AL West

Other picks: AL Central, NL East, NL Central, NL West

The common consensus seems to be that the NL West is the weakest division in baseball, but I think it's going to be better than the AL West, and depending on how one measures division strength, it could rival both the AL and NL Central.  In any case, the AL West projects to be a mosh pit of mediocrity this year, as the Angels got awfully lucky with their win total last year (relative to their run differential) and have taken steps backward over the offseason between losing out on Teixeira and the injuries to their pitching staff.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Strengths: When healthy, their starting pitching has top-flight talent and depth; their bullpen is always effective (doubtless a reflection of manager Mike Scioscia), and promises to be so even with Brian Fuentes replacing KRod.  Their lineup could be strong and deep - as long as the veterans can stay healthy and the kids realize their full potential.

Weaknesses: Their top 2 starters are starting on the DL, and could be missing significant time; without them, the rotation is pedestrian at best.  The whole outfield is aging quickly, and it's not too hard to envision the lineup falling into mediocrity with their decline and ho-hum performances from Kendrick and Morales.

Record: 85-77.  As long as this team makes the playoffs, they could be dangerous if Ervin Santana and Lackey are healthy and effective by the end of the year.  I doubt they'll come in as favorites, but they're capable of pulling off an upset.

Texas Rangers

Strengths: Lineup - they have young talent all over the field, anchored by Josh Hamilton in CF, Ian Kinsler at 2B, and to a lesser extent Michael Young at 3B.  They'll score runs in bunches.

Weaknesses: Pitching - when your #1 (Millwood) had an ERA over 5 last year, and your #3 hasn't pitched in the majors since 2006, you know you're in trouble.  The question is whether they can keep it low enough for the hitters to win it.

Record: 80-82; I think this team surprises and keeps it interesting until near the end of the season. UPDATE: Bumped up one win to make the numbers work out.

Oakland Athletics

Strengths: Made some nice offseason additions to improve a moribund lineup from last year, adding Matt Holliday, Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera, and Nomar as a backup - they should score enough runs now, if not tons.

Weaknesses: Injuries are derailing the starting pitching, so that they have to rely on young guns with very little major league experience - they have about 400 major league innings in their 5 starters combined.  A couple of them may have strong years, but it's pretty unlikely all, or even most, will.

Record: I just don't trust the pitching, and the hitting will be no better than solid. 76-86.

Seattle Mariners

Strengths: A new front office.  Felix Hernandez and Eric Bedard; some good young talent, including Clement, Balentien, and Morrow.

Weaknesses: Pretty much everywhere else on the diamond, with the possible exception of Beltre at 3B and Gutierrez in RF.

Record: Poor Seattle fans will have to endure another miserable season, yet one not quite bad enough to end up with the top pick in the draft.  68-94.

NL West

Other picks: AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central

Onwards to the NL West, home of my favorite team, the Dodgers (not that I'm being biased in my predictions, of course...)

Dodgers:  I've covered their strengths and weaknesses in more detail here.

Record: 89-73

Diamondbacks

Strengths: Brad Webb and Dan Haren at the top of the rotation; a lot of young talent on the field - the Justin Upton in particular is a star in the making.

Weaknesses: Starting rotation is underwhelming after Webb and Haren; bullpen looks fairly mediocre.

Record: This looks like a pretty solid team across the board, with the very strong front end of the rotation making up for the questionable back end.  If they get breakout performances from some of their young position players or if the 3-5 starters perform better than expected, this could be an awfully good team.  Perhaps it's blind hope, but I'm banking on small, not large steps forward from the young hitters overall, and an 87-75 record.

Rockies

Strengths: Tulowitzki could be the next great shortstop, especially defensively.  Pitching staff has potential if talented young pitchers like Jimenez and Morales step up.  Corpas and Street in the 8th and 9th innings is a nice combo.

Weaknesses: Outfield is questionable, and whole lineup may struggle to hit, especially if Tulo's not what he was his rookie year and Helton continues to decline.  Despite some talent, pitching staff has plenty of question marks.

Record: 80-82

Giants

Strengths: Starting pitching - Lincecum, Cain, Johnson is a very nice top 3; Sanchez has potential, and we'll see if Zito can be a serviceable #5 for $17 million.

Weaknesses: Hitting - Benjie Molina batted cleanup frequently last year, which is just pathetic.  They've added an over the hill Edgar Renteria and a couple of pretty solid hitting kids on the corner infield spots in Sandoval and Ishikawa, but that still doesn't leave them with much.  Sandoval and Renteria look like they'll be brutal defensively on the left side of the infield.  Jeremy Affeldt was a nice bullpen pickup, but I still wouldn't be too trustworthy of their bullpen as a whole.

