Wednesday, March 26, 2008
National League
Predictions
Yesterday I gave my American
League Predictions for the 2008 season. Today, it is time for the National
League predictions.
NL EAST
1.)
Philadelphia
Phillies
2.)
Atlanta Braves
3.)
New York Mets
4.)
Florida Marlins
5.)
Washington
Nationals
FIVE BOLD PREDICTIONS
1.)
Cristian Guzman will be the third best SS in the NL East. (take a
second and think through the other SS in the division)
2.)
Jamie Moyer
will have less strikeouts than birthday candles.
3.)
Johan Santana
will lead the team’s starting pitchers in ERA and WHIP, but he will finish
third in Wins.
4.)
Mike Hampton
will make 25 starts! (this is a big one!)
5.)
The Marlins will
be in the top half in the league in runs scored, but will finish dead last in
ERA and WHIP.
NL WEST
1.)
Arizona
Diamondbacks
2.)
Colorado Rockies
3.)
Los Angeles
Dodgers
4.)
San Diego Padres
5.)
San Francisco
Giants
FIVE BOLD PREDICTIONS
1.)
The Giants will
win less than 62 games. Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum will
both be Top 10 pitchers in the league, and neither will win more than 10 games.
2.)
Mark Redman
won’t stay in the Rockies rotation all year. Not bold, huh? OK, Aaron Cook will win 20 games.
3.)
In his final
season, Greg Maddux will
inexplicably win 15 games again.
4.)
The OPS’s of Chris Young and Stephen Drew will each go up 40% in their second full seasons. Like
his brother, Justin Upton will not
remain in the big leagues this whole season.
5.)
Matt Kemp
will go 30/30.
NL CENTRAL
1.)
Milwaukee Brewers
2.)
Chicago Cubs
3.)
Cincinnati Reds
4.)
Houston Astros
5.)
St. Louis
Cardinals
6.)
Pittsburgh
Pirates
FIVE BOLD PREDICTIONS
1.)
Colby Rasmus and Jay Bruce
will be this year’s Ryan Braun. They
will come up in late May and perform great.
2.)
Carlos Lee, Miguel Tejada
and Lance Berkman
will all see their OPS drop by 10% or more.
3.)
John Russell
will turn the Pirates around… just not yet this year.
4.)
Ben Sheets
will make a lot of money next season after staying healthy, making 32 starts.
5.)
Rich Hill
will lead the league in walks and still win 15 games.
WILD CARD
Braves, Mets, Rockies, Dodgers
or Cubs… that’s a tough choice… but I will have to go with the offense and
defense of the Rockies to get back into the playoffs as the Wild Card for the
second straight year.
MVP
1.)
Chase Utley
2.)
Mark Teixeira
3.)
Ryan Howard
Rookie of the Year
1.) Kosuke Fukodome
2.) Colby Rasmus
3.) Hiroki Kuroda
OK, there are my thoughts, how about yours? Post your predictions in the Comments below.