Season Preview

Please take this with a grain of salt. Obviously, the MLB playoffs are the hardest thing to predict before the season, so I've come up with some "predictions" if the playoffs are populated by my previous predictions. Which are Boston, Detroit, Seattle & wild card New York in the American League and New York, Chicago, Los Angeles & wild card Arizona in the National League. And looking at those cities, you can imagine that Bud Selig and his croonies at Fox would LOVE these to be TV markets to make the playoffs.

In the American League Division Series:

The NL West is loaded with good pitching this year. And as it has been the past few years, expect a battle all the way down to the last week in September between as many as 4 of these teams - I'll give you a hint which team doesn't make a run at the division title, and it rhymes with Cleveland Indians OF Ben Francisco.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

Prediction: 90-72
Key Additions: Andruw Jones, Hiroki Kuroda, Joe Torre (manager)

Here we go with my first entry of the day, it's the terrible NL Central! It's really a crime that one of these six teams automatically makes the playoffs every year, especially since the playoffs are such a crapshoot, this crappy division winner could even win the whole thing (like St. Louis is 2006 - they finished just 83-78 and actually had a 2-9 slide in late September before winning 2 of their last 3 to win the division - horrible). Anyway, this division is so depressing to write about I have to come back later with my NL West predicitions.

I'm feeling saucy today, so I'm posting my 2nd helping of predictions today. Time to move on to the Senior Circuit, also known as the National League, where the pitchers hit and the teams are generally not as good as their American counterparts. Here's my look at the NL East:

1. New York Mets

Prediction: 92-70
Key Additions: Johan Santana, Brian Schneider, Ryan Church
Key Losses: Tom Glavine, Paul Lo Duca, Shawn Green, Jeff Conine

Here is part 3 of my 1st annual MLB Predictions. Today we'll touch on the tiny AL West.

1. Seattle Mariners

Prediction: 91-71
Key Additions: Erik Bedard, Carlos Silva, Brad Wilkerson
Key Losses: Ben Broussard, Jose Guillen, Adam Jones, George Sherrill
Projected Lineup: CF Ichiro, DH Vidro, 3B Beltre, LF Ibanez, 1B Sexson, C Johjima, RF Wilkerson, 2B Lopez, SS Betancourt

Here's part two of my seven part preview. I continue onward with the AL Central. Parts 3 thru 7 will be out next week, and go to my blog entries to see part 1.

1. Detroit Tigers

Prediction: 99-63
Key Additions: Miguel Cabrera, Edgar Renteria, Dontrelle Willis, Jacque Jones
Key Losses: Joel Zumaya (injury), Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller

Over the next few weeks, I'll be offering my preview and predictions for the upcoming season of Major League Baseball. This will be part 1 of a 7 part preview, the first 6 parts being each division's preview followed by my playoff predictions. So, on to the American League East Preview:

1. Boston Red Sox
Prediction: 97-65
Key Additions: Sean Casey
Key Losses: Eric Gagne, Curt Schilling (injured)