The rest of the Previews/Predictions:
SML's AL East Preview
SML's NL Preview
Depressed Fan's AL Preview
Depressed Fan's NL Preview
The Vault (featuring predictions from The Fightin' Phils Fans, The Dodger Blues, Behind-The-Back Sports, and Green Pinstripes)
And The Serious Tip's picks
Now, on to our picks...
AL West
1. LA of Anaheim Angels
2. Texas Rangers
3. Seattle Mariners
4. Oakland A's
Let's start with the Angels, and let's preface this by making it clear that we think the Rangers will give the Angels a run for their money. One little injury and we're jumping on the Ranger's bandwagon, okay? Now, the Angels. Hitting? Yes, potential MVP candidate Vlad Guerrero, surrounded by lots of young talent, including future batting champ Howie Kendricks, Casey Kotchman, Kendry Morales, and catching prospect Jeff Mathis (if he can get some playing time behind another young catcher, Mike Napoli). But the problem with this team is that the Angels' offense is very dependent on Vlad. One injury, one tweak of that suspect 31-year old back of Vlad, and the Angels chances are gone. For that reason, we are sorely tempted to predict the Rangers on top, because SML senses an injury coming this year for Vlad.
The Angels have a solid pitching staff - the starters are lead by the most unknown ace in the AL, John Lackey (a fantasy stud who is always underrated - this is the year he wins about 17-19 games). Ervin Santana has loads of potential; Jered Weaver showed what his could do in his half-season last year. We've said it before - this Weaver is for real. Bartolo Colon is your fifth starter? That, friends, is a deep rotation. As deep as it gets in the AL. And the bullpen is also filthy, lead by K-Rod. Scott Shields is the best set-up guy in the division right now, maybe even all of baseball.
The Rangers are an interesting team. They have an amazingly talented young infield - 3B Hank Blalock still struggles against lefties, and in the second half, but possess lots of hitting ability; SS Michael Young is one of the top-3 hitting shorts in the AL (along with Jeter and Tejeda); 2B Ian Kinsler is the poor man's Kendrick, a young future .300 hitter; and Mark Texiera, despite a subpar season last year, is one of the biggest sluggers in baseball. He could hit a Ryan Howard-like number of homers this year (we have him pegged at 49, but he might top that). Unfortunately the outfield is suspect - Kenny Lofton is still playing?; B.B. Wilkerson strikes out way too much; I think I remember a Nelson Cruz from junior high. He was a chubby kid. He lost on Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. Expect some Sammy Sosa action here.
The starting rotation - not that good, either: Millwood is okay (great if he's going for a contract) and Padilla will do alright. The key is Brandon McCarthy, a giant of a pitcher whom Texas acquired from the Chicago Sox in the offseason. The kid can pitch; if he can harness it together he will jump up to the #1 spot, and all of a sudden the rotation will look decent.
The bullpen is solid. Otsuka was a decent closer last season, but this season will once again serve as a set-up pitcher in front of Eric Gagne (currently injured with a back problem, but will be back April 13th, supposedly). If Gagne is healthy and pitches even 75% as good as he was back in the day (when he was the best reliever in baseball, period), him and Otsuka are as solid a one-two punch in the pen as Shields-Rodriguez. Since there aren't too many teams with a reliable pen, you have to give the Rangers credit - they will win games late, games that teams with less sturdy pens will fumble away. That right there might be enough to keep them in contention.
The Mariners aren't going to be real contenders (they'll hang for a bit, though, especially if no one pulls away as we suspect) but they have some talent. Ichiro is playing for a contract, expect a big season from the former MVP. We like Felix Hernandez this season, expect a big June through September from the King. Jarrod Washburn, Horacio Ramierez, Miguel Batista, and Jeff Weaver are four pitchers that are almost identical in their utter unpredictability. Who knows?
The A's: Mike Piazza is their cleanup hitter. Their starting staff is headed by Rich Harden, who is turning into the AL's Mark Prior. Loiaza is in their rotation at #4. This is a last place team. We like Harden, we think he'll have a good bounce back year, hopefully stay healthy, but this team is not going to do much better than last.
AL Central
1. Minnesota Twins
2. Detroit Tigers
3. Chicago White Sox
4. Cleveland Indians
5. Kansas City Royals
Wow, its the most competitive division in the American League. Aside from penning in KC as a last place team (we like Alex Gordon, Zach Greinke, Octavio Dotel, and Mark Teahan for fantasy baseball purposes), any of the other four teams could win. So let's start with the Indians.
The Indians are the hot pick to win. Remember that come September - everyone was on the Indians bandwagon in April, okay. Yeah, I like Grady Sizemore. Along with Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner and maybe even Trot Nixon (can he play a full season for once?), the Indians will score runs. Still, we have our concerns. V-Mart had a slow start last year, and is defensively still weak as a catcher. Nixon is slow in the OF. The pitching staff is headed by Sabathia, who hasn't really improve any since his rookie year six season ago. In fact, he seems to have gotten slightly worse, though he still shows his potential enough to warrant excitement every April. I may regret writing this later, but Cliff Lee, Westbrook , Paul Byrd and Jeremy Sowers just don't impress me. I don't see any of them topping 14 victories. And the bullpen is still a mess, only now, thanks to the addition of Keith Foulke's corpse, its a supercrowded mess. Foulke, Betancourt, Cabrera, and Borowski won't so much compete for saves as rotate blown saves. This is your 2006 Atlanta Braves team right here, minus John Smotlze. See why I'm not excited?
