{"id":13073,"date":"2012-04-04T08:30:08","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T07:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=13073"},"modified":"2012-04-04T20:01:54","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T19:01:54","slug":"2012-mlb-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=13073","title":{"rendered":"2012 MLB predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Miami Marlins will welcome World Series Champions the St. Louis Cardinals to their new ballpark tonight as the true curtain-raiser on the 2012 MLB season (the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-M\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s series in Japan counts in the standings, but didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really have an Opening Day feel to it).<\/p>\n

Opening Night means two things: 1) our wonderful journey of day after day of baseball to enjoy has begun for another year, and 2) it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for some predictions.<\/p>\n

Other commitments have knocked my normal preparedness off course, so apologies to fellow writers for not coordinating our group predictions (please add them into the comments below!). Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I think the 2012 division and Wild Card winners will look, with the caveat that I predicted a Braves-Twins World Series last year.<\/p>\n

If I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pick your team to make the playoffs, treat it less as a snub and more as a good luck charm<\/p>\n

American League<\/strong><\/p>\n

East:<\/strong> New York Yankees<\/p>\n

Central:<\/strong> Detroit Tigers<\/p>\n

West:<\/strong> Los Angeles Angels<\/p>\n

Wild Cards:<\/strong> Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

There are no real surprise here, which doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean to say there won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be any as the season unfolds, but these are the teams I would expect to make it.<\/p>\n

The Yankees look strong right across the board, while the Tigers were a long way in front of the Central pack last year and should remain so. It will be a very close run thing between the Angels and Rangers for the West title; however the former\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s front four to the starting rotation looks extremely impressive (against a very good Rangers rotation) and I think that will just prove to be the difference.<\/p>\n

The one question most will have when looking at the American League is which of the Rays or Red Sox will take the second Wild Card.<\/p>\n

The Rays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 underdog story is easy to get behind and they will continue to push their more illustrious and wealthy rivals close, with Matt Moore coming into the rotation and a healthy Evan Longoria joined by Luke Scott and the returning Carlos Pena in the batting lineup.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox are not without their problems, from the question marks over whether Bobby Valentine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approach will mesh with the Boston veterans to the health issues with Carl Crawford and now closer Andrew Bailey.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m tipping them over the Rays because they still have some outstanding talent and after last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dismal collapse, the ownership and Front Office are likely to make an extra push as the season progresses to make sure they get across the line this time (Roy Oswalt joining the rotation in mid-season, perhaps?).<\/p>\n

National League<\/strong><\/p>\n

East:<\/strong> Philadelphia Phillies<\/p>\n

Central:<\/strong> Milwaukee Brewers<\/p>\n

West:<\/strong> Arizona Diamondbacks<\/p>\n

Wild Cards:<\/strong> St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants<\/p>\n

The Senior Circuit doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the same level of certainty to me; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve changed my mind several times on most of these selections.<\/p>\n

In the East, there is genuine doubt over how the Phillies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 offence will function with Ryan Howard and Chase Utley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s return dates being uncertain, while losing Oswalt from the rotation is a blow. Still, any team with Halladay, Lee and Hamels at the front of the rotation is going to be very strong and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough offence there to keep the wins coming alongside that standard of pitching.<\/p>\n

The Marlins appear to be a popular pick to upset the odds and they could ride on the momentum of the start of their new era if Josh Johnson, Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes stay healthy. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcif\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 though and the excitement of their new additions shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t completely disguise the fact that they were a long way off competing (72-90, 30 games behind the Phillies, 17 behind the Braves) without Johnson and Ramirez playing regularly last year, so the possibility of similar injury problems and\u00c2\u00a0something like an\u00c2\u00a084 win season rather than a 90 win season makes me cautious about jumping on the bandwagon just yet.<\/p>\n

I can see the Central being a very close race between the Brewers, Cardinals and Reds, although the competition from the other two divisions makes it very unlikely the three could sweep up the division and two Wild Card spots, so one team is going to miss out. Even though they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve added Mat Latos to the rotation, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to use last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s form as a decent guide and predict that the Reds be the odd one out.\u00c2\u00a0 Selecting the Brewers to retain the division after losing Prince Fielder could be a bit of a reach, but I like their rotation and the addition of Aramis Ramirez plus steady contributions from others should keep their offence being competitive.<\/p>\n

As for the Cardinals, whenever I look at their roster they always seem to be in surprisingly good shape for a team that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just lost one of the game\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great players. Pujols obviously will be missed, but shifting Berkman to first and adding Carlos Beltran to the outfield was a convincing way of making up some of the difference.<\/p>\n

In the West, I think the D-Backs are a much better team than some seem to be giving them credit for. Their division title last year was not a fluke and they will be at the top of the standings again so long as they get a bit of luck with injuries and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need the likes of John McDonald, Lyle Overbay and Willie Bloomquist (hurry back Stephen Drew) to use up too many at-bats. Buster Posey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s return will be very significant for the Giants and even though the offence still underwhelms, when set alongside their pitching the team should be good enough to edge out the Dodgers and Braves for the second Wild Card.<\/p>\n

Postseason<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way of knowing how this would all shake out, but here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my best guess.<\/p>\n

The Rangers will edge the Red Sox in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcplay in\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but then lose out in the Division Series to the Yankees. The Angels will get past the Tigers but then narrowly fall to New York.<\/p>\n

In the NL, the Giants will knock out the Cardinals but will then be beaten by the Phillies, who will make it back to the World Series after beating the D-Backs after they dismiss the Brewers in the NLDS.<\/p>\n

That all leads to a Yankees-Phillies World Series and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take the Phillies to gain revenge for 2009.<\/p>\n

Your turn next<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your guesses are as good as mine \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

8 p.m. 4 April EDIT:<\/strong> I’ve added Mark George’s predictions below rather than put them into the Comments. Here’s Mark’s take on each division, the playoff spots and the end-of-season award winners.<\/p>\n

AL East
\nYankees
\nRays (Wild Card)
\nRed Sox
\nJays
\nOrioles<\/p>\n

AL Central
\nTigers
\nRoyals
\nWhite Sox
\nIndians
\nTwins<\/p>\n

AL West
\nAngels
\nRangers (Wild Card)
\nMariners
\nAthletics<\/p>\n

Rangers beat Rays in Wild Card playoff<\/p>\n

NL East
\nPhillies
\nMarlins (Wild Card)
\nNationals
\nBraves
\nMets<\/p>\n

NL Central
\nReds
\nBrewers (Wild Card)
\nCardinals
\nPirates
\nCubs
\nAstros<\/p>\n

NL West
\nD-Backs
\nDodgers
\nGiants
\nRockies
\nPadres<\/p>\n

Brewers beat Marlins in Wild Card playoff<\/p>\n

World Series
\nTigers beat Reds in 5<\/p>\n

AL MVP
\nMiguel Cabrera<\/p>\n

NL MVP
\nJoey Votto<\/p>\n

AL Cy Young
\nJustin Verlander<\/p>\n

NL Cy Young
\nCole Hamels<\/p>\n

AL Rookie of the Year
\nMatt Moore<\/p>\n

NL Rookie of the Year
\nYonder Alonso<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday night is Opening Night in the 2012 MLB season. Time for some predictions <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[503,553],"class_list":["post-13073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-featured","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13073"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13081,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13073\/revisions\/13081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}