The Predictions

Yes, useless as always (witness the annual humiliation called the Bracket, for example) but equally difficult to avoid, the baseless predictions, this time for the baseball season.

And it is in fact a pleasure (or shall be) some five months from now to look back and thing wow, how bloody daft could I have been to think that? Or if a lucky bet comes to fruition, link to this very article down the road with some smug I-told-you-so phrase on the fingertips.

So for the sake of nothing more than a record, here are my predictions for the 2007 season:

1. Roger Clemens - Will end up with the Yankees this season in order to bring balance to the absurdly imbalanced advantage in starting pitching the Red Sox currently have over the Yankees. It also makes sense. Why go back to the Sox, the only team that said they didn't want him? That said that he was all washed up so many years ago we've all lost count.

I point to this as number one because it is a decision that will likely have a strong influence on the outcome not only of the AL East but the entire post season, Clemens' mission, should he choose to take it. And let's face it, he isn't going to join a club that already has the Japanese Roger Clemens on it anyway, is he?

2. The Disappointments -

a. Nats fans, generally. Not because they're expecting anything anyway but isn't everyone in DC just waiting for the announcement that due to the top in fan interest in a hopelessly losing team the Nats will be moving their franchise to Mexico City or San Juan...
b. The Tigers, whose young arms will burn out because they just can't take that kind of season that young two seasons in a row. Let's call it the Cubs phenomenon, the Kerry Wood/Mark Prior Stigma.
c. The Cubs, simply because they disappoint every year after year and Lou Piniella is not big enough to change that, otherwise he'd have won the World Series with those Mariners teams of auld.
d. The Phillies - and boy oh boy am I going to enjoy watching this season's Phillies flush themselves down the toilet yet again after all the smack they've talked already this season about being the team to beat. Helloooo? Flash Gordon is your closer. Wake up, muppets.

3. The Suprises -

a. Milwaukee Brewers: last year in the legacy of teams rising from the death of the Rust Belt, was the Tigers turn. This year it's time for another perennial loser to rise from the ashes and fly to improbable heights.
b. Sammy Sosa: is he really a surprise? Nah, for some whacky reason, I'm rooting for this guy to make a comeback. More than I care if the petulant Barry Bonds' steroid-ridden joints don't crumble to dust before he reaches Henry Aaron's mark and more than I care if the cowardly Mark McGwire ever makes it to the Hall of Fame after his performance in the face of Congressional hearings.
c. Ben Sheets - let's just say a monster season in store for this lad who has inched along the edge of greatness for the last several seasons.
d. Texas Rangers - no, not because of Sammy Sosa but because Buck Showalter is no longer the manager. That in and of itself usually spells a World Championship. It happened after he left the Yankees and again after he left the Diamondbacks. Watch out Rangers, it's the post Buck Showalter Bump.

Finishes

NL EAST
Mets
Atlanta
Philly
Florida
Nats

NL CENTRAL
Milwaukee
St Louis
Chicago
Cincinnati
Houston

NL WESt
Arizona
San Diego
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Colorado (what? STILL in the league?!)

NL MVP: Jose Reyes, NY Mets
NL CY YOUNG: Ben Sheets, Milwaukee

AL EAST
Boston
NY Yankees
Toronto
Tampa Bay
Baltimore

AL CENTRAL
Cleveland
ChiSox
Minnesota
Detroit
KC

AL WEST
Texas
LA/Anaheim
Seattle
Oakland

AL MVP: Mark Teixeira, Texas
AL CY YOUNG: Roy Holliday, Toronto

PLAYOFFS

NL
NY Mets over Milwaukee
Arizona over Atlanta

NY Mets over Arizona

AL
Cleveland over Boston
NYY over Texas

Cleveland over NYY

WORLD SERIES
Cleveland over NY Mets