Why Are You So Bad At Your Job?

I've been thinking about this for a while and game 6 of the NBA finals was sort of a tipping point for me.  First, Tony Parker clearly got pushed when he tried to make a game winning shot at the end of regulation.  He also flopped, but still, he was fouled first.  Then, Manu Ginobili got mauled by more than one Miami player on his way to attempting a lay-up near the end of overtime.  Manu also took about 4 steps.  Neither one of those things drew a whistle.  Then Danny Green got tackled by Chris Bosh while trying to make a game tying three at the buzzer.  Van Gundy commented that he was OK with the no call but "is that a foul in the first 46 minutes of the game? Definitely!".  That's not how rules work Jeff!

Quick sidenote on the NBA finals.  I guess I'm rooting for the Spurs, but I kind of don't like either of these teams and I feel like neither outcome will save me from a summer of having to hear about Lebron all the time, so I mostly don't care who wins. 

Anyway, back to the point...why is it so hard to find competent officiating for major professional sports?  It's an honest question.  I sometimes feel like the NBA is secretly only allowed to recruit referees from prisons that are full of prisoners whose crimes somehow related to their complete inability to understand the rules of basketball.

Before we get to actual sports though, a quick honorable mention for soccer.  We'll talk about the NBA more in a little bit and when we do, just remember that flopping started in soccer.  Soccer referees throughout the world were so incompetent at discerning the difference between an actual foul and a flop that flopping became something of a soccer tradition, like 0-0 ties or standing around and not doing anything while the game is actually happening.  The influx of European players to the NBA was immediately accompanied by the advent of NBA flopping (I'm looking at you Vlade Divac).  There's no excuse for American referees to be just as useless as European soccer referees, but still, like most things, some of this is all soccer's fault.

Let's start with the NHL because, as usual, hockey is better than everything else.  I honestly can't remember the last time I walked away from a hockey game thinking that the officials had influenced the outcome of the game in any real way.  Hockey officials are the exception that prove the rule.  You could read this and say I just hate all referees, and you could be right, except you're not, because I don't hate hockey refs.

To be fair, there's definitely some built in advantage here.  Most hockey calls are relatively subjective and the NHL has taken concrete action in the rules to avoid flopping and exaggerating to get calls.  Also, most hockey commentators are Canadian, so they're generally pretty nice abooot stuff and they don't kill the refs too much even when they do miss a call. 

Hockey officials also get extra bonus points because A) if you count each skate individually, hockey players are carrying three deadly weapons at all times and B) hockey officials have to know how to skate, making them the only officials I can think of who actually have a skill. 

One more important point here.  Since, when you grow up, you learn that none of your dreams actually come true, I don't live in Canada.  Our syrupy neighbors to the north take hockey at least as seriously as we take football, and I imagine that if I were to walk into a Winnipeg sports bar in January I'd hear Canadians using their awesome accents to politely complain about all the bad calls in last night's Jets game.  So maybe it's all just a matter of perspective. 

Speaking of football, the NFL is sort of a mixed bag.  On one hand, I feel like there's been a disputable or debatable call on every football play I've ever seen.  The NFL provides a constant stream of questionable officiating, and I'm not sure I've ever fully agreed with a call in an NFL game. 

But the thing is, I'm not sure I've ever fully disagreed with a call in an NFL game either.  Officiating football is really hard.  Take a look at the basic situation for NFL refs:
-Players basically assault each other on every play and it's perfectly legal...
-except for the quarterback, who has like one square foot of area where you're allowed to touch him.  -I'm not sure if anybody in the world is 100% clear on when you're allowed to hit a receiver.
-Commentators constantly point out that there's holding on every play, which seems true enough, but you obviously can't call it on every play. 
-The rules change slightly every time someone gets another concussion.
-And there are all these complicated extra rules about eligible receivers and things happening down-field and whatnot. 

It's a lot, is what I'm saying.  Watching a group of guys try to properly officiate an NFL game is a lot like watching your dog try to work the microwave.  He's not going to get it right, but it's not really his fault either.  Plus it's football, so it's not like we're going to stop watching, so who really cares.

Now we come to baseball and this is where I start to get annoyed.  Baseball umpires have the easiest job I could possibly imagine.  First of all, most baseball rules were written 150 years ago.  People were less creative back then, so you have really simple rules like "if the ball beats the runner to first base, the runner is out" or "if a fielder catches the ball before it hits the ground, the batter is out" or "women aren't allowed to vote", etc. 

Secondly, if baseball were moving any slower, the games would be happening in reverse.  Baseball umpires are the only officials I can think of that literally never have to worry about watching more than one thing at the same time, and that's because there are four of them (six in the post-season) and there's almost never more than one thing happening at the same time.  Unlike other sports, baseball doesn't really have things happening off the ball that the officials have to worry about.

So, to recap, the job of a baseball umpire can be summed up as "watching the shiny ball and describing what happens around it".  And yet, way too many baseball umpires are just terrible at it.  I honestly feel like you could train four smart horses to umpire a baseball game and you wouldn't necessarily notice the difference in call quality.  I'm also 100% sure baseball umpires could be 100% replaced by some well placed sensors, a locator chip in the ball and a computer.  Why haven't we done this yet?

Finally, we come to the NBA.  Why is every basketball game I watch an officiating catastrophe?  I don't even know where to start.  You get two steps when you pick up your dribble.  TWO!  Can NBA referees not count to three?  I could replace NBA refs with the smartest kids in a nursery school and get better calls on traveling violations.

And the blocking/charging calls.  I know, that's not so easy, but still.  If you put me in a room where I couldn't see the game and just told me whenever there was a blocking/charging call situation and I just flipped a coin to decide which one to call, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my results and the results we get from NBA refs.  You know I'm right about that.

And the flopping.  So much flopping, so easy to fix.  Just stop making the calls.  Next time a defender dives to the ground like he was shot trying to draw a charge, don't call a charge, or a block.  Just let them keep playing so the offense gets two points because one of the guys on defense is rolling around on the floor like a moron. 

And then there's Lebron.  Yes, Lebron gets his own paragraph because watching NBA referees officiate Lebron is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen in sports.  Every time Lebron goes to the basket he uses his off hand to clear out his defender (which is super effective for him, because he might be the strongest person in the history of everything).  Not only does he never get called for this, but half the time the defender gets called for a foul for viciously assaulting Lebron's left elbow with his face.  I sometimes think NBA referees all have a secret memo from David Stern which reads, in part, "Our research shows that people like watching Lebron score, so if you see anyone trying to stop him from doing that, just call them for something, we don't really care what". 

You know why people can't stop spinning conspiracy theories about the NBA using officials to manipulate games and playoff series results?  It's because people watching are just trying to think of a plausible explanation for how the officiating could be so consistently awful.  And the most frustrating part is, we never get an explanation.  Why are referees the only people in the world who never have to be accountable for their job performance?  Why don't they have to do a press conference at the end of the game like coaches and players do?  Just once, I'd like to see a reporter get to raise his hand in a press room and ask the lead official of an NBA crew "Why are you so bad at your job?" 

Boston Convert

As I'm writing this I'm getting ready for game 2 of the Rangers/Bruins series.  First of all, if you aren't watching the hockey playoffs, honestly, what's wrong with you?  Whatever you're doing instead just isn't nearly as important.

Anyway, as I've tried to figure out who I'm rooting for in this series, I've come to a shocking revelation about myself.  I think I'm becoming a Boston sports fan.  True story.  It seems ridiculous to just switch all rooting interests to a whole new town, but let's go through it one by one.

The Celtics are the easiest one.  I've always been a Celtics fan, except for that brief period in the 90's when there were only two basketball fan identities (Bulls fan or Bulls hater) and I was a Bulls fan.  My parents were never that into sports (except for my mom and the Rangers, and we'll get to them in a minute), so I inherited a lot of my rooting interests from my grandmother.  Because the Celtics are implicitly Irish, we rooted for Boston.

Sidenote: In hindsight, there also might be something to the fact that, in the 80's, the Celtics pretty much cornered the market on white basketball players.  Really...Bird, McHale, Ainge, Walton.  It's like a who's who of useful or better NBA white guys.  I don't know, I didn't really give that a lot of thought when I was 7.

In terms of hockey, I grew up an Islanders fan.  My grandparents live like 10 minutes from the Nassau Coliseum, and back when I was like 0-3 years old, the Isles were winning four straight Stanley Cups.  So that's a pretty formative experience.  A few years ago I disowned the Islanders because of their many many uniform transgressions.  Since then, I assume in response to my outrage, they went back to the classic uniform scheme and I've been back on board.  But, they're moving to Brooklyn soon.

I'm sorry, I'm not rooting for a hockey team from Brooklyn.  Especially after they change their name to the Hipsters or the Skinny Jeans or whatever and incorporate irony into their new uniforms.  No thank you.  Plus, I'm from Queens, I don't want to root for Brooklyn anyway.

And the Rangers and Devils?  Come on.  Listen, the Rangers suck.  And the Devils, they're even worse.  I had a girlfriend in college who loved the Devils, and even when someone I loved loved the Devils, I still fucking hated them.  They are perpetually unwatchable.  The uniforms are awful, and even though they don't play like they did in the 90's anymore, I can't watch them without seeing that awful neutral zone trap.  Boooooo!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, the Bruins have great uniforms, aren't from Brooklyn and aren't planning to randomly move to some other part of Boston just for fun.  I like the Bruins and I'm not having a hard time seeing myself getting on board with being a fan.  I mean, just look at Zdeno Chara.  He's like an angry giant on skates. Who doesn't want to root for an angry giant?  Also, they have a goalie named Tuukka.  Tuukka!  Come on, he has an extra K.  Everyone knows K is the best letter.  At least it is in Finland, or Sweden, or Denmark or wherever the fuck Tuukka is from.

Football is pretty easy too.  I've always kind of hated the New York football teams, and I haven't really kept that a secret.  In my football watching life I've bounced around from the Houston Oilers (until they moved) to the Tampa Bay Bucs (until they got new uniforms) to just being a fan of the NFL Redzone network (because it's seriously fucking awesome).  I can settle in with the Patriots.  I already have a Patriots jersey (although it hasn't been worn since September, and even then not by me, and the story of how I became the owner of a Patriots jersey is interesting, somewhat embarrassing, has very little to do with being a Patriots fan, and I'm not quite ready to tell it yet).

Oh, and did I mention the New York football teams are actually from New Jersey?  Yeah, that's a real thing.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why people have favorite football teams anymore.  It's like having a favorite character on a sit-com.  It's just a TV show.  When I watch How I Met Your Mother, I don't root for Marshall, I just enjoy the show.  I feel like having a strong rooting interest might ruin football for me, but I've never had one before, so I'm open to trying it.

