Everyone loves making baseball predictions: Who'll win the AL West? Will the Yankees finally not make the playoffs? Who's the AL MVP? What about Rookie of the Year and Cy Young?
Well, all of those predictions and more are starting to come in from "experts" nationally, and the Texas Rangers are getting plenty of attention in said predictions.
The latest ones to come out are from Sports Illustrated, whose panel of seven writers predicted the playoff teams and postseason awards, among other things.
Five of the seven writers on the panel picked the Rangers to win the suddenly stacked AL West, while Tom Verducci had the Rangers earning a Wild Card berth and losing out on the division to the Oakland Athletics for the second straight year.
Ben Reiter had the Rangers missing the playoffs altogether, while he picked the A's to win the division and the Los Angeles Angels to earn one of the two AL Wild Card berths. Not a single writer for the magazine had the Rangers advancing to the World Series, however.
As for individual awards, three of the seven had Yu Darvish winning the AL Cy Young award after a breakout rookie season last year. Justin Verlander got two votes, while David Price and Felix Hernandez each had one.
Two of the writers, Reiter and Verducci, selected Jurickson Profar as the AL Rookie of the Year, while the other five chose Tampa Bay Rays rookie Wil Myers.
