t see a world where they aren’t good. Their offseason addition of Sean Murphy looked like it was an addition to an already strong catcher group but with the changes in MLB rules stolen bases are going to be a bigger part of baseball this season and having a catcher that catches stealers is going to be important. Now it’s impossible to predict them to win over a hundred games again because this division is really good but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. The Mets and Phillies in my mind are pretty much even and they aren’t going to be that far behind the Braves. I’m going to actually give it to the Phillies as I think having Realmuto is going to help them and I’m not putting all my eggs in the basket of the old pitchers (Verlander and Scherzer). This division may come down to the last weekend. The Marlins should be a better team this year but it’s going to be hard to improve their record much in this division. The Nationals will be one of the worst teams if not the worst team in baseball.
NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals 96-66
Milwaukee Brewers 84-78
Chicago Cubs 81-81
Pittsburgh Pirates 70-92
Cincinnati Reds 68-94
The Cardinals get the advantage of beating up on the relatively weak Central division. The Cardinals are just like Jason Vorhees he’s always going to be there and he’s always going to slay. The Cardinals will be good because honestly, I don’t think they know how to be anything different than that. That means that they should have the best record in baseball. The Brewers should be worse than last year, but just barely and the Cubs probably are a bit better with their offseason pickups. The Pirates and the Reds could be a lot better than this record indicates as both have young teams and if they can get their young players to do well then, they could surprise, but it’s hard to pick that when they haven’t done it before.
NL West
San Diego Padres 92-70
Los Angeles Dodgers 90 – 72
San Francisco Giants 82-80
Colorado Rockies 70-92
Arizona Diamondbacks 62-100
The Padres should be one of the best teams in baseball this year. Their roster is absolutely stacked, and they have spent more money than nearly anyone in order to compete. That being said they almost always underperform, and I don’t have any faith that Fernando Tatis Jr. can play a season without being hurt. I will pick them to do well, but it won’t surprise me if they underperform. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the Dodgers over perform and end up winning more than what I have predicted. The Giants are going to be pretty decent and a team you don’t want to play in the playoffs because I think they may end up with the best “vibes” in baseball and the Rockies and Diamondbacks are going to be dreadful. If you are the Diamondbacks at least you have Corbin Carroll to look forward to.
AL East
Toronto Blue Jays 88-74
Tampa Bay Rays 87-75
Baltimore Orioles 86-76
New York Yankees 85-77
Boston Red Sox 77-85
This division is the best division in baseball and I predict that it’s going to be a tight race to the very end. I don’t think the Yankees will be as good as last year because I can’t see Judge doing what he did again. I also think that the Rays and Blue Jays are just better than them. The Orioles have a good young team and this might be the year that they take that next step and Boston is going to suffer from being in this division. In any other division the Red Sox would be over .500. I think the Orioles get into the postseason this year and I predict they win a series.
AL Central
Cleveland Guardians 88-74
Chicago White Sox 83-79
Minnesota Twins 81-81
Kansas City Royals 76-86
Detroit Tigers 74-88
The Guardians a decent baseball team. Jose Ramirez may compete for the MVP this season, but I could see any number of things going wrong for them and then they get overtaken by the White Sox. That being said the last two seasons I have made absolutely horrible picks in this division and every year the Guardians win and so this year I’m going to go with them. That being said watch I’ll say this and something happens and a Miguel Cabrera led Tigers team in his last season ends up winning the division. I don’t think it’ll happen but man I really hope somehow it does.
AL West
Seattle Mariners 96-56
Houston Astros 94-58
LA Angels 81-81
Texas Rangers 78-84
Oakland Athletics 52-110
Let me say this for the record. I hate the Astros and so I’m not ever going to pick for them. I don’t care if they keep winning all the time and my brain tells me they’ll win this division this year. Nope not going to happen. I’m not picking them. I know they are one of the best young teams in baseball, I know they have a winning culture. I don’t care. I hate them. So instead, I’ll pick the Mariners and this year I think it’s going to happen for them. The Angels might be really good this year too but how many times have we heard that one? deGrom is already hurt and so the Rangers might be improved but not that much and Oakland is basically a minor league team.
Ever since they have expanded the playoffs it has been more about who is hot at the end of the year than who the best team necessarily is. So, I’m going to try to predict the future about who is going to be hot and predict the playoffs. I’m picking the World Series to the be the Mariners againt the Braves with the Braves hoisting the World Series trophy again. I’m predicting Ronald Acuna Jr to be the NL MVP and Shohei Ohtani to be the AL MVP. If I was going to predict a dark horse candidate to be MVP in each league, I’m going to take Manny Machado for the Padres and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for the Blue Jays. For Manager of the Year, I’m going to go with the Giants Gabe Kapler and Blue Jays John Schneider. For Cy Young I’m going to go with Max Fried from the Braves and Shohei Ohtani for the Angels. For Rookie of the Year, I’m going with Miguel Vargas from the Dodgers and Gunnar Henderson for the Orioles.
Here are my hot takes for this season if you want any hot takes. I think that Ronald Acuna could be a 40/40 man. I think that the Rangers are going to regret paying Jacob deGrom all that money they gave him as he is going to battle injuries all season long. I think that the Padres won’t be as good as their team should be and the Dodgers will be better than they should be on paper. I think the Orioles are a dangerous playoff team come October and I think I’ll probably get more wrong than right in this prediction thread. I hope that you enjoyed it.