2014 MLB Preview and Unbiased Predictions

MLB Preview and Unbiased Predictions

AL East                                                             

Tampa Bay Rays          92-70 (#1 Seed)

Boston Red Sox           88-74 (Wild Card #1)    

New York Yankees      83-79                   

Toronto Blue Jays        79-83                      

Baltimore Orioles        78-84      

Quick thoughts: The AL East is up for grabs, but I think the Rays flaws are less than that of the rest and I don't think the Red Sox have the exact same magic from a year before.                      

AL Central

Detroit Tigers               90-72 (#2 Seed)                                                       

Kansas City Royals      86-76 (Wild Card #2)                      

Cleveland Indians        78-84                       

Chicago White Sox      73-89                   

Minnesota Twins         71-91    

Quick thoughts: Again its the Tigers to lose, but the gap over the Royals is possibly gone and I wouldn't be surprised if they overtake Detroit if Cabrera is hampered by injury again.                 

AL West

Los Angeles Angels   87-75 (#3 Seed)    

Oakland Athletics       84-78

Texas Rangers            83-79
Seattle Mariners         79-83                            

Houston Astos            69-93          

Quick thoughts: I wanted to pick Oakland, but Jarrod Parker going down eliminated that. I wanted to pick Texas, but look at their injury concerns. I defaulted to the Angels because of Mike Trout and Jered Weaver.                  

NL East                                                               

Washington Nationals   89-73 (#3 Seed) 

Atlanta Braves              86-76 (Wild Card #2)           

New York Mets           77-85                          

Philadelphia Phillies       72-90                               

Miami Marlins               71-91              

Quick thoughts: Two horse race and right now the Nationals are the heathier team and should be able to hold off the Braves.           

NL Central

St. Louis Cardinals      94-68 (#1 Seed)        

Cincinnati Reds           88-74 (Wild Card #1)                           

Pittsburgh Pirates        85-77                   

Milwaukee Brewers    74-88                  

Chicago Cubs              66-96        

 Quick thoughts: St. Louis is so deep and talented that I just can't see Cincinnati or Pittsburgh keeping pace. All three will feast off the Brewers and lowly Cubs.                

NL West

Los Angeles Dodgers       93-69 (#2 Seed) 

Arizona Diamondbacks    84-78

Colorado Rockies            81-81                 

San Francisco Giants       78-84                        

San Diego Padres            72-90

Quick thoughts: The only no-brainer division winner. The Dodgers will have nearly two weeks to rest up after clinching in September.

Awards
AL ROY: Masahiro Tanaka (Yordano Ventura 2nd)
AL Cy Young: David Price (Yu Darvish 2nd)
AL MVP: Mike Trout (Prince Fielder 2nd)

Quick thoughts: Tanaka wins because he's on the Yankees and already will have the world watching although Ventura and Jose Abreu of the White Sox will fare well. I'm all in on Tampa Bay and David Price this year. Mike Trout finally wins what he deserves.

NL ROY: Billy Hamilton (by default b/c there are a ton of guys who could win IMO)
NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw (Stephen Strasburg 2nd)
NL MVP: Paul Goldschmidt (Andrew McCutchen 2nd)

Quick thoughts: I really don't think the NL ROY is going to start on a major league roster in April. That being the case, anyone can win. As for Cy Young, the NL is very deep at stud pitchers, but I think Kershaw/Strasburg will get the most ink thoughout the season. I couldn't go with Bryce Harper at MVP because I don't think he's well liked enough to win.

Playoffs

American Leauge
Royals over Red Sox in the play-in game

Rays over Royals in 6 games
Tigers over Rangers in 7 games

Rays over Tigers in 6 games

National League
Braves over Reds in the play-in game

Cardinals over Braves in 5 games
Nationals over Dodgers in 7 games (Please be Strasburg vs. Kershaw!!!)

Cardinals over Nationals in 6 games

World Series

Cardinals over Rays in 6 games

World Series MVP Matt Carpenter

                          

Pocket Pair 7/30/12

The month of July is coming to a close and that can only mean one thing: my focus starts shifting to fantasy football.  I will try and get some posts out related to that subject so I might miss a couple days of the ol' Pocket Pair.  It was a busy weekend with my family in town for mom's retirement after 38 fun filled years with the government.  If you had a busy weekend as well, let me catch you up with what you missed.

5. Baseball Trading Deadline

Zack Greinke was most certainly dealt as he wound up on the west coast with the Angels.  He lost in his first start with them getting out dueled by Jeremy Hellickson and the Tampa Bay Rays.  Also traded this weekend was lefty pitcher Francisco Liriano who gained 12.5 games in the A.L. Central when he was shipped from Minnesota to the Chicago White Sox.  The White Sox have been, by far, the most active trading partner so far as they have acquired Kevin Youkilis and Brett Myers in addition to Liriano already.  Chris Johnson and George Kottaras were a couple smaller named players to move as well.  Today and tomorrow will be where the deadline definitely ramps up as we find out if Philadelphia unloads their aging roster, if the Marlins have yet another fire sale, if division leaders stand pat or go for it and if a blockbuster is in the works.

4. Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees

After losing on Friday night, the Boston Red Sox took the final two games of the series, not only pushing their record back to .500, but also stayed within arms reach of the Wild Card.  The pressure was really on after getting thumped in game 1 and having to face C.C. Sabathia on Saturday, but the Sox struck early and often against the big lefty tagging him for 6 runs in 6 innings.  In each of the two wins for Boston they blew leads and had to salvage the games late in the game on the road.  Will they be able to build off of this or will this just be another blip on a very uneven year to date?  The Yankees appear to be cruise control mode as they are 3-7 in their last 10 games after starting the second half of the season 5-1.  They still have a very comfortable 7.5 game lead to play with and nobody else in the A.L. East seems good enough to challenge them.

3. Chicago White Sox at Texas Rangers

I admit, it looks like I called the race in the A.L. Central for the Detroit Tigers a wee bit early.  Not only did the Tigers have a poor 2-4 week, but the White Sox nearly swept their week going 5-1 losing only on Sunday.  They have reestablished their 1.5 game lead over Detroit and now get to play Minnesota again whom they just swept.  The Texas Rangers are not playing well.  It all starts with Josh Hamilton who is mired in a deep slump and he seems to be bringing the entire team down with him.  He was 0-6 in his two games this weekend against the White Sox and was benched on Saturday.  I don't want to build up the 4 game series this week against the Angels as do or die, but if Los Angeles comes in and takes 3 of 4 or all 4, it could mark the end of a very strong two year run for the Rangers.  They have played a lot of games in the last 2+ years, the heat in Texas will not subside and maybe it's beginning to take a toll on the roster.

2. Los Angeles Dodgers at San Francisco Giants

It looks like the Giants will need to make a move to keep pace with the Dodgers after what happened this weekend.  Los Angeles waltzed into San Francisco and swept the Giants to create a deadlock atop the N.L. West standings.  The Giants mustered only 3 runs in the 28 innings that were played and were shut out in the last two games of the series.  Hanley Ramirez was 4-15 with a home run, 3 runs scored and 6 RBI in the series.  If that doesn't force the Giants hand, I don't know what will.  I was slightly wrong as the finale of the series went 3:03, just slightly longer than The Dark Knight Rises.



1. The Summer Olympics

I'm a bit disappointed because I had DVR issues and missed the opening ceremonies.  Twitter kept me up to date about flying monkeys, sperm shaped objects flying through the air and David Beckham on a jet boat.  It sounds like a good time was had by all.  As for the Games themselves so far so good...save for the crappy tape delay in America.  I understand NBC is in a lose/lose situation with the Olympics in Europe.  NBC has decided to not show any live swimming medal events...none.  They know its their biggest draw in prime time viewing so Americans have two choices: 1) avoid social media and watch the events on tape delay 2) stream the events online or check in with social media for the results.  It will be too hard to stay off Twitter for two weeks or not go to ESPN.com or a similar sports site, so I choose to watch live as much as I can.  Luckily my work will allow for this, but there are plenty of people who don't get that choice.

Outside of swimming the Twitter world seems to be in love with Archery, Handball and watching the US win at Basketball and Women's Soccer.  Cycling is still boring, I saw the Chinese look terrible in Gymnastics, American Kim Rhode won a medal in her 5th straight Olympics and the Australian women wore their bikini tops over a shirt in Beach Volleyball.

That's 3 days down and we've just scraped the surface of what will occur.  Live or not, the Olympics are fun to watch and I plan on seeing my fair share over the next two weeks.

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There's probably nothing more enjoyable than a really good M. Night Shyamalan movie.  Unfortunately there's probably nothing less enjoyable than a really badd M. Night Shyamalan movie.  He's had both.  I watched Signs last night for the first time in forever and outside of the gimmicky solution to the problem, I enjoy it from beginning to end.  He paces it so well and leaves enough to the imagination that the viewer can feel the same fright as the characters do.  This is where he excels in his great films (The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) being the other two, struggles at time in the average one (The Village) and fails for the most part in the misfires (The Happening and Lady in the Water).

I know that it was all about the big plot twist at the end after The Sixth Sense came out, but it was more than that.  The acting by the children made the films.  Haley Joel Osment was spectacular, Spence Treat Clark was very engaging and both the children in Signs (Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin) stole the show at times.  Not to mention that the last two will probably be acting for a very long time if they don't go crazy as they have both proven to be very talented.

This is why I have high hopes for his next project, After Earth, which will release summer of 2013.  Not only does it star one of my favorite actors Will Smith, but his son Jaden (Karate Kid) and fellow child actor Isabelle Fuhrman (The Orphan).  Fuhrman had a very difficult character to portray in The Orphan and because of her talent kept the movie from being laughable.  She was extremely strong and drew me in to the very twisted story line.  The remake of The Karate Kid was lauded by critics and audiences, thanks in large part to Jaden Smith.  He lights up the screen just like his father and that's what attracts people to his films.

Hopefully this can be a redemption movie for Shyamalan because after the disastrous The Last Airbender, I don't know if he can handle another box office failure.  I want him to get back to creepy ghost stories that aren't too complicated but keep the viewers on the edges of their seat and hopefully come with a satisfying ending.  It sounds all too simple, but obviously Shyamalan has lost his edge with his recent releases.

