What I Am Looking Forward To This Season: American League Edition

I am not a morning person. I like to stay up late and sleep late, roll out of bed, make my first cup of coffee, and ease into the day.

This Thursday will be different because Thursday is Opening Day of the 2023 Major League Baseball season. I’ll be up early, tingling with excitement, and preparing for a full day and night of baseball games that count.

The first game on the schedule pits my hometown San Francisco Giants against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. First pitch is slated for 1:05 EDT but the pomp and circumstance of Opening Day will likely push that back a bit.

For the first time in a long time, all 30 MLB teams will be in action on Opening Day, with a sparse schedule on Friday. It’s early in spring when weather can be a factor, so the league typically leaves some wiggle room in case one or more games on Thursday get rained (or snowed) out. Here’s a link to the schedule for all 15 Opening Day games.

To get us ready for Opening Day, I am sharing with you the things I’m most looking forward to this season. Today I’ll talk about the American League. In Wednesday’s newsletter I’ll give you my thoughts on the National League. Then I want to hear from you about you are most excited about this season—so drop a note in the comments.

Will any American League team record 200 or more stolen bases?

I bet you can’t guess the last major league team to steal 200 or more stolen bases in a season. I had no idea and had to look it up: the 2007 New York Mets with exactly 200 stolen bases. Last season, the Rangers led the majors in stolen bases with 128.

New rules in effect for the 2023 season could see stolen bases go way up across the majors; indeed, the changes were implemented with the goal of speeding up the game and creating more action on the base paths.

First and foremost, the bases are bigger this season, up from 15 inches square to 18 inches square. Obviously, runners will reach bases faster if the distance between them has decreased by 6 inches.

Second, pitchers are now limited in how many times they can throw over the first base with a runner on. During each at-bat, a pitcher may disengage from the rubber only 2 times per at-bat, either by throwing over to first or stepping off the mound to reset. (This limit is reset if a runner advances during an at-bat). On the third disengagement, the runner automatically advances, unless the pitcher picks him off.

Third, defensive shifts are limited. Starting this season, the third baseman and shortstop must set up on the left side of second base and the second baseman and first baseman must set up to the right of second base. Plus, every infielder must have his feet set on the infield dirt before each pitch.

Halfway through spring training games, both stolen base attempts and successful stolen bases were way up compared to 2022 spring training and are at their highest since 2006, when MLB began keeping track of spring training stats. Graph below courtesy of MLB.com.

I don’t think we’ll see the likes of the 1976 Oakland Athletics’ 341 stolen bases this season but I’m rooting hard for a team to break 200.

Will Bruce Bochy regret coming out of retirement to manage the Rangers?

As the manager of the Giants from 2007 through 2019, Bruce Bochy led San Francisco to three World Series titles—the only ones the Giants have won since moving west from New York in 1958. Before taking the helm of the Giants, Bochy managed the Padres for 12 seasons and led them to one National League pennant in 1998. He was 65 years old when he left the Giants and considered a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame as a manager.

After sitting out three seasons, Bochy is back in baseball as the manager of the Texas Rangers. At his introductory press conference with the Rangers, Bochy said simply “I missed the game.”

The Rangers haven’t had a winning season since 2016 when they won 95 games and the American League West title. The Houston Astros have won the division every season since then, save for the COVID-shortened 2020 season when the A’s won it. Even with Justin Verlander signing with the Mets in the offseason, the Astros remain the team to beat in the AL West.

Still, the Rangers have a new ace in Jacob deGrom and an insanely-talented double-play combination of Corey Seager at shortstop and Marcus Semien at second base. But deGrom will turn 35 in June and has battled injuries his entire career, while both Semien and Seager had down years offensively in 2022 after signing big free agent deals with Texas.

Neither of the established projection systems (PECOTA at Baseball Prospectus and ZIPS at FanGraphs) picks the Rangers to make the postseason in 2023, although both see more wins for Texas compared to 2022.

Bochy will turn 68 at in April. I wonder how happy he’ll be to be back in the game if the Rangers don’t significantly improve in the next few years.

Will Aaron Judge lead the American League in home runs?

Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs in 2022 to break the single season home run record in the American League, previously held by former Yankee Roger Maris. Last year wasn’t the first time Judge led the American League in home runs. He did that in 2017, as well, when he hit 52 dingers. (The MLB home run leader that season was Judge’s now-teammate Giancarlo Stanton, who played for the Marlins in 2017 and hit 59 homers).

Who could take the AL home run crown this season? Judge has to be a favorite, but I have my eye several other players.

Blue Jay first baseman Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. led the American League in home runs in 2021 with 48 (tied with Salvador Perez of the Royals). Guerrero is only 24 years old and will be playing his home games in a renovated ballpark that may be more home-run friendly in 2023. In the offseason, the Blue Jays changed the outfield dimensions at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. The walls in left center field and right center field were moved in and are now 368 feet and 359 feet from home plate, respectively, with the wall height raised from 10 feet in left to 11 feet, 2 inches.

According to data from Statcast, Guerrero, who bats from the right side, is a pull home run hitter, meaning that most of his home runs are hit to left field. Below is his 2022 spray chart. His spray charts for 2019-2021 look similar.

Could it be Eugenio Suaréz? Over the last four seasons combined, Suaréz hit the fourth-most home runs in the majors. Suaréz’s 126 home runs from 2019-2022 trail only Pete Alonso (148), Aaron Judge (137) and Kyle Schwarber (127). But Suaréz played for the Reds in 3 of those 4 seasons, with home games in homer-heaven Great American Ballpark. The Reds traded Suaréz to the Mariners before the 2022 season. T-Mobile Park in Seattle slightly favored home run hitting in 2022, but it’s nothing like the ballpark in Cincinnati. Still, Suaréz mashed 31 homers last season.

A healthy Mike Trout could do some home run damage this season. Since the 2019 season, Trout’s hit 110 home runs, but Trout’s injuries limited him to only 1,486 plate appearances over the last four seasons. By contrast, Aaron Judge has had 1,890 PAs since 2019. That means Trout has hit a home run every 13.5 plate appearances while Judge has hit one every 13.8 plate appearances.

Will the Angels make the postseason?

In the first hanging sliders newsletter, I wrote about how frustrating it is to watch Trout—the best player of his generation—play on bad Angels teams year after year. Part of me is frustrated with Trout for signing a long-term deal with Angels when he could have signed anywhere as a free agent and made gobs of money. Part of me is frustrated with Angels owner Arte Moreno for not surrounding Trout with a better roster. Then you think about Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the same team for the last five seasons and still the Angels couldn’t eke out winning record, much less a postseason berth.

I’m still scarred by the Angels’ improbable come-from-behind win over the Giants in the 2002 World Series, so I can’t say I’m rooting for the Angels this season. But I’m rooting for Trout and Ohtani to make the postseason because, as we saw with the World Baseball Classic, baseball is better when Trout and Ohtani are playing on a a big stage.