AL Central Preview

To anyone wondering how we came to the decision about who would preview the East, it really wasn't that bad. Heck, I preferred that Shark would do it; that way I can tear down and make fun of anything I don't like. That's right, that's how I roll! (You know I'm joking Shark)

On to the AL Central, or as I like to call it "The-division-that-all-my-friends-teams-are-in-so-they-will-most-likely-berate-me-for-anything-I-say". Good times. This division could turn out to be one of the better ones with the emergence of the Indians as a contender, Minnesota always for some reason being a threat, Detroit "trying" to get better, and even KC attempting to no longer be a doormat for the rest of them. If the Sox aren't careful, they may not get the chance to defend their title in the playoffs.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX - Last year - 1st (99-63)
Comings: Javier Vazquez, Jim Thome. Goings: Frank Thomas, Aaron Rowand.
Why they'll win: They may have the best rotation in the game and they kept much of their championship team together. If Garland and Buerhle continue to produce and Garcia, Contreras, and Vazquez are solid, they'll have no problem winning the division.
Why they'll lose: Lack of bullpen depth and experience. With Hermanson starting the year on the DL and Jenks having 6 career saves, they definitely need Cotts, Politte, and McCarthy to be steady.

CLEVELAND INDIANS - Last year - 2nd (93-69) Would have made the playoffs too if it wasn't for that heart-breaking collapse down the stretch!!!!
Comings: Paul Byrd, Jason Johnson, Guillermo Mota, Danny Graves (HA HA!), Todd Hollandsworth, Jason Michaels. Goings: Kevin Millwood, David Riske, Bob Howry, Coco Crisp.
Why they'll win: Dependable starting pitching and a young, strong, fast, and impressive offense. These guys are now even scary on the new MLB '06: The Show video game when it comes to offense. Nobody wants to face Sizemore, Peralta, V-Mart, and Hafner.
Why they'll lose: Inexperience in big games and a depleted bullpen. Last year's bullpen was tops in the majors and two of those key guys, Howry and Riske, are now gone. This could cost the Tribe any playoff aspirations. Also, we all know how inexperience reared it's head at the end of last year.

MINNESOTA TWINS - Last year - 3rd (83-79)
Comings: Tony Batista, Luis Castillo. Goings: Jacque Jones.
Why they'll win: Pitching, pitching, pitching. Santana and Nathan are automatic. They need Radke, Silva, Lohse, Rincon, Crain, and the young stud Liriano to be at the top of their games to have a chance in this division.
Why they'll lose: An anemic offense. Unless all the one time "prospects" start proving themselves and Hunter and Castillo can return to form, they may be in serious trouble.

DETROIT TIGERS - Last year - 4th (71-91)
Comings: Kenny Rogers, Todd Jones. Goings: Jason Johnson, Troy Percival, Ugueth Urbina??
Why they'll win: If by some miracle all the young pitchers pan out and if the offense can produce on a consistent basis.
Why they'll lose: Mostly because of the starting pitching. I'd also point to their youth. Their is the possibility that they could be like the Tribe now in a few years, but that time is not now.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS - Last year - 5th (56-106)
Comings: Reggie Sanders, Mark Grudzielanek, Tony Graffanino, Doug Mientkiewicz, Scott Elarton, etc. etc. etc. Goings: Who knows, who cares
Why they'll win: First of all they won't, but I do think they won't lose 100 games either which in KC is saying something. With the veteran additions they've made on offense people may acxtually have to show up and play hard against KC instead of just walking all over them.
Why they'll lose: The abysmal state of their starting pitching and bullpen. It really is just sad. I'm pretty sure even avid baseball fans couldn't pick have of these guys out of a lineup. They could rob a liquor store and not be recognized.

NL East Preview

The NL East was arguably the most competitive division in baseball last year with every team finishing at .500 or better. Will the Braves continue their strangle-hold on the division title, or will Philly or the Mets finally figure out how to get over the hump? Could the Marlins possibly lose over 100 games this year and did Joe Girardi just get the biggest screw job of any first year manager? Theses are just a few questions that will be playing out this year in the NL East along with the drama that is Alfonso Soriano.

