Top three storylines for the 2018 Major League Baseball season
By Brett Deresinski // Staff Writer
With the days getting longer and the weather getting warmer, baseball season is finally upon us. The 2018 Major League Baseball season opened up on March 28, and from now until the end of the World Series in the final week of October, baseball will be prominent in the American sports landscape. Every season brings a clean slate for every MLB team, as well as some new storylines. With the new season underway, what are the three biggest storylines for the 2018 season?
New Managers
Six MLB teams will enter the 2018 season with a different manager than they had last season. Perhaps the most notable change comes with the New York Yankees, as after Joe Girardi’s nine-year tenure with the Yankees (with a World Series title in 2009), Aaron Boone moves from the ESPN broadcast booth to the Yankees manager, and takes over in the dugout despite no prior managerial or coaching experience. After winning the World Series as the Astros’ bench coach last year, Alex Cora takes over in Boston. In Detroit, Ron Gardenhire takes over as manager of the Tigers after spending 13 seasons as the manager of the Minnesota Twins from 2002-14. Elsewhere in the National League, Mickey Callaway goes from the pitching coach of the Cleveland Indians to the new manager of the New York Mets, former outfielder Gabe Kepler takes over as manager of the up-and-coming Philadelphia Phillies, and Dave Martinez goes from the bench coach of the Chicago Cubs to the new manager of the Washington Nationals, as he looks to get the Nationals past the divisional round of the playoffs for the first time since the franchise moved from Montreal. Of the six new hires, Gardenhire is the only one who has been a manager before; both Kepler and Boone have no prior managerial or coaching experience. Only four rookie managers have ever won a World Series (Bob Brenly- 2001 Diamondbacks, Ralph Houk – 1961 Yankees, Eddie Dyer – 1946 Cardinals, Bucky Harris – 1924 Senators). The Red Sox, however, have had their last two managers win it all in their first season with the team (Terry Francona, 2004 and John Farrell, 2013). Will fate change this year?
All or Nothing
Since the second half of the 2015 MLB season, speculation rose that MLB has been juicing baseballs to increase offense. The statistics support this with a sharp spike in home runs and a drastic increase in strikeouts. The 2017 MLB season had the most home runs ever hit in a season (6,105 home runs, with the previous record being 5,693 in 2000), and smashed all previous strikeout records (40,105 strikeouts, with the previous record being 38,982 in 2016). Some people point to the pitchers throwing harder than ever before (the average fastball velocity was also higher than it has ever been) as the reason for this. Other people, however, blame the baseball. Will this year see another record pace for home runs and strikeouts?
The Next Bambino?
Perhaps the biggest story of the offseason was the arrival of Shohei Ohtani to the United States. He comes over to the Los Angeles Angels at age 23 as the first full-time two-way player MLB has seen since Babe Ruth. A designated hitter and starting pitcher for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters from 2013-17, he amassed 42 wins and a 2.52 ERA on the mound while hitting for a 0.286 average with 48 home runs over four seasons. His pitching is expected to be better than his hitting, but he is expected to get plenty of playing time at both positions this season. While some Japanese players have struggled to replicate their numbers from the Japan leagues in MLB, such as Daisuke Matsuzaka, others, such as Ichiro Suzuki, showed no signs of slowing down when coming over to America. Which category will Ohtani fall into, and can he live up to the hype?