Another AL Preview

For the fifth time, I have a season preview piece running at The Crawfish Boxes, this one focusing on the Yankees. If you're interested in parts one-through-four: Athletics, Angels, Mariners, Red Sox

More 2019 Season Preview Stuff

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I have another piece up looking at an AL Rival. This time, it's the Boston Red Sox. If you missed any of the three earlier ones, there's also the A's, Angels, and Mariners.

Also, as part of a team-wide article, I made a prediction about a milestone the Astros might be able to match in 2019.

Thoughts on Craig Kimbrel and the Astros

A few pieces over at The Crawfish Boxes:

First, we looked at the remaining players on the free agent market and who the Astros might consider signing.

Then, I thought more about my Craig Kimbrel comment and decided to expand on it.

Predicting Today's Future Hall of Fame Hitters, 2019 Edition

Once again, it’s that time of the offseason where I dive into the best young players in the game and determine which ones are on a pace to make Cooperstown. As usual, I’ll be starting today with the position players.

To give you a refresher on the process: I begin by looking at every Hall of Famer, then finding the median career Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-Reference version) by age for the group. Then, I look at how many players in history have matched or bettered that WAR total through that same age. From there, I take a simple percentage of how many players made the Hall out of the total set of players who reached the median WAR (removing players still on the ballot or not yet eligible for Cooperstown). While it doesn’t account for things like eventual Veterans Committee selections, or give us a great idea of which below-median players will eventually be elected, it does give us surprisingly strong odds for the best of the best, and way earlier than most people expect.

So, with the preamble out of the way, let’s dive right in:

The AL Rest, Part 3

I originally wasn't going to do one of these for the Mariners, but after looking over their roster, I realized they were stronger than I had been giving them credit for. I don't think they're a major player for the AL West this season, but if they could surprise everyone last year, this year might not be completely out of reach (although the biggest payoff for these moves will likely be the years after 2019).

If you missed the earlier parts of this series, here are the Athletics and Angels.

The AL Rest, Part 2

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I followed up Monday's post previewing the Athletics with one looking over the Angels' chances for upsetting the Astros in 2019. Go check it out, and if you missed the one on the A's, that can be found here.