But then there's the Yankees.  I grew up a Yankee fan.  I've always been a Yankee fan.  The '96 World Series was awesome.  And so were the other three they won when I was in college.  But the last one, honestly, the thrill just wasn't there anymore.  I've said this before.  Being a Yankee fan is exhausting.  Yankee fans only have two emotions, terrible disappointment when the Yankees don't win the World Series, and what could best be described as relief when they do.  To be honest, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a Yankee game.  In some ways, my Yankee fandom has become like a bad relationship that I'm just too much of a wimp to get out of.

Speaking of bad relationships, I can't really imagine what it's like to be a Red Sox fan.  I'm not 100% sure it would really be more fun, but I'm 100% sure it wouldn't be less fun.  Typical relationship dilemma.  Stay with something familiar, or go try something new that isn't necessarily any better and just leaves you feeling like an idiot.  As you can probably tell from the fact that I'm going to die alone, I'm not very good at this.

Some other valid reasons to switch to Boston fandom:

- I live in Massachusetts now, so there are always Boston teams on my TV.  I mean, I could just watch and root against them.  That's essentially what I did with the Red Sox my first year here, but, to be honest, that wasn't a lot of fun.

- Boston girls are almost exclusively awesome.  New York girls are, frankly, kind of a mixed bag.  Don't make that face at me!  You know I'm right.  You've seen Sex and the City.  So if you're in a bar with half Boston girls and half New York girls, which side of the bar would you rather have a common rooting interest with?  Yeah, me too.  I've also found that Boston girls are significantly more likely to be into sports, so there's a better chance of them being in the bar to begin with.

- Aerosmith is from Boston.  And so are the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.  Who's from New York?  LL Cool J and The Ramones?  Similar question.  If you got invited to watch a game and hang out with famous music people, who would you pick?  Dicky Barrett and Steven Tyler or LL Cool J and whichever Ramone is still alive?  Again, yeah, me too.

Look, to be honest, I'm not sure if I can go through with the full conversion.  I'm still stuck on the Red Sox thing.  That's not an easy switch.  But I've already decided that I'm not buying the MLB extra innings package this season, the Yankees just aren't worth $40 a month to me anymore.  So I suppose I'll watch a summer of Sox baseball and see how I feel in September.  I'll keep you posted.

MLB First Impressions - American League

I've decided to take the baseball previews in a new direction this year.  More brevity, less rambling.  I'm just going to take a look at each team's depth chart on MLB.com and ESPN.com and jot down some first impressions.  Yankees fans, I hope you enjoy this, because we won't be enjoying anything else for the next six months.

Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa finally did what they should have done three years ago and turned a couple of their pitchers into an impact bat.  Wil Myers is a hitting savant, Rays fans (all 22 of them) will love his work.  I do think Tampa will miss B.J. Upton.  I know he's awful most of the time, but he also has those two week runs where he can just carry a team.  They'll miss that.  But the Rays still have excellent pitching and perfectly adequate offense.  Tampa is still the best team in this division as far as I'm concerned.

Boston Red Sox
This Boston team has "wait, how are they good?" written all over them.  You know who the best manager in the world is?  Anyone who isn't Bobby Valentine.  If Ellsbury and Lester and Buchholz can all stay healthy and be productive, I like Boston for a wild card.  On the other hand, this is my last year of patience with Jon Lester.  If he can't get it together this year, then next year's baseball preview starts with "what the hell happened to Jon Lester?"

Baltimore Orioles
I read an article on ESPN.com that told me Baltimore could field two starting rotations with all the pitching they have.  That may be true, but I'm not convinced either one of those rotations would be any good.  Plus, this is supposed to be the year that Buck Showalter leaves and then some fraud comes in and takes all the credit for what he set up (cough, cough...Joe Torre...cough, cough).  With Buck staying, I have no idea what's supposed to happen now, but I'm not convinced Baltimore can make the playoffs two years in a row. 

New York Yankees
This is all so depressing, but honestly, it isn't all the injuries to the offense that have me down.  I think this team can still hit.  It's the pitching.  You can say the bullpen looks good with Rivera back, but how good are they going to look when the starters are giving them 2 innings every night.  I couldn't possibly hate this rotation more.  Why is Andy Pettitte still here?  Go away Andy Pettitte!  Please!  Ugh.  I may skip the extra innings package this season just so I don't have to watch this.

Toronto Blue Jays
What am I missing here?  Toronto won 73 games last year.  In the off-season they added a guy coming off a steroid suspension (which means he'll either go back to sucking like he used to or he'll get suspended again and they'll lose him for 100 games), a 72 year old knuckleballer and the core of a 69 win Marlins team.  I'm having trouble understanding why people think this all adds up to awesome.  I still don't trust Toronto's pitching, and I'll never trust Jose Bautista. 

Detroit Tigers
Remember the first year after Lebron went to Miami?  The Heat spent the season trying to figure out how to play together, then they went to the finals and lost to a pretty mediocre Dallas team.  The second season for Miami was championship or bust.  Same in Detroit this year.  I've stopped waiting for Justin Verlander's shoulder to explode, I guess he's just a freak.  Detroit still has some bullpen issues, but they should be good to go for a division title.

Kansas City Royals
Wild card for the Royals!  You heard me.  The Royals finally have a rotation, with fastballs and breaking pitches and everything.  Just like a real team!  Solid bullpen, and this team can hit son.  I'm telling you, if they weren't the Royals, I wouldn't be the only one putting them in the playoffs.  Then again, they are the Royals, so I guess we'll see.

Cleveland Indians
I had the Indians in the wild card spot until I looked at their depth chart and saw Scott Kazmir in their rotation.  You can't go to the playoffs with Scott Kazmir.  You just can't.  Having said that, this team can also hit.  If Ubaldo Jimenez can get himself together, Cleveland could be really good.  That's a big if though.  In a related story, Indians fans turned out to be the losers of the Who Gets to Watch 600 Nick Swisher At-bats This Season sweepstakes.  Get ready to hate life.

Chicago White Sox
Every year one team just screams 81-81 at me.  It's usually the Braves, but this year it's the White Sox.  Paul Konerko can't keep this up forever.  And how bad does Gordon Beckham have to be before we all give up on him?  He's a .245 career hitter, and last year he hit .234 (that's called trending in the wrong direction buddy).  I like Jake Peavy and Addison Reed, and I hate pretty much everything else.

Minnesota Twins
I can't even talk about the Twins.  Two different websites have Vance Worley as their number 1 starter.  I really can't talk about them.  So I'm going to take this space to bash the Mets a little.  What happened to Mike Pelfrey?  How did they screw that up?  Everything about young Mike Pelfrey said "this guy's gonna be an ace".  Everything about current Mike Pelfrey says "I wish I had played for anyone other than the Mets". 

Los Angeles Angels
I'm a little worried about Albert Pujols, he's 33 and clearly starting to regress.  And I'm a little worried about Josh Hamilton in Los Angeles.  I heard they have cocaine there.  Having said that, I love Tommy Hanson for this team, and Mike Trout is Mike Trout, so I think they win the division. 

Texas Rangers
It was pretty hard for me to find a second place team in this division.  Texas was my natural inclination, then I looked at their rotation.  Then I looked at Oakland's roster.  Then back to Texas.  I'm going with the Rangers because I think they can still hit and Joe Nathan looks all the way back, but I don't see a wild card coming out of this division (which is sad, because they all get to play Houston a bunch of times).

Oakland A's
Oakland's done it with young pitching and a bunch of nobodys before, but that doesn't mean it works every time.  And this time they have to do it without Brad Pitt.  Also, the one thing people always forget to mention about Moneyball is that Oakland never actually won a championship, or even the American League.  I'm not saying Oakland can't be good, but there's a ceiling.

Seattle Mariners
To believe Seattle can contend, you have to believe King Felix can carry them, because the rest of that rotation is a mess.  And I'm not so sure I believe anymore.  Five straight seasons over 200 innings, and ERAs above 3 the last two seasons.  I'm not saying he'll be bad, but 2009/2010 Felix is gone, and I don't think he's coming back.

Houston Astros
Love the uniform upgrade, hate everything else.

AL MVP: Robinson Cano.  I know I said the Yankees will be terrible, and they will, but I think this is one of those years when nobody from a contender really stands out and someone from a losing team puts up huge numbers and gets the MVP.

AL Cy Young: David Price.  I can't just pick Justin Verlander, and I refuse to pick a Weaver.  Plus, if Tampa is actually going to win the AL East, they'll probably need Price to put up Cy Young numbers.

AL Champs:  I like Tampa, I really do.  I know Detroit is probably a safer pick, but I like Tampa.

Cooperstown

Of the four major sports, baseball is the one most rooted and invested in its own history.  Yes, there are still four major sports, three makes no sense.  We just have to pick a new fourth with hockey off the map now.  I don't know what it is though.  MMA?  English soccer? Real world/road rules challenges?  I'm willing to try anything other than American soccer, minor league anything or tennis, but I honestly don't know what to choose. Anyway...

Baseball needs its history more than any other sport.  Without 120 years of history to bullshit about, how would anyone sit through an entire baseball game?  That's why baseball protects and highlights its history so much.  That's why, if a real sense of history is what you're looking for, the baseball Hall of Fame beats all the others hands down.  Sure, the hockey Hall of Fame is great...and in Canada!  But for history, you want Cooperstown over Toronto.  Trust me.

This is why the baseball Hall of Fame selection process takes on more importance than the process does in other sports.  The football Hall of Fame process is just silly nonsense, and the basketball Hall of Fame may or may not actually exist, but nobody cares either way.  The hockey Hall of Fame is fun, but I can't say I care that much about who's in there.  Baseball's different though.  Even as my interest in watching the sport slowly fades away, I still care about who goes in the Hall.

This year is a big year for Cooperstown.  Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa are all on the ballot for the first time.  If we had never heard the word steroids, they'd all be first-ballot hall-of-famers.  But oh, have we heard the word steroids.  Constantly.  For like 10 years now.  I stopped being interested about 9 years and 11 months ago, but still we hear it.  Mark McGwire has been on the ballot for years now, and he's still not in.  It doesn't look like he's ever getting in, and I'm OK with that.  All he did was hit homeruns and be annoying.  If there's one thing that's perfectly fair to say about steroids era players, it's that 500 homeruns doesn't get you into the Hall anymore. 

I'm also OK with Sammy Sosa not getting in, for the same reason, and because he was almost as annoying as McGwire.  I'm perfectly comfortable walking into the Hall one day and not seeing any trace of McGwire and Sosa.  In fact, I'd prefer it. 

