I will probably issue some preseason predictions in the next few days. Predictions are basically a ritual, in that everyone is expected to do them yet they’re meaningless. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, and what’s more the people who talk about baseball for a living — from Joe Morgan to the Baseball Prospectus guys and everybody in between — don’t know either.
A lot of what happens in a baseball game or season is essentially random. Now, the best team generally wins the most games, but has a good chance of losing any individual game. A really good team might have an 80 percent chance of beating a really bad team, but that means that even in a three-game series the really bad team has almost a 50 percent chance of winning at least once (actually 48.8 percent). And most of the time the difference isn’t that great.
I was discussing this with Alex yesterday when he was counting out the Phillies in the division. I don’t see why. They return basically the same team from last season, a team that won 88 games and missed the playoffs by one, and don’t you wish they’d beat out the Astros, and three of the four years before that they won 86 games. Anyway, they replaced Billy Wagner with Flash Gordon, and that’s a downgrade but not much of one — I doubt it’s more than one game’s worth. They got rid of Thome and added Rowand, and other than that it’s the same guys. Let’s say they decline all the way to being, say, an 83-win team, which is what Alex estimated.
The thing is that an 83-win team can, just by random luck, wind up with anything from 73 to 93 wins. That’s just how it is. The Phillies could not improve at all and win a few more games and the division and Charlie Manuel would win Manager of the Year and yet not do anything different. Just chance.
At the same time, baseball is in a remarkably stable period. Before the White Sox breakout last season, the AL had been remarkably stable for years, with five teams (New York, Boston, Minnesota, Oakland, and Anaheim) as the five top teams of the previous three years, and the East finishing New York-Boston-Toronto-Baltimore-Tampa Bay every year but one since 1998. The NL has seen the Braves win every year that finished since 1991, and the Cards in the last few years have been about as dominant; the only real question division has been the West and what team will catch fire that year.
So my guess is that if you predict that what happened last year will happen again this year, you’ll be more right than not. But you aren’t going to get much attention that way.
You’ve probably seen the covers and ad copy of various annuals which state that they made this right prediction and that right prediction. I’m convinced that BP predicts the Braves’ demise every year so that they can put “PREDICTED THE BRAVES WOULDN’T WIN THE DIVISION” on the cover when it happens. But they didn’t know, it’s just the famous stopped clock method.
Just like when Met fans, emboldened by their latest cash splurge, walk into my office saying, “This is the year we beat you!”
And I just tell ’em: “I’m sorry, but haven’t you seen this movie before? It’s the one where you die in the end.”
On paper, this is the worst Braves team of the past five years, so if you’re going to pick them to lose it might as well be this year. Of course, every year this happens:
APRIL 200x
Rob Neyer: The Braves have had a remarkable run, but it’s finally going to come to an end.
…
SEPTEMBER 200x
Rob Neyer: Once again, Bobby Cox has shown me to be a fool. Never again! I will henceforth pick the Braves to win until they don’t.
…
APRIL 200x+1
Rob Neyer: I know, you’ve heard it before, but this year it’s finally true: the Braves run will come to an end…
Kyle, I’m not sure I agree with your assessment. In my opinion, this team looks better than the ones we took to camp in either 2004 or 2005. What makes you believe otherwise?
Biggest differences over the last two years:
1) Furcal -> Renteria downgrade
2) No legit lefty starter.
Also, 2004 had J.D. Drew.
Did anyone else see where Farnsworth said he chose the Yankees over the Braves because “I figured Atlanta didn’t have as good a chance as New York did?I want to be on a team that can win.”
Okay, two things. First, a little thing called 14 straight division titles and the fact that the two men who put those teams together are still around. I mean, that’s a pretty good track record. Second of all, does he realize Atlanta and New York both got kicked out of the exact same round last year, and that Atlanta might have gotten a little further if he had not had a huge brain freeze with a 6 run lead?
I mean, to read the article, I felt like he was putting Atlanta and Texas in the same category (one that didn’t have a good chance of winning). And to say New York has that much of a greater chance of winning than Atlanta is a little absurd.
You know, he would have looked a whole lot smarter if he had kept his mouth shut.
He joins a long list of former Atlanta relievers about whom the same could be said.
And JoeyT, don’t you think Not Dan Kolb or Tom Martin more than outweighs the Furcal-Renteria dropoff?
