Random MLB Predictions for the 2024 Season Sure to Go Wrong

"You can't predict baseball" is what they say, but there really should be a second part: "And you'd be a fool to even try."

If one is going to try, though, one might as well try with gusto.

With the start of the 2024 MLB season getting closer—Opening Day for all but two teams is March 28—I've gone out on a limb and made 10 predictions that I don't actually think will come true but are also somewhere within the realm of possibility.

I would call these hot takes, but what sets this set of predictions apart is that they don't hit on hot topics such as eventual playoff teams or award winners. They're much more random and, assuming you like random stuff, therefore that much more fun.

Five of these concern player-related matters, with the other five centered on team-related matters. We'll start with the former.

Note: All betting odds are courtesy of DraftKings.

We've already brought back everything else from the 1980s, so why not bring back the 80-stolen base season as well?

You have to go back to 1988, when Vince Coleman (81) and Rickey Henderson (93) both did it, to find the last time anyone stole 80-plus bases in a season. The following years reestablished the home run as the offensive weapon of choice in MLB, and that's still the case.

Yet we all know what happened last year. Bigger bases were in, and stolen bases were back as the league averaged over 0.7 steals per game for the first time since 1999.

Of course, there could be a downturn in Year 2 of the bigger bases, but it's hard to argue why that would be the case. If anything, it may be more likely that baserunners will take last year's proof of concept and improve on it.

So, who wants to steal 80 bases? Ronald Acuña Jr. is probably the best bet after he swiped 73 last year, and there's also Corbin Carroll, Bobby Witt Jr. and CJ Abrams.

My guy, though, is Esteury Ruiz. He stole 85 bases in the minors in 2022, and then 67 as a major league player last year despite only getting on base at a .309 clip. Even a modest improvement in that department could unlock big things.

In addition to stolen bases in general, another thing the 2023 season had in abundance was 30-30 hitters.

Acuña obviously led the way with 41 homers and 73 steals, but there was also Julio Rodríguez (32-37), Francisco Lindor (31-31) and Witt (30-49). Together, they formed only the fifth foursome of 30-30 guys for a single season.

But here's the thing: We were a few lucky bounces away from getting eight 30-30 guys.

Kyle Tucker just missed in pairing his 30 thefts with 29 homers, and Trea Turner, Corbin Carroll and Fernando Tatis Jr. at least made it to the 25-25 club. All four should be considered candidates to finish the 30-30 job in 2024.

Want more? There are also 30-30 odds on Shohei Ohtani, José Ramírez, Randy Arozarena, Oneil Cruz and Elly De La Cruz, and it's hard to disagree with any of those picks. I'd also throw Milwaukee Brewers rookie Jackson Chourio in there as a wild card.

In any case, it's not out of the question that this year will bring the first-ever collection of eight (eightsome...octosome?) 30-30 guys.

Elsewhere among the player-based odds for the 2024 season are the top bets to lead the league in home runs.

It's a long list, but there's something notable about the first 17 players on it. Starting with Aaron Judge and ending with Jazz Chisholm Jr. (weird pick, but OK), all 17 play in either East or West divisions.

It's not until you get to Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Oneil Cruz, who's been sensational in hitting seven home runs this spring, at +5000 that a player from one of the Central divisions enters the chat. It should feel weird, yet it's actually in line with recent history.

There's been only one instance of a Central player leading MLB in home runs in the last 11 seasons, and even that comes with an asterisk. When Salvador Perez hit 48 bombs in 2021, he shared the league lead with Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

As the odds suggest, this trend isn't likely to end in 2024...but let's say it will.

I'm mostly saying this out of a desire to make a chaos prediction, but let's also grant that Cruz isn't the only candidate to do the Central proud in the home run race. There's also Chicago White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr., who ranked ninth in both actual and expected home runs last season.

Switching now to the pitching side of things, let's ignore the established wisdom that saves are overrated in lieu of having some fun with the stat.

All aboard? Good.

So, 50-save seasons. They're rare, having happened only 17 times in MLB history. Rarer still are years in which two closers have topped the 50-save threshold. That's happened only three times, and not since Craig Kimbrel and Jim Johnson in 2013.

But what if 2024 doesn't merely add a fourth instance to that pile? What if it becomes the first season with three closers with 50 saves on their records?

There are at least two good candidates to get there, starting with Emmanuel Clase. He saved 44 games in 2023 despite blowing 12 opportunities, and he probably didn't deserve that. There's also Edwin Díaz, who already has a 50-save season and who's looked terrific in his return from last year's freak knee injury.

There's otherwise Josh Hader, David Bednar and Camilo Doval, not to mention Edwin's brother, Alexis. That's at least six good candidates for a 50-save season in 2024, or twice as many as it would actually take to set the record.

Saves may be overrated, but nobody can say they're dying. Year after year, closers just keep racking 'em up in bunches.

If only the same could be said about starting pitchers and innings.

There was progress in this department from 2021 to 2022, with starters collectively eating about 900 more innings in the latter than they had in the former. But it didn't keep up in 2023, wherein starters' innings declined by 315.1.

