Four Bold(ish) Predictions for the American League

Most of the time, I don’t like to make predictions. For one thing, they’re hard! The amount of public information out there is borderline overwhelming. Beating the wisdom of the crowd isn’t easy, particularly when the crowd is using fancy models and copious batted ball data to be wise.

The other big problem with making predictions is that they’re usually wrong if they’re bold. That’s the nature of the game — a bold prediction can’t be the majority of the probability mass, or it wouldn’t be bold. How fun can it possibly be to read a list of things that probably won’t happen?

Well, hopefully very fun, because I’m going to make some this week. These aren’t going to be completely wild guesses, of course, because I do have some idea what I’m doing, but I’m not expecting to go 100% on these. If I go two for four, I’ll definitely call that a win. These are merely the synthesis of some observations that I’ve made over the past year or so, sprinkled with a little bit of boldness dust where necessary to make them exciting instead of milquetoast.

The Rays Will Miss the Playoffs

Is this one bold? I think it is, even though our playoff odds don’t agree with me. Our odds model has a known hole when projecting deep teams, though, and other public models see them as the second-best team in the East. Betting markets agree. Tampa Bay was the best team in the AL last year, and the smart money says that they’ll be in that general stratosphere again this year.

I’m skeptical, though, and not just because our model doesn’t like them. The Rays’ perpetual motion machine offense worked wonders in 2020, a season that was uniquely suited to depth and flexibility. It worked in 2019 as well, with copious contributions from Tommy Pham and Austin Meadows highlighting a versatile squad. And heck, it worked well enough in 2018, when Joey Wendle and Mallex Smith combined for 7.3 WAR.

Can the Rays pull another offensive rabbit out of their hat in 2021? Sure, they certainly could. If Randy Arozarena is more above-average outfielder than peak Joe DiMaggio, though, the offense will need a few breakouts to be a top 10 squad. That’s particularly true if the team keeps Wander Franco down for a chunk of the year (or if he scuffles), still an open question.

More worrisome to me is the pitching staff. The Rays generally get by on offense and excel at pitching. The last time they finished outside the top 10 in pitching WAR was 2017, also the last year they missed the playoffs. That’s not a perfect causal link — but it’s enough to worry me.

With Charlie Morton and Blake Snell gone, the rotation is Tyler Glasnow, Ryan Yarbrough, and a bushelful of lottery tickets. Can Tampa Bay turn Michael Wacha’s fortunes around? Can they rejuvenate Rich Hill and turn back the clock for Chris Archer?

They’ll need to. The relief corps is as deep as ever, but that’s only so valuable when the rotation is unsteady. If one or two of their reclamation projects don’t work, there will be a lot of backfill just to get enough innings out of their starters. Collin McHugh could do it, as could Josh Fleming, but neither of them are sure things. Luis Patiño is exciting, but he still looks a year or two away to me. Could Tampa Bay make me look stupid and spin straw into gold again? Certainly. Probably, even. But in my eyes, this is a year where the balancing act comes up short.

Oakland Will Finish Below .500

Yeah, yeah, I hate the scrappy low-payroll teams. This one pains me, because not only am I a Bay Area resident, but my dog attended every A’s home game last year in cardboard cutout form. Not only that, but the A’s won the West last year, and the division isn’t exactly getting better. Framber Valdez might be out for the year and the Angels are still the Angels. It feels like a silly argument to make when the rest of the division is crumbling.

In fact, betting markets have the A’s as the favorite to win the AL West. That’s hardly a below-.500 thing to do. But as with Tampa Bay, I think that too much of this is based on what they did in 2020, and not enough attention is being paid to what the team will be working with this year.

Oakland’s offense has two centerpieces: Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. Chapman projects as the 11th-best position player in baseball — but he’s also coming off of hip surgery that ended his 2020 season. He appears to be fully recovered — he’s been playing in spring games without reporting pain — but the team will likely treat him very carefully this year, which makes me think he’ll play less than our 651 plate appearance estimate.

While Chapman is likely to be excellent when he plays, there are more concerns around the other Matt. Olson regressed mightily in 2020; he struck out 31.4% of the time and posted a flukishly low .227 BABIP. Projection systems mostly don’t care — he’s projected for a 123 wRC+, right around his career average — but there’s definitely some risk there.

I side with the projections as a median case, but I think the downside tails are meaningful. Pulled fly ball machines like Olson have already maxed out their potential, much to their credit. There simply isn’t anywhere to improve if other skills slip. That’s actually a compliment — he’s already figured out the parts of the game that maximize his value — but it also makes me nervous. In 2020, Olson’s swinging strike rate went up while his swing rate went down. Another year of that, and things could get messy.

Ramón Laureano could pick up some of the slack — he’s actually projected for more WAR than Olson due to his defense. Stephen Piscotty and Mark Canha have untapped potential. Sean Murphy is a budding star. But between the two Matts, there’s enough risk of various types to worry me.

If the offense can’t carry the team, things could get ugly. The A’s had a middling rotation and an elite bullpen last year. The rotation won’t change much — Mike Minor is the only pitcher who made more than one start who won’t return. The team hopes that Jesús Luzardo will take a step forward and Chris Bassitt will reprise his phenomenal September. Every team hopes their pitchers will be good, though, and Oakland doesn’t have a lot behind them to make up for any shortcomings.

If the bullpen shoves again, that might be okay. With Trevor Rosenthal playing the role of Liam Hendriks, that seems far-fetched — Rosenthal is a great piece, but Hendriks was historically dominant last year. Even beyond that, the A’s boasted three relievers with at least 20 innings pitched and an ERA below 2.00. A bullpen that dominant doesn’t merely help you beat your Pythagorean expectation; it moves the dang expectation.

