I'm looking forward to....
... watching the Cubs and their fans slowly turn into the post-2004, pink-hat wearing Red Sox. The Cubs great run to the World Series was amazing. It was nice to see octogenerians sobbing with their children in joy after they won. That's all well and good. Now that the curse and all that is in the past, they can take their rightful place next to the Red Sox. I'm very sure the Cubs are going to monetize every last cent out of this ring - as is their right - but with that comes the very real endpoint of pink-hat wearing Cubs fans that couldn't name anyone from the 2003 team that last ripped their hearts out.
... enjoying the defensive wizardry of some of the games best, whether on MLB.tv, or Vine, or twitter or anything else. Already my juices got flowing for this with Javier Baez's insane no-look tag on the World Baseball Classic (which was fantastic up until the dud of a final), one that was so perfectly performed that Baez started celebrating and pointing to Yadier Molina before the ball even reached him. Along with Baez are great defensive wizards like Francisco Lindor and Andrelton Simmons at shortstop, Kevin Keirmaeir in the outfield, and so many others. I'm sure fans of the Ozzie Smith days would disagree, but this seems like the best defensive era in MLB history.
... tracking if home runs continue to go up. One of the more famous stories of the 2016 season was the sudden spike in home runs. This actually started in the 2nd half of the 2015 season and was reported on a small scale at the time. 2016 upped the trend and got a lot of theorists out there. The most commonly accepted theories seemed to be a slight change to the ball and a change in swing path (more uppercut) around the league. It has to be something slight as overall offense was more or less the same, but home runs were way up. If it is was the ball, I'm interested to see if that continues on into 2017.
... Seeing if Mike Trout can make it 6 for 6 in being the best player in the AL. At some point the general public will wake up to the fact that we have a Willie Mays / Mickey Mantle level supernova on our hands, a guy who is every bit as good as the pre-steroid Barry Bonds. Trout could, if not should, have five MVPs right now (though I hold that it is quite easy to argue for Josh Donaldson winning in 2015) from his five full seasons in baseball, and in only one of those seasons, 2015, was he not the MLB leader in WAR (Bryce Harper was that year - more on him in a bit). Trout's team is bad, though has some strange sleeper buzz, but he himself is appointment TV. At some point he may get hurt, or get slightly worse, or get passed by one of the young superstars, but there is a path where this continues for ten more years and he is rightfully seen as the heir to Mays/Mantle as the best all-around player we've ever seen.
... Compiling evidence of the continued shift in pitching strategies. It's been a few years now that the baseball analytics cognoscenti has hailed the idea that a starting pitcher should never pitch the 4th time through an order. That has been whittled down to teams going with 3rd time through the order, with teams like the Rays and potentially Rockies jumping on board. Coupled with that is the rise of the super reliever, which seems to have reached national prominence with the way Andrew Miller was used by the Indians. There are enough super reliever types out there to get this going leaague-wide. Certainly, it will be sad to see starting pitcher stats fall off in a volume perspective, but seeing the rise of these super relievers, like Miller, or potentially guys like even Matt Harvey (if he's slow to recover from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery) would be a great journey to follow.
... Counting down the 58 more hits Adrian Beltre needs for 3,000. I guess I'm supposed to be anti-Rangers given they are a manufactured division rival of the Astros, but I can't help but love Adrian Beltre. His whole career has been so strange. He was a good but not great player for a number of years, then had an insane 2004 season with 48 HR and 9.5 WAR and immediately went back to being the 3-5 WAR player he always was. Of course, then in 2010 he went to Boston, had a 7.8 win season, and has been between 5.5-7.5 ever since. He's now a sure-fire first ballot hall of famer, with numerous joyful plays including some insane defensive stops and throws at 3rd. The 3,000 hits milestone may be passe in 2017, but to me it is still cool to see someone so damn good reach this mark.
... Seeing which division race actually gets competitive. Each of the six divisions have a clear favorite in Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Washington, Chicago (Cubs, obviously), and Dodgers. Some are more clear than others, with the Cubs and Dodgers being heavy favorites, and the other four just moderately strong favorites. There seem to be known challengers as well, but baseball is never that easy to predict. Someone we don't think of will make a run. Very often that team ends up falling off around August, but still, if Arizona, or Milwaukee, or Miami, or the LA Angels, or Tigers or Rays make a run, the sport will be better off for it.
