Into the Cincoverse - The Cinco de Mayo EU Thread and Wikibox Repository

[theINQUISITOR]

I could see an argument that baseball would be more peculiarly American ITTL, what without the hegemon there to export it across the Caribbean from the Gulf Coast (sort of like gridiron football). With rugby, football, and ice hockey being big internationally-influenced sports in the US ITTL, I could see baseball filling the niche of being the sport that only really gets played in the US. This is probably not hugely realistic though; a lot East Asia played baseball because it was brought by American missionaries as early as the 19th century (British missionaries brought football), and if it took off in, say, China it could be huge in Asia. Since part of the thought exercise here is swapping around certain countries in East Asia's trajectory with certain countries in Latin America's (and vice versa... more to come!), the idea of a football-obsessed and baseball-obsessed East Asia could be really interesting, where baseball players with names like Kim, Chang and Nguyen are just as common if not more as the Suzukis and Ohtanis of the world, and the MLB has far fewer Ramirezes and Gonzalezes.

You make a good point about Haiti probably having a decent baseball culture for the reasons you describe, as would Nicaragua probably; Cuba/PR/SD may be a different story. I guess it could be a thing where baseball makes an impact, but football is also big in those countries due to sustained Spanish influence, but the further south you go the "Baseball Belt" erodes a bit (and Mexico may have more of a baseball culture as spring training there rather than Florida may be preferable for parts of the MLB), though with more American influence maybe Peru and Argentina have a culture too. IDK! Too many options, can't decide! I like both ideas a lot.

Agreed that its not all that realistic. This is just my opinion, but the only way that you could really stop baseball from being exported is to prevent it from becoming as overwhelmingly popular as it was OTL in the late 19th/early 20th century. Pulling that off would probably require butterflying the Civil War from happening entirely. Baseball isn't really comparable to American Football in that way; for a few different reasons, the circumstances that lead to it becoming an almost exclusively US phenomenon don't apply.

I love the idea of China as a baseball power. If they have a less chaotic mid 20th century (The first decade and a half has certainly been much more so than OTL!), and better relations with the US/Japan as a result, its certainly not out of the question. The "Baseball Belt" makes a lot of sense too, at least in a Caribbean context. I'd imagine the Cuba/PR/SD trio would be similar to modern OTL Venezuela where baseball is #1, but soccer is a close 2nd. Then TTL's Venezuela could be somewhat akin to OTL Colombia: baseball is somewhat popular in certain regions, but soccer is the clear king. RE:Mexico, the more I think about it, the more I agree, especially with it being much richer and part of Spring Training being held there (great idea btw!). As for the South American nations, the idea of Argentina specifically being a baseball country has really appealed to me ever since I thought about it being a possibility; it could really help set the post-war narratives about the cultural similarities of the victorious alliance.

And I do like your point about the minors maybe being bigger and more organic. I sort of tipped my hand on this in the 2022 World Series update but the PCL gets absorbed into the MLB rather than teams getting deported to the West Coast by greedy owners, so the minor league culture would probably be a fair bit different, and you'd probably have affiliates studded across the CSA, Canada and Texas as well as smaller American metropolitan areas.

I should've been more clear; I was talking about WBC/World Cup style international tournaments here, not the minors. Although a different minor league structure is very interesting to think about in its own right. A question though: wouldn't US-Confederate relations preclude any direct minor league affiliate relationships being established across the Ohio? I could very well imagine that Dixie's nationalist impulse demands the establishment of a separate "major" league (in name only) of its own with blackjack and hookers in the aftermath of, or maybe even during the GAW. Those same nationalistic impulses are what I think could help drive international baseball into existence as a legitimate and major part of the professional baseball landscape ITTL.

A more Anglophile Japan might have football just be the dominant sport that everybody cares about; it was sort of heading that way before baseball nipped that in the bud. Ichiro Suzuki as a star striker taking the Samurai Blue deep into the World Cup, anyone?

You can also make the argument that, while it was established in Japan well before 1945, part of the reason baseball grew in popularity in Japan was the US occupation in the late 1940s. That's obviously butterflied here. Baseball was still popular before 1945 but that occupation might have made an impact in growing the sport post-war.