I don’t think that the Renteria/Furcal difference is likely to be much. Over the course of their careers they’re almost even as players. (Remember, Renteria is younger than he’s listed and Furcal is older.) At most, there’s a 55 percent chance that Furcal will be better, 45 percent that Renteria will be. Now, that doesn’t mean that Renteria will be as good as Furcal was last season, but at the same time Furcal sucked for two months to start the year.
The most important question is if the rookies of last year improve as most players do during their second year. If that’s the case, they could make up for any declines anywhere else. And don’t forget — no Mondesi and likely a reduced J*rd*n.
I mostly agree with Mac. I think the second-year guys will play a huge role in how this team does, and I think Renteria will be steady.
I’m a tiny bit concerned with the health & consistency of the starters and totally nervous about the bullpen, but I still see 90+ wins. Perhaps some of that is blind faith, but it’s worked before.
I never cared much one way or the other about Farnsworth. I still don’t, but BOY would I like to see him fail in New York! Player joins team because he thinks team will win; player becomes reason team doesn’t win.
For the Phillies, I feel that the success of their season depends upon two players more than anything – Ryan Madsen and Ryan Howard. Madsen is moving to the rotation, and the Phils will be much stronger if he gives them good starts. As for Howard, any kind of sophomore slump will sink them. They will be counting on him this year and they pretty much have no alternatives if he doesn’t play well.
It’s uncertain if the upper management changes will have any kind of effect on the team, but there be the slightly-awkward situation of still having Charlie Manuel in as a manager even though he was hired by Wade. It is safe to say that Manuel will be on a very short leash and anything less than 80 wins will almost definitely be the end for him.
To me, the biggest advantages of the 2006 Braves are:
a) I like the collection of arms in the bullpen better this year than at the beginning of last year
b) Brian McCann is an All-Star
I have absolutely no idea what Frenchy, Ryno and KJ will be able to manage–they could either hit 50 homers between them, or hit a total wall.
I’m betting Chuck James will break into the rotation at some point this year. An interesting scenario might develop….you know Smoltz has said he’s going to back off some this season, even to the point of skipping a start now and then. I bet James fills that spot in the rotation on the days Smoltz takes off. At some point (all star break, trade deadline, or sooner), I think Thomson gets traded to clear a permanant spot in the rotation for James. I’d personally like it to be HoRam that goes and James becomes THE lefty, but there’s been so much made of how cheap Thomson comes as a solid starter, I say it’s him that gets traded.
I’m less inclined to say that this is the worst team we’ve had over the past 5 years than I am to say this is the most uncertain team we’ve had for the past 5 years. A lot of things could go either way. And I’m more worried about the Mets this year than I have in any year previously; of course, if Pedro gets hurt, they’ll go in the toilet. We have a lot of guys we don’t know what to expect from, who could either do really well or bomb. It should be an interesting season. I’m counting Florida and Washington pretty much out of it (watch me eat crow). Florida tore their team apart and is basically an AAA team right now and Washington…well, after Jim Bowden’s handiwork, I think they’re worse this year than they were last year. The Wilkerson trade was a horrifically stupid move and getting Soriano just compounded it. That was awful. And now that Brian Lawrence is out for the year, the Vinny Castilla trade looks pretty bad, too. Even if it is Vinny.
Wow, is Jimbo dumb.
Reasons I think the Braves aren’t as good:
-Only three “good” hitters: Andruw, Chipper, Marcus.
-Chipper is getting older
-No Drew or Sheffield in a corner
-Huge (I estimate 20 runs) difference in replacing Furcal with Renteria
-Worst bullpen in recent memory (sure, Kolb was awful, but we didn’t think that going into last season – not as bad as he turned out, at any rate)
-Smoltz is 39 and is coming off serious shoulder trouble from the playoffs last year
-Hudson has lost effectiveness two years in a row after throwing 240 innings
-Expected lack of even league-average production at both corner OF spots (this is the same as last year, so sue me 🙂
I’m still picking the Braves to take the division with 88 wins in a nail-biter. But I’m not going to make fun of anyone who takes the Mets. Not yet at least.
Did everyone see Barry Bonds dressed up as Paula Abdul? I think I’ve been traumatized for life.
Kyle, what’s your prediction for Francoeur?
We pretty much have the same team as last year except we don’t have to deal with the disasters of Kolb, Jordan, and Mondesi. We rebuilt our team in the middle of the year last year with our young guys and still won the division. I can only see Atlanta improving next year.
