A smiling Julio Rodriguez in a Mariners uniform on the cover of Sports Illustrated
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All-time Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue cover appearances

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NOTE: Originally posted on April 1, 2010, this year-by-year analysis of the Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue has been updated as needed to show the latest accurate numbers.

This all began in 2010, after I posted the cover of the Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue on Facebook. My friend Brad left this comment:

One of my first SI issues was the 1987 baseball preview issue, with Cory Snyder and the Indians on the cover. The Indians, of course, went 61-101 that year.

And that got my mind racing. How accurate has the magazine been in its choices for the annual baseball preview? We all know about the cover jinx, but does the jinx hold up through an entire season as well as it seems to on a more short-term, week-to-week basis? It didn’t take me too long to whip up a spreadsheet, scroll through SI’s covers gallery to find each preview and plug in the numbers, with the help of Baseball-Reference.

Jump to ...

1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
So I may get a little obsessive at times, assigning myself mundane tasks that, in the end, result in little more than some neat — and possibly very arbitrary — numbers to peruse. But I don’t care. Here are the results, showing how many teams, players and positions were featured, plus the teams’ and players’ results that season, from stats to All-Star nods to awards, plus a little more.

The totals and general figures

The 2021 issue appeared to be the end of an era. Well, in some ways, it was. Having been taken over by a new company, Sports Illustrated saw its staff gutted and printed issues cut back to a monthly release schedule. That April, Francisco Lindor of the Mets graced the cover for the baseball preview. In 2022, there was no baseball preview issue or a ballplayer featured on the April cover. This may have been because of the MLB work stoppage that reached into March, delaying the start of spring training and creating uncertainty about when the season would begin. It appears that Sports Illustrated just decided to ignore baseball in the print edition and put any preview material online.

I thought it might be the end of their baseball previews and further updates to this post. But lo! There is an MLB preview for 2023. So the tradition, as it were, continues …

Through 2023, SI has released 69 baseball season preview issues (not covers, as I’ll explain shortly), featuring 27 of the 30 franchises that exist today. If you count the Montreal Expos and two instances of the Washington Senators separately, there were 33 different Major League teams in that time. Twenty-eight of the 33 have been featured on the cover; neither Senators club made it, but the Twins and Rangers have. Both the Expos and Washington Nationals have had players on a cover.

In 2013, the magazine also introduced full regional covers for its baseball preview for the first time. From 2009-11, the main image on all covers was the same nationally, but there were regional insets, which I chose not to count in the player totals. Those players are noted in the yearly breakdown below, however. As for the regional covers beginning with 2013, I’ve decided to count those collectively as one issue of the magazine (hence the 69 noted at the start of the previous paragraph) to indicate the number of years the magazine has produced a baseball preview issue. But I have credited each player or team with a solo appearance (hence CC Sabathia‘s two solo appearances, one of which came on a regional cover). In all it makes for 94 teams represented over 69 years of preview issues — and it has made this bookkeeping a bit more difficult. In 2021, in one good development under the new ownership, they seem to have returned to one national design.

In 2018, the Yankees regained sole possession of first place as far as all-time covers, after the Red Sox had re-tied the Yankees (who had gone ahead in ’14) with eight covers — though one of Boston’s was the 1990 cover featuring a long-retired Ted Williams and the headline, “Was it a better game in Ted’s day?” That was one of two covers to feature an inactive player, along with the 1984 one with Yankees manager Yogi Berra, and one of eight that didn’t have an active player at all. There were six years from 1956-65 that showed no players: 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1963 and 1965.

