Eleventeenth Annual Baseball Season Preview

Baseball season is upon us and while most of you were probably looking for some sort of NCAA March Madness column in this space, too bad. I hate college basketball with a passion. That, or our deadline for this issue was before Spring Break and the bracket isn’t even out yet. With that stipulated, let’s take a look at most of the teams in the league. If your team didn’t make the cut, maybe you should stop following sports.

AL East
After several bienniums of playoff failure, the Yankees looked poised to fall to the bottom of the division now that the Blue Jays have signed both B.J. Ryan and A.J. Burnett! Look out! But seriously, the Yankees are going to miss the playoffs one of these years, and all hell will break loose as the Daily News and the Post compete to see who can run the bigger headline. At the bottom of the division, the much-ignored Devil Rays looked poised for a breakout third-place finish. The only hope for this team is to move to Las Vegas and the AL West. I propose a trade to make this happen: Las Vegas will get the team and Tampa will get the Circus Circus Casino and Hotel. Tampa is probably getting the better end of this, and the city deserves it after putting up with such mediocre baseball for the past 8 years. And who can forget about the Orioles and all their offseason moves? Oh, that’s right – me.

AL Central
Apparently, the White Sox won the World Series last year, but no one seemed to pay attention, and therefore, it didn’t happen. Maybe the Sox will be able to exorcise the Black Sox demons this year with a little bit more excitement. On the other end of the spectrum, the Royals are just awful. If you’re a Royals fan, I feel sorry for you. What do you have to look forward to in the next few years? That Angel Berroa will become the best shortstop ever? That Runelvys Hernandez will get his ERA under 5 this season? Spare yourself and your future children the abuse, and just stop following baseball altogether. In the middle we have the battle of teams with overweight closers. While Bob Wickman of the Indians has the weight advantage at 240 lbs (and is two inches shorter), I give the edge to Todd Jones of the Tigers because he has a better moustache.

AL West
Now that the Moneyball furor has died down a bit, no one will be paying attention to the Oakland A’s, who will probably win the division and maybe even a playoff series. Meanwhile down in SoCal, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim won a huge court victory against the Los Angeles Municipality of Anaheim, and as a result, the team won’t have to change its ridiculous name back to the Anaheim Angels. While nobody outside of the LA sprawl might care about this development, those of us who were blindsided last season when the Dodgers’ and Angels’ three-letter abbreviations on sports websites were changed are still outraged. And while Bengie Molina has left for Toronto, his younger brother Jose is still around. I know all of you Angels fans just breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Mariners, who long back to the days of A-Rod and Griffey, took a step in the right direction during the offseason by signing a catcher who can’t speak English. Good times!

NL East
This is the season that the Braves dominance of the NL East comes to an end, as Edgar Renteria has that effect on a team. 2006 will be remembered as the year of the New York Mets, as they will win 140 games en route to a World Series crown. Pedro Martinez will pitch the first no-hitter in Mets history, only to follow it up with a perfect game in his next start. Finally, Carlos Beltran will rebound from his awful first season in Queens by winning the Triple Crown and breaking Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. Speaking of breaking records, the Marlins will come close to losing the most games ever in a single season, currently held by the 1962 Mets. Pop quiz, Marlins fans—name a starting pitcher on your team other than Dontrelle Willis, and name me one of your outfielders. No need to rush, I’ve got all month.

NL Central
The Cubs stand alone among the cursed franchises, but unfortunately for them, they won’t be breaking any curses this season. In typical fashion, the Houston Astros will be on cruise control for the first month and a half and then realize they have to win every remaining game to make the playoffs. The return of Roger Clemens on May 1 will certainly help, but the team will falter when Rocket insists as part of his new contract that his son Koby become the team’s starting third baseman.

NL West
Let’s get this out of the way first – I hate Barry Bonds. I hope his knees collapse on Opening Day and he never plays another baseball game again. Did you know Barry Bonds eats children? Yeah, it’s quite shocking. In other Giants news, the team once again is hoping that the “Only Having One Position Player Under 30” strategy will pay off again. Oh wait. The Padres have a good young pitcher by the name of Jake Peavy (whom I will be picking in the first round of every one of my fantasy leagues) who might win more than 82 games this year. The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles tried to recreate the 2003 Boston Red Sox with their offseason moves; let’s see how that turns out.

Playoff Predictions (with bonus World Baseball Classic pick)
WBC: South Africa over the Netherlands
ALDS: A’s over Indians, White Sox over Yankees
ALCS: A’s over White Sox
NLDS: Mets over Padres; Cardinals over Braves
NLCS: Mets over Cardinals
World Series: Mets over A’s, 4-2