Before you start: I am sorry about the formating issues with the W-L records.
Winter rages onwards. Well I'm here at the college library procrastinating from doing a german paper on "althochdeutsch" (old high german). I guess let's take a break and preview the AL in 2010. Granted, it's fairly useless to predict W-L records in February because of the injuries/luck/other intangibles involved with a 162 game baseball season, nonetheless let's just have some fun. Moreover, there's already half a foot of snow on the ground and it doesn't look like it's going to stop coming down anytime soon.
AL East W L
(1) New York Yankees 102 60
(4) Boston Red Sox 99 63
Tampa Bay Rays 91 71
Baltimore O’s 71 91
Toronto Blue Jays 68 94
The AL East will once again be the strongest in all of baseball. Personally, I’d peg the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays as the three best teams in baseball. The Yankees and Red Sox with their enormous payrolls and shrewd front offices are almost in a league of their own. I’ll take the Yankees here because I like their offseason moves to an already menacing team. The newly acquired trio of Curtis Granderson, Javier Vazquez and on-base machine Nick Johnson may not be as impressive as last years trio of Sabathia, Burnett and Texieria, but don’t discount it. I see them winning about as many games as last year (103) because their improvements are tempered somewhat by an aging roster (Jeter, Rodriguez, Pettitte, M. Rivera, Posada) that was unusually healthy last year. The Red Sox are probably still a step behind the Yankees. However, given Boston’s strong farm system, impressive core and monetary advantage if they aren’t as good as the Yanks this year they will be soon. The Rays and their creative GM Andrew Friedman shocked baseball in ’08 by making a run at a championship. It’s incredible that they have kept pace with the megamarkets of New York and Boston…. Despite their leadership, young talent and minor league system, I still see the Red Sox and Yanks as being superior to the small market Rays. The Baltimore O’s could be a surprise team in ’11… They already have a strong offense spearheaded by Markakis, Jones, Roberts, Reimold and Wieters and have an outstanding young pitching quartet of Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta and Zach Britton coming through the minor league system. Toronto has an ok farm system and an ok major league team (although the trio of Aaron Hill, Travis Snider and Adam Lind is something to build around). Mediocre Farm System+ Mediocre Major League Team=Screwed in AL East.
AL Central W L
(3) Minnesota Twins 86 76
Chicago White Sox 80 82
Cleveland Indians 76 86
Detroit Tigers 73 89
Kansas City Royals 66 96
The AL Central sucks. There, I said what was on everybody's mind. I’ll pick Minnesota by default. Scott Baker is a nice pitcher and I expect Francisco Liriano to turn it around after his nice stint in winterball (although I doubt he’ll ever come close to his unbelievable ’06 form). Minnesota’s offense has its holes, but Joe Mauer is a superstar and Morneau, Hardy, Cuddyer, Kubel and Span are all solid pieces around which to build. The White Sox have a potent quartet of starters in Jake Peavy, Mark Buerhle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd, but their offense looks pretty awful. Gordon Beckham will be a star and I expect bounce back seasons from Alex Rios and Carlos Quentin, but I’ve never been a big Alexei Ramirez fan personally (.723 OPS in his age 27 season) and there isn’t much help coming from the farm. The White Sox have a solid chance to capture the AL Central, but they don’t look like much more than a .500 team and are far inferior to the trio of New York-Boston-Tampa Bay. Cleveland has promise, but is rebuilding and is almost certainly at least a year away. Their offense spearheaded by Grady Sizemore, Shin-Soo Choo and Asdrubal Cabrera will receive young reinforcements from the likes of Matt LaPorta, Carlos Santana and Michael Brantley, but the necessary pitching just isn’t there yet. The Tigers almost captured the AL Central crown in ’09, but probably outdid themselves. They were outscored 743-745 and lost important cogs Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson. Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello are outstanding pieces to build around and the minor league system has some promising pieces, but I just don’t see them going anywhere this year (although the AL Central is awful....). The Royals have Zach Grienke and Billy Butler along with nice pieces in David DeJesus, Gil Meche and hopefully a productive Alex Gordon, but Dayton Moore has made some notoriously questionable moves this offseason. They’ve paid free agents like Jason Kendall, Brian Anderson and Scott Podsednik who are just as qualified to receive a major league contract as to work at a gas station.
AL West W L
(2) Texas Rangers 88 74
Oakland A’s 86 76
Los Angeles Angels 85 77
Seattle Mariners 82 80
This division is the one I’m most looking forward to seeing in 2010. All four teams have a decent solid at the division crown. The consensus groupthink (if that’s not too Orwellian) is that the Mariners stand out from the crowd here. Granted the Mariners won 85 games last year and had an excellent offseason, but they were still outscored by 52 runs last year. Figgins and Lee are outstanding additions and I do like Jack Z, but the offense still is not that good and not to curb the collective enthusiasm of Mariners fans, but your team is probably a bit overrated (although a King Felix-Lee-healthy Bedard trio could very well prove me wrong). Furthermore I would like to say that although usually there is no harm in taking on a player for essentially nothing like the M’s did with Milton Bradley, but I think Bradley is an asshole in the mold of Albert Belle who will eventually alienate anybody he’s around long enough. I picked the Rangers because I like what’s brewing down there in Texas. Their offense core is already potent with the likes of Kinsler, Young and Cruz. I believe that despite Chris Davis’ ridiculously high number of K’s (150K’s in 391ABs!) that he could become a quality major leaguer. Add Rich Harden to a pitching corps built around young talent like Feldman, Holland, Hunter and Feliz and things start to look quite promising for the Texas Rangers. Moreover the Rangers were picked for the second straight year as BA’s top minor league system. Not much not to like there. I feel the A’s are underrated especially if Ben Sheets is healthy. Brett Anderson+Ben Sheets is almost enough to justify a winning record alone. Despite their spotty offense, pitchers like Braden and Cahill mean the A’s should be a solid or better team in ’09. It’s almost trendy to pick against the Angels every year despite their consistency and record of success. The duel losses of Lackey and Figgins hurt the Angels a lot, but they are a resilient bunch and could once again silence the doubters in ’10 by capturing another division crown.
ALDS
(1) New York over (3) Minnesota
(2) Texas over (4) Boston
ALCS
(2) Texas over (1) New York
Well there you go. Constructive criticism is always welcome and I value everybody's perspective. I do follow major and minor baseball closely and weigh a wide variety of sources before I make my picks, but remember I'm only one guy making picks in February. Admittedly my predictions were pretty lousy for the 2009 season. I did have the Yankees winning it all, but I had them beating the Mets in 7 games. In my myopic nostalgia I like to think that I correctly predicted the World Series winner in '09 (not that I liked the Yankees victory), but well in hindsight the Mets were still an awful choice for the NL champion.
Peace,
Alex Trebek
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