Five Semi-Bold Predictions For The 2024 MLB Season

Image credit: Jackson Chourio (Photo by Kevin Abele/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

With the arrival of the 2024 MLB season, here are a few semi-bold predictions based on conversations with people around the game.

The 2024 Orioles will be a better team than the 2023 Orioles. But they will win fewer games.

It’s easy to lay out why this year’s Orioles team should be more talented than last year’s team. The acquisition of Corbin Burnes gives the team an ace. Gunnar Henderson is now in year two, which makes it reasonable to assume that he will produce like he did from June on (.276/.322/.535) as opposed to his early-season struggles (.201/.332/.370 on May 31).

And this team should benefit all season from the arrival of a massive wave of reinforcements from last year’s Norfolk club that was both Triple-A champion and MiLB Team of the Year. Jackson Holliday, Coby Mayo, Kyle Stowers and Heston Kjerstad may not be starting the year in Baltimore, but most of them will likely spend a good bit of 2024 in Baltimore, adding a further talent boost to a team that won 101 games last year.

So, why will they win fewer games? Because reaching triple digits in wins is hard to do, and the Orioles may have exceeded their true talent last year in doing so. The Orioles’ pythagorean projected win-loss record last year was 94-68. They were 30-16 in one-run games, thanks to a dominating bullpen.

It’s hard to keep that up in back-to-back years. The good news for Baltimore is it would take a massive fall-off in wins to fail to make the playoffs, and the arrivals of Burns, Holliday, Mayo and others in 2024 should make this a tough team to beat in the playoffs.

Jackson Chourio will need some time to acclimate to the majors.

After signing an eight-year, $82-million contract during the offseason, Chourio cemented his spot on the Brewers’ Opening Day roster by hitting .323/.373/.403 this spring. Chourio, the No. 2 prospect on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list, is expected to be one of baseball’s stars of the second half of the 2020s and beyond.

But it wouldn’t be surprising if he struggles to get established in the majors early on. Chourio’s 2023 stats with Double-A Biloxi were much better with the regular minor league baseball than they were with the pre-tacked baseball, so his overall stat line last year doesn’t indicate his true talent level, but he does have just 24 Triple-A plate appearances, and he’s reaching the majors at an exceptionally young age.

Chourio will become the youngest position player in the major leagues since Juan Soto debuted in 2018 and the youngest besides Soto in the past decade.

Looking at all the players over the past decade who posted 150+ plate appearances in a season where they debuted as a 20-year-old finds an enviable list of current stars, but many of them had unspectacular debut seasons. Here’s a look at what they produced in their debut seasons.

Player	Year	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG
Jordan Walker	2023	465	.276	.342	.445
Wander Franco	2021	308	.288	.347	.463
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	2019	514	.272	.339	.433
Fernando Tatis Jr.	2019	372	.317	.379	.590
Juan Soto	2018	494	.292	.406	.517
Ronald Acuna Jr.	2018	487	.293	.366	.552
Ozzie Albies	2017	244	.286	.354	.456
Rafael Devers	2017	240	.284	.338	.482
Nomar Mazara	2016	568	.266	.320	.419
Carlos Correa	2015	432	.279	.345	.512
Rougned Odor	2014	417	.259	.297	.402

So, if Chourio doesn’t seem locked in at the plate from day one, don’t worry too much. His defense and speed should provide value while he settles in offensively, and the long-term prognosis is excellent.

The Reds’ puzzling offseason moves may save them.

When the Reds signed Jeimer Candelario during the offseason, it seemed to be adding redundancy to a team that already had too many players who all seemed to fit best at the same spots. Then the team held on to Jonathan India, even though they seemed to have too many second baseman/third baseman–types.

But that was before the spring training from hell arrived for Cincinnati. Third baseman Noelvi Marte was suspended for 80 games for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Second baseman Matt McLain has had shoulder surgery that will sideline him for much of the season. Center fielder T.J. Friedl has a broken wrist that will sideline him for at least the first month of the season. Shortstop Edwin Arroyo, the team’s best defensive shortstop in the minors, was lost for the season with a shoulder injury of his own. And lefthander Brandon Williamson has been placed on the injured list with shoulder soreness.

All of a sudden, the Reds have gone from having a surplus of infielders to having a set lineup with Candelario at third base, Elly De La Cruz at shortstop, India at second base and Christian Encarnacion-Strand at first.

If anything, the Reds are now a bat or two short in the outfield and at designated hitter to begin the year, but the decisions on Candelario and India have kept them from being derailed by the spring injuries.

A year or two ago, one or two injuries would be too much for a thin lineup. Now the Reds seem to have enough to survive until Marte, Freidl, Williamson and McLain return, thanks to the kind of lineup and roster depth they were lacking until recently.

Keep an eye on the Tigers.

Detroit hasn’t gone to the playoffs or won 90 games since 2014. They haven’t had a winning record since 2016. So the bar for a successful season is quite low.

This team should clear that bar in 2024.

The Tigers have significantly revamped many aspects of their organization in recent years, with a new general manager (Scott Harris), a reworked player development system run by Ryan Garko, a new scouting director (Rob Metzler) and improved pitching development (led by big league pitching coach Chris Fetter, among others).

The early returns are encouraging. Detroit’s young pitching arrived in 2020 and 2021, but injuries meant that Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize and others are just getting re-established now. With Skubal, Mize, Reese Olson and Matt Manning, the team has young homegrown pitching to go with the additions of Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty.

Maybe even more importantly, the Tigers have a number of close-to-the-majors bats as well. While its home park is a pitcher’s park, the Tigers offensive ineptitude has been a big part of the team’s struggles for much of the past decade. Detroit has finished in the bottom third of the American League in runs scored in every season since 2017.

Detroit doesn’t need Colt Keith to be a star for him to provide a boost to a lineup that got below-average production from numerous spots last year. The few bright spots last year were almost all young, homegrown hitters (Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter).

Javier Baez’s struggles are still a big concern, but the retirement of Miguel Cabrera and the arrival of Keith, Parker Meadows, Gio Urshela and Mark Canha can potentially help fill some gaping holes in the lineup. Justyn Henry-Malloy and Jace Jung could arrive this year as well.

It doesn’t mean Detroit should win 90 games this year, but for the first time in a while, this looks to be a team that should be better in 2024 than it was in 2023, and better in 2025 than it is in 2024.

Oneil Cruz is going to remind everyone he’s back.

Oneil Cruz’s broken leg just nine games into the 2023 season derailed what could have been a breakout year. A year later, he should be the most exciting player the Pirates have had since Andrew McCutchen was in his first stint with the team.

Cruz is still an imperfect player. He’ll make some errors. He’ll strike out too much. But he’s also one of the toolsiest players in the game, with top-of-the-scale power, a top-of-the-scale arm and plus speed. The Pirates don’t need him to hit .300 to be the team’s best shortstop since Jay Bell. They just need him to hit for power, play solid defense with the occasional spectacular play and run the bases.

That’s a great to-do list for Cruz as a 25-year-old. If he does that this year, he could take a further step toward being a star in 2025-2027.