An Early Look at MLB & Teams Who I Have My Eye On

Here's a look at each team's odds to win their respective divisions, according to 5dimes.com. The teams I have bolded below are the teams I find to have the best value, not necessarily who I think will win the division.

Tampa - Ever since their surprise World Series appearance years ago, the Rays have been in the thick of the AL East race. Even when they trade away pieces that people think will end the Rays' run, Tampa keeps rolling. With all the years of sucktitude that they had, the Rays were able to stockpile a wealth of young talent, which allows them to make these moves. This is the toughest division in the majors to predict, especially now with all the talent that Toronto acquired, but out of all the teams, I think the Rays have the best value.

Kansas City - The Royals made some moves. Wait...the Royals...made....moves? A solid starting rotation that can eat innings (Ervin Santana, James Shields & Wade Davis join Jeremy Guthrie & Luke Hochevar). They have some guys who can rake (Butler's one of the most under-rated guys in the majors). It'll take a strong effort for any of these AL Central teams to take the division away from the Tigers, but if there is going to be a team who does it this year, I believe it'll be the Royals (not the White Sox).

Oakland - If you watched the way they ended the year last year, you'd be hard-pressed to tell me that they should be a 6/1 shot to win the division. This team improved every month of the year, with a miraculous comeback to take the division from the Texas Rangers on the last day of the season. Yoesnis Cespedes is a stud and should get better this year. And now with them having the Astros to whip around, there should be a good shot of Oakland getting in the 85-90 win range again.

St. Louis - Every year, the Cardinals are in the talk for the playoffs. Outside of the Yankees, the Cardinals are the team you associate with making the playoffs on a consistent basis and having a reasonable shot to win the World Series every year. I don't even need to know what offseason moves they made, because simply put, they always make the right moves. Letting Pujols go was the smart move. (an aside: Do you see how bad A-Rod looks at the end of his huge deal with the Yankees? That could very well be Phat Albert in about five years.) St. Louis isn't a huge underdog in this division, but they're doggish enough to have value. Wainwright is scheduled to start the year - Carpenter is scheduled to miss the entire year. That didn't seem to matter a couple years back when it was the reverse that happened as they won the World Series in dramatic fashion.

Philly - Last year's prohibitive favorite to dominate the NL East thanks to a stalwart pitching staff, the Phillies ended up underachieving to a level that only the Marlins and maybe the Red Sox could relate to. A pitching staff with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee can go far and do wonderful things together if they can stay healthy. With their increased age (Halladay will be turning 36 in May while Lee turns 35 in August), you can only hope they can pitch their elite-level 200+ innings. With Hamels in the mix, this will continue to be a devastating rotation. If they can get some production from some of their younger hitters (like Domonic Brown) and some of these older guys can find the fountain of youth or undetectable PEDs (I'm looking at you Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins & Chase Utley - a trio of guys who feel like have been with the team for 20 years together), they can easily contend again for the NL East crown.

Arizona - The Diamondbacks are a year removed from winning the division. While the Giants were busy winning their second World Series in three years and the Dodgers were spending money like Steinbrenners, the Diamondbacks made some rather curious moves, trading for Heath Bell (coming off a disastrous year) and trading Justin Upton in separate deals. However, like many of the other teams on this list, I like them for their pitching. Ian Kennedy, Brandon McCarthy, Trevor Cahill & Wade Miley are all capable of 200+ quality innings. Solid pitching can keep a team in contention till the very end, and I think Arizona is very capable of winning this division.


I'll be writing a blog in the next couple weeks with official predictions. I figured I'd get out of my lack-of-writing blues that seem to hit after the Super Bowl every year.

Happy Spring Training, y'all!

MLB   American League East Mon 4/1  1:05PM
New York Yankees	+175
Toronto Blue Jays	+185
Tampa Bay Rays	+340
Boston Red Sox	+600
Baltimore Orioles	+750

MLB   American League Central Mon 4/1  1:05PM
Detroit Tigers	-290
Chicago White Sox	+645
Kansas City Royals	+700
Cleveland Indians	+1000
Minnesota Twins	+2200

MLB   American League West Mon 4/1  1:05PM
Los Angeles Angels	-150
Texas Rangers	+190
Oakland Athletics	+600
Seattle Mariners	+1450
Houston Astros	+6000

MLB   National League East Mon 4/1  1:05PM
Washington Nationals	+110
Atlanta Braves	+225
Philadelphia Phillies	+250
New York Mets	+1700
Miami Marlins	+3300

MLB   National League Central Mon 4/1  1:05PM
Cincinnati Reds	-130
St. Louis Cardinals	+210
Milwaukee Brewers	+580
Pittsburgh Pirates	+1050
Chicago Cubs	+1800

MLB   National League West Mon 4/1  1:05PM
Los Angeles Dodgers	-110
San Francisco Giants	+230
Arizona Diamondbacks	+400
San Diego Padres	+1900
Colorado Rockies	+2500

Long shots, Cutler, & Week 1 Gambling Leans

I can't not focus on football, so here's some more random football thoughts.