I'm sort of on the fence about Roger Clemens.  If you assume that Clemens started with the steroids when he got to Toronto, and I think that's a pretty fair assumption, I think he winds up being a close call.  If you just look at Clemens' career between 1984 and 1996, he accumulated 192 wins, 3 Cy Young awards and one MVP as a pitcher.  Without the steroids, he probably pitches until about 2001, gets somewhere in the 250 wins range and probably still signs with the Yankees at some point and gets his ring. 

That Roger Clemens is still a close call, right?  In 20 years, 250 wins will be the new 300 wins.  We'll look at 300 wins the same way we look at hitting .400.  Not totally impossible, but really really improbable.  Plus Clemens is the second best right-handed pitcher since Walter Johnson retired (clearly behind Greg Maddox and waaay ahead of the insanely overrated Nolan Ryan). 

On the other hand, Clemens clearly cheated and also seems like kind of a dick.  I feel the same way about Clemens as I do about Pete Rose.  Objectively, it seems like a glaring omission from baseball's Hall of Fame.  Subjectively, I sort of don't care.  If you were asking me as some sort of responsible baseball historian, I'd say you have to put him in.  If you're asking me as a fan, I'd say I won't miss him when I visit.

Then there's Barry Bonds.  Let says Bonds' first steroids aided year was 2000, which I think makes the most sense.  That was the height of the Sosa/McGwire circus and Bonds was coming off a year during which he missed about 60 games due to injury.  I've always fully believed the story that Bonds didn't start cheating until he saw the press and recognition the cheaters were getting and decided to get in on that action, so 2000 makes the most sense to me.

So, if you just look at Bonds from 1986 to 1999, here's what you get.  445 homeruns, 460 stolen bases, 3 MVPs (and four more top five finishes), 8 gold gloves and being single-handedly responsible for people actually caring about baseball in Pittsburgh for a few years.  There's five 30/30 seasons in there and one 40/40 season.  Bonds' speed and power combination so far surpassed anyone before him that, not only is he the only member of the 500/500 club, but he's the only member of the 400/400 club, something which he accomplished prior to 2000.  No one else has ever done that.  Not Mays, not Mantle, not Frank Robinson or Hank Aaron, not Griffey Jr. or anyone else from Bonds' own era, not even the cheaters. 

I know Bonds wasn't a great guy, and most of the hate that comes in his direction is his own fault.  I know he cheated and I know that the baseball Hall of Fame voters are some of the most sanctimonious people you'll ever find.  I also know Bonds never won a ring. 

But here are some other things I know.  I know baseball hasn't been relevant in Pittsburgh since Bonds left, and I know when he did leave, he rejuvenated baseball in San Francisco.  I know Bonds made Bobby Bonilla and Jeff Kent all-stars, and Mets fans can tell you that both of those guys sucked without him.  I really do believe that Bonds would have stayed clean if baseball had done its job when McGwire and Sosa suddenly turned into twin incredible hulks.  I think his career would have turned out a lot like Ken Griffey Jr.'s.  Maybe not quite as statistically eye-popping, but still amazing and clearly Hall worthy. 

Next time I go to Cooperstown, and I will be back someday, I need Barry Bonds to be there.  You can give him an asterisk or put up a weird sign about steroids if you want, but he needs to be in there somewhere.  The baseball Hall of Fame can go on without these other guys, but without Barry Bonds, it's just incomplete.

It's Baseball Time Again! - AL West

I'm told the regular season has already started with Oakland and Seattle in Japan this morning.  Can we all get on the same page and agree that shit doesn't count?  I'm officially disqualifying both teams from playoff contention, which they already did to themselves when they put their rosters together.

Texas Rangers

Good News: Texas can still hit, like, really hit.  And, even though I'm not sold on a return to old form by Joe Nathan, the rest of Texas' bullpen (Adams, Uehara, Ogando) is pretty much awesome.  You don't want any of this, AL West!  You hear me!

Bad News: Texas' starting rotation leaves quite a bit to be desired.  Everyone says Yu Darvish is different, and he's better, and he's more prepared for the big leagues.  That's the same shit they said about all those other Japanese disasters.  I predict some early success followed by a couple of seasons with lots of walks and long games followed by us all forgetting who Yu Darvish was (possibly followed by the Yankees inexplicably signing him to a 3 year, $25 million contract).

Anything else we need to know?: Michael Young hit over .300 last year for the 7th time in his career.  You still can't convince me that there's any huge difference between him and Derek Jeter.  You can't, because there isn't.

Prediction: First place, ALCS...ya know, when I wrote about the Yankees last week, I honestly thought they could win the World Series.  I'm sticking with that, but Texas makes me nervous.  Great line-up, pieces to trade for an ace mid-season (if they can find one).  Yeah, I'm nervous.

Los Angeles Angels (of Los Angeles?)

Good News: You might have heard a thing or two about this Pujols fellow they signed.  He's pretty amazeballs.  They also picked up solid number 2 CJ Wilson to go with Jered Weaver, Dan Haren and Ervin Santana.  Yankee fans know you can't trust a Weaver, but the Angels can still pitch.

Bad News: Pujols' batting average has gone down each year since 2008 when hit .357.  2009 was .327, 2010 was .312, last year was .299.  That's a trend.  The power is still there.  He won't be bad, but I don't think the Angels are getting what they think they're getting.

Anything else we need to know?: I don't know why Mike Trout can't steal one of those corner outfield jobs from Vernon Wells and Torii Hunter (combined age, 69), but it probably has something to do with Trout hitting .220 in 123 at-bats last year.  Whatever, those guys are old and the Angels need what Trout can bring.  I expect to see him by June.

Prediction: Second place, and I'm saying no playoffs.

Seattle Mariners

Good News: I hear Seattle is a very nice city.  Also, Felix Hernandez is good.  Really good.  Seattle also has a lot of young guys, so that'll be fun.  I don't know if they're any good, but it'll be fun.

Bad News: Seriously though, I'm not sure too many of Seattle's young guys are good.  Justin Smoak is 25 and has a .226 career average.  Michael Saunders is a .196 career hitter in 576 at-bats.  I was young once too, it didn't mean I could hit.

Anything else we need to know?: Kudos to the Mariners for jumping on the Jesus Montero train on its way to 350 pounds.  For too long, our professional sports have discriminated against fat, unathletic guys.  No more!

Prediction: Third place, and I'm probably being nice.

Oakland Athletics

Good News: Brandon McCarthy was on the cover of ESPN the magazine last month, and it looks like he'll be in a good mood all year, because his wife is smoking hot.  Also, he may or may not be able to pitch.

Bad News: Look at Oakland's line-up.  Who are these guys?  If you wouldn't recognize your favorite baseball team if you ran into them at the airport, that's probably a bad sign.  The A's will be lucky if people recognize them as a baseball team when they're on the field.

Anything else we need to know?: Yeah.  Moneyball wasn't some genius idea.  The A's just signed a few guys with high on-base percentages while simultaneously developing multiple generations of dominant pitching.  They pitched their way to contention, it's what teams have been doing since like 1870.

Prediction: Last place.  Oakland's like Minnesota, they always seem to get me.  I really think they're going to be awful though.

It's Baseball Time Again! - AL Central

Can anyone in this division challenge Detroit? The short answer is no. The long answer is noooooooooo. The only possible challenger is Chicago, but they lost their ace, their closer, their manager and they didn't lose Adam Dunn. Minnesota can always be feisty, but they don't have anything for the Tigers.  Cleveland isn't ready yet.  We'll be able to call this division by August.

Detroit Tigers

Good News: The Tigers can hit. I mean really hit. Miguel Cabrera's lowest totals in the last three seasons are .324/30HR/103RBI. That's what you get if you make one season out of the worst of Miguel's last three. Prince Fielder might be chasing 300 pounds, but he's also a lock for at least 30 homers and an on-base percentage at or above .400. No weak spots in this line-up (even the shortstop hits more like a third baseman). Oh, and that Verlander guy is pretty good too.

Bad News: The Tigers can't catch, like, at all. Cabrera will be lucky to make opening day after he fielded a grounder with his face. The second baseman is just a converted outfielder. The shortstop really should be playing third base. The only good defensive player they have on the infield is Brandon Inge, and he'll be watching Cabrera butcher his position all year. Nothing is more infuriating for a baseball fan than watching your team botch a routine defensive play, and I predict lots of TV's flying out windows in Michigan this summer.

Anything else we need to know?: Justin Verlander has gone over 200 innings in each of the last five seasons, and he went just over 250 last year. This is either a sign that he's super durable, or that his arm is about to fall off. Durable seems more likely, but Tigers fans better keep their fingers crossed just to be sure.

Prediction: First place, but you need to be able to catch a little in the post-season.

Cleveland Indians

Good News: Shin-Soo Choo (or as I like to call him, the choo choo train) is back and should get back to hitting around .300 with 20 or so homeruns, 20 or so steals and 100 or so RBI.  Travis Hafner is back too.  Well, for now, until he gets hurt again, which he will.  I love Justin Masterson (I predict he'll finish in the top 10 in Cy Young voting this year) and the pitching staff as a whole isn't terrible.

Bad News: Everyone knows god hates Cleveland.  And even if that wasn't true (which it isn't, because even if god was real, he wouldn't give a shit about sports), the Indians have a lot of nice pieces, but they're missing the one guy who can carry them.  In contrast, Detroit has three of those guys.

Anything else we need to know?: I still believe in Ubaldo Jiminez.  Last year was really bad, and I have almost no evidence to back this up, but I think Ubaldo bounces back this year to the tune of an ERA under 3.50 and at least 15 wins.

Prediction: Second place.  I just don't think the Indians have what they need to push Detroit.

Chicago White Sox

Good News: I really don't mind Chicago's starting rotation. They don't have an ace, but they have a lot of decent arms. None of Chicago's starters would make me nervous as a White Sox fan, any of them can win any given game. As a Yankee fan who suffered through AJ Burnett last season, I know there's value in having five viable starters, none of whom are great, but none of whom are terrible.

Bad News: Gordon Beckham is 25 now, and he hit .230 last year. Alex Rios hit .227 last year. Paul Konerko is coming off two of his best three seasons ever, but he's 36 and I'm not sure he can keep it up. And then there's Dunn, who hit .159 last year in 415 at-bats. Seriously. Asking where the runs are going to come from would be an understatement. Other than Konerko, this offense is just awful.

Anything else we need to know?: White Sox fans are about to find out how boring a mediocre baseball team can be without Ozzie Guillen.  I also think Guillen, while clearly insane, may be one of the few managers in baseball who can actually effect game outcomes in a positive way.  We may find out that the White Sox are worse than we thought.

