MLB Predictions, 2016

With MLB’s Opening Night only a few days away, I thought it would be a good time to post some predictions for this upcoming season. Baseball is, predictably, a very hard sport to predict, if that makes sense. With the exception of the Cubs never winning the World Series again, you just never know which teams or player will have a good year or bad year. Therefore, if any of my predictions come true, I declare myself Supreme Prognosticator and should be given the Presidency by default.

I will try to make a prediction for every MLB team, but please also see my AL Central Storylines to watch in 2016 for a more in-depth analysis of what to expect for the Royals' division rivals. Here we go:

• The Blue Jays’ Jose Baustista injures his hamstring when attempting to make the most epic bat flip of all time. Frustrated with his injury, Blue Jays fans pelt him with beer cans and poutine (as only Canadians can do) and jeer as he limps like a cretin back to the dugout. 

• Yoenis Cespedes has all of his fancy cars stolen outside of Citi Field, and is forced to ride his horse to games, earning a $1,000 fine and citation from the City of New York for each dump his horse takes on city streets. 

• Madison Bumgarner’s horse challenges Cespedes’ horse to a race and wins. Cespedes decides to retire from baseball and pursue a career raising Thoroughbreds. 

• Pablo Sandoval, who starts the season on the bench after losing his starting job to someone named Travis Shaw, eats away his feelings until he is unrecognizably huge. He has to be removed from Fenway Park by crane.   

• Joe Maddon, the Biggest Hippie in Baseball, gets high after the Cubs Opening Day win and decides to turn Wrigley Field into a season-long music festival called “Wrigleystock.” The result is that thousands of millennials living in Chicago overtake the stadium and tragically burn it down in a haze of marijuana smoke. Needless to say, Wrigleystock destroys the Cubs chances of winning the World Series in 2016 and the Cubs remain cursed. 

•  Brett Lawrie, now playing in the AL Central, gets pelted with so many fastballs that he develops CTE. Roger Goodell and the NFL immediately release a statement that there is no evidence that playing football caused this or any other chronic brain disease. 

• The Cardinals’ Yadier Molina adds another neck tattoo to his MLB-leading 13 (how many tattoos can one neck hold?!?). Tragically, the tattoo is not the phrase “No Ragrets.”

• Nori Aoki sets the Major League Baseball record for Most Career Times Hit in the Nutsack by a Live Baseball. He is given the following trophy to commemorate this achievement:

• The Diamondback's Zack Greinke, disgusted with the outrageous prices of guacamole at Chipotle, declares his new favorite burrito place is Rudy's Burritos, although he hates having to drive all the way to Mesa for 65 cent guac. 
• Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel of the Astros decides to shave his notorious beard for charity. He becomes unrecognizable and is not allowed in the stadium. As a result, the team fails to make the playoffs. 
  
• Wil Myers hurts his wrist on Opening Day playing ping pong in the Padres dugout and misses the entire season. 
• The Angel's Mike Trout hits for the cycle and every single anchor at ESPN has their head explode.
• Jealous of Trout, Bryce Harper hits for the cycle TWICE IN ONE GAME, and every single sportswriter in America has their head explode. America suffers from a shortage of sportswriters, and is forced to read blogs like this one instead. 
• Not to be outdone, Giancarlo Stanton of the Marlins attempts to hit for the cycle THREE times in one game, but is found injecting steroids directly into his buttocks in the middle of a game. He is not punished however, because the Marlins are terrible and need all the help they can get.
• The Atlanta Braves, who are playing their last season at Turner Field before moving into their new stadium outside city limits, give every Opening Day fan a coupon for Buy One Hot Dog Get One Free at the new stadium, not redeemable at Turner Field. The city suffers through horrendous riots the rest of the season.
• Speaking of riots, the City of Milwaukee holds violent protests when it is revealed that the original Hank T. Dog died in 2015 after players fed it Old Milwaukee and cheese curds, and the team has been cycling through imposters ever since. 
  