Record: The Giants have a lot of young talent between the majors and minors; I don't think this is the year, though.  At earliest, we'll see them start to break through next year, and I think 2011 is more likely.  76-86.

Padres

Strengths: Jake Peavy and Adrian Gonzalez

Weaknesses: Everyone else - ok, maybe not Brian Giles.

Record: Seriously, this team is bad.  When you're putting pitchers the Nationals dumped into your rotation, that's  a bad sign.  And of course, they may end up trading Peavy as well.  We'll go with 63-99.

NL Central

Other predictions: AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL West

Onwards to the NL Central, home of the NL's best team by a good margin:

Cubs

Strengths: Deep and talented rotation; Soto, Aramis Ramirez, Soriano, Bradley, and Lee make for a dangerous middle of the order; back end of the bullpen should be pretty good with Marmol, Gregg, and Heilman (and possibly Samardzija).

Weaknesses: Some concern about starting pitchers underperforming - Harden is injury prone, Dempster had a career year (in a contract year), Zambrano has a lot of miles on his arm.  Center field platoon looks questionable both offensively and defensively.

Record: 95-67

Milwaukee Brewers

Strengths: Lots of talent, most of it young, on the field - Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy.  Yovani Gallardo

Weaknesses: Not great fielding team; starting pitching after Gallardo is mediocre at best (and that's generous), relief pitching is worse.  As a team, don't get on base particularly well.  Everyone is still waiting for Weeks to "break out."  Gallardo missed most of last year due to injury.

Record: Gallardo can't overcome the loss of Sabbathia and Sheets, and the rest of the pitching staff is just older and worse.  84-78

St. Louis Cardinals

Strengths: Albert Pujols. Albert Pujols. Albert Pujols.  There are whispers that starting pitching could be surprisingly good, led by healthy Carpenter; they always do seem to get a lot out of retreads in the rotation.

Weaknesses: I'll believe it when I see it.  Several candidates for regression to the mean.

Record: Barry Bonds showed how much difference one amazing player makes, and I think Pujols does that for this team.  LaRussa always seems to get the most out of his players, but even with all that, I can't go higher than 82-80.

Cincinnati Reds

Strengths: Pitching depth; some good young talent around the field (especially Jay Bruce).

Weaknesses: Looking at little offensive production from SS, LF, and CF, so their young players will have to step up big time to carry the offense. Dusty Baker.

Record: They're a popular sleeper pick because of their pitching depth, but I don't see it being good enough to carry a weak offense to contention.  81-81

Houston Astros

Strengths: Berkman, Lee, Pence, Oswalt.  Valverde should be a solid closer.

Weaknesses: Everyone after Oswalt in the rotation.  C, 2B, 3B, CF

Record: In line for a major disappointment after last year's deceptively good record - 71-91.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Strengths: They're young, so there are plenty of breakout candidates.

Weaknesses: Most of the team.

Record: 68-94

The Dodgers

I'm going to interrupt the quickie analysis/predictions track to look at the Dodgers, my favorite team, in a bit more depth.  Traditionally, the Dodgers are a pitching first team that struggles to score; the common perception is that this team actually may reverse that - certainly there is more concern over the rotation than the lineup.  Here's one possible lineup:

Furcal SS

Martin C

Ramirez LF

Ethier RF

Kemp CF

Loney 1B

Hudson 2B

Blake 3B

Pitcher

It certainly does not have any particular weak spots - each player should be at least an average hitter for his position, with a decent chance of outperforming that, and Ramirez, Martin, and Furcal could all be top 3 at their positions.  There is some depth on the bench - Juan Pierre may be hideously overpaid, but he's not a bad option for a 4th outfielder and is certainly great to have as a pinch runner; Mark Loretta is a solid backup and Blake DeWitt, though he'll start the year in AAA, proved last year that he can at least do a decent job if needed at 3B.  Backup SS is a bit more troublesome, especially given Furcal's injury history, and unfortunately the likely backup 1B, Doug Mientkiewicz, hits like the utility player he may be used as.  The biggest concern here is that there isn't a remotely intimidating bat to use as a PH off the bench.

