OK my friend – you’ve succeeded in provoking me. Here’s something for you to chew on – now that you’ve admitted that you’re at least smoking the right stuff.
 
And it must be good, cause it’s one thing to pick the Indians to win their division: But the Cubs?!? Sure, the Cubs could win their division. But that’s because they’re swimming in a sea of mediocrity. And I think you know that. Hell, you picked the Pirates to finish second. I could make a case for any of the six teams to win the NL Central – except maybe for the Cardinals, who seem to be unusually weak. But why bother? My prediction is that whoever wins the NL Central will lose in the first round of the playoffs.I don’t really want to spend much time thinking or writing about the National League. All the teams are flawed in one way or another. I do agree with you though that the Dodgers will win the West. In fact, I like the Dodgers to go to the World Series. I like their pitching – and replacing Grady oh-so-Little with the best manager in baseball has to help.

Let’s go back to the Indians. They’re a damn good team – second best in the majors last year, and second best again this year. The pitching staff has a lot to like. The middle relief is tremendous, although a Cleveland lead can be too easily wiped out by Borowski. The two guys at the top of the order (Sabathia and Carmona) are very good. Carmona is particularly nasty.But until these two erase the memories of last year’s playoff series with the Red Sox – who all-too-easily unnerved Fausto – they’re still playing second fiddle to the defending world champs. Many others have made the same point that I’m about to make – and the same prediction – so I won’t belabor it.

The Red Sox should be favored to repeat as World Champions because they have two essential components of any winning post-season formula — a proven, top-of-the-line ace in Josh Beckett and a lights-out closer in Jonathan Papelbon. And I don’t need to dwell on the strength of their line-up. Some teams have decent-enough line-ups and the potential to replicate the Red Sox winning ways.

Zambrano and Woods?

Santana and Wagner?

Penny and Saito?

Maybe. But until they demonstrate it, put your money on the Sawx.

My friend Dwilly (his picture below) — handsome guy, don’t you think? –

… anyway, my friend Dwilly has said he will post his predictions, but he was pretty lousy about his criticism of my own picks: “I agree that Dontrelle’s best days are behind him,” he wrote, “but the best pitching staff in Cleveland?!? You’re smoking the wrong stuff.” So I checked, and my good friend — the man in the floppy hat — is just dead wrong. I’m smoking the right stuff. And what is that stuff? Why it’s Special Chicago Cubs Victory Weed! that’s what it is. This will be the year the Cubs will finally break the curse, though it will take some time. You see, the Cubs have “grass is greener” disease: they think if another team has a player (any player) he must be pretty good and they want him. Exhibit A: this guy signed this guy (oops, sorry, I meant this guy )and sent this guy to AAA. Does Jim Hendry really believe that Reed Johnson is a better ballplayer than Matt Murton? C’mon. Then the Cubs proudly announced their starting five, which included Ryan Dempster and Jason Marquis. I marked the occasion by vomiting.

So here’s what’ll happen. The Cubs will play .500 ball until the end of May, at which point Lou will throw three buckets of Gatorade around the clubhouse, scream at some people, send Dempster back to the bullpen (or give him his unconditional release), trade Jason Marquis and make Matt Murton outfielder number four. Lou did this last year, tinkering and tinkering and then fighting with the umps and the Cubs were better for it. The guy can flat out manage. And when he does that — when he tells Hendry the Cubs are Manishevitz with what they have and let’s-just-play-the-fricking-game — here’s how I’ll feel:

Our beloved Nats are a different story entirely — but hardly a bad one. John Kruk said that he thought Ryan Zimmerman could hit 50 home runs this year. Well, maybe not: but 40 is certainly in the cards. But the story for the Nats will be the comeback of Austin Kearns, who will hit at least 25 home runs and bat a solid .290, putting all his critics to shame. Now I know that Kearns looks a little, well … Kentucky … but he’s a gamer. The Nats will struggle, forcing Manny to make the decisions he doesn’t want to make — he’ll bring Tyler Clippard or Garrett Mock or Ross Detwiler in from Columbus (or wherever) and one of these guys will step up. And then Manny will make the most important decision he can make: he’ll put Dimitri Young back at first. Why? Because these kids need him. Last year, during John Lannan’s second outing — when he was visibly nervous — the camera caught Dimitri at first base staring at him, nodding and saying: “C’mon John, you can do this.” And I thought: now we know why they gave that man $10 million. He’s the heart of the team. He’s worth every penny of it. Anything else? Oh yeah, Lastings will do well in Center, but the question of whether Elijah Dukes can or will do whatever he is supposed to do (or whether it will be Wily Mo all the time), will be answered by another question: “Can Justin Maxwell play left field?” And long about the end of July, the Odalis Perez era in Washington will end.

And not a moment too soon.

