Overcooked MLB Preview

            Some of you asked if I was going to write about real baseball this year, and I’m proud to say that I did. Unfortunately, I forgot to post this Sunday afternoon, so you’re getting it two days later than it was originally intended to be released. Based on my March Madness performance, it’s probably for the better, as I wouldn’t want anyone making bets on any advice I have to offer at the moment. Without further ado, we run through each division, with some playoff predictions at the end.

 



NL West

5. Colorado Rockies

            The pitching is abysmal, and we predict by June that whispers of Troy Tulowitzki ending up in pinstripes become shouts.

4. San Diego Padres
            Almost the exact opposite of Colorado, San Diego has the proud distinction of providing the most inept offense in the National League. A Chase Headley bounce-back campaign is their only hope.

3. Arizona Diamondbacks

            If they were willing to pay the price for David Price, we’d consider bumping this team up to the top spot in the NL West. Without him, their rotation is a bit of a mess until Archie Bradley reaches the Major Leagues.

2. San Francisco Giants

            The 2012 World Series champs had a down 2013 for a variety of reasons, but if half of those issues correct themselves, they should be looking at a Wild Card spot.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

            They have the best starting pitcher (Clayton Kershaw), arguably the best shortstop (Hanley Ramirez), and MLB’s best chance of Manny Ramirez 2.0 (Yaisel Puig). Not to mention that they are owned by crazy people who will do whatever it takes at the trade deadline to improve the team. There’s always a chance of an October flameout, but in the regular season the Dodgers are the best bet to rack up the most wins in MLB.

AL West

5. Houston Astros

            Are the Astros the Philadelphia 76ers of MLB, or vice versa? Regardless, some of Houston’s top prospects will be hitting the bigs soon. There’s a chance they won’t be horrendous in 2016.

4. Oakland Athletics

            Oakland always squeezes more production out of it’s players than any other team, but season ending injuries to a couple prominent members of their starting rotation will set them back.

3. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

            I think Pujols comes back to near All-Star form, and Mike Trout is ridiculous, but until Los Angeles corrects their pitching issues, they won’t hang with Texas.

2. Seattle Mariners

            Either we’re over eager about Seattle because of their abundance of young starting pitching behind Felix Hernandez, or because Robinson Cano has been one of the team captains of my No Credentials Fantasy Baseball team for three years. Regardless, there’s a chance that Cano stabilizes an offense full of talented players who haven’t delivered yet.

1. Texas Rangers

            We’re bummed out about Jurickson Profar missing the first three months of the year, but there’s still a ridiculous amount of depth offensively. Prince Fielder will return to previous form playing his home games in Arlington, and Adrian Beltre is arguably the most under appreciated great player in the game. They’ll need to acquire another starting pitcher before the deadline to be a true threat in the playoffs, but there’s enough here for them to win the AL West.

NL Central

5. Chicago Cubs

            We’re about a year away from seeing the benefits of Theo Epstein’s rebuild, but at least Chicago should have the most exciting mid-season call-up in the form of Javier Baez. 

4. Milwaukee Brewers

            Milwaukee could win anywhere between 65 and 95 games and I wouldn’t be completely surprised. As we’ve written before, Ryan Braun is a complete asshole who won’t care about getting booed everywhere he goes. He should return to near MVP-level form. It’s the question marks in the starting pitching staff (in particular, presumed ace Yovani Gallardo, who imploded last year) that make us lukewarm on them surpassing any of the other three playoff teams in their division from a year ago.

3. Pittsburgh Pirates

            The Pirates were a blast last year, even getting contributions from a pitcher who grew up right in No Credentials home turf. It would’ve been great to see them go all-in and acquire another power bat, but it appears they are just hoping for another step forward from Pedro Alvarez. They’ll still be competitive, but we see them just missing the Wildcard game.

2. St. Louis Cardinals

            Are the San Antonio Spurs the St. Louis Cardinals of the NBA, or vice versa? They’re incredible pitching depth will have them in the hunt as always come October.