Prediction: Third place, probably can't be better, might be worse.

Minnesota Twins

Good News: Mauer and Morneau appear to be healthy and good to go.  Morneau really struggled last year, but I'm willing to give him one more year to see if he can bounce back now that he's healthy.  Josh Willingham makes a nice addition here too, they needed something from the right side.

Bad News: Life is all bad news when Carl Pavano is your opening day starter.  Carl Pavano will never be forgiven.  Do you hear me?  NEVER!

Anything else we need to know?: Matt Capps is one of the least inspiring closers in the game, and will probably lose his job to Glen Perkins by June 1st.  This will, of course, most likely result in some poor contending sap (please not the Yankees, please not the Yankees) trading for him in July and then being shocked and disappointed when he's terrible.  Sometimes I wonder if MLB GM's are allowed to watch baseball games.

Prediction: Fourth place.  I'm always sort of down on Minnesota, but this year I think I'm right.

Kansas City Royals

Good News: Lots of young talent (Hosmer, Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain) and Alex Gordon finally showed up last year.  Salvador Perez fell into the young talent category too, but he just had knee surgery.  Point is, I watched a lot of Royals games on my MLB package last summer, because they're interesting, and I'll probably watch a lot of Royals this summer too.

Bad News: Young doesn't necessarily mean they're good yet.  Also, something seems to have gone horribly wrong with Joakim Soria, and now I'm reading that he might need Tommy John surgery (again).  Their back-up closer is Jonathan Broxton, who was, of course, completely destroyed by Joe Torre. 

Anything else we need to know?: Luke Hochevar seems to be falling into the "never quite panned out" category.  And really, Kansas City's whole rotation is a concern.  Am I the only one who feels like Bruce Chen's been around forever?  Did the Braves call him up when he was 12 or something?

Prediction: Last place.  I want to believe.  I don't though.

It's Baseball Time Again! - AL East

Welcome to the best division in baseball.  What makes this division better than the NL East?  In a (made up) word, the AL East has the important quality of Metlessness.  Why am I so down on the Mets?  When the Mets had Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana and K-Rod, they were barely a contender.  Now they have exactly one and a half of those things. 

Anyway, where was I?  Oh right, the AL East.

New York Yankees

Good News: We all know the Yankees can hit, but something about the pitching staff this season actually makes sense to me.  It's not perfect, but I really like Michael Pineda (the Yankees made a good trade, for young talent, I'm still stunned) and I'm willing to classify the bullpen in front of Rivera as "not terrible". 

Bad News: Everything about Hiroki Kuroda tells me he's a guy who will be crushed in the American League, I have no faith in him.  Also, Mariano Rivera is 42 years old.  42!  I can't find anything in his 2011 statistics to suggest a decline (K rate actually went back up, innings held steady with 2010 numbers), but seriously, he's 42.  This can't go on forever.

Anything else we need to know?: What do I have to do to convince my fellow Yankee fans that Andy Pettitte was never that great to begin with.  It seems like most fans' reaction to the news of Andy's comeback was "yeah!".  My reaction was "Why?".  And speaking of Yankees I'm not a huge fan of, Nick Swisher.  I know he puts up good numbers and always stays healthy (at least 150 games played in six straight seasons), but his at-bats are torture.

Prediction: This makes me nervous, but I think the Yankees can win the division, and the World Series.  I know, I'm a homer.  Seriously though, I think this can happen.

Boston Red Sox

Good News: Andrew Bailey is every bit as good as Jonathan Papelbon, and 100% less crazy (I think, maybe playing in Boston was what made Papelbon crazy in the first place, I guess we'll see).  Cody Ross isn't any worse than JD Drew, and comes with the added benefit of not being JD Drew.  More importantly, Carl Crawford and Kevin Youkilis have to be better than they were last year, Youk should be an MVP candidate (although I like Robinson Cano for AL MVP this year).  Plus they get Clay Buchholz back.  Lots of good news for the Sox (and they needed some).

Bad News: The bottom of Boston's rotation is kind of a mess (I love Daniel Bard as a closer and I love Alfredo Aceves as a middle/long reliever, I'm not sold on either of them as starters) .  Also, Bobby Valentine is super-overrated.  I know he once got an absolutely mediocre Mets team to a world series, but they got trounced in that series, and it was like 13 years ago. 

Anything else we need to know?: I live in Red Sox country now, which means that when the Yankees play the Sox, I only get to watch the Sox broadcast.  Booooooooo!!!!!!!!!

Prediction: Second place, wild card, not much else. 

Tampa Bay Rays

Good News: Tampa's starting rotation is going to pitch the shit out of the ball.  David Price had more strike-outs and less walks last year than he did in 2010, when he got serious Cy Young consideration.  Wade Davis should be better, Matt Moore should be awesome and James Shields seems to have figured something out.  And if any of those guys fail, Jeff Niemann is still around as the 6th starter.

Bad News: Still not a lot of offense in Tampa.  Add that to a bullpen that would be best described as "shaky", and it sounds like a recipe for a lot of late inning losses to Boston and New York.

Anything else we need to know?: Yeah, yeah.  I know Kyle Farnsworth was very good last year, but he's still Kyle Farnsworth.  Until the end of time, I will describe any bullpen which includes Kyle Farnsworth as shaky.

Prediction: Third place, the other wild card and probably a trip to the ALCS.  I think so anyway.  I honestly can't decide between the Rays and the Angels for the second AL wild card.  Tampa's a better team, but they don't get to play Seattle and Oakland as much as the Angels do.  Screw it, I'm going with Tampa.

Baltimore Orioles

Good News: Is it just me, or do the Orioles look like they can hit?  Not a ton, but some.  Right?  It may be time for a break-out year for Matt Wieters too.  Baltimore won't win a lot, but they won't be terrible either.

Bad News: Is it just me, or can the Orioles not pitch at all?  Baltimore's whole staff is a hodge podge of guys who probably aren't ready yet (Arrieta, Britton) and guys who will probably never be ready (Hammel, Chen, Tommy Hunter).  And what's going on with Brian Matusz?  This whole thing is a catastrophe.

Anything else we need to know?: Whenever I think of Baltimore, I immediately think of The Wire.  Wallace was on House this week.  Where's Wallace at?  He was in Dillon, Texas for a while, and then he was on House.  That's where Wallace is at.

Prediction: Fourth place, should be fun to watch (and hit against).

Toronto Blue Jays

Good News: Toronto is a super nice city.  It's like if you put an American city in a dishwasher, and then added the hockey hall of fame, and cool Canadian accents to all the people.   Oh, you wanted good baseball news?  Sorry, I don't have any of that.

Seriously, Any good news?: Well, I don't hate Toronto's bullpen.  I don't love it, but I don't hate it.

Bad News: Adam Lind followed a break-out 2009 by hitting .237 and .251 the next two seasons.  Jose Bautista's steroids suspension has to happen eventually (sorry, I meant to say that I'm sure he's perfectly clean, because it's totally reasonable for a 30-year-old player to suddenly become awesome at hitting, and I know this because I learned nothing from the late 90's).

Anything else we need to know?: I kinda thought Toronto stole Colby Rasmus from St. Louis, but it's starting to seem more like St. Louis knew something that Toronto (and I) didn't know.  That was actually probably more likely all along.

Prediction: Last place.  It's not that Toronto is so awful, but they aren't good and this division is.

It's Baseball Time Again! - NL West

Is it possible that the best four teams in the National League all play in the eastern division?  After fighting my way through the NL Central, I've arrived at the NL West thinking, what fresh hell is this?  At least the Central has an excuse.  They lost Pujols, and Fielder, and failed to lose the Pirates.  The West was just as bad last year.  Time to demote them to non-BCS conference.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Good News: At 24 years old, I think Justin Upton is ready to move up a level or two, and I've got him as the NL MVP this year.  Newly acquired Trevor Cahill is also 24, and may also be ready for a big year.  Arizona doesn't have a lot of anything, but they've got a little bit of everything.

Bad News: Chris Young is still a .240 career hitter.  Add Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Hill and Miguel Montero and there are a ton of strike-outs in this line-up.  How many Justin Upton homers will be solo shots?

More Bad News: We've been down this road before.  Every time I pick the Diamondbacks they lose 90 games and make me look stupid.

Anything else we need to know?: After a fantastic 2011, some people think Ian Kennedy is ready to be the ace in Arizona for years to come.  I'm not convinced yet, but that's only because I've seen him pitch.

Prediction: First place.  And you know what? Behind Justin Upton, a solid bullpen and maybe one year of good luck with health, I'm putting Arizona in the world series.  I know what I just said about the East, but I just don't trust the Phillies in the post-season.

San Francisco Giants

Good News: Even though Jonathan Sanchez is gone, the Giants can still pitch with anybody.  Bumgarner was very good last year (3.21 ERA, almost a K per inning) and he's only 22.  Matt Cain is entering his prime now, and he was excellent last year (2.88 ERA, gave up 9 homeruns all year).  Also, Buster Posey is back, and hopefully he won't be blocking the plate this year.

Bad News: Even with Posey, the Giants still can't hit.  I'm still not sure what to make of Pablo Sandoval, and Brandon Belt looked overmatched last season when he got called up.  The guy they have penciled in at shortstop hit .204 in almost 200 at-bats last year.  I know Melky Cabrera hit .305 last season, but he's still Melky Cabrera.

Anything else we need to know?: My level of concern about Tim Lincecum remains at DEFCON 3.  I know last year was better than 2010, but his strike-out rate keeps dropping and with his size and his motion, I just keep thinking he can't keep it up forever.

Prediction: Second place, no post-season for the Giants.  I think they'll be a little better this year, but so will Arizona.

Colorado Rockies

Good News: Troy Tulowitzki can be an MVP candidate if he stays healthy (big IF), and so can Carlos Gonzalez.  Gonzalez regressed last year, but he was still pretty good (26HR, 20SB, .295 Avg) and he's only 26.  High end talent like that can keep Colorado competitive all year.

Bad News: The pitching staff seems to have gotten away from the Rockies a bit.  I like Jhoulys Chacin, but he didn't exactly pitch the lights out last year, and now he's supposed to be their number one guy?  I like Tyler Chatwood too, but he may not even make the rotation this year. Drew Pomeranz is probably a year or two away as well.  You can see hope down the road for the Rockies, but this year could get ugly.

Anything else we need to know?: Jason Giambi and Todd Helton sit together during games and reminisce about the dead ball era and what it was like facing Walter Johnson.

