Postgame Spread: It's That Time...

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I will preface these remarks by saying that a 100% healthy Boston team wins 100+ and blows New York out of the water. I firmly believe that on paper they are the best team in baseball by a notable margin, for no reason besides pitching depth. I'm not as sold on the lineup as others, but their pitching is good enough to withstand a little offensive weakness. But that kind of injury resistance, given the average age of the team, is neither practical nor likely. So I'll only claim partial credit if they rip the AL a new one.

Anyway, barring the injury-free scenario, which would no doubt be A Fortunate Series of Events, here's how I feel in general:

* I like Cleveland, Milwaukee, the Mets, and Tampa to make leaps.
* The Yankees will struggle at first, but will recover after calling up Todd Van Poppel and Ben McDonald from Columbus. They will combine for 25 wins after the All-Star break.
* I like St. Louis, the White Sox, and Anaheim to backslide. I don't like Anaheim one bit right now, not against improved Oakland and Texas pitching staffs. This thing where they put Erstad in center is going to hamstring them.
* I'm not buying the Blue Jays. Still too little pitching beyond Doc.
* The NL East sucks all of a sudden. Atlanta's easiest title yet.
* Bonds is the only thing the NL West has going for it, top to bottom. Nobody has anything significant to speak of (San Diego has young starting pitching I guess) but only San Francisco has Bonds.

American League
Boston 98-64*
New York 98-64
Tampa Bay 82-80
Toronto 79-83
Baltimore 67-95
(* = wins on some stupid bullshit tiebreaker)

Cleveland 99-63
Chicago 91-71
Minnesota 84-78
Kansas City 66-96
Detroit 63-99

Oakland 94-68
Texas 91-71
Anaheim 79-83
Seattle 72-90

National League
Atlanta 96-66
New York 85-77
Philadelphia 78-84
Washington 74-88
Florida 60-102

Houston 97-65
St. Louis 88-74
Milwaukee 86-76
Chicago 83-79
Pittsburgh 70-92
Cincinnati 66-96

San Francisco 85-77
Los Angeles 81-81
San Diego 80-82
Arizona 71-91
Colorado 67-95

Playoffs
Boston over Oakland, Cleveland over New York, Cleveland over Boston. (Schilling gets hurt. Otherwise they win.)
Houston over San Fran, St. Louis over Atlanta, St. Louis over Houston.

World Series
Cleveland over St. Louis. (La Russa scowls.)

4 Comments:

You think a full season of Felix, no Brett Boone or Scott Spezio at all, and some likely improvement from Reed, Lopez, and probably Beltre, is only worth three wins? I hope you attribute a bunch of this to the other improvements in the division, but even so...

I don't see them contending, but if they don't win 80 games I'm going to be pretty upset. They're almost a complete club on offense, even if Everett was a stupid pickup, so all we need is one more frontline starter and we're dangerous. Don't you forget it.

So, since you clearly don't agree, what bet can we make about what you have to do for every win the Mariners exceed 72 or I have to do for for every game they fall short of .500?

By Jesse, at 11:40 PM
If you want to bet, I'll bet something. You think of something, and I'll do it.

I'm not saying this to be mean about the M's, because I do root for them in general, but I would be shocked if they win 80 games, simply based on their rotation. Felix is their only starter who's dangerous in a good way. Along with him they've got two softballing lefties who have likely seen their best days, and two headcase righties who cannot be relied upon. That's not going to get it done.

Even if Meche and Piniero improve somewhat, I don't think they're up to snuff quite yet. They're still the clear last-place team in the division, and that does count for something. Anaheim has backslid somewhat, but both Oakland and Texas are improved teams in my mind, so it's not as if Seattle has gotten much better relative to the competition.

Just to illustrate what I mean, let's talk Blue Jays. I watched Toronto go through two separate rebuliding processes since their World Series teams. They always improved in terms of talent, enough so that you'd mark them down for more wins... but they never improved enough to beat the competition (NY, BOS, BAL) so the results always ended up basically the same. I'm bearish on this free-agent blitz of theirs, simply because they're still clearly fighting for 3rd place at best. The point is that improving your roster from one year to the next won't necessarily translate into wins.

By Jeff, at 9:42 AM
Your point is well taken, and for the most part I don't really disagree. But the Mariners did have one of the best bullpens in baseball last year, so that takes a little of the pressure off. And while I'm not remotely optimistic about the Washburn signing, well, at least we're not running Ryan Franklin and Jeff Harris out there.

I just think you're not giving enough credit to how incredibly awful some elements of that team were that are now excised, that's all. I forgot to mention catcher, which is a bit of a wild card, but can't possibly be anywhere near as bad as last year. And they underperformed their pythagorean wins formula last year as well, which may not be worth very much but is an indication that they weren't necessarily quite as bad as they looked. They may not be good, they may not get out of the cellar, but they're not going to be a horrible baseball team this year.

It does look like things will have to fall right for them not to finish 4th in the division. But I'm not THAT scared of any of the teams in the division, with the possible exception of Oakland. Texas is improved but hardly a sure thing, and it appears I may actually think more of Anaheim than you so I don't know that I need to say anything about that. It would be foolish to expect big things from the Mariners this year, but I'm not that worried about another 90 loss season.

By Jesse, at 9:49 AM
I'll agree that the opportunity is bigger than I made it out to be. Texas is not so great, heck even Oakland is gonna have trouble scoring runs. But the size of the opportunity doesn't necessarily equate to the Mariners being able to take advantage.

It really comes down to Meche and Piniero. If they had improved upon either of those two guys on paper (let alone in reality) I'd have slotted them ahead of Anaheim. But they didn't. Instead they've got a rotation where their true ace is 20, their nominal ace is a 43-year old with a 58-mph fastball, and their eight-figure free agent is more likely to be a monumental blunder than a success story.

There are optimistic arguments to be made; I just don't think they're particularly justified. They would require me to believe in Joel Piniero for 15 wins, which I do not.

By Jeff, at 10:16 AM