The eight-member Star sports staff, in an effort to speed this year’s baseball season along, have come up with the following forecasts.

Each writer made his or her picks for each division and for a World Series champion. These selections were tabulated based on the following: 1 point for each first-place vote, 2 points for each second-place vote, etc. Therefore, the team with the lowest point total is ranked first, and so on. First-place votes are in parentheses.

Finally, in order to determine a consensus World Series champ, (three teams received two votes each to win the World Series—the Mets, Brewers and Blue Jays) the writers made playoff picks and the team most often picked to win in the playoffs was selected as champion.