As I sit here, two fine sporting magazines are sitting in front of me (USA Today Sports Weekly – a magazine that I buy more often then not – and the Athlon Sports MLB Preview – which I had never heard of, nor read, ever before). Both of them are loaded with predictions, both on players and the teams. Indeed, both of them have their American League and National League predictions within – right down to the World Series and Wild Card winners.
And throughout the course of this week, I’m going to tell you where they’re wrong.
National League
Day one – National League West:
Athlon Sports #1 – San Francisco Giants
USA Today #1 – San Diego Padres
My pick: Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers are heading into this season with an overhauled roster of new players then in their disastrous 2005 season – only two players (JD Drew and Jeff Kent) are still on the team from their opening day in 2005. They’ve added several key players: one of the biggest question-marks in baseball, Nomar Garciaparra, the on-base threat of Rafael Furcal – who stole almost as many bases last year as the Dodgers did as a team - (For those of you counting, that’s two former rookie of the year players), Kenny Lofton, who batted over .300 and had a .420 slugging percentage last year and Bill Mueller, who won the 2003 AL batting title – and with the return of Eric Gagne as closer, the Dodgers could (and especially in the weak NL West division) be the team to beat – if Nomar returns to his Boston form, if Gagne can rebound from injury, if Furcal and Kenny Lofton stay to form.
The San Diego Padres, who won the divison last year, will be hard pressed to repeat their success – but they will do about as good (.500 or so) once more, thanks to the addition of prospect Adrian Gonzalez (who, in just 121 at bats, posted a .250 average and 70 RBI) the good leadoff bat of Vinny Castilla (despite a .253 batting average, he posted 66 RBI and a .403 slugging %) and Mike Piazza. Their only question is a suspect pitching staff: Once you get past their first two starters (Jake Peavy and Chris Young), the rotation is surprisingly shallow (Shawn Estes, their #3 starter, posted a 4.80 ERA in just over 120 innings last season), as is their bullpen (one injury to Trevor Hamilton and they can kiss their season goodbye).
The San Francisco Giants, who are relying on Barry Bonds to help out their batting, will struggle when Bonds spends most of the year on the IR, as the rest of their aging team will be unable to cover for his absence (they ranked next-to-last in runs scored last year and only had thee batters who posted more then 50 RBI). Their rotation will also struggle – only Noah Lowery posted an ERA of less then 4.00 last season, with 3.78. The other two are Jason Schmidt (4.40 ERA) and Matt Morris (4.11 ERA, 117 SO and 22 HR allowed – the highest on the team). Their lone bright spot will be Randy Winn, picked up last year from Seattle, who posted great number for the latter part of 2005 (.359 Batting, 1.071 OPS) – but unless Barry Bonds puts up some great stats, they’ll still rank toward the bottom of the league.
The Colorado Rockies, like last year, will once again be among the worst of the division – their rotation is weak (only two of the seven players projected to make their rotation posted a winning season last year and only one of those, Aaron Cook, didn’t also post double-digit losses), as is their scoring (Only two players posted more then 50 RBIs last year). However, they do have some young talent – they have a good two-reliever bullpen (both of whom posted more then 27 saves last year) and two good hitters in Matt Holliday (.505 slugging %, .307 batting, 87 RBI) and Todd Helton (.979 OPS, .320 average, 79 RBI) – and in a few years should prove to be a force for the NL Wild Card.
Lastly here is the Arizona Diamondbacks, who thanks to an off-season trade with Toronto have added some depth to both their rotation (former closer – and blown save leader – Miguel Batista) and to their defence (Orlando Hudson). But last year they posted a team ERA of 4.84 (third worst in the NL) and had a bullpen ERA of 5.40 – worst in the majors, plus ranking in the bottom half of runs scored in the NL. That is a problem that they haven’t tried to fix, unlike their pitching woes: In the Toronto trade, they let go of power-hitter Troy Glaus and will now have to rely on either Chad Tracy (.308 Batting, 72 RBI, .912 OPS last year) or Shawn Green (.286 batting, 73 RBI, .832 OPS) to fill his void. Their pitching woes have the potential to get worse, however, thanks to their acquisition of Orlando Hernandez (who posted a .500 season with a 5.12 ERA on the White Sox last year) and Batista (who posted a 4.10 ERA and posted 31 [out of 39] saves as the Blue Jays primary closer last year). Only Brandon Webb posted a winning season last year, going 14 and 12 (.538) with a 3.54 ERA and 172 Strikeouts. Look for either Batista or Hernandez to become trade bait, as the team looks to gain a power hitter (Manny?) at around the All-star break.
My prediction for the NL West:
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
Colorado Rockies
Arizona Diamondbacks
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