MLB Offseason: 2017 Fan-Polled Projected Standings

The offseason has hardly begun, but projections for the 2017 season have already been made by fans.

Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs polled fans to get their opinions about where each MLB team was headed in 2017. It’s not scientific or mathematical, but it represents the feelings that fans get about their favorite team’s direction. Fans were asked to factor in their opinion about how the team would add in the offseason in their predictive win vote.

At the top, there were no surprises. The Chicago Cubs lead the league by a wide margin in terms of expected wins, nearing 100. Behind them are the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. Both Boston and Los Angeles have a history of spending money to improve their teams in the offseason as well as a young group of stars on their rosters. The Red Sox and Dodgers were both expected to win about 93 games in the 2017 season.

While looking at the graph of every team from most expected wins to fewest expected wins can be interesting, looking at the teams fans expect to be in the playoffs can be even more interesting. It doesn’t mean anything concrete, but it could be indicative of the postseason we’ll see play out in just under a year.

In the National League, the division winners are neither surprising nor new. Fans expect that the Cubs, Dodgers, and Washington Nationals will once again win their respective divisions. While that sounds boring, it’s probably very accurate.

In the NL Central, the Cubs should and most likely will run away with the title. Not only do they have superstars at the top, but they have some of the best depth in the league. It’s also fair to assume that they will be willing to spend some money to get even better this offseason. The St. Louis Cardinals won’t be bad (fans expect them to be a Wild Card team), but they won’t be able to keep up with the Cubs for 162 games.

As for the East division, the Nationals are expected to win. However, the Mets could easily give them a run for their money. Just as it was last season, the Mets rely on their pitching staff to be healthy for a good portion of the season. If they can get that, they’ll be a tough competitor. The Mets also hope to have Yoenis Cespedes back next season, but who knows where the big money outfielder will end up.

The Nationals pitching staff is bound to be great once again, with Stephen Strasburg coming back from injury and joining possible Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. Bryce Harper probably won’t have back-to-back down seasons, Daniel Murphy was an MVP candidate last season, and Trea Turner is expected to repeat his impressive rookie campaign.

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In the West, the Dodgers have won the division for four straight years, despite the division rival Giants winning the World Series in one of those seasons. Fans don’t expect the dominance to stop anytime soon. With Corey Seager, Joc Pederson, and other young guns joining the ranks of Clayton Kershaw and Adrian Gonzalez, the Dodgers should be very good again. They’re another team that isn’t afraid to spend money either. The Giants, or even the Rockies, could give them a run for their money, but both of those teams have more major flaws than the Dodgers. Fans expect the Dodgers to be one of the best teams in all of baseball next season.

In the American League, fans picked almost all the same division winners. In place of Texas winning the West, fans think the Astros will come back after their disappointing 2016 season. The Red Sox are expected to win the East again, and the Indians are expected to do the same in the Central.

A common theme among the teams that fans expect to win is both a solid young core of players and a willingness to spend money. The Cubs are notorious for their efforts to rebuild in recent years, but the Red Sox and Dodgers have both managed to build impressive groups of young talent in the past five years as well. That young group of players is instrumental to any team desiring to compete for a long period of time. The willingness to spend money on free agents and keeping key players around also helps sustain those years of contention.

While the Cubs, Red Sox, and Dodgers are model teams for this ideology, the Nationals have followed a similar path. They have great young players in Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, and Stephen Strasburg, but they’ve also shown a willingness to spend money to cushion their roster. Fans clearly see this is a credible way to be competitive year after year.

The fans also chose the Indians and Astros, teams that typically sport lower payrolls, to win their divisions. However, both of those teams also have young cores that carry the team. They more heavily rely on bargain players like Mike Napoli or Carlos Gomez working out. For the Indians, Napoli worked out. For the Astros, Gomez less so. Despite this fact, fans still believe in the young talent on both rosters to outlast the teams in their respective divisions.

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These projections ultimately mean nothing. They’re not indicative of how a team will perform during the 2017 season, or even how they will strategize during the MLB offseason. However, the projections show what fans care about, and what fans think is the best path to winning. Even with no real value, the projections are interesting to look at. Sullivan remarked that he would follow through with the predictions in the coming month and continue to poll people on their opinions. It will be fun to see how accurate the fans were at the end of next season.