TeamCovers
Yankees10
Red Sox8
Dodgers7
Cardinals6
Phillies6
Angels6
Mets5
Royals4
Mariners4
Giants4
Cubs4
Tigers3
Orioles3
Reds3
Nationals3
Indians3
Pirates2
Twins2
Padres2
Brewers1
D-backs1
Rockies1
Rangers1
A's1
Rays1
Astros1
White Sox1
Expos1

There have been 104 different active players to grace the cover before a season, including 23 who would become Hall of Famers (plus Williams and Berra, who appeared on covers after they had been inducted), 62 players who would have All-Star seasons the year they appeared on the cover, five who would take MVP honors (Joe Morgan, NL 1976; Mike Schmidt, NL 1981; Mike Trout, AL 2014; Bryce Harper, NL 2015; Kris Bryant, NL 2016), four Cy Young Award winners (Dwight Gooden, NL 1985; Pedro Martinez, AL 2000; Roy Halladay, NL 2010; Clayton Kershaw, NL 2013), two who would break significant records (Cal Ripken Jr. in 1995 and Mark McGwire in 1998), three who would win 20 games (Randy Johnson, 1997; Andy Pettitte, 2003; Halladay, 2010) and 20 who went on to lead their respective leagues in one of the triple crown categories: batting average, home runs, RBIs, wins, ERA and strikeouts. Hitters have averaged .289 (154-for-533) with 24 home runs and 84 RBIs. Pitchers have averaged a 13-8 record, 174 strikeouts and a 3.23 ERA (66 earned runs in 184.5 innings). (Because of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, I am not including stats from that year in these averages.)

Starting pitchers have appeared the most, 44 times each — including Shohei Ohtani in ’18 and ’20 — followed by 33 outfielders, 14 first basemen, nine third basemen, eight catchers, 11 shortstops, four second basemen, two relief pitchers, two managers, and one owner. Twenty-seven of the covers have featured multiple people, with 17 of those showing multiple representatives for the same team.

With his appearance in ’18, Trout has now appeared on three covers, setting a new record by a player. He also appeared — solo, however — in 2014 and ’17. Willie Mays, Derek Jeter, Mark McGwire, Steve Garvey, Halladay, Albert Pujols, Sabathia, Robinson Cano, Mookie Betts, Ohtani, Bryant and Harper are the only other players to appear more than once (twice each), with Garvey, Pujols and Sabathia the only ones from that group to be featured solo on both of their covers. Twenty-six players were featured the year they joined a new team and 14 covers showed the defending World Series champions.

Now for some jinx-related numbers (these do include the 2020 season, with win-loss totals prorated for a 162-game season). Thirty-eight of the 94 teams (through last season, not counting this year’s cover team) have reached the postseason the year they were on the cover, with nine winning the World Series (no Cubs jinx!), five losing it, three losing the ALCS, four losing the NLCS, 11 losing the ALDS and four losing the NLDS. The 2016 Mets were the first team featured on a preview cover to reach the postseason but bow out with a loss in the Wild Card Game (and the 2020 Cubs and White Sox both lost in the pandemic-inspired Wild Card Series, which became permanent in 2022). Both Division Series stats include the 1981 strike-interrupted season, when the Phillies (first half) and Royals (second half) won half the season but lost in their respective division series. Thirty-one teams finished in first place in their divisions (or leagues, before 1969), 23 finished second, 22 third, 11 fourth, three fifth, two sixth and two seventh. Ten teams won at least 100 games (or were on a pace to, in the case of the 2020 Dodgers), two lost 100. Over the years, the teams have averaged a second-place finish and an 86-73 record.

That’s it for the broad strokes. Here are the year-by-year covers, broken down by decade. For simplicity, I stuck with the triple-crown stats (AVG/HR/RBI for hitters, W-L/ERA/SO for pitchers), even if that’s not how we’re supposed to evaluate players these days.


1950s
SI launched in August 1954 — with baseball on its cover in the form of Braves third baseman Eddie Mathews — so its first baseball preview issue did not appear until April 1955. The first team to appear on a season preview was the New York Giants, who had won the World Series in ’54. The cover subjects were center fielder Willie Mays and manager Leo Durocher, flanking Durocher’s wife, Laraine. The cover was controversial because Laraine Durocher, a white woman, is touching Mays, a black man. It has three pages dedicated to it in James S. Hirsch’s 2010 Mays biography. The Say Hey Kid blocked out any distractions, though, and went on to an All-Star season that year and led the Majors with 51 home runs.

Following a series of generic covers in 1956, ’57 and ’58, Mays appeared again in 1959, another All-Star season.