It's a bit of a misconception that the US occupation pushed baseball to #1 status in Japan (although it certainly didn't hurt its standing there); it was already that way before the war. By the turn of the 20th century, it had already established itself as a very popular sport at the high school level. Fast forward a bit to the 1930s and you have Babe Ruth's famous barnstorming tour (which hundreds of thousands of Japanese fans flocked to) followed shortly thereafter by the establishment of the NPB, which as far as I can tell was Japan's first professional team sports league. This all happened at a time of rapidly deteriorating U.S.-Japanese relations! The NPB even continued to stage games throughout the war, much like its American counterpart. All of that is pretty remarkable stuff that surprised me when I first learned about it, and shows just how deeply the sport had ingrained itself in Japan's culture/society pre-WW2. That's why I made an exception for Japan in my first post; while the lack of an occupation might leave more space for soccer to popularize faster than OTL, it should be the likeliest non-North American OTL baseball power to remain one ITTL. That being said, Ichiro as a soccer superstar is kind of badass; he was certainly a good enough athlete to be able to pull it off.

 

[KingSweden24]

2023 MLB Power Rankings
(SportsNet.us)
March 29, 2023

With Opening Day across the league upon us tomorrow, we look ahead to the 2023 Major League Baseball season and all the surprises it may have in store as the long, difficult 162-game campaign faces the league's players. We last left baseball behind with the New York Giants lifting their sixth franchise trophy at second in three years at Mitsui Bank Stadium in Kansas City having fought back from a 2-0 series deficiit against the Athletics, and tonight the Giants welcome their crosstown archrival Brooklyn Dodgers for the first game of the season at Flushing Park to unveil their World Series banner and kick off their title defense campaign. Before the first pitch is thrown out, how do the 24 teams of the American League and National League stack up behind our consensus No. 1? Read below to find out!

1. New York Giants - That Club in Queens, as their detractors love to call them, enters as the undisputed top-ranked team in the MLB, and not just because they are defending champions, or because they have the best player in the league in Mike Trout. The Giants are top because despite some fairly significant free agency departures they have won at least 100 games in five straight seasons (the first MLB team to accomplish that feat in history), have won the most games in the MLB and held the first seed in the National League playoff for three straight years and four of the last five, won 108 games just a season ago in their World Series-winning campaign and they have won six consecutive NL East titles, dominating what is a fairly solid division in the stronger of baseball's two leagues. With two World Series titles in the mix, they have a record of consistency unmatched over a five-year stretch by any other club in the last half-century besides the untouchable standard of the 1970s Red Sox. Until they are dethroned properly, the Giants are the best team in baseball, and it isn't particularly close.
2. San Diego Padres - The NL pennant may run through Queens, but San Diego is ready to make a sturdy challenge. After the Padres dynasty of 2002-10, San Diego entered a lengthy slump that seems to have been arrested with their surprise wild-card run to the NLCS in 2020 and then their 104-game campaign and second seed in the National League last season, that ended with a respectable and fairly competitive loss in five games to the Giants juggernaut with a pennant on the line. With Juan Soto at bat and a strong pitching rotation, the Padres will be looking to build on a promising year and the vast majority of their key players returning to return to their mid-2000s glory.
3. Milwaukee Braves - If you're sensing a theme here, it's the continued dominance of talent top-to-bottom in the National League. Despite Tyler Weems decamping to sunny Hollywood over the winter, the Braves bullpen remains probably the strongest in the league and some weakness at bat for the wildcard Braves seems to have been addressed with the free agency signing of Chinese megastar Fulan Wu, who though a 27-year old rookie is no stranger to the bright lights of high-level pressure after five years as the Orient's best player. The Braves will go as far as their closeout pitching will take them, but an NL Central title for the first time since the World Series title run in 2017 should be a minimum expectation at Pabst Park this September - a third straight playoff appearance being highly likely is not the standard with this kind of talent.
4. San Francisco Seals - The Seals are no stranger to high preseason expectations followed by postseason flameouts, most infamously two years ago when they collected an MLB-best record of 107 wins and the first seed in the American League only to be swept by the Athletics, who would eject them from the playoffs last year as well after clawing back from a 2-0 series deficit in the ALDS. One might wonder why the Seals are ranked higher than the A's, in that case, beyond the attractive irony of "third time's the charm," but the simple fact is that Kansas City has hemorrhaged players and coaching experience over the past four months and has looked shaky in spring training exhibitions while the Seals have looked to be more similar to their AL-winning 2019 play or dominant 2021 form rather than their solid but mortal 2022 showing. Playoff debacles aside, this is still a team that was won the AL West in four consecutive seasons, that has enjoyed consistency at bat from players such as Jason Bright and Pedro Sanchez, and is a difficult defensive squad to unlock. With the A's and Yankees looking likely to take a step back, the stage is set for the Seals to gun for their first AL and World Series title in 35 years.
5. New York Yankees - Last season's AL top seed lost a fair deal of key players over the offseason and manager Terry Francona shocked the world by resigning after only two seasons in the Bronx, but the Yankees remain a strong and well-balanced team, and with a very weak AL East should cruise to at least 95 wins and a division title without much strain. If new, famously disciplinarian manager John Grisham can keep the egos and clubhouse drama from spilling over into the tabloids - long the Achilles heel of many a talented Yankees side picked for World Series glory only to self-immolate in spectacular fashion - then this could be an enormously potent lineup that may have the Bronx partying like it's 1999.
6. Kansas City Athletics - The two-time defending American League champion and 2021 World Series titlist sitting at 6th position will certainly engender some hate mail from KC-area readers, but it bears mentioning that Kansas City's advantages that powered it to two straight pennants have seemed to vanish over the offseason. Gone is club-leading scorer Damian "the Brazilian Bomber” Perreira, who signed a mega contract with the Chicago Cubs to become one of the highest-paid players in the game; also gone are ace relievers Justin Verlander and Kyle Johnson, who despite their advancing age remain two of the most consistent pitchers in the sport; and finally, also gone is key centerfielder Ronnie Wills, among the best defenders in the game - and that's only the big names on the A's the last few seasons. Plenty of new free agent signings and minor-league callups to address the remarkable turnover in Kansas City will take some time to gel and figure out the team's dynamic. Don't sleep on this side - it is still probably the best in the AL Central and we would be surprised if it does not add a third consecutive division title and fourth in five years to its resume - but odds are strong that the A's window is closing rapidly, and until proven otherwise it is hard to see how they are consistently a superior club to the Seals and Yankees at the start of the season.