Prediction: Third place.  Could they make a run?  Sure.  Will they? I don't think so.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Good News: They still have Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw.  Kemp was all kinds of studly last year and probably should have been the MVP.  Kershaw was even better, going 21-5 with a 2.28 ERA on a team that was barely above .500.

Bad News: What's up with the rest of these guys?  Andre Either's power numbers of fallen off a cliff since 2009, but his strikeouts have stayed remarkably consistent.  Not a good combo.  I'm not sure Dee Gordon is ready for the big leagues yet.  James Loney's nearly robotic statistical consistency is nice, but it would be nicer if he was, ya know, better.

Anything else we need to know?: Anyone who cares about baseball in Los Angeles will be watching the Angels, and anyone who still cares about baseball in Brooklyn will be killing themselves after watching a Mets game.

Prediction: Fourth place.  It's hard to see this going any other way.  The Dodgers look clearly better than San Diego, but clearly worse than everyone else.

San Diego Padres

Good News: I guess the Padres can pitch a little.  Cory Luebke was solid as a starter last year, and ESPN describes Tim Stauffer as a "middle-of-the-rotation" force.  That's not awesome, but as a Yankee fan, I certainly wish we a had a couple of those last year.  Also, Huston Street should fill most of the Heath Bell void, until he gets hurt, which he will.

Bad News: So much bad news, although most of it doesn't qualify as news since everybody already knows the Padres are terrible.  But with Anthony Rizzo already somewhere else and Casey Kelly not exactly killing it in the minors, that Adrian Gonzalez trade looks like the Padres got robbed.

Anything else we need to know?: Did you know that it's still awesome to live in San Diego no matter how bad your baseball team is?  Well, Padres fans know that.

Prediction: Last place, don't get cute.  No surprises here.

It's Baseball Time Again! - NL Central

What's going on in the NL Central?  These teams all look terrible.  This stupid internet says the Cardinals won the World Series last year, but that can't be right.  I tried the internet at work, just to be sure, and all the internets agree, the defending champs live in St. Louis.  That'll teach me to stop paying attention once the Yankees lose.

St. Louis Cardinals

Bad News:  Bad news goes first for St. Louis.  Remember when the Cardinals had the best hitter in baseball for ten years?  Well, not anymore.  And remember last year when Pujols struggled a little, but Lance Berkman picked up most of the slack.  Well, Lance is 36 and there is NO WAY he hits .300 again.  But don't worry fans, they've replaced Pujols with Carlos Beltran, and Mets fans know Carlos can carry any team to a championship.  Wait, are you saying Mets fans don't know that?

Good News: Adam Wainwright is back.  Wainwright appears to be good to go for opening day.  And with St. Louis not scoring any runs, they're going to need him.  Also, the Cards added serviceable veteran lefty J.C. Romero to what already was a pretty solid bullpen. 

Anything else we need to know?: Shelby Miller is still only 21 years old, but I feel like he's been St. Louis' top prospect since I was playing little league.  Doesn't sound like we'll be seeing him this year either, but you never know with Kyle Lohse and Jake Westbrook at the bottom of the rotation. 

Prediction: Lots of 2-1 games.  But when you're playing lots of 2-1 games against this division, you're winning most of them and winning the division.  No repeat though.

Cincinnati Reds

Good News: The Reds dealt 28 year old, often injured Edinson Volquez for 24-year-old future stud Mat Latos.  Add that to Homer Bailey, who should start breaking out this year, and Ryan Madson, who is not demonstrably worse than Jonathan Papelbon and never should have been allowed to leave Philly, and the Reds can really pitch.  Also, Scott Rolen can tell all the young kids stories about his rookie season with the world champion 1976 Reds. 

Bad News: I'm not convinced the Reds can hit.  After hitting .281 in 2010 (promising improvement), Jay Bruce regressed to .256 in 2011.  The power keeps coming, but the average keeps disappointing.  Brandon Phillips is 30 now and probably is what he is (and probably isn't hitting .300 again).  Drew Stubbs is another guy who can't hit for average.  Joey Votto is a stud, the rest of this line-up has holes.  Lots of solo home runs in Cincy this season.

Anything else we need to know?: Chris Heisey hit 18 home runs in 279 at-bats last year, which translates to damn near 40 if he plays a full season.  Unfortunately, the Reds signed Ryan Ludwick for some reason.  I guess anytime you can sign a guy who is 33 years old, hit .237 last year and wasn't ever that good to begin with to clog up an outfield spot a younger guy with potential could be filling, you have to do it.

Prediction: With an extra wild card and plenty of games against Pittsburgh, Houston and the Cubs, as much as I hate this division, I think they get two playoff teams.  I hope the Reds enjoy being crushed by whoever they get in the first round of the playoffs.

Milwaukee Brewers

Good News: Ryan Braun doesn't have to miss 50 games.  Bully for Brewers fans.  Hey listen, if you're going to have an appeal process, then everybody has to live with the results.  Ryan Braun's appeal was granted, so he's not a cheater.  I guess that's easy for me to say, since I really don't give a crap about performance enhancers.  I like enhanced performances.

Bad News: While Ryan Braun can play all 162 games for the Brewers this season, Prince Fielder will be playing 0 games for the Brewers, because he doesn't play there anymore.  Corey Hart may not be ready for opening day and no, Aramis Ramirez does not count as a replacement for Fielder. 

Anything else we need to know?: Zack Greinke struck out 201 batters in 171.2 innings last season, and at 28 years old, he should be ready for a huge season.  Also, we should finally see Matt Gamel get serious playing time at first base.  Word is he can hit, but he can't catch.  Guess what?  Prince Fielder can't catch either.

Prediction: The Brewers can contend for a wild card, but I don't think they get one.  Braun can't carry this offense by himself all year.

Chicago Cubs

Good News: Theo Epstein showed up in Chicago this winter and will, I assume, make the Cubs better...someday.  It takes a few years to clean up a mess like this.  Pencil the Cubs in for the post-season around 2016.

Bad News: Is it bad news that picking the Cubs to finish 4th feels like wishful thinking?  Is is bad news that the Cubs don't seem to be able to give away Alfonso Soriano?  Is it bad news that the Cubs entire rotation is made up of cast-offs from other organizations?  All of those things are probably bad news, but if you want the really bad news about the Cubs, just take a minute to look at their roster.  It ain't pretty.

Anything else we need to know?: Starlin Castro is still a few years from his prime, Cubs fans can only hope they'll put a team around him by the time he gets there.

Predictions: Fourth place, if the Cubs are lucky.  What?  Are you saying the Cubs have some kind of well-documented, century-long history of terrible luck?  Hmmmm.  Alright, put it this way.  If the Cubs finish any better than 4th this season, I declare the curse officially over.  Baby steps.

Pittsburgh Pirates/Houston Astros

Ugh...picking between the Pirates and the Astros is like deciding if you want to die by drowning or by being shot in the face.  One of them may sound more pleasant at first, but they both suck and you end up dead either way.

Good News: These two teams play each other a bunch of times so somebody has to win those games, right?  Seriously, looking at these two rosters, the only positive I could come up with is for the Pirates.  They have a few talented young guys (Alvarez, McCutchen, Tabata).  Maybe one of them will even be good enough to get traded to the Yankees mid-season for two crappy prospects.

Bad News: AJ Burnett already successfully executed his plan of bunting stuff into his own face until he hit something and got out of starting the season with the Pirates.  When I looked at the Astros roster, I wondered for a minute if Houston was filling out their roster with fake names, the way video games sometimes do.  At least Pittsburgh should be fun to watch, Houston just looks like a mess.

Predictions: Very bad things, son.  Pittsburgh should probably be a little better than Houston.  A little.

It's Baseball Time Again! - NL East

Remember when, sometimes, I used to write stuff about sports? I don't remember that either, but my blog's archives swear it happened. Let's see if I can get through all six divisions without comparing a position battle to Mitt Romney vs. Rick Santorum.

There's something reassuring about the beginning of baseball season. Baseball isn't the best sport to watch on TV, or the best fantasy sport (football). It isn't the most fun sport to watch in person (hockey). It isn't the sport that gives you the most "holy crap! I can't believe he just did that!" moments (basketball). But there is something about baseball. It's like an old friend that comes back every spring, no matter what. It's comforting.

Let's start with the NL East, because, honestly, I can't wait any longer to make fun of the Mets.

Philadelphia Phillies

Good News: For starters, those Halladay, Lee and Hamels fellas are still pretty good. Off-season addition Jonathan Papelbon gives them a closer with a proven post-season track record, as opposed to the unproven but talented Ryan Madson. Papelbon is still hit or miss sometimes, but nobody is more hit or miss than Brad Lidge was, so the Phillies are ready for that. Phillies fans won't mind a full season of Hunter Pence, either. And Hunter won't mind a full season of Citizens Bank Park.

Bad News: This team isn't any worse than they were last year, but they aren't really that much better either, and how did last year turn out? Also, Chase Utley's brain may be 33, but the rest of his body appears to be in its mid to late 60's.

Anything else we need to know?: For those Phillies fans who have been patiently waiting for Domonic Brown, it appears you may have to keep waiting. He's 24 now. I'm starting to worry.

Prediction: The Phillies are tough for me. They're good enough to win the division, and they have the pitching to win in the post-season, and yet...for a championship or bust team, I think this year turns out to be another bust.

Washington Nationals

Good News: Stephen Strasburg is back, and the Nationals were the clear winners of Oakland's pitching fire sale (if you offered me Trevor Cahill and Andrew Bailey for Gio Gonzalez, I wouldn't take it). Jayson Werth can't be any worse than he was last year (right?). Brad Lidge (23K's in 19.1 innings after coming back from injury last year) joins Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen in what should be a serviceable bullpen, even after Lidge's shoulder explodes in mid-May.

Bad News: They're still the Nationals. There are only two kinds of people who do baseball predictions, people who pick the Nationals to win stuff, and people who get things right.

Anything else we need to know?: Bryce Harper is on the way. He should be crushing 800 foot homeruns in Washington by the end of the summer. When he gets there, we'll find out if Jayson Werth can still play centerfield, I suspect he can't. But who cares...Bryce Harper is on the way!

Prediction: The Nationals will take one of the NL wild cards, partially because they're pretty good, and partially because they get to play the Mets a bunch of times. In other news, reports from hell say the weather is getting "pretty chilly down here".

Miami Marlins

Good News: Opening day - "It's a beautiful April day here in sunny Miami, and Marlins fans are excited for what should be the team's best season in years. Miami has young power throughout its line-up, world class speed at the top of the order and a solid pitching staff anchored by the returning Josh Johnson and free agent pick-ups Mark Buehrle and veteran closer Heath Bell. Expect the Marlins to contend all the way through September this year folks!"