1. Cincinnati Reds

            Forgetting his forgettable 0-4, four strikeouts performance on opening day, we think Billy Hamilton is the key to the Reds overtaking St. Louis in the NL Central. His transformational speed is enough of a difference maker to make an already potent Reds lineup all the more lethal.

AL Central

5. Minnesota Twins

            Hard not to think that Joe Mauer’s move away from catcher is about three or four years too late.

4. Chicago White Sox

            There are not a lot of interesting players here, but at least Jose Abreu should be fun to watch.

3. Cleveland Indians

            Last year’s most surprising AL playoff participant, Cleveland likely needs Carlos Santana to have a career year in order to put them over the hump.

2. Kansas City Royals

            For the first time in a while Kansas City actually has some depth in their starting rotation. Mike Moustakas fulfilling his post-hype sleeper status alongside former top prospect Eric Hosmer is needed for the Royals to have any chance of knocking off Detroit.

1. Detroit Tigers

            They have the best pure power hitter in baseball and the deepest starting rotation in the American League. Throw in some better clubhouse chemistry now that Prince Fielder is in Texas, and you have yourself the favorites to represent the American League in the World Series.

NL East

5. Miami Marlins

            At what point do the Marlins pull the trigger on a Giancarlo Stanton trade? He’s the best tool they have to completely reload their farm system.

4. New York Mets

            Matt Harvey’s injury really is a bummer. New York might’ve actually had a chance to at least be in shouting distance of a wildcard spot if their young ace was healthy.

3. Atlanta Braves

            No team was ravaged more by injuries during spring training than Atlanta. They are one of the few teams that have the depth to deal with losing 40% of their starting rotation (that’s a fancy way of saying they lost two starting pitchers), but we think that puts them a step behind in the NL East.

2. Philadelphia Phillies

            Remember the 2009-10 Phoenix Suns, who made a semi-improbable run to the Western Conference Finals a few seasons after it looked like the Nash Era would never contend for a NBA title again? That’s the kind of year I’m predicting for Philly.

1. Washington Nationals

            A full year of solid health for Bryce Harper (who was fortunate not to get a concussion after getting kicked in the head on opening day) is what we are predicting, as well as a serious run at the NL MVP award. If the offense improves their scoring output by one run per game over last year, their pitching will take care of the rest.

AL East

5. New York Yankees

            The infield is atrocious, there are no sure things in the starting rotation (Sabathia is washed up, Kuroda is a nerd stats regression candidate, and while we like Tanaka, we aren’t ready to bet the farm on him), and even more frightening, they don’t have THE HAMMER OF GOD anymore. Throw in the fact that they will be lucky to get 240 combined games out of Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran, and this has all the makings of a season similar to what the Red Sox endured in 2012.At least for their sake, Bobby Valentine isn’t the manager.

4. Baltimore Orioles

            For my money, no team whiffed more in the off-season than the Baltimore Orioles. The offense is dynamite (and the Nelson Cruz signing at least paid dividends on opening day), but if there was one team that needed to through an obscure amount of cash at Tanaka, it was Baltimore. Ubaldo Jimenez is not enough for the Orioles to get into playoff contention.

3. Boston Red Sox

            Coming off a year where just about everything went right, it would make sense that a market correction will occur. We are hopeful that Grady Sizemore (one of the franchise players on one of my all-time favorite fantasy baseball teams I owned in 2008) makes a serious run at Comeback Player of the Year.

2. Toronto Blue Jays

            Think of this prediction as the opposite of what I just said about Boston. Virtually everything went wrong for Toronto last year, and while they didn’t get off to a great start against Tampa Bay, we still think the Blue Jays have the manpower to at least finish second in the AL East.

1. Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays

            On paper, this is the best (Devil) Rays team of the Joe Maddon era. There’s so much pitching depth throughout the organization, they could trade David Price and still not miss a beat. Wil Myers will form a dynamic duo with Evan Longoria in his sophomore campaign, giving the offense a much-needed boost. Barring a significant injury to Longoria (which could happen), this is the team to beat in the AL East.

