Hope springs eternal.
That’s my favorite cliche about Major League Baseball’s Opening Day and it feels more true this year than most recently.
With the expansion of the playoffs, there seems to be a feeling more teams are trying to at least not lose 90-100 games this year.
Sure the Cleveland Guardians, Baltimore Orioles and Oakland A’s might not do much, but there are so many divisions and story lines that I can’t wait to watch play out in the next six months.
Who will win the American League East?
Will it be the youthful and talent-filled Toronto Blue Jays, who might have the best home field advantage that any team has ever had this year because other teams traveling to Toronto won’t be able to bring their unvaccinated players?
Will it be the Tampa Bay Rays, who somehow continue to produce 90-win seasons with sub-par payrolls while producing stud pitcher after stud pitcher from their minor league system?
How about the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees, perennial powers trying to end long World Series droughts (not long for any other team but ask a Yankee fan how they feel about not having won since 2009 and they’ll sound like its been an eternity).
How about the A.L. West?
The Houston Astros should still be an incredible team, but how much will the loss of one of baseball’s best shortstops, Carlos Correa, hurt them in the long run? Will the Seattle Mariners end the longest playoff drought in professional sports by making the postseason for the first time since winning an MLB-record 116 games in 2001?
Or will the Los Angeles Angels finally capitalize on having the two best players in baseball in all-time great Mike Trout and modern-day Babe Ruth, Shohei Ohtani?
In the National League you’ve got the rematch between last year’s 107-win San Francisco Giants and 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers, but don’t forget the talent-laden San Diego Padres.
Will the St. Louis Cardinals be able to keep up with the Milwaukee Brewers’ stud-filled pitching rotation to make the playoffs in what is likely the final year for all three all-time Cardinal greats in Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright and Albert Pujols?
Will the New York Mets live up to the potential of the payroll so high it led to a new luxury tax level because owners were afraid Steve Cohen would go too far? Will the Philadelphia Phillies be able to hit their way past what should be an atrocious defense? Will the Miami Marlins finally look like a real baseball team with the help of some excellent arms in the starting rotation? Or will the returning champion Atlanta Braves be able to repeat last year’s success without future Braves Hall of Famer Freddie Freeman?
We should get some incredible races across MLB, but at the same time there are so many fun young players becoming the next faces of baseball.
I hope Vlad Guerrero Jr. can sustain his offensive success for the Blue Jays that kept him in last year’s A.L. MVP conversation that should have been all Ohtani all year. I would love to see the Rays’ Wander Franco live up to the hype of a 21-year old who might already be one of the better hitters in the league.
We get to continue to watch the rise of Juan Soto as one of the purest hitters in the league, even if his team won’t be much to watch outside of him. And we get the return of Ronald Acuna Jr. to help lead the Braves after missing last year’s postseason run.
Plus there are the brand new guys. Bobby Witt Jr. with the Kansas City Royals, Julio Rodriguez with the Mariners and Spencer Torkelson with the Detroit Tigers were in the handful of top-ranked prospects at the end of last year and look like they’re all getting serious chances to shine this year.
After an offseason filled with an upsetting labor dispute and not knowing if we would get a full season or even one at all, the last few days since baseball’s regular season began have made me incredibly happy, and I can’t wait to follow all these teams, story lines and players, plus all the unexpected stuff that always finds a way into the season, as we roll through the next six months.
Let’s play ball.
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