It didn't help that only five guys crossed the 200-inning threshold, the second-lowest ever for a full season after the four of 2021. And, alas, that fivesome doesn't contain much in the way of bets for repeat success in 2024.

Chris Bassitt and Miles Mikolas are both 35 years old, while Gerrit Cole's elbow injury could sideline him into June. That leaves just Logan Webb and Zac Gallen, the latter of whom may need to be protected after logging an additional 33.2 innings last October.

So, with all respect to Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Corbin Burnes, Framber Valdez, Luis Castillo and Pablo López, I'm thinking there won't be any 200-inning pitchers this year. And Old Hoss Radbourn will weep.

Meanwhile, the betting odds have the Baltimore Orioles as the leader in the clubhouse in the race to become the last team to lose a regular-season game.

It's a reasonable position, and not just because the O's are a good bet in general to rack up wins after collecting 101 of them in 2023. They're 18-5 in Grapefruit League play this spring, and they begin their regular season with 12 straight games against losing teams from last year, including the first six at home.

Still, I'll take the Detroit Tigers on this one.

They weren't exactly good in going 78-84 last year, but they did finish with momentum by way of a 39-34 showing in the second half. And it's kept up this spring, where they're 15-8 in the Grapefruit League.

Even better, their opening schedule sees them play two 100-loss teams from 2023 (the White Sox and A's) within their first 11 games. They otherwise play the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets, who lost 86 and 87 games, respectively.

Besides, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the 1984 Tigers, who started 9-0 and 35-5 overall. Meaningless in this context? Oh, sure...for now, anyway.

Even if the Tigers open with the longest winning streak to start 2024, chances are it won't stand as the longest winning streak of the season.

For that, it's hard to argue with the odds favoring the Los Angeles Dodgers.

They're the overwhelming favorites to win the National League West yet again after a $1.2 billion offseason, and even Baseball Prospectus' generally conservative PECOTA system projects them to win 100 games. They're that good.

Plus, their schedule is that easy. At least according to FanGraphs, it's tied for the easiest of them all alongside the slates of Atlanta and the Minnesota Twins.

As for precisely when the Dodgers could go off, I'm looking at a stretch from May 27 to June 30 wherein they'll play 24 out of 30 against losing teams from last season. The exceptions are the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers, who could both still be without key pitchers (i.e., Cole, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle) in that window.

Oddly enough, it was 100 years ago that the Dodgers set what's still the franchise's high mark with a 15-game winning streak. I'll venture a guess that that record is going down.

As to the other side of the spectrum, the betting favorite for the longest losing streak of 2024 is the A's.

And not undeservedly so, mind you. The A's were historically awful last year, wherein much of their 112 losses came in chunks. They lost at least five straight games on 10 different occasions.

However, I'll take the Washington Nationals here.

They lost "only" 91 games last year, yet FanGraphs and PECOTA both project them to be worse than even the A's in 2024. That speaks to how little talent the Nats have lined up, but their schedule also figures to be a factor as well.

Theirs is the most difficult slate in either league, and things will get brutal early on between April 15 and May 8. They'll play 21 straight games against teams that made the playoffs in 2023, and even the easiest opponent in that stretch (the Miami Marlins) took 11 of the 13 meetings between the two teams last season.

The 2023 Nationals topped out at a mere six losses in a row between Aug. 30 and Sep. 5. Let's go ahead and put them down for a streak twice as long this year.

Yeah, that's right. There won't be a single 100-win team this year.

If this smacks of heresy, it's because it's now the norm for there to be multiple 100-win teams each year. Not counting 2020, there have been at least three annually since 2017, with peaks of four in 2019 and 2022.

But this wasn't always the case. There was notably a total of six 100-win teams between 2005 and 2016, and no more than one per year. It was an era in which parity ruled.

Though 100-win teams have kept coming in bunches, things have actually taken a turn back in that direction. The standard deviation between team's regular-season winning percentages has been trending down since 2019. That's the nerdy way of saying "competitive balance is healing."

Besides, how many candidates even are there to win 100 games this year?

It's just Atlanta and the Dodgers for both the projections and the odds, and neither is a sure thing simply based on their direct competition. The NL West is absolutely deeper this year, and the same will be true of the NL West if the Mets rebound from a rough 2023 season.

I don't know who's going to be playing in the 2024 World Series. Nor do I care to make a prediction at this time.

But whoever the teams end up being, it's going to be won in a sweep.

I'm basing this off nothing except for the law of averages, which suggests MLB is overdue for a World Series sweep. There hasn't been one since 2012, whereas there was one every five years between 1903 through 2011.

There have, of course, been some close calls in the last 13 World Series. The Fall Classics of 2015, 2018 and 2023 were over in five games, and the second of those might have been a lone throwing error away from resulting in a clean four-game sweep.

There's otherwise the fact that quick series have been the norm under MLB's new playoff structure. Of the 22 postseason series that have been played over the last two seasons, 11 have ended in sweeps. Another seven needed just one game more than the minimum.

So, come on, baseball gods. Give me that sweet, sweet sweep.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.