1960s
Orioles outfielder Jackie Brandt appeared in 1961, an average .297/16/72 All-Star season, followed by Tigers pitcher Frank Lary, who had a horrible 1962: 2-6/5.74/41. After 1963 featured a ball and bat, Sandy Koufax got things back on the superstar track in 1964, when he was an All-Star (19-5/1.74/223) and led the NL in ERA.

The last cover without a player came in 1965 and showed baseballs in front of an American flag. In 1966, Dick Groat became the first player shown with a new team (and perhaps that’s why he was chosen). It backfired when he put up .260/2/53 that season. The editors went the same route, presumably, in 1967, when new Pirates third baseman Maury Wills got the cover and fared ever-so-slightly better (.302/3/45).

Lou Brock was up in 1968, when he led the Majors in doubles, triples and stolen bases and the Cardinals became the first featured team to reach the postseason, losing to the Tigers in the World Series. Brock’s appearance also marked the first of four straight years in which the defending World Series champ was on the cover. In 1969, it was Tigers catcher Bill Freehan, who was an All-Star in a .262/16/49 season.

1970s
The defending champions trend continued with Mets left-hander Jerry Koosman (12-7/3.14/118) in 1970, surrounded by caps of the other clubs, and with Orioles slugger Boog Powell (.256/22/92, All-Star) in 1971, the first year that SI’s pick went on to win 100 games and the World Series. Cardinals third baseman Joe Torre (.289/11/81) and his sideburns was the choice in 1972, snapping the streak of defending champs.

Though I didn’t tally how many of the cover subjects were coming off an award-winning season, I did note that 1973 cover boy Steve Carlton of the Phillies was the defending NL Cy Young winner, following his 27-10/1.97/310 NL Triple Crown campaign. His follow-up was pretty much the opposite: 13-20/3.90/223 for the last-place Phils. Reds outfielder Pete Rose graced the cover in 1974, a nondescript year for him (.284/3/51), and Garvey made his first appearance in 1975, when he went .319/18/95.

The year of my birth, 1976, may have been the bull’s eye of SI baseball preview covers. The subject was Reds second baseman Joe Morgan, a future Hall of Famer for the defending World Series champs. He went on to have an MVP and All-Star season, batting .320/27/111 as the Reds went 102-60 and won the Series again. Morgan was so good that year, I’ll go a little sabermetric for you: he let the Majors with a .444 OBP, .576 SLG and 1.020 OPS.

As good as ’76 was for SI’s choice, 1977 was as bad. New Angels outfielder Joe Rudi — “The Angels’ $2-million man” — went on to a .264/13/53 season for the fifth-place club. The first cover shared by players from different teams appeared in 1978, when Twins first baseman Rod Carew (.333/5/70) and Reds outfielder George Foster (.302/30/98) mugged for Walter Iooss Jr.’s camera. Iooss and the magazine repeated the theme in 1979 with Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice (.325/39/130) and outfielder Dave Parker (.310/25/94) of the Pirates, who won the Series that year. All four were All-Stars as well.

1980s
In 1980, SI asked, “Who is Keith Hernandez and What Is He Doing Hitting .344?” He underachieved at the plate that year — just .321/16/99 in an All-Star season — but his mustache, as always, had a Hall of Fame-worthy season. Perhaps foreshadowing the year to come, in 1981 SI split the cover and hit on two teams that would win their divisions during that split season: Mike Schmidt and the Phillies (the defending champs) and George Brett and the Royals. Despite All-Star seasons by both (Schmidt hit .316/31/91, led the Majors in homers and won the NL MVP; Brett hit .314/6/43), the Phillies and Royals each lost in their respective newly-created-for-one-year-until-1995 Division Series. The Dodgers won the World Series in ’81, prompting Garvey’s second cover appearance in 1982, though his numbers (.282/16/86) weren’t as good as after his first cover.

