The regular season is over. It feels like just yesterday I was picking five over and five under win totals for the season and now it’s all over.

With the end of the regular season, it’s time look back at my 2019 over/under win total predictions and see where I went right and wrong it what was a 7-3 season. Here is the 2019 MLB Over/Under Win Total Predictions blog.

Part of the write-up from March is italicized.
(This season’s win total in parentheses)

OVERS

NEW YORK YANKEES, 96.5 (103): WIN
On paper, the Yankees are the best team in baseball. Unfortunately, “on paper” doesn’t win the World Series and starting the season with Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, Dellin Betances and Aaron Hicks all unavailable, and Didi Gregorius out until at least midseason isn’t exactly helpful to exceeding a win total of 96.5. Thankfully, the majority of Major League Baseball isn’t trying to win and getting back near 100 wins won’t be that hard.

Unfortunately, the injuries didn’t stop with the spring training injures of Severino, Sabathia, Betances and Hicks. Miguel Andujar would be lost for the season, Giancarlo Stanton would miss nearly the entire season, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge would miss a couple months, Luke Voit would go on the injured list twice for a hernia, Brett Gardner would spend time on the IL, as would James Paxton and Edwin Encarnacion, and Clint Frazier and Mike Tauchman. The Yankees got hurt, their replacements got hurt and their replacement’s replacements got hurt. The Yankees set the single-season record for most players to go on the injured list and they still covered their by six-and-a-half wins. It’s scary to think what type of record this team would have been capable of had they been at full strength, or even 75 percent, all season.

CHICAGO CUBS, 88 (84): LOSS
There is this idea the Cubs are trending in the wrong direction and won’t be good for some reason in 2019. Listen, I don’t like the Cubs and would like nothing more than for them to be a disaster this season, but it’s just not realistic. The Brewers will once again be right there contending for the NL Central and the Cardinals and Reds made vast improvements, but it’s still the Cubs’ division to lose, just like it was last year until … they lost it.

Once again the NL Central was the Cubs’ to lose, and once again, they lost it. Their losing streak in the second-to-last week of the season ruined their playoff chances, and before Game 162, the team announced Joe Maddon wouldn’t be back for 2020. After winning the 2016 World Series, the Cubs lost in the ALCS then lost both a tie-breaker game for the division and wild-card game and then didn’t even make the playoffs. The Cubs need significant changes to their major league roster and might want to think about not allowing Theo Epstein to sign any free agents with his career track record in that market. It will be a while until I believe in the Cubs covering an over.

HOUSTON ASTROS, 96.5 (107): WIN
The Astros’ biggest problem (which clearly wasn’t much of a problem after winning the World Series in 2017 and reaching the ALCS in 2018) was that their lineup wasn’t long. The addition of Michael Brantley — a player I wanted the Yankees to sign instead of Brett Gardner — gives them that length as they can now stack George Springer, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa and Brantley in some order one through five. That’s a very scary one through five.

I’m petrified of the Yankees having to face Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole in a potential ALCS matchup. I’m also worried about how the Yankees’ pitching is going to handle the lengthy lineup the Astros now have with George Springer, Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, Alex Bregman, Yordan Alvarez and Yuli Gurriel making up the top two-thirds of their lineup. The Astros were the best team in baseball this season, mostly due to the significant injuries suffered by the Yankees, and they will be the team to beat in the postseason as well.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS, 83.5 (72): LOSS
It’s hard to find overs to pick and believe in when nearly all of baseball seems to be trying not to win, or at least not investing in winning. The Angels are my pick for the second wild card and while I don’t trust them, I think they will be at least a .500 team in 2019. I could see them being a 90-win team this season, which is enough to eclipse their number.

Looking back, I don’t know why I thought the Angels would be good. I guess I looked at the teams not named the Yankees, Astros and Red Sox and thought they would be at the top of that next tier of teams in baseball and at least a team capable of playing two-games-over-.500 baseball this season. But the Angels were their usual crappy selves, falling 12 wins short of covering in what was another losing season for the franchise.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES, 89.5 (81): LOSS
I hate this pick, I really do. I don’t want the Phillies to do well, but unfortunately, one team in the NL East is going to win 90 games and I think the Phillies have the best chance to do it. My Phillies pick is more of a process of elimination pick.

The Mets? I’m not about to ever back the Mets to meet or exceed expectations even if their number is four wins lower (85.5). The Nationals? They had trouble scoring runs and winning games with the face of their franchise. I’m not sure how an 82-win team gets an 88.5 number when their biggest addition was one-year-wonder Patrick Corbin. The Braves? They are the biggest threat to the Phillies in the division, especially since they won 90 games last season, but a lot has changed in the NL East since last season.