The pitching provides slightly greater concern - the rotation projects to be Billingsley, Wolf, Kuroda, Kershaw, and McDonald.  Best case scenario, the Dodgers get 200 innings each out of Billingsley, Wolf, and Kuroda, 170-180 out of Kershaw, and 150 out of McDonald, with adequate filler coming from a group including Eric Milton, Jeff Weaver, Eric Stults, and Claudio Vargas.  Billingsley and Kershaw pitch like #1s (they both have the stuff to do so) and Kuroda, Kershaw, and McDonald like #3s (probably the reasonable ceiling for all three).  Worst case scenario sees injuries or ineffectiveness from Billingsley (threw a lot of innings last year and broke his leg in the offseason), Wolf (injury-prone), Kershaw (first full year in the rotation), and/or McDonald (only a handful of major league innings).

The bullpen was a strength last year; it has lost Saito, Beimel, and Chan Ho Park, and Cory Wade has apparently looked bad so far this spring.  With that said, Broxton and Kuo both have great stuff and should be highly effective, and the Dodgers certainly have some strong arms and a number of possibilities to fill out the pen.  It's not as good as last year, and I don't expect it to be one of the top couple in the NL, but I can't say it's something I worry greatly about.

So what's the overall prognosis?  The Dodgers won 84 games last year; even in a worst case scenario, I don't think they'll do much worse than that - at the start of the season, they've improved at 3B, 2B, LF, and CF (given that they won't be giving any at bats to Andruw Jones).  If Furcal stays healthy, they'll improve at SS as well.  So worst case scenario, where they're hit hard by injuries, especially in the pitching staff, I'd go with 82-80.  Best case scenario, where the pitching comes along as advertised and the batting order has no major injuries, I think they could win 95 games.  Realistically, though, I'll peg them at 89 wins, and a narrow NL West title.

Spring Thoughts

An appropriate title, as given prior history it's likely to be the only post all spring.  Ah well, what better way to avoid grading papers that I should have done days ago?

It is, once again, that best of all times, the last few days of spring training before baseball season starts.  It is a time of hope for fans of all teams, when great spring performances are signs of an upcoming breakout season and poor performances are merely players working out the kinks or trying something new.  Every team has the same record, and no one knows what oddities lie ahead over the course of the season.  Personally, my hands itch to be throwing or hitting a baseball most hours of the day.  At the moment, of course, that's not an option, so some preseason thoughts and predictions instead; we'll start with just the NL East for the moment (other picks: AL Central, AL West, NL Central, NL West):

The NL East

Mets

Strengths: Top 3 in MLB at their position at SS, 3B, CF, #1 SP; star bats could carry lineup; rest of rotation has potential (besides Livan Hernandez) and bullpen now headlined by KRod and Putz.

Weaknesses: SP overall could easily underperform; will be over the hill at C, 1B, 2B - if Delgado in particular regresses back to his first half stats from last year, the offense may not be able to score enough to overcome mediocre pitching.  How would they overcome an injury to one of their big 4?

Record: 90-72

Phillies

Strengths: Chase Utley, Chase Utley, Chase Utley (he's that good). Hamels is also a stud, and Rollins and Howard are productive.  Excellent defensively, strong bullpen, deep lineup.

Weaknesses: Howard is likely to begin to decline - he already can't hit lefties.  While it's a decent group, there are no sure things among 2-5 starters.  Ibanez is weak defensively and is at the stage where one might expect offensive decline as well.

Record: 89-73

Braves

Strengths: Solid infield, anchored by McCann.  Reasonably deep pitching staff.

Weaknesses: Miserable outfield, quality of starters is questionable; how many games will Chipper be able to play?

Record: 81-81

Marlins

Strengths: Hanley Ramirez.  Lots of young talent in the pitching staff.

Weaknesses: Several questionable spots in the lineup (Emilio Bonifacio at 3B?!?) - will the young, unproven talent deliver?

Record: 79-83

Edit: Revised down 3 games after reading this.  I'm not going as low as the projections in that article because I think their young pitching will be ok, but it did make me rethink a little.

Washington Nationals

Strengths: Jim Bowden is gone.  Ryan Zimmerman (maybe).  Lots of depth at corner OF and 1B.

Weaknesses: Too much depth at corner OF and 1B, not enough elsewhere.  Pitching, pitching, pitching.

Record: 68-94

And we're back!

Barack Obama is a prohibitive favorite to become our next President.  He has run an impressive campaign, particularly in his ability to bring in masses of eager volunteers and use them productively.  Given the early returns, it seems that the result is going to be a very high turnout across the board for Obama supporters, which given Obama's lead in the polls may result in an Obama landslide.

