I suppose it's time for predictions gentlemen (and ladies).
by Hyatt on Apr 2, 2009 11:46 AM CDT
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PrintI know that my Fanposts are becoming as prolific as Camclow's, so I hope my analysis can rise to the standards he set.
Since there are 5 days left until Opening Day, we might as well put our predictions out there. We've been ripping and decerning everyone's predictions out there, and I realized that I haven't had my say (and a lot of us haven't said what we think, only implied). Here is what I think for the NL Central.
Chicago 89-73
St. Louis 86-76
Milwaukee 84-78
Cincinnatti 80-82
Pittsburgh 74-88
Houston 67-95
Despite the Cubs failings (see the signing of Milton Bradley as a starting OF), they are still the "class" of the division when it comes to teams. Not so much on the Fans. Here is a picture of a fat one for you.
St. Louis always seems to make a 2nd or 3rd place finish happen, and the emergence of Ludwick and the return of Carpenter will help in this. It doesn't hurt to have the best hitter of this decade patrolling first either.
The Crew will drop off, but be in it until mid-September. Suppan and the bullpen aren't much cause for optimism, but Weeks predicted breakout and Corey learning to take a walk will help.
I'm not buying the Reds until they get a manager that doesn't destroy pitchers. But some improvement will happen with Bruce and Votto getting more experience.
The Pirates have a star quality hitter in McClouth, and may find enough pitching to improve on last year's total, but I doubt it.
Houston's aging lineup and spotty starting behind Oswalt will toss them in the cellar this year.
I won't analyze any more than that for now. Feel free to speak your piece and rip to hell my thoughts.
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This year, honestly, feels as unpredictable as any. I feel like the Cubs should be able to stay atop the deck, but nothing is set in stone on their end either. They are more injury proned, puzzle piece for puzzle piece, than any team in baseball, in my book. Their offense could get shutdown through nagging hamstring injuries alone, and it’s a matter of time before Harden finds his way on the DL, as with Zambrano. It’s in their end to deliver.
I never count out St. Louis for two reasons, Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols. If he’s healthy, he’s the best in the game. The best news is, he has gotten through spring without a DUI as well! A sober La Russa is a smart La Russa, and it seems as though he always finds a way to get a great team. I don’t know how far their staff can take them, but if Carpenter can stay DL free, he could give them a good boost. I’m still not sold on their bullpen though. Too few pieces were added to a club that blew way too many leads last year.
The Pirates…
The Astros bring you a pretty good offense, but that starting rotation is brutal enough to make me feel real content in our staff, and that says a lot. I think they’ll be battling with the Reds a lot this season for 4th in the division.
The Reds will need their youngsters to do what ours did, when it was demanded from them, and they’ll also really need to get their starters to do as well as they can. It’s not the best ballpark to pitch in, but I think if Mr. Harang gets back to 06/07 numbers it would really help. Volquez is going to be fun to watch again this year, but I’d pay equal attention to Cueto. I’m thinking, at best, they can fight for third if they get that added quality effort from a third starter.
So, not guessing any win/loss totals, but I’m ending up with this:
1. Cubs
2. Brewers
3. Cardinals
4. Reds
5. Astros
6. Pirates
PensBurgh penalty - Lavender - 2 minutes for hijynxing.
I agree with your cubs assessment
I think the cubs are like the economy pre-crash: a house of cards. It may be a pretty, expensive, powerful mansion of cards, but a couple of the beams may collapse and bring the whole thing down. Harden, Z, Bradley, and Lee could all easily miss a great deal of time, and then the baseball world would see that the architecture of the team is really only surface deep. Alright, enough with the metaphor, though; the cubs have some serious injury worries and don’t have the depth to withstand a credit crunch….sorry.
Jon Stewart batting DH what now?
Seriously though, they have a good balanced team. They just need, more than anything, to stay healthy. It just seems like their track record of that matter shows that’s not going to happen, and as always, they’ll make a game of this for others. That’s why it’s great to just have a team to keep it close enough to the point they may crack under pressure New York style, or Chicago style. Depends on what toppings you want on it.
I missed lunch and lost the facts at some point there, sorry as well.
PensBurgh penalty - Lavender - 2 minutes for hijynxing.
Centrally dislocated predictions
I’m not even going to /start/ with W-L totals for the same reason I never predict playing time (sorry)—too many variables of our friend who is known either by Lady Luck or Random Chance.
1. Cubs
2. Cardinals
3. Brewers
4. Reds
5. Astros
6. Pirates
I’d expect 1,2, and 3 to be in a hot race for the division title as per usual. All of this depends on whether or not each team’s pitching staff blows up.