(Slots 7-24 to come...)

 

[KingSweden24]

Agreed that its not all that realistic. This is just my opinion, but the only way that you could really stop baseball from being exported is to prevent it from becoming as overwhelmingly popular as it was OTL in the late 19th/early 20th century. Pulling that off would probably require butterflying the Civil War from happening entirely. Baseball isn't really comparable to American Football in that way; for a few different reasons, the circumstances that lead to it becoming an almost exclusively US phenomenon don't apply.

I love the idea of China as a baseball power. If they have a less chaotic mid 20th century (The first decade and a half has certainly been much more so than OTL!), and better relations with the US/Japan as a result, its certainly not out of the question. The "Baseball Belt" makes a lot of sense too, at least in a Caribbean context. I'd imagine the Cuba/PR/SD trio would be similar to modern OTL Venezuela where baseball is #1, but soccer is a close 2nd. Then TTL's Venezuela could be somewhat akin to OTL Colombia: baseball is somewhat popular in certain regions, but soccer is the clear king. RE:Mexico, the more I think about it, the more I agree, especially with it being much richer and part of Spring Training being held there (great idea btw!). As for the South American nations, the idea of Argentina specifically being a baseball country has really appealed to me ever since I thought about it being a possibility; it could really help set the post-war narratives about the cultural similarities of the victorious alliance.


I should've been more clear; I was talking about WBC/World Cup style international tournaments here, not the minors. Although a different minor league structure is very interesting to think about in its own right. A question though: wouldn't US-Confederate relations preclude any direct minor league affiliate relationships being established across the Ohio? I could very well imagine that Dixie's nationalist impulse demands the establishment of a separate "major" league (in name only) of its own with blackjack and hookers in the aftermath of, or maybe even during the GAW. Those same nationalistic impulses are what I think could help drive international baseball into existence as a legitimate and major part of the professional baseball landscape ITTL.


