skyking162

Here’s the third installment of my standings predictions.

AL East
AL Central

AL West

Oakland — 94
Texas — 84
Lanaheim — 82
Seattle — 78

I’m a Beane-o-phite, so please forgive the following dry hump of Oakland. Start with a team that won 88 games last year. Add Milton Bradley, Frank Thomas, and Esteban Loaiza. Realize that the A’s have the most pitching and hitting depth in the majors. And then bank on them destroying the rest of the AL West. A couple pieces of SABR-gossip: first, Billy Beane made a comment this off-season that young hitter really hit their stride the second half of their second year in the bigs. Hello, Nick Swisher. Second, I read (perhaps at BaseballMusings.com) that last year Esteban Loiza’s balls-in-play were very easy to field, yet he received the second-worst defensive support.

Paragraph Two: Of all the A’s players, my favorites for having great years are Bobby Crosby and Dan Haren. Some people argue that Crosby’s injury prone, but I don’t understand how a broken wrist and broken ribs are things you can expect to re-occur. Dan Haren had a great first full year in the majors, and I have an irrational hunch that he truns up the stud-o-meter this year, surpassing Zito and Harden as the ace of the staff. Overall, I predict the A’s to be the best team in the majors, and have the potential to put together an all-time great year. Only because the A’s are counting on so many young players and players with injury questions am I restraining myself from guaranteeing a 100 win season.

Oh, the rest of the division? Ok, how about the Rangers, who remind me of the stereotypical bully — the guy who can beat the crap out of you, but would cry foul if your posse held him down while you took free shots. Texas will throw runs on the board mercilessly, but they’ve got nobody to prevent other teams from doing the same to them. (You’re not really going to make some silly argument about Vicente Padilla, Adam Eaton, or Kevin Millwood are you? Didn’t think so.) If you’re a Rangers fan, you’re going to spend the half-innings when your team’s in the field thinking about who’s coming up for your team in the bottom-half.

I really wanted to put the Angels at the bottom of the standings, but I couldn’t quite do it. Yes, they have some really good players and they’re team chemistry is tops in the league. But do you really want Tim Salmon as your DH? Are Adam Kennedy, Orlando Cabrera, Casey Kotchman, Chone Figgins, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar actually good? Or are they just a little better than having a crappy player instead? Bartolo Colon’s the worst Cy Young winner in a long time, and while Darin Erstad belongs in center, his bat won’t get any better out there. For a team that I really don’t like on any level, I’m surprised I have man-crush on two of their pitchers — Jeff Weaver and John Lackey. Heyya, boys…

Damn you, Seattle! If you were any good, Lanaheim could finish in last. Unfortunately, Bill Bavasi thinks Carl Everett, Yuniesky Betancourt, and Gil Meche belong anywhere else other than the back stoop drinking beer. Plus Raul Ibanez, Jose Lopez, and every non-King starter have a performance ceiling of “merely average”. Um, maybe Adria Beltre will break out of his every-four-years-i-don’t-suck cycle. Long live the King!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 30th, 2006 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.