MLB 2017: One prediction for each team

As the calendar turns to 2017, it’s never too early to start thinking about the new MLB season and making predictions for each team.

What a year 2016 was for MLB. The Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians played in one of the best World Series in the past 50 years, culminating in arguably the best Game 7 in  baseball history. For the first time in 108 years, the Cubs enter the 2017 season as defending MLB champions.

So far, the offseason has seen many key moves made, and rosters are taking shape for next year. Chris Sale gives the Boston Red Sox a bonafide ace, and the Chicago White Sox began a major rebuild with a handful of elite prospects. Seeing Edwin Encarnacion in a different uniform will be strange.

There has been enough roster movement, and many teams are ready to look ahead to Spring Training. With so much clarity, it’s time to make the best shot at predictions for all 30 MLB teams for 2017.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Greinke bounces back

After signing the largest contract in MLB history in terms of annual salary, Zack Greinke struggled to live up to the impossible expectations. When you’re paid roughly the same amount as the entire gross domestic product of several small nations, there’s very little margin for error. In his first season with the Diamondbacks, Greinke missed over a month with an oblique strain and struggled to match his epic 2015 season.

All told, Greinke finished 2016 with a 13-7 record, 4.37 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and allowed a .750 OPS to opposing hitters. These numbers were a far cry from 2015, when he finished with a 1.66 ERA and allowed a microscopic OPS of .507. After returning from the oblique injury, Greinke struggled even more than he had in the first three months of the year. In August and September, he made nine starts and posted a 6.02 ERA in 49.1 innings. He also allowed 11 home runs in the process.

One of the biggest questions facing Greinke last year was how well he would fare away from Dodger Stadium, a noted pitcher’s park. As a flyball pitcher, Greinke has historically excelled at minimizing home runs, but saw an unsustainable rise in 2016 where 10 percent of his flyballs were leaving the yard. That trend will not continue in 2017.

Is Greinke the ace he appeared to be with the Dodgers? Probably not, but he was 10-3 with a 3.62 ERA in the first half last season before his injury. That aligns well with his career numbers outside of his time with the Dodgers, and the Diamondbacks should expect over 200 innings of solid pitching from Greinke next season. Now, whether or not he’ll ever be worth $206 million again is an entirely different question.