2016 MLB Thread

[thatshortguy]

@Buschan Danielson may have cause to worry, as there is some odd stuff going on with Matt Harvey.

[ThrillhouseMAX]

Nooooooo, stop saying that.

[The Buscher]

First off I hope everything is okay with him.  The Mets have stressed that it is a non-baseball related medical issue and have downplayed the importance of it, Alderson basically just said it's a "wait and see" deal.  Like anybody else I can't help but have a few thoughts pop into my head right away but it's really unfair to speculate.

For what it's worth the Mets beat reporters have been told by a source familiar with Harvey's situation that the absolute worst case scenario would be that he skips a week or a turn in the rotation or something.  Given that the Mets (stupidly) have three off-days in the first week of the season alone they wouldn't even need a 5th starter until the middle of the second week, which would only be the 7th game of the entire season.  So if Harvey's back by then it's really no big deal.

[thatshortguy]

Reports are Harvey has a blood clot in his bladder.  Not a serious thing to treat now, but could be a sign of something later. 

Like everything else, ever. 

[The Buscher]

He had some sort of minor procedure done on Monday.  Glad he got it checked out, blood clots are no joke.

Harvey's also proclaimed himself ready to go for Opening Night.  Can't wait.  Still mulling buying tickets to the home opener even though the cheapest ones I can find are $100 + tax and that's for standing room only.

[Meacon Keaton]

How the times have changed. Three years ago you couldn't give someone $100 to watch the Mets.

[The Buscher]

Even in the bad years I usually head to Citi a few times a year, some of them late in the season long after they've been eliminated.  A few times my deliciously unhealthy meal at Shake Shack wound up being more expensive than the cheap seat I was sitting in.

I have a ton going on this year though so I PROBABLY shouldn't splurge on the extra expensive Opening Day tickets when there are 80 other home games.  It's not every year that you get to see a pennant celebration, though.  We'll see.  I've already booked the day off regardless. 

[thatshortguy]

Damn, shame about Pablo Sandoval, eh @Cloudy?

[MalaCloudy Black]

Yeah I saw that this morning. Oh well!

[The Buscher]

With the first pitch of the 2016 season tomorrow night, it’s time to go ahead and post my annual predictions (even though I had taken my ball and went home before having a chance to post them on here ).  Last season I had four of the five NL playoff teams correct, albeit I had my Mets as a wild card, not winning the division.  And Toronto were the only AL playoff team I guessed correctly.  My Freeway World Series prediction of course did not come to fruition with the Angels narrowly missing out on a Wild Card berth, and the eventual world champion Royals I had finishing in fourth place.  Let’s see how I fare this year:

Regular Season Standings

American League East
1. New York Yankees
2. Toronto Blue Jays (Wild Card 1)
3. Boston Red Sox
4. Tampa Bay Rays
5. Baltimore Orioles

The AL East is habitually one of the hardest divisions to pick.  But in the end I’m going to go with the old guard in the Yankees, quite literally in this case as they have the oldest roster in the entire league.  They are far from a perfect team; their aging position players seemed to fade in the dog days of summer last year and their rotation is questionable especially with the ever-looming concern about Tanaka’s elbow.  But that back-end of the bullpen is absurd and they should be able to win just about any game that they’re winning after six innings, maybe even earlier.  They could just be following the Royals model in terms of allowing your incredible bullpen to offset a less than stellar group of starting position players.  The Yankees stave off a late charge from Toronto to win their first division title in four years.

I’m not willing to write Toronto out of the postseason entirely, they should still be able to tear the cover off of the ball although Tulowitzki is always an injury risk and who knows if Bautista and Encarnacion’s contract situations become a distraction.  Stroman is really good but the real X factor for them will be if Aaron Sanchez can solidify himself as a legitimate #2 starter.  Boston will be improved over a year ago and Price is a Cy Young frontrunner but I still think they’re going to need to swing a trade for another starter and I have no idea if Hanley will rebound to be a force in the lineup.  Tampa Bay seems solid overall and have a good front three but I can’t really find any reason to put them into October this year.  The Orioles just seem to be all over the place.  Machado is one of the best players in baseball but I still think they overpaid spectacularly for Davis and that rotation leaves a lot to be desired.