(Probably Terrible) Playoff Predictions

NL West = Dodgers

NL Central = Reds
NL East = Nationals
NL Wildcard 1 = Cardinals
NL Wildcard 2 = Giants

AL Central = Tigers

AL East = (Devil) Rays
AL West = Rangers
AL Wildcard 1 = Mariners
AL Wildcard 2 = Royals

NLCS = Reds over Cardinals

ALCS = Tigers over Rays

World Series = Reds over Tigers

 

 

 

10 Awesome Things That Happened This Past Weekend (4/6-4/8)

10. Isaiah Thomas Gets Fired…Again
            Isaiah Thomas is rockstar. He actually had the stones to come out and say that getting fired from Florida International University was the first time he had been canned for “basketball reasons”.

9. Kanye West Seen Canoodling With Kim Kardashian

            If these two procreate, I’m moving to Uranus.

8. Steven Stamkos Reaches 60 Goals

7. Lionel Messi Reaches 60 Goals
            Both feats are impressive, but Messi achieving something that hadn’t been done in 39 years earns him one spot higher on this weeks list over Stamkos.

6. Milwaukee Bucks Beat Lowly Bobcats By 5

            Loyal readers may recognize this item as “The Weekly Shameless Plug of the Team No Credentials Picked in the Sportsbook Survivor Pool This Past Weekend”.

5. Carmelo Anthony Drops 43, Leads Knicks to Victory Over Bulls

            Sure the Knicks were at home playing against a team led by a very rusty Derrick Rose, but did anyone in the NBA need to have this kind of game more than Carmelo Anthony? Me think not.

4. Boston College Wins NCAA Hockey Title

            I would’ve ranked this higher, but BC beat some school named Ferris St. in the championship game, which is a college that I would need at least five guesses to figure out which state it is located in.

3. (Devil) Rays Rally Against the Hammer of God, Eventually Sweep Yankees

            I’d be more excited about New York’s 0-3 start, but the last time they lost their first three games they went on to win 114 games in 1998.

2. Red Sox Blow Two Saves in One Game, Get Swept By Tigers

            We are only in the first week of the season, but No Credentials is feeling pretty confident with its third place finish prediction for Boston.

1. Bubba Watson Wins 2012 Masters on Second Playoff Hole

            Despite no Tiger Woods, and a pedestrian performance by Phil Mickelson, this year’s Masters will be memorable thanks to Bubba Watson’s incredible second shot at 10 during the playoff. That shot would be hard to pull off in a video game, much less during a playoff hole in the biggest golf tournament on Earth.  

Half-Baked MLB Preview

            After watching parts of a dominating performance by Kyle Lohse (Kyle f***ing Lohse!), I feel pretty stupid about producing two pages worth of a Word document on a sport that almost puts me into a deep coma. Despite this questioning of my self-worth, here’s No Credentials predicted order of finish for each division in MLB.

NL West

1. Arizona Diamondbacks
2. San Francisco Giants
3. Colorado Rockies
4. Los Angeles Dodgers
5. San Diego Padres

If you were allowed to put the Giants pitching staff with the Rockies offense, you’d have a super team. Unfortunately, that’s not allowed, so we’re stuck with picking the most well rounded team in the division to win the NL West. Arizona has the most underrated starting rotation in the NL, and a deep bullpen to support it. A monster campaign from Justin Upton (think .290-35-115-110-25) puts Arizona into the 95-win zone.

AL West

1. Texas Rangers
2. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
3. Oakland Athletics
4. Seattle Mariners

It doesn’t really matter if you put Texas or the Angels first or second in this division. With each team getting 36 chances to beat the living snot out of the Mariners and Athletics, both of these teams will be making the playoffs.

NL Central

1. Cincinnati Reds
2. Milwaukee Brewers
3. St. Louis Cardinals
4. Chicago Cubs
5. Pittsburgh Pirates
6. Houston Astros

          The toughest division for No Credentials to pick, we ended up going with the club that lost the least during the off-season. I have a hard time believing it will be business as usual in St. Louis without Albert Pujols, and Milwaukee faces a similar issue without Prince Fielder.

