You Can Never Hold Back Spring

Here it comes folks. Spring Training is almost here, and right behind it the regular season in all its glory. It's time for another season of the surprising, such as the Rockies remarkable surge and the Mets epic collapse, and the not so surprising such as strong seasons by the Red Sox and Angels.

Basically, attempting to predict what will happen throughout a baseball season is futile, pointless, impossible, and practically guarantees humiliation for anyone who tries. With that in mind, I'm going to use the next few posts to make my predictions division by division, and then anyone who reads this blog can rub it in my face if I pick against your team and I turn out to be woefully wrong.

To start off I'll begin with the National League East.

After the Santana trade, which was a remarkable coup for the Mets when they were able to cash in on the way the Twins woefully overplayed their hand in negotiations with the Yankees and Red Sox, I'm going to have to go with the Mets to win the division. No surprise here, I suppose the vast majority of analysts will pick the Mets, but the outcome is far from a foregone conclusion.


While one would be crazy to look at the prospect of Santana in the National League as good news for anyone but the Mets, there are plenty of concerns for Mets fans who have to be feeling some paranoia after last year. For example, there is the reality that the Mets' scary lineup has several key pieces who are only getting older (Delgado, Alou, Castillo), and the Phillies have a young lineup that's only getting better. However, when it comes down to it, guys like Reyes, Wright and Beltran will be able to provide enough offense to win in the NL with a rotation that has Santana and Pedro (who can still win in the National League when healthy) at the top.
They were almost able to do it last year and that was before replacing a quickly deteriorating Tom Glavine with the best pitcher in baseball, period.

So, while the Phillies should have a say in how things go down, my first pick of the 2008 Season is for the New York Mets to bring some healing to Queens after last season 's debacle and head to the playoffs as Division Champs.