Bad News: Sometime around game 70 or 80 - "More bad news today for the Marlins, folks. Jose Reyes and his pulled hamstring will join Heath Bell and Josh Johnson on the DL. Bell is still reportedly at least two weeks away from throwing off a mound again, and no timetable has been set for Johnson. Reyes' absence only exacerbates the on-going Hanley Ramirez saga, as Hanley and the team still haven't talked since he demanded a trade and walked out on the team 10 days ago. In other news, still no sign of Carlos Zambrano, who hasn't been seen since he reportedly went to visit Key West on an off day in May, though he did recently send a cryptic text message to manager Ozzie Guillen which simply read 'TEQUILA!', so we know Carlos is alive."

Anything else we need to know?: Maybe changing his name to Giancarlo will result in less strike-outs for Mike "Giancarlo" Stanton, but I don't think that's actually how it works.

Prediction: As you may have guessed from my bad news synopsis, I don't see this season going particularly well for Miami, but they are talented and can probably finish around .500.

Atlanta Braves

Good News: Venters and Kimbrel potentially give Atlanta a lock-down bullpen, so they won't lose too many games when they're leading after 7. Also, I'm always sort of lukewarm on Atlanta, and I'm usually wrong.

Bad News: Atlanta's rotation worries me. I'm not sold on a May 1st return date for Tim Hudson. I'm concerned about a 25 year old future ace who already missed a chunk of one season with shoulder tendonitis (Tommy Hanson). I'm not convinced Brandon Beachy can continue striking out almost 11 batters per nine innings. I don't understand why Jair Jurrjens can't go more than six innings, or stay healthy. All of these things worry me.

Anything else we need to know?: All bets are off if Jason Heyward has the season in 2012 that we all expected in 2011. Heyward is the kind of guy who can carry an offense all by himself if he gets right and gets going. You just have to ask yourself if he's ready to do that yet.

Prediction: I say not yet for Heyward, and 4th place for Atlanta, but all four of these teams can be pretty good, and a wild card for Atlanta wouldn't shock me.

New York Mets

Good News: See, the thing about the Mets is...because, ya know...and it's just...I mean...so...yeah.

Bad News: I don't even know where to start. The fruits of what was possibly the worst minor league system in baseball over the last decade are now starting for the big league club. The Mets' most exciting prospect of the last few years (Jenrry Mejia) is coming off Tommy John surgery and probably won't pitch anywhere until August. Jason Bay is still missing in action. Johan Santana is back, and throwing in the mid-80's. I could go on.

Seriously, any good news?: Well, Mets fans will enjoy Zack Wheeler eventually, but not this year, and probably not next year either. But you know what, Mets fans? You still live in New York, which is still better than rooting for a good team and living somewhere else.

Anything else we need to know?: One of the first things I ever wrote about baseball was how I would not want to be the team paying Johan Santana big money for the second half of his career. Two years later, that remains possibly the most true thing I've ever written.

Prediction: Any story this year about the Mets winning the NL East will have to be immediately proceeded by the story about the team planes of the other four teams in this division being involved in a disastrous mid-air collision.

Saint Derek of The Bronx

When Ken Griffey Jr. retired, I attempted to put his career into some kind of historical context. With Derek Jeter recently reaching 3,000 hits, I thought it would be a good time to do the same with him. Where does Jeter stand all-time? As a Yankee? As a shortstop?

I should probably mention a couple of things before we start. First, I always really liked Griffey Jr. while, in comparison, I've always been pretty ambivalent about Jeter. On the plus side, he's been around for five championships for my favorite team, and he was a key player (if maybe not the best player, but we'll get to that) for each winning team. On the down side, I rarely buy into intangibles and leadership (which we'll also get to) and "that guy is just a winner". In that way, Jeter is tailor-made for me to hate, if he played for any other team, he'd probably be my least favorite athlete ever.

Also, just to get it out of the way right now, when I talk about comparing Jeter to other shortstops, I'm not including A-Rod. First of all, Alex only played shortstop for half of his career, and secondly, steroids. Say what you want about Derek, but he'd probably make anyone's top ten list of "guys who seem clean". Could he have us all fooled? Sure, but he's never tested positive or publicly admitted using PED's and, at this point, that's the only fair standard we can use.

So, where do you put Derek all-time as a Yankee? I heard some radio moron yesterday saying he was definitely in the discussion as a top-five Yankee(actually, now that I think about it, that moron might have been Joe Girardi). Stop right there. The top four all time Yankees are set in stone; Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and Dimaggio. Some people put Dimaggio ahead of Mantle, I continue to call those people Communists.

That only leaves one more spot in the top five, and we're already done. Even if you like Jeter more than the other guys from the past (Whitey Ford, Yogi, Munson, Mattingly, etc...for me, Whitey gets the 5th spot), you can't put Derek ahead of Mariano, who is the best relief pitcher of all time and was THE MOST important guy on each of Jeter's five championship teams, period.

So, top ten maybe? Now we're talking. I'd put Ford and Rivera 5th and 6th. Jeter beats Munson and, I think, Mattingly. Mattingly's four year run from 1984 to 1987 tops any four consecutive years Jeter had (1998-2001 or 2005-2008 being the two best four year runs for Jeter), but there's something to be said for longevity and, especially with the Yankees, championships.

The tough one for me is comparing Jeter to Yogi Berra. Yogi was a three-time MVP, and finished second in the voting two other times. Jeter's highest MVP finish was second, which he did once. Yogi was also part of 10 championship teams, compared to Jeter's five (to be fair, Jeter did it with a lot more teams in the league). On the other hand, Derek will most likely finish his career with something like 1,000 more hits than Yogi, including seven 200 hit seasons compared to Yogi's zero.

Tough call, but I like Jeter just a little more. A .300+ career average and well over 3,000 career hits are two statistical career milestones that Yogi can't touch, and I think it's enough. Plus, as I learned on the YES Network this weekend, Derek Jeter's sweat can be distilled and used as a cure for over 20 diseases...and counting. So there's that.

What about all-time shortstops? Shortstops are really hard to compare, because defense factors into the equation in a way that it doesn't necessarily do at other positions. For example, here are the career offensive numbers for a guy who is, as far as most people are concerned, easily a top five all-time shortstop:

.262 BA, 2460 hits, 28 HRs, 793RBI, 580SB

The low power numbers and high number of stolen bases point to a lead-off hitter, but this guy's .337 career OBP tells you he wasn't a great lead-off guy. These numbers belong to Ozzie Smith. As much as I trust offensive numbers, I don't really like the numbers they've made up to measure defense in baseball. For example, Ozzie's career range factor per nine innings was 5.22, Derek's is 4.11. Ozzie's is higher, but is that a lot higher or just a little higher? So, does Ozzie Smith go ahead of Derek Jeter on the all-time shortstop list. I say yes. Can I prove it? Not really.

As compared to other great shortstops, MVP's are Jeter's big Achilles heal (0 for Derek compared to 2 for Cal Ripken, 2 for Ernie Banks and 1 for Barry Larkin), but that evens out with championships, Derek's five are more than Ripken, Larkin, Banks, Alan Trammell and Ozzie Smith combined.

I like Arky Vaughn is a historical comparison for Jeter. Batting average (.318) and homeruns (96) pretty close when adjusted for era. If Vaughn had played a full career, he probably would have reached 3,000 hits. Ernie Banks makes a decent comparison too. They're different players, but Derek's high average, 3,000 hits and 5 championships puts him pretty close to Banks' MVPs and power. I'd probably place Derek fourth all-time, behind Honus Wagner, Banks and Smith, just in front of Vaughn and safely ahead of Larkin, Trammel and the stupendously overrated Ripken.

Guys like A-Rod and Robin Yount are hard to categorize by position, having spent plenty of time elsewhere on the field. Yount was great, but probably not quite where Jeter is. Omar Vizquel is tough for the same reason as Ozzie, but probably just a bit behind Derek. Also, unlike the rest of the these guys, Jeter is able to use his psychic powers, which continue to grow as long as Derek lives under the light of a yellow sun, to magically make his teammates better.

So what about those amazing leadership abilities? Let's get a few things straight. First of all, almost nothing in sports is less meaningful than being the captain of a baseball team. Calling Jeter "the Captain" is roughly the same as when a co-worker walks into your office and you say "hey chief". It doesn't make him an actual chief, he's still just some guy you work with.

Secondly, Derek's awesome leadership didn't build 1996-2000 Yankees, unless Gene Michael was actually Jeter in an old man costume, which I guess he could have been. Also, where was the Dear Leader when A-Rod showed up in town and everyone hated him for no real reason. Seems like that would have been an awesome time for the greatest leader in the history of the human race to step up and help out a new teammate.

So, here's the point. Derek Jeter is one of only 28 guys with 3,000 hits. I have him as a top five shortstop and a top ten Yankee, and I think it's fair to put him in the top 75 of all-time players, but that's the end of the story. He's a great baseball player, but he's just a guy, ya know? I always really wanted to like Derek, but I think my natural aversion to religion hurt me here. With so many other people making Derek out to be a god, it takes all my energy just to be willing to believe he exists.

The Curious Case of the Mets

In general, I don't believe in anything, or I at least try not to believe in anything. I try to know things, knowledge being belief in something that is true. We can't always know what is true, but we can try to find out.

So, I don't believe in god, or gods, or superstition. I don't believe in fate or destiny. I don't believe in ghosts or spirits. I know sometimes people can get lucky, but I don't believe a person, or a group, or a team can be consistently lucky or unlucky. I certainly don't believe in curses. And yet, there's the curious case of the New York Mets.

As a native New Yorker, the Mets were always somewhere on my TV. I would watch them whenever the Yankees were off, or rained out, or playing at a different time, or playing Baltimore for the 15th time and I just couldn't stand it anymore. I'm happy to root for the Mets as long as they aren't playing the Yankees (which, incidentally, should happen never unless they meet in the World Series; I hate interleague play SO MUCH).

I worry about the Mets. In the 24+ seasons since the 1986 World Series victory, here are some numbers on the B team in the nation's biggest market (which, of course, rightfully means they should be the best team in the National League):

11 losing seasons (including 103 losses in 1993, which put them 5 games behind the expansion Marlins)
11 different managers
4 playoff appearances
1 World Series appearance

And the playoff appearances...oh, the playoff appearances, almost tailor-made to slowly drive fans into insanity.

1988: The Mets go up 2-1 in the NLCS before losing two home games, only to win game six in Los Angeles and then ultimately get shut down by Orel Hershiser in a game 7 that was over after two innings.

