8 Predictions for the Rest of the 2024 MLB Season

Trying to predict baseball is among the most foolish things anyone can do. Seriously, it's up there with throwing on a swimsuit made of raw meat and jumping into shark-infested waters.

But since it can also be a lot of fun, let's use the midway point of the schedule as an excuse to get into eight predictions for the remainder of the 2024 MLB season.

These encompass four player-specific predictions and four team-specific ones, which are based partly on statistical projection and partly on pure imagination. And just between us, the latter had more influence on the process than the former.

Take these with a grain of salt, in other words. But as long as you're curious enough, one thing you should absolutely do either way is read on.

We're into July now, which means the July 30 trade deadline is no longer forever away.

All sorts of big names have been bandied about as potential trade chips, including sluggers such as Pete Alonso and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., more athletic types like Luis Robert Jr. and Bo Bichette and, more recently, even a former MVP in Cody Bellinger.

Yet inasmuch as any star is ever a sure-fire trade candidate, that seems to be the case with Garrett Crochet.

The Chicago White Sox tried to engage in extension talks with the left-hander, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, but those went nowhere. He also reported that half the league has called about the 25-year-old, which is the opposite of surprising.

The market is shaping up to be short on impact starting pitchers, and that is a description that fits Crochet well. He's made 18 starts and turned in a 3.02 ERA and a league-high 141 strikeouts. He's otherwise making just $800,000 and is under club control through 2026.

Such things effectively put his trade value through the roof. The White Sox would be fools not to take advantage, especially amid a season wherein they're already three-fifths of the way to 100 losses.

As for those other guys, the complications are hiding in plain sight. The New York Mets are suddenly too good to trade Alonso. The Toronto Blue Jays don't want to move Guerrero or Bichette. And contrary to Crochet, neither Robert nor Bellinger is presently a sell-high candidate.

Elsewhere on the topic of young, exciting and hard-throwing pitchers, there would seem to be no stopping or even slowing down the Paul Skenes hype train.

He's not even two months removed from his major league debut on May 11, yet he's already climbed to the top of the rankings in MLB.com's latest poll for National League Rookie of the Year favorites. And honestly, why not?

The 22-year-old righty hasn't merely been good in his nine starts for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He's been brilliant, posting a 2.06 ERA with seven times as many strikeouts (70) as walks (10).

If Skenes maintains his K/BB ratio, he'll break Masahiro Tanaka's record for an AL/NL rookie. That ERA, meanwhile, is third-best among all NL pitchers who've logged at least 50 innings since May 11.

There is the question of whether Skenes, who was Pittsburgh's No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft, can hold up for three more months. To this end, it's not the best sign that his average fastball dipped to a season-low 98.0 mph his last time out on Saturday.

However, that same start saw him throw his fastball only 30.4 percent of the time. There were no ill effects, as he did the usual by pitching six one-run innings.

Skenes is more than just a radar-gun marvel, folks, and it's all the more reason to think he can be the first starting pitcher to win the NL Rookie of the Year since Jacob deGrom in 2014.

If he stays on his current pace, Shohei Ohtani will end up hitting exactly 50 home runs.

Mind you, beginning that sentence with an "if" is a necessary matter of protocol. But in this context, the word is doing less heavy lifting than usual. Because of course Ohtani is going to clear the 50-homer threshold.

The way he's swinging it in the first year of his 10-year, $700 million pact with the Los Angeles Dodgers deserves such confidence. The 29-year-old is indeed swinging it better than he ever has, as seen in career bests for:

• Strikeout Rate: 20.5 percent
• Average Exit Velocity: 95.4 mph
• Hard-Hit Rate: 60.7 percent
• Barrels per Plate Appearance: 12.6 percent

This is about as juicy and delicious as slugging goodness gets, and it even comes with a little extra on the side. In addition to his career high of 46 homers, Ohtani's 16 stolen bases have him on track for beating his personal best of 26 in a season.

If he does, he'll have achieved a 50-homer season unlike any other.

The record for stolen bases in such a season is 24, by the late Willie Mays in 1955 and Alex Rodriguez in 2007. Unless he slows down, both figure to be looking up at Ohtani in three months' time.

When I wrote that Ohtani's slugging goodness is "almost" as good as it gets, I meant it.

Nothing compares to what Aaron Judge is doing in 2024, up to and including what Aaron Judge did in 2022.

He hit 62 home runs that year to break Roger Maris' 61-year-old American League record. It was arguably the most impressive home run-hitting display in major league history, as it was against all sorts of headwinds that Judge mounted his challenge.

But even though those same headwinds are still blowing, the 32-year-old has a very real chance of breaking his own record by the end of this season.