AL Central

1. Detroit Tigers
2. Cleveland Indians
3. Minnesota Twins
4. Kansas City Royals
5. Chicago White Sox

I tried to talk myself into picking Cleveland to win the division, but can’t do it. Even if Detroit’s infield is leakier than the Titanic, the Tigers should win the division by 10 games or more.

NL East

1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Washington Nationals
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Miami Marlins
5. New York Mets

         This is the most competitive division in MLB. You could make a strong case for any of the top four clubs to win the division. Philadelphia’s three-headed monster at the top of their rotation still gives them the edge in No Credentials book, but their aging offense is becoming more of an Achilles heal.

AL East

1. Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays
2. New York Yankees
3. Boston Red Sox
4. Toronto Blue Jays
5. Baltimore Orioles

          New York is getting long in the tooth (other than Robinson Cano), and doesn’t have a reliable starter other than C.C. Sabathia. Boston will need to get a borderline historically dominant season from their offense (a possibility. If Boston makes the playoffs, it will be because Adrian Gonzalez is the AL MVP) to overcome the issues they will have with their bullpen (TANGENT ALERT: I hate the placement of Daniel Bard in the starting rotation. They essentially traded one of the best setup men of the past two seasons who has the stuff to close games for a guy who had an ERA over 6.00 the last time he was a regular starter, and that was in Single-A ball in 2007). Tampa Bay has the most pitching depth (minors included) of any club in baseball. Evan Longoria is due for a hammer-of-God season (he was plagued last season by a insanely unlucky BABIP), and the emergence of Desmond Jennings should fill in what they lost when Carl Crawford left for Boston (remember folks, Carl Crawford used to be good once upon a time). This is why No Credentials is cursing the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays by picking them to win the AL East.

Why I Could Care Less About the Red Sox and MLB

            At the time I’m starting to write this, it’s been roughly 22 hours since the completion of the most epic collapse in baseball history. My interest in baseball has been waning considerably over the past four years, but Wednesday night’s events were enough to suck me back in (EDITORS NOTE: By sucked back in, I mean following the nights action through my fantasy baseball team, because my keeper league team was in position to win a championship. Sadly, my fantasy team is more important than the Red Sox. More on that later). While Papelbon was throwing batting practice fastballs down the heart of the plate, one question kept popping into my head… why don’t I care?

              Longer than I remember, I always was a Red Sox fan. Somehow in my early years, Mike Greenwell was my favorite player (a career .303 hitter, 130 homers, 726 RBIs). Perhaps it was his 1988 season where he finished second to Jose Canseco in the AL MVP voting that sucked me in, although I was three years old in 1988, so I doubt I had much of an understanding of that sort of thing. Ages 10-13 are when my sports interest began increasing exponentially by the day, which was right at the beginning of the Nomar-Pedro era. The most enjoyable sports viewing experience of my life was the 2004 playoff run, with games four and five of the ALCS standing out the most. Over a 30-hour period, it felt like the Sox and Yankees played for 15 of them. It was truly magical stuff (years later we would find out that a lot of it was scientific stuff due to the amount of steroids that were used by both teams, but we didn’t know that at the time). Sadly though, my love of baseball and the Red Sox is on life support. In no particular reason, here are the reasons why I could’ve given a rat’s ass if Boston won or lost this past Wednesday.

- Baseball Games Take Too Long (most of the time)

            This one really hit home during the 2010 World Cup. I’m not much of a soccer guy, but I knew that when a game started at 2pm, the game would be over in roughly two hours. Baseball purists will argue that the beauty of America’s pastime is that the game could literally go on forever, but it’s a problem when games actually feel like they will last forever. Especially since the “Moneyball” method has become the predominant approach of major league clubs (working the pitch count to draw walks and wear down opposing pitchers), you’re lucky to see a Red Sox-Yankees game that takes under three hours. Call me a stick in the mud, but I’m at a point in life where I like to have a good idea of when something is going to end.