1999: After falling behind Atlanta 3-0, the Mets fight back to make it a series with two one-run victories, including a 15-inning game 5 win in which they were down one going into the bottom of the 15th. Then, they lost game 6 by the score of 10-9 in extra innings after overcoming a 5-run first inning deficit.

2000: The Mets finally get all the way back to the World Series, only to have their pants pulled down on national television by a cross-town rival that simply had them outgunned. The Yankees never had a doubt, the Mets never had a chance.

2006: Game 7 against the spectacularly mediocre Cardinals. Down two, bases loaded, two outs. Carlos Beltran, easily the Mets' best player that season, watches somberly as strike three sails right on by, almost like he was thinking "OK, I've got him right where I want him, when he tries to throw strike four by me, I'm gonna hit it out of the park!".

What's wrong with the Mets? Why aren't they the best team in the National League, the one that New York deserves? Some people go right to ownership. As far as I'm concerned, the owner's only job is to provide money, and the Mets have been top 10 in payroll every year since 1986, including 2003 when they were second and still managed to lose 95 games. Say what you want about the Mets' ownership, they put up the cash.

Poor management then? Maybe, Omar Minaya made a lot of mistakes. Letting Willie Randolph, the best manager the team had since Davey Johnson (you heard me!), go in 2008 when the team was just one game under .500 was a huge blunder. But then, so was letting Davey Johnson, the most successful manager in Met history, go in 1990 when the team was 2 games under .500 just 42 games in. Omar was scouting for the Texas Rangers when that happened.

Omar signed a ton of bad contracts too. Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez were disasters. He overpaid for Carlos Beltran by at least 20 million dollars, and don't even get me started on Jason Bay. But Omar wasn't there for Bobby Bonilla, or Vince Coleman. He wasn't even the one who signed Kaz Matsui.

The Mets failed miserably, over and over again, to properly develop young talent under Omar Minaya. Lastings Milledge never panned out, and Fernando Martinez already looks pretty much ruined. Mike Pelfrey could have been an ace, but now it looks like he's rounding into a guy who can be the number 3 starter on a championship team.

But failure to properly handle prospects goes back 20 years for this franchise. Remember Gregg Jefferies? A constant disappointment with the Mets who left, spent a year toiling in Kansas City and then hit .342 and .325 in back to back years in St. Louis. I could fill this space just with names of talented guys who never panned out or good young players the Mets traded away (like Heath Bell, Scott Kazmir, Alex Escobar, Alex Ochoa, Bill Pulsipher, Milledge again just for fun, etc, etc, etc).

I've recently started to think the Mets' training staff may be to blame. How do you constantly have this many injuries to key guys? I understand Pedro Martinez was an injury risk when they signed him, everyone knew they wouldn't really get four full years from Pedro. Carlos Beltran seems to be falling apart, but maybe he's just getting older. Jason Bay played in at least 145 games every year since 2005, until last year. But maybe he's just getting older too. Maybe Jose Reyes is just injury prone. Maybe Johan Santana was always heading toward shoulder surgery. Maybe David Wright's recent back problem was just a freak thing. Maybe...maybe...maybe, but why are all these things happening to the same team?

I look at the Mets this year and I can't decide if they should go for the wild card or trade some key guys and start rebuilding. Currently, the Mets are two games over .500 and 7.5 games back of Atlanta in the wild card standings, and that's with, arguably, three of their best five players (Wright, Davis and Santana) on the DL, and a fourth one (Reyes) probably heading in that direction. If the Mets got all of those guys back by August 1st, and maybe added another pitcher (I'd love to see them add a #2 starter if they could find one), they could be a serious wild card contender.

On the other hand, this is probably their last chance to get something for Beltran, and they may have already missed the boat on getting something for Reyes while he was healthy. If they dealt Beltran, Reyes (if the injury isn't serious) and K-Rod, they could really stock a farm system that's currently running on empty. Additionally, the Mets (or Braves, or Diamondbacks, or Pirates or anyone else in the NL) have almost no shot at getting past the pitching in Philadelphia and San Francisco, so is it worth it for the Mets or anyone else to push knowing a playoff berth will ultimately end badly?

I think so. A healthy Met team, even with automatic outs at catcher and second base, can out-hit Philadelphia and San Francisco. If they were to add a legitimate #2 starter, that guy could join a healthy and fresh Santana, a solid #3 in Pelfrey and the emerging Dillon Gee or Jonathon Niese in a pretty formidable playoff rotation. You can't really count on the Mets' bullpen, but you can't really count on anyone's bullpen.

I said at the beginning of the season the Mets had "nobody believed in us" written all over them. That's even more true now with all the injuries. It's amazing what a competent manager can do with some talented players. I think the Mets should go for it, keep all the key guys and make one or two additions (namely, a starting pitcher. I've decided Chad Billingsley should be available. I'd suggest adding a second baseman, but I honestly can't think of one that might be available and worth anything).

If they can just get to the post-season, anything can happen, unless they're cursed. But even if they are cursed, they should still go for it. A cursed team can't win the World Series, but rebuilding won't help either, so they might as well have some fun before dumping another season into the black hole of losing. And I'll be rooting for them, because if they get to the World Series, I can't imagine they'll find the Yankees there. Just the thought of needing wins from Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia in October makes me a little queasy.

Inception

I recently had a very odd dream in which I was eating lunch in my college cafeteria (the school I went to, not the one at which I currently work) with various childhood friends who I haven't seen (except on Facebook, if that counts as "seeing") in anywhere between 13 and 18 years. I awoke from this dream at work, at approximately 3PM on a Friday. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that:
A) I don't sleep at work
B) the friend with whom I was excitedly sharing the details of the dream is no longer a co-worker and
C) my office isn't located in my grandparents' house.

These simultaneous realizations jarred me into the real world, where I found myself slowly waking up on a Sunday morning, comfortably tucked into my bed in my nicely air conditioned apartment. I had experienced the rare dream within a dream. I immediately decided that I would have to stop watching Inception whenever it appeared on HBO, as it was clearly starting to infect parts of my brain.

The rest of my day consisted of breakfast, or lunch, whatever you'd call it when you're eating right after you woke up, but it's happening at 1PM because you've been afflicted with the sleeping patterns of a small, nocturnal mammal. Then I read a book (seriously, I finished reading a book! The first book I actually sat down and read since I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time sometime in 2004 or 2005). Then, some TV sports consisting of a Yankees game (thank you MLB extra innings) and NASCAR (sports pickins are slim in the summertime).

Then, Fox News Sunday. The first segment of the show was an interview with Republican presidential candidate and noted crazy person Michele Bachmann. The second segment was a brief interview, mostly about the budget negotiations, with Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, who proves his fiscal conservative bona fides by not spending money on superfluous letters for his name. As expected, we spent most of their collective half hour in Fantasyland (specifics in a minute).

How did it come to this? I imagine, at some point in our history, politicians and other public leaders spent their time saying things that were true, or that they at least believed to be true. Then, as politics became a career rather than a temporary state of public service, there was the natural migration toward pandering to voters, but that stopped working after a while. People are stupid and they don't even know what they believe half the time, and sometimes they start to believe that they don't like being pandered to. It's all such a hassle.

But then, somebody had an idea. I'm picturing Dick Morris and Karl Rove in a dimly lit laboratory somewhere in Washington D.C. The idea? Inception. If you haven't seen the movie, inception is a pretty simple concept. You plant an idea in a person's mind in a way that makes them think they had the idea on their own, thereby causing them to act on the idea as they would if it really were their own.

Here's how it works:
Step 1: Introduce a relatively simple, but emotionally charged talking point into the public debate and/or news cycle. You can do this yourself, but it's even better if you can use your favorite shill "commentator" in the media ("remember, if we want this to work, we have to use words Sean Hannity would use, nothing over one and a half syllables").

Step 2: Wait to see if the idea takes hold. It's important to use an idea that people would want to believe, or an idea that would give them a "logical" excuse to feel a way they already feel for irrational reasons. Example: Gay marriage destroys families.

Sidenote: If the idea doesn't properly take hold, just stop saying it. And when you run for President, tell everyone you never said it, even as news people show you video of you saying it.

Step 3: Once the idea takes hold, do some polling. If you've done your job correctly, the "American people" will parrot your idea back to you in the form of poll answers. The media will then do your bidding and report these poll answers as "news". For example, this just in from CNN..."like, zOMG you guys! A majority of the American people don't want to raise the debt ceiling, and this is important, even though most of them have no idea what that means." OK, maybe that isn't "just in" from CNN, but it sounds like a headline they'd use.

So then, let's say you're Michele Bachmann, and you go on some Sunday show and the sad looking man in the suit asks you about same sex marriage. You can proudly say you don't agree with it. But not because you're a bigot. You aren't a bigot, you're a good person, just look at all your foster children. No, you have to be against gay marriage, because you're just standing up for the American people, who are overwhelmingly in favor of protecting the family, which we all know is constantly under threat of gay destruction (sidenote #2: I have a number of homosexual or bisexual friends, I keep forgetting to ask them why they hate families so much, I should write that down so I remember).

Or, let's say you're Jon Kyl. You have to defend the tax cuts demanded by your corporate overlords and the other various super-rich people who own you (and your entire party, and the other party too, and really the whole country...sigh). Well, that sounds pretty indefensible. But, luckily, your party has been seeding the public debate for 30 years with ideas like "tax cuts create jobs" and "tax cuts actually increase revenue through the magic power of tax cuts" and "tax cuts equal freedom". That last one is especially insidious because it equates something tangible and easily given (tax cuts) with something intangible and impossible to give, something that must occur naturally or be earned (freedom).

So then, Jon Kyl can go on Fox News Sunday and suggest the President wants to put an anchor around the neck of the economy with his evil plan to slightly raise the top marginal tax rate. It's not fair to punish success by making people pay taxes. Seriously you guys!!! It's, like, so unfair!

I know I'm picking on Republicans again, but that's because they're so much better at this. It's like picking on Barry Bonds for (allegedly) using steroids. I'm sure plenty of other guys you never heard of (allegedly) used steroids, but you've still never heard of them, so who cares?

Anyway, I think I have some possible solutions to this problem:
1) We could all try being a little smarter and better informed (just kidding).
2) We could hook elected officials and people running for office up to lie detectors whenever they're speaking publicly (I actually really like this one, it would quickly turn any debate, speech or TV appearance into a game show we all watch to see if the lie detector goes off).
3) We could stop letting corporations and rich people buy politicians legally through campaign contributions (once again, just kidding, the Supreme Court is always right and legalizing bribery was an awesome idea).
4) We could start electing bears to run the country for a while. What they would lack in logic, reason and writing skills, they would make up for in mauling our enemies and stealing honey from other countries. What's that? You say a bear can't be President? Well sir, I say that makes you a bear racist.

