Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the NL Central teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Chicago Cubs. Kosuke Fukudome will round out this team quite nicely. The pitching staff is nothing special but is deep enough and good enough to lead the Cubs to the division title.
Milwaukee Brewers. Solid young hitters in the lineup like Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun proved to be the real deal last year, along with starters Ben Sheets and Yovani Gallardo bring about decent balance on this team. While there is lots to be excited about here, in the end I think the bullpen may fall just short of the Cubs.
Houston Astros. The Astros are an intriguing team, led by one of the consistently best pitchers in baseball in Roy Oswalt and some big bats in the lineup: Miguel Tejada, Lance Berkman, and Carlos Lee. Add in a couple of former Diamondbacks to the bullpen (Jose Valverde and Oscar Villarreal) and you have a team that could surprise some people.
Cincinnati Reds. I'd love to pick the Reds as a sleeper team in the National League, but I'm afraid they aren't quite good enough. Prospects such as Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce may bring some excitement to the team in the future, but other than Aaron Harang, the rest of the team leaves little to get excited about. Look for Adam Dunn to be traded by the deadline.
St. Louis Cardinals. Where is this team heading? World Series champs just two seasons ago, you can't blame all of the current woes on injuries. The latest prognosis on Albert Pujols looks like if this team isn't in the race in July, he'll have surgery. There's a very good chance he'll be having that surgery in July.
Pittsburgh Pirates. Do they still play baseball in Pittsburgh?
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Thanks Bob for the MLB breakdown and even more for not charging us like on ESPN Insider Articles.
Honestly, I've been wanting to write a rant about ESPN Insider for a while now and it always becomes more of an issue for me when baseball season starts and I want to read the columns by Rob Neyer and Peter Gammons but refuse to pay to do so. (I think that just counted as a mini-rant)
For me it's usually the articles around NFL Draft time or trade deadlines that I'd like to read. Fortunately there's other media in print and online that's free.
I can understand Mel Kiper wanting a paid subscriber since he works all year for this one moment of the year and then returns to the shadows, but Scouts Inc? Isn't McShay on during the course of the season too?
Do you know anybody who actually subscribes to Insider?
As far as ESPN goes, if it's not free it's dead to me. They do have some interesting stuff but I'm not willing to shell out.
If they ever move Bill Simmons' column to Insider it will be a sad day in the Humboldt household.
Have you heard the Bill Simmons podcast? I'm a bit shocked that he's got such a squeaky voice. It's kind of freakish.
Stu, you're right about Bill Simmons. Maybe we should track our drafts like his...except no one gets drunk or trash talks or drafts injured players, but we have had people draft the already drafted not once but twice.
BMT, I agree about his voice not being at all like you'd imagine.