We are almost done with spring training this year, and there have been several surprises record wise that I wanted to catalogue and maybe explain why these surprises happened.
THE BIGGEST SUPRISES (Positive)
Pittsburgh Pirates
The biggest surprise of spring training is the Pittsburgh Pirates who are 11-5 at the time of writing. If I had to explain their success, I would attribute it to their very good prospects such as Konnor Griffin who currently has a .923 ops or Bubba Chandler who currently has a 3.72 ERA. I think what happened is that the Pirates, who have been bad for a while, have been getting high draft picks over the last few years, and it seems that it is now paying off.
Chicago White Sox
I was also pleasantly surprised by the Chicago White Sox who sit at 11-8 at the time of writing. They recently acquired Muneta Murakami, a Tokyo power hitter who has been excellent for them. He has been hitting .923 ops. They also have a new manager, Will Venable, who seems to have flipped the team’s culture and created a better culture of winning.
THE BIGGEST SUPRISES (Negative)
Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are favored by many to win the American League. This is why a lot of people have been shocked by their terrible 5-16-1 start. I think this can be explained though because the Mariners have a huge amount of people playing in the World Baseball Classic, so they have been relying on backups. Because of this reason, if I was a Mariners fan, I would not be too worried.
Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles were expected to be better this year, but they are off to an incredibly disappointing 8-11-2 start. I am not a Oriole’s fan, so I set out to interview my neighbor, Tony, who is one, to see what he thinks so far.
The first question I asked him was how much he expected from the Orioles this year, and he said, “honestly, not much. This may be a bounce back year for a couple of guys but probably around 83-85 wins.” I then asked him about his thoughts on first baseman, Pete Alonso and he said, “I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m a bit worried it’s a repeat of the Chris Davis trade, a big signing that had its moments, but ended up being a failure.” I was also curious if he expected pitching to be better since that was a problem last year. He responded, “yes, it should improve with additions like Chris Bassit and Shane Baz. It should also help that Kyle Brandish is healthy again, but I am worried our depth is still too thin.” I also asked him why 2024 was such a disappointing year and he said, “the injuries just kept piling up, our pitching fell apart from our lack of depth, offense slumped at ties and the AL East teams all got better while we didn’t improve quickly enough. ” His prediction for the World Series winner this year- the Dodgers, which would be a three-peat.
Overall, it should be an exciting year for baseball. The season will officially begin on Wednesday, March 26 with a night game between the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants. The Baltimore Orioles will start their season on Thursday, March 26th hosting the Minnesota Twins.