The Mets and Phillies are the class of the rest of the league, though I wouldn’t stick with the Mets for too long: it takes more than a year to recover from a collapse like that (and wasn’t it a thing of beauty!) and the Braves will catch ‘em. The Dodgers will eat up the West (have you seen the Padres outfield?) and the Rockies will revert to form: Jeff Francis is their only pitcher. I have officially put the Arizona Assholes last, but only because (as you know) I hate ‘em. But they’re a hell of a team. That leaves the Brew Crew (who are in the wrong league) and the also-rans of the Central. The Crew will self-destruct because the problem in Milwaukee is not on the field, it’s in the clubhouse. Ned will be gone by the end of the year.

So here we go:

National League East 

National League Central

National League West

I’m going to play some favorites here, but this is what this is all about. 2008 will be the first year that a Nats player gets votes for the MVP (Zimmerman), but the award will go to Troy Tulowitzki. Check his numbers: There’s just no end to what this guy can do and everyone should see a Rockie’s game just to watch the left side of their infield. The Rockie’s problems are on the mound and they did little in the off-season to solve them. As for the “Assholes,” my hatred apart, Brandon Webb is something to behold — and certainly good enough to win the Cy Young. It’s the Dodgers in the playoffs, but only by a process of elimination: the West is filled with teams that want to pass the baton to someone else. In the end, Joe Torre will know what to do and he will do it — with the help of Dodger pitching. That leaves the Phillies, Cubs and (after the collapse of the Mets in, oh say — August) Braves. For the first time since ’45 those lovable losers, those mighty slugs, the team that traded Lou Brock, the choking folding Cubs of ’69, those little bears by the lakeside, those insulters of goats, take the league and head to Cleveland for the World Series.

Where they get swept.

There is nothing quite like Opening Day, particularly when Ryan Zimmerman can hit a walk-off home run. But like most fans, I spent much of my time oggling the new stadium, checking out the concessions, and attempting to determine just how the field would “play.” It’s an all-important question, of course, because you build a team to fit a field — and not the other way around. Even so, the assumption here is that National’s Park will be a hitter’s park: primarily because it’s not RFK. I noticed this on opening day: the place looked positively small. The fences seemed on top of the field, just right there.

But honestly? The fences are not in all that much. And from where I sat on Opening Day (just up the third base line beyond the dugout and twenty rows back) it seemed to me that National’s Park looks small only because the fans seem on top of the field, though they are most decidedly not. It’s the same for the players, who commented on this in the wake of the exhibition game versus the Orioles. So my guess is the field will play “long” — that it will be a slight pitcher’s park except in the alleys, where the ball will travel 370 in right-center and 377 in left center (it was 380 at old RFK). That’s a ways to go for someone like Wily Mo. Here tis:

A pitcher’s park? You mean like PETCO? My comment is based on observation, on what I saw: I could be wrong. There’s no question that Zim’s walk off would have been a long out at RFK, but that does not disprove my point: while the actual dimensions of National’s Park are nothing compared to cavernous PETCO Park in San Diego (an astounding 402 feet in the alleys), they are hardly the bandbox dimensions of Wrigley, Houston’s Minute Maid and the positively claustrophobic Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. So what’s the best comparison?

St. Louis’ new Busch Stadium is 375 in left-center and right-center — presumably reachable distances and very much like Nats Park — and 400 in straightaway center. The dimensions in DC and St. Louis are almost exactly the same down the lines. In fact, Busch II (as they call it) is close enough to National’s Park to be almost a replica, and no one (no one) views it as a hitter’s park. Guys like Albert Pujols are easily strong enough to hit the long ball at Busch, but that’s not the point: last year Pujols hit more home runs in Pittsburgh, Houston and Chicago than he did in St. Louis — where he plays half his games. Not scientific enough? The Cardinals ranked 25th in homers last year and while it’s true their line-up is not stacked with big boppers, total home run production at Busch (or Busch II, which opened in April 2006) actually dropped 27 percent last year. That’s for everyone, not just the Cards.

At the end of the year we’ll look back and say “wow” — look what National’s Park did for the team’s hitters compared to RFK. And while that’s a true comparison, the Nats aren’t playing other teams at RFK, they’re playing them in San Diego and San Francisco (where the distance in the gaps is a breathtaking 421 feet), in St. Louis and now in Busch II’s replica stadium along the beautiful Anacostia.

The question is not whether Ryan Zimmerman and Austin Kearns and Dimitri Young will hit more home runs in Nats Park than they did at RFK (they will), the question is whether that means the “Learners” (as Tom would, appropriately, spell them) should start drafting clones of Dave Kingman.

The answer is obvious. This is a game of pitching and so the Nationals should build the team by building their pitching. But my bet is that that is as true for the Nats now as it might have been had they stayed at RFK (God forbid). It might not yet be totally clear, but it appears the Nats are playing in a stadium that will favor strong arms and quick outfielders.

Fine by me.