In 1983, SI managed to get Gary Carter in between team success — his Expos reached the playoffs in that split ’81 season, and he later starred for the mid-80s Mets, but in ’83 he was just the game’s best catcher with an All-Star line of .270/17/79. Only the second manager to appear on an SI baseball preview came in 1984, when new Yankees skipper Yogi Berra was shown. The Yanks finished third with an 87-75 record. New York was the subject again in 1985, but this time it was the Mets’ Dwight Gooden, coming off his NL Rookie of the Year campaign. He topped that with his Cy Young, MLB Triple Crown season (24-4/1.53/268) for the second-place Mets (98-64). The magazine went up I-95 in 1986, choosing third baseman Wade Boggs (.357/8/71, All-Star) of the Red Sox, who may have fallen to a double curse when they lost the World Series that year to the Mets.

Now we have the cover that started this whole project, the 1987 issue featuring the Indians’ Cory Snyder and Joe Carter. It is, perhaps, the single worst baseball preview cover choice in SI’s history, though not through the fault of the players. Snyder his .236/33/82 and Carter .264/32/106, but Cleveland went 61-101 — the first of just two 100-loss teams to appear on a baseball preview cover — and finished last in the AL East.

The publication bounced back in 1988 with Bay Area first basemen Will Clark (.282/29/109, All-Star, NL RBI leader) and Mark McGwire (.260/32/99, All-Star), whose A’s lost the World Series to the Dodgers. (I convinced my parents to subscribe a year later than Brad apparently did with his folks, because this is the first baseball preview issue I recall getting.) The decade closed with Padres catcher Benito Santiago looking up at the camera in 1989; we looked down on him, then looked down on his .236/16/62 season.

1990s
Following the Williams cover in ’90, SI tabbed a future Hall of Famer in 1991 in Rangers fireballer Nolan Ryan (12-6/2.91/203). Another future inductee appeared in 1992 in the form of Kirby Puckett (.329/19/110), who led the Majors with 210 hits that year and was an All-Star. David Cone got the cover in 1993, the year he returned to Kansas City, but he went just 11-14/3.33/191.

Another split cover preceded baseball’s worst season, 1994, when no one won a World Series that didn’t happen. After appearing on the first fold-out baseball preview cover, Ken Griffey Jr. hit .323/40/90 for the Mariners, who were in third place (49-63) when the season was stopped, and Mike Piazza went .319/24/92 for the first-place Dodgers (58-56). Their appearance would foreshadow the 2016 Hall of Fame class, when both players were elected.

When baseball returned in 1995, future Hall of Famer Cal Ripken was the face of the season, during which he was an All-Star and went on to hit .262/17/88 while breaking Lou Gehrig‘s consecutive-games-played streak.

Burned by the Indians in ’87, SI waited until the Tribe was coming off a World Series appearance to feature them again in 1996, with Manny Ramirez (.309/33/112) on the cover. Cleveland fared better this time, winning the AL Central before losing in the ALDS. The Big Unit’s big face hit mailboxes in 1997, when Randy Johnson went 20-4/2.28/291 and was an All-Star for the NL West-winning (and ALDS-losing) Mariners. He finished second to Roger Clemens in AL Cy Young voting.

McGwire made his second preview cover in 1998, the year he broke Roger Maris‘ single-season home run record. McGwire’s .299/70/147 All-Star year got him second in NL MVP voting to Sammy Sosa. SI closed the decade, the century, the millennium with new Dodgers pitcher Kevin Brown, who had signed baseball’s richest contract in the offseason and at least had a solid 1999: 18-9/3.00/221.

2000s
SI opened the decade in 2000 with a bang, choosing Red Sox righty Pedro Martinez the year he went 18-6/1.74/284 and won the AL Cy Young while leading the Junior Circut in strikeouts and pacing the Majors in ERA. Derek Jeter (.311/21/74, All-Star) followed in 2001, coming off his World Series MVP autumn, and the Yankees reached the Fall Classic again before losing to the Diamondbacks on the last night of the Yankee dynasty. New Yankee Jason Giambi was the pick in 2002, one of his great years (.314/41/122). A third straight Yankee cover tested the tolerance of the rest of the country in 2003, and it was truly overkill. Not only did it feature five starting pitchers (Roger Clemens, Jeff Weaver, Jose Contreras, Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina) and the headline, “You can’t have too much pitching,” centered among all those pinstripes was George Steinbrenner, the only owner on a preview cover.

