With the MLB season officially underway, here's who the Dartmouth Sports Analytics club likes to win each division this year.
American League East
TJ Parekh ’24
Already off to a riveting, albeit surprising beginning, the 2021 AL East is shaping to be quite the divisional race.
Coming off a hot offseason, the Yankees appear to be poised for a breakthrough on their quest to the World Series and a 28th ring. Re-signing team MVP D.J. LeMahieu and bolstering their pitching staff in wild cards Jameson Taillon and Corey Kluber, the Bronx Bombers are at 81% odds to win the division, per PECOTA projections. Although off to an ice-cold collective start, the Yanks rotation is being pinned up by Gerritt Cole, who is posting a 1.49 ERA thus far.
Coming in at second are returning pennant winners, the Tampa Bay Rays, who lost former Cy Young ace Blake Snell. They project to have a sizable shakeup in their win count as PECOTA slates them at an 86-win clip, a massive retraction from their 108-win pace in the shortened 2020 season.
Not too far behind is an exciting, young Blue Jays team who also spent big in free agency, signing George Springer. Fueling their 50.2% chance at a playoff run is a slimmed down Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The 22-year-old youngster is slashing .390/.519/.585 at the onset of the 2021 season and is fulfilling his massive potential as one of the league’s most promising sluggers.
And now for the most excitable, and arguably most confusing start to the season: the Red Sox. Originally starting the season at sub-1 percent chance of winning the division, the Sox are currently the only AL East team above .500. According to Elias Sports, the Boston team is the first team in MLB history to begin a season with a three-plus game losing streak and then reel off a winning streak of 9 games (and counting). In his first full season with the Red Sox, Alex “Dugie” Verdugo is making his mark and went 5-for-8 in a doubleheader against the Twins, keeping the streak alive and powering up his average by 79 points.
Lastly, the Orioles are living up to their projections at the bottom of the division with a .385 win percentage. FanGraphs have them at a flat 0% chance to win the division and-or make the playoffs. It’s safe to say that this, like all years in recent history, is not the Orioles’ year. Ultimately, I think the Yankees will still win the division but in a much more closely contested battle than they would have hoped before the season.
American League Central
Vice President Eli Pattison ’22
Most pundits will tell you that the American League Central is a two-horse race this season between the Chicago White Sox and the Minnesota Twins, and many give the edge to the White Sox.
However, Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA projection system tells a different story, giving the Twins a 69.5% chance of winning the division and putting the White Sox in a distant third with an 8.1% chance. I’m with PECOTA — Minnesota will win the division for the third straight year. The Twins are bringing back essentially the same team that has won back-to-back division titles, along with the key additions of defensive wizard Andrelton Simmons, starter J.A. Happ, and closer Alex Colomé. They still boast one of the most deadly lineups in baseball, led by the ageless, perennial MVP candidate Nelson Cruz. They also have two potential bona fide aces in the rotation in Kenta Maeda and José Berríos, along with a top-10 bullpen. Other prominent projection systems favor the Twins too. FiveThirtyEight predicts they will finish 92-70, six games above the White Sox, and gives the Twins a 54% chance to win the division compared to 24% for Chicago. FanGraphs agrees, giving Minnesota a 52.5% of winning the crown and giving Chicago 35% odds.
The White Sox may be a media darling with their young, homegrown core and splashy offseason additions, but logic and the projections systems favor Minnesota. The White Sox will have their moment in the future, but the Twins are a veteran team built to win the division once again, and maybe, just maybe, finally win a playoff game.
American League West
Alan Moss ’24
The AL West is certainly one of the weaker divisions in baseball. While the Astros, Angels, and A’s are all contenders to win the division, I don’t see any of these teams making a deep run in the playoffs.
Both the Astros and A’s, who have been the best two teams in the AL West for the last couple of years, lost critical players this off-season; Houston lost George Springer and Oakland lost Liam Hendriks, Marcus Semien, and Tommy La Stella. Not only will the Astros be missing Springer in the outfield, but they won’t have their two-time Cy Young award winning pitcher Justin Verlander because he has yet to fully recover from Tommy John Surgery.
Nonetheless, I still think the Astros are the clear favorite to win the AL West (PECOTA gives them 72% odds to win it). Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Carlos Correa make for an overall solid core that can lead the way for the Astros this season. Moreover, Yordan Alvarez will return to the lineup this year after missing nearly all of last season to an injury, adding needed fire-power to an offense which had a mediocre 100 wRC+ last year.
I anticipate that the Angels will have a decent season, but I don’t think they are good enough to win the division. For this reason, I see the Angels finishing in second-place (hopefully they win enough games to get Mike Trout back in the playoffs). Even though the Astros aren’t the team they were just a couple of seasons ago, they will win the AL West comfortably and make yet another postseason appearance.
