Five Bold Predictions for the 2024 Baseball Season

SPRINGHILL, FL- The most wonderful time of the year is upon us folks, warmer weather is on the horizon and baseball is back! The new season brings with it a sense of optimism around the league as some teams prepare to compete for a Championship and others to trot out fresh faces with the hope of finding their next franchise cornerstone. While this offseason was dominated by the Shohei sweepstakes, the regular season will bring with it its own share of headlines. Who will fill the void in the AL MVP race left by Ohtani? Which offseason spenders will surprise the league? Both of these questions and a few others will be answered right here with my five bold predictions for the 2024 MLB season!

The NL Cy Young is a Dodger…. And it's not Yoshinobu Yamamoto

The Dodgers threw money around this off-season like nobody else in the history of the sport and one major signing will go overlooked as the season begins. Many around the sport are actually pegging Tyler Glasnow, and not Yamamoto, as the Dodgers Ace for 2024. Glasnow’s 3.03 ERA over the last five seasons is good for 11th in the MLB among starting pitchers despite a number of stints on the IL. This includes chunks of time in 2019-2020 where he battled a forearm injury leading up to Tommy John surgery. The Dodgers committing $136.5 million over the next five years tells me that the team doctors believe he is fully healthy and ready for a full workload. His 33.4% K rate in 2023 should take a jump up and I expect him to win a ton of games with a loaded offense backing him up. Look for Glasnow to edge out Spencer Strider and Zach Wheeler for the Cy Young this season.

Mike Trout does not finish the season as an Angel (or a Phillie)

This may not be THAT bold of a prediction, but it would shake up the baseball world nonetheless. Nobody, not even the Angels ownership and management themselves, thinks the Angels have any chance to compete this year, or next year, or likely the year after that. On top of having a terrible MLB roster, their farm system is one of the worst in the league. Trout likely won't bring in the kind of return that he would have a few years ago, but he could still bring in a decent haul of prospects that could set the team up for the future. I believe that a contending team would take a gamble on the superstar if he were healthy after the All-Star break. Trout does have a no-trade clause in his contract and has said publicly that he has no intentions of asking for a trade, but at some point everybody wants to play for a winner. While many people have predicted him to head to Philadelphia in recent seasons, look for the Braves, Mets and Padres to make a play for Trout as well as they attempt to keep up with the Dodgers in the National League.

The Royals win a playoff game

One of the most surprising developments this off-season was Kansas City outspending big market teams like the Yankees, Mets and Braves. The signings of Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and a host of bullpen arms should take Kansas City out of the basement of MLB pitching staffs and keep them competitive in plenty of games. Depth issues were addressed with the signings of Hunter Renfroe, as well as veterans Garrett Hampson and Adam Frazier to provide some stability in the lineup.This kind of overhaul from one of the smallest markets in the MLB doesn't happen unless the team thinks it can play competitive baseball. In a weak division where just 87 wins earned the Twins a division title last season, the Royals will sneak into the playoffs in 2024. While I don't expect them to make a deep run like the Royals of 2014, simply winning a single playoff game would be huge for a club that seems to be moving in the right direction.

Adley Rutschman wins AL MVP

Fangraphs, along with a few other respected outlets, have Rutschman projected to take a step backwards in almost every major offensive category in the upcoming campaign. To this I call BS and predict that Adley will instead take the leap into superstardom this season. With a loaded team around him we should see a wealth of opportunities to drive in runs even hitting from the first or second spot in the order, with an improved slash line and decent power numbers to boot. On top of his performance at the plate, Rutschman will be playing the most important position on the diamond and should continue to display the defensive prowess that earned him a spot among the Gold Glove finalists in 2023. The Orioles will dominate the AL and Adley will be the driving force. With Ohtani heading to the National League, the door is wide-open for someone to step up, so expect Adley Rutschman to add more hardware to his trophy case.

The league as a whole will break the single season stolen base record

Not all of last season's rule changes were popular. Many fans complained about the removal of the shift and some aspects of the pitch clock rules. However I would argue that the larger bases are great for the game overall and especially for the fans. With the game shifting towards homerun or bust over the last 5 years, I feel like a lot of the strategy of the game has been lost. Thankfully, with the enormous surge in stolen bases last season there has been a small-ball revival in the MLB. The single season record for league wide stolen bases was set in 1987 at 3585, with last seasons total of 3500 coming very close. This season I expect somewhere in the range of 3600 stolen bases as defenses continue to adjust to the larger bases and increased focus on swiping bags.

John Siebels is the owner of Springhill Sports Cards, he collects and sells sports cards on Ebay, you can find him on Instagram and his Ebay store here