American League Central
1. Kansas City Royals
2. Cleveland Indians (Wild Card 2)
3. Detroit Tigers
4. Minnesota Twins
5. Chicago White Sox

As mentioned I left the Royals out of the playoffs altogether last year, I’m not about to make that mistake again.  While they did lose Ben Zobrist they still kept their lineup mostly intact, and they are capable of just grinding out one quality at-bat after another along with playing nearly flawless defense.  Their bread and butter is still the bullpen, with Greg Holland this year being replaced by Joakim Soria.  As in year’s past this group of hard-throwing relievers should help take some of the burden off of what looks to be a less than stellar starting rotation.  However just like last year, the opportunity is very much in play for them to try to swing a deadline deal for a starting pitcher.  Either way I still feel this is a very well-rounded ball club and I have no hesitation with picking them to repeat as division champions.

Cleveland had high hopes for the Indians last year but a bad start really put them behind the 8-ball right out of the gate. I am bullish on their collection of young, hard-throwing starters though and feel their lineup is even better than it was a year ago.  It’s a mostly young team that now has had some extra seasoning, and in a competitive AL I think enough of them to give them the other Wild Card spot.  I really liked the moves the Tigers made this offseason and think they should be in Wild Card contention for much of the year, my main concern is whether or not Cabrera or V-Mart can stay on the field all year.  The Twins caught everybody by surprise last year and feature two players who should be exciting to watch for years to come in Buxton and Sano, by next year they could be a division threat.  I feel that the off-field LaRoche drama set a bad tone for the White Sox, although I’m expecting a typically stellar year from Chris Sale.

American League West
1. Houston Astros
2. Seattle Mariners
3. Texas Rangers
4. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
5. Oakland Athletics

Years of tanking appeared to finally pay dividends for the Astros last season, and I expect them to take another step further this year.  For starters you have three dynamic young players anchoring the lineup in Correa, Altuve, and Springer.  Then on the mound you’ve got a trio of young guys who sound like they’d make for a good law firm:  Keuchel, McHugh, and McCullers.  And then they pounced on what appeared to be their biggest deficiency last season in the bullpen and helped to shore that up by bringing in a hard-throwing stopper in Ken Giles along with re-signing one of their good returning pitchers in Tony Sipp.  I just love the look of this team altogether, and perhaps there is no division winner I’m more confident in picking that the Astros winning their first AL West title. 

The Mariners had high expectations last year and they under-achieved big time.  But I’m thinking bigger years for Cano and Felix (who had “down years” in 2015 despite still being pretty good) and the nice bullpen additions of Cishek and Benoit could lead to meaningful games in September.  The Rangers should theoretically be good but without knowing how Yu Darvish is going to fare when he makes his eventual return or knowing whether or not Josh Hamilton can turn back the clocks to 2012 it’s tough for me to pick them over the Astros.  Mike Trout is still the best overall player in baseball in my opinion but I just see too many question marks surrounding the Angels this year.  The A’s have one of the best pitchers in the league in Sonny Gray but they still are filled with defensive butchers and it’s tough to win in a ballpark that big when Moneyball has decided that defense is unimportant.

National League East
1. New York Mets
2. Washington Nationals (Wild Card 2)
3. Miami Marlins
4. Philadelphia Phillies
5. Atlanta Braves

First off any discussion about the Mets’ chances has to begin with the Four Horsemen in the rotation, with Zack Wheeler hopeful to join them in July.  As long as they can stay healthy it’s scary to imagine them being even better this year.  The lineup is very similar in depth to the one they had down the stretch last year except with Walker/Cabrera replacing Murphy/Flores in the middle infield, which looks like a lateral at worst and slight upgrade at best.  Wilmer “Tears of Joy” Flores is still there to anchor a pretty deep looking bench that appears poised to be able to withstand injuries that might come up.  I do still have some concerns about the bullpen and some of the defensive woes the team suffered last year could still be there (particularly Cespedes in center) but at the end of the day I still really like the look of this team.  Yes, they are my favorite team.  Yes, this is the first time I’ve ever picked the Mets to win the division since I started doing real predictions.  Yes, I’m slightly terrified that if things go off the rails somehow it will be all my fault for jinxing them.  But this appears to be the deepest team the Mets have assembled heading into an opener since at least 2006.  If you’re a Mets fan and can’t shake your paranoia long enough to pick the Mets to win the division this year, you’ll never pick them.