ATLANTA BRAVES - Last year - 1st (90-72)
Comings: Edgar Renteria. Goings: Rafael Furcal, Julio Franco
Why they'll win: The young bats stay hot, the old bats stay healthy, and the pitching continues to dominate despite Leo Mazzone's absence. That and they're the freakin' Braves and they always win.
Why they'll lose: Francoeur and Langerhans can't get it done, Reitsma falls apart as a closer, Renteria plays like he's a Red Sox still, Chipper's body betrays him, and Smoltz finally realizes he's been way to good for way to long.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES - Last year - 2nd (88-74)
Comings: Aaron Rowand, Tom Gordon, Arthur Rhodes. Goings: Jim Thome
Why they'll win: The Phillies could have one of the most dominate offenses in the game with Abreu, Howard, Burrell, Rollins and Utley. Also, as long as age hasn't caught up to them, Gordon and Rhodes should anchor their bullpen nicely.
Why they'll lose: The starting pitching is suspect. Lieber is quality, but he's definitely not an Ace and I'm not sure I totally trust Myers strong year last season to be repeated. Throw in Lidle, Franklin, and Madson and you're not scaring a lot of teams.

FLORIDA MARLINS - Last year - T-3rd (83-79)
Comings: A bunch of AAA guys. Goings: Juan Pierre, Luis Castillo, Juan Encarnacion, Todd Jones, A.J. Burnett, Alex Gonzalez, Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett, etc. etc. etc.
Why they'll win: Let's be honest here, they're not going to win. Too many young question marks. This team could have a top 5 Cy Young candidate and a top 5 NL MVP candidate and will still finish last.
Why they'll lose: Because the ownership dismantled the entire team and hung Girardi out to dry. You just know Willis and Cabrera are going to be demanding trades by the All-Star break.

NEW YORK METS - Last year - T-3rd (83-79)
Comings: Xavier Nady, Billy Wagner, Julio Franco, Carlos Delgado. Goings: Kris Benson, Braden Looper, Mike Piazza.
Why they'll win: A superior collection of talent compared to the rest of the league. Omar Minaya is officially the Latin Steinbrenner in my book. They have an Ace pitcher, a dominant closer, and three of the better hitters in the game with Beltran, Delgado and Wright.
Why they'll lose: Pedro's toe, Glavine and Wagner's age, and if Beltran continues to struggle in NY. Also, just because they're the Mets and they always seem to find a way to screw things up. They're like the little sisters of the Yankees. They try to be like big brother, but they cannot quite fill his shoes.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS - Last year - 5th (81-81)
Comings: Alfonso Soriano, Ramon Ortiz. Goings: Brad Wilkerson.
Why they'll win: Really this team needs to stay healthy to have a shot. Guillen, Vidro, and Johnson have all spent some quality time on the DL. Also, the starting pitching needs to continue to suprise and atleast one of the young guys needs to have a strong year.
Why they'll lose: If Cordero isn't the real deal, Vidro really isn't healthy, the pitchers realize they're really not that good and Soriano can't deal with the move to LF.

NL West Preview

Over this week Shark and I will be doing some quick previews of the different divisions with our picks coming at the end of the week.

The NL West was quite possibly the crappiest and least interesting (unless you count watching it to see if the division winner would finish below .500) division in all of baseball last year. Hopefully they can bounce back to respectability this year.

SAN DIEGO PADRES - finished 1st; last years record 82-80
Why they'll win: Pitching will have to be the key in the cavanerous Petco. With Peavy and Williams they have a strong core and I really like the addition of 6'10", hard-throwing Chris Young from Texas.
Why they'll lose: Lack of offensive production will be the downfall of this team. It's bad enough they play in Petco, but they also are just not that impressive to begin with when it comes to the bats. I like the addition of Mike Cameron both defensively and with the bat, and I absolutely hate the addition of Piazza...it's over Mike, your in the Hall of Fame, now go away!

