DOA

This is the year we tie the Phillies record. 16 straight seasons.

There is honestly 99% no hope for a turn of events.

The Pirates minor-league system is bankrupt, and the major-league team is below average in talent.

Should be fun watching Ian Snell and Gorzo pitch... Hopefully Bay returns to form so we can trade him for some real prospects. Maybe LaRoche as well. Jack Wilson should be traded now while his stock is as high as it's going to get.

We'll get about 70 wins, even in the pathetic NL Central. The owners will continue to subtly full the fans into thinking it's MLB's fault for not having a salary cap, while Nutting rakes in one of the largest profits in MLB, thanks mostly to revenue sharing and Steinbrenner.

Small market winning can be done, but only by smart people. Not a good reality for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Here's to the 2008 season!

(Yes, I will continue to post all season with regularity.) :)

Wanting to Hope

I can almost smell the freshcut grass, spilled beer, and steaming hotdogs....it's here! Baseball is back! The first day of Spring may have been a week ago (weather not withstanding) but for me the first real day of Spring is Opening Day. Not this Opening Day in Japan stuff, but real Opening Day. That is when we get games every day. And as Thomas Boswell says in Ken Burns' Baseball, "You may not watch it every day, but it is there when you need it." or something like that. What a beautiful thing.

What may not be beautiful is the Cardinals' season. I feel weird about the season. It has been a long time since I came into the season not really feeling that we have a good shot at winning the division, let alone contend. But I am struggling with that this year. Joe may be saying, "Welcome to my world." True enough. But I am also still wanting to hold out hope for the season because as they say, you never know.

IF the starting pitching can hold together--and that is a HUGE IF--we will have a shot to contend. The bullpen is pretty good and the lineup should be better with Glaus instead of Rolen and more experience for Duncan and Ankiel, but I don't know...the more I look at the team..a LOT has to go better than expected. The defense is not great...I know Edmonds wasn't the same guy, but still far better than most. And Rolen was always phenomenal. Offensively, outside of Albert there is still no reliable bat in the lineup. They should be decent, but not that good.

This is likely our lineup:

RF Skip Schumaker
2B Adam Kennedy
1B Albert Pujols
3B Troy Glaus
LF Chris Duncan
CF Rick Ankiel
C Yadier Molina
SS Cesar Izturis

That's a guess at the order, but whatever the case I'm guessing no one is intimidated, despite good spring training for some of these guys.

The rotation is the real question mark, though. Just as scary as last year:

Adam Wainwright--excellent first year as a starter, probably the only dependable one
Braden Looper--adequate as a first year starter last year himself, but not exciting
Todd Wellemeyer--also first starts last year (noticing a pattern)
Brad Thompson--after 3 seasons he still looks 15...not that's bad =)
Kyle Lohse--I like this pickup a lot, but he's still not the answer

Again, IF the pitching holds up ok, AND Mulder and Clement come back soon pitching well, there is a shot at contending. But I hate to say it...it would almost take a miracle for the Cubs NOT to win the division. Ugh.

Guys, I will try to hold out hope. Show me you can do it.

just for the record...

... It's 6:50 am and I've been watching live baseball from Japan for the last 45 minutes. It's so beautiful and wonderful I'm not sure I can describe the joy accompanying my early morning activity. [Can you really call this an activity? I'm just sitting on the couch....] The score is 2-0, A's in the top of the 6th. Two on... no outs... Ortiz is up. Out! Pop-up. Base hit by Manny! Two runs score. 2-2.

Somehow, I need to pull myself away so I can get ready for work.

It's back, my friends.... the glory of baseball is back. : )

Looking forward to writing soon about my beloved Phils...

Opening Day Eve

Or Rather...opening day itself as the Boston Red Sox are in Japan to take on the Oakland A's. Diasuke Matsuzaka vs Joe Blanton. I'm not sure how I feel about opening the season in Japan, especially since the team comes back to the US and reopens spring training after two regular season games. How weird. Anyway, I expect Diasuke to have a big day in front of his home town fans.

For the second time in my life, the Boston Red Sox are the defending World Champions. The starting nine from last year is returning 100 %. The main difference is Jacoby Ellsbury will be up for the entire season. Ellsbury made a name for himself in September while Manny was taking a break and later in October. Crisp struggled like there was no tomorrow in the playoffs, and Ellsbury was inserted into the lineup and was almost the World Series MVP. Most speculate Coco Crisp will be traded, and he's been very vocal about not wanting to rot on the bench. The other noteworthy transaction was Doug Mirabelli, Tim Wakefield's personal catcher, was cut in favor of Kevin Cash who stepped in and did awesome last year when Doug was hurt. The Red Sox tried this once before, and ended up trading away Josh Bard and Clay Meridith to get Mirabelli back (who was hitting .172 or something...in the National League...). I hope they stick to their guns this time. Dougie can't hit the ball at all anymore.

The starting rotation is, in my opinion, better than 2007. The one difference is Jon Lester is in the rotation instead of Julian "Automatic Win Day" Tavarez. I expect Beckett to build on the magnificiant October he had. I'm predicting he'll win the Cy Young this year. Schilling's hurt right now, but the Sox have two viable options to fill in for him. The young Clay Bucholtz, who you may recall no-hit the Orioles last year before being shut down with a tired arm, and the veteran Bartolo Colon. I think it might be Bucholtz to start the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if Colon didn't play a big part of the year. The Sox got him dirt cheap. I'm hoping he plays the role David Wells did here from 2005-2006 or Brett Saberhagen did in 1999. I'm actually pretty excited about Colon, and am predicting he'll win 10 games. We'll see if that's true.

Anyway, I'll make some 2008 predictions, but not now. I'd rather wait for the lull between opening day Japan and opening day USA.