It's a bit of a misconception that the US occupation pushed baseball to #1 status in Japan (although it certainly didn't hurt its standing there); it was already that way before the war. By the turn of the 20th century, it had already established itself as a very popular sport at the high school level. Fast forward a bit to the 1930s and you have Babe Ruth's famous barnstorming tour (which hundreds of thousands of Japanese fans flocked to) followed shortly thereafter by the establishment of the NPB, which as far as I can tell was Japan's first professional team sports league. This all happened at a time of rapidly deteriorating U.S.-Japanese relations! The NPB even continued to stage games throughout the war, much like its American counterpart. All of that is pretty remarkable stuff that surprised me when I first learned about it, and shows just how deeply the sport had ingrained itself in Japan's culture/society pre-WW2. That's why I made an exception for Japan in my first post; while the lack of an occupation might leave more space for soccer to popularize faster than OTL, it should be the likeliest non-North American OTL baseball power to remain one ITTL. That being said, Ichiro as a soccer superstar is kind of badass; he was certainly a good enough athlete to be able to pull it off.

A more organic - and older - World Baseball Classic does appeal to me, and I like the idea of a Baseball Belt in both the Americas and East Asia. I’ll have to expound on that a bit, methinks…

 

[Dragonboy]

Interesting articles as always!

 

[DanMcCollum]

Dodgers stay in Brooklyn, thank god!!!

 

[Curtain Jerker]

Mediocre year for the Cubs on tap :/

 

[naraht]

Mediocre year for the Cubs on tap :/

Nope, the Chicago Cubs won the International League last year and some of their best players were end of the year call ups by the St. Louis Cardinals.

 

[KingSweden24]

Dodgers stay in Brooklyn, thank god!!!

As it should be

Mediocre year for the Cubs on tap :/

OTL’s Cubs in 2023 will (likely, season has after all not started yet) be much worse than the 2023 CDM Cubs, fear not

Nope, the Chicago Cubs won the International League last year and some of their best players were end of the year call ups by the St. Louis Cardinals.

In certain parts of North Chicago this is regarded as erotica

 

[KingSweden24]