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS - finished 2nd; record of 77-85 (How the hell did they finish 2nd?)
Why they'll win: If the offense can pick up where it left of last year and possibly improve. I really like Eric Byrnes' energy and I think Tracy will have a nice year again. I think the biggest question is at first (Is Connor Jackson ready and is Tony Clark washed up?), right field (What the heck happened to Shawn Green?), and catcher (Estrada's back is horrible).
Why they'll lose: They're bullpen is a joke. Terry Mulholland is listed on the bullpen depth chart. He's 43. He has a career 4.40 ERA. I think that's about all I need to say about that.

SAN FRANSISCO GIANTS - finished 3rd; record of 75-87
Why they'll win: Lucky for the Giants this division is so weak, but I still think a TON of things need to go right for them to win. Bonds needs to be healthy and not in jail, Schmidt needs to rebound, Cain and Lowry need to be studs, Benitez needs to bounce back, and the entire team needs to not break a hip at the Bingo parlor.
Why they'll lose: I saw the USA Today yesterday and a big story in it was about Randy Winn being with the Giants and their team getting "younger". Winn's 31. If you can add a 31 year old outfielder and he is almost 10 years younger than the other 3 you have, that's bad news.

LOS ANGELES DODGERS - finished 4th; record of 71-91 (This team should have been WAY better)
Why they'll win: A solid offense with Furcal, Kent, Drew, Mueller and Nomar along with the solid bullpen featuring Baez, Brazoban and Gagne and a couple of decent starters in Lowe and Penny.
Why they'll lose: Because they're the freakin' Dodgers and they always seem to lose and look horrible against lesser opponents. I mean really, they went from winning 90 games to losing 90 games in a year and they weren't even pulling a dismantling job like the Marlins. Who knows this year.

COLORADO ROCKIES - finished 5th; record of 67-95
Why they'll win: Because the MLB will finally allow pitchers in Colorado to throw pebbles and move the fences back to 500 feet. Either that or their offense only approach will pay off and they'll just out score everybody.
Why they'll lose: Because the front office does not know how to draft, produce, or sign as a free agent a ground ball pitcher. For pete's sake they have Byung-Hyun Kim listed as a starter and the things he's most famous for are giving up home runs. Need I say more.

Around MLB - Soriano makes his move

So, Soriano finally backed off and took his horrible glove out to left field (ESPN.com story). This begs the question, where would Soriano rank in fantasy baseball as an outfielder? At 2nd he was a top 2 or 3 guy, but the outfield is a lot deeper with players that don't strikout over 100 times or bat .280. Heck, his batting average has dropped from .300 in 2002 to .268 last year, not good. At second base Soriano was 3rd in doubles, tied for 2nd in hits, 1st in homers, 4th in RBI's, 2nd in runs scored, 1st in total bases, and 1st in steals...pretty impressive. But, if you transfer those stats to the outfield, he ends up like this: 12th in runs scored, 13th in hits, tied for 3rd in doubles, 4th in homers, 9th in RBI's, 5th in total bases, and 9th in steals. That's still quality (30/30 is always strong), but I think that would knock him out of any first round, and probably second round, consideration in fantasy drafts. Just something to think about.

Chachi's 2006 Fantasy Baseball Draft Observations

On Saturday Shark, myself and 10 of our friends drafted our Fantasy Baseball teams. Of course right now everybody's team looks pretty solid (things tend to not unravel until the injuries and slumps hit), but here are my current thoughts on the results and some predictions. Anybody involved in a FBL will certainly have seen a couple of these things in there own drafts.