To all you lucky people who can actually watch Braves games on the Fox Sports Net and Turner South: Jeff Torborg has replaced Tom Paciorek in the broadcast booth. Paciorek is going to the Nationals.
It is sad that the Braves announcers (Skip, Pete, Don, Joe, and Chip) now seem to be limited to TBS games (not that I can watch any others?).
TORBORG SMASH!
One advantage the Braves have this year is that they have some money earmarked for salaries that hasn’t been spent yet. 10 million? Last year it was 250 thousand
The TBS announcers are also on radio, which you can get over the internet. But now that Paciorek is gone, maybe MLB.tv is a viable option.
I use MLB.TV because I’m out of range of FSS and TS wherever I am, amd it’s pretty good as long as your broadband connection is steady. It’s cool because you can get all the games on archive and watch them on-demand whenever you have the time. A bit pricey, though; helps to have my parents paying for it 😉
I’m concerned about Atlanta’s starting pitching and the “sophomore jinx”, but I’m pretty upbeat about Atlanta’s chances. I think that we can safely say that we can’t afford the injuries we had last year. Think about it, we replaced a whole bullpen, two starters in the outfield, a catcher, and much of the starting rotation at some point. Chipper also was out for a good while. If we could win with that kind of turnover last year, we should be okay this year.
Besides our second year players, Sosa and HoRam scare me. If they fall apart, I just don’t think Davies is quite ready for a full season in the majors. Chuck James may be the answer, but he’s also a question mark.
All that being said, I still think we’re the team to beat as long as the Phillies or Mets don’t catch fire. If winning the World Series takes coming in as a Wild Card, I’ll be happy with that.
I’m actually optimistic about the bullpen. A lot of questionmarks but also a lot of young guy with good arms. I think we’ve got a core there that could make Atlanta’s one of the best pen’s in the majors for the next 2-4 years. The “no closer” problem doesn’t really bug me; someone will emerge.
As for the rest of the squad, I think we’re better off than last year on the left side of the diamond, seeing as we’ll have KJ/Langerhans for the whole season and Chipper might not get injured. And Betemit is probably the best SS/3B backup in the league. Up the middle, Andruw will be Andruw. I don’t expect 50 HRs again, but I do expect a slightly better BA. And a full year of McCann won’t hurt.
On the right side, maybe LaRoche improves, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Francour hits .300 with 30 HRs, maybe .250 with 18 HRs. More likely somewhere in between, which wouldn’t be too bad at all. In the end, I think we’ll swing a deal to move a starter or something for a 1B if LaRoche isn’t cutting it, but he’s really the only thing I’m concerned about at this point. Oh, and defense is a wash with Renteria being worse than Frucal (not last year worse, but still not as good as Furcal) and the defense in the OF being really, really good.
So I don’t really think the Braves are in dire straits. Provided the pitching staff doesn’t buckle under the weight of its questionmarks, I think the Braves will be fine.
Say what you want about Barry Bonds, but he does have a truly winning smile.
By the way, Paula Abdul: a very, very hot Jew. She’s on the Natalie Portman/Rachel Weisz/Julia Louis-Dreyfus list. (Or, Flora Knotwise, Dimple Sandydowns, Tigerlily Sackville-Baggins, and Ruby Boffin, in Hobbit-speak.)
Career wise, I’d take Renteria’s stats over Furcal’s. Not by much, but enough, and I’m talking both fielding percentage and batting average. Furcal turned it up big last year in the 2nd half, and that seems to be what people remember. Over the years, I remember Furcal being very inconsistent. His end of the year totals may have looked good some years, but he always went through hot and cold streaks. I don’t know Renteria enough to know how consistent he was in his good years, but I’ll take my chances and bet he was better than Furcal. It seems Furcal was a good leadoff man during the hot streaks, and he killed us when he was cold.
I think our outfield will be fine, with Francoeur beginning to be the mega star he’s hyped to be (I think he’s the real deal, and this year starts the fun). Langerhans is okay, but he’s not a long term answer unless he cranks out a lot of homers or steals a ton of bases.
I think the first base answer is within our system. I think Laroche will be okay this year, but if not there’s always Scott Thorman we can give a shot to (Former first rounder), or maybe Salty will make the switch after this season.
I also think the bullpen is awesome, with so much potential it’s scary. I think they’ll live up to a lot of that potential NOW, and I think many of the young guys will be in Atlanta for a long time.