7. Minnesota Twins - If any time is likely to come charging into the AL playoff picture, its the Twins, who have an experienced pitching rotation, a good balance of youth and veteran talent at bat, and have majorly improved their center field with the signing of Darren Myers at the start of the off-season. Having suffered through two painful losing seasons they are hungry to get back to the perennial playoff contender they were between 2016-20, with the bad taste of the 2020 World Series sweep after that legendary race to the playoffs against the A's still haunting the clubhouse to this day. The reworked Twins are built for October, and after the last two years, expect a major overhaul of the front office and training room if another postseason berth slips away; it may even be AL Central or bust.
8. Seattle Rainiers - The Rainiers are no strangers to entertaining playoff runs - their unexpected ALCS appearance in 2014, taking the 107-win division rival Seals to five games in the 2019 ALDS, and then last year's epic ALDS Game 3 18-inning grind with the New York Yankees in Seattle after already having knocked out the Indians on a 12th-inning walk-off homer on the road in the wild card. However, this is the first time in nearly a decade the Rainiers have entered the season with genuine expectations, which has generally in the past not been a favorable position for them, but signs suggest now that this time could be different. Julio Rodriguez not only burst onto the scene last year as the club's biggest potential superstar since Ken Griffey Jr., but the Marines have added depth at bat behind him with the signings of Chris Chow and Michael Conforto, a Seattle-area native. [1] Having posted 92 wins last season and now having retained their core contributors while adding huge strength at bat, two concerns remain for a team that otherwise would appear to have no ceiling - they are overbalanced on offense vs. defense, though certainly no slouches while fielding, and they play in the AL West, which while having a deserved reputation as a terrible division nonetheless sports the San Francisco Seals, who have won less than 100 games only once since 2017 and indeed carried the division every season since then, a record of division dominance challenged only by the Giants. Until the Rainiers can crack the code on outmaneuvering their rivals at the peak of their club-history consistency, a wild card berth will have to be the best they can do as they wait for their first division title since 2016.
9. Chicago Cubs - Cubs fans have nervously watched their beloved club miss the postseason two years in a row and are starting to wonder if this is a return to the dreary six-year playoff drought of 2009-14. They shouldn't worry about slipping back to what can credibly be argued to be one of the historical nadirs of the organization. Despite missing the playoffs in 2021/22, the Cubs play in the most difficult division in baseball, one that during this period of unprecedented National League dominance has produced six world series champions since 2009, including two titles for Wrigleyville's well-heeled crew, and they still cleared 84 wins the last two years, last posting a losing record a decade ago. Indeed, after a two-year hibernation, the Cubs should be in the hunt for an NL Central title all season long, are probably good for 92+ wins and is SportsNet's pick for the four-seed in the NL. Inconsistent batting should be addressed with the arrival of 40-homer Brazilian star Damian Perreira, a stable of consistent pitchers awaits in the bullpen unlike the 2015-18 era Cubs where relief pitching was the team's Achilles heel, and the third-most valuable club in baseball (indeed, in North American sports) has plenty of room for creative contracts through the trade deadline to assess their needs as October approaches. They may not pip the experienced but expensive (not to mention aging) Braves to a title this autumn, but that's not always the most important thing in Chicago - after all, they have reached the NLCS in seven of their last eight playoff appearances.
10. Cleveland Indians - Though a clear second fiddle to the Yankees, Cleveland looks likely to build on a creditable 2022 that ended with an early wild card game exit to Seattle and challenge all season long for the AL East, in which they and That Club in the Bronx essentially have the league's weakest division to themselves. Mark Harriman returns after missing most of 2022 and Lucas Giolito's signing gives them an outstanding new arm on the mound, meaning that last year's 92-win squad returns even stronger; a push towards 100 wins and the top seed in the AL is not out of the question. Still, while the Yankees remain... well, the Yankees, until the Indians can consistently beat their division rival on the road and recapture the postseason magic that has eluded them since 2016, they belong below clubs that have won more than one postseason game in the last seven seasons.
11. Brooklyn Dodgers - The Dodgers had, by all accounts, a good 2022; they won 101 games, their best result since the historic 2014 championship season and the second-best record in the National League, Mookie Betts won the home run title and though they fell in the wild card game to the Braves, they nonetheless took that game to a thrilling 12 innings. Unfortunately, in 2022, that just wasn't good enough, because crosstown archnemesis New York Giants had an even better season and lofted their second World Series trophy in three years. The NL's richest and most decorated franchise does not have the sport's highest payroll just to watch their little brother arguably challenge their early 2010s squads as baseball's greatest post-Big Red Machine dynasty. The Dodgers do look primed to take a step back, however, and with the Phillies looking strong they could be challenged all season long for the second NL wild card spot, with a real chance at missing out on it despite their excellent 2022 form. The Dodgers offseason moves have mostly been attritional and adding green youth to the lineup from their outstanding farm system, but outside of longtime stalwarts like Betts and pitcher Clayton Kershaw it isn't immediately clear where the star power that has defined the Dodgers in the past comes from. Brooklyn may not just be at home on the couch watching the Giants hoist the trophy again come October - they're in our view the likeliest NL team to slip out of the playoffs entirely, matched only by...
12. St. Louis Cardinals - Oh how a few years change things. In 2019, the Cardinals won 110 games, had two of the top three batters in the league in Bryce Johnson and Bryce Harper, and a lethal pitching rotation that powered the squad to a 7-1 record in the National League playoff before defeating the Seals in a thrilling World Series matchup. But it has not been the Cardinals who after that stunning season emerged as a nascent dynasty but rather the Giants, and now both "Bryces" are gone, Ryan Carlson has retired after frequent injuries, and the 2021 NL Champions and 2022 NL Central winners look despairingly likely to take a major step back. There is still a great deal of talent on this squad, and indeed Cardinals fans would be well-reminded to recall that since 2010 only the 2017 Cubs have successfully defended their division title. Nonetheless, as with their AL rival and '21 Series opponent from across Missouri, the midsize-payroll Cardinals seem to have peaked years ago, and while the NL Central providing both wild card teams is not unprecedented, the Cards seem likelier than not to be a step or two behind their division opponents for most of the season.