I shamelessly wrote more about the Mets than any other team because they’re my favorites, but it’s still no given that they win the division.  The Nationals had a ton of pressure on them last year, and this year the target is off their backs.  They suffered a ton of bad luck last year with injuries to key players such as Rendon and Werth, I can only assume that kind of bad luck is unsustainable.  They still have the reigning MVP in Harper, Scherzer to head up their rotation, and they added a ton of bullpen help.  I could easily see the division not being decided until the final weekend of the season.  The Marlins are a team I could see being around .500 but that comes with the big caveat that Stanton and Fernandez stay on the field.  The team will go as far as those two take them.  I really don’t know what to say about the Phillies and Braves, I gave a Wild Card spot to the NL East in part because they get to play these two doormats so many times.  Neither of those clubs seems interested in contending in 2016.

National League Central
1. Chicago Cubs
2. St. Louis Cardinals (Wild Card 1)
3. Pittsburgh Pirates
4. Cincinnati Reds
5. Milwaukee Brewers

Even though the NL Central has three bona fide contenders in it, the Cubs seem to be a near-unanimous pick to win it.  As much as I would like to find a reason to be a contrarian, I can’t.  They haven’t lost any key players from their stellar 2015 team, added a versatile guy in Zobrist who Maddon will be able to utilize to the best of his abilities, and took Heyward and Lackey from their archrival in the division.  They still have the reigning Cy Young Winner in Arrieta, a really good #2 in Lester who most thought would be the ace of the staff, and a small army of young power hitters who should send balls flying over the ivy with regularity in Rizzo, Bryant, and Schwarber.  Add all of that up and what you have is a team that seems more than poised to make this a really fun year on the North Side.

I’ve often said that the Cardinals need to be picked to make the playoffs every year until they don’t actually make it.  In fairness though, they should still be excellent.  Look for Grichuk and Piscotty to start to really establish themselves as big league starting outfielders, and of course they’ve still got Molina behind the plate to guide the pitching staff.  Truthfully it doesn’t seem to matter much who gets injured for them during the year, they always find a way.  I feel bad leaving the Pirates out as I think they are really good and think the world of McCutchen, they should be in the race right to the bitter end and at the end of the day the difference is going to come down to who can manhandle the division jesters the most.   The Reds and Brewers don’t appear to be Phillies and Braves bad, but they’re still quite dreadful.

National League West
1. San Francisco Giants
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
4. San Diego Padres
5. Colorado Rockies

The Dodgers have been labeled as the prohibitive favorites in most of the betting lines but I’m giving the West to the Giants this year.  First off I thought Cueto and Samardzija were really good additions for them and adding them to Bumgarner, Peavy, and Cain gives them a stable of experienced, quality starters.  The bullpen is filled with veteran arms who have been through the rigors of a pennant chase before.  Aside from Posey there may not be another player in the lineup that totally blows you away but they have guys who look like they could put up All Star quality campaigns pretty much all around the diamond, and I think getting Hunter Pence back will be huge for them as he was sorely missed for a large chunk of last season.  Overall they just look like a really well-rounded team.

I’m definitely going against the grain by picking the Dodgers to not even make the playoffs at all, even Baseball Prospectus gave them a 75% chance of making it – higher than any other team.  I’m not sure I understand the hype.  Kershaw is obviously amazing but there is no way of knowing if the rest of the rotation will stay healthy or how Maeda will do in his first foray into the big leagues.  Puig should be a perennial MVP candidate but I question if he’s ever going to get his head straight, he seems like a loose cannon.  So yeah, I’m leaving them out of the playoffs which of course means they’ll go on to win the World Series a year after I actually picked them to do so.  Arizona should be competitive and very much in the Wild Card fight but I must admit this late spring injury to Pollock could be devastating.  The Padres were possibly baseball’s biggest disappointment last year and may continue to even further strip down their roster after last offseason’s spending spree.  Colorado looks like it will have a typical Rockies year – amazing offensive numbers from a few guys (especially Arenado) but just not enough pitching to make a serious run to October yet.


