I saw geeo's one on the NHL, and seeing as I see baseball is better than hockey, I feel justified in making this thread =P

People I know will be interested...

NotJon :

and...

trouble982 :

Open discussion, keep flaming to a minimum.

They're both tied for me. I gotta go to a SF Giants game sometime, I've been to Sharks games cause I live like 20-24 minutes away (traffic depending). But never to an SF Giants game. Its not that far to drive. As bad as this sounds (and its probably because of my lack of interest that I'm less engaged by them) they both get boring to watch pretty equally for me.

EDIT by noelia: due to layout problem.

Here are my predictions for the 2011 post season:

AL -
East - Boston Red Sox, 97 - 65
Central - Minnesota Twins, 89 - 73
West - Texas Rangers, 88 - 74
Wild Card - New York Yankees, 93 - 69

NL -
East - Philadelphia Phillies, 104 - 58
Central - Cincinnati Reds, 92 - 70
West - San Fransisco Giants, 94 - 68
Wild Card - St. Louis Cardinals, 91 - 69

World Series - Boston Red Sox vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Champion - Philadelphia Phillies

All that Pitching...if they DON'T win the world series, this year is a disappointment. lol,

trouble982 :

I like most of your predictions. But here's what I think.

AL
East- Red Sox 102-60
Central- Tigers 87-75
West- Im gonna take a real risk on the Athletics at 84-78 (worst team to make the playoffs this season
Wild Card- Yankees- 89-73

NL
East- Phillies 102-60 (yeah, I think they will have the same record)
Central- Cubs 87-75
West- Giants 92-70
Wild Card- Reds 85-77

World Series- Red Sox-Phillies
Champ- Red Sox in 7.

No doubt pitching for both sides is going to be important, but I think the spontaneous go go Red Sox will eke it out in a 7 game series, especially if they play at Fenway for 4 of those games, otherwise, it will be much tougher on them.

You forget that the Red Sox have the same pressure that the Phillies do, anything less than a championship is a disappointment.

legacyme3 : Of course you would make the red sox the winner. I changed my mind . World series will be the Pirates vs. Indians. Indians win in 7 .

trouble982 :

Of course I would, cuz this season they are the best team =P

A little history, other than last year (When the Giants won) I have predicted the last 10 world series winners.

I predict the Red Sox with my track record =)

And the Indians will battle with the Royals for last in the Central you silly duck =P

legacyme3 : You would only have been 9 years old 10 years ago lol. Also, there is no way you picked the white sox or the marlins :p.

trouble982 :

Wanna bet? I've made scary calls. I know baseball. (when I was 9 through 11, I just made random guesses, luck would have it that I was right ) then I got older and learned more. My only mistake being that the Giants won the World Series. I had the Texas Rangers from day 1. Oh well.

legacyme3 : this thread needs to be kept up until the end of the post season then...just so we see how we both did at predicting XD.

trouble982 :

As long as people post in here, it will be.

Just wish there were more baseball fans on the board.

legacyme3 : The other thing I forgot to mention about your predictions...I REALLY don't think Boston will break 100 games this year...that division is just to loaded.

trouble982 :

Not to sandwich or anything, but the thing is, that I can see it. The division is at it's weakest in years. The Rays look like they will struggle, the Jays never contend, the Orioles are still too young and unable to pitch, and even the Yankees don't look as intimidating thanks to the lack of quality pitchers and a young sporadic offense. This is Boston's division to lose, and they have the ability to crack 100 granting good health

legacyme3 : I agree that I think they have the ability to crack 100...I just don't think they WILL crack 100. The Yankees are ALWAYS good, The Rays always play tough in division games as do the Blue Jays, The Orioles looked REALLY good in the 2nd half of the year last year with their new coach...I would be very surprised if they broke 95-97 wins.

I predict...

AL EAST: Red Sox
AL CENTRAL: White Sox
AL WEST: Rangers
AL WILD CARD: Yankees

NL EAST: Phillies
NL CENTRAL: Reds
NL WEST: ...
NL WILD CARD: Braves

I don't go too far into the postseason so this is all you'll get out of me.

And please leggy. The Royals are even worse than last year. They lost their one good starter and picked up Jeffy and Melky. The Royals are definitely aiming for last this coming season.

NotJon :

... is not a team. Please put a real team in that space.

The Royals have a lot of young talent, so I'm not saying they will be last easily, but they will compete with the Indians for last in the division. It will be close.

legacyme3 : I don't like predicting in my team's division because I'm superstitious.

Kansas City has exactly ONE good position player on their team - Billy Butler. Their only good pitcher is Soria and he's just a reliever.

Cleveland has Shin-Soo Choo, Carlos Santana, Grady Sizemore (possibly), Travis Hafner, and perhaps Matt LaPorta will finally produce if he's healthy. Their pitching (though bad) is much better than the Royals. I just don't see how KC won't be the worst team in their division, perhaps in all of baseball. Just because they have the young talent, it doesn't mean that they'll be productive. Besides, they know they're not competing this year. They'll probably wait 'til the end of the season or something before they call them up if they do at all.

NotJon :

The problem with the Indians, they are living proof that talent doesn't always win. They have good players individually, but as a team, they are very disorganized and not on the same page, leading to being destroyed. Injuries suck, but I won't have any of that being why they suck. The Red Sox were more injured than they were, and they STILL contended at the very least.

Dude, SHELLEY DUNCAN IS ON THE TEAM. You really can't compare the talent that they have with the Red Sox. Legitimately, they had ONE really good player there all last year, Choo (and even he got hurt a little). That's it. You guys had Beltre (the best 3rd baseman last year), Martinez (elite hitting catcher), Ortiz (still quite good), and you had Youkilis for a good part of the season too as well as big pitching from Lester, Buchholz, Bard, etc.

Did you see the Cleveland lineup? Horrible. Offensively and defensively. None of the starters had an ERA+ over 100 (minus Carmona's 102). Perez was a good reliever but that's it.

They used to have talent. Back when they had a healthy Sizemore, strong Hafner, V-Mart, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, etc. It's not like they have much more talent on the way. Santana is good but it thins out very quickly after him.

Also, they're not disorganized, they just SUCK.

NotJon :

If they suck as bad as you make them out to be, then you just proved my point. They will contend for last. And that's all I'm trying to say. True, the Red Sox were deeper, and that's why they are a good team, but Shelley Duncan is a poor choice, seeing as we had such unnotables as Kevin Cash, Gustavo Molina (the impersonator), and Darnell McDonald (who was a player ALL season. NO Red Sox team should have needed him to step in as much) hopefully Kalish can take his spot over him soon.

Back on topic though, the Indians will be last in the Central, you aren't giving the Royals enough credit. They may suck, but they don't suck like the Indians. And they will probably trade Sizemore mid season so they get something out of it. This team is just continuing to sell, because they can't keep a player in Cleveland.

legacyme3 : Don't put words in my post that I didn't say. They do SUCK, especially when compared to the Red Sox. However, they're still better than the Royals (for this coming season anyways). After this year, the Royals will begin to be better than Cleveland. Perhaps in two or three seasons, they'll be contending themselves.