2021 NL West Preview

And so, just one division remains.

With Major League Baseball starting in less than 24 hours, I've covered ground in five of the six Major League divisions, having worked my way from the east coast all the way out west now.

And so, let's tackle the NL West and conclude the series. Happy Opening Day, and good luck to your team!

2019 MLB Preview: NL West

I know technically, the Major League season started last week when the Mariners and A's played a couple games over in Japan. But two games out of 162 isn't enough for me to have justified running this feature early.

In what has become an annual tradition, one of the ones where I make an idiot out of myself, I run through all six MLB divisions and make my predictions for the season. Last year I condensed the posts to a span of three days, but I continued the pattern of going across the country and alternating leagues, ending with the defending champion's division.

With that in mind, we'll kick things off out west in the National League.

90's Youth Life Podcast Special: The 1994 MLB Playoffs Simulation

I was a radio guy in college. So it's kind of a surprise that, other than a random podcast with a Nintendo forum something like ten years ago that who knows if it even still exists anywhere or not, I am a novice at the podcast game. Fortunately, I know people.

I've talked up the immortal Geoffrey Clark on here before. He's a classmate and friend from my North Central days, a blogger for Chicago Bulls Confidential, and he is also the host of the 90s Youth Life podcast. He's talked up a number of topics from when we grew up, including topics like the McDonald's Beanie Baby craze and the career of Ken Griffey, Jr. with another WONC alum we overlapped with.

So a couple weeks ago, I got a text from Geoff regarding my favorite tool on this blog, WhatIfSports. He'd been introduced to the tool through Confessions of a Sportscaster and was talking about how addicting it was. It was through that discussion that he brought up the lost postseason of 1994 due to the strike. One thing led to another and, well... I was a guest on a podcast.

In it we run through how the 1994 Major League Baseball postseason could have played out had the playoffs been the leaders in the standings when play stopped. After the jump I will post links to the box scores of the games, but if you want to keep the element of surprise... take a listen.

2018 MLB Preview: NL West

Opening Day is tomorrow! Excitement is in the air, everyone is a contender (...well, except for the Marlins) and hopefully the weather will warm up so taking a trip to the ballpark will be a little more pleasant.

I've condensed my process down to three days' worth of posting instead of six, so we're down to just two divisions to preview. We're back to the National League one more time with one Wild Card berth still up for grabs.

2017 MLB Preview: NL West

We're halfway through our baseball predictions for the upcoming year, and just a few days from the start of the season. We're also only a few days from the start of my latest ambitious project in the MLB Tournament of Champions, which you can find out more about here.

On Day 4, we're swapping leagues again while staying on the coast. as we move to the National League West.

2016 MLB Predictions: NL West

I've taken a few weeks off from writing in the aftermath of the end of basketball season, just to get a little more free time in. With baseball season nearly upon us though, I find myself having to scramble a little bit.

I'm excited for the season to get underway, as after a few dismal years on the north side of Chicago, there's an elite team playing at Clark and Addison. I'll have more on them in a few days.

As is my tradition, I will do a division a day, alternating leagues and ending with the division containing the defending champion. This year, with the champions coming out of the Central, I have to start on one coast or the other, and this year I'm opting for the west coast. Let's take a look at the NL West.

2015 MLB Preview: NL West

One more day! We're almost there, baseball fans!

Over the past five days, I've taken a look at the entirety of Major League Baseball save the NL West. Today, we finish off with them since they house the defending World Series Champions.

To a degree, I goofed with these guys last year, but it also housed my biggest prediction success since predicting the score of Super Bowl XLIII. If you want to look at last year's predictions, you can view them here.

Let's get to the final batch of predictions.

2014 MLB Preview: NL West

It's been a long, brutal winter. Spring officially began last Thursday, but it hasn't really seemed like it yet. We're (hopefully) past all that polar vortex subzero nonsense, though Sunday saw some lake effect snow in Chicago. It's hard to believe that on Sunday, Major League Baseball officially gets underway here in the States as opposed to that Australian pair of games this past weekend.

So like I did last year, I'm going to do a runthrough of all 30 MLB teams even though I've only kind of followed what's gone on during the offseason. I think I can do enough to at least reasonably guess at what will happen. Bear in mind though, this is a guy who picked the world champs to finish last in their division last year. I was wrong then, so take these picks for what you will.

Another fun side note: I totally threw out random records last season for my projections, and my dad put the numbers together only to find that I gave, on average, about a win too many to all the teams last year. I'm actually looking at numbers this time.

Since I want to do the division with the defending champ last, I'm starting in the opposite league on the opposite coast. As such, here's how I'm picking the NL West to shape up.