Awards

American League
MVP:  Carlos Correa, Houston Astros
Cy Young:  Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox
Rookie of the Year:  Byung-Ho Park, Minnesota Twins
Comeback Player of the Year:  Jacoby Ellsbury, New York Yankees
Manager of the Year:  A.J. Hinch, Houston Astros

While I still think Mike Trout is the best player in baseball, he’d need to absolutely blow away the competition to win MVP on a fourth place team.  Therefore I’m giving the nod to Correa who can not only put up big numbers but do so at a premium position.  MVP numbers from Correa would go a long way towards getting Hinch an award too.  I was thinking of going with Buxton for Rookie of the Year but then shifted course to the Korean import Park, who could put up big power numbers for Minnesota.  I’ll go with Sale winning an award in an otherwise bleak year on the South Side.  It’s always tough to guess the Comeback award – it’s either a guy coming back from a prolonged injury and playing well or a guy strongly rebounding from a crappy season.  I’ll go with the latter and say Ellsbury redeems himself after winding up on the pine down the stretch for the Yankees last year.

National League
MVP:  Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals
Cy Young:  Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers
Rookie of the Year:  Corey Seager, Los Angeles Dodgers
Comeback Player of the Year:  Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals
Manager of the Year:  Dusty Baker, Washington Nationals

Well, I’ve gone to Chalk City with these picks.  Harper coming anywhere close to his 2015 numbers should trump anything else if Washington does indeed make the playoffs.  I also considered Rizzo and Bryant but they might cancel each other out to a degree.  Kershaw is amazing enough that you can practically guarantee he’ll be a finalist at bare minimum, so him winning the award is a safe bet.  Seager is the runaway favorite for Rookie of the Year.  I make no shortage of jokes about Baker but the old school voters love him and besides it’d be tougher for a guy like Maddon to win the award when everybody already has huge expectations for the Cubs.  Wainwright missed basically all of last season to injury but even though he got back in time for the playoffs I’d have to think that him staying on the mound and delivering anything close to a typical Wainwright year would make him a strong contender for the Comeback award.


Playoffs

Wild Card Games
Indians over Blue Jays
Cardinals over Nationals

I’ll probably whiff on half of my playoff teams, so trying to pick two individual games is lunacy.  Literally anything can happen in a single game.  Anyway, let’s just say the Toronto offense picks a bad time to have an off-day as Kluber keeps them off balance.  Meanwhile the battle-tested Cardinals pull out a win over the Nationals following some really questionable decisions from Dusty Baker (see?  I told you there would be no shortage of jokes).

Division Series
Royals over Indians
Astros over Yankees
Cubs over Cardinals
Giants over Mets

A best-of-three series really isn’t all that much less random than a one game series.  It’s all about who gets hot at the right time.  Let’s say the Cubs handle the Cardinals in the NLDS again, while the Royals also dispose of their divisional foes.  The Astros and Yankees also meet in a rematch from last year’s playoffs and the Astros prevail once again.  I obviously love the Mets rotation but I also said some very nice things about the Giants’ as well.  Putting my personal preferences aside, history says that the safer bet the Even Year Giants ©.

Championship Series
Astros over Royals
Giants over Cubs

I have to imagine that the Astros still have some open wounds from last year’s ALDS.  They came so close to knocking off the Royals only to pretty much choke it away and then have to watch the Royals go on to win the whole thing.  But I think they’re good enough to head into a series of like this and try to eradicate the demons from the year before.  Astros go on to knock off the division champs in a fun series.  The Giants’ rotation is good but they don’t have the kind of power arms that typically give the Cubs trouble.  Unfortunately though baseball is a weird game and the playoffs, as mentioned, are about who gets hot at the right time, and no team eems to get hotter than the Even Year Giants ©.

World Series
Giants over Astros

This is Houston’s fourth year in the AL and I’m still not used to it.  Just imagining them representing the Junior Circuit in the World Series feels weird to me.  But anyway, this series would almost resemble the 2014 one a bit.  You’d have a team with no shortage of recent success going up against a team that nobody could have imagined would be a World Series team just two years earlier.  By this point I’d have to assume that Houston would be the sentimental favorites and that just about everybody outside of San Francisco would want them to win.  But sentiments only get you so far in baseball, and that means the 2016 World Series will be won by, let’s say it one more time:  the Even Year Giants ©.  As for a MVP pick, it seldom seems to be the clear-cut best bat in the lineup and it’s tough to imagine Bumgarner replicating his ridiculous 2014 showing, so let’s go ahead and take a flyer on a guy who could contend for Comeback Player of the Year:  Hunter Pence.