• Adam LaRoche is arrested after he is found guilty of kidnapping his doppelganger Charlie Blackmon of the Rockies. At his trial, LaRoche said he was just trying to get his son Drake a chance to play for a AA baseball team, which is the current level the Rockies play at.
• A report by Al Jazeera accuses Alex Rodriguez, who has announced he will retire after the 2017 season, of sending packages of Human Growth Hormone to Peyton Manning's wife. He explains that the report is "outrageous and wrong, and that the HGH is totally not for helping me pass Barry Bonds for the most home runs in MLB history."
• The Pirates' Andrew McCutchen is given an Indecent Exposure citation in Pittsburgh when crazed fans, expecting him to hand out his batting gloves after a game, rip his entire uniform off. 
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Love/Hate, Hate/Love, Love/Love

Chapter 1, In which The Dream releases Love Hate and it becomes Hate/Love

Pop artist The Dream released an album in 2011 called LoveHate. He stated the title was short for “love me all summer, hate me all winter.” Which got me thinking about the Royals from 1986-2013, during which devoted fans would do the exact opposite of The Dream by loving the team all winter and hating them as they floundered hopelessly all summer. “Our Time” always became Their Time, which was followed by Cry In Your Cereal After A Ten-Game Losing Streak Time.

Of course all that is behind us now that the Royals are Defending Champions Of The World, but I couldn’t help but think about how the reverse Love Hate also applies to several Royals players, namely Luke Hochevar and Wade Davis, who we have had complex relationships with over the years. As starting pitchers, those two were complete buffoons on the mound but as relievers they have been lights out, which has changed Love/Hate to Hate/Love.

Chapter 2, In which Hate/Love became Hate/Hate

Take yourself back to early 2012. The Royals were in the middle of a 90-loss season (somehow they finished in 3rd place in the AL Central).  Bruce Chen was the Opening Day starter and led the team with 11 wins (and he only had 14 losses!). Billy Butler had the best year of his career. Then there was Luke Hochevar, the former 1st pick of the 2006 draft, who was coming off a career-best year in which he won 11 games and produced a paltry (for him) 4.68 ERA. That winter, we thought he was going to break out and become the right-handed version of Clayton Kershaw. We loved Luke Hochevar. We admired him. Some of us even wanted to bear his children.

Then the season started and summer came and he dropped a dud on us. He lost 16 games which is NOT easy to do and Hate/Love really became Hate/Hate.

Chapter 3, In which Hate/Hate becomes a complex phenomenon

Fast forward to late 2012, when GM Dayton Moore shocked the world and traded the #1 Prospect in All The World (Wil Myers) plus some other loose change to the Tampa Bay Rays for James Shields and Wade Davis. “Davis is the key to the trade” they all said. It was reported that Davis, a former Rookie of the Year candidate who was coming off a career-best year in 2012 after being demoted to the bullpen, was a decent starting pitcher who might need some gentle tweaking from a pitching wizard like Dave Eiland. We weren’t ready to love Davis just yet and we still hated Hochevar from his dismal 2012 season, so Hate/Hate became a complex phenomenon where Royals fans were prepared to either Love if Davis or Hoch would pitch ok or absolutely HATE if those imbeciles failed to not suck.

Chapter 4, in which a complex phenomenon became What The Hell is Happening

As it happens, Hochevar was sent to the bullpen for the 2013 season and pitched terrifically. Hate/Hate became Love/Love. Davis, however, was inconsistent and pitched like a douche which resulted in Hate/Hate. Then Papa Hoch tore his elbow and missed 2014 and Davis was sent to the bullpen. We did not know what to think and Love/Love Hate/Hate became What The Hell is Happening.

Chapter 5, In which What The Hell is Happening became Love/Love

While Papa Hoch sat out 2014, Wade Davis became the Greatest Relief Pitcher That Has Ever Lived. He has completed pitching feats that are completely unheard of, such as loading the bases in the bottom of the 9th inning with 0 outs only to strike out the side. Davis does not look at strikeouts. It is believed that if you hit a home run off of Wade Davis you or your family will never be heard from again. And Papa Hoch, his arm fully healed and ready to demolish opposing batters’ confidence, threw 82 strikeouts to only 17 walks issued in 2015, a ridiculous ratio that not even Cyborg Wade Davis completed. The change from What The Hell is Happening to Love/Love was now complete. We completely love Davis and Papa Hoch in the winter, summer, spring and fall and every other team with their humanoid bullpens can go suck it.  

