I would like to start by taking a little credit for my preseason predictions. I called the 2008 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (go ahead and fine me) the "2011 All Star Lineup". I knew this team had a lot of potential talent. I'm done praising myself, let's look at my other picks with their current standings:
AL East: Boston Red Sox 3 GB
AL Central: Cleveland Indians 12 GB (ouch)
AL West: LA Angels Leading by 4.5 games
AL Wild Card: Detroit Tigers 7.5 GB
AL Pennant Winner: Boston Red Sox
NL East: NY Mets 5.5 GB
NL Central: Milwaukee Brewers 4.5 GB
NL West: Arizona Diamondbacks Leading by 1 game
NL Wild Card: Chicago Cubs Leading division by 3.5 games
NL Pennant Winner: Arizona Diamondbacks
I am fairly confident about most of my picks. I really believe the Brewers will go on a 2nd half. They are 12-6 in their last 18 and 47 of their remaining games are against the Reds (41-47), Padres(33-53), Rockies (35-51), Astros (40-47), Giants (38-49), Pirates (40-45), and Nationals (34-54). Here are my updated picks:
AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Tigers!! (yes, I gave up on them a month ago and now I'm drinking the kool-aid again)
AL West: Angels
AL Wild Card: RAYS!! I'm getting on the bandwagon!
AL Pennant: Red Sox
NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Cubs
NL Pennant: Diamondbacks
2 comments:
It's hard for me to argue your updated picks...but I have to disagree with the Brewers.
Milwaukee division winners? Maybe wild card, but not division winners!
In order for that to happen they'd have to overtake the Cardinals, a great possibility, but remember St. Louis has about 153974293 guys on the DL right now and they will get them back eventually. And even with 293749273 guys on the DL, they're still doing better than Milwaukee.
More importantly they have to overtake Chicago...who are without their ace (Zambrano) and their slugger/lead off man (Soriano). So the Brewers would have to overcome a 4.5 game lead as the Cubs get their two best players back. Don't forget the Cubs won this division last year after owning the second half of the season.
Everyone talks about the Brewers getting Sabathia...but do you know what this team really needs? A bullpen! The Cardinals have Isringhausen. The Cubs have Wood. The Brewers have...Gagne? No thank you. When it gets to crunch time in September, who's going to step up when the pressure is on??? You can tell me that they might go pick someone up or that they might answer the call, but I look back to last year when they just faded into oblivion and couldn't pitch worth beans.
While we're on the pitching, look at the starters. You have Sheets, and then you have...um...um...Do you trust an aging Suppan? Yes, Manny Parra is have a lovely year. Do you trust the unproven guy though? Give me a staff of Zambrano, Lilly, Dempster and co.
As you can tell, I'm not the biggest Brewer fan. I watched them against Baltimore, and I was less than impressed. They can hit. Boy can they hit. And they might hit their way to a wild card...but I just don't see the pitching taking them much further.
I suppopse I could make the same case for Detroit...
Haha, okay the Brewers are looking a little bit better now =)
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