Optimistic:
1. Brewers
2. Cubs
3. Cardinals
4. Reds
5. Astros
6. Pirates
Obviously I’m being a bit biased, but I don’t think it’s an entirely unreasonable prediction. The Brewers are a young team (ie – a volatile team) and has the potential to really get on a roll. Consider how many players on the Brewers could foreseeable put together a season well above their projections (Fielder, Braun, Hart, Weeks, Hardy, Gallardo, Parra, Bush, etc?). Meanwhile the Cubs rotation, while good, also has the potential to perform well under projections. Harden gets hurt, Zambrano implodes, Dempster gets over a fluke year; would any of that happening really be very surprising? Not to mention the fact that Gregg is apparently Piniella’s chosen closer.
A straight projection shows the Cubs to be better, true, and maybe it’s unlikely but I think it’s easily within the realm of possibility that the reverse happens, if things break the right way.
(Disclaimer: Yes I’m just trying to find a way to justify Brewers at #1)
Ryan Braun: He loves it.
Barring the devastating injury
I really don’t see the Brewers falling out of second.
On offense, I don’t really see a guy who is likely to experience a major drop in production. Kendall, I suppose, though I’d imagine, if anything, we’d get a bump in production at catcher by having him “rest” his sub-.700 OPS more often. Maybe Cameron, though it’s unlikely he’s all of a sudden going to forget how to take a walk (arguably his greatest asset). Everyone else, I expect to stay the same or improve a smidge.
In pitching, we’re essentially trading CC and Sheets for Gallardo and Looper. To me, how “successful” we’ll be this season depends a lot on Braden Looper. A lot of projections I’ve seen for him seem, well, high to me. In two seasons as a starter, his ERA dropped from 4.94 to 4.16, and his WHIP dropped from 1.34 to 1.31. His strikeouts went up, his walks went down, and he pitched just shy of 200 innings. Wherefore the Looper pessimism?
As a group, I like our pitching staff - instead of having a true “ace,” it’s like we’re going with four #2/#3 pitchers, plus, ahem, Suppan. I think we have a decent chance for all five starters to finish the season with double-digit wins.
Defensively, though we’re a lost cause at first, we shouldn’t be any worse than last year. If Willie Randolph can do something with Rickie Weeks, our defense might be regarded as an asset.
Finally, we’re finally free of Ned Yost. For the first time in many, many years (maybe for as long as I’ve been following the Brewers), we have a manager who seems, you know, smart and stuff.
Losing Sheets and CC will hurt, we don’t have a lot of pitching depth to cover a long-term injury, and as a whole we might not take as many walks as we should. Nevertheless…I think we’re a pretty solid team, and NL Central evaluators are underestimating the value of Looper and Macha. Another 90 wins might not take the division, but we’ll have a good shot at defending the wild card.
"I will agree that the attitude [at BCB] is ridiculous and they have done so much to instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real mature!"
Lucky..
Lopes made Yost look half way decent.
I was too drunk to remember
how did Royster look in comparison?
I just sit back and root for the taser
Royster? I don’t remember him. I must have deleted that era from my cerebral cortex.
I did meet Davey Lopes when some Brewer gig happened at my middle school. I thought he was buzzed, or hung over. I believe his Milwaukee stint almost reflects that, but you can only blame someone so much when Henry Blanco is the starting catcher.
PensBurgh penalty - Lavender - 2 minutes for hijynxing.
I will agree with most of what you said with the exception of …
- The following numbers and statements have been pulled so far out of my rear end that my throat itches
Offensively I think that we will be better. Prince had a down year in ‘08 and I will take Braun’s sophomore slump any year. Hall’s eye surgery should help him NOT swing at the balls headed toward the dugout. If WR can help RW @ 2nd enough that he starts thinking about the stick in his hands and not the last grounder that he bobbled he will improve. Last year the crew scored 750 runs. I am predicting an increase of 10-15% in offensive production which should be good for 7.5-10 win upgrade.
Defensively – According to Doug Melvin the primary reason that WR was brought on board as a bench coach was to help RW (ok – I made that up and have no source… it is just what I am telling myself.) If RW can cost us one less win that he would otherwise have cost us… its all good. Braun will continue to grow into his new position and for the first time in a few years, Bill Hall didn’t switch positions in the off season. Those two factors will be good for another 1-1.5 wins. Prince lost weight and is a bit more agile – I will call that worth 0.5 wins. Overall I see the defensive increase of 2.5-3 wins
Pitching – As we have known since November was that we were going to lose the pitching that we had last year. We got hosed on the Yankees first round pick by 0.00000001% Elias point – yet somehow the f$%@g Yankees still get a first rounder (sorry that is/was another post) and Ben ‘China Doll’ Sheets couldn’t even make it to spring training without getting hurt so we lost that pick. Almost as important is CC starts that we are going to miss. Yo > Sheets (I hope) and CC 1/2 season will cost us 7 wins over the course of the season. Looper helps shore up the rotation and Gagne (even with his fabulous last 11 appearances) is gone. Overall pitching changes will cost us 5 win
Manglement – Yost is gone (praise be to the baseball Gods) and if Macha is only average I will still credit him with a single win.
