2019 World Series

The Nats blasted through the Cards after sneaking past the heavy favorite Dodgers. Their pitching (Sanchez, Scherzer and Strasburg) has been lights out for the last coupla weeks but the Cards were overmatched and the Dodgers were ready to lose, so seeing the Nats here isn't a shock. But as good as that pitching has been, it's hard to imagine they're gonna dominate the Astros lineup.

The Astros are the best team in baseball, have been all year long and frankly I thought that only the Yankees (*) and Dodgers (well, and the Cubs) had any chance of beating them this year and they'll been facing none of these teams in the next round, so it already feels over.

In this matchup the Astros have the better offense, defense, pitching, coaching and the home field advantage. In baseball that doesn't always matter, the better team really only has slightly better than 50/50 chance of winning in a 7-game series. But I'm not going upset here. The Astros bats can occasionally go cold and that Nats starting pitching is pretty damn good, but I don't see the Astros losing more than two games.

Gotta go Astros over the Nats in 6.

Revisiting my pre-season over/under predictions, how did I do this season?

Right
Red Sox (yeah, they had regression written all over them but I still had them in the play-in game), Blue Jays (yeah, they were what I thought they'd be)
Twins (they really pulled it together this year, I knew they'd be good but they were even better than I thought), White Sox (yup, they were pretty terrible), Royals (yup, they were pretty terrible)
A's (good squad, they always play hard), Rangers (they were I thought: slightly underrated but not really good enough to make a run)

Nats (losing Bryce Harper was all they needed to take off), Mets (barely covered but they did), Phillies (I knew adding Bryce Harper was not gonna get them where they wanted to go)
Cards (yeah, felt time for them to reassert their leadership in this division), Reds (not bad actually, they could've been a lot worse), Pirates (that Renaissance they'd had for the last few years felt like a mirage and it was)
Dodgers (the class of the division for the foreseeable future), D-Backs (not bad but nowhere near the post-season), Rockies (mediocre as usual)

Wrong
Yankees (thought they'd be good but they were even better), Rays (didn't see them as a playoff team but they were tough), Orioles (wow, even worse than I thought they'd be!)
Indians (I thought 90 W's would take that division, not even close and their 93 W's didn't even get them in the play-in game), Tigers (omg, were they really that bad?)
Astros (man, I knew they were the best team but they blew my expectations out of the water), Angels (thought they'd be ready to make a move this season...nope), Mariners (not sure what happened to them, felt like they were growing nicely)

Braves (they were better than I thought they'd be but somehow I knew they would be), Marlins (yuch, they're even more terrible than I would've thought possible)
Brewers (thought they'd finish behind the Cubs, they did not), Cubs (thought they'd finish ahead of the Brewers, they did not)
Padres (did I really think they were gonna be good?), Giants (better than I thought they'd be, still waiting for them to truly bottom out but maybe they never will)

My post-season predictions
I did have the Nats over the Dodgers and the Cards but I whiffed on picking the Mets in the play-in and the Cubs coming out of the NL.

I was okay in the AL: I had Red Sox (instead of the Rays) over A's, I had the Yankees over the Indians (instead of the Twins) and the Astros over the Yankees in the finals. 

I had Astros over Cubs in 7, still feel like I got a good shot of coming out with the champion.


(*) If you haven't watched the end of that game, this is a long clip but totally worth it.