- The Economic Structure of Baseball is Broken

            Last year, the Super Bowl winning team came from a town with an estimated population of 104,057. If a baseball team were in Green Bay, it would be lucky to have a payroll over $20 million. The only chance this fictional Green Bay baseball team would have of competing would be to nail the draft for two or three years, and then hope all of the prospects hit the majors at the same time for a two year window before they are all eligible for free agency and sign with other teams for more money. Call me crazy, but I’ll take the economics of the NFL (where cities like Green Bay and Kansas City have enjoyed success) over MLB everyday and twice on Sunday.  And to spin it back to my issues with the Red Sox, how am I supposed to feel bad that a team that spent $100 million less than them overtook them for a wildcard spot?

- Fantasy Baseball is Much More Interesting

            A selfish reason, but the bottom line is I was much happier about Evan Longoria’s September in regards to my fantasy team than I was bummed out about his performance leading Tampa over the Red Sox.

- I Don’t Have Enough Time to Follow 162 Games

            Back in junior high school, there wasn’t a sports event that I missed. As I’ve gotten older though, I’ve had to cross a few things off the list. College football was the first to go because of working every Saturday during high school. The lack of a playoff combined with the corruption across the major programs make me very happy about that decision. NHL was next thanks to the lockout and the games being on a network that I didn’t have for four years (look for a huge NHL comeback in the Muir household this season though. Stupid NBA). With working full-time and having a family, I can’t make the time to watch well over 20 hours of Red Sox baseball per week. It would be one thing if the game was more entertaining, but we’ll leave that discussion for the next bullet point.

- Steroids Era Baseball Was Better

            I’m in the minority (although maybe not based on the major decline in MLB television Ratings and attendance), but I loved steroids baseball. Watching Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds blast 500+ foot home runs was breathtaking. I don’t care what chemicals they used to hit them. Remember McGwire in the 1999 Home Run Derby at Fenway Park? I’d link to the video of it, but MLB is dumb and won’t allow their videos uploaded on YouTube. You’ll just have to trust me that it was damn good television.

- I Have Little Respect For the “Dominance” of Pitching

            For any moron that wants to blame the decline in offense on the “great depth” of pitching in baseball today, I’d first like to show you the stats Greg Maddux put up during his prime (his final year with the Cubs and first six with Atlanta).

YR	GP	CG	SHO	IP	W	L	SO	ERA	WHIP
1992	35	9	4	268	20	11	199	2.18	1.01
1993	36	8	1	267	20	10	197	2.36	1.05
1994	25	10	3	202	16	6	156	1.56	0.90
1995	28	10	3	209.2	19	2	181	1.63	0.81
1996	35	5	1	245	15	11	172	2.72	1.03
1997	33	5	2	232.2	19	4	177	2.20	0.95
1998	34	9	5	251	18	9	204	2.22	0.98

            Next, let’s take a look at Pedro Martinez from 1997 (his final season with Montreal) through his first six seasons with the Red Sox.

YR	GP	CG	SHO	IP	W	L	SO	ERA	WHIP
1997	31	13	4	241.1	17	8	305	1.90	0.93
1998	33	3	2	233.2	19	7	251	2.89	1.09
1999	31	5	1	213.1	23	4	313	2.07	0.92
2000	29	7	4	217	18	6	284	1.74	0.74
2001	18	1	0	116.2	7	3	163	2.39	0.93
2002	30	2	0	199.1	20	4	239	2.26	0.92
2003	29	3	0	186.2	14	4	206	2.22	1.04

            Keep in mind that these two men were pitching against guerilla juiceheads that can now only be found on “Jersey Shore”. Pitching against the chem.-free hitters of today, Pedro and Maddux probably could have sub 1.00 ERAs.

            Thanks to Terry Francona for letting his pitchers get wasted in the clubhouse on their days off. Thanks to Carl Crawford for woefully underachieving (the poor guy should’ve signed with Anaheim. Money isn’t everything). Thanks to the Boston season mercifully ending, I will watch football on Sundays in peace, which is what I would’ve done anyway, but now four percent of me won’t feel guilty about ignoring the Sox.