... Watching the Mariners be relevant. Now, they were somewhat relevant last year when they won 87 games, but the Mariners enter this season with significant wild card buzz from the baseball pursists and stat-heads alike. The trade for Jean Segura gives them three all-star caliber infielders in Segura, Cano and Seager. The outfield centers mostly around defense, which is needed in that beautiful but cavernous stadium. Their pitching always looks better on paper because of the home field, but this is an aggressive strategy to compile a bunch of #2-3 guys (sadly Felix is this now), but it should work. The Mariners have a beautiful ballpark, great uniforms, and baseball will be better off if October baseball returns to the Pacific Northwest
... Identifying what crazy thing that one of the bad teams throws at the wall sticks. Baseball is the sport that has their teams try more analytically-driven crazy tactics than any others. The Astros were the first team to start shifting like crazy back in the days when they used to suck hard. The Rockies went with a 6-man rotation a few years back. My favorite random idea was when the Reds went with all rookie starting pitchers in 2015 to see if any of them could stick. One of these bad teams is going to try something, and it will be great
... Saying goodbye to the early-to-mid-2010s revivals. The early part of this decade saw the rebirth of the Pirates and Royals, two franchises that had been bad for a good 20 years before they made the playoffs in 2013 and 2014 respectively. The Pirates were the top wild card team three years straight. The Royals made it to back-to-back World Series. Let me repeat: the Kansas City Royals won the AL pennant two years in a row. Both started their drop back last year and it may continue this year. Reports are the trading of top players for prospects may begin in both places, with guys like Andre McCutcheon and Alex Gordon on the market. It will be sad, but we'll always have those memories.
... Tracking the Mets pitching path to fit six pitchers into five slots. The Mets still have a bevy or ridiculously good, ridiculously cheap pitching talent. Now, pitching talent is always a gamble, and while the got blackjack in 2015 when they made it to the world series by winning an NLCS by sweeping the Cubs on the back of their pitchers, in 2016 all of their top guys got hurt at some point in time. On the face, the Mets have two of my favorite pitchers to watch in Syndegaard (probably ready for a huge breakout) and DeGrom (who might be my favorite pitcher to watch). Add to that hopefully healthy Matt Harvey and Steven Matz and you get the core that dominated the Cubs. Now add Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman and you get a team with legitimately six starters ranging from precocious prospects to potentially best pitcher in baseball (Thor). The Mets upside is so high, and if they hit it, it will be so fun to watch it happen
... The progression of the White Sox, Yankees and Braves prospects. These three teams are seemingly the owners of half the Top 50 prospects in baseball, and all have ones that may come up this year and flash something. The White Sox got a ton back for Chris Sale (deservedly) and we may see Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech (he of the 105 MPH fastball) this year. The Yankees stockpiled to the hilt last year and while their top guys may be further away, getting a full year of Gary Sanchez would be fun. Finally, the Braves are terrible but are maybe 2-3 years away from being really good and the first signs of that will be this year.
... Watching Madison Bumgarner face off against Clayton Kershaw. I'll have a specific one about Kershaw in part 2, but let's just say any start of his is worth watching. But add in Bumgarner, who seems to take special pride in going up against Kershaw, and you get must-watch baseball. Shout-out to the Giants and Dodgers for figuring out a way to lineup their rotations to get these two against each other fairly often. Kershaw and the Dodgers have had the upper-hand, but it is close, and Bumgarner's twirled a few gems in their head-to-head. Also, this matchup has the added advantage of watchign Bumgarner bat against Kershaw - he's hit a HR off Kershaw two straight years. Kershaw is the best pitcher of this generation and an all-timer. Bumgarner is not at that level, but he could be a HOFer (he's just in his age-27 season). Let's enjoy these while we still can.
... Seeing if Bryce Harper can rebound. Bryce Harper has seemingly been on the MLB landscape for 10 years now, ever since he was on the cover of SI as a 16 year old. For the most part, he's fulfilled the high-end projection if anyone were to guess where his career would be at this point. He's won an MVP, in a ridiculous season where at age 23 he had the best relative to league average batting season anyone has had since peak-Bonds. He had a 198 OPS+, with a .460 OBP and .649 SLG. The only guys since Bonds that sniffed these numbers were peak-Pujols and Miggy, who at their best were all-time great hitters. Of course, he surrounded that 10.0 WAR season with two years that combined 2.6. Career trajectories aren't always linear or static. Most people that have 10.0 WAR seasons don't have those again. But most don't drop to 1.6 either. Harper still had the plate patience and still has all the physical gifts. He's good enough to have had a season where he legitimately was better than Mike Trout. Baseball would be a lot better off if he got back to that level, even if most of that is because he's a perfect lightning rod anyway.
... Watching the growing superstars continue to grow. The league has maybe never been this stocked with such good, young talent. Obviously, Trout leads this pack - and he's still young at just 26. But then you get Harper (24), Bryant (25), Machado (24), Nolan Arenado (25), Francisco Lindor (23), Corey Seager (23), Javier Baez (24), Kyle Schwarber (24), Mookie Betts (24), Xander Bogaerts (24) and Carlos Correa (22). This crop of players already are really good if not MVP-level great. The league is so well stocked right now it is crazy. By the way, my favorite part of that list: the youngest guy is Carlos Correa.
