American League

Wow, that last post took forever. I have forgotten how long it takes to write a blog. I’ll keep this one short and only do a couple sentences about each team.  Also, it lets me play with the format. I forgot the NL Wild Card so I’ll include that here.

American League West

The Mariners-Not much to talk about here. They have Felix Hernandez and Ichiro. Last Place.

The A’s-A lot of talent and a lot of hype. Their offense is improved with the additions of Holliday, Giambi and Cabrera but their success depends on their pitching. Can you make the playoffs with two 21 year olds in your starting rotation? Not likely.

The Rangers-They will score 800-900 runs and still finish around .500. Maybe next year if they can get some pitching help from their farm system but not this year.

The Angels-A good team but not great. They have the pitching, barring any more injuries, to win the division and enough offense to carry them until Lackey and Escobar gets back. They have a good middle of the order as long as Vlad delivers and are solid defensively.

Winner: The Angels

American League Central

The Indians-Decent Pitching and a proven closer with Kerry Wood. A good offense on paper but if Hafner and Victor Martinez have another down year and Grady Sizemore doesn’t perform they will be in trouble. Fausto Carmona needs to have a bounceback year too. They have too many ifs for my liking.

The Tigers- Ahh, The Tigers. They look to have a good offense but where is the pitching going to come from? With no Zumaya and no Bonderman and Verlander in need of a good year, I am skeptical of their chances but you never know.

The Royals- A lot of young, developing players and solid pitching. Greinke, Meche and Bannister are a good 1-2-3 and with a decent bullpen, there is hope in Kansas City.

The White Sox- Something tells me that this team is going to slide back this year. There offense is relying on Thome and Konerko, which is scary, but Quentin and Ramirez showed a lot of promise last year. As long as their pitching holds up, they could repeat but I don’t think it will.

The Twins-What’s up with Joe Mauer? That’s a big hole to fill for the Twins. Other than that, they look good. Solid pitching, Cuddyer is back and the addition of Crede should put them over the top.

Winner: The Twins

American League East

The Yankees- We will get to them. Let’s just say, I’m not too high on them.

The Red Sox- This team is loaded with a ton of pitching and a ton of offense. Jason Bay benefit from a full season batting in that lineup. There’s not much to say. This team is stacked.

The Rays- The Rays should be the same as they were last year. The addition of Pat Burrell over Cliff Floyd is definitely an upgrade and their pitching will only get better. A full year with Evan Longoria will help to.

The Blue Jays- They have a dynamic offense that can only get better with a bounceback year from Vernon Wells. Unfortunately, it will be tough to compete in the AL East with their pitching. Outside of Halladay, they don’t have much. 

The Orioles- The Orioles, actually, look to be much improved this year. They have a bunch of young talent around the field and some decent pitching. I love their outfield arms. Could the Orioles finally be*gasp* rebuilding?

National League Wildcard: The Dodgers-I think that they will make a move for pitching that will help them return to the playoffs although Houston and Cincinnati are tempting.

American League Wildcard: The Devil Rays-They played well last year and they will play well again this year. Sorry Yankees, you’re too old for this party. 

National League Predictions

Since it is the start of the new season, I guess now is as good of a time as any to try some predictions. I think that this year is pretty wide open considering there are at least 18 teams that have legitimate shots at a playoff spot. In fact, I would say that there are only 5 teams that have little to no chance of making the playoffs this year (Seattle, Washington, Pittsburgh, Colorado and San Diego). Hope springs eternal, it is a new year and there is a lot to be optimistic about so let’s get started. I’ll do the National League now and the American League tomorrow.