[1] A bunch of my friends went to high school with him

 

[farmerted555]

Do the Rainiers still play home games at Sick's Stadium?

 

[Nalph Nado]

As long as the stadium is still called Jacob’s Field, I’ll take this version of the Indians.

But I’ll be happier if the Browns don’t move to Baltimore. Or sell the naming rights to FirstEnergy (may that company rot in the eternal fire). Which reminds me, does football still exist and are power companies privately owned to OTL’s extent?

 

[KingSweden24]

Do the Rainiers still play home games at Sick's Stadium?

In 2023? Probably not. But my head canon is Sick’s sticks around until the late 70s/early 80s, before they fuck off along with the rugby and football clubs to the Longacres site and eventually move back to the city in a downtown location in tandem with all the 2000 Olympics pork/greased palms Errrr I mean infrastructure. Sick’s was a weird location already by the 1960s

As long as the stadium is still called Jacob’s Field, I’ll take this version of the Indians.

But I’ll be happier if the Browns don’t move to Baltimore. Or sell the naming rights to FirstEnergy (may that company rot in the eternal fire). Which reminds me, does football still exist and are power companies privately owned to OTL’s extent?

Let’s say it is!

Cleveland never loses its rugby club to Baltimore (which never loses its to Indy). But said club isn’t the Browns…

Id say there’s way more publicly owned utilities (even while other things are privatized) than OTL, but still a fair mix of private/public

 

[Curtain Jerker]

Speaking of baseball, can we please get an update, either here or in the main thread, about how sports is faring (or not faring) when all the men on both sides are off to war?

Baseball was dramatically affected from 1942-45 OTL, this would be like that times ten.

 

[BearBear91]

How does Wrigleyville exist when the Federal League is not going to exist when there is a war going on?

 

[KingSweden24]

Speaking of baseball, can we please get an update, either here or in the main thread, about how sports is faring (or not faring) when all the men on both sides are off to war?

Baseball was dramatically affected from 1942-45 OTL, this would be like that times ten.

Good idea, I should toss something in regarding that.

How does Wrigleyville exist when the Federal League is not going to exist when there is a war going on?

Presumably Wrigley (then, Weeghman) was under construction before the war stated and the FedLeague just went tits up and before ever playing a game, so now there’s a fancy stadium for the Cubs to hop on into?

 

[theflyingmongoose]

I'm also curious what you'll do with the Confederate health care system. The south has worse health than the rest of the US OTL, and I'd imagine it would be even worse.

 

[BearBear91]

Sorry but the war started in 1913 and the federal league didn’t start in OTL until 1914, so Wrigley Field would be a war and butterfly casualty.

 

[KingSweden24]