With 32 homers through the New York Yankees' first 88 games, Judge is ahead of his pace from two years ago. He's also hitting the ball harder this year, as seen in his exit velocity (97.1 mph), hard-hit rate (63.1 percent) and barrel rate (16.6 percent).

Some Statcast metrics rate this version of Judge as the most dangerous slugger of the last 10 seasons, while others have him rubbing shoulders with Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds. He's basically too hot to fail.

Let's just say that Judge's slugging isn't the only show going on in New York right now.

Something funny has happened since the cross-town Mets fell to a season-high 11 games under .500 on June 2. Namely, they started winning. Like, a lot.

At 18-7, the Mets own the best record in baseball since June 3. They haven't yet grabbed hold of one of the three wild-card spots in the National League, but FanGraphs has their chances of ultimately claiming one at 40.6 percent. That's up from a nadir of 7.8 percent.

The sheer energy the Mets are playing with right now is infectious, but what really sells them as a contender is their offense. It always had the potential to be a good one, and now it looks like putting Alonso, Francisco Lindor, J.D. Martinez, Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Alvarez and the ascendant Mark Vientos together is more a recipe for greatness.

Amid their remarkable run since June 3, the Mets lead all of MLB in runs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS.

The pitching is still suspect, sure, but ace starter Kodai Senga is on the comeback trail and the front office is reportedly looking to buy at the deadline. The cavalry, as it were, is on its way.

Besides, who else are you going to take in the NL wild-card race apart from Atlanta and the San Diego Padres? The St. Louis Cardinals? Please. How they're three games over .500 and 1.5 games ahead of the Mets despite a minus-38 run differential is one of life's mysteries.

If the American League has its own version of the Mets right now, it's the Boston Red Sox.

It was only a couple weeks ago that they dropped a series to the White Sox, of all teams. And even as recently as last weekend, they took one on the chin in the form of a series loss to the Padres at Fenway Park.

Even still, they're on a 13-5 run since June 12 and are generally dripping with good vibes.

The pitching success story that was so prominent earlier in the year has wavered a bit, but is still apparent in Boston's improvement to a 3.59 ERA from a 4.52 ERA in 2023. And now the offense is getting involved, as the Red Sox are plating 5.5 runs per game in their last 18.

Rafael Devers has a career-high .947 OPS, while Jarren Duran is riding a historic wave of extra-base hits and stolen bases to superstardom. Tyler O'Neill, Wilyer Abreu and Connor Wong are also above-average hitters, and it won't be long before Triston Casas is back.

The Red Sox are looking up at the Kansas City Royals in the AL wild-card race, but they're reeling with 14 losses in 23 games. And the way things are looking, they might not have to worry about beating out a team from the AL West.

It's doubtful that anyone was so skeptical as to leave the Houston Astros for dead, but it was as recently as June 18 that they were 10 games behind the Seattle Mariners in the AL West.

Now they're just two games out after winning 11 out of 13.

There's never been anything too wrong with Houston's offense, and that is especially the case now. It's put up 87 runs over the team's last 13 games, and somewhere in the near future is Kyle Tucker rejoining Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman.

Justin Verlander should also be back soon, though he isn't necessarily needed for the Astros to achieve stability on the mound. The team has a 3.39 ERA since the beginning of June, with Hunter Brown specifically emerging as the hottest pitcher on the planet.

As for the Mariners, well, it's not good. They've dropped 10 out of their last 13, in which their offense has devolved from a major problem into an outright crisis. It's produced only 37 runs in this span, and its overall batting average is now a dismal .216.

Short of Julio Rodríguez finally getting red-hot and the front office acquiring not just one but several new regulars, there may be no scenario in which the offense does eventually come to the rescue.

And if it doesn't, even a wild-card spot won't be guaranteed if the Mariners cede first place to Houston.

OK, enough with hopping on bandwagons. Let's talk about why there won't be so many teams to reach 100 wins by the end of the year.

The Philadelphia Phillies (57-29), Baltimore Orioles (55-31), Cleveland Guardians (53-31), Yankees (54-34) and Dodgers (53-34) all have a shot to get there. This would be unprecedented, as there has never been more than four 100-win teams in a single season.

So why does it feel like the Orioles are the only good bet to actually get there?

At least for me, it has to do with how the Phillies and Guardians are about to get into the teeth of their respective schedules after having had it relatively easy so far. Cleveland is already losing steam, going a mere 17-14 since starting out 36-17.

Injuries are also an issue with this group. The Phillies (Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto), Yankees (Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and Clarke Schmidt) and especially the Dodgers (Mookie Betts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, many others) are all missing core stars.

The Orioles aren't perfectly healthy in their own right, but their offense is only getting more dangerous and their pitching, which leads the AL with a 3.37 ERA, has yet to experience anything resembling a true slump.

It therefore isn't just their record that underscores their excellence, and we know from last year that 100 wins is something this team can handle.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.