The election has had its share of mudslinging, and as someone living in a "battleground state," I feel that I've seen far more ads telling me why not to vote for Candidate X than ones telling me why I should vote for Candidate Y.  This is precisely why I long for a viable third party - it's much more difficult (and more expensive) to go negative against two other candidates; instead, candidates would be forced to run on their own merits much more.  Plus, it might encourage greater independence in platforms as the bases of each party become smaller and less important in winning the election.  Of course, it will take a perfect storm of events and personalities for a third party to overcome the opposition Democrats and Republicans will put up against any rising third party.  Ah well.

To a more practical point, then.  Obama will win an election that has had more than its share of negative campaigning.  He has absolutely inspired a lot of people with his positive campaigning - after all, one cannot create the sort of organization that he has all over the country through negative campaigning - but the relationship between the two parties seems as bitter as it has been through most of the Bush presidency.  Obama's challenge will be do what every candidate always claims he will do - create an atmosphere in Washington in which there is no stigma attached to crossing party lines, an atmosphere in which the first reaction is not to blame the opposition.  The first step he can take is to choose a bipartisan cabinet (which means more than a token Republican as Secretary of Agriculture) - bringing back Colin Powell as Secretary of State would be a good start (and then listen to him!).  Powell is still one of the most popular figures in American politics, and he has endorsed Obama.  To go a step further, I wouldn't mind someone like Mitt Romney in the cabinet as well, and I'd even like to see Obama keep around a neo-con or two (if perhaps not in a cabinet post) - I think they've been a bit too aggressive in their foreign policy under Bush, but they still represent an interesting and valuable point of view that should be taken into consideration by any administration.  Obama's weakness is a lack of experience in foreign policy, but he has a chance to turn this into a positive if he gathers a diverse and intelligent group of advisors around him to provoke greater thought and analysis of each situation.  Isn't this why schools and colleges around the country are embracing diversity - because a diversity of background leads to a diversity of thought that stimulates intellectual growth?  I feel that we have a chance to emerge from 8 years of intellectual stagnation in the highest offices of the country; here's hoping that Obama has the wisdom and courage to end that trend.  And in the very unlikely event that McCain wins, let's hope he's "maverick" enough to break from the party policy of Bush and Rove and do the same.

Dragged back in

Last Saturday and Sunday, I went to the Dodgers-Phillies games.  Saturday, while the Phillies took an early lead, by the top of the 5th it was only 3-2, and anything could happen.  Then, with runners at 1st and 2nd and none out, Matt Kemp lost a routine flyball to center in the sun and missed it by 40 feet.  Ryan Howard then doubled on a 3-0 count and the game was effectively over (it ended 9-2).

Sunday, the Dodgers were outhitting the Phillies around 10-5, but only took a 2-1 lead into the 9th.  Still, they had two outs with a runner on second and Andy Tracy at the plate, a 34 year old journeyman with no MLB at-bats since 2004 and only 263 for his career; he's also got a sterling .153 career average as a pinch hitter.  Four straight balls and a Pedro Feliz single later, and it's a tie game.  Still, the Dodgers had not exhausted their ability to disappoint - in the top of the 10th, they loaded the bases with none out, but an all too predictable 5U-2 double play and strikeout ended that threat.  When the Pedro Feliz cranked a 2 out, 3 run homer in the 11th, I gave up hope for the season.  Teams that lose games like this are not playoff teams.

Monday to Friday only confirmed my conviction - 5 losses, including a sweep by the horrific Washington Nationals and a loss in the opener of their series with the division leading Diamondbacks.  The Dbacks lead was a solid but surprisingly low 4.5 games, due to their own bad week, but my hope was as good as dead.  I was so depressed about the Dodgers that I didn't even bother checking the pitching match-ups for the final two games; a good thing, since they would only have deepened the despair - the Dbacks had Haren and Webb lined up, two of the top five NL Cy Young candidates.

It's two days later, and apparently there was a hidden glimmer of hope all along which has now been fanned up significantly.  The Dodger bats woke up and beat both Haren and Webb, and 2.5 games with a fairly easy closing schedule and three games still to play against the Diamondbacks, in LA, seems a reasonable amount to overcome.  And this, I think, is the greatness of sports, and baseball in particular.  Each game builds your hopes repeatedly, often just to dash them.  But the more they are dashed, the more rewarding it is when that hope is fulfilled.  Likewise, over the course of the season a fan's hopes rise and fall continuously - unlike any other sport, literally with every day.  There are disappointments; for most of us, there are more disappointments than rewarding moments (after all, only 8 of 30 teams make the playoffs, and only one wins it all), but they just make the good moments that much better.