The long offseason is almost over, teams only have a few Spring Training games left to play and many of the roster decisions have now been made.  The 2010 Major League season begins on Sunday (early hours of Monday for us in the UK) and it’s set to be another fantastic year of baseball.

So, it’s time to make some predictions.  As always, none of us really knows what is going to transpire over the next six months, which is precisely why it’s so much fun.  Five of us have picked out the division winners and wild cards from the regular season and then took a shot at how we think the postseason may unfold.  There’s a bit of personal bias in there, while Steve has decided to pick out the teams who have perhaps been undervalued by bookies and pundits alike.

Feel free to pass on your own predictions in the comments section below. 

American League

Â	East	Central	West	Wild Card
Joe	Yankees	Twins	Rangers	Red Sox
Mark	Yankees	Twins	Mariners	Red Sox
Matt	Yankees	Twins	Angels	Red Sox
Russ	Red Sox	Twins	Mariners	Angels
Steve	Red Sox	White Sox	Rangers	Yankees

 

It’s difficult to see past the Yankees and Red Sox in the East and the loser of that personal battle is highly likely to take the consolation prize of the AL Wild Card.  That’s what conventional wisdom tells you and, aside from Russ tipping the Angels for the Wild Card, it’s a line of thinking followed by all of us. However what’s not picked up in the table above is that we don’t think it’s simply going to be a two-horse race.  Mark noted that the Tampa Bay Rays will finish “very close behind the Red Sox”, Steve has them down as “a reasonable outside chance” and I thought long and hard about putting them down for the Wild Card.  I do think they could do it, but the safer bet is on the two powerhouses coming through yet again. In particular, if the Rays have a disappointing first half to the season, they are much more likely to trade free-agents-to-be Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena rather than bring in reinforcements.

Both the Central and the West look like being very competitive divisions.  There’s a lot of optimism around the Twins and that’s reflected in our predictions, but the White Sox and Tigers should put them under pressure and Steve has Ozzie Guillen’s team edging it.  The West is arguably the most competitive division in the Majors simply because there is no clear-cut favourite, as reflected in our picks.  The A’s are the outsiders and would need everything to go their way to pip the others.  The Rangers and Mariners get two votes each, while I’m not quite ready to rule out the Angels.

Â	ALDS	ALCS
Joe	Red Sox over Twins, Yankees over Rangers	Yankees over Red Sox
Mark	Yankees over Twins, Red Sox over Mariners	Yankees over Red Sox
Matt	Yankees over Twins, Red Sox over Angels	Red Sox over Yankees
Russ	Red Sox over Angels, Twins over Mariners	Twins over Red Sox
Steve	Red Sox over White Sox, Rangers over Yankees	Rangers over Red Sox

 

As for the postseason, all five of us have the Red Sox making the ALCS, which is perhaps at odds with some of the pessimism in Beantown due to the apparently lacklustre offence (it looks more than good enough to me).  Mark, Joe and I see a repeat of the 2003-2004 classics between the AL East rivals, while Russ and Steve are holding out hope for one of the so-called lesser teams getting the better of Boston and moving on to the Fall Classic.

National League

Â	East	Central	West	Wild Card
Joe	Braves	Cardinals	Dodgers	Phillies
Mark	Phillies	Cardinals	Rockies	Dodgers
Matt	Phillies	Cardinals	Rockies	Braves
Russ	Phillies	Cubs	Rockies	Giants
Steve	Braves	Brewers	Rockies	Phillies

 

In the Senior Circuit, it’s no surprise that we all think the Phillies are going to make the postseason.  They’ve played in the last two World Series and they do not appear to be any weaker in 2010; however, both Joe and Steve see the Phils progressing to October via the Wild Card rather than a fourth straight NL East title.  The Atlanta Braves are tabbed as the team to break that sequence and their competitiveness is underlined by my selection of them as the Wild Card. 

The St. Louis Cardinals re-signed Matt Holliday over the offseason and with Albert Pujols hitting in front of him and two genuine aces in Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright at the front of their rotation, they have to be seen as the team to beat in the NL Central.  Even Steve noted that they are “the clear favourites”, but he countered that by stating that he thinks “it would be wrong t0 write off the Brewers” and that seems a fair shout.  Russ sees a rebound from the Cubs, while there was a certain amount of optimism among us for the Reds outside of the actual predictions for the division winner.  The fact that none of us see the Wild Card coming from the Central is an indication that it’s not likely to be the strongest division, although it may still be one of the most exciting if the Cardinals don’t fire on all cylinders and four teams enter the last month with a realistic shot at coming out on top.

The Rockies are the favourites to win the NL West for the first time in their relatively short history. Joe bucks the trend by backing the Dodgers, with Mark taking L.A. as his Wild Card pick and Russ putting faith in his Giants.  Mark isn’t quite so sure about that: “The Giants will be the best fourth-placed team in baseball [he has the D-Backs in 3rd] but a lack of offense will waste some excellent pitching from Lincecum and Cain”. 

Â	NLDS	NLCS
Joe	Cardinals over Phillies, Braves over Dodgers	Cardinals over Braves
Mark	Phillies over Dodgers, Cardinals over Rockies	Phillies over Cardinals
Matt	Phillies over Cardinals, Braves over Rockies	Phillies over Braves
Russ	Giants over Phillies, Rockies over Cubs	Rockies over Giants
Steve	Braves over Brewers, Phillies over Rockies	Braves over Phillies

 

As with the AL postseason picks, the five of us have come up with four different World Series representatives.  Any of those potential NLCS match-ups would make for a great (and close) series.  The question then is whether the National League team will be strong enough to beat their American League opponent?

World Series

Â
Joe	Yankees over Cardinals
Mark	Yankees over Phillies
Matt	Red Sox over Phillies
Russ	Twins over Rockies
Steve	Rangers over Braves

 

Not by our reckoning: we’ve all got the AL team emerging triumphant.  Joe, Mark and I have gone down the conservative, and arguably the most probable, route with two votes for a Yankee repeat (Mark thinks the Phillies will stretch it to a 7 game series this time but with the same result as ‘09) and my selection of the Red Sox.  Russ sees the Twins following the Yankees’ ‘win it all with a new stadium’ approach and Steve goes out on a limb with the Rangers securing their first ever World Series title, “ruining the fairytale ending for Bobby Cox in five or six games”.

Not that Steve is overly confident with that prediction: “It´ll never happen, my head tells me one of Red Sox/ Yankees/ Phillies again, but I´m not tipping those sides. That would just encourage them”.  Joe took a similar line, signing off his predictions by stating “Obviously – I hope none of that happens!”. 

When it comes down to it, like everyone else we all want our own teams to do well, meaning the Mariners (Joe), Dodgers (Mark), A’s (me), Giants (Russ) and Mets (Steve).  In order of the most likely to do just that, I would go for Dodgers, Mariners, Giants, Mets, A’s, with the Dodgers being the only ones I would give a better than even chance of making the Championship Series.

We’ll revisit these predictions at the end of the season to see how they turned out.  What we can predict with all certainty is that it’s going to be another exciting season. 

Let us know who you think will triumph in 2010.