MLB Predictions

With baseball season just days away, it's time for my preseason predictions.  AL is today, NL tomorow.

AL

East: Yankees.  The pitching is a question mark, but the offense could score 1000 runs.  The key is whether Johnson and Pavano could bounce back, and whether Wang and Chacon are as good as they were last year.

Central: Indians.  This young team, led by the underrated Travis Hafner, has a good chance to keep the defending World Champion White Sox out of the playoffs.  I can't see the Sox repeating last year's success.

West: Athletics.  Very talented, young, pitching staff, but questionable offense.

Wild Card:  Red Sox.  The loss of Damon might hurt a little, but any lineup with Ortiz and Manny is going to score some runs.  The pitching is a huge question mark, but Beckett has the potential to be a true ace.

MVP: David Ortiz.  He always puts up monster numbers, and if it's close they will be eager to give it to him after close misses the past two years.

 Cy Young: Roy Halladay.  He and Santana are the two best pitchers in the league, and Santana will likely not get much run support.

How could I be so stupid?

• So much for MSU and UNC being two superpowers meeting in the second round.  Both took turns fucking me in each of my brackets.  Now I’m dead in one and in serious trouble in the other.  This is the last time I take a team to go far because “they perform well in the tournament” or because they remind me of a team that did well in the past.  UNC was clearly too young and didn’t look like they belonged in the tournament at all, barely surviving in the first round before losing to George Mason in the second. I badly need Uconn to not reach the Final Four and for Villanova to at least reach the final game.
• You want to know why Cuba and Japan, who have none and one major league stars (and maybe players) respectively made it farther than teams like the US and Dominican Republic, whose roster was filled with big leaguers?  It was partially the fact that teams like Cuba were in midseason form, but in addition, while major leaguers are just preparing for the REAL season to start, players from Cuba, Japan, and Korea are using this as a chance to prove that they can play in the major league.  What better way to prove you belong in a league than beating the best it has to offer?

Major Problem with the WBC

I would say that so far the World Baseball Classic has been a huge success.  There is, however, one major flaw, and that is the tiebreaking system.  In the United States-Mexico game yesterday, Mexico scored a run in the third inning, eliminating themselves from contention for the next round.  How does that make sense?  In order to make the next round, Mexico would need to shut out the US for 13 innings, then score three runs.  There is clearly something wrong with a format where who advances comes down to complicated tiebreaking procedures.  I think there should be more WBCs in the future, but they need to find a more reasonable format. 

WBC prediction: Cuba over Korea in the final.

First Day of March Madness

The first two days of March Madness are the best two sports days of the year.  Some people say its Super Bowl Sunday, but the Super Bowl is a huge buildup to one game that a lot of times ends up sucking.  With March Madness, there are 32 games in two days, and there are always at least a handful of great games.  Today was no exception.  The BC game was a double overtime thriller.  BC really looked dead in the first overtime, but they were able to get hot when they needed to.  The GW game was a great back and forth contest, and the ending to the Tennessee/Winthrop game was classic.  While Tennessee avoided a historic upset, they did little to prove that they deserved a number two seed. 

There’s no day like Selection Sunday

• Someone from the selection committee must have read my last post and taken it too far.  Sure, George Washington was overrated as number 6 in the country, but they should have gotten a hell of a lot better than an 8-seed.
• You know what pisses me off?  When there are two teams that you are high on and feel can make a run, and they end up being seeded to play in the second round.  This year it’s Michigan State and North Carolina.  I love Michigan State in the tourney, they always make a run, but UNC has been playing very well this year and reminds me of the Orangemen team that won the title. 
• The World Baseball Classic is definately interesting and I think so far it has been a success, but good luck trying to steal viewers from March Madness.  The second half of March belongs to college basketball.

Random Thoughts

• Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim recently lashed out at reporters for calling senior star Gerry McNamara overrated during the Big East tournament.  Good to see he’s focused on the right things.
• Heading into conference tournament play, GW was ranked number 6 in the nation despite not beating anyone impressive all season.  They then lost their first round game to Temple. 
• A recent Sports Illustrated article put the US chances of winning the World Baseball Classic at 6-5 and the Dominican Republic’s at even.  While these are the two best teams in the tournament, it is far from a lock that one of them is going to win.  The semi-finals and finals are both one game series, and baseball can be a crapshoot.
• I used to hope that the Knicks would win a title at some point in my lifetime.  Now, I would settle for another playoff appearance.
• Today, the lead story on ESPN.com was that Barry Bonds struck out in his first Spring Training at bat.  Are you kidding me?  Are we going to have to deal with this all season?

Is Bonds still HOF material?

Hall of fame voters have never had to deal with anything as subjective or confusing as the steroid era.  It has been brought to the forefront recently with this book about Bonds being published.  If this book is enough to convince Hall of Fame voters that Bonds definately took steroids for an extended periods of time, will it be enough to keep one of the best players ever out of Cooperstown?

 

The simple answer is yes.  He cheated, and shouldn’t be rewarded for accomplishments he achieved while cheating (although even before 1998, he was already HOF bound).  Pete Rose isn’t in the Hall because he cheated, and what he did wasn’t close to as bad as using steroids.   Pete Rose’s accomplishments are not at all tainted.

 

If you do factor in steroids when voting for the HOF, it definately keeps Palmiero out and could keep Bonds out (although his dominance and place in history might get him in anyway).  It gets real dicey with players like Sosa, McGuire and Pudge.   Most people think Sosa and Big Mac took them, and some suspect Pudge, but there has never been a “smoking gun.”  Can you keep someone out of the Hall based on speculation?  How about Sheffield, who admitted to unknowningly using a steroid?  Although it’s unlikely, what if Giambi were to have a career resurgence and play his way into HOF consideration.  Would he be ineligible for Cooperstown for juicing early in his career?

 

As ugly as it has been in recent years, in 4-5 years when these players start becoming eligible for the Hall it could get uglier than the McCarthy hearings.