While employed as a beat reporter, one thing I learned from photographers is the virtue of patience. One has to keep paying attention, keep triggering the digital camera’s capture button, or risk missing a memorable moment, the best moment of a career. Photographers are fishing, really. There is no DVR playback in live-image capturing.

Only shaky video from a handheld smartphone captured the moment on Tuesday evening.

If it weren’t for Ashley’s wherewithal to employ her phone’s video option, the world might have missed Cristian Pache’s second professional home run. All those who were not present at SunTrust Park had already missed his first. Each occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta.

Nowadays it seems everything that happens in major-league baseball is captured by high-definition camera. But the Braves’ final exhibition game against a contingent of their minor leaguers at SunTrust Park on Tuesday night was not televised. It was an exhibition, a final warm-up the club dubbed as the Braves vs. Future Stars. We will have only the oral histories to document what happened. And something remarkable did happen.

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Two people walked into a bar. They settled every debate in the universe. Then they discussed baseball.

“Who is Mr. October?”

“Reggie Jackson. What my elders taught me anyhow. Read it was sarcastic at first, then Reggie grew into the role.”

“Mr. November?”

“Ain’t Jeets that’s for sure? Can’t take a crown because you were first in line when a calendar flips.”

A swig.

“Randy Johnson won Games Six and Seven of the World flippin’ Series. That boy never needed to grow, of course. Just found the right circumstance. We should all be so lucky and talented.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Peace in our time.

“What about Mr. March?”

Oh no.

“All the databases have ‘Mar/Apr’ in their splits. There have been 70 regular-season games played in March. What are we saying here? Beginnings don’t matter? Without a beginning there is no end. An ouroboros. With no March there is no October. There is no November. There’s no Christmas. I like Christmas.”

“Chanukkah is also…”

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And just like that, the winter of our discontent is almost over. Tomorrow, all 30 teams celebrate Opening Day, and their fans with them. But before play begins, we at FanGraphs will observe our annual tradition of attempting to predict what will happen this year, before we commence our other annual tradition of getting some things wrong. Last year was a mixed bag. Astros? Nailed it. Cubs and Dodgers? Aren’t our moms proud! Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, Rookie of the Year winners? Can’t say we saw that coming.

We gathered predictions from writers across our family of blogs; what follows are the results.

The American League

The American League predictions are marked by their overwhelming sameness. Of the 40 ballots cast, a full 29 have the Astros, Indians, and Yankees sitting atop their divisions come the season’s end. Eight others feature the Astros and Indians but swap in the Red Sox for the Yankees. That isn’t so surprising: we currently project Houston to win 100 games, while New York, Cleveland, and Boston check in at 95, 94, and 93 wins, respectively.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Philadelphia Phillies. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

60 FV Prospects

Hitters like to shorten up against Sixto after he’s blown well-placed, sinking, upper-90s gas past them for strikes one and two, which leaves them vulnerable to any of his three viable secondary offerings later in at-bats. Sanchez sits 95-99, has touched 102, and possesses advanced command. He has a long, cutting slider in the mid-80s and a two-plane curveball, both of which flash above-average, but his best secondary is a ghosting, mid-80s changeup which embarrassed hitters five years older than him at Hi-A last year.

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The Marlins are probably the worst team right now in the majors. Independent of schedule, they project for the worst record. Taking the schedule into consideration, they still project for the worst record. Taking community input into consideration, also, they still project for the worst record. Of course, this isn’t surprising. This is kind of the plan. The Marlins are bad now on purpose, because they didn’t see the sense in trying to push for a competitive window. And, you know, there’s a chance the Marlins overachieve. Maybe they finish with a better record than the White Sox. Maybe they win more games than the Tigers. But, the season will be rough. It’ll be a season of development and ugly results.

Tuesday, the Marlins played a game against the University of Miami. These kinds of games happen from time to time every spring, as practice for the pros, and as fun opportunities for the amateurs. What kind of 20-year-old wouldn’t get up for the chance to play some major-leaguers on the field? For the Marlins, obviously, there was nothing to play for. I guess a little bit of pride. But the Marlins were just saying goodbye to another long spring training. The exhibition ended after the top of the seventh.

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