Long shots that I'd consider placing money on if I were in Vegas with these odds (Long shot defined as anything beyond 20/1) - odds provided by www.bookmaker.eu:
Houston Texans: 30/1 - If you read my last blog about football, you'd already know this would be a long-shot that I would like.
Chicago Bears: 38/1 - If they can protect their QB even slightly better than last year, they can be better than last year. Although I think teams around them in the upper echelon of the NFC got better and will be better. Still, at these odds, it'd be worth a small bet on these odds if their defense can play up to the same level as last year and offense improves slightly.
Tampa Bay: 45/1 - Big fan of these odds for a team with a soon-to-be Pro Bowl QB in Josh Freeman (25 TDs, only 6 ints), a tough-to-tackle RB in LeGarrette Blount, and a defense that was top 10 in points allowed and takeaway differential. These odds are inflated mainly due to their NFC South competition (New Orleans and Atlanta). But at 45/1, I'd be all over these odds.

Thoughts on how Jay Cutler will be received:
If Cutler is booed to start the year because of how last year ended, then I wish those fans a season full of Todd Collins and see how that goes. Everyone and their mother seemed to get caught up in the emotion of the injury last year that left Cutler sidelined for the 2nd half of the NFC Championship game in their eventual loss to the Packers. Fans and fellow NFL players (notably Maurice Jones-Drew) were basing their judgments of Cutler's "injury" on the shots that Fox showed of him on the sideline supposedly not caring about what was going on in the game or not helping Hanie out. I can't say this for certain because I wasn't there, but I'm fairly certain Fox was showing isolated shots of him by himself on purpose to paint this picture. It doesn't help that Cutler is cold to the media (and now seeing how misconstrued they painted him here, who can blame him?), so he gets no benefit of the doubt from the fans.

The dude got raped without protection all year (52 sacks in 15 games played) and should be soon delivering the bastard baby that the Giants impregnated him with last October. He started all but one game last year despite this beating behind one of the worst offensive lines that Chicago has ever seen. I'm not saying he shouldn't be taking the blame for some of these sacks and also just taking blame in general when the offense goes awry, but to question this guy's toughness (especially a guy who's playing with diabetes) is pure ignorance.

My favorite thing to come from the Cutler aftermath was when people said they saw him walking around just fine when they saw him going to a restaurant in the city or the like. Yeah - because walking into a restaurant is the same thing as running away from 250 pound linebackers on a football field with an MCL tear. If he's dodging angry waiters who lost money on the Bears after the game with amazing grace, then get back to me. Please don't boo him to start the year for last year because you think he pussied out of the biggest game of his life. Instead, save those boos for legitimate mistakes that he will eventually make in 2011.

22 days until college football starts, 29 till NFL kicks off...
which means I can't stop thinking about who I am going to bet on in week 1. The preseason in NFL will affect some of these odds, but I have some idea of a few potential week 1 NFL bets:

Kickoff game: New Orleans at Green Bay (-4.5/total of 46). I like the under here. Seems like week 1, especially opening game, defenses are ahead of offenses, which leads to lower scores. I'd love to see the total go up to about 48 or so if possible (the betting public almost always bets Overs on prime-time games), but will likely be happy with betting this at 46. I see about a 20/24-17 score in the opener.

Sunday games: Indianapolis at Houston (-3/total of 46). I like the over here. While I think the Houston defense will be better with Philips as their D-coordinator, I wouldn't be surprised if there's an adjustment for some of these guys to get acclimated to a 3-4 defense. If Manning plays, I'd expect a total score in the low 50s at least. If the line falls to 2.5, I may consider Houston as a pick.

Carolina at Arizona (-5.5, 36.5). Seems like most people are on the Kolb train, but I can't lay 5.5 on a team that didn't really do much else to improve their team through the free agent wire. Their offensive line allowed almost as many sacks as the Bears did, and it doesn't appear they addressed their O-line woes. Meanwhile, the Panthers were devastated with injuries last year and can't get worse than they were last year. I think Ron Rivera will get about 6 wins out of these guys this year. I'll gladly take the +5.5 and may consider a money line bet on them if I use a book this year that has money lines.

