This weekend, we’ll have meaningful baseball for the first time since October. Our long, frigid nightmare is coming to a close. And now, we ring in the 2015 season by sharing our predictions for the 2015 season with you.
To the surprise of no one, the Washington Nationals are TOC’s favorite to win the World Series. Of the 11 staff members that gave predictions, five had the Nationals winning the Fall Classic, while another two had Washington losing in the World Series. As for the American League, there wasn’t a consensus favorite. The Angels, Mariners, and Indians were all picked by three of our staff members to win the AL pennant – though only two of us had an AL team winning the World Series.
All of us have the Nationals winning the NL East and the Dodgers winning the NL West. There are no other unanimous choices with any of the other divisions in baseball, though all of us have the Cardinals as a playoff team in one form or another.
What about awards? Mike Trout is the clear favorite for AL MVP once again, as he was the choice of eight of our writers. Over in the National League, only Andrew McCutchen and Giancarlo Stanton were chosen by more than one of our writers. As for the Cy Young awards, Felix Hernandez was chosen by seven of our writers to win the AL awards, while Clayton Kershaw was picked by five of our writers to win the NL award. The Rookie of the Year awards look like a crap shoot. Kris Bryant was picked eight of our writers in the National League, while Carlos Rodon edged out Devon Travis and Rusney Castillo in the American League.
Here are the full tallies for each prediction, along with the full predictions from our writers.
AL East: Red Sox (six), Orioles (three), Blue Jays (two)
AL Central: Indians (eight), Tigers (two), White Sox (one)
AL West: Angels (six), Mariners (five)
AL Wild Cards: Mariners (five), Angels (four), Athletics (three), Blue Jays (three), White Sox (three), Indians (one), Orioles (one), Red Sox (one), Tigers (one)
AL Pennant: Angels (three), Indians (three), Mariners (three), Red Sox (one), White Sox (one)
NL East: Nationals (11)
NL Central: Cardinals (eight), Pirates (three)
NL West: Dodgers (11)
NL Wild Cards: Marlins (six), Pirates (five), Cardinals (three), Giants (three), Padres (three), Brewers (one), Mets (one)
NL Pennant: Nationals (seven), Dodgers (two), Padres (one), Pirates (one)
World Series Winner: Nationals (five), Dodgers (two), Angels (one), Indians (one), Padres (one), Pirates (one)
AL MVP: Mike Trout (eight), Jose Abreu (three)
NL MVP: Andrew McCutchen (three), Giancarlo Stanton (three), Carlos Gomez (one), Bryce Harper (one), Jason Heyward (one), Anthony Rizzo (one), Troy Tulowitzki (one)
AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez (seven), Chris Sale (two), Jose Quintana (one), Garrett Richards (one)
NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw (five), Madison Bumgarner (two), Johnny Cueto (two), Gerrit Cole (one), Jordan Zimmermann (one)
AL Rookie of the Year: Carlos Rodon (four), Rusney Castillo (three), Devon Travis (three), Aaron Sanchez (one)
NL Rookie of the Year: Kris Bryant (eight), Jake Lamb (one), Jorge Soler (one), Yasmany Tomas (one)
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Feel free to leave your own predictions in the comments while calling us idiots who know nothing about baseball.