... watching the Cubs and their fans slowly turn into the post-2004, pink-hat wearing Red Sox. The Cubs great run to the World Series was amazing. It was nice to see octogenerians sobbing with their children in joy after they won. That's all well and good. Now that the curse and all that is in the past, they can take their rightful place next to the Red Sox. I'm very sure the Cubs are going to monetize every last cent out of this ring - as is their right - but with that comes the very real endpoint of pink-hat wearing Cubs fans that couldn't name anyone from the 2003 team that last ripped their hearts out.
... enjoying the defensive wizardry of some of the games best, whether on MLB.tv, or Vine, or twitter or anything else. Already my juices got flowing for this with Javier Baez's insane no-look tag on the World Baseball Classic (which was fantastic up until the dud of a final), one that was so perfectly performed that Baez started celebrating and pointing to Yadier Molina before the ball even reached him. Along with Baez are great defensive wizards like Francisco Lindor and Andrelton Simmons at shortstop, Kevin Keirmaeir in the outfield, and so many others. I'm sure fans of the Ozzie Smith days would disagree, but this seems like the best defensive era in MLB history.
... tracking if home runs continue to go up. One of the more famous stories of the 2016 season was the sudden spike in home runs. This actually started in the 2nd half of the 2015 season and was reported on a small scale at the time. 2016 upped the trend and got a lot of theorists out there. The most commonly accepted theories seemed to be a slight change to the ball and a change in swing path (more uppercut) around the league. It has to be something slight as overall offense was more or less the same, but home runs were way up. If it is was the ball, I'm interested to see if that continues on into 2017.
... Seeing if Mike Trout can make it 6 for 6 in being the best player in the AL. At some point the general public will wake up to the fact that we have a Willie Mays / Mickey Mantle level supernova on our hands, a guy who is every bit as good as the pre-steroid Barry Bonds. Trout could, if not should, have five MVPs right now (though I hold that it is quite easy to argue for Josh Donaldson winning in 2015) from his five full seasons in baseball, and in only one of those seasons, 2015, was he not the MLB leader in WAR (Bryce Harper was that year - more on him in a bit). Trout's team is bad, though has some strange sleeper buzz, but he himself is appointment TV. At some point he may get hurt, or get slightly worse, or get passed by one of the young superstars, but there is a path where this continues for ten more years and he is rightfully seen as the heir to Mays/Mantle as the best all-around player we've ever seen.
... Compiling evidence of the continued shift in pitching strategies. It's been a few years now that the baseball analytics cognoscenti has hailed the idea that a starting pitcher should never pitch the 4th time through an order. That has been whittled down to teams going with 3rd time through the order, with teams like the Rays and potentially Rockies jumping on board. Coupled with that is the rise of the super reliever, which seems to have reached national prominence with the way Andrew Miller was used by the Indians. There are enough super reliever types out there to get this going leaague-wide. Certainly, it will be sad to see starting pitcher stats fall off in a volume perspective, but seeing the rise of these super relievers, like Miller, or potentially guys like even Matt Harvey (if he's slow to recover from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery) would be a great journey to follow.
... Counting down the 58 more hits Adrian Beltre needs for 3,000. I guess I'm supposed to be anti-Rangers given they are a manufactured division rival of the Astros, but I can't help but love Adrian Beltre. His whole career has been so strange. He was a good but not great player for a number of years, then had an insane 2004 season with 48 HR and 9.5 WAR and immediately went back to being the 3-5 WAR player he always was. Of course, then in 2010 he went to Boston, had a 7.8 win season, and has been between 5.5-7.5 ever since. He's now a sure-fire first ballot hall of famer, with numerous joyful plays including some insane defensive stops and throws at 3rd. The 3,000 hits milestone may be passe in 2017, but to me it is still cool to see someone so damn good reach this mark.
... Seeing which division race actually gets competitive. Each of the six divisions have a clear favorite in Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Washington, Chicago (Cubs, obviously), and Dodgers. Some are more clear than others, with the Cubs and Dodgers being heavy favorites, and the other four just moderately strong favorites. There seem to be known challengers as well, but baseball is never that easy to predict. Someone we don't think of will make a run. Very often that team ends up falling off around August, but still, if Arizona, or Milwaukee, or Miami, or the LA Angels, or Tigers or Rays make a run, the sport will be better off for it.