[GhostMachine]

I hope you're wrong about the NL Central. Cubs winning the division would be wonderful, but I'd rather have just about NL (not just Central) team other than the Cardinals make the wild card. Sick of seeing them in the playoffs.

Sadly I think you're dead on about where the Reds will finish........

[Meacon Keaton]

I'd be a-ok winning the East in one of the final "Let's just ride out these terrible contracts" years.

[thatshortguy]

   .

7 hours ago, Buschan Danielson said:

With the first pitch of the 2016 season tomorrow night, it’s time to go ahead and post my annual predictions (even though I had taken my ball and went home before having a chance to post them on here ).  Last season I had four of the five NL playoff teams correct, albeit I had my Mets as a wild card, not winning the division.  And Toronto were the only AL playoff team I guessed correctly.  My Freeway World Series prediction of course did not come to fruition with the Angels narrowly missing out on a Wild Card berth, and the eventual world champion Royals I had finishing in fourth place.  Let’s see how I fare this year:

Regular Season Standings

American League East
1. New York Yankees
2. Toronto Blue Jays (Wild Card 1)
3. Boston Red Sox
4. Tampa Bay Rays
5. Baltimore Orioles

The AL East is habitually one of the hardest divisions to pick.  But in the end I’m going to go with the old guard in the Yankees, quite literally in this case as they have the oldest roster in the entire league.  They are far from a perfect team; their aging position players seemed to fade in the dog days of summer last year and their rotation is questionable especially with the ever-looming concern about Tanaka’s elbow.  But that back-end of the bullpen is absurd and they should be able to win just about any game that they’re winning after six innings, maybe even earlier.  They could just be following the Royals model in terms of allowing your incredible bullpen to offset a less than stellar group of starting position players.  The Yankees stave off a late charge from Toronto to win their first division title in four years.

I’m not willing to write Toronto out of the postseason entirely, they should still be able to tear the cover off of the ball although Tulowitzki is always an injury risk and who knows if Bautista and Encarnacion’s contract situations become a distraction.  Stroman is really good but the real X factor for them will be if Aaron Sanchez can solidify himself as a legitimate #2 starter.  Boston will be improved over a year ago and Price is a Cy Young frontrunner but I still think they’re going to need to swing a trade for another starter and I have no idea if Hanley will rebound to be a force in the lineup.  Tampa Bay seems solid overall and have a good front three but I can’t really find any reason to put them into October this year.  The Orioles just seem to be all over the place.  Machado is one of the best players in baseball but I still think they overpaid spectacularly for Davis and that rotation leaves a lot to be desired.

American League Central
1. Kansas City Royals
2. Cleveland Indians (Wild Card 2)
3. Detroit Tigers
4. Minnesota Twins
5. Chicago White Sox

As mentioned I left the Royals out of the playoffs altogether last year, I’m not about to make that mistake again.  While they did lose Ben Zobrist they still kept their lineup mostly intact, and they are capable of just grinding out one quality at-bat after another along with playing nearly flawless defense.  Their bread and butter is still the bullpen, with Greg Holland this year being replaced by Joakim Soria.  As in year’s past this group of hard-throwing relievers should help take some of the burden off of what looks to be a less than stellar starting rotation.  However just like last year, the opportunity is very much in play for them to try to swing a deadline deal for a starting pitcher.  Either way I still feel this is a very well-rounded ball club and I have no hesitation with picking them to repeat as division champions.

Cleveland had high hopes for the Indians last year but a bad start really put them behind the 8-ball right out of the gate. I am bullish on their collection of young, hard-throwing starters though and feel their lineup is even better than it was a year ago.  It’s a mostly young team that now has had some extra seasoning, and in a competitive AL I think enough of them to give them the other Wild Card spot.  I really liked the moves the Tigers made this offseason and think they should be in Wild Card contention for much of the year, my main concern is whether or not Cabrera or V-Mart can stay on the field all year.  The Twins caught everybody by surprise last year and feature two players who should be exciting to watch for years to come in Buxton and Sano, by next year they could be a division threat.  I feel that the off-field LaRoche drama set a bad tone for the White Sox, although I’m expecting a typically stellar year from Chris Sale.

