The World Series being over means that the 2017 MLB season has also reached its end. For some teams, it was an immense success. For others, it was an immense failure.
The season was a clear success for the Houston Astros. While they may not want to hear it now, the same is true for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But for division champs like the Washington Nationals and Boston Red Sox, it’s harder to judge.
Phenomenal rookies like Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger were dreams come true for MLB. But the dreams will get even sweeter if the game’s best player can be a big part of its biggest games. That didn’t happen in 2017.
The 2017 MLB season was an adventurous one. These were the main takeaways from it as we look forward to 2018 and beyond.
Patience pays off for the Astros
Rebuilding projects don’t always work. Prospects don’t always pan out. But for Houston, futility at the beginning of the decade worked out like a charm in 2017. Poor seasons netted the Astros players like George Springer, Carlos Correa, and Alex Bregman. Those guys joined a team that included Jose Altuve, who debuted in the majors in 2011.
From 2011-2013, Houston lost 106, 107, and 111 games, respectively. It’s hard to have patience to go through seasons like that.
Obviously, it all worked out well for the Astros. “Sports Illustrated” labeled Houston as “Your 2017 World Series Champs” back in 2014. There was no cover jinx here.
Home run explosion
The 2017 World Series set a record for the most home runs in a single Fall Classic. It’s a remarkable record and even more remarkable when we consider that it took only five games to break the record of a seven-game series from the steroid era. But truthfully, it was just a reflection of what we saw all year.
Baseball in 2017 will be remembered for a barrage of home runs. We can debate the reasons all day, but this is a fact. The league-wide record for home runs in a season was broken, and broken with ample time to spare. It became clear that if you were a team that couldn’t hit for power, you weren’t going to compete for a championship. The American League East champion Red Sox did throw something of a wrench into that theory. But when the ALDS rolled around, they were no match for the powerful Houston.
Time will tell if this is a short-term trend, or the way that baseball is headed for the foreseeable future. But from the beginning of the season through the World Series, the 2017 MLB season was dominated by the long ball.
Repeating is painfully hard
Let the plight of the 2017 Chicago Cubs be a lesson to the 2018 Astros.
Chicago was fortunate to be playing in a fairly mediocre division in the first half. As such, the Cubs hung in the NL Central race through what was a fairly bland first half, then ran away with the division with a strong second half. Just reaching the playoffs made Chicago the most successful defending champ in five years. But after upending the Washington Nationals in the NLDS, the Cubs were no match for the Dodgers in the NLCS.
Like Houston will be in 2018, the Cubs were set up well to repeat in 2017. It just couldn’t come to fruition. The Astros certainly have the tools to repeat in 2018. But before we go making that prediction, it’s important to remember that no team has repeated since the New York Yankees’ 1998-2000 three-peat.
Perhaps there’s a reason for that.
Angels still need to do more for Mike Trout
Despite playing in only 114 games, 2017 was another fantastic season for Trout. The Los Angeles Angels’ centerfielder slashed at .303/.442/.629, hit 33 home runs, and further cemented his status as baseball’s best player. But in what’s become an all too common theme, we didn’t get to see Trout in the postseason.
Los Angeles did hang in the American League Wild Card race for most of the year. Unfortunately, the Halos still finished with a losing record. Signing Justin Upton to a contract extension will help. But Los Angeles still has a long way to go before we can treat this team as a serious contender. The fact that the Angels have one of baseball’s worst farm systems doesn’t help matters, either.
Los Angeles’ front office needs to get creative. As good as recent postseasons have been, the playoffs will be even better if the best baseball player in the world is heavily featured.
Super rookies take the league by storm
There’s absolutely no question that New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge and Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Cody Bellinger will the Rookie of the Year awards. The only question now is, will they win unanimously, or will some voters decide to go non-conformist for the sake of going non-conformist?