The White Sox. Since their World Series win in 2005 they haven't impressed me with their moves. Thome is getting old, and Konerko is reaching the end of his prime. Jermaine Dye's 2006 season was out of the scope of his ability; he could do it, for sure, but we don't think he can. Or will. Joe Crede finally got it together last season, but despite all that this team couldn't win the division. The head of the staff remains the headcase that is Contreras; we wish him well. Really, we do. But the dude needs to get it together for real. Buerhle's got like 1,000 innings on his arm over the past 4 seasons; he's just an injury waiting to happen. Javier Vasquez is Spain-ish for Jose Contreras. We like Gavin Floyd, former Philly, at the 5-spot. Still, this team isn't good enough in my opinion.
We like the Tigers. They'll be focused this season, looking to make up for last season's blown World Series. The offense will be solid, with Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, and Ivan Rodriguez as the heart of the lineup. We like Shef's MVP chances this year - mark him down as a legit darkhorse candidate.
But the starting staff took a hit with the loss of Kenny Rogers. Reality check - even if he was healthy to start the season, last year was just the steroids, yo. Yeah, I'll say, even if it is irresponsible or whatever; Rogers must have been on steroids. Career year at 40? Please. That little red herring in the World Series, with the gunk on his glove - completely staged to throw people of the scent. Just like McGwire and his bottle of Andro that just "showed up" in his locker; a red herring. How'd you get so big, Sammy? "Creatine". Sure, dude. Look at Rogers' head, yo.
Bonderman and Verlander are great young pitchers. We see Bonderman taking another step forward this year; Verlander not so much. Verlander will have some problems this year, maybe injury-related... as noted in a lot of other places, he pitched a lot of innings last season (including the post-season). Todd Jones, Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney make the bullpen scary. But we still see the Tigers falling just short to the Twins.
The Twins, mo-fo? You done lost your mind, SML! Nah, baby - here's the deal: Santana. You ain't seen the best of Santana yet. Think about that for a second. What if I'm right? We could be talking 23-25 wins this season. I'm gonna say I think Santana, after his usual so-so April, is gonna be lights out. Boof Bonser, Silva, and the rest of the staff aren't great, but they'll benefit from riding behind Santana.
Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are the Twins' offense; expect more from them this season. And beyond that, the Twins don't have much. But we expect them to overachieve a bit, and win just enough to win the toughest division in the AL.
Awards:
Cy Young: Duh, we just said we think Santana is going to win like 23-25 games? Are we nuts? Perhaps. But you know what - the real question is who else is even going to do well this season, enough to compete with Santana? I've got nothing.
MVP: Santana will get votes, but we still think it'll be A-Rod. He's playing for a new contract, one. Two, it'll be the media (they vote for MVP, right) - the Boston-centric media (particularly ESPN) is gonna to switch from putting down A-Rod this season to supporting him, making for the incredible "A-Rod comeback story". Aside from giving them a new angle to write from, it'll also increase the odds of A-Rod opting out of his contract. Which would increase the odds of him being on a different team next season (perhaps the Red Sox? Nah, but the Cubs or Angels maybe.). Which will lead to more new stories for the media. It's too convenient. We're gonna go with A-Rod as our lock for MVP.
Again, after all our predictions, we will probably regret these picks, but as always: we challenge you to put your picks in the comment boxes. Let's see if you are more accurate than SML.
Note: all the cartoon images in this post came from this website, go check it out.
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5 Comments
Comments
Alright, yes, it is East Coast biased (vs. anywhere else). But relatively speaking - ESPN is full of columnists/talking heads that are Sox fans (Gammons, Simmons, Lupica et al). It's located in North Connecticut! ESPN's operations are based in Red Sox Nation. Hence, every A-Rod error is a national story, and the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry is overhyped.
For the record, its hyped by the Red Sox fans/media, not the Yankees. When I was a child, the Red Sox were not the Yankees rivals; the Mets were - that has changed over the past 10 years, great historical battles notwithstanding (1978 for example). That's because of the (N)ESPN influence.
But obviously, yes, the Yankees and Red Sox, as a whole, dominate the national coverage of baseball. Sorry L.A. lady. Maybe you should have stolen a team from Boston, instead ;)
I'm in L.A. now, but I've been a Red Sox fan my entire life. And when I was a kid, the Mets were the Red Sox rivals, too. But I think by virtue of sharing a division with the Yankees (not to mention the heated battles in the last decade), the Red Sox have to call the Bronx Bombers their biggest rival. Hyped by the media or not, there is a definite difference when those two teams play each other. And, hey, now that the Mets don't suck, maybe you'll get your childhood rivalry back.
You're right about ESPN's location and bias (particularly with the talking heads). And I think anyone who watches ESPN and isn't a Red Sox or Yankees fan must really hate both of these teams and ESPN. Even I get sick of us sometimes.
Yeah, there's no question they are now rivals.
I get sick of ESPN, of the hype, of the East Coast bias. Even as a Yankee fan, you know what? I want to know about Pujols, Guerrero, Santana. I want to know about the rest of the league. I want to see Grady Sizemore more than Johnny Damon on ESPN. Hey, if I want to see the Yanks, I can turn on the YES network, you know? I don't need that sh*t on ESPN, too.
I don't have any gripes with the picks, just with one comment. "Boston-centric media"? I hope that when you say "Boston" you also include "New York." ESPN worships the Yankees. Now, sure, they play a lot of Red Sox games, too. But I think that the Yankees finish first, with Boston a close second. Call it an East Coast bias if you must. But "Boston-centric"? Give me a break.