Could that happen again this year? Sure. In my head, though, I keep seeing the same thing. One of the Matts gets hurt or scuffles, the rest of the offense plays to projections, and the rotation simply doesn’t have it. If they’re three games below .500 in July, and all five of their starters are putting up fourth starter numbers, would you really be surprised?

Andrew Vaughn Will Win Rookie of the Year

If the first two predictions were mostly analytical — add up the playing time and look for weaknesses — this is more of a feel pick. Arozarena is rightly the favorite to win this award; everyone else competing for it will be breaking into the majors, while he’s already starred in the playoffs. Favorite doesn’t mean lock, though, and even for a strong Arozarena backer like me, I think the baseball community is getting ahead of itself here.

Vaughn is the kind of hitter who award voters value more than all-in value metrics would imply. He’s not necessarily DH-only in the long run, but he will be this year unless José Abreu gets hurt. Other than that defensive limitation, though, he’s got everything you want.

Sure, he’s only racked up 249 plate appearances in the minors, so he’s not exactly a sure thing. In a small sample, he’s looked like he belongs, though. He ran a .400 OBP in 2020 spring training and held his own against White Sox pitching in intrasquads, per Eric Longenagen’s report.

He’s also done well enough this spring, hitting .290/.405/.419 in 13 games. That on base percentage is perhaps his best skill; he got on base about half the time in his preposterous college career, and walked nearly as often as he struck out in his brief minor league cameo in 2019.

Conveniently, the White Sox have a hole at DH after letting Edwin Encarnación leave this offseason. We’re already projecting Vaughn for 400 plate appearances, and I think that number could be low. This is Vaughn’s age-23 season, so you might think that the White Sox will game his service time, but I’m not convinced.

Keeping him down for long enough to avoid the Super Two deadline would cost the team some valuable at-bats. It would gain them a seventh year of control, at arbitration prices, in 2027. That’s a real cost, but frankly, it’s not as much as you’d think. Vaughn is the kind of player arbitration loves. He’ll put up baseball card stats in droves, and defense is more of a bonus than a calling card in arbitration hearings. Bat-first corner guys are lavishly rewarded in arbitration, so why not get the most out of him now when your team is good?

Will the Sox actually call him up for Opening Day? I don’t know. Will he hit? I don’t know — our projections are pessimistic on him, though the error bands are presumably huge given his limited history. I’m in, though — I don’t think people are giving Vaughn nearly as high a chance of breaking out in a full season this year as he deserves.

Kansas City Will Finish Ahead of Cleveland

This one might be a bridge too far, but I like a lot of what Kansas City has done this offseason. A solid starter to complement Brad Keller, Kris Bubic, and Brady Singer atop the rotation? Mike Minor fits the bill. Not enough OBP in the lineup? Bring in Carlos Santana. Andrew Benintendi didn’t cost them much, and he’ll be a big upgrade from their previous left field situation. Even Michael A. Taylor could be an asset, and a Benintendi/Taylor/Whit Merrifield outfield will play well in Kaufman.

When I wrote about the Carlos Santana signing earlier this offseason, I said that the Royals still looked to be short of contention. Adding Benintendi doesn’t change my view on that. Tussling with the Twins and White Sox at the top of the division never seemed very likely, and it’s not like the Wild Card is within easy reach either. The AL East has four teams who look better than the Royals, and only one of them can win that division.

But this isn’t just about the Royals. I might think they’re slightly over their skis, but Cleveland didn’t even buy a lift ticket. José Ramírez is awesome. Shane Bieber is an ace. After that, the entire roster is a giant question mark.

Will Andrés Giménez provide enough value with his glove to cushion the loss of Francisco Lindor? Will one of their seemingly endless array of young pitchers – Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale spring to mind — turn into a star? Will a Cleveland outfielder be even average? All of these are open questions, and the team needs to have several of them break their way, because there are some thin roster patches here.

The aforementioned outfield is dicey enough that Amed Rosario has been taking centerfield reps after 3,306 career innings in the infield. Jake Bauers is their presumptive starter at first base, and our 0.2 WAR projection for him roughly captures how I feel about that. Roberto Pérez and Cesar Hernandez are the best non-Ramírez position players here, most likely, and that isn’t an enviable spot to be in before the season starts.

More than that, though, I just don’t think Cleveland wants to compete. After slashing their payroll from $140 million to $124 million to a pre-proration $100 million from 2018 to 2020, they went down as low as $40 million this year while they shed everything that wasn’t nailed down. They used that newfound flexibility to… sign Eddie Rosario, basically. Their payroll stands at $53 million going into the year, ahead of only the Pirates.

Could this all be a setup? Could the team rush in with checkbooks blazing and acquire expensive missing pieces? Sure, theoretically. For a team that assiduously swapped out of its contracts to the point that it has zero salary guarantees past this year, it doesn’t seem likely. More likely, the fear of higher salaries in 2022 — Bieber will hit arbitration for the first time, for example — will keep them on the sidelines and perhaps even induce them to shed more money.

Put it all together, and it feels like a team that’s still in the process of turning the squad over to youngsters. They do boast six players in our top 100, but only Nolan Jones looks likely to arrive as a reinforcement this year; Triston McKenzie is already up, and the other four haven’t advanced past A ball.

Combine a thin roster with a penurious ownership group, and a Cleveland collapse feels exceedingly possible. Meanwhile, the Royals look game to try, even if I think they’ll come up short in the end. These teams are five games apart in our projections, and we’re the most optimistic on Kansas City, but I’m calling my shot; the Royals will end up no worse than third in their division, and Cleveland will share the cellar with Detroit.