13. Baltimore Orioles - The Orioles were something of a reverse-Stars last season, going from losing 110 games to winning 83. Not good enough for the postseason by a longshot, but with a young cadre of rising players, it's something to build upon. That being said, teams that come racing back from a debacle to a winning record the following year usually see some level of regression; while the Orioles are a good bet to place third in the AL East behind the bats of offseason signings Rodrigo Mendoza and veteran slugger Anthony Rizzo, they probably won't do it above .500.
14. Chicago White Sox - The Cubs' rowdier Southside sibling are perhaps emblematic of the current state of the American League, being decent and middling, part of a vast tranche of teams regularly hovering around .500 that provide an intriguing bloc of teams in the middle of the Major League standings. The Sox regressed from their Wild Card exit to Seattle to win 81 games and a credible case could be made that they're on the downward slope but also that they are ready to break out and make the AL Central a 3-way race. Based on his performance in the World Baseball Classic, Yutaro Sugimoto shows no signs of slowing down at 32 and could add a fourth 40-homer season down on 35th Street easily; it seems just as likely that an aging core of players finds out that .500 isn't the floor after all.
15. Philadelphia Phillies - The Phillies were a genuinely good team last year, better than their 87 wins would suggest; they just so happen to share a division with the Giants and Dodgers. The swaggering, fun-loving clubhouse culture in the nation's capital is still there along with the core talent, but several solid rotational players and stud cleanup hitter Joey Votto have departed over the last few months and there's still the lingering question of Winston Carillo's injury recovery and how available the veteran shortstop and former World Series MVP will be in his 16th season. If the Dodgers completely fall back to earth the Phillies have a window of opportunity, but in a stacked NL it seems like a very, very narrow one.
16. Arizona Diamondbacks - After two seasons of being the National League's punching bag, particularly a grotesque 112-loss season two years ago, the D'backs managed to recover to a more respectable 74 win campaign a year ago that featured somehow taking a series sweep against the Giants in Queens - the only sweep the champs suffered all season and a full 5% of their losses all season. This leaves fans in the desert cautiously optimistic and hopeful for the year ahead, especially with a number of prominent free agent signings (most importantly for an uneven bullpen, Kyle Johnson). Progress for David Martinez's young, inexperienced squad that was pieced together largely in a massive house-cleaning in the 2022 offseason would be making it to .500, and in a weak NL West that features few legitimate challengers to the Padres, though could certainly do it. A wild-card appearance is probably yet a season or two away, but stranger things have happened, especially out West.
17. Hollywood Stars - Speaking of the NL West, few teams have had a stranger past two seasons than the Stars. The 2021 version won 103 games and went to six in the NLCS with the Cardinals, leading a critical Game 6 on the road by seven runs while facing elimination when they were struck out on loaded bases in the seventh inning and saw St. Louis rip off a six-run bottom of the seventh, strike them out with loaded bases at the top of the eighth, and then score a grand slam in the ninth to go to the World Series. The Stars seemed to have carried the mentality from one of the most infamous playoff meltdowns in the history of the sport forward into the following year, becoming the first team to ever go from over a hundred wins to a hundred losses the following season. By all accounts, this is not the real Hollywood - they may not be the more decorated Angels, but the Stars have one of the highest payrolls in the Majors and a 61-win atrocity is not acceptable at Hollywood Park. The profligacy of the Stars is perhaps part of the problem; Hollywood have for years thrown lavish sums at high-priced free agents rather than build a team from the ground up, and bringing in Tyler Weems (from Milwaukee), Francisco Lindor (from the Giants) and Ronnie Wills (Athletics) suggests that the longstanding approach of picking stars off of top teams and hoping they mesh isn't going away anytime soon. If things click right the NL West's second position behind San Diego is wide open - but that's only if things click right. With the amount of talent on this team and their success just two years ago with many of the same players, the sky should be the limit, but Yankees fans have been saying that for decades.
18. Los Angeles Angels - Unlike the dumpster fire in Inglewood, across Los Angeles the Angels are simply undergoing a familiar problem to many storied clubs - that of navel-gazing their glory days, struggling to find replacements for long-departed stars, and trying to determine an identity. In their dominant run of the 2000s - five AL pennants, two World Series championships - the Angels became appointment viewing in Los Angeles and emerged as the city's beating heart and soul. Despite being one of the most valuable clubs in the league, good players on the roster and a healthy payroll, with a strong farm system, LA simply never seems able to piece things together and have settled into a position of quiescent mediocrity. 76 wins last season wasn't terrible, and some fresh blood has been injected into the pitching rotation which should help avoid late-game collapses that plagued a decent but green Angels side, but with the Seals still the juggernaut of the West and Seattle seeming to have discovered some consistency (famous last words), the Angels have a difficult path ahead of them to get out of the large swathe of mediocrity at the heart of the AL.
