Day: April 1, 2005

Opening night

Could we possibly ask for a better Opening Night game?

Sunday night, we get the World Champion Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium against the World Champion (Choker Division) New York Yankees.

For the second year in a row, Johnny Damon will be our first sight of the baseball season, stepping into the box in all his glory.

And on the mound, we get pure contrast. David Wells v. Randy Johnson. Junkballer v. Flamethrower. One of the roundest guys in baseball v. the tallest, skinniest. They ought to go on the road as a comedy team. They’re listed at Baseball-reference.com as weighing the same, despite the Unit’s six-inch height advantage. Now that’s comedy.

It’s time. Y’all are invited for chili and corn bread.

It’s that time.

Prediction time. Everyone should make picks in the comments. And remember: pick the Braves. It’s evil, but it’s better to hate them now than to hate them later.

AL East: Boring

Red Sox
Yankees
Some other teams

AL Central: Not that good
Twins
Indians
Sox
Tigers
Royals

AL West: Where the action is
Anaheim
Oakland
Texas
Seattle

NL East: Dan’s division
Atlanta (Sorry, Dan.)
Philly (Sorry, Dan.)
Florida (Sorry, Dan.)
New York
Montreal

NL Central: The one you’ve all been waiting for
St. Louis
Chicago
Houston
Cincinnatti
Pittsburgh
Milwaukee

NL West: No Barry, no excitement
LA
San Diego
Arizona
San Francisco
Colorado

Tom Tippett over at Diamond Mind has done his usual 100-season simulation, and he has the Cardinals winning an average of 103 games and taking the division title 99 times. While I do think this is the strongest Cardinals team I’ve ever seen going into the season, I’m not quite as confident as that. Diamond Mind, for example, while taking account of injuries, assigns them more or less randomly, from what I can tell from Tippett’s explanation. The Cardinals are relying on a couple of old guys who are very, very good, which means there’s a chance that those guys will be very, very hurt.

But the only real competition, the Cubs, are relying on a rotation that has its own durability questions, a bench and bullpen that have chances to be catastrophically awful, and on an offense that has done nothing to change its habit of making a lot of outs.

So despite October’s Washington Generals impersonation, I’m with my guys again. I know October 2005 is a long, long way away, but here’s to back-to-back pennants.

And you folks?

Original comments:

Anonymous: How come you switched in the middle of the list from team names to city names?

Levi: No excuse: I was in a hurry this morning and edited poorly. That also explains why I have no links in the post.

thatbob: Baseball Related comes with a free predictions archive this year? Kewl! Introducing my first-ever sports predictions of any kind in any sport, informed by 2 days of game play, but still relying mostly on how much I like the teams.

ALE:
Sux
Sox
Js
Oos
Pansies the Wuss-Wusses

ALC:
Tuffies
Tweens
Sox
Racists
Caseys

ALW:
Proppas
LAAOAs
Microsofts
Dubyas

NLE:
Dans
Racists
Phans
Fish
Senators

NLC:
Cards
Cubs
Beers
Reds
Arrs
Orbities

NLW:
Dads
Rocks
Trolleys
Gnats
Snakes

A year of Thursdays later

Here we go again! Sports Illustrated has Johnny Damon on the cover of the baseball preview issue this year, because clearly, they know who people want to see. And here’s their predicted order of finish in the divisions:

NL East
1. Atlanta Braves
2. Florida Marlins
3. New York Mets
4. Philadelphia Phillies
5. Washington Nationals

NL Central
1. St. Louis Cardinals
2. Chicago Cubs
3. Houston Astros
4. Cincinnati Reds
5. Milwaukee Brewers
6. Pittsburgh Pirates

NL West
1. San Francisco Giants
2. L.A. Dodgers
3. San Diego Padres
4. Arizona Diamondbacks
5. Colorado Rockies

AL East
1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox
3. Baltimore Orioles
4. Toronto Blue Jays
5. Tampa Bay Devil Rays

AL Central
1. Minnesota Twins
2. Cleveland Indians
3. Chicago White Sox
4. Detroit Tigers
5. Kansas City Royals

AL West
1. L.A. Angels
2. Texas Rangers
3. Oakland A’s
4. Seattle Mariners

Guess you can’t go too far wrong with what are basically the final standings from last year. Remember, baseball is unlike mutual funds in that quite often, past performance is a guarantee of future results.

I can already tell this season isn’t going to be quite as good as 2004. No MLB team will be serving poutine at its concession stands, and worse yet, Hostess doesn’t seem to be making Baseballs this year.

In other news, the famous iPod has been sold, and it is on its way to the purchaser.

Original comments…

Luke, hanger-on: Most important: Do you predict a baseball-related road trip this year?

Levi: There has been some discussion, but we have yet to finalize any plans, primarily because the “Levi” part of the team isn’t very good at getting organized enough to finalize plans.