American League West
1. Houston Astros
2. Seattle Mariners
3. Texas Rangers
4. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
5. Oakland Athletics

Years of tanking appeared to finally pay dividends for the Astros last season, and I expect them to take another step further this year.  For starters you have three dynamic young players anchoring the lineup in Correa, Altuve, and Springer.  Then on the mound you’ve got a trio of young guys who sound like they’d make for a good law firm:  Keuchel, McHugh, and McCullers.  And then they pounced on what appeared to be their biggest deficiency last season in the bullpen and helped to shore that up by bringing in a hard-throwing stopper in Ken Giles along with re-signing one of their good returning pitchers in Tony Sipp.  I just love the look of this team altogether, and perhaps there is no division winner I’m more confident in picking that the Astros winning their first AL West title. 

The Mariners had high expectations last year and they under-achieved big time.  But I’m thinking bigger years for Cano and Felix (who had “down years” in 2015 despite still being pretty good) and the nice bullpen additions of Cishek and Benoit could lead to meaningful games in September.  The Rangers should theoretically be good but without knowing how Yu Darvish is going to fare when he makes his eventual return or knowing whether or not Josh Hamilton can turn back the clocks to 2012 it’s tough for me to pick them over the Astros.  Mike Trout is still the best overall player in baseball in my opinion but I just see too many question marks surrounding the Angels this year.  The A’s have one of the best pitchers in the league in Sonny Gray but they still are filled with defensive butchers and it’s tough to win in a ballpark that big when Moneyball has decided that defense is unimportant.

National League East
1. New York Mets
2. Washington Nationals (Wild Card 2)
3. Miami Marlins
4. Philadelphia Phillies
5. Atlanta Braves

First off any discussion about the Mets’ chances has to begin with the Four Horsemen in the rotation, with Zack Wheeler hopeful to join them in July.  As long as they can stay healthy it’s scary to imagine them being even better this year.  The lineup is very similar in depth to the one they had down the stretch last year except with Walker/Cabrera replacing Murphy/Flores in the middle infield, which looks like a lateral at worst and slight upgrade at best.  Wilmer “Tears of Joy” Flores is still there to anchor a pretty deep looking bench that appears poised to be able to withstand injuries that might come up.  I do still have some concerns about the bullpen and some of the defensive woes the team suffered last year could still be there (particularly Cespedes in center) but at the end of the day I still really like the look of this team.  Yes, they are my favorite team.  Yes, this is the first time I’ve ever picked the Mets to win the division since I started doing real predictions.  Yes, I’m slightly terrified that if things go off the rails somehow it will be all my fault for jinxing them.  But this appears to be the deepest team the Mets have assembled heading into an opener since at least 2006.  If you’re a Mets fan and can’t shake your paranoia long enough to pick the Mets to win the division this year, you’ll never pick them.

I shamelessly wrote more about the Mets than any other team because they’re my favorites, but it’s still no given that they win the division.  The Nationals had a ton of pressure on them last year, and this year the target is off their backs.  They suffered a ton of bad luck last year with injuries to key players such as Rendon and Werth, I can only assume that kind of bad luck is unsustainable.  They still have the reigning MVP in Harper, Scherzer to head up their rotation, and they added a ton of bullpen help.  I could easily see the division not being decided until the final weekend of the season.  The Marlins are a team I could see being around .500 but that comes with the big caveat that Stanton and Fernandez stay on the field.  The team will go as far as those two take them.  I really don’t know what to say about the Phillies and Braves, I gave a Wild Card spot to the NL East in part because they get to play these two doormats so many times.  Neither of those clubs seems interested in contending in 2016.

National League Central
1. Chicago Cubs
2. St. Louis Cardinals (Wild Card 1)
3. Pittsburgh Pirates
4. Cincinnati Reds
5. Milwaukee Brewers

Even though the NL Central has three bona fide contenders in it, the Cubs seem to be a near-unanimous pick to win it.  As much as I would like to find a reason to be a contrarian, I can’t.  They haven’t lost any key players from their stellar 2015 team, added a versatile guy in Zobrist who Maddon will be able to utilize to the best of his abilities, and took Heyward and Lackey from their archrival in the division.  They still have the reigning Cy Young Winner in Arrieta, a really good #2 in Lester who most thought would be the ace of the staff, and a small army of young power hitters who should send balls flying over the ivy with regularity in Rizzo, Bryant, and Schwarber.  Add all of that up and what you have is a team that seems more than poised to make this a really fun year on the North Side.