National League East

It’s going to be a tough race all season between the top 4 teams in this division. Philadelphia brings back the majority of its team from last year lead by their excellent pitching staff and Cole Hamels. They replaced the loss of Pat Burrell with Raul Ibanez. This should be a defensive upgrade but offensively it remains to be seen. Burrell had a better OPS over the last three seasons with a better slugging percentage. Burrell and Ibanez did have a similar OBP over that span so to me; it’s relatively a wash. The big concern here is Ryan Howard.  He has seen a steady decline over the last 3 years in Average, Slugging and OBP while his strikeouts have gone up.  This is a red flag and could be an indication of things to come for the Phils.

The Mets are back and better than before with a rebuilt bullpen. They spent a lot of money in the offseason to get K-rod and Putz to the Big Apple with the hopes that this would lead them to the promised land. While Putz was solid in Seattle, can he do the same in the pressure of New York? And then there’s K-Rod, the master of the cardiac save. New York is going to LOVE him. The Mets also have some questions in their starting pitching. Besides Santana, they have questions that will be answered after the first month. Can someone say Jake Peavy? Offensively, I’m skeptical. Can a team with a platoon in Right AND Left Field make it to the playoffs? And Carlos Delgado isn’t getting any younger.

The Washington Nationals…have Adam Dunn.

The Atlanta Braves are interesting this year. They lost their staff ace(Tim Hudson) to Tommy John surgery but replaced him with Derek Lowe, a good sinkerballer who will benefit from the good Atlanta defense. They picked up Garrett Anderson in the offseason, who will ground out to second base every fourth at bat and has seen his HR totals decline over the last 4 seasons. They have a decent pitching staff, a decent offense and good defense.

Now we have the Florida Marlins, the team of eternal youth. Led by Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla on offense and with a bunch of good young pitching, they are a sleeper in this division. Getting Anibal Sanchez back is huge and if their pitching comes through, they are a threat in this division.

Winner: Phillies

National League Central

Lets eliminate the Pirates from contention right now. They are bad right now and don’t look to be getting better soon. I think the most interesting team in this division is the Reds. They have two great young pitchers in Volquez and Cueto to go along with Aaron Harang and a bullpen led by Francisco Cordero. If their young offensive stars like Jay Bruce and Joey Votto progress and Brandon Phillips has a good season, they could win this thing. Houston should be about a .500 team as long as Berkman, Lee and Oswalt have good seasons. Milwaukee is going to miss Sabathia and Sheets and their offense will have to carry them, which it can. St. Louis should be ok this year as long as Pujols stays healthy. St. Louis will find pitching from somewhere and if Chris Carpenter comes back to form, they will be good. Unfortunately, they are not quite good enough to win. The Cubs have, on paper, the best rotation in the league and a good bullpen. Kevin Gregg should do well replacing Kerry Wood but if he fails, they still have Carlos Marmol. The Cubs should have a great offense again and should win their division again.

Winner: Cubs

National League West

This division looks like a walk for the Dodgers with San Diego being down and Jeff Francis taking any hope that Colorado had with him but there are still some interesting teams in this division. San Francisco did a lot of little things in the offseason to improve. Getting Jeremy Affeldt and Bobby Howry to back up Brian Wilson greatly improves their bullpen and their rotation looks great this year. The Giants have a solid outfield with speed that will help to track balls in the outfield. Their offense plays to their park with gap hitters and and speed, something a certain team down south could learn from. While they don’t have the most talent, they have enough talent to steal some victories from the other teams.

Arizona is another team in this division with a great pitching staff, led by Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. They throw a lot of innings and take pressure off of the rest of the staff. This will be good for hidings their decent but not always reliable bullpen. They should get big production from their young offense and it wasn’t too long ago that these players were in the playoffs.

The Dodgers won this division last year and are the favorites to win it this year.  They have a lot of good offense in their outfield with Manny, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier and a solid infield with Furcal, Orlando Hudson and James Loney. This team will score runs. The only question I have is about the starting pitching. They need Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsly to have good season to win the division and that is never a good sign. Their bullpen is good but will miss Saito and Joe Beimel. While keeping Manny was big, it doesn’t help their pitching.

Winner: Arizona