Okay, time for SML's baseball prophecy to be foretolded.  We'll start with the NL East:

 National League East:

1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Atlanta Braves
3. New York Mets
4. Florida Marlins
5. Washington Nationals

 Holy sh*t!  How can you pick the Mets to finish 3rd?  Well, not really.  They'll be in second for most of the season, but I see them fading at the end (like the Red Sox getting passed by the Blue Jays last season).  

First off, Philadelphia is the team to beat.  They have the offense, lead by MVP Ryan Howard, Notorious Fantasy Baseball Stud Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, even Pat Burrell.  They can slug as well as the Mets.  The difference this year is that their starting pitching is better.  Who would you rather have:  Freddy Garcia, Brett Myers and Cole Hamels (plus underrated back of the rotation studs Adam Eaton and Jamie Moyer), or the Mets staff, which is lead by the ancient Tom Glavine, the ancient and injury-prone Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez.  John Maine is a prospect that might someday make a decent #3 starter.  Banking on Wild Thing Oliver Perez is incredibly risky. 

The Mets will stablilize when Pedro Martinez comes back, and if Mike Pelfrey can adapt to pitching in the majors quickly.  But with Pedro out until mid-June at the earliest, we see the Phillies jumping out to a quick lead, and by June they will be 5 games ahead.

Also note that the Braves will not be as bad this season as they were last year.  Actually, to clarify: they weren't that bad last season, they just had a terrible bullpen.  The bullpen last year lead the league in blown saves with 24.  24!  If they held on to the lead for half of those games, it’s a different season, isn't it?

They solidified their bullpen by bringing back Bob Wickman, and adding Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzales.  In fact, they might now have the best bullpen in the division.  The rotation is still a little shaky (Smoltz is solid, Hudson needs to get back to what he was in Oakland, Chuck James is in the Mike Pelfrey "will he adapt" category, Mark Redman is a forever a 5th starter somewhere in this division, and I don't even know if they have named their 5th starter yet).

Finally: The Marlins are a nice young team with great young starting pitching, no bullpen, and some hitting (mostly Miguel Cabrera and Hanley Ramierez), but they won't win more than 72 games.  The Nationals are just plain awful.  They might overachieve, but that's because their expectations are set very very low.

National League West

1. San Diego Padres
2. Arizona Diamondbacks
3. San Francisco Giants
4. Los Angeles Dodgers
5. Colorado Rockies

Okay, we like the D-Backs this season.  Randy Johnson is back in a comfortable enviroment.  Look for a big bounceback from him.  Brandon Webb is one of the top two young pitchers in the NL (along with Carlos Zambrano) - expect another NL Cy Young like season from him.  Livian Hernandez is an inning-eating machine, which is what you want from your #3.  That'll help keep the bullpen fresh, which possesses some decent live arms - we like Jose Valverde, and Jorge Julio.  The young position players will be the key to the D-Backs season: Carlos Quentin, Stephen Drew (former #1 pick overall), Chris Young, and Conor Jackson are all prospects with high expectations.  If Chad Tracy can get some help, and if Arizona can acquire or find a decent cleanup hitter, they might make the playoffs.  

The Dodgers don't impress us.  Sorry The Dodger Blues, I like Jason Schmidt, and Brad Penny is going to break out bigly one of these years, but offensively they are banking on the over-the-hill trio of Nomar, Jeff Kent and Luis Gonzales to be productive.  Those steroid junkies haven't been productive since MLB adopted their current drug policy.  Coincidence?  

Speaking of steroids, that brings us to... Colorado.  And Todd Helton.  The young team looks good; I was real tempted to bump them up.  But I hesitated when I saw their "starting" rotation (we use starting in quotes because they will be lucky to get to the fifth inning on a regular basis).  From a Fantasy Baseball prospective, invest heavily in the offense - Helton will have a semi-comeback year (still not as powerful as earlier in career, though; not as long as steroids are banned), Matt Holliday is a stud, and Garrett Atkins is the realness at 3B.  They'll put up the numbers on offense.

Okay, and speaking of steroids... yes, this time its the Giants.  We like the team, but the loss of Jason Schmidt will hurt them a bit.  We don't understand why they didn't keep Schmidt at half the cost of Barry Zito, who might match Schmidt's numbers, but not exceed them.  We like Matt Cain, Matt Morris and Noah Lowry.  But the offense is weak, and unless Barry Bonds has one more MVP year left in him, they won't pass the D-backs or the Padres.

NL Central 

1. St. Louis Cardinals
2. Chicago cubs
3. Cincinnati Reds
4. Houston Astros
5. Milwaukee Brewers
6. Pittsburgh Pirates

 Albert Pujols is the best player in baseball.  Don't bet against him leading the Cards to the playoffs again.  The Astros will take a step back (no Pettite, no Clemens).  The Pirates and Brewers will improve, but we don't see either as a threat.  The Reds will surprise us for the first half of the season like they always do.  And then they will run out of gas, like they always do.  

That brings us to the new look Cubs, the only competition for the Cards in the division.  I like some of their moves, but it'll take them a bit to gel.  They'll sputter along early, but when they get Prior back (and Wood, though we believe Prior will actually be a legit contributor this season) they'll start to get some momentum.  I mean, you can't argue that Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramierez are able to compete with the top offenses in the NL (namely the Cards, Mets, and Phillies).  Carlos Zambrano is a Cy Young contender.  Rich Hill can make some moves.  But, as always, it comes down to Mr. Mark Prior.  If he can get healthy and contribute somewhat this season, the Cubs will get the wild-card spot.  If not, we're awarding it to the D-Backs or the Braves.

Final National League Predictions:

Playoff teams:  Phillies, Cardinals, Padres, and Cubs.

Cy Young contenders:  Brandon Webb beats out Carlos Zambrano, Barry Zito, Jason Schmidt and Randy Johnson (in that order).

MVP:  Pujols edges Howard (Utley gets alot of votes, cutting into Howard's chances of repeating).   

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