I’ve often said that the Cardinals need to be picked to make the playoffs every year until they don’t actually make it.  In fairness though, they should still be excellent.  Look for Grichuk and Piscotty to start to really establish themselves as big league starting outfielders, and of course they’ve still got Molina behind the plate to guide the pitching staff.  Truthfully it doesn’t seem to matter much who gets injured for them during the year, they always find a way.  I feel bad leaving the Pirates out as I think they are really good and think the world of McCutchen, they should be in the race right to the bitter end and at the end of the day the difference is going to come down to who can manhandle the division jesters the most.   The Reds and Brewers don’t appear to be Phillies and Braves bad, but they’re still quite dreadful.

National League West
1. San Francisco Giants
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
4. San Diego Padres
5. Colorado Rockies

The Dodgers have been labeled as the prohibitive favorites in most of the betting lines but I’m giving the West to the Giants this year.  First off I thought Cueto and Samardzija were really good additions for them and adding them to Bumgarner, Peavy, and Cain gives them a stable of experienced, quality starters.  The bullpen is filled with veteran arms who have been through the rigors of a pennant chase before.  Aside from Posey there may not be another player in the lineup that totally blows you away but they have guys who look like they could put up All Star quality campaigns pretty much all around the diamond, and I think getting Hunter Pence back will be huge for them as he was sorely missed for a large chunk of last season.  Overall they just look like a really well-rounded team.

I’m definitely going against the grain by picking the Dodgers to not even make the playoffs at all, even Baseball Prospectus gave them a 75% chance of making it – higher than any other team.  I’m not sure I understand the hype.  Kershaw is obviously amazing but there is no way of knowing if the rest of the rotation will stay healthy or how Maeda will do in his first foray into the big leagues.  Puig should be a perennial MVP candidate but I question if he’s ever going to get his head straight, he seems like a loose cannon.  So yeah, I’m leaving them out of the playoffs which of course means they’ll go on to win the World Series a year after I actually picked them to do so.  Arizona should be competitive and very much in the Wild Card fight but I must admit this late spring injury to Pollock could be devastating.  The Padres were possibly baseball’s biggest disappointment last year and may continue to even further strip down their roster after last offseason’s spending spree.  Colorado looks like it will have a typical Rockies year – amazing offensive numbers from a few guys (especially Arenado) but just not enough pitching to make a serious run to October yet.


Awards

American League
MVP:  Carlos Correa, Houston Astros
Cy Young:  Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox
Rookie of the Year:  Byung-Ho Park, Minnesota Twins
Comeback Player of the Year:  Jacoby Ellsbury, New York Yankees
Manager of the Year:  A.J. Hinch, Houston Astros

While I still think Mike Trout is the best player in baseball, he’d need to absolutely blow away the competition to win MVP on a fourth place team.  Therefore I’m giving the nod to Correa who can not only put up big numbers but do so at a premium position.  MVP numbers from Correa would go a long way towards getting Hinch an award too.  I was thinking of going with Buxton for Rookie of the Year but then shifted course to the Korean import Park, who could put up big power numbers for Minnesota.  I’ll go with Sale winning an award in an otherwise bleak year on the South Side.  It’s always tough to guess the Comeback award – it’s either a guy coming back from a prolonged injury and playing well or a guy strongly rebounding from a crappy season.  I’ll go with the latter and say Ellsbury redeems himself after winding up on the pine down the stretch for the Yankees last year.

National League
MVP:  Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals
Cy Young:  Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers
Rookie of the Year:  Corey Seager, Los Angeles Dodgers
Comeback Player of the Year:  Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals
Manager of the Year:  Dusty Baker, Washington Nationals

Well, I’ve gone to Chalk City with these picks.  Harper coming anywhere close to his 2015 numbers should trump anything else if Washington does indeed make the playoffs.  I also considered Rizzo and Bryant but they might cancel each other out to a degree.  Kershaw is amazing enough that you can practically guarantee he’ll be a finalist at bare minimum, so him winning the award is a safe bet.  Seager is the runaway favorite for Rookie of the Year.  I make no shortage of jokes about Baker but the old school voters love him and besides it’d be tougher for a guy like Maddon to win the award when everybody already has huge expectations for the Cubs.  Wainwright missed basically all of last season to injury but even though he got back in time for the playoffs I’d have to think that him staying on the mound and delivering anything close to a typical Wainwright year would make him a strong contender for the Comeback award.


