Sloppy Potatoes

2008 Baseball predictions: Teams

Somewhere on some version of Sloppy Potatoes I picked the league MVPs, Cy Young winners and Rookies of the Year in 2007.

I can’t find the post, but I have a paper copy here on my desk. Interesting. I took the easy way out selected five candidates for each, I won’t be doing that again.

This year’s team picks first.

My picks for the division winners, wild card teams and playoffs winners:

AL East: Yankees; AL Central: Indians; AL West, Angels; Wild Card: Tigers

-I think the Red Sox falter this year (NYY bias?) so I picked the Tigers to take the Wild Card. Their offense will be able to keep up with most anyone, but the Indians are too good overall to not win the division.

NL East: Mets; NL Central: Cubs; NL West: Diamondbacks; Wild Card: Phillies

-I like the Rockies too, but the D’backs improved too much in the division and the Phillies have a powerful offense and a promising young pitching staff (I’m looking at Hamels and Kendrick, not Eaton and Moyer).

ALCS: Indians beat Yankees

-Clearly I’m putting a lot of faith in the Yankees young arms to come through when Mussina and Pettitte falter, but the Indians have too much offense and pitching.

NLCS: Mets beat Cubs

-The Cubs fall just short simply because of Johan Santana’s arrival. If the Mets had Santana last year, they would not have faltered down the stretch.

World Series: Indians over Mets

- Fausto Carmona, C.C. Sabathia, Rafael Betancourt, Rafael Perez and Joe Borowski are any lineups nightmare, and the Indians are the American League team in this equation: AL>NL without question, Santana or not.

Tomorrow individual award selections and Wednesday, a review of last year’s selections