No Yankees in 2004, but an injury-prone Kerry Wood, who went 8-9/3.72/144 for the Cubs — who didn’t win the World Series (again). But Jeter (.309/19/70) returned in 2005, when he and Johnny Damon (.316/10/75) exchanged suspicious glances and then both teams bowed out in the ALDS. SI got the World Series champions right in 2006 with Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols (.331/49/137) and new Red Sox hurler Daisuke Matsuzaka (15-12/4.40/201) in 2007.

In 2008, a showcase of young talent brought six players representing five teams to the fold-out cover: Ryan Braun of the Brewers, Justin Upton of the D-backs and Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies made the front cover; Jacoby Ellsbury and Clay Buchholz of the Red Sox and Ryan Zimmerman of the Nationals appeared on the fold-out flap. Braun (.285/37/106 and the only All-Star of the bunch) and the Brewers lost in the NLDS and Boston, with Ellsbury (.280/9/47, AL-leading 50 stolen bases) and Buchholz (2-9/6.75/72), lost in the ALDS. Upton (.250/15/42) and Arizona (second, 82-80), Tulo (.263/8/46) and Colorado (third, 74-88) and Zimmerman (.285/14/51) and Washington (sixth, 59-102) sat out the postseason.

In 2009, the Yankees’ new import Sabathia (19-8/3.37/197, MLB lead in wins) was the centerpiece and proved to be a big piece of the Bombers’ 27th world championship. For the record, though not part of these stats as I said, the inset photos customized for six regions showed David Wright (lost season), Manny Ramirez (NLCS loss), Carlos Zambrano (face-plant), Carl Crawford (solid campaign), Dustin Pedroia (ALDS loss) and Justin Morneau (ALDS loss).

2010s
When Halladay joined the Phillies, he got the cover in 2010, with insets featuring Sabathia (21 wins, third in AL Cy Young voting), John Lackey (14-11, 4.40 in 215 IP), Brian McCann (.269/21/77, All-Star), Pujols (.312/42/118, second in NL MVP voting), Tulowitzki (.315/27/95, fifth in NL MVP voting) and Matt Kemp (.249/28/89). The next year, Halladay made history by being part of the main image (not the inset) in consecutive seasons when the entire Philly rotation got the cover in 2011. Halladay did well those years, winning the NL Cy Young in ’10 with a league-leading 21 wins (against 10 losses), 2.44 ERA and 219 strikeouts. His 2011 was very similar (19-6/2.35/220) for an average line those two years of 20-8/2.40/219.5. Philadelphia won the NL East both years, going 97-65 in ’10 (when they lost the NLCS to the Giants) and 102-60 in ’11 (when they lost in the NLDS to the Cardinals).

In 2012, it was back to the single, true national cover, with Pujols making his second solo appearance after signing his huge free-agent contract with the Angels in the offseason. He started slowly but finished strong to post a respectable .285/30/105, even if the average and home runs were the worst of his career. He still somehow managed to finish 17th in AL MVP voting for a club that went 89-73 and finished in third place in the AL West.

Following a practice it has used often for college preview issues, whether leading into a season or postseason, SI printed six regional covers in 2013, unveiling them on Twitter at the rate of one an hour in the morning and early afternoon the day before they hit newstands. Stephen Strasburg — and the magazine’s pick to win the World Series, the Nationals — led it off just after 9 a.m. ET, followed by David Price (the first Rays appearance in their history), Justin Verlander (amazingly, the first Tiger since Freehan in ’69), Sabathia (his second solo appearance, joining Garvey and Pujols), James Shields (the first Royal since Cone in 1993) and Clayton Kershaw (the Dodgers’ first appearance since Brown in ’99). Using six starting pitchers also widened the gap between hurlers and the next-closest position, outfielders.

