2011 MMO Staff Predictions: Part 1 Division Winners and Post Season

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• Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 12:24 pm

  Wait, so no one thinks Buck Showalter’s Orioles can make the playoffs?

  
  • DC Niner March 31, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    You guys won’t even pick your own team. how bad can you be, and then there’s a moron from Jersey arrogant wenough to poke fun at the Birds. Hey jersey puke, the O’s don’t spend 140 mil to suck and they don’t have an owner who existed for two decades living off ponzi schemes. The mets are cow dirt and so are you jersey slime bag.
    • XtreemIcon March 31, 2011 at 12:50 pm

      Did I catch a niner in there?
    • JerryG15 March 31, 2011 at 1:00 pm

      You do realize you are in a Mets site right?
      • any March 31, 2011 at 1:08 pm

        give the poor guy a break. Do you realize how hard it must be to actually defend Peter Angelos as an owner?
    • Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 2:10 pm

      “moron, cow dirt, puke, slime bag”?

      Remind me not to joke at the Nationals expense. DC Niner may really say what’s on his mind.

      Hey DC grow up it’s baseball OK?

      If you intend on being part of the MMO Community then familiarize yourself with the commenting guidelines. You definitely are failing to follow them so far.

      http://metsmerizedonline.com/comment-guidelines
  • t agee March 31, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    I see Atlanta, Cinn, SF, with Philly as the WC.

    Boston, Detroit, Texas and the A’s as the WC

    Red Sox over SF.
  • Met Maniac March 31, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    LMAO, you even manage to get Nats fans or Orioles fans (whatever he is) to rag on you.
    • Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 2:12 pm

      Can you imagine maniac?

      All that cause i jokingly asked “no one thinks Buck Showalter’s Orioles can make the playoffs”?

      Some people are just too emotional.
      • Hitman March 31, 2011 at 2:47 pm

        What do you expect? You’d be emotional too if your team was irrelevant & sucked ass for over 14 years.
• Lisa P. March 31, 2011 at 12:49 pm

  I would love to see Joe Spector’s Mets/Red Sox World Series prediction play out on the 25th anniverasary of the 86 Mets. That would be cool.
• JerryG15 March 31, 2011 at 12:59 pm

  It’s nice to see as many giving the Mets the nod in the WC. YA Gotta Believe.

  I know how great the Phils are, and their starting pitching is not even in the same conversation as ours, but, I think they have some holes that could be devastating.

  Their bullpen is suspect. Their closer is out for a while, their 2nd baseman is a complete unknown when he’ll be back, which is a huge hit to their offense. I don’t see them quite as lock as others do. Again, all respect to the Starting rotation though…..
  • any March 31, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    yes, it all depends on their Sp holding up and living up to the billing. If a couple of them don’t, all bets are off.

    right now, their lineup (with Utley competing with Santana to see who makes it back first) is:

    Vicky, palanco, rollins, howard, ