PREDICTING THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPION

 PREDICTING THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPION

One thing I love to do is predict who will win the Fall Classic before the MLB season starts. Unfortunately, I am really bad at predicting. Well, usually. I believe that I predicted the Braves winning it all this year, a pretty good prediction. But, now that we are more than ¾ of the way through the season, I am going to predict who will make the playoffs and who will win the World Series.

Let’s start with the American League, shall we?

Here are all the teams in their corresponding divisions (all records and stats are as of 8/20):

AL WEST:

Texas Rangers (72-51)

Houston Astros (70-54)

Seattle Mariners (68-55) 

Los Angeles Angels (61-64)

Oakland Athletics (34-89)

AL CENTRAL:

Minnesota Twins (64-60)

Cleveland Indians (59-65)

Detroit Tigers (56-67)

Chicago White Sox (48-75)

Kansas City Royals (40-85)

AL EAST:

Baltimore Orioles (76-47)

Tampa Bay Rays (75-51)

Toronto Blue Jays (68-56)

Boston Red Sox (65-58)

New York Yankees (60-63)

Let’s start with the teams that will not make the playoffs. It’s safe to say that the A’s and the Royals are out, and it is extremely unlikely that the Angels, Yankees, White Sox or Tigers will make the playoffs. This especially stinks for the Angels because that means that they are likely to lose Shohei Ohtani in free agency next season.

So, that leaves 9 teams left, and three of them need to be kicked out of the playoffs. I would guess that those three would be the Indians, Mariners, and Red Sox. Now, the way that the playoffs work go as follows:

1: Best Record in the League

2: Second Best Division Winner

3: Third Best Division Winner

4: Best Record for Wild Card Teams

5: Second Best for Wild Cards

6: Third Best Wild Card Team

Since we are going like that, I predict the seeds such as follows:

1: Baltimore Orioles

2: Texas Rangers

3: Minnesota Twins

4: Houston Astros

5: Tampa Bay Rays

6: Toronto Blue Jays

The one and two seeds get byes, while the three plays the six, and the four plays the five. This is how I see it:

Blue Jays smoke Twins, probably sweep them.

Astros beat Rays, probably playing all three games.

That leaves a bracket that has The Orioles facing off with the Astros, and the Rangers playing the Jays in the ALDS.

I will predict the Astros taking the Orioles and the Rangers defeating the Blue Jays.

I will then predict that the Rangers and Astros will play in an all-out war in the ALCS with the Rangers winning and advancing to their third Fall Classic in franchise history.

Now let’s go to the NL:

NL WEST:

Los Angeles Dodgers (76-47)

San Francisco Giants (64-59)

Arizona Diamondbacks (64-61)

San Diego Padres (59-66)

Colorado Rockies (48-75)

NL CENTRAL:

Milwaukee Brewers (67-57)

Chicago Cubs (63-59)

Cincinnati Reds (64-60)

Pittsburgh Pirates (55-68)

St. Louis Cardinals (54-70)

NL EAST:

Atlanta Braves (80-42)

Philadelphia Phillies (67-56)

Miami Marlins (64-61)

New York Mets (58-66)

Washington Nationals (56-68)

I think it's also safe to say that the Nationals, Mets, Cardinals, Pirates, and Rockies are definitely out. I would then think that the Padres and probably the D-Backs are also out, because Arizona’s team has been doing less than ideally lately. 

So then, I think the outcome would be:

1: Atlanta Braves

2: Los Angeles Dodgers

3: Chicago Cubs

4: Philadelphia Phillies

5: Milwaukee Brewers

6: San Francisco Giants

In the 3 vs. 6 matchup, I would have the Cubs beating the Giants in three games, and for the 4 v. 5, I have the Phillies winning in three games also.

I then put the Braves against the Phillies, and the Dodgers against the Cubs. I have the Braves annihilating the Phillies, although I thought that last season and they were upset. I still put them ahead, pitting them against the Dodgers. I really feel like the Cubs could defeat the Dodgers in this series, and think their rebuild has gone incredibly, but I believe that the Dodgers would still beat them.

Now then, we have Braves vs. Dodgers. Seeing as how good the Braves are, and how the Dodgers have probably gotten worse since last season, I have the Braves beating the Dodgers in 6 games and going to the Fall Classic.

I would guess that the Rangers rotation for the postseason would look like this:

Nathan Eovaldi

Max Scherzer

Jordan Montgomery

Jon Gray

Dane Dunning

This is an extremely strong rotation. I think that a rotation of that caliber could definitely give the Rangers a push to the World Series, especially with the help of their offense, which is scoring 5.69 runs in each game so far (123 games), and is batting .270 with a .460 slugging, .340 OBP, and 171 home runs. All of those numbers are first in the AL except for the homers, which is third.

I think that the Braves rotation would look as follows:

Spencer Strider

Max Fried

Bryce Elder

Charlie Morton

Kyle Wright

This is another good rotation, though not quite as strong as the Rangers. But they are still very capable of getting the job done. As I have said before in another post, I think that the Braves have the best starter in the whole MLB on their team in Spencer Strider.

Now, the Braves offense has been completely electric, as they rank first in the NL in runs with 712, averaging 5.84 in their 122 games. They are also first in average with .274, slugging, and OBP as they are slashing an insane .274/.345/.500 as a team! Their whole team is slugging .500! They are also first in the majors with 234 home runs! That is more than 40 more than the second place team, the Dodgers.

So, both teams have great offense and good pitching, and therefore are very ready for a World Series run. But who will win the Fall Classic?

Through this big fat long article, I am down to the whole point. The winner will be…

The Texas Rangers.

It is incredibly risky saying that the Rangers will win it all, but not only have they worked so hard, but they have one thing that literally no other team has. Humility.

Remember how the Braves won it all in 2021 after getting the huge money-making All-Star game moved out of Atlanta due to the city making a law to protect against voting fraud? Well, the trend now seems that the team that does the right thing wins it all. The Rangers are the only team that didn’t have a pride night. And not only being one of the best teams, but also being the one team to do the right thing, I believe that they will win it all and am therefore rooting for them.

Good luck Rangers. You deserve it.