At least I knew I hated picking the Phillies’ over while I picked it. The Phillies’ lineup and rotation on paper still looks strong. As for their bullpen, I didn’t think it would cost them their season and cost me this over. The Phillies were built on hype and I bought into that hype thinking they would battle the Braves for the NL East title, when instead it would be Bryce Harper’s former team which would finish second in the NL East. When Harper signed with the Phillies he talked about recruiting other free agents to play for the Phillies in future seasons. Any free agent chasing a championship won’t be signing there with how competitive this division is looking for the foreseeable future.

UNDERS

BALTIMORE ORIOLES, 58.5 (54): WIN
The Orioles won 47 games last season. 47! And that was with a half season of Manny Machado playing at an MVP level. This season, they won’t have Machado at all and will have the worst roster top to bottom in the league, much worse than last season’s roster, which won 47 games. If this number were at least year’s 47 it would be too high. At 58.5 it’s outrageous.

There are layups and then there’s picking the Orioles to win less than 59 games. This one was about as easy as it gets as the Orioles finished five wins shy of covering and 49 games back of the Yankees in the division. It’s going to be hard not to pick the Orioles again next season.

BOSTON RED SOX, 94.5 (84): WIN
Outside of a rotation that’s banking on Chris Sale’s shoulder to continue to hold up, David Price to avoid falling off again, Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez to be consistent and Nathan Eovaldi to not turn back into the Nathan Eovaldi that caused every team until the Red Sox to give up on him, the Red Sox’ biggest question is their bullpen. Their ownership basically said to the fan base “We won the World Series, we’re reeling in the spending” as they chose not to bring back Craig Kimbrel and are going with a bullpen so shaky that their starting pitching became their non-closing relief options in the playoffs. That can work over the course of a month in the postseason, however, it’s a recipe for disaster over the course of six months in the regular season.

Chris Sale got hurt, David Price got hurt, Rick Porcello was awful, Nathan Eovaldi got hurt and was ineffective and the bullpen was a disaster. Everything that went right for the Red Sox in 2018 went wrong for them in 2019, and it was an enjoyable six months of watching them lose and lose and lose some more. All of the losing got Dave Dombrowski fired, and now the Red Sox have essentially a team of general managers, a lot of money tied up in an injured rotation, and aren’t sure if they want to pay Mookie Betts. As long as the Dodgers don’t come and rescue the Red Sox from their payroll situation again, they’re headed to a dark era.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX, 74 (72): WIN
I feel the least confident about this pick out of all the unders I selected, only because the White Sox are headed in the right direction and nearly there, while the other clubs have a ways to go. Signing Manny Machado would have helped greatly, as he stood them up, showing he could care less if his family members and friends in Yonder Alonso and Jon Jay are now on the team. The reason I’m picking the White Sox as they inch closer and closer to baseball relevancy is that for them to increase their win total by 12 from last season, a lot has to happen. A lot.

The White Sox put a late-season run together to put this pick in jeopardy, but ended up falling two wins short of a push and three wins short of a cover. The White Sox are headed in the right direction, and in a division in which the Royals and Tigers are nowhere near contending and the Indians don’t want to pay anyone, the White Sox are going to have a window coming up where they could win the AL Central and return to the postseason.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS, 69.5 (59): WIN
The Royals did nothing to improve in the offseason, they actually got worse, and yet, their number is 11 wins higher this season. Everything about them says “Last place in the AL Central” and that was with Salvador Perez and now Perez is out for the season, needing Tommy John surgery.

This might have been the easiest under to pick of all. The Royals had no business having their line be 11 wins higher than they had in 2018, and they proved it by finishing 11 wins shy of covering. The Royals don’t look like they’re anywhere near ready to be competitive, falling back into their 1990s and 2000s days. I might be picking against the Royals for a while.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS, 74.5 (67): WIN
The Blue Jays are now in complete rebuild mode after having missed out on their championship window. First, they let Jose Bautista leave as a free agent and then Edwin Encarnacion and then Josh Donaldson and then they released Troy Tulowitzki, essentially now paying him to play for the Yankees. The heart of their order from their 2015 and 2016 ALCS appearances is gone and any valuable assets they have left between now and the trade deadline this season will be gone too.