Depth – with the exception of pitching (yes that is a big exception) I am ok with our depth in AAA and on the bench
Overall I think that we will be +6-8 wins over last year.
That puts us in the 96-98 win region.
The Cubs – Dempster had a career year last year – got his free agency payday and will now revert back to sub-par Dempster with a funky delivery/glove work – Zambrano will implode and be the first pitcher in the modern era to go on the DL for mental reasons. Milton Bradly will tweak his ACL while arguing with a beer vendor and only play 50 games. Fukedome will go into a sophomore slump – and yet the Cubs will still win 85-90 games
The Cards – Tony LaRussa is by far a great manager and with pitching coach Dave Duncans help could turn a 66 win team into an 86 win team (see Cardinals 2008) They will compete with the Cubs for second place.
The
Pirates – Nate McClouth and 24 no-names will have a good year – but still come up short of an elusive winning season – lets call it 75 wins
The Reds – Dusty Baker will have his pitchers on a strict pitch count for the first few times through the rotation. He will have them throw at least 130 pitches per outing until May – then their minimum pitches per outing will increase to 150. They also lost that ultimate base clogger of Adam Dunn. They are also going to sign Gary Sheffield and play him in place of Jay Bruce. Gary just has more veteran grit. 65-70 wins
The Astros – Cooper will be fired by the end of May – but only because he spouted off about a 90+ win season and the Astros suck. Their closer will only get 20 saves because they wont be in a position to win that many games. Roy Oswalt can not start every day and Lance Berkman pulled a career year out of his rump last year… 65 wins – maybe
The standings will look like this
Brewers
Cubs
Cards
Pirates
Reds
Astros
- The preceding statements have been pulled so far out of my rear end that my throat itches
by Saberilliterate on Apr 2, 2009 2:35 PM CDT up reply actions
Macha
I’m thinking he is going to be one of the biggest upgrades of the offseason and I think a lot of predictions we’ve been hearing around the web fail to take that into account. In the general scheme of things I don’t think a manager has a significant impact on the W-L of a club, however I don’t see how anyone could consider Yost a typical manager. From the sounds of it, the players are liking the no bull approach Macha has brought and I think it could really allow for some growth from the young guys we are counting on. Plus, Macha has a pretty good track record going for him. I am looking forward to seeing how he can positively enhance this club and hopefully help these players take the next step.
BCB, the preferred above replacement level sarcasm supplier.
by MadJimiBrewha on Apr 3, 2009 8:28 AM CDT up reply actions
I'm saving my predictions for Monday.
"The reports are that he is getting better. The definition of better is nebulous."
We should be getting this WAR final product and offense projection post out very soon
The artist formerly known as jihad.
Realistic Optimism
Cubs
Brewers
Cards
Reds
Pirates
Astros
Obviously things can change. The Cubs may pull of the Peavy trade, which would be dangerous. The Reds may mature faster than expected. The Astro’s and Pirate’s will be in the cellar, while the Brewers and Cards I like to compete with the second spot. This year I see the wild card comign from the NL East, however, so the second spot will be meaningless.
Pretty close
Cubs 89-73
Reds
Cardinals
Brewers 82-80
Pirates
Astros
Diamondbacks over Braves
Cubs over Giants (WC)
Diamondbacks over Cubs
Yankees over D’Backs in WS
It still blows my mind that he has 2 rings
I guess Craig is a championship winner. There’s nothing weird about it.
I just sit back and root for the taser
He wins championships, you have no concept
"I will agree that the attitude [at BCB] is ridiculous and they have done so much to instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real mature!"
I'm just trying to work that in to my comments as much as possible.
I just sit back and root for the taser
ESPN and SI have no mention of the Brewers.
Between the 34 “experts” they have the Cubs winning the division 29 times and the Cards 5. Also they have both the Cards and Reds getting the wild card twice.
The Cubs win the WS 4 times and lose 5 times while the Cards go win 1 and lose 1. The Reds lose the WS once.
Also the Reds were mentioned as a dark horse team so often by the ESPN “experts” that the horse is now a kind of scarlet colour.
There seems to be alot of faith in the health of Carpenter for that pitching staff to lead to division wins never mind World Series appearances. Also unsurprisingly nobody is buying into Cecil Cooper’s statement about the Astros being a 90 win team.
YES!
Han-Ram salami today! In your face, Hyatt!
I like to drink a little. Okay, a lot. Sue me.
by Dikembe Meiztombo on Apr 6, 2009 8:15 PM CDT reply actions
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chicago
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Cincinnati
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Houston
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Milwaukee
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
|
St. Louis
|
0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | Lost 0 |
(updated 2.16.2012 at 7:03 AM CST)
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
