B-Bo's MLB Preview - 2013

Note: I've changed my mind on a few of my teams since my teams who will surprise blog from last month.

There's a few things I've learned about baseball over the years.

1. Teams that spend the most haven't been winning the most - Last year, the Angels went all-in with huge contracts for Albert Pujols & C.J. Wilson, but failed to make the playoffs. The Marlins did the same, signing Jose Reyes to a huge deal and also spent some nice dough on Mark Buehrle & Heath Bell, only to eventually trade all of the following as well as just about every good Marlins player not named Giancarlo Stanton between July and November. And look at what all that spending has done for the Yankees since 2001 - only one championship.
   
   So for everyone to go all-in on the other LA team as a sexy World Series pick is presumptuous. Yes, they have bolstered their squad with some nice moves like Greinke. Kershaw and Greinke in a short series will be a tough order, but can Greinke stay healthy? He has inflammation in his right elbow (yes, his pitching arm) - so he is a risky pick for fantasy baseball owners in my opinion. The lineup will be stacked once Hanley Ramirez is healthy (Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Hanley join Matt Kemp to form a formidable punch).
   
   The Dodgers may make the playoffs, but spending big lately hasn't equated to winning it all, or even making the playoffs as illustrated by some of the examples above
   
   The same goes for the Blue Jays, who seemingly traded for an All-Star team with all the players they picked up from the Marlins. I'm more weary of the Jays than the Dodgers though. Based on career splits, I don't think Dickey and Encarnacion will come close to matching their 2012 output. Toronto should be better than last year, but I'm not ready to crown them division champs this year.
2. We're always due for a couple surprise teams to be in playoff contention the first half of the year, with likely one of them to fade and the other to continue surprising and coming close to or even making the playoffs.  Last year's examples were the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles, the former fading fast in the second half of the year thanks to a shaky bullpen, while the O's found a way to win just about every single close game en route to winning one of the two wild card berths, even having a chance to win the AL East going into the final day of the regular season - something no one could see coming.
   
   I'll make a couple predictions on the teams who will fit this bill this season: Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres. The former is in probably the weakest division in baseball - I say the Indians will finish within 5-6 games of the Tigers and be close to a wild card berth (hell, I'll put them in my playoffs). The Padres will be my pick to start out decent (carrying over from their somewhat strong finish to end the year - 42-33 record after the All-Star break) and then fade to around .500.
3. There's usually about 2 or 3 different division winners from one year to the next. And that's what I expect this year. I expect Cincinnati, San Francisco and Detroit to repeat as division championships, with the Los Angeles Angels, Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies to overtake their divisions.
4. The Tampa Bay Rays will surprise as usual. Including their World Series appearance in 2008, the Rays have quietly won 3 of 5 AL East titles in a division that includes the presumably infinite payrolls of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Their worst season in this stretch is an 84 win season in 2009.
   
   So as they've done many times since then, they've unloaded some of their veteran payroll, trading James Shields and B.J. Upton in separate deals, getting back some highly regarded prospects from the Royals and Braves.
   
   Despite trading these guys, I believe the Rays will win their 4th division title in 6 years. Yes - the Blue Jays outspent them. And yes - seemingly every one of the Yankees infield makes more individually than the Rays do as a team. But Joe Maddon and his boys seem to get it done - a great pitchers park with great pitchers is hard to beat. I'm riding the Rays to the 2013 World Series.
   
   The oddsmakers have the Blue Jays, then the Yankees, as more likely to win the AL East. Don't do it - bet the Rays.

I've already written my thoughts on the White Sox. Just click the link before this sentence to read about my disappointing prognosis.

Now that I've teased some of my predictions, here are the rest of them, by division. Playoff teams are bolded:

AL East		AL Central		AL West
Tampa Bay	90-72	Detroit	94-68	LA Angels	93-69
Toronto	86-76	Cleveland	88-74	Oakland	89-73
New York	83-79	Kansas City	80-82	Texas	87-75
Boston	79-83	Chicago	76-86	Seattle	73-89
Baltimore	74-88	Minnesota	68-94	Houston	65-97

NL East		NL Central		NL West
Philadelphia	90-72	Cincy	92-70	San Francisco	91-71
Washington	88-74	St. Louis	86-76	LA Dodgers	88-74
Atlanta	86-76	Pittsburgh	77-85	Arizona	85-77
NY Mets	70-92	Milwaukee	76-86	San Diego	80-82
Miami	62-100	Chicago	69-93	Colorado	65-97

ALCS: Tampa Bay over LA Angels

NLCS: San Francisco over Philadelphia

World Series: Tampa Bay over San Francisco

AL Cy Young: Jered Weaver, LAA

NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw, LAD

AL MVP: Evan Longoria (he'll finally stay healthy - jinx!), TB

NL MVP: Matt Kemp, LAD

AL HR Leader: Adam Dunn, CHW

NL HR Leader: Jay Bruce, Cin

Current MLB bets made on 5dimes: Tampa Over 86 wins; Cleveland Over 77.5. Likely to make a bet or two more before the season begins. Likely taking Tampa's World Series (currently 19/1) and division odds (+280)

As always, feel free to add your predictions below. I'll be glad to compare/contrast our picks

What to Make of the White Sox in 2013

When the news of A.J. signing with the Texas Rangers reached my ears, I started to have a funny feeling about how 2013 would play out.

