Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is excited that today is the first (full) day of baseball season for 2016. Sure there were games yesterday, but he feels like today is really the day. This is in part because his beloved Washington Nationals will start the season in Atlanta taking on the Division rival Braves.

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t done as much season previewing as he normally does. That is in large part due to his beloved hockey team, the Washington Capitals, being on the brink of the playoffs. He’s been focused on the Capitals since October and will stay primarily locked in on the Caps until their season is done. But now baseball will start creeping into the rotation of sports in his mind… So, about previews or predictions for the Nationals this season… Well… The New York Mets are the hot NL team this year. Being in the same division as the Mets, the Nationals are well positioned to either do well and surprise people, or just submit to the “inevitability” of the Metropolitans. It looks like Miami (who has for some mad reason always played well against the Nationals - even when they were the doormat of the rest of the league) might be a little stronger than expected. The Nationals are not, in my estimation at least, in the top tier of NL clubs. Those top tier clubs are: Cubs, Cardinals, Dodgers, Mets and possibly the Pirates too. Your Maximum Leader places the Nationals just out of that group. Of course, the season is a long one and we are just beginning it.

Your Maximum Leader predicts that the Nationals will win about 85-90 games this season. He isn’t sure that will be enough to get into the playoffs. Of course, he hopes for better than that, but from what he sees right now, that prediction makes sense.

By the way… Your Maximum Leader will attend his first game of the season on April 23rd… He hopes to get about 10 games in this year…

Carry on.

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