Playoffs

Wild Card Games
Indians over Blue Jays
Cardinals over Nationals

I’ll probably whiff on half of my playoff teams, so trying to pick two individual games is lunacy.  Literally anything can happen in a single game.  Anyway, let’s just say the Toronto offense picks a bad time to have an off-day as Kluber keeps them off balance.  Meanwhile the battle-tested Cardinals pull out a win over the Nationals following some really questionable decisions from Dusty Baker (see?  I told you there would be no shortage of jokes).

Division Series
Royals over Indians
Astros over Yankees
Cubs over Cardinals
Giants over Mets

A best-of-three series really isn’t all that much less random than a one game series.  It’s all about who gets hot at the right time.  Let’s say the Cubs handle the Cardinals in the NLDS again, while the Royals also dispose of their divisional foes.  The Astros and Yankees also meet in a rematch from last year’s playoffs and the Astros prevail once again.  I obviously love the Mets rotation but I also said some very nice things about the Giants’ as well.  Putting my personal preferences aside, history says that the safer bet the Even Year Giants ©.

Championship Series
Astros over Royals
Giants over Cubs

I have to imagine that the Astros still have some open wounds from last year’s ALDS.  They came so close to knocking off the Royals only to pretty much choke it away and then have to watch the Royals go on to win the whole thing.  But I think they’re good enough to head into a series of like this and try to eradicate the demons from the year before.  Astros go on to knock off the division champs in a fun series.  The Giants’ rotation is good but they don’t have the kind of power arms that typically give the Cubs trouble.  Unfortunately though baseball is a weird game and the playoffs, as mentioned, are about who gets hot at the right time, and no team eems to get hotter than the Even Year Giants ©.

World Series
Giants over Astros

This is Houston’s fourth year in the AL and I’m still not used to it.  Just imagining them representing the Junior Circuit in the World Series feels weird to me.  But anyway, this series would almost resemble the 2014 one a bit.  You’d have a team with no shortage of recent success going up against a team that nobody could have imagined would be a World Series team just two years earlier.  By this point I’d have to assume that Houston would be the sentimental favorites and that just about everybody outside of San Francisco would want them to win.  But sentiments only get you so far in baseball, and that means the 2016 World Series will be won by, let’s say it one more time:  the Even Year Giants ©.  As for a MVP pick, it seldom seems to be the clear-cut best bat in the lineup and it’s tough to imagine Bumgarner replicating his ridiculous 2014 showing, so let’s go ahead and take a flyer on a guy who could contend for Comeback Player of the Year:  Hunter Pence.

YOU GO TO HELL

[GhostMachine]

Well, I think the fantasy league I've participated in every year since 2008 is dead in the water. Only 5 people signed up, and the commissioner didn't start the auto-draft. I hate playing fantasy if the range of participants isn't 8 or 10. 

[Meacon Keaton]

I wish there was another game on. I'm forcing myself to sit through this Royals/Mets re-match crap, because, hey baseball is better than no baseball?

[Meacon Keaton]

Mets tried to make a game of it by scoring three in the 8th, but I had given up at that point. They were playing Casino on one of the movie channels!

[The Buscher]

The first six innings of that game were torture with ESPN showing World Series highlights every single half inning and the Mets having exactly one hard hit ball against Volquez.  That they at least made a game of it late against the Royals bullpen was a nice sign, though.

It's never fun to lose on Opening Day but whatever, you have to play pretty much perfect baseball to beat the Royals and the Mets made some early mistakes that cost them.  It happens.  I'm just so glad that it's only a two game series.  No team can exploit the Mets' defensive issues more than the Royals.

[gunnar hendershow]

And with rain on the east coast today don't be surprised if a lot of Opening Days get moved.

[thatshortguy]

51 minutes ago, damshow said:

And with rain on the east coast today don't be surprised if a lot of Opening Days get moved.

Indeed.  Yanks have already scooted their Opening Day back.  I suspect a lot of northeastern teams will have to.

Braves, though?  Game on!  

[The Buscher]

What I learned from listening to the WFAN callers on the drive in to work today:  Wright sucks and needs to retire because he looked bad in the field, had a bad night at the plate, and couldn't drive in the tying run from third with one out.  Cespedes is also a bum for dropping a routine fly ball in the first inning of the season and striking out with the game on the line.

Apparently I missed the memo where the baseball season became 1 game instead of 162.