Spring has sprung, so the time has come for the official Wildcat Blog Major League Baseball Preview. I know for a fact of our 6 or 7 regular viewers, at least one is a baseball fan!
We'll start with the National League, where the New York Mets appear to be the team to beat after unloading a ton of prospects in exchange for Johan Santanna, a very good southpaw from Minnesota.
Note: According to a fine boxer named Balboa, the term "southpaw" comes from a left-handed boxer facing south Philly when he fought- so, paw is his hand, south Philly - south paw, "southpaw".
Anyway, like I said the Mets are really good and got better in the off-season, so despite their late season collapse last year they should win the East, even though Philly (there's that town again) is good as well.
The Reds got Dusy Baker to manage this off-season, so that means all their oldest offensive players will dominate playing time while their young pitchers will have their arms dangling off their shoulder by the end of the year due to overuse. The Houston Astros made a huge trade for Miguel Tejada, who may or may not be facing perjury charges from the Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drugs. The Cardinals have done nothing and there are rumors of Pujols' elbow possibly needing surgery. The Brewers are coming off a good year, but I don't think guys like Braun will repeat their offensive numbers. And, Ben Sheets is hurt almost as much as my Grandma.
What does this all mean? The Cubs should win the Central. And since it's been 100 years since they won a World Series, I'm predicting that they will at least make it there in 2008. They are deep in pitching and signed their biggest need in the off-season by acquiring left-handed (another 'southpaw'!) hitting right-fielder Kosuke Fukudome. Now, his last name is pronounced FOO KOO DOH MAY, though I prefer the phonetic pronunciation myself. (If you don't see the humor in that, you are far too mature to read anything I ever write on this blog, so go away.) In Japan, he got on base a lot and hit for power, something the Cubs haven't had since Fred "the Crime Dog" McGriff had his tour of duty before retiring to hawk Tom Emanski baseball drills videos.
As for the West, who cares. They don't play until 10:30 at night, so no one will know anything about them until October. Arizona will be good and the Rockies might repeat last year's performance. Whatever.
Up next, the American League.
2 comments:
more people would participate in the game prediction threads if you guy swould put them up earlier than 5 minutes before tip-off
GO CUBS. Being a lifelong Cubs fan I refuse to believe that this is the year. However, I also reserve the right to change my tune.
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