The Mets will bomb as always, and the Braves will win it all. My prediction.
I think people are forgetting just how horrible the 2004 version of the Braves was. Before the season..during the season, and now looking back!, I still am amazed that we won the division, and took the Astros to game 5 of the DS. We rode freak years of gargantuan proportions to win that year.
2006, as someone said, is going to be very uncertain. with so many rookies, we will find out who can make adjustments, and who is going to fall by the wayside ( the soph jinx! ). Obviously not everyone is going to be successful. The good thing is that we seem to have good cover for everyone of the rookies.
But if any of Giles / Andruw / Chipper go down big time, we are in big trouble. And all this talk of how many games Andruw plays every year, how he has been working out more this year, and how he wants to play full tilt in the WBC just has me scared.
To me, this year has a lot of uncertainty on both sides of the ball.
-How will Francoeur and McCann do? I think McCann will hit about what he did last year, which is good for a catcher. Unfortunately, I think that Francoeur will hit the same as McCann hit last year, which is not good for an OF corner. Although, it’s a lot better than Jordesi. Their minor league numbers were pretty similar. It’s so hard to tell what to make of Jeff’s major league experience given that pitchers grooved him fastballs for a full month.
-What will the pitching staff even look like? The Braves bullpen was a problem last year, and JS chose not to try and fix it with free agents or trades. OV, LC, and Obermueller are projects, at best ==> uncertainty. The rookies who pitched well did so in small samples. Again, this makes predicting individuals difficult. Plus, the bizarre glut in the rotation, makes me wonder what is going to happen
-How is Mazzone’s departure going to affect the team? It will have an impact, the question is how much. I will not be surprised if the person who suffers the most is actually Horacio. A theme with Leo is that young pitchers who dislike Leo early on, later came to miss and appreciate what he did (see Marquis and Byrd). No matter what you think of Leo, you can’t believe that he was anything close to a problem.
-What will first base produce? I’m higher on LaRoche than most, but I still think he’s just an average hitters with poor defense manning a position for above-average hitters with poor defense. He had some bad luck last year, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be good. I think playing everyday will hurt his production and development. You’re left-handed kid, be thankful. Jurries could be a big surprise. A hot Jurries and slumping LaRoche could become a big issue.
-Injuries for pitchers. That last two seasons have been full of them. I am very worried about Smoltz and Boyer.
-Chipper. If he stays healthy, this replace any lost offense. Chipper is one of the best hitters in the game, still.
-Andruw. I expect an even better season this year from AJ. That is hard to believe, but I think it is going to happen.
I think fjensen’s comment above needs to be reiterated. Chipper restructured his contract to help the team spend money, and I don’t think Schuerholz would just ‘pocket’ the money for AOL-TW. Having the extra money, along with having a glut of good starters (and a lot of relievers, even if many of them are big question marks), gives the team flexibility – which is the situation I think most people would prefer. Yes, it means that there is uncertainty, but it also allows real steps to be taken to try to shore up weaknesses once you see which of the ‘gambles’ didn’t hold up/come through. They’ve got money to take on salary, prospects to offer in trade – lots of options, really.
People talk about Billy Beane & Oakland, and how he tries to get to the mid-point of the season, see what they need, and make deals to fill the gaps. I think we’re in an ideal position to be able to do that as well (and I think our position is quite possibly much stronger than Beane’s usually is)
The division is weak enough that the Braves might win again. They might have a very good team (say 95-98 wins) or an ok team (85-88 wins). It’s impossible to say because there are so many questions. I suspect that the bullpen will be better, simply because bullpens tend to change from year to year. But the rotation is shaky after the first two (and even Hudson and Smoltz have some question marks), first base and left field (and probably right field) are question marks, Renteria is coming off a bad year and Chipper hasn’t been healthy in two years.
Although I think Farnsworth’s a jerk, I can’t really argue with his reasoning (if that’s really the reason he left). The Yankees are almost sure to win a lot of games and, at least, make the playoffs, given their payroll and Steinbrenner’s willingness to go out and acquire players. They are certainly no sure thing to win the World Series, especially with a shaky pitching staff, but they probably have a much better chance than the Braves. That’s not to say the Braves can’t win, but a lot of things have to fall in place (as they have in recent years) and it’s not as sure a thing as the Yankees.
I hope JS can make a move, but I don’t see, even with the extra money, the Braves making a big move like they did in days of yore. I think they need a bat real bad, but I don’t see any out there that the Braves would likely go after.
