PREVIEW TO OPENING DAY

The last two or three seasons, I have made predictions as to what teams will win each division, and what order the teams will finish in. When picking the order I am conservative, and am not significantly swayed by all the overblown hype before each season. Rather, I try to thoughtfully and dispassionate evaluate each team's strengths and weaknesses and carefully weight other factors and come up with a reasonable order. 

What a stupid thing to do.

It seems like every year my list is so far off that I could have picked the names out of a hat. 

It is embarrassing, really. So this year, I decided to cut out the middleman and actually pick the names out of a hat. Last year I bought a set of 30 plastic, golf ball-side helmets, each one representing a Major League Baseball team. So I took the set, grouped them by division, and put one division at a time in an upturned orange-billed 2010 World Series Giants cap. I closed my eyes, and the first one I picked out is my pick to win the division, the second one is my pick for second place, and so on. It is not as crazy as it sounds; Yankees manager Billy Martin choose his batting order that way at least four times to break his team out of a slump.

Here are the results:

AL EAST:

1 Toronto Blue Jays

2 Boston Red Sox

3 New York Yankees

4 Tampa Bay Rays

5 Baltimore Orioles

AL CENTRAL:

1 Minnesota Twins

2 Detroit Tigers

3 Kansas City Royals

4 Cleveland Indians

5 Chicago White Sox

AL WEST (Now with the Houston Astros!):

1 Los Angeles Angels of Aneheim

2 Seattle Mariners

3 Houston Astros

4 Texas Rangers

5 Oakland Athletics

NL EAST:

1 Philadelphia Phillies

2 Atlanta Braves

3 Washington Nationals

4 New York Mets

5 Miami Marlins

NL CENTRAL (Now without the Houston Astros):

1 Chicago Cubs

2 Milwaukee Brewers

3 Cincinnati Reds

4 St. Louis Cardinals

5 Pittsburg Pirates

NL WEST:

1 Arizona Diamondbacks

2 San Francisco Giants

3 Colorado Rockies

4 Los Angeles Dodgers

5 San Diego Padres

So there you have it. The Cubs will win the NL Central pennant and. You heard it here first.

Ok, well that was all in good fun. But know I need to make my actual predictions.

For the NL West I was ablated by my duty as a Giants fan to pick SF, but I think that I would still pick them even if I was impartial. LA is the logical second choice. I have always thought that these overhyped, high-spending, flavor-of-the-month teams that make the news because they splurge on star players (LA, TOR, and LAA this year, MIA, LAA, and TEX last year, and so on) almost always fail, but LA is still balanced and young enough for its massive talent to be productive. Still, I expect them to underperform in the spotlight and not overtake the Giants. As San Diego and Colorado are each pitiful, AZ, which has many young pitchers with great potential, has to be the third team, and I picked SD over COL because of its pitching and younger talent.

The NL central has been an oligarchy for a long time, with STL, CIN, and MIL jostling for the pennant and PIT, CHC, and HOU jostling for less than 100 losses. HOU jumped over to the AL West, leaving the Cubbies and Buccos in the basement. Really, the order kind of falls into place Starting from the bottom, I picked the Cubs to finish last and the Pirates ahead of them because of their marginally respectable team, which has managed to compete in the early parts of the last few seasons before flaming out. Among the top three teams, I expect MIL to finish third because of the team's downward trend after Prince Fielder's departure, which I believe will be heightened after further damaging steroid allegations against the one remaining superstar, Ryan Braun. That leaves STL and CIN, both formidable teams. I just have to go with the Cards. I have seen few teams that combine such hitting and pitching power with the underdog, come-from-behind, play-as-a-team mentality. They almost remind me of the Giants.

In the NL East, much like the Central, we have two classes of teams. Washington and Atlanta on the one hand, and then all the others. For Miami and the Mets, the battle is to see which team will act less like a AAA teams, considering both rosters seem like one. Mike, ahem, Giancarlo Stanton, Logan Morrison, and the pitching give the clear advantage to Miami. Phillidelphia is third because it still has many good players, even if they are mostly (or all) several years past their prime. The Nats and Braves are both formidable teams; Washington is as scary as it was last year, and Atlanta greatly upgraded an already grade ball club, largely making making 2/3rds of its starting outfield an Upton Brother. I has to go with WAS, because great pitching will always, always, trump great hitting. Plus, Chipper Jones's departure might set ATL adrift without a clear leader.

For the AL West, I think it is a pretty safe bet to put the pitiful division newcomers, the Astros, at the very bottom, and the semi-pitiful Seattle team just above them. I also do not think that Oakland has any chance to repeat, not after sending the great hope Jemile Weeks back to the minor leagues. So it is a contest between the Rangers and the Angels for the top spot, and while, like I said before, I think that most of these overhyped, star-packed, $200 million teams are busts, you just can't argue with Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, and Mike Trout. That's not a lineup. That is the first three picks of a fantasy baseball draft.

Detroit is a good team, and I think that they will win again. I kind of stand alone in that I believe that the Royals, who are loaded with young, up-and-comming talent, will compete and come in second. Minnesota third because, unlike the White Sox and Indians, they actually have 3-4 names on their roster that a casual baseball fan would know. Go ahead, name as many Cleveland or Chicago South Side players as you can. Not a long list, huh?

The AL East always gets more attention than it deserves, maybe more than every other division combined, so I will serve up some poetic justice and give it the shortest preview out of any of the divisions. Which is kind of like a way to say "I am tired of writing" and not sound entirely lazy. All the teams are good, but with its strong starting pitching and perennial ability to play well despite low expectations and a budget lower than most Yucatec baseball teams (probably fewer fans, too). The Yankees have and excellent lineup and will be energized by Mariano Rivera's return. The Canadian team has a crazy-good roster, but like I said above, these things usually do not end so well. Then the Red Sox, who are mediocre, than the Orioles, who are a little worse. 

PREDICATIONS:

		HAT	JONAH
NL WEST	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	AZ SF COL LAD SD	SF LA AZ SD COL
NL CENTRAL	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	CHC MIL CIN STL PIT	STL CIN MIL PIT CHC
NL EAST	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	PHI ATL WAS NYM MIA	WAS ATL PHI MIA NYM
AL WEST	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	LAA SEA HOU TEX OAK	LAA TEX OAK SEA HOU
AL CENTRAL	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	MIN DET KC CLE CWS	DET KC MIN CWS CLE
AL EAST	1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	TOR BOS NYY TB BAL	TB NYY TOR BOS BAL