• Adrian Beltre could quite possibly go from late round steal to first round bust to late round steal again in just 3 years. (Top 10 overall in our league last year, 10th round this year)
• On a similar note, my first round pick last year (Beltran) dropped to the 3rd round this year, and I think that's about where he should have always been.
• Damon went ahead of Crisp even though almost every talking head is predicting Crisp to have a better offensive year. I think you'll find this in most leagues and I think it comes down to name recognition and two common beliefs: Damon will continue to be Damon (ignoring age) and Yankee-hating stops at the Fantasy Baseball Draft door.
• My All-HR-team-with-a-.260BA goes to the '75 Reds (Sanders team) in our league. Look at this lineup: Soriano, Thome, M. Cabrera, A. Jones, Griffey, Mench, S. Green, and Barajas. Outside of Griffey and Cabrera there isn't a .300 hitter among them. Good thing he has Casey on the bench to try and raise the collective average occasionally.
• My Least-Intimidating-O goes to the Xenia Tornadoes (Greg R.). No offense, but Hernandez, Hillenbrand, Hall, Wright, Tejada, Beltran, Berkman, Ordonez, and Rowand just don't strike fear into my heart like some of the other teams. There are a lot of question marks in this lineup.
• My Pitching-staff-that-could-win-him-the-league goes to the '75 Reds (double winner, congrats!). He's sporting Oswalt, Willis, Johnson, Schilling, Lowry, and Contreras. This staff could just be crazy good.
• My Sporting-two-Tigers-so-it-must-be-the-worst-pitching-staff goes to Leyland's Losers (deal with it Den). A staff boasting Webb, Bedard, C. Young, Bonderman, Weaver, and Verlander (never mind the roll of the dice on Clemens) is just begging for a high ERA and WHIP. Hey Den, go all the way, Maroth and Rogers are still out there on the waiver wire.
• The Homer Award goes to Wedge's Wallbangers (Greg S.). Not only did he take 3 Tribe players over a 6 round span ( Cliff Lee, Wickman, and Westbrook) and Andy Marte in the 20th round (even though he may not start in the majors till later this year), but he also took former Indian Crisp. (Evan and Denny are somewhere preparing waiver moves and trades that will make them the end of year recipients of this award)
• The All Injury Team goes to Ted's Frozen Head (The Shark). As Shark pointed out at the end of the draft, he may have more question marks then anybody due to many players on his team having injury issues to get pass. Shark is sporting atleast 7 players coming off an injury last year or in the last couple years including: Vlad, Sexson, Rolen, Foulke, J. Lopez, Brian Roberts, and Hunter. If they are all healthy and productive, he'll have a good squad, but there is also the possibility he'll have few healthy players left by the end of the year.
• The biggest reaches I saw this year: Soriano #9 in round 1, Weeks in round 5, Iguchi in round 6, Barmes in round 7 (I think this was just a matter of most of the top SS already being off the board), and my biggest reach of this years draft is Johjima going in the 8th round ahead of Posada, Pudge, Lopez, and Molina. I just think that was a bit high for an unproven guy.
• The picks I really liked this year: Colon in round 5 (latest I've seen a Cy Young winner in awhile), Gagne in round 6 (if he's back to form, then the best closer in the game just went in the 6th), Schilling and Beltre in round 10 (a possible Cy Young candidate and dark horse MVP candidate in the 10th, WOW!), Brian Roberts and Biggio in the 14th (Biggio was still really good last year and if Roberts plays like last year this may be the pick of the draft), Wilkerson in round 15, Renteria in round 17 (huge steal if Renteria's return to the NL helps him out), Preston Wilson in round 19 (he's in a hitter's park and we know what he did at Coors), and I like the pick of Danny Kolb in round 22 (he's returning to Milwaukee where he made his name as a closer).

There you have it, let the smack talk from my league poor in from everyone I just pissed off. Honestly though, it is extremely difficult to predict what will actually happen this year and who will win. All I have to say is that until someone knocks me off, I'm still the reigning champ and I'm picking myself to repeat. Come get some!