I seem to have lost my train of thought. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I was going back to where I always go. I wish politicians would stop telling me what the American people want. First of all, I'm an American person, and I almost never want whatever it is they're telling me I want. Secondly, I don't care what the other American people want, because, for many reasons, including the one I just theorized about, what they want is usually stupid.

I'm tired of asking for a show of hands whenever we have a problem. Michele Bachmann was making the point yesterday that the government has a responsibility to protect the American people from same sex marriage, because a majority of them don't want it. No moron! The government has a responsibility to protect LGBT people from the dumbass majority trying to withhold rights from them for no good reason. Which is why, as always, New York is the best state ever.

My Bigger Fatter Baseball Preivew - AL East

Very recently, I saw a poll on ESPN.com asking people whether or not Barry Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame. At the time I saw it, over half the respondents said no. Barry Bonds was the second greatest player of his generation before the steroids. Either half the people responding to ESPN polls are stupid, or they're confusing Barry Bonds with Barry Zito.

Boston Red Sox
Opening Thought: When I moved to southern Connecticut, I was sort of halfway between Red Sox nation and Yankee country, maybe still a little more than halfway in Yankee country. Now, in western Massachusetts, I'm firmly in Red Sox land. So far, the only thing I know for sure is I'm going to have to get the MLB extra innings package for my television machine, because I need to watch baseball in the summer and I just couldn't bring myself to watch Boston everyday, especially since they'll be pummeling teams most of the time.

Off-season: In each the last four seasons, Adrian Gonzalez has posted at least 30 home runs, 99RBIs and 160 games played, and he's still only 28. I'm not sure you could find a better investment. Unless you invest in Carl Crawford, who's only 29, has 7 seasons of 46 or more stolen bases and five seasons hitting over .300. Crawford's on-base percentage (.337 career) isn't as high as you'd like, and he strikes out too much for a guy who doesn't hit a lot of home runs, but Boston still nailed this off-season by picking up two of the best three players available, and Bobby Jenks.

Questions: Can Boston get anything from Jared Saltalamacchia? What's left of Josh Beckett? What's the over/under on this season's Jed Lowrie injury?

Answers: I put the Lowrie over/under at May 17th. All they need out of Salty is enough to keep Jason Varitek's dead body off the field, which isn't much. As far Beckett, he's like a car you only bought a few years ago, but you drove the crap out of it and now it's way more used up than it should be. Last time Beckett posted an ERA above 5, he followed it up with a 3.27 ERA and 20 wins, but that was four years ago, I'm not sure he can do that again.

My Favorite Thing: This is a tough one, because I like Boston's pitching too, but last year I said Boston was one bat away, and they went out and got two, so I'm going with offense. The Red Sox have speed (Ellsbury and Crawford), power (Gonzalez and Ortiz) and guys who hit for average (Youkilis, Crawford again, Pedroia). They can beat you however they want.

My Most Unfavorite Thing: I guess Papelbon, who put up a 3.90 ERA last year and blew 8 saves. Having said that, Boston won't wait too long to go to Daniel Bard if Papelbon isn't getting the job done, and I really like Bard.

Closing Thought: Every year I think David Ortiz is done, and every year it seems he isn't quite there yet. I give up.

Prediction: First place, and (arrrgggh!) I like Boston an awful lot to win the AL this year.

New York Yankees
Opening Thought: When I was a kid, I played little league baseball. At the pee-wee level, I remember the umpires and coaches doing all the pitching, so nobody had a pitching advantage and winning was all about hitting. I think this year's Yankees need to find a league like that.

Off-season: I shouldn't complain too much. Two years ago the Yankees brought in Sabathia and Teixeira and won a title. Last year they went out and got Granderson. Every off-season can't bring new all-stars. On top of that, while I can't get excited about Russell Martin's bat anymore, I'll take any defense behind the plate over Jorge Posada. Feliciano and Soriano make excellent bullpen additions, the bridge to Mariano is probably the strongest it's been in years.

Questions: Who's the fifth starter?

Answers: Fifth starter? Who's the fourth starter, or even the 3rd starter when Hughes gets hurt (which you know he will)? For that matter, what happens if Burnett can't find it again? So basically, I only really know who the first starter is.

My Favorite Thing: Offense. The whole line-up except Gardner (and now Martin I guess, although I have to think/hope Jesus Montero will be up to taking Martin's job by May or June) put up double digit home runs last year. If Granderson can stay healthy, he and Gardner still bring some speed and I think Jeter has one more .300 season left in him. The Yankees would dominate my pee-wee baseball league, or a slow pitch softball league.

My Most Unfavorite Thing: Pitching. CC Sabathia and then look out below. I am in no way convinced that AJ Burnett is anything but done, nor am I convinced that Phil Hughes can stay healthy or pitch to a sub-4 ERA. You may be able to convince me that Bartolo Colon is, in fact, still alive, but that's about it.

Closing Thought: Can I be honest? I think my Yankee fandom is probably the only thing that kept New York out of third or even fourth place for me. I hate this team's starting pitching so much, I can't get over it.

Prediction: Second place, I hope.

Baltimore Orioles
Speaking of guys who belong in the hall of fame, let's take a quick look at Vladimir Guerrero. A .320 career average (which includes 13 seasons over .300 , 13!) 2427 hits, 10 seasons of over 100 RBI, 179 career steals, 436 home runs, a fantastic defensive right fielder in his prime. I could go on and on. I'm not breaking any news saying Vlad is going to the Hall, but I was a little surprised to see that he looks like a first ballot no-brainer.

Off-season: What happened here? Seriously. I just looked at the Baltimore depth chart, where did all these guys come from? I knew about Vlad Guerrero, and I think I'd heard about Derrek Lee, but when did Mark Reynolds happen? and Justin Duchscherer? and JJ Hardy? I don't even know where to start, but let's start with Reynolds. Mark Reynolds hit .198 last year playing in a pretty large ballpark and still hit 32 home runs. Now, if he hits .198 again, they'll have to bench him at some point, he's playing in a real division now. But, if he gets even marginally better, he'll hit 40 home runs. Pretty good pick up.

Questions: Can Vladimir Guerrero stay healthy? Can Brian Roberts? Does Derrek Lee have anything left?

Answers: I think so and probably not. Lee hit .306 and had a big year in 2009, so last year could just be one bad year, but he's 35 now. I wouldn't bet on a big bounce back, maybe a little one, something like .270/25/90.

My Favorite Thing: Lots to like about Baltimore's line-up if they stay healthy. I already mentioned all the new guys, and I think being on a decent team for once could breath some life back into Nick Markakis.

My Most Unfavorite Thing: Pitching concerns me a little. I think Jake Arrieta should be pretty good one day, but it doesn't look like he's there yet. Kevin Gregg doesn't impress me as a closer. Brian Matusz was pretty ordinary overall last year (4.30 ERA, 10-12), but he was great down the stretch (6-1 in August and September, 2.43 ERA in August, 1.89 in September). Not bad pitching exactly, just unreliable.

Closing Thought: I don't know if Baltimore has a full winning season in them, but I'd be willing to put decent money on the Orioles being in first place on June 1st.

Prediction: Third place, lots of upside.

Tampa Bay Rays
Opening Thought: Nothing in baseball over the last four years or so has been more predictable then the inevitable break-up of the first good Tampa team, but it's still kind of sad to watch. It would be less sad if Carl Crawford was a Yankee right now like he's supposed to be.

Off-season: Carl Crawford, Rafael Soriano and Carlos Pena are all gone, replaced by the likes of Johnny Damon, Kyle Farnsworth and Dan Johnson. Even though they won the division, Tampa wasn't super impressive last year, and now their roster is noticeably worse. That's not great.

Questions: How much can the Rays get out of Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon?

Answers: Probably not a whole lot. I liked both of them as possible DH's for American League teams, but both of them on the same team makes no sense. Neither one of them is up to playing left field this year.

My Favorite Thing: Starting pitching. David Price was probably the rightful AL Cy Young last year (2.72 ERA, 19-6). Some people seem to think he can't do that again, but I don't see why not. I like Wade Davis and Jeremy Hellickson. So, even though James Shields has always been overrated (5.18 ERA last year, yuck), Tampa's rotation, as a whole, should be pretty good to excellent.

My Most Unfavorite Thing: That whole Damon/Ramirez thing could easily fit here, but don't forget about the bullpen. Anytime the words "Kyle Farnsworth" and "counting on" are in the same sentence for your team, bad things are a comin'.

Closing Thought: Tampa isn't a bad team exactly, they're just in a rough division. The Rays could probably win the central.

Prediction: Fourth place, but these are all good teams and pitching wins games. The Rays could easily be better than Baltimore and certainly can out-pitch the Yankees (at least for the first 6 or 7 innings). Some upside here too.

Toronto Blue Jays
Opening Thought: "Attention Canada! I am Barney from America, and I am here to fix your backward-ass country. Number one, get real money. I don't know what board game this came from..."

Off-season: The only addition worth noting was closer Frank Francisco, and it seems he's already hurt. I've always said pitcher injuries before the season even starts never end well. The Jays also added Octavio Dotel and John Rauch. It's a veritable cornucopia of guys who would terrify me if they were in my team's bullpen.

Questions: Can Aaron Hill and Adam Lind come back? Can Jose Bautista hit 50 home runs again? How good is J.P. Arencibia?

Answers: I'm not sure they can, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO and really good I think. Arencibia hit .301 with 30+ homers in triple A last year. Lots of good young catchers around baseball right now, I hope Jesus Montero turns out to be one of them.

My Favorite Thing: Toronto can hit. Even if Hill and Lind only get halfway back, and even if Bautista comes back down to, say, 30 home runs, they're still pretty good. Rajai Davis (50 steals last year) and Juan Rivera (30 home run power if he can ever stay healthy) make nice additions to what should be a pretty solid line-up.

My Most Unfavorite Thing: Bullpen. What's the record for blown leads by a team in one season?

Closing Thought: I didn't mention Toronto's starting pitching. I don't love it, I don't hate it. The AL East isn't really the division you want to be in when you're trying to break-in a bunch of young pitchers. Expect some dominating performances mixed in with a lot of severe beatings.

Prediction: Last place. Toronto isn't really a bad team either, but somebody has to finish last in this division.

World Series Prediction: Philly over Boston in six. The Phillies just have too much pitching and more than enough offense to back it up. Boston should be pretty beat up after a tough year in the AL East, while, in contrast, the Phillies can dominate their division with one ace tied behind their back.