only a few days left until the start of the 2008 season… the time for prognostication is at hand.
disclaimer: i haven’t been keeping up regularly with spring training news (i only just found out about kaz matsui’s anal fissures the other day), so if any of my predictions end up wrong, i reserve the right to conveniently divorce myself from them.
AL west:
1. los angeles angels
2. seattle mariners
3. oakland athletics
4. texas rangers
the angels win their division convincingly and finish in the neighborhood of 92 wins, even though they failed to significantly upgrade their lineup (torii hunter is on the wrong side of 30 and still does not know how to draw lots of walks). the mariners improve their short-term situation with bedard, but not enough to overcome the joint effort of their corner infielders to hit for negative batting average. they finish second. the only tough choice here is whether to put the athletics or rangers in the cellar. i’m choosing the rangers for now, but if billy beane auctions off joe blanton and other veterans we may have a photo-finish in the race to the bottom.
AL central:
1. detroit tigers
2. cleveland indians
3. minnesota twins
4. chicago white sox
5. kansas city royals
the race in the central is very, very close. i give the edge to the tigers because their offense is a juggernaut. side prediction: they will lead the majors in scoring. the indians finish second in the division, but only one or two games behind detroit. let’s say detroit wins 96 games, cleveland 94. what to say about the bottom three? the twins don’t have enough pitching or offense to compete with the big two, though francisco liriano puts together an impressive bounceback season. let’s give him 13 wins and a sub-3.50 ERA. as for the white sox, these poor white sox… they actually finish ahead of the royals this year, but with gavin floyd as their third starter, there is no way i am penciling them in for anything better than a fourth place finish. the royals are the royals. as always. fifth.
is this picture really only two-and-a-half years old??
AL east:
1. boston red sox
2. new york yankees
3. toronto blue jays
4. tampa bay rays
5. baltimore orioles
boston is too deep, too strong… 99 wins for them. the yankees post a very good record but finish several games behind boston, due in part to some hank steinbrenner midseason-meddling. i foresee hank forcing cashman to make at least one ill-advised and costly trade this july (he is a steinbrenner, which means he can’t help himself). it’s the same old story for toronto. they have a couple of great pieces, like b.j. ryan and vernon wells (who bounces back from a mediocre 2007), but nowhere near enough depth to compete with the yanks or sox. the devil rays are a club on the rise and could compete for third place, if they only had pitching behind kazmir. the o’s finish last. they are actually worse than last year. what a sad, sad story. i’m having a hard such a hard time deciding whether the o’s or the white sox are the most depressing franchise in baseball right now that i will not weigh in here with a decision.
ALDS:
boston over cleveland
detroit over la angels
ALCS:
detroit over boston, in 6
coming soon… NL and World Series predictions