These two emerging in 2017 was a dream for baseball. The two are not only immensely talented, but excel at hitting the home run. Judge hit 52 while Bellinger hit 39 in a shortened season. That’s a marketer’s dream. Making things even better is that these two excel in the country’s two largest markets. They’re not going to fall into obscurity.
Rob Manfred and company certainly enjoyed seeing these megastars develop.
Waiver deadline gains more significance
Traditionally, we think of July 31 as the trade deadline. That remains the “non-waiver deadline.” But a trend has emerged in recent years, with big name players getting moved before the August 31 “waiver deadline.” In 2017, we saw big names like Jay Bruce, Justin Upton, and Justin Verlander traded in August.
Verlander’s trade, in particular, made a massive impact. It’s highly unlikely that the Astros would have even reached the World Series without him.
This is a trend that should be expected to continue. The wild card keeps teams in postseason races for longer and since 2012, we’ve had two wild cards in each league. So, with very few exceptions, teams just aren’t out of contention on July 31. Don’t be surprised if the “non-waiver deadline” is moved back in the coming years. But for now, we can take some significance off of the July 31 deadline. It’s still important, but it’s not necessarily the date when rosters are finalized.
Strikeouts continue to go up
If you’re a fan of the small ball approach towards baseball, you probably didn’t love the 2017 season. The aforementioned home run record means that players for the league are swinging for the fences. When that fails, we see a lot of strikeouts.
In fact, we saw more strikeouts in 2017 than in any other season. Pitchers around MLB recorded a record 40,014 strikeouts during the regular season. This marked the 10th straight season where the strikeout record was broken.
As a point of reference, before the 2008 season, the record stood at 32,404, which was set in 2001. In other words, teams are striking out on average 254 more times per year than they were 16 years ago. Don’t expect this number to go down in 2018, either.
Wild Cards show how much things can change in one year
Five of the six division winners were repeats from 2016. The one exception — Houston — was anything but a surprise. We can’t say the same about the four wild card teams.
The Yankees were a respectable 84-78 in 2016. But after being definite sellers at the 2016 deadline, New York was expected to be in a rebuilding mode in 2017. The other team in the American League Wild Card Game, the Minnesota Twins, lost a league high 103 games in 2016. Meanwhile, the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks squared off in 2017’s National League Wild Card Game despite losing 87 and 93 games, respectively, the season prior.
We all have our opinions about what’s going to happen at the beginning of the season. But these teams showed that even if your team has little to no expectations, good things can happen. Keep that in mind as we head into 2018.
Another disappointing postseason in Washington
The Nationals have made the playoffs four times since 2012. Washington had home-field advantage every time. Every one of those seasons ended in an NLDS loss. Three of the four NLDS losses were capped off with a Game 5 defeat at home.
That, combined with free agency and age, makes 2018 the ultimate pressure cooker for the Nats. It may be the last year in Washington for Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy. We don’t know how good Ryan Zimmerman will be. Max Scherzer isn’t slowing down now, but he’ll also turn 34 next year.
In 2012, this team was destined to win multiple championships. If the first championship doesn’t come in 2018, this era of Nationals’ baseball could go down as one of the most disappointing in the sport’s history.
Uncertain future of Giancarlo Stanton
The hulking Miami Marlins slugger led the league with a career high 59 home runs in 2017. He figures to be a hotly discussed name on the trade market during the 2017-18 offseason.
Miami’s new ownership has expressed a willingness to at least discuss trading Stanton. Of course, talking about a trade is one thing. Making it happen is quite another. A trade may not happen. But Stanton’s success in 2017, coupled with the aforementioned trend of baseball becoming a power first sport, will make him the offseason’s greatest prize.
It’s certainly something that those of us who love the hot stove season will have a lot of fun following in the coming weeks and months.
Confusing season in Boston
On the one hand, it’s hard to be too harsh on the Red Sox season. Boston won the American League East title for a second consecutive year, something it had never done in the past. Chris Sale didn’t finish the year especially well. Still, his first year with the team was a clear success.