The Blue Jays gave me a clean sweep with my under picks as they were as bad as expected. Aside from White Sox, they have the brightest future with a young and controllable offense that’s major-league ready. If they’re able to combine the top of their lineup with some starting pitching, the Blue Jays might not be a postseason team, but they certainly won’t be a team I would be picking as an under.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

Baseball is three days away! Three days! Sure, we got two “regular-season games” with the A’s and Mariners that I sadly woke up to watch last week, but those didn’t feel like real games, and the A’s certainly did pitch like they were real games. Real baseball begins on Thursday when the entire league plays.

With baseball back this week, it’s time for the 2019 over/under win total predictions. Five overs and five unders for the season.

(Last season’s win total in parentheses)

OVERS

NEW YORK YANKEES, 96.5 (100)
On paper, the Yankees are the best team in baseball. Unfortunately, “on paper” doesn’t win the World Series and starting the season with Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, Dellin Betances and Aaron Hicks all unavailable, and Didi Gregorius out until at least midseason isn’t exactly helpful to exceeding a win total of 96.5. Thankfully, the majority of Major League Baseball isn’t trying to win and getting back near 100 wins won’t be that hard.

Outside of the Yankees, Red Sox, Indians, Astros and maybe two other American League teams, the AL is more top heavy in 2019 than it was in 2018 when six teams lost 89 games or more. You can pencil in the Yankees, Red Sox, Indians and Astros for the playoffs right now, and whichever team is “lucky” enough to clinch the second wild card will have to play at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park for the one-game playoff. The AL has become predictable.

Are the Yankees going to go on the kind of historical run they want on from the end of April until the end of the June? No. But I also don’t see them being a barely-above-.500 team from the end of June on the way they were last season. Thanks to their incredibly easy schedule to open the first three-plus weeks of the season, for once, the Yankees can get off to a good start and separate themselves from the .500 mark for good as early as the opening series.

CHICAGO CUBS, 88 (95)
There is this idea the Cubs are trending in the wrong direction and won’t be good for some reason in 2019. Listen, I don’t like the Cubs and would like nothing more than for them to be a disaster this season, but it’s just not realistic. The Brewers will once again be right there contending for the NL Central and the Cardinals and Reds made vast improvements, but it’s still the Cubs’ division to lose, just like it was last year until … they lost it.

The Cubs still have arguably the deepest lineup in the NL with three potential MVP-type candidates in it and when Jose Quintana is your No. 5 starter, you have more than enough starting pitching. The Cubs let the entire offseason pass them by without doing anything to enhance their team, but even so, it’s still a contending roster, and it’s not a seven-less-wins-than-last-season roster.

HOUSTON ASTROS, 96.5 (103)
Another AL power, another over. The Astros won 103 games last year and 101 games the year before. Despite Dallas Keuchel in his prime no longer being in their rotation (at least for now), I think the Astros might actually be better this season than they were the last two. They’re certainly not 6.5 wins worse.

The Astros’ biggest problem (which clearly wasn’t much of a problem after winning the World Series in 2017 and reaching the ALCS in 2018) was that their lineup wasn’t long. The addition of Michael Brantley — a player I wanted the Yankees to sign instead of Brett Gardner — gives them that length as they can now stack George Springer, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa and Brantley in some order one through five. That’s a very scary one through five.

The rotation is weaker than season’s past with Keuchel and Charlie Morton essentially being replaced by Wade Miley, Brad Peacock and Colin McHugh, but that’s not a bad backend of the rotation, and the Astros have proven the last two years they aren’t scared to go out and add payroll or make a big move at the deadline.

I would be shocked if the World Series was won by a team other than the Astros, Yankees or Red Sox. One of the three is getting there, it’s just a matter of not having a bad series against whatever mediocrity comes out of the National League.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS, 83.5 (80)
It’s hard to find overs to pick and believe in when nearly all of baseball seems to be trying not to win, or at least not investing in winning. The Angels are my pick for the second wild card and while I don’t trust them, I think they will be at least a .500 team in 2019. I could see them being a 90-win team this season, which is enough to eclipse their number.

The Angels have a sneaky good lineup led by the $430 million man and then a rotation full of No. 3 and No. 4 starters (Tyler Skaggs, Andrew Heaney, Matt Harvey, Trevor Cahill) and a bullpen of inconsistent relievers. It’s not a championship-constructed roster, but it’s good enough to be two games over .500.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES, 89.5 (80)
I hate this pick, I really do. I don’t want the Phillies to do well, but unfortunately, one team in the NL East is going to win 90 games and I think the Phillies have the best chance to do it. My Phillies pick is more of a process of elimination pick.