National League East
Caroline Burnham ’24
The NL East is consistently one of baseball’s most competitive divisions, and that is sure to continue in 2021. From Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer to Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman, this division is packed with some of baseball’s best players.
However, what most shifts the NL East’s dynamic this year are the Mets’ offseason transactions, namely Francisco Lindor. With the addition of offense to support a very strong pitching staff, the Mets are statistically seen as the frontrunner in the NL East, given a 60% chance of making the playoffs and a 45% chance of winning the division by FiveThirtyEight. FanGraphs has an even more optimistic view of the team, giving them an 88.8% chance of making the playoffs and a 73.7% chance of winning the division.
While the Mets are certainly much stronger than in years past, the rest of the division cannot be counted out as potential contenders in the pennant race. Right behind the Mets in playoff predictions are the Braves, who have won the division for the past three years. With the addition of Charlie Morton, the Braves sport a dominant pitching staff that couples with a consistent lineup that came in third in MLB last year with a wRC+ of 120.
The Phillies, Nationals, and Marlins do have high upsides, but these teams are more deeply flawed. The Nationals have an incredibly strong top of the rotation with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strausburg, Patrick Corbin, but their lineup has weakened since their 2019 World Series title. The Phillies, debilitated in 2020 by their historically awful bullpen with a 7.07 ERA, have strengthened this aspect of the team, but their mediocre offense (16th in MLB in 2020 with 109 wRC+) may not be enough to overcome the teams in this competitive division. Finally, the Marlins, who did make the playoffs in 2020, could similarly surprise MLB and pull off an upset in the NL East. Their rotation is highlighted by Sixto Sánchez, who ranked above the 80th percentile in MLB for Expected Weighted On-base Average (xwOBA) and fastball velocity in 2020. Both FiveThirtyEight and FanGraphs give the Marlins the lowest playoff odds, at 5% and 0.9% respectively.
National League Central
Vice President Eli Pattison ’22
The NL Central should be one of the tightest divisions in baseball this year. The division has no true World Series contender, but it does have four solid squads with a decent chance to make it to October in the Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, and Reds.
Out of these ballclubs, I like the Cardinals to win the division title. St. Louis finished above .500 last season, and have every reason to expect to be better this year. The Cardinals got an MVP-caliber player in Nolan Arenado from the Rockies for essentially nothing this offseason, and should see their ace Jack Flaherty return to form after a down year in 2020. The Cardinals will plug Arenado into a lineup that already ranked first in the Central last year in wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus). The Cardinals should also be scary good on defense, with Arenado, a perennial Gold Glove winner, joining a defense whose defensive efficiency of .731 was already the best in baseball last season.
I’m also confident that the Cardinals will win the division because the rest of the Central just isn’t that good; the Reds lost the Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer, the Cubs are a shell of their 2016 World Series team, and the Pirates are possibly the worst team in baseball. The Brewers will be the biggest competitors to the Cardinals, but they finished two games behind St. Louis last season and didn’t do much to improve during the offseason. The projection systems do not love the Cardinals, but they do not love the rest of the Central either. Clay Davenport, the co-founder of Baseball Prospectus, projects the Reds to win the division with a lowly 82-80 record. I am confident that the Cardinals can surpass this total since they finished two games above .500 last year without Arenado and in a down year for Flaherty. If they get the expected seasons from those two and Paul Goldschmidt, they should easily surpass 82 wins. Even though St. Louis won’t be a threat to win the World Series, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright and company should comfortably reach the postseason once again.
National League West
Alan Moss ’24
The best two teams in baseball this year are arguably in the NL West. Big spending and unbelievable talent puts the Dodgers and Padres in a league of their own, leaving the other three teams in their division — the Giants, Diamondbacks and Rockies — little chance to win the division.
Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections support this judgement, giving the Dodgers a 78% chance and the Padres a 21% chance to win the division. Coming off of a World Series win, the Dodgers are the clear front runners to win the division. Especially with the addition of superstar pitcher Trevor Bauer, the Dodgers 2021 team is possibly even better than their elite squad from last year. With sluggers such as Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, and Cody Bellinger, the best pitching rotation in the MLB in Kershaw, Bauer, and Buehler, and the only team forecasted to surpass 100 wins this season (538), I expect the Dodgers to maintain their high level of play.
In the offseason, the Padres strengthened their pitching rotation with the additions of Blake Snell, Yu Darvish, and Joe Musgrove, and re-signed Fernando Tatís Jr. to a lengthy 14-year contract, guaranteeing that the young super star will wear a Padres uniform for many years to come. The Padres offense, led by Tatís, Manny Machado, and Wil Myers, is filled with power, productivity at getting runners on-base, and — most importantly — scoring runs, as they scored 5.4 runs per game last season, third highest in baseball. That said, while the Padres will certainly give the Dodgers a run for their money, it’s difficult to imagine a team other than the Dodgers winning the division this year.