N important part of any fan’s preparation for baseball’s regular season is managing and creating expectations. Not just in the typical euphemistic sense of”preparing oneself for collapse” (though certainly baseball involves a whole lot of failure) but also in the sense of figuring out what every group is capable of accomplishing. An 85-win year and third-place finish could be a disaster for the Red Sox, for example, but it’d be the best year the Cincinnati Reds have managed in the greater part of a couple of years.
Expectations come from outside means, like projections being bullish on the Yankees or down on the A’s this year, or via a fast glance at a group’s roster structure, which might show that the Padres or even Braves could overachieve thanks to their glut of youthful talent. It’s also possible to imagine at a team’s confidence through the moves it made in the offseason–the Phillies, after falling short, stuffed two shopping carts at the supermarket this winter–or through the rhetoric of its own GM, manager, or gamers. The clues are everywhere. So let’s position all 30 teams based on how good they ought to be this year.
Houston Astros
Houston won 103 games last year and its own roster may be even better in 2019. The Astros lost Charlie Morton and (likely ) Dallas Keuchel to free agency this offseason, plus Lance McCullers Jr. to Tommy John, however marginally incredibly have the pitching depth to compensate for it. Utilityman Marwin Gonz??lez pulled up stakes and headed to Minnesota, but Aledmys D??az amounts to be a competent replacement.
Houston also covered up its few flaws: Catcher Robinson Chirinos (.222/.338/.419 last year) will be an improvement on Brian McCann (.212/.301/.339 in 2018), and if nothing else watching him squat 150 times each game will not make you wince and hold your knees. The Astros went out and got Michael Brantley to play left field, where they had been quietly pretty bad last year; portion of the reason for that has been Kyle Tucker, their best offensive prospect, who attracted comparisons to Ted Williams in spring training last season but struck .141/.236/.203 at 72 enormous league plate appearances. Whether he’s coming from the bench, DHing, or displacing Josh Reddick in appropriate field during the season, Tucker should provide more (any) value in 2019, as will Carlos Correa, who performed a back injury in the second half and struck only .180/.261/.256 following the break. Correa posted back-to-back six-win seasons in 2016 and 2017, and with six extra-base hits in 42 preseason plate appearances, he seems a lot more comfortable than he did six months ago.
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