Major League Baseball fans sure do love predictions. Everywhere one goes on the world wide internet, one can’t help but stumble all over them. Division winners, pennant winners, World Series winners—Cy Youngs, MVPs, Rookies and Managers of the Year. Who’s going to win the most baseball games and who’s going to take home the prestigious individual awards? The people want to know, and the internet is here to give the people what they want. That, or it’s just a really easy way to hammer out a blog post and generate traffic. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here. No matter why these predictions are so popular, I’m here to fan the flames a bit and contribute a few more. The predictions I’m about to predict to you are hot. White hot. Don’t stare too intently at your screen whist reading lest you need to up your eyewear prescription. Or damage your eyesight to such an extent as to warrant your first ever pair of glasses. You don’t want glasses, they make you look weird, and people start looking at you differently, and you don’t even recognize yourself when you look in the mirror anymore. Right, on to the predictions!
- Jay Bruce will lead the National League in home runs, but he will not win the Most Valuable Player Award.
- Justin Upton will.
- Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes start an upscale, glittery, designer T-shirt company together.
- Chris Carpenter will come back from his vague neck/shoulder injury to say a whole bunch of salty and surly things. Probably about the Reds.
- Felix Hernandez will not be traded to the New York Yankees.
- Chase Headley will flirt with a 5-win season but no one will notice because he’s on the Padres.
- The exact same thing except swap “Chase Headley” for “Cory Luebke.”
- Alex Avila will not hit well at all.
- The Nationals will stay in contention long enough to make it super awkward when Stephen Strasburg hits his 160 innings limit. And no matter how they handle it, some A-hole in the media will write an ill-informed and knee-jerk indictment of their decision.
- Bud Selig will reveal himself to be a malevolent alien being, having infiltrated Major League Baseball as part of an evil plot to erode the United States from the inside out.
- Billy Butler will hit 30 home runs.
- Michael Bourn will steal 70 bases.
- Zack Greinke will soon grow tired of his newly hired high-profile baseball agent Casey Close. He’ll come to realize that the slick talking, designer suit wearing, 500 dollar haircut paying type just isn’t his speed, and Greinke will long for the personal attention and commitment found in a smaller time, lesser known representative. He will go searching for the kind of intimate knowledge and dry sense of humor commonly found in certain circles of online baseball blogging. He’ll do a quick internet search for persons who have written extensively about his career to date, and he’ll make a bold, rash, and innovative decision to hire said person to be his voice in negotiations, regardless of any applicable prior work experience that person may have. The two will form an unlikely bond, and become close friends. They’ll make a lot of money for each other. They’ll spend weekends together during the offseason, taking in popular cinema and barbequing in backyards. They’ll help each other build deck additions and smoke fine meats in wood sheds. They’ll stay up together late into the night, drinking fine whiskey and discussing the existential grind of mortality—the sick-sweetness of being and the untold mysteries of the universe.
- Albert Pujols will make the American League All-Star team.
You can follow Call to the Pen on Twitter @FSCalltothePen or like us here on Facebook.
Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.