The Mets? I’m not about to ever back the Mets to meet or exceed expectations even if their number is four wins lower (85.5). The Nationals? They had trouble scoring runs and winning games with the face of their franchise. I’m not sure how an 82-win team gets an 88.5 number when their biggest addition was one-year-wonder Patrick Corbin. The Braves? They are the biggest threat to the Phillies in the division, especially since they won 90 games last season, but a lot has changed in the NL East since last season.

UNDERS

BALTIMORE ORIOLES, 58.5 (47)
The Orioles won 47 games last season. 47! And that was with a half season of Manny Machado playing at an MVP level. This season, they won’t have Machado at all and will have the worst roster top to bottom in the league, much worse than last season’s roster, which won 47 games. If this number were at least year’s 47 it would be too high. At 58.5 it’s outrageous.

I would write more, but nothing more needs to be said about a team potentially set up to be the worst team in the history of Major League Baseball.

BOSTON RED SOX, 94.5 (108)
That’s right. I’m putting the Red Sox here. The Red Sox aren’t winning 108 games again. That’s a guarantee. Or unless Chris Sale’s shoulder isn’t right or David Price reverts back to crappy David Price or Nathan Eovaldi turns into the Nathan Eovaldi Yankees fans know.

Outside of a rotation that’s banking on Chris Sale’s shoulder to continue to hold up, David Price to avoid falling off again, Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez to be consistent and Nathan Eovaldi to not turn back into the Nathan Eovaldi that caused every team until the Red Sox to give up on him, the Red Sox’ biggest question is their bullpen. Their ownership basically said to the fan base “We won the World Series, we’re reeling in the spending” as they chose not to bring back Craig Kimbrel and are going with a bullpen so shaky that their starting pitching became their non-closing relief options in the playoffs. That can work over the course of a month in the postseason, however, it’s a recipe for disaster over the course of six months in the regular season.

But like I said in the write-up about the Yankees, the AL is about four teams and then everyone else, and the Red Sox get to play the same schedule as the Yankees and will once again flirt with a high win total. I just don’t think they’ll get there.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX, 74 (62)
I feel the least confident about this pick out of all the unders I selected, only because the White Sox are headed in the right direction and nearly there, while the other clubs have a ways to go. Signing Manny Machado would have helped greatly, as he stood them up, showing he could care less if his family members and friends in Yonder Alonso and Jon Jay are now on the team. The reason I’m picking the White Sox as they inch closer and closer to baseball relevancy is that for them to increase their win total by 12 from last season, a lot has to happen. A lot.

The White Sox’ issue is plate discipline as they have a hard time getting on base. Here is their list of starting players in 2019 and their 2018 on-base percentages:

C: Wellington Castillo, .304
1B: Jose Abreu, .325
2B: Yolmer Sanchez, .306
3B: Yoan Moncada, .315
SS: Tim Anderson, .281
LF: Daniel Palka, .294
CF: Adam Engel, .279
RF: Jon Jay (not on White Sox last season), .330
DH: Yonder Alonso (not on White Sox last season), .317

When your best on-base guy is Jay, that’s a big problem. When your best on-base guy only gets on at a .330 clip, that’s a bigger problem.

Maybe guys like Anderson and Engel and Moncada will break out and prove their viable everyday players in the majors. And maybe Carlos Rodon and Reynaldo Lopez will stay healthy and continue in the right direction and maybe Lucas Giolito will finally live up to his former No. 1 prospect status. That’s a lot that has to happen, and if it doesn’t happen before the trade deadline, Abreu will be gone as an impending free agent, and reaching 74 wins will become even harder.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS, 69.5 (58)
The Royals did nothing to improve in the offseason, they actually got worse, and yet, their number is 11 wins higher this season. Everything about them says “Last place in the AL Central” and that was with Salvador Perez and now Perez is out for the season, needing Tommy John surgery.

Royals fans can’t be too upset though. They reached the World Series in back-to-back seasons, winning it in 2015 and after 30 years of being awful, this October will only have been four since they destroyed the Mets. I think Royals fans are OK with waiting at least another decade before they start to complain about the state of their team.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS, 74.5 (73)
The Blue Jays are now in complete rebuild mode after having missed out on their championship window. First, they let Jose Bautista leave as a free agent and then Edwin Encarnacion and then Josh Donaldson and then they released Troy Tulowitzki, essentially now paying him to play for the Yankees. The heart of their order from their 2015 and 2016 ALCS appearances is gone and any valuable assets they have left between now and the trade deadline this season will be gone too.

The Blue Jays are gong to be bad in 2019. After the trade deadline, they are going to be very, very bad.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

My nightmare is a Red Sox-Mets World Series because someone has to win. Luckily, when that actually did happen in 1986, I wasn’t even a month old. My second possible nightmare is the Red Sox or Mets being in the World Series at all. I had to go through this in 2004, 2007 and 2013 and now I have to go through it again this season.