19. Colorado Zephyrs - The Zs have not won more than 80 games or fewer than 65 in five years, staying in a remarkable band of consistency (if that's the right word) for that whole time. They are Schrodinger's baseball club, neither good nor egregiously bad, with famously stingy ownership and having never invested particularly in their farm system. News of a potential sale have dangled over the front office for years as GMs and managers play musical chairs, creating inconsistency in performance for a team that isn't entirely without talent. Dustin Quigley, the late-career Andrade twins, Fei-lang Cho - there's real quality here, wallowing in the cellar of the AL West. Just need to know where to look, and remind yourself that a team that invested in this quality could actually challenge.
20. Boston Red Sox - With the anticipation of angry creaming from the direction of Fenway Park, the Red Sox appear remarkably low in this year's initial power rankings. The richest, winningest, most famed team in Major League history is starting to look very, very mediocre. Set aside for a moment that the Sawks haven't won a World Series in nearly thirty years, and this autumn it will be ten years since their only Fall Classic appearance since said 1994 championship. After missing out on the Wild Card by one game to Seattle two years ago, they collapsed into a 72-win season last year and a half dozen core players have since decamped to greener pastures than in the shadow of the Big Green Monster. The 2023 Red Sox will be talented but extremely young - the club still has probably the finest farm system in baseball with the exception of the Cubs - and years away from truly competitive baseball as the club commits itself to a full, top-to-bottom overhaul after abandoning its strategy of combining development with major free agency plays. In a few seasons, Fortress Fenway could well be back; for now, Boston fans should expect things to get much worse before they get better.
21. Pittsburgh Pirates - The NL East is an unforgiving beast, and the glory run of 2015 seems so very far away now. The Pirates have for the last several years been stripping payroll and hemorrhaging money as previous ownership attempted to find a sale partner, and a 62-win campaign in which they were entirely swept in every season series by the rival Giants and took only one game off the Phillies serves as the ignonimous end of the era. A sale to former Westinghouse CEO Jeffrey Pelt should create a fresh start for one of the National League's oldest and most storied clubs - winners of the first-ever World Series! - but it will be some time before a team stripped to the absolute bone shows any return, and the cellar is likely where Pittsburgh will lurk, especially considering the toughness of its division.
22. Cincinnati Reds - In a similar situation to the Pirates (indeed with identical records the previous season), where a mid-sized market, payroll limitations and years of ownership issues have badly handicapped the Reds in a division that prides itself on and eagerly markets itself as baseball's toughest. Despite some promising results over the course of last season, including a winning record for the month of May, the Reds have a meagre bullpen and the wrong mix of young prospects bouncing between the clubhouse and minors and aging veterans pieced together from other teams. Especially with the Cubs seeming to have reloaded over the offseason and the Cards and Braves still dangerous clubs, Cincy may well be staring down a very, very long season as the doormat of the NL Central.
23. Detroit Tigers - The Tigers have clawed their way back from the humiliation of only winning 46 games in 2019, but they remain one of the worst clubs in the league, not having posted a winning record since 2016 (incidentally the last time they were in the playoffs or won the AL Central). Hovering around 65 wins for years, though, does not a future consistent team make, and a paucity of free agent signings - and the team's reliance on an aged Miguel Cabrera - does not bode well for its 2023. Breaching 70 wins is a victory; that would make it twice in two years the feat was accomplished and prove a positive side for the AL's oldest club.
24. Portland Pioneers - They were the worst team in the league last year, taking only 55 wins, and by all accounts they will be the worst team again, living comfortably in the basement of the NL West. How the Pioneers got to this point is head-scratching; it is neither a poorly-run organization nor a cash-strapped one, despite being a midsize market and payroll. Free agency has simply been extremely harsh to the club every time they have a good roster and the return of San Diego to prominence in the division has put a serious lid on their upside. Getting closer to 70 wins should be the goal in the Rose City this year, which despite the calamity of 2022 is quite possible. If nothing else, 'Neer games have some of the rowdiest atmospheres in the Majors, so we hope Portland fans just go and have fun even if they lose - at least the tickets will be cheap!

 

[LordVorKon]

Cleveland Indians

Changed their name to the Guardians for the 2022 season OTL. Seems likely that the same pressure to do so would exist TTL.

Sorry but the war started in 1913 and the federal league didn’t start in OTL until 1914, so Wrigley Field would be a war and butterfly casualty.

50 years of butterflies; why couldn't the Federal League start up in 1912 TTL?

Arizona Diamondbacks - After two seasons of being the National League's punching bag, particularly a grotesque 112-loss season

Trash team *and* they couldn't find a better home base than Arizona?

ETA: Also I note that MLB hasn't opened up to non-US teams at all... I mean, I can understand not wanting Confederate teams in the league, and maybe not Canada properly-so-called. But Texas? Or Halifax? Maybe Vancouver if BC goes their own way? Montreal might still be a good choice if Quebec isn't too hostile to "Anglo" sports.

 

[mortonofski]

Loving the season preview! Though I'm a tad sad that the state of Orange!Canada prevented MLB from expanding to Toronto