Oakland Park Baseball

Well, I fucked up. In the bet you guys might remember me setting up at the all-star break, I was to pick who would win each division, each wild card, and who would win the various series also (division, league, world). I was naively looking at the offensive addition of Jim Thome with no major subtraction (forgot about defense in CF and Brian Anderson in place of Aaron Rowand) and I picked the Chicago White Sox to go all the way and repeat. Well I'm not feeling very good about this selection now that the offense has slowed down and the starting rotation is really shaky. All I can hope is that CWS general manager Kenny Williams can land something before next Tues.' trade deadline.

Now for the NL West, my brilliance was also evident as I picked the then-first place LA Dodgers (to win division only, then lose in 1st round). Well they've proceeded to be the coldest team in all of MLB since I made that selection. They went from being 7 games above .500 and in 1st place to now being in last place in the NL West, and 8 games under .500. Going into the break, they were 5-5 over their last 10 games, but the Dodgers have gone 1-13 since then.

So, are the Dodgers done in 2006? What about the White Sox, can they recover, or are they first-round playoff exit-bound at best?

Well, lucky for me, of all the 6 people in on this bet, 5/6 picked the ChiSox to win the AL West (only Nick Warwick said otherwise, picking the Tigers). And 4 out of those 5 put the Sox to go to the World Series, though I'm the only one seeing them win that series. (The other 5 people picked Red Sox, Mets, Cardinals, Mets, and Tigers to win the World Series.)

As for the Dodgers, we all bought into it, with 5/6 picking them. Only my friend Carlo picked the Padres to win the NL West. No one picked SF for the wild card or the NL west.

Wow! They were picked to finish top in the AL West? With picks like that, I'm in next year!

Chicago will most likely make it to the playoffs, where they will crumble against teams with superior pitching. The Twins will become this year's Indians, being the hottest team for a while and still failing to make it to the playoffs. Chicago has the offense to make it to the playoffs, but all their pitchers, are, well, one-hit wonders, or over the hill.

I still think the Dodgers can pull it out. Personally I'd love to see the Padres win it (apparently they're in trade talks with the Cubs to get Maddux ), but I think the Dodgers can make a good run at it. They have a decent rotation, and good enough hitting (though the lack of homers scares me). Both the AL and NL Wests are completely up for grabs. All someone needs is a good run of 2 weeks, and they can easily be up in or near first.

Tayster wrote:Chicago will most likely make it to the playoffs, where they will crumble against teams with superior pitching.

How can you say they'll crumble? DIspite how excellent the Tigers are, the ChiSox are just as good, if not better, than last year's team.

Outside of the addition of Thome and the explosion of Jermaine Dye the White Sox were far better last year. Aarond Rowand was a huge defensive bolt in their machine and his offense was far better than anyone they've put in center this year. Pods has dealt with hamstring issues that have slowed him down. The rotation has come back to earth with Javier "I'm the definition of overrated and over-hyped" Vazquez leading the charge followed closely by Buerhle and Garcia. Garland has shown his true colors but anyone who didn't see that coming is just silly. Contreras is their rock but he misses El Duque as a calming presence and motivator and that may come back to haunt them for the stretch run.

Anyone hear that train driven by the Latin Lefties (that's what they're called in the Twin Cities)? I don't think any team wants to face that challenge in the playoffs especially with the 3rd super prospect they have waiting in triple A for a mid-august call-up. Radke's been pretty absurd himself since the end of June.

I would love to see El Duque punk the Sox in the final game of the World Series for personal reasons, but not as much I'd love to see the Tigres do it before the Sox can even get there!

retep wrote:

Tayster wrote:Chicago will most likely make it to the playoffs, where they will crumble against teams with superior pitching.

How can you say they'll crumble? DIspite how excellent the Tigers are, the ChiSox are just as good, if not better, than last year's team.

I expect they'll crumble since none of their pitchers are playing on the same level as they were last year. They all threw 200+ innings, so it might just be a fatigue factor, but their pitching is not nearly good enough, and they're really missing the one key starter which most contenders seem to have (see: Schilling, Zito, Santana, Pedro, ect).

Don't get me wrong, I still think they'll make the playoffs, but if they did, they'd probly be facing the red sox, and I doubt they'd be able to beat them (this is assuming the red sox win the east of course).