... Watching the Mariners be relevant. Now, they were somewhat relevant last year when they won 87 games, but the Mariners enter this season with significant wild card buzz from the baseball pursists and stat-heads alike. The trade for Jean Segura gives them three all-star caliber infielders in Segura, Cano and Seager. The outfield centers mostly around defense, which is needed in that beautiful but cavernous stadium. Their pitching always looks better on paper because of the home field, but this is an aggressive strategy to compile a bunch of #2-3 guys (sadly Felix is this now), but it should work. The Mariners have a beautiful ballpark, great uniforms, and baseball will be better off if October baseball returns to the Pacific Northwest
... Identifying what crazy thing that one of the bad teams throws at the wall sticks. Baseball is the sport that has their teams try more analytically-driven crazy tactics than any others. The Astros were the first team to start shifting like crazy back in the days when they used to suck hard. The Rockies went with a 6-man rotation a few years back. My favorite random idea was when the Reds went with all rookie starting pitchers in 2015 to see if any of them could stick. One of these bad teams is going to try something, and it will be great
... Saying goodbye to the early-to-mid-2010s revivals. The early part of this decade saw the rebirth of the Pirates and Royals, two franchises that had been bad for a good 20 years before they made the playoffs in 2013 and 2014 respectively. The Pirates were the top wild card team three years straight. The Royals made it to back-to-back World Series. Let me repeat: the Kansas City Royals won the AL pennant two years in a row. Both started their drop back last year and it may continue this year. Reports are the trading of top players for prospects may begin in both places, with guys like Andre McCutcheon and Alex Gordon on the market. It will be sad, but we'll always have those memories.
... Tracking the Mets pitching path to fit six pitchers into five slots. The Mets still have a bevy or ridiculously good, ridiculously cheap pitching talent. Now, pitching talent is always a gamble, and while the got blackjack in 2015 when they made it to the world series by winning an NLCS by sweeping the Cubs on the back of their pitchers, in 2016 all of their top guys got hurt at some point in time. On the face, the Mets have two of my favorite pitchers to watch in Syndegaard (probably ready for a huge breakout) and DeGrom (who might be my favorite pitcher to watch). Add to that hopefully healthy Matt Harvey and Steven Matz and you get the core that dominated the Cubs. Now add Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman and you get a team with legitimately six starters ranging from precocious prospects to potentially best pitcher in baseball (Thor). The Mets upside is so high, and if they hit it, it will be so fun to watch it happen
... The progression of the White Sox, Yankees and Braves prospects. These three teams are seemingly the owners of half the Top 50 prospects in baseball, and all have ones that may come up this year and flash something. The White Sox got a ton back for Chris Sale (deservedly) and we may see Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech (he of the 105 MPH fastball) this year. The Yankees stockpiled to the hilt last year and while their top guys may be further away, getting a full year of Gary Sanchez would be fun. Finally, the Braves are terrible but are maybe 2-3 years away from being really good and the first signs of that will be this year.
... Watching Madison Bumgarner face off against Clayton Kershaw. I'll have a specific one about Kershaw in part 2, but let's just say any start of his is worth watching. But add in Bumgarner, who seems to take special pride in going up against Kershaw, and you get must-watch baseball. Shout-out to the Giants and Dodgers for figuring out a way to lineup their rotations to get these two against each other fairly often. Kershaw and the Dodgers have had the upper-hand, but it is close, and Bumgarner's twirled a few gems in their head-to-head. Also, this matchup has the added advantage of watchign Bumgarner bat against Kershaw - he's hit a HR off Kershaw two straight years. Kershaw is the best pitcher of this generation and an all-timer. Bumgarner is not at that level, but he could be a HOFer (he's just in his age-27 season). Let's enjoy these while we still can.
... Seeing if Bryce Harper can rebound. Bryce Harper has seemingly been on the MLB landscape for 10 years now, ever since he was on the cover of SI as a 16 year old. For the most part, he's fulfilled the high-end projection if anyone were to guess where his career would be at this point. He's won an MVP, in a ridiculous season where at age 23 he had the best relative to league average batting season anyone has had since peak-Bonds. He had a 198 OPS+, with a .460 OBP and .649 SLG. The only guys since Bonds that sniffed these numbers were peak-Pujols and Miggy, who at their best were all-time great hitters. Of course, he surrounded that 10.0 WAR season with two years that combined 2.6. Career trajectories aren't always linear or static. Most people that have 10.0 WAR seasons don't have those again. But most don't drop to 1.6 either. Harper still had the plate patience and still has all the physical gifts. He's good enough to have had a season where he legitimately was better than Mike Trout. Baseball would be a lot better off if he got back to that level, even if most of that is because he's a perfect lightning rod anyway.
... Watching the growing superstars continue to grow. The league has maybe never been this stocked with such good, young talent. Obviously, Trout leads this pack - and he's still young at just 26. But then you get Harper (24), Bryant (25), Machado (24), Nolan Arenado (25), Francisco Lindor (23), Corey Seager (23), Javier Baez (24), Kyle Schwarber (24), Mookie Betts (24), Xander Bogaerts (24) and Carlos Correa (22). This crop of players already are really good if not MVP-level great. The league is so well stocked right now it is crazy. By the way, my favorite part of that list: the youngest guy is Carlos Correa.
