A few weeks ago I was listening to one of the national baseball writers being interviewed on the Angels station... I’m not certain who it was but it might have been Jeff Passan who covers MLB for Yahoo Sports... Anyway, he was asked who will be the surprise team for 2019 and he said that it is the Padres. He compared what the Padres have been doing to what Houston did when they went from dead last to being a WS contender. The last piece of the Padres puzzle was going to be adding veterans to their roster. If that writer knows what he is talking about this could be an exciting year in the NL West.
Devil's advocate: if you predict the Padres are going to surprise people and they do, you look like a genius. If they don't, nobody really blames you.
Personally I hope the Padres do well because I love San Diego, it's my "if only my wife would let me move out of NJ" preferred city. Time will tell. I can say this, after the Padres scooped up Machado the Phillies better make something happen with Harper or they will look like incompetent fools. They have all the money in the world and bragged about spending stupid money to get stars, if they get outbid on TWO of them then the GM will take some serious heat from fans.
Yes, it could be exciting. I don't think the Dodgers helped themselves a whole lot in the off season. Kershaw was not as dominating last year & I think he is beginning the downward slope of his career. Remains to be seen how Seager comes back. I thought they should have moved him to 2b & signed Machado. Or Turner to 2b & put Machado at 3b.
But what do I know?
Boston added 4 tigers and their GM and they got their WS win last year.....LOL!
Boston: 108 - 54
Detroit: 64 - 98
J.D. Martinez
David Price
Rick Porcello
Ian Kinsler
GM Dave Dombrowski