But the season ended with a second straight disappointing ALDS loss. It also ended with manager John Farrell losing his job. All of that combined makes the 2017 season a truly a hard one to analyze.
Boston needs to up its power in the offseason. The ALDS against Houston made it abundantly clear that the Red Sox couldn’t keep up. But unlike some of these teams, Boston is starting from a solid position.
2016’s Wild Card teams regress hard
As we already detailed, 2017’s Wild Gard Games featured immense surprises. Of course, for every positive surprise, we must get a negative surprise. That’s where 2016’s Wild Card teams enter the picture.
The Toronto Blue Jays backed up ALCS trips in 2015 and 2016 with a 76-86 record in 2017. That looks bad. But in reality, Toronto was the best of 2016’s Wild Card teams in 2017. The Jays finished one game ahead of the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East. In the National League, the New York Mets limped out of the gate and finished 70-92. The San Francisco Giants, meanwhile, were one of baseball’s worst teams all year and finished at 64-98.
There was very little to indicate that this kind of drop was coming from any of those teams, let alone all of them. So, just like you shouldn’t get too down if your team wasn’t very good, you shouldn’t get too excited if your team was good. Things change fast in baseball.
End of an era in Kansas City?
The Kansas City Royals were one of baseball’s best stories in 2014 and 2015. The small-market team — irrelevant for so long — won two straight American League pennants and a World Series in 2015. Chances are, that run is over.
Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, and Alcides Escobar are four key Royals who will hit the free agent market. Chances are, Kansas City wouldn’t be able to keep these guys if it wanted to. And given that 2016 and 2017 both yielded missed playoff appearances, it’s hard to imagine the Royals really wanting to blow so much of the budget on these guys.
So, while a lot can happen during the offseason, it appears as though 2017 really will be the end of a magical time in Kansas City’s baseball history.
Cleveland’s historic win streak
For much of the 2017 season, the Cleveland Indians were a lot like the Cubs. They were doing fine in the American League Central, but not having an especially great season. Then, on August 24, Cleveland won a game to move to 5.5 up and snap a two-game losing streak. The Indians wouldn’t lose again until September 15, winning an American League record 22 in a row.
The season didn’t end the way that Cleveland planned. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the ALDS, the Indians lost three straight to the Yankees to end the season.
It was a bitter finish. But certainly, that shouldn’t dull what was a tremendous accomplishment. Baseball is the most random game-to-game sport that there is. Any team that can win that many games in a row has a special place in baseball history, even if the postseason didn’t go according to plan.
Will new ownership in Miami lead to a fire sale?
As we previously detailed, the Marlins are under new ownership. Long term, we can say that this will a good move for Miami’s fans. We say this so confidently because, quite frankly, it’s essentially impossible to be worse than Jeffrey Loria.
But in the short term, Derek Jeter and company are looking to clean house. What does that mean?
Well, it’s worth repeating that it could mean the end of Stanton’s tenure with the team. It could also mean that guys like Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, and Justin Bour will be heading out of town. We just don’t know. But the Marlins will be key players of the hot stove season.
Despite disappointing finish, Dodgers season is a success
Losing Game 7 of the World Series is disappointing. There’s no way to spin that in another direction. But anyone who would really call Los Angeles’ season a failure really doesn’t deserve our attention.
The Dodgers finally broke through in the playoffs to reach the World Series. They did this because, after years of playoff disappointments, Los Angeles built a team made to win in the postseason. The pitching rotation was deeper than ever. The bullpen was designed to win close games late. Down 3-2 and facing the previously unhittable Justin Verlander in Game 6 of the World Series, the Dodgers showed their mettle, beat Verlander, and forced a Game 7.
These are not things that past Los Angeles teams have done a lot in recent years. Sure, the season ended poorly for the Dodgers. The ultimate goal is to win a World Series, which Los Angeles didn’t do. But in 2017, we saw the Dodgers show that they have what it takes to win a World Series.