The 2014 preview went back to the one national cover, with a caveat — three certain regions got their own unique images. Masahiro Tanaka drew the honors for the national cover, but those in the Northwest received Robinson Cano, the Southwest (I would guess) got Mike Trout and the Midwest got Yadier Molina. Tanaka and Cano, of course, fit the player on a new team criteria, with Tanaka (a Yankee) also on a team with postseason aspirations (sorry, Mariners; though they surprised many of us by staying in contention until the season’s last day). Molina’s team, the defending National League champions, also was expected to play into October (and did), and Trout is the best player in the game.

The Nationals, for the second straight year, were SI’s pick to win the World Series. In ’13, they missed out on the playoffs by four games, with a still-respectable 86-76 record. In ’14, they fell in the NLDS to the eventual World Series winners, the Giants.

In 2015, I learned of the issue’s release when a friend who’s a Nationals fan posted their cover featuring Max Scherzer (new team) and Bryce Harper on Facebook. Washington was expected to run away with the NL East and seemed to be challenged only by the Dodgers as the best team in the National League. It didn’t work out that way, but Scherzer threw two no-hitters and Harper led the NL in home runs and ran away with the NL MVP award.

The Cinderellas of 2014, the Royals, were the second cover. Salvador Perez became just the sixth catcher on a cover (following Molina in ’14) and Greg Holland made history as the first relief pitcher in the 64-year history of SI baseball previews. That’s kind of amazing. Perez had a solid season (.260, 21 HR, 70 RBI) and was named World Series MVP. Holland saved 32 games, but didn’t finish the season because of an elbow injury that would require Tommy John surgery.

The third cover featured SI’s World Series pick: the Indians. Yes, Cleveland. The franchise that turned out to be the all-time worst preview cover choice made its first appearance since before Manny was Manny in ’96. This time, it’s another duo (uh-oh!) in defending AL Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber and outfielder Michael Brantley. Kluber went 9-16 but struck out 245 and had an ERA of 3.49. Brantley batted .310 with 15 HR and 84 RBI.

And the fourth offering was a repeat in the Mariners, which features Cano’s second straight cover nod, making him only the second player to appear in consecutive years, joining Halladay in 2010-11. But Halladay’s second was a rotation group shot, while Cano only has to share with Felix Hernandez, so maybe he gets an edge? King Felix went 18-9 with a 3.53 ERA and 191 K’s, and Cano hit .287 with 21 HR and 79 RBI.

The four 2015 covers all showed contenders, though I joined the multitudes in thinking Kansas City had a better chance of finishing third or fourth than first. Whoops. But the cover line, “Why every team has reason to believe (The Royals know the feeling),” helped explain their appearance. Yeah: some 24 or 25 of the 30 clubs had a realistic shot of chasing a playoff spot come September. Turns out the jinx — or a 1/4 jinx — didn’t knock out the one club that celebrated in an autumn dogpile. The Royals became the first preview cover team to win the World Series since the 2009 Yankees — and just the seventh overall in 61 years up to that point. That’s a batting average of .092.

The 2016 covers once again feature four regional representatives who were also expected to reach the postseason — and three of them did in ’15. It’s also been a long time since each one was granted a full cover shot. We’ll go east to west, starting with my favorite team.

With Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Jeurys Familia grinning at us from Port St. Lucie, the Mets made their first preview cover since Wright was an inset in ’09. That’s actually the most recent appearance for any of these teams. But it’s the Mets’ first full cover since Gooden in 1985 (the only other instance was Koosman in 1970). deGrom and Harvey were two of six starting pitchers on covers in 2016, bringing that position’s lead up to 41 appearances. Familia becomes the only second relief pitcher (and closer) – following Holland the previous year — to make a preview cover.

Next, we have the Mets’ 2015 NLCS opponents from Chicago. Anthony Rizzo, Jason Heyward (star player on a new team), Kris Bryant and Jake Arrieta took the honors. Heyward, the only outfielder shown in this year, brought that position’s second-place total to 23. Rizzo became the 12th first baseman, the third-most represented position. And Bryant was just the seventh third baseman — the first on the main cover since Zimmerman was in the 2008 group shot. It’s just the Cubs’ second appearance, the other coming in 2004 with Wood. And if ever there was a jinx-buster, this may have been it: Chicago won 103 games (the eighth to top 100) and became the eighth World Series winner to grace a cover heading into its championship season (and the second in a row, following Kansas City’s ’15 appearance).

