Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
Prediction 2: The Yankees won't win their fourth straight title this year. I mean, the law of averages has to catch up with them, right? Just kidding! Their age is catching up with them, and the addition of Mike Mussina won't be enough. The Yankees will win the A.L. East, but they'll fall in the playoffs. I admit this might be wishful thinking, but I like wishful thinking. It's good for the economy. Here's the prediction: Oakland wins the pennant.
Prediction 3: If I'm picking the A's to win the flag, I guess I better pick them to win the West, so, OK, I do. But I'm not entirely convinced. I guess what I'm saying is that if they win the West, that means they didn't stumble, which means they're good enough to win the pennant. But they might stumble. They did help themselves by trading Ben Grieve for Johnny Damon, and the pitching looks good. But it also looks like it's one sophomore slump and one old-guy breakdown away from being not so good, and Jason Isringhausen is not exactly a rock-solid closer. And the new high strike zone might do real damage to an offense that depends so heavily on walks.
Seattle won't hit a lot -- I don't believe the hype about Ichiro Suzuki, the Japanese phenom -- but the Mariners can pitch. (The Mariners can pitch -- it sounds funny, doesn't it? The way "The Indians are pretty good" sounded in the mid-'90s.) That should keep them close if the A's do falter. The Rangers went out and got Alex Rodriguez, but they also got Andres Galarraga, Randy Velarde and Ken Caminiti, making them real contenders for the '96 pennant. They and the Angels, in that order, will be also-rans.
Prediction 4: Speaking of the Indians: They're pretty good. I'm picking them to win the Central over the White Sox. They were terrific in the second half last year, and their lineup, as usual, will score a lot of runs. The question is whether Cleveland's mediocre and injury-plagued pitching will be better than Chicago's mediocre and injury-plagued pitching. I say yes, but only because that squirrel in Pennsylvania saw its shadow last month. What I mean is, I don't know, but they don't pay me to say I don't know. Anyway, whichever team doesn't win the Central will be the wild card.
There will be a huge gap between second place and third, which I think Detroit, even without injured catcher Mitch Meluskey, will win over Kansas City, in case you care, which means you live in Detroit or Kansas City. And that you might need to get out more. The Royals will score some, but when your best pitcher is -- if you don't know, I'm not gonna tell you, and you don't know, do you? -- you're not going anywhere. The Twins will finish last, and any year when the World Series is not played in the Metrodome is a pretty good year.
Observation 2: Actually a question. Am I the only one who thinks that unless Mike Sirotka's injury debilitates him permanently, sending him to Toronto for David Wells was a bad idea for the White Sox? Chicago traded a pretty solid 30-year-old left-hander for a pretty solid 38-year-old left-hander. (Those will be their ages by mid-May.) The White Sox say they needed Wells, who has vast and successful postseason experience, to take that next step, winning in October. But the starters were fine in the Sox's three-game sweep at the hands of Seattle last year: 19 innings, eight runs, seven earned. That's a 3.32 ERA. Two of the starts were good enough to earn a win. The problem was that Chicago scored three runs in the last two games. How does Wells address that problem?
Observation 3: I don't know how long this suddenly overused term has been around, but I've only been hearing it recently: inning eater. That's a No. 4 or 5 starter who can be counted on to give you plenty of innings, which saves your bullpen. Those innings might not be so good -- think of the Angels' Scott Schoeneweis (7-10, 5.45 ERA, 6.3 innings per start last year) or the Mets' Steve Trachsel (8-15, 4.80, 5.9 innings for Tampa Bay and Toronto) -- but, by golly, they're innings! This is thought of as a compliment, which tells you all you need to know about the state of pitching these days.
Prediction 5: St. Louis aside, the National League Central looks like baseball's weakest division. The Cardinals shouldn't have any trouble walking away with it, but there are some intriguing possibilities here. With the unbalanced schedule, an also-ran that has a decent year could fatten up on all those games against weak division-mates and win the wild card.
Everybody in the division has reason to be optimistic -- that's what spring training is for, after all. The hip prediction is that the Astros will rebound from their weirdly awful 2000 and make the playoffs. Maybe so, but I kinda like Cincinnati. I'm always intrigued when a team throws over one of those old-school, revolving-door managers (Jack McKeon in this case) for relatively fresh blood (Bob Boone, who managed Kansas City for two-and-a-half years). Plus, the Reds hit reasonably well last year even while Ken Griffey Jr. and Sean Casey struggled. Unless Griffey's hamstring injury plagues him all year, there's every reason to assume they'll both bounce back. And Cincinnati's pitching isn't half-bad, although -- Osvaldo Fernandez? -- it's a little thin. I'm picking the Reds as the wild card, just, you know, to have something to do.
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