I know more lines will stick out soon, but those are the initial ones that I see. I'm going to try avoiding NCAA betting in week 1, but may find an angle to bet on in the high-profile game (LSU/Oregon).


Not much time left till the season starts in both, so let the countdown continue and let's watch baseball go swiftly into the sunset. This up/down/up/down from the Sox has me convinced they will end 81-81, so no use sweating that.

9 more days till fantasy football draft - which officially kicks off the football mania. Happy football!

Baseballog - Midseason Review on Predictions

I didn't want to be one of those guys who makes predictions to start the season and not follow up with how they are doing, as many people who make predictions of any sort tend to do. Here's a look back at my 2011 preseason baseball predictions and my assessment on how they've looked so far. Mind you, the surprise teams were based on odds that my gambling site at the time posted and nothing to do with how a team may have performed in previous years.

(Note: If you take a look at my picture that opens my prediction blog, you will see that I could not have been more wrong about Adam Dunn. High on-base percentage and 41 home runs, my ass!)

Predictions vs. Reality (at the All-Star Break)

AL East
Surprise Team to Contend- Prediction: Tampa Bay Rays....Reality: Rays. Even though they are 6 games back in baseball's toughest division, they are showing that they are better than the price that oddsmakers put them on.
Division Winner- Prediction: Boston....Reality: Boston and NY are looking like they will be in a neck and neck race for the division title. Boston has survived a terrible start and lots of injuries and NY's pitching has been deeper than expected thanks to the resurgence of Bartolo Colon. I'll stick with my Boston prediction but now I think NY will be the Wild Card winner.

AL Central
Surprise Team to Contend- Prediction: Minnesota....Reality: Oops. The Indians were paying close to 15/1 or 20/1 to win the division. Clearly I fumbled the surprise team in this one.
Division Winner- Prediction: Minnesota....Reality: Oops, Part II. This looks like a two-horse race to me (sorry Chicago, too inconsistent for me to trust with my preseason prediction). I think Detroit holds off Cleveland and wins it.

AL West
Surprise Team to Contend- Prediction: Los Angeles Angels....Reality: Solid prediction. One game out of the division lead. Getting 3/1 on them to start the year would have been a good deal.
Division Winner- Prediction: Texas....Reality: Another AL division, another 2 horse race. At least like my Boston prediction, Texas looks like they can live up to my Magic 8-ball prediction of winning the division. I'll stick with Texas as my division champ.

NL Central
Surprise Team to Contend- Prediction: Cubs....Reality: Uhm.....Next. Pittsburgh takes the cake here no doubt.
Division Winner- Prediction: Brewers.....Reality: Milwaukee is in a 4-team race for the division title. I like the move to get K-Rod, although I wonder if there will be a closer controversy if Axford blows a save that might get fans going and get egos riled up in the dugout. St. Louis has survived so much and is still right there. I'm rooting for my original prediction, but I see St. Louis winning this for some reason.

NL East
Surprise Team to Contend- Prediction: Florida....Reality: It looked good for a month or so, but now Florida sits at the bottom of the division despite riding a 5-game winning streak into the All-Star break. The Mets being over .500 (albeit one game over) would probably be the biggest surprise.
Division Winner- Prediction: Braves....Reality: I think I was trying to be cute and go against the grain of picking the obvious Phillies pick here. Even though Philadelphia's up only 3.5 games over the Braves, I don't see the Braves overtaking them. I do see them taking the Wild Card though.

NL West
Surprise Team to Contend- Prediction: San Diego....Reality: While San Diego is playing better than most people probably thought they would, the winner of the surprise team goes to Arizona, projected for a win total in the mid 70s and currently sitting 3 back.
Division Winner- Prediction: Giants...Reality: This division pick is the one I am most comfortable with, despite an injury to their best player, Buster Posey. Despite their offensive woes, the Giants find a way to grind out just enough runs to support their outstanding pitching staff.


Prognosis:
Surprise Teams: Only really hit on the Angels and Rays, with the Angels being the only of the surprise teams that have a shot at the division crown this year. The others, I soon found, were longshots to win their divisions for a reason.
Division Winners/Wild Cards: There's a chance I could hit all 4 of my NL playoff teams, albeit with the NL East winner/Wild Card switched. I had the AL Central completely wrong (and probably will barring a White Sox/Twins hot 2nd half) but feel solid with Texas and Boston.

New World Series prediction: Philadelphia over Detroit