Chachi's Random Baseball Observations

These are some of the random-ass things I thought of while watching some of the WBC games today:

• David Ortiz is already killing the ball like he's in midseason form and it's game 1 for the Dominican team.
• I think Miguel Cabrera is going to make the jump to elite status this year and by the end of it, he won't be a Marlin.
• If somebody doesn't beat Jimmy Fallon with that damn Pepsi bottle soon I may have to.
• I don't care what people say, the players, especially the Latin ones, are playing hard and want to win this thing.
• Tejada layed down a SWEET bunt, especially for a "power" hitter. See above.
• I seriously think the announcers are the ones not taking these games very seriously. I bet the ESPN Deportes announcers are doing a ten times better job and getting people into these games. Also, I'm pretty sure some of these guys are just in love with the sound of their own voices.
• Rick Sutcliffe pretty much claimed that Roger Clemens is the best pitcher EVER. I agree Roger is good, definitely top 10 all time, but ever? And he didn't even make an arguement for it, he just threw the comment out there like the host of a radio show trying to incite frenzy amongst callers. In the words of Shark, "You gotta come stronger than that!"
• If you are a baseball exec. and are trying to build excitement for the WBC, why would you hold games, never mind the final, in Petco Park where good hitting and homers go to die?
• The entire Mexican managerial staff looks like Fernando Valenzuela. It's eerie.
• Even though he's wearing a Team USA jersey, you could hear people openly booing and harassing A-Rod. This guy will have to cure cancer, catch Osama, and develop a cheap, clean fuel source before anyone outside of the Bronx claps for him. On another note, his strikeout looking was b.s. That ball was a foot outside.
• I think it should be mandatory that someone be named Chipper on every U.S. international team and they should all look somewhat like Chipper Jones. Something about him in the U.S. jersey just screams Kansas. I'm actively rooting for him to be the token-white-guy on the next Olympic basketball team.
• Shouldn't the U.S. have saved a roster spot for someone like Rod Beck (right) or Todd Jones? You know, just a guy that looks scary and mean and intimidates those around him. I think this may be our downfall.
• I think Peter Gammons in the Dominican dugout was a great idea and they should use it during the regular season. In fact, I think he should have to sit with Ozzie Guillen all year. Actually, I think this should also be a reality show or they should have a certain channel you can turn to with the camera always on Ozzie and a nervous Gammons.
  
• Mensa member Sutcliffe also said that every manager in the league would want Brad Lidge in the game if they absolutely needed one out. Hello Rick, Joe Torre is on line one and he says you're an idiot.

It's Official: S. Korea, Japan Advance to 2nd Round

South Korea and Japan both won their second games to advance to the 2nd round of the World Baseball Classic. Japan brought out the bats again putting up 14 on Taiwan after putting up 18 on China. South Korea brought some more lumber to their second game also beating China 10-1. From the looks of it though, Japan may be an offensive force to deal with, 32 runs in two games, and South Korea may be bringing some strong pitching to the table, 1 run given up in two games. Now, I know they were only playing China and Taiwan, but these wins may give them some confidence heading into 2nd round play where they will most likely face the U.S and Mexico or Canada. Also, clinching early allows them extra rest for their players and pitchers and plenty of time to get to the U.S. and scout the competition. Hopefully we don't have to call in Mothra and Rodan for backup! (I can't believe it took me this long to make a bad Godzilla-related joke, I promise to do better).

Ripping on Vince Young

Okay, I know there are a lot of things being said about Vince and the Wonderlic Test and I know Vince has said that much of it is "disrespectful", but he doesn't know the half of it. Click here for some real disrespect, mostly from fans of rival schools, of Vince's possible intelligence. I found this on a site called BadJocks.com which describes itself as "Where COPS meets Sportscenter". This may be one of my new favorite sites.

Baseball Begins, Kind Of

Last night, early this morning depending on how you look at it, the World Baseball Classic kicked off with Japan hammering China 18-2. Ouch! Also, South Korea took on Taiwan with the Souls from Seoul winning 2-0. Here's a question for the comment board: Which team of total unknowns , but with some international prowess, are you more afraid of, Japan or Cuba? And yes I know Ichiro is playing for Japan, but besides him they are pretty unknown in the States. I'm going with Cuba here mostly because they play all the time together, they are almost impossible to scout before the tournament, and they could have a lineup full of major leaguers or potential major leaguers and we would never know it.