Wade don't look at strikeouts

Papa Hoch

The WAR of the Royals

I recently obtained several 2016 Royals baseball cards and while examining them (below), I noticed something interesting. Several of the players stats had changed between 2014 and 2015, including the Wins Against Replacement, or WAR. This statistic represents the average number of wins a player is worth as compared to a replacement level player. This is a way to assess a player’s value and determine how much a team might lose if that player was injured. A higher WAR value means that a player is worth more than a player with a lower WAR. A value of 0 represents an average player.

I was interested in examining the changes in WAR and how they corresponded to the Royals’ two World Series appearances, particularly for the core players on the team. The Royals have had many of the same players since 2011-12, which would enable a sizable group for comparing over the years. So I went through each player’s WAR between 2013 and 2015 to see what changes might have occurred as the team rose into postseason prominence. I also examined each players' career high WAR so we can see what their ceiling as an MLB player is so far. A quick disclaimer: I did not examine rental or short-term players, such as Nori Aoki, Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto, simply because their time in KC was so short, and because they did not have much effect on helping the Royals make both World Series. Below is a table of the WAR levels for the main Royals between 2013-15:

Player	2013 WAR	2014 WAR	2015 WAR	Career high WAR
Alcides Escobar	0.3	2.5	0.6	3.4
Alex Gordon	4.2	6.6	2.8	7.2
Lorenzo Cain	3.2	5.1	7.2	7.2
Eric Hosmer	3.5	0.8	3.6	3.6
Mike Moustakas	-0.1	0.4	4.4	4.4
Omar Infante	2.5	0.8	-0.8	3.1
Jarrod Dyson	1.8	2.8	2.2	2.8
Christian Colon	---	0.7	0.6	0.7
Salvador Perez	4.1	3.4	2.2	4.1
Luke Hochevar	2.0	---	0.3	2.0
Jeremy Guthrie	1.1	1.1	-1.8	4.8
Kelvin Herrera	-0.2	2.8	1.4	2.8
Wade Davis	-2.1	3.7	3.4	3.7
Greg Holland	3.1	2.5	0.2	3.1
Danny Duffy	0.9	3.6	1.5	3.6
Yordano Ventura	0.2	3.2	1.9	3.2
TOTAL	24.5	40.0	29.7
# above 2.0 WAR	7	10	7

Based on the table, the 2014 Royals had 5 players who set career highs (highlighted in yellow) in WAR (no one set their career high in 2013), and overall, the core of the team was worth 40 more wins than if the Royals had trotted out replacement level players, which was their norm from the years 1986 until 2013. You will notice that 10 players had WAR values above 2.0, which typically represents the benchmark for being considered a good player. 

In 2015, the Royals were buoyed by 3 players having career highs in WAR, but overall only had 7 of their core players who had WAR values above 2.0. Interestingly, the overall difference in WAR between 2013 and 2015 was only 5.2 wins. It is pretty clear that the Royals making the World Series in 2015 was as a result of career years from Cain/Hosmer and Moose, coupled with the additions of Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist (as well as great years from Edinson Volquez and Kendrys Morales). Those 5.2 wins can easily be the difference between winning the division and not even making the Wild Card round, so it would definitely seem that GM Dayton Moore’s gamble on Volquez, Morales, Cueto and Zobrist was well worth it. 

My take from this analysis is in general, the Royals rise to two consecutive World Series was a result of their core group finally reaching their peak, coupled with solid years from their free agent signings. Teams like the Cleveland Indians are trying to replicate this success by maintaining their core group while teams like the Detroit Tigers and LA Angels simply try to buy the best players. Considering that the NY Mets made the 2015 World Series with their young core group, it appears that buying free agents is not necessarily the best way to go in baseball, and could be a reason why Alex Gordon decided to stay in Kansas City where he could remain with his core group and hope that 2016 gives players like Jarrod Dyson, Paulo Orlando, Sal Perez and maybe even Alcides Escobar a chance to get their career highs in WAR. Obviously there is much more to baseball than WAR, which is complicated to calculate, but it was interesting to examine this stat a little more in depth.  

By the way, the 2016 Royals cards are pretty sharp, AND they include highlight cards from the World Series. Better get some for the memories!