Pocket Pair 7/27/12

Another work week down, another weekend to watch sports.  Training camps have started for most of the NFL this week and that can only mean one thing...preseason football is a mere two weeks away.  If only there was something to keep our attention during that time span.

Let's get right to it...your limited weekend viewing guide:

5: Baseball Trading Deadline

I'm cheating a little bit here because the deadline isn't officially until Tuesday, but seeing as this is the final weekend for your favorite team to prove they're a buyer or a seller.  Hopefully there are a couple of trades this weekend to tide us over.  We've already seen Hanley Ramirez and Ichiro traded and yesterday the Brewers announced that pitcher Zack Greinke will most certainly be traded.  Because of the 2nd Wild Card there is fear that more teams will avoid selling off key pieces and just stand pat.  It will be interesting
to see if there is more or less activity than usual.

4: Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees

Just because I won't be watching this, doesn't mean the rest of America won't be suckered into it.  Doesn't this feel like a last stand for Boston?  They are in dead last place in the A.L. East at 10.5 behind their bitter rival and 4.5 games out of the Wild Card, but the caveat is that seven teams are ahead of them.  They cannot afford to get bludgeoned this weekend and fall further behind.  The Yankees had a bad weekend out west and then lost ARod for six weeks with a broken hand midweek.  They'll will probably feel like they are playing on a Little League field back at home after spending the week in Oakland and Seattle.

3. Chicago White Sox at Texas Rangers

Just so I don't get accused of an east coast bias (or mid-Atlantic for that matter) I head to the middle of the country for this battle of division leading (or co-leading) teams.  Just when I thought the White Sox would take a step in reverse they took advantage of playing the Twins by sweeping them.  Things should get a bit tougher deep in the heart of Texas against the Rangers who are feeling the heat from both the Angels and Athletics.  The week for Texas has been overshadowed by squabbling between Nolan Ryan and Josh Hamilton over the sluggers recent extended struggles.  Tonight is the featured match up Chris Sale facing off against Yu Darvish...that should be all kinds of fun.  I'm saying Josh Hamilton has a hat trick of K's tonight.

2. Los Angeles Dodgers at San Francisco Giants

Just to keep my west coast reader(s) in the loop I head to the other side of the Bay to focus on the Giants as they bring in their biggest rival to AT&T Park.  Sitting only three games behind first place, the Dodgers are healthy, have added Hanley Ramirez and feeling kind of salty after losing three of four to St. Louis.  The West won't be won or lost this weekend, but both teams are in being given the opportunity to stake their claim for the division title.  The marquee pitching duel comes Sunday afternoon when Clayton Kershaw goes up against Ryan Vogelsong.  I bet that game will be shorter than the running time of the Dark Knight Rises...just saying.

1. The Summer Olympics

Even though soccer is well underway including the Spain men being stunned by Japan, the Olympics officially get underway with the opening ceremonies tonight.  I usually only grab the highlights of that, but this year it is being run by one of my favorite movie directors, Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire).  Also seeing as London is the only city in Europe I've ever been to I will at least recognize some of the sights around the Olympic village.  The biggest disappointment about this years Olympics is that there will be zero live prime time events.  I'm fortunate to work around multiple televisions so I'll be able to watch swimming, basketball and soccer live, but in this day and age tape delayed sports just don't cut it.  Between web surfing on ESPN, Twitter and watching television at work I should know all the results by 8pm.  That sucks.  Sure I could cut myself off from the world at work, but I may miss important tweets!!!!! :)

I'm a sucker for the Olympics whereas many of you aren't.  I like to get into the mind of the athletes and realize that they have worked their entire lives for these two weeks.  For some this will be their only moment of glory.  Not all will see four Olympics like Michael Phelps.  Not all are multimillionaires like LeBron James.  Some will just have their story told for two weeks and have one chance to succeed and get on a box of Wheaties or fail and be forgotten forever.  No pressure.  There will be tears of joy and tears of sadness and that is what draws me in.  It's top level competition with individual accomplishment and national pride at stake.  Go USA!!!

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In case your not wanting to watch live sports this weekend, I'll present you with my favorite sports movies of all time.  Being good is not a qualification.

Top 10 Favorite Sports Movies:

10. Searching For Bobby Fischer-sweet story about a father trying to connect with his son who is a chess  prodigy.
9. Eight Men Out-the story about the 1919 Chicago White Sox who threw the World Series
8. Rocky IV-USA vs USSR; Sylvester Stallone vs. He-Man
7. Happy Gilmore-The price is wrong, bitch.  Need I say more?
6. Rounders-Technically not a sport, but it inspired a generation of card players including me
5. The Rookie-The dream I hang onto every new season
4. The Sandlot-If you have to ask, you're not my friend.
3. Major League-Still funny and very quotable almost 25 years later
2. Field of Dreams-If you don't cry, you don't have a soul.
1. Miracle-The sporting event I most wish I was able to watch live (or on tape delay as it was for most).  Masterful reenactment and the usage of the live call by Al Michaels is perfection.