Bold prediction: Cubs top Red Sox in World Series
The teams are ready. The slate is clear. Every team thinks it has a fighting chance to make the playoffs. Seems like time for USA TODAY Sports baseball staffers to make some bold predictions:
Come on, it’s not enough to see the Chicago Cubs win the World Series.
We want more than just seeing them celebrate their first World Series title since 1908. We’re looking for real history. Someone who was actually alive and remembers the World Series in 1918.
The one that started three weeks early with World War I raging in Europe, causing the regular season to prematurely end, with the World Series starting Sept 5.
It was the Cubs and Boston Red Sox, with the first three games played at Comiskey Park because of its seating capacity and the last three at Fenway Park.
The Cubs limited the great Babe Ruth to a lone hit in his five at-bats, but Ruth beat them with his arm, going 2-0 with a 1.06 ERA, with the Red Sox winning the World Series in six games. The Cubs offense was so feeble that ace Hippo Vaughn pitched three complete games, yielded a 1.00 ERA and lost twice.
Vaughn never again pitched in the postseason. And he never again saw the Cubs win a World Series, dying in 1966.
It also was the Red Sox’s last World Series title in 86 years and the only time these teams would meet in the postseason.
Wouldn’t it be fitting if these two teams meet again, only this time with the Cubs coming out on top?
Sure, we have a regular season to play, but let’s start planning now. The two most historic ballparks in baseball. The ivy-covered walls. The Green Monster. Two of the greatest, most rabid fan bases in sports.
We’re not going to get ourselves overly concerned with Cubs closer Hector Rondon looking like a batting practice piñata for most of spring training or Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta being knocked out by a nasty blister in the final week of the Cactus League.
We’re not going to panic over Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s waistline, his back or even his batting average.
The Cubs have too much firepower in their lineup to panic about a shaky bullpen. The Red Sox have ace David Price to carry the rest of the vulnerable rotation.
We can watch Cubs President Theo Epstein scale the Green Monster in euphoria, becoming the first front office executive to win a World Series ring with both franchises.
Bob Nightengale
CORREA FOR MVP
Houston Astros phenom Carlos Correa, 21, has checked off every box that suggests superstardom is imminent.
Production? The 6-4 shortstop slammed 22 home runs in 99 games.
Value? He had a 4.1 WAR (wins above replacement) despite a June 8 debut.
Intangibles? Correa has gone to great lengths to embrace an ambassadorial role in the game. And in a voting environment in which all things are equal, his polished demeanor with the news media and the obvious joy with which he plays certainly won’t hurt his campaign.
Then there was Correa’s immense stamp on the four-game AL Division Series against the Kansas City Royals, during which he batted .350 and slammed a pair of home runs in what could have been a clinching Game 4. Alas, his error helped open the floodgates to a Royals comeback that spurred them to a World Series title. He was, after all, just 21.
Given his eye-popping athleticism, imposing physical frame and ability to rise to big occasions, it’s easy to see Correa taking another few steps forward. And it won’t be surprising if that journey earns him the title of best in the AL.
Gabe Lacques
STANTON TO TAKE OFF
The first half of the 2015 season was a Giancarlo Stanton highlight reel.
The Miami Marlins right fielder hit 27 home runs, including baseball’s two longest of the season, in 74 games.
He was averaging a homer every 10.3 at-bats in the first year of the 13-year, $325 million deal he signed after the 2014 season, the largest contract in baseball history.
However, Stanton’s season ended when he broke his hand on a swing-andmiss June 26.
The injury-prone label gets thrown around when talking about Stanton. In the five seasons he has been on the opening-day roster, Stanton has played more than 145 games once. But his last two seasons were ended by freak incidents — getting hit in the face with a pitch in 2014 and the broken hand.
Stanton, 26, can put those injuries behind him, and 2016 will be the season in which he breaks his career high of 37 home runs and ends up with at least 50.
In addition to Stanton playing more, Marlins Park will be significantly more hitter-friendly this season.
The fences are being lowered in most areas and the center-field wall is coming in from 418 feet to 407 feet.
Stanton hit 10 of his 27 home runs in 2015 to center or right field, so expect to see even more shots leave the yard.
Giving Stanton protection in the lineup, first baseman Justin Bour established himself as a power threat with 23 home runs in 409 at-bats last season.
Stanton hasn’t had a big bat behind him in the order, and if Bour can prove 2015 was no fluke, Stanton will get more to hit.
And this year’s 50-home run season will be one of many more to come.
Jesse Yomtov
ARCHER TO HAVE BREAKOUT
The last three seasons, it has taken a pretty bold prediction to pick the American League Cy Young Award winner before the season.
Before their breakout years, Max Scherzer, Corey Kluber and Dallas Keuchel were considered good but not great pitchers. None received Cy Young votes at any point in his career before his award-winning season.
After finishing fifth in voting to Keuchel last season, Tampa Bay Rays righthander Chris Archer might not quite fit the mold of the last three winners. But one thing he does have in common is Scherzer, Kluber and Keuchel all had their breakout seasons at age 27 or 28.
Archer, 27, looks ready to take his game to the next level. For the first three months of last season, he was as good as anyone in the league. In 17 starts, he had nine wins and a 2.31 ERA. His strikeoutto-walk ratio was 133 to 25.
Although he continued to pitch well most times out, Archer was undone by three road outings in which he gave up a total of 25 earned runs. Despite those setbacks, he set a career high in innings (212) and finished second in the league in strikeouts (252).
Archer was a bit unlucky last season on balls in play. His 3.23 ERA could have been even better — as his 2.90 FIP (fielding independent pitching) suggests.
While Price or Chris Sale might be safer picks for the AL Cy Young Award, Archer has the combination of age, talent and opportunity that has been a common characteristic of the last three winners. Looking at it from that perspective, picking Archer to win it this season might not be so bold after all.
Steve Gardner
O’S GET WHIFF OF RECORD
Playing half of their games at Camden Yards, which has finished in the top five in the majors in yielding homers in three of the last four years, it makes sense for the Orioles to load up on power hitters, even if they tend to be strikeout-prone. This time they have gone all-in. When Dexter Fowler left the Orioles at the altar and returned to the Cubs, the club had a hole to fill and brought in Pedro Alvarez, a decision based on who was available and what they could afford, not necessarily on who was best fit.
That signing cemented Baltimore at the clear favorite to shatter the major league record for strikeouts in a season, a mark held by the 2013 Astros with 1,535. Consider:
In ranking fifth in baseball with 1,331 whiffs last year, the Orioles had four 100-strikeout hitters — Chris Davis (208), Manny Machado (111), Jimmy Paredes (111) and Adam Jones (102).
Not only has Baltimore added two whiff masters in Alvarez and Mark Trumbo, but Matt Wieters also has the potential to reach triple figures if he plays a full season. He has done it twice. The same goes for J.J. Hardy, another two-time culprit. Second baseman Jonathan Schoop fanned 122 times in 2014.
Manager Buck Showalter has said he can live with the strikeouts if his sluggers do damage. In Davis, Machado, Jones, Trumbo and Alvarez, Baltimore will have five hitters who averaged nearly 32 homers last season.
But with a lineup so packed with swing-and-miss hitters, Camden Yards might resemble a wind tunnel.