Craig Carton of WFAN always had “Mets Fans for Yankees” when the Mets’ season would end at the end of the regular season and the Yankees would be going to the playoffs. I never believed anyone who really loves either team could root for the other team using the excuse of “it’s still New York.” (The only acceptable time for me personally to root for the Mets would be if they played the Red Sox in the World Series.) So here I am entering the 2015 World Series as a Yankees fan for Royals.

It’s incredible that as early as Saturday the Mets could be champions and it’s a scary idea because of how much would change and I’m not someone who likes change when it comes to baseball. Some things shouldn’t change, like the Cubs being perennial losers without a championship since 1908 and without a World Series appearance since 1954, or the Mets having the stink of all their losing seasons, collapses and horrible organizational decisions. The Red Sox ending their drought in 2004 and the White Sox doing the same in 2005 was enough. I don’t need the Mets erasing everything I have ever know about them.

It still doesn’t seem real that the Mets are even in this spot. I didn’t think they had a chance to be here when they showed off their dominant pitching early on with that 11-game winning streak in April (that the Yankees ended by hitting bombs off of Jacob deGrom). I didn’t think they had a chance when they were 36-37 on June 24. I didn’t think they had a chance when Clayton Kershaw nearly threw a perfect game against them at Citi Field on July 23 against a lineup that had John Mayberry Jr. hitting fourth and Eric Campbell hitting fifth. But then the Mets trade of Wilmer Flores for Carlos Gomez fell through, they traded for Yoenis Cespedes instead and Cespedes went on to be Manny Ramirez post-2008 trade deadline, and Flores, still with the Mets, continued to get big hit after big hit.

I still didn’t think they had a chance when they swept the Nationals on the weekend of the trade deadline to tie them atop the division. I didn’t think they had a chance even as their division lead grew up 6.5 games at the end of August. I didn’t think they had a chance when David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud returned and suddenly the team that would just score a run a series was suddenly one of the best offenses in baseball. I didn’t think they had a chance even as they kept on winning in September and the Nationals kept on losing. I didn’t think they had a chance when they clinched the division or when they drew Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and the Dodgers in the NLDS. I didn’t think they had a chance when Kershaw sent the series back to Los Angeles for Game 5 or when the Dodgers’ offense jumped on deGrom early in that Game 5.

But then Daniel Murphy took third when no one on the Dodgers covered it on the shift, Andre Ethier caught a foul ball he should have let fall and the series was over. Then they beat Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta, won a game on a wild pitch on a strikeout and tacked on another year to the Cubs’ historic losing streak. And now here they are in the World Series. The Mets are in the World Series. I think I could type that sentence over and over from now until Game 1 and I still wouldn’t believe it even as the series is being publicized everywhere I turn and there are a lot of perfectly clean (aka brand new) Mets hats being worn around the city.

Before the Yankee Stadium portion of the Subway Series, I wrote The Mets and Their Fans Will Always Be the Little Brother and the Yankees went on to take two out of three. After the Citi Field portion of the Subway Series, in which the Yankees also took two out of three, I wrote:

When I woke up on Monday morning, I expected the city to be different since the Mets had apparently taken it back despite losing both legs of the Subway Series and watching their franchise ace come out of a game after five innings on Sunday Night Baseball. I thought I would get an email or a phone call to let me know the Mets had taken back the city, but I got nothing. The Mets and their fans are still and always will be the little brother.

I don’t think the Mets beating the Royals and winning the World Series will erase “the little brother” tag from the Mets or that they will “take back the city” (whatever that even means) from the Yankees. But a Mets championship, their first in 29 years, would add an unneeded wrinkle to the Subway Series rivalry and that’s something I could live without.

The Mets overcame the Wilpons cheapness and scumminess, Terry Collins’ incompetence, Matt Harvey’s attitude and innings limit, another lengthy David Wright injury, the near disaster trade for Carlos Gomez, Kershaw, Greinke, Lester and Arrieta to get to this point. They have more then earned their right to be in the Fall Classic despite playing 57 regular-season games against the 71-91 Marlins, 67-95 Braves and 63-99 Phillies. They have a likable team with a dominant young starting rotation, an unlikely offensive hero and a veteran captain and face of the franchise playing in his first World Series and chasing the elusive championship. If the Mets were any other team, I would easily be rooting for them. But they’re not. They’re the Mets. And for the next four to seven games, I’m the biggest Royals fan there is.