Der K: My gut tells me Francouer will be about .260/.310/.460. Near league-average OPS for an OF corner but OBP-light.
—
As bad as the 2004 team was, we still had Chipper, Andruw, JD Drew, and Giles, plus a fluke year from Estrada; Hampton and Ortiz ate innings effectively; Jaret Wright came out of nowhere; and we had a top 5 closer. This year, the rotation is better (although the difference isn’t really going to be that much, I worry, especially given Smoltz’s health) but the bullpen is MUCH worse. Plus Drew (who was an MVP candidate) is gone. Also, to make matters worse, the Mets are much better.
Losing Smoltz from the pen makes it “MUCH worse” but adding him to the rotation only improves it marginally?
Re: 2004
Drew was a question mark going into the season, and Giles got hurt early. DeRosa was the starting 3B. Chipper was the LF and got hurt early, Andruw was being vintage andruw.
Horacio was our #2 pitcher going into the season, and he got hurt. Jaret wright was a scrap heap pickup pencilled in as the #5 starter. We were replacing Javy with Estrada, Maddux with Thomson, Sheff was gone. Reitsma was a spring pickup, because our bullpen apart from Smoltz sucked.
We got saved by career years by Wright, Nick Green, Charles Thomas and Eli Marrero! man, Marrero’s numbers look unreal.
In response to the post by Marc S., Farnsworth left for money. When people say it’s not the money, it’s the money – bank on it.
The thing that made us win last year was the rookies came in with fire in their eyes and their excitement was contagious. Hopefully they will continue to have that fire, but who knows. I think Mazzone will be missed, but with HoRam? It is hard for me to imagine that Ramirez will be worse than last year and give up more hrs. If he pitches equal to the way he did last year and still has a job at the end of May, the Braves have a lot more problems than losing Mazzone.
I forgot Drew in the career year category.
About competition, Marlins were defending world champs, and Phils were really the best team in the NL East.
This year’s team can go horribly wrong, and look worse than that team, but going into the season, we have to be feeling better than that year. Esp since our rotation looks so much better. A better rotation inspires more confidence I guess.
Smoltz is a great addition to the rotation. However, we aren’t adding him to the 2003 or 2004 rotation. Whatever you think about Russ Ortiz and Mike Hampton now, both of those guys did a great job eating innings and pitching about league average for both of those years.
I think Smoltz’s 06 projection should be about 185 innings of 3.40 ERA ball; i.e. Hudson last year. His injury risk is too high for me to project more innings than that. I hope that he proves me wrong.
I’ve been doing some work valuing the dollar value of players, and I probably won’t be releasing the study for some time, but I think this result is interesting. Smoltz moving from releif to starting is an interesting case. Here are the dollar values for Smoltz in 2004 and 2005:
2004: $4.98 million
2005: $14.52 million
Eating up innings is very valuable to a team. The estimates I’m using do not adjust for leveraged value, that would be very difficult to do, but I don’t think that leverage is worth $10 million more. I was blown away by this.
JC, I would be interested in knowing the value of the other elite closers under your valuation model. I don’t think we should be surprised by your result. At the end, the perceived value of the closers is more psychological than actual. I am very sure saves don’t worth much in your model!
JC: does that value include an average marginal win value for all teams or a Braves-specific one? Do you mind sharing the marginal win value you used anyway?
Sorry to drop a bomb and run, but don’t have time to do more than report the value right now. My method is different from the typical sabermetric dollar value method. The dollar value is for all teams. I find that dollar values on wins don’t vary according to city size. Big cites earn more revenue, but they don’t value wins any more than small cities.
Closers seem to not be as valuable as I would have thought, again I think there should be some slight modification for leverage, but I’m not sure how to do it. A guy who could pitch in high leverage situations but isn’t could be adding a lot more to his team. Anyway, Gagne’s 2003 Cy Young season has a value of $7.63 million, just so you get an idea.
Jsut remember, we probably get swept in the playoffs last year without Smoltz. If Smoltz had been healthy in the playoffs we probably go to the Serise.
We finished in the top five in runs last year in the NL, didn’t we? I think we can predict a simular finish in that catagory this year. The second year hitters should improve some, at least two of the four will. The pen last year was the worst pen we have had in a long time, they have to be better.
