By Phil Blackwell
Sports Editor
If you’re a baseball fan, especially in these parts, you endure the long winter for the reassuring sight of young men with bats, spikes and gloves romping on pristine diamonds and emerald green….ah, enough romance already.
Dealing with MLB in 2018 might involve dealing with a sport stratifying itself in a way it did 15 years ago, with very rich powers and then everyone else. Whether that’s good or not is quite debatable. Here’s a scan of the scene.
AL East
To hear it told, getting Giancarlo Stanton, adding him to Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, and pitchers facing the Yankees should just cry uncle, hand them 200 combined home runs and the league title. But can we please play the season first? And can we see if Aaron Boone can handle the toughest manager’s job in the game before crowning anyone?
Besides, Boston won the division a year ago and didn’t get worse, adding another good bat in J.D. Martinez and still boasting Chris Sale at the front of the rotation. Toronto and Baltimore, recent rulers of the division, now are clinging to small hopes as sharks surround the likes of Manny Machado. Worse yet, Tampa Bay all but surrendered, unloading Evan Longoria and others and going low-budget, again.
AL Central
Okay, hand the title to Cleveland if you must, but what’s happened the last two seasons – six losses with chances to clinch playoff series – looms heavily. All Tribe fans hope that Corey Kluber and Francisco Lindor, the best at what they do, go nowhere soon. Anything less than 90 wins will be a supreme disappointment.
Minnesota is the only real challenger right now, and that hinges on the young, vastly talented Twins staying hungry following a surprise Wild Card run. Inevitable changes are happening in Kansas City, barely removed from back-to-back pennants, but they’re already turned things over in White Sox land for the better, while Detroit is saddled with bloated salaries and an old roster, lethal these days.
AL West
No one has taken the Yankees coronations with more amusement than the actual reigning World Series champions. Houston is virtually intact, with Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa ready to rake again while a full season of Justin Verlander and Dallas Kuechel makes the Astros an easy favorite to repeat.
For all the aggression they showed in the off-season, it’s hard to imagine that the Angels or Seattle Mariners have closed the gap on Houston, and the once-powerful Texas Rangers may have gone backward in search of pitching help. Oakland is all-in on youth again, hoping to follow the Astros model of suffer now, surge later.
NL East
Cliché though it is, the phrase now-or-never certainly applies in Washington. The thought of Bryce Harper going somewhere else terrifies Nationals fans that have seen everything work except in October. Whether new skipper Dave Martinez turns that around might not get answered for a while.
Only the Mets can really make the Nats worry, yet that all hinges on those great arms finally staying intact through 162 games. Getting Jake Arietta shows Philadelphia has bottomed out and could move up. Atlanta waits for its kids to grow up (if they ever will) and Miami has done a Derek Jeter-led deconstruction, guaranteed to draw flies, but not fans.
NL Central
Putting the words “Chicago Cubs” and “underachiever” is a bit overstated – the Cubs did reach the NLCS in 2017, after all. But the afterglow of 2016 is gone, and hunger is back on the North Side, and that lineup – Schwarber, Rizzo, Bryant, Russell – could do serious damage.
By getting the likes of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich, Milwaukee made it clear that the Cubs won’t sail in the Central. St. Louis is just as serious, and can’t stay down for long. Pittsburgh’s surrender to reality, letting the likes of Andrew McCutchen go, was sad to see, for now the Pirates will struggle to fight off Cincinnati for the cellar.
NL West
Save for that last game against Houston, all went right for the Dodgers in 2017, and the heartache could fuel them through another run at the summit. All of that talent on hand, especially Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger, combined with Clayton Kershaw to start and Kenley Jansen to finish – it’s breathtaking.
Yet this is the toughest division in the game now. Arizona and Colorado are bent on building upon Wild Card appearances that were well ahead of schedule. San Francisco, by getting Longoria and McCutchen, is just as serious about challenging again. Even San Diego spent free-agent money, though the Padres are still a long way off.
We could be lurching toward a Yankees-Dodgers Fall Classic that would make the marketers salivate. Or it could end up Cleveland against Washington and inevitable griping about bad ratings. With so many teams starting over, the regular-season grind might prove quite predictable, but it’s baseball. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains.
