As the school year winds down and we publish our final articles here at the Eagle’s Cry I would  like to stick with my theme of predictions for my last article of the year. These are predictions off the top of my head that I believe will occur this summer in Baseball. I’ll write these down now and have them completely leave my brain until September to check back to see if they became a reality. 

Pete Alonso will win the Home Run Derby: 

This may not be the boldest of predictions considering Alonso has won 2 of the last 3 Derbies but he did lose last year so anything is possible. But, Alonso loves this competition more than almost anything in the world. He is the best power hitter in the league and I fully expect him to be the second ever 3 time Home Run Derby winner. 

Cincinnati Reds will be 1st place in NL Central:

This would have been a shocking thing to say at the start of the season but now into June it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Reds can be winning the division by the time the next school year starts. Between the Reds new star prospects like Elly De La Cruz, Spencer Steer, and Matt Mclain flourishing at the big league level and the other teams in the NL Central being bad and inconsistent. If the kids stay hot there is no way they can’t be atop the leaderboard.

A manager of a playoff team from last year will be fired

I wish I could give a specific name of a manager who will get fired but honestly there are a number of managers who had their team in the playoffs last year who are now on the hot seat. Buck Showalter with the Mets, Oliver Marmol with the Cardinals, and Bob Melvin with the Padres. All are managing teams who are drastically underachieving and with all three teams having managers who want to win now I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them pulled the trigger to turn things around.

Luis Arraez will still be hitting .400 or better

Through the first two months and change of the season Luis Arraez has been hitting on a level not seen since Ted Williams back in 1941. A .400 batting average is a feat that has eluded any hitter over the last 80 years but nonetheless Luis Arraez sits here on the last day of school with an astonishing .403 average. And I truly believe that Arraez has it in him to keep it up through the summer. The man is a hit machine and personally as a baseball fan who wants to see history I hope this prediction comes true.

Shohei Ohtani will NOT be on the Los Angeles Angels

Shohei Ohtani is the biggest anomaly since Babe Ruth. A player who is so good at both hitting and pitching is just simply unheard of. The one problem is that he is on a team in the Angels who simply don’t win. Not one playoff appearance since 2014. That’s with having Mike Trout’s  greatness as well.  Right now they stand 3 games back of a playoff spot and as happens every year I expect them to slide back to the point they are 7 to 10 games out of a playoff spot. If that does happen, I expect the Angels to trade Ohtani