The key to the East this year is injuries. If Smoltz and/or Hudson go down for long streches, we are in trouble. If Pedro goes down, the Mets are in a world of trouble. We can live without Chipper for a few weeks, I am not so sure the Mets can live without Floyd or Wright.
If Hudson can pitch 215-230 innings, we should be ok.
I was looking over April’s schedule. I like the early road trip against the West Coast, b/c we will be fresh and ready to travel. The Dodgers and Gigantes don’t really scare me, so we should get out with a 4 – 2 start, including an extra innings thriller in the Ravine to start the season (book it). The guys won’t be under pressure to perform for the home crowd, which is nice too. Oh, and an important Brave will have an injury that will cause him to miss three weeks (Miss Cleo told me this from her jail cell).
Six games versus the Phils and Pods at home will be a good tune-up to the rest of the month, which features some tuff road games against pesky WASH, NL-East Favorites (ha!!!) METS, aka the Kevin Mitchell Experience, and the Brewcrew which loves to bash at Miller Park. Three games at home against the Big Crapples to finish the month. I predict 16 – 9 with 2 game lead in East over NY, as David Wright goes nuts and singlehandedly takes the last series for them. Overall, not bad considering Braves historically start out sluggish, save the 1982 season, when I was a wee lass pulling Biff Pocoroba cards from packs of Fleer. We better come out swinging in April, cuz May is going to be Brutal.
With Love,
Jac
We just have to tred water until June.
wee lass? 🙂
is that a typo or is there a story behind this?
Or maybe it is my closed mind. Given your Erin Andrews crush, I assumed you were a guy!
Well, I’m sure “Jac” isn’t the only girl to have a crush on Erin Andrews.
Or was “Jac” just a laddy wearing a lass’ skirt?
Anyone gotten their BPro annual yet? I’ve checked the borders attached to my building in downtown washington but still no dice. Amazon is still taking pre-orders.
Argh. At least I’m getting my copy of “The Book” (insidethebook.com) tomorrow to satiate my thirst for baseball reading material. Waiting for the season is getting intolerable! 🙂
What about Lerew? I hear he looks really good so far and he “wants” the closer job. I acutally do think the bullpen will be stronger this year as all the younger players will have gained maturity.
Also, I don’t think we have downgraded offensively with the addition of Renteria. Furcal had a horrible first half last year and personally I never thought he took enough pitches (the number of times he walked up there and weakly grounded out drove me crazy). While I know Giles will be much of the same (aggressive style) his OBP is better than Furcal’s so it will be interesting to see what happens since he won’t be as active on the base paths.
I think if Chipper is healthy then we win the East again. Our starting pitching is much stronger than the Mets and I think that will allow us to overcome our weaker offense compared to them. The Phillies have pitching issues as well with Brett Myers and then everyone else and the Nats were a fluke last year. I’m not even going to mention the Marlins but just hope the move to OKC.
Braves win 92-95 and we don’t make it to the series until next year.
Also, Sosa’s season last year was a fluke and he will be demoted to the bullpen as will HoRam. Davies and James will be the #4 and #5 respectively. Lerew will be the closer by midseason and Remlinger makes the team.
I heard that the release of the BP 2006 book is being delayed until May, but I won’t say where because justin will kill me.
Are you kidding? Who the hell is going to buy it in May? Barnes and Noble online says they can ship it today… wonder what’s going on.
I just looked at SoSH, someone on the BP Top 50 thread has the book already. So the May rumor is definitely bogus.
But if it’s more than one person having problems, something has to be going on, right? Maybe their distributor has issues or something. I don’t know, I didn’t order it, so I’m not an interested party.
Some people definitely have it (Leitch on Deadspin mentioned he got his yesterday) but it could be that those are advanced copies. It tends to trickle out rather than having a big release.
My totally unscientific predictions, by division:
NL EAST
Braves (around 93 wins)
Mets
Phillies
Nationals
Marlins
NL CENTRAL
St. Louis (around 95 wins)
Milwaukee
Chicago
Houston
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
NL WEST
Los Angeles (around 90 wins)
San Diego
San Francisco
Arizona
Colorado
AL EAST
NY Yankees (around 95 wins)
Boston Red Sox
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
AL CENTRAL
Cleveland Indians (around 95 wins)
Chicago White Sox
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals
AL WEST
Texas Rangers (around 92 wins)
Oakland A’s
Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles
Seattle Mariners
AAR, your prediction looks reasonable except…the Rangers?! Do you think Millwood will make such a differece?