Besides missing a guy who was consistent and steady as a hitter for the South Siders, A.J. was a hell of a leader. He got under the skin of opponents - as he used to do to the White Sox when he donned a Twins jersey to start his career.

A.J.'s presence with the staff is unquestioned. His baseball knowledge, combined with having one of the best pitching coaches in MLB in Don Cooper, has helped the White Sox in having one of the best front-to-back starting rotations in his time here.

Tyler Flowers has some big shoes to fill. Based on how long it took for the Sox brass to put their full support behind Flowers, I am hesitant to think he can even fill half of the shoes left behind by Pierzynski. You could say that A.J. was making it difficult for the White Sox to make Flowers their full-time catcher, but Flowers has done nothing to inspire my full confidence.

For this reason, among many others, I am having my doubts about the White Sox this year

Last year, I was wondering how Robin Ventura would handle his inaugural season as the skipper - I don't think there were many fans that didn't have this worry. By all reasonable accounts, Ventura succeeded, even though the White Sox blew a September division lead to the eventual World Series runner-ups.

The pitching staff stayed relatively healthy last year, with Jake Peavy managing to avoid the disabled list for the first time since 2007. However, I worry about the health of John Danks, who hasn't pitched since June. I am also skeptical of Jose Quintana, whose second-half ERA in 2012 (5.02) was over double what he did in the first half of the season. His K/BB ratio needs to improve or else we may see more of what we saw in the second half of 2012.

I do worry about the health of the top half of the rotation - it seems inevitable that Sale, Peavy and/or Danks will miss some time due to injury. I know it's hard to anticipate injury, but look at how delicate they treated Sale last year. Remember they almost made him the full-time closer in May despite his dominant performances? If that's not a sign of them worrying about his arm, I don't know what is. I get this feeling that Sale, like many young pitchers, is due for an injury early in his career that could sideline him a while - call it a gut feeling. Can Peavy be trusted to start another 32 games? Can Danks bounce back from his shoulder issues?

The bullpen remains a strength. Addison Reed enters his second year as the closer. His walks/hits allowed needs to improve if he wants to become a top-tier closer, but I see potential with him. Thornton, Nate Jones, Matt Lindstrom and whoever doesn't win the 5th spot in the rotation between Quintana and Hector Santiago will provide the set-up and long-relief work to get to Reed.  On the face of it, the bullpen should be the team's calling card for winning games.

I'd say there are some issues too with the outfield. You never know what Alex Rios you're gonna get. Dayan Viciedo is a great candidate to get 30+ home runs, but he strikes out too much with how little he walks (only 28 walks to 130 strikeouts in 543 plate appearances). De Aza is fairly average. And the back-ups in Spring Training (Jordan Danks, Jared Mitchell) seem like they're not going to be answers this year.

The infield is just as much of a question mark. Yes - Konerko has produced in the last few seasons better than just about anyone could expect, but how long can he keep this up? Beckham hasn't lived up to the hype that came with his arrival to the majors what feels like a decade ago - can he finally have an All-Star quality season? Alexei tailed off quite a bit last year - only 9 home runs in over 600 at bats. What might be even worse with the Cuban Missile is that he recorded only 16 walks en route to a pathetic .287 on-base percentage. The third base position is now manned by Jeff Keppinger, who can actually provide a steady bat and is able to play just about all of the infield positions. He doesn't really fit into the infield equation, but I expect to see the same Adam Dunn that we did last year, the same Adam Dunn that existed in every year except 2011 - a lot of HRs, a lot more strikeouts and a lot of walks.

Taking everything I mentioned above into the equation...what does all of this add up to? A lot of skepticism for this guy. If everything goes right for this team, I'm thinking high-end 86 wins....low-end could be in the low 70s, especially with the improved rosters of the Indians and Royals.

I'm going to say a disappointing 76-86 season awaits. No September teases this year. In fact, I can see a situation where Konerko gets traded in July to a contender, removing the final member of the 2005 World Series squad.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I'll be wrong here.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the White Sox and tell me that I'm wrong (or that I'm right).