Turning south brought us to SI’s 2016 World Series pick: The Astros, making their first appearance on an SI baseball preview cover. That leaves only the Braves (shocking!), White Sox (another team with a long history), Marlins and Blue Jays without a preview cover appearance to this point. Representing Houston were defending AL Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa, defending AL Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel and just the fourth second baseman in history, Jose Altuve.

And finally, we had the Giants, there because of their even-year magic but also sporting a new player in Johnny Cueto, who was joined by Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner. The first team to appear on an SI baseball preview cover back in ’55, the Giants made their first appearance since Clark joined McGwire in ’88.

Of Sports Illustrated‘s eight correct World Series picks on the cover, five have come in the 21st Century, beginning with the back-to-back duo of the ’06 Cardinals and ’07 Red Sox. But even with the increased odds of getting it right by issuing regional covers, 2015 was the first time the editors predicted it in a regional-cover year — and then the Cubs followed suit.

In 2017, as mentioned above, the Red Sox rejoined the Yankees as the teams with the most appearances when their “Killer B’s” outfield got the call. Presumptive 2017 AL Rookie of the Year Andrew Benintendi (he finished second) is joined by ’16 AL MVP runner-up Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley. The trio brings the total number of outfielders over the years up to 27, still far behind first-place starting pitchers (41).

The central part of the country is represented by the defending World Series champion Cubs and the reigning NL MVP, Kris Bryant. He joins the short list of two-time cover darlings and the even shorter list of back-to-back honorees (Cano and Halladay).

And out west, we have Trout again, the defending AL MVP and just the fourth player to have two solo covers. Left out are SI’s picks for the World Series: The Dodgers (their pick to win it) and Indians. But maybe that’s for the best, considering that this is the 30th anniversary of the cover choice that started this whole project, and has been widely remembered.

For 2018, SI consolidated things a bit, sticking to the coasts (and the American League) for two regional covers. Those of us in the East got defending AL ROY Aaron Judge and new teammate Giancarlo Stanton, each making his first appearance. Out west, the Angels were featured, with Trout appearing on his third preview cover, joined by his own new teammate, Shohei Ohtani — a natural choice, given the intrigue and hype surrounding him entering this season. For my stats, I’ve included Ohtani as both an outfielder (one of 30, the second-most featured position all-time) and as a starting pitcher (one of 41, the most-featured position) — even though the Angels are going to primarily use him as a starting pitcher and a designated hitter.

To close out the decade in 2019, Sports Illustrated made another tweak to the format, and not a welcome one. Now on a biweekly print schedule, the baseball preview issue also happened to be the NCAA tournament preview. A friend with whom I regularly chat about preview cover subjects (we take guesses in the days leading up to the reveal of who will be on the covers) wondered how they’d handle the two sports, since they’d long done a cool collage with a player (or mascot) representing each of the tournament teams. But that turned out not to be the alternative subject that should have worried me. In addition to one sports season beginning and another nearing its end, this biweekly issue also was the first to be printed following the start of NFL free agency. So in addition to two regional baseball covers (which I’ll get to in a second), SI added an NFL cover for one region: Mine. Instead of finding the San Diego Padres or Philadelphia Phillies smiling back at me, I had Le’Veon Bell, the new New York Jet. Even if I were a green-blooded Jets fan, this would’ve bothered me, because baseball comes first. Add to it that I’m a Steelers fan — as a Notre Dame fan and alum, I was drawn to the Steelers when Jerome Bettis landed there (and then I married a Pittsburgh woman) — and it was doubly irritating.

But! The cover was already mangled, the result of some heavy rain the day it was delivered. I’ve never been so happy to see a torn up SI cover (even though they’re pretty good about redelivering a fresh copy if you ask). However, because of my zip code, I didn’t want to take the chance that I’d get another NFL cover, so my friend in Indiana went out and bought me a newstand copy that should be arriving soon, and all will be right again.

Sorry for the personal essay. Now to the cover subjects: Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. representing the Padres, and Rhys Hoskins, Bryce Harper, Aaron Nola and J.T. Realmuto for the Phillies. Machado and Harper are no surprise: Star players on new teams are a standard subject option for SI’s annual preview, and flanking them with new teammates is also a tried-and-true take. (And Realmuto also qualifies in the player-on-a-new-team arena.) Harper’s appearance makes him the 11th to be featured twice, and the Phillies’ sixth time on the cover moves them into a tie for third all-time. This was just the Padres’ second cover following Benito Santiago in 1989.

And there is also one other notable aspect of the 2019 covers: Tatis becomes, as best I can tell, the fourth player to appear on an SI MLB preview cover before appearing in a Major League game — and the first who wasn’t a professional in Japan. I hadn’t previously noted this, but Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007 was the first, followed by Masahiro Tanaka in ’14 and Shohei Ohtani in ’18.

Finally, to wrap up the decade, a few more numbers changed. I’ve tracked players who were on the cover and then went on to win major BBWAA awards for that season, and so far there have been five MVPs and four Cy Young Award winners, but Ohtani was the first Rookie of the Year, in 2018. And 2019 gave us two more Hall of Famers to add to the tally: Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay bring that number to 21. Halladay joins Willie Mays as the only Hall of Famers to appear on two covers.

2020s
The new decade brought with it a new reality — and not just because of the delayed season because of the coronavirus pandemic. Late in 2019, Sports Illustrated went though some significant changes, prompted by the title’s sale to a new ownership group and the shifting landscape of media. The biggest change is the shift to publishing the print magazine monthly, though the baseball preview issue was supposed to remain a standalone edition. That lasted all of one year, 2020; when the 2021 edition arrived, articles on basketball and fighting took up pages in the back. The preview issue is a shell of its former glory.

In 2020, there were three regional covers, with the subjects about as basic as you can get when picking three regions to target across the country: The three different covers feature representatives of the two Major League teams in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Mets’ Pete Alonso and Yankees’ Gleyber Torres, the Cubs’ Javier Baez and Tim Anderson of the White Sox, and the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts and the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani. There are three significant aspects of these representatives. Betts and Ohtani each made his second cover, increasing the number of multi-cover subjects to 13. And Anderson’s appearance is — amazingly — the first by a White Sox player. Now only the Blue Jays, Braves (I know!) and Marlins have yet to grace the cover of an SI baseball preview issue.

With new Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor on the lone cover design in 2021, SI appears to have gone back to one national cover. He extends the streak of players on new teams to four years (two players in ’18, three in ’19, Betts in ’20) and is the 11th shortstop; the position remains fourth behind pitchers, outfielders and first basemen.

The return of the annual baseball preview in 2023 featured reigning AL Rookie of the Year Julio Rodriguez. He’s the first Mariner since Felix Hernandez and Robinson Cano in 2015 and just their second outfielder, after Ken Griffey Jr. in 1994.

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6 Comments

  1. I can’t believe I forgot Joe Carter was on the 1987 cover with Cory Snyder. It’s likely because I don’t remember much else about Snyder (except for that gold cup on his ’87 Topps card), whereas Carter had a more memorable baseball career and a much more memorable baseball moment. Wild Thing, you make everything groovy, including that pitch to Carter.

  2. Also, on behalf of a grateful nation, belated thanks to SI for shielding the Big Unit’s ugly mug behind his glove on the 1997 cover. It would have been a shock to go from Tyra Banks to Randy Johnson’s visage in a matter of weeks.

  3. Thanks, Jonathan. I must’ve copied it wrong from Baseball-Reference. Though, with all the facts and figures in this post, I was bound to get something wrong! And that’s probably not the only thing.

  4. Mark Fidrych was supposed to be the 1977 cover, but he got hurt in spring training. They used the Fidrych/Big Bird cover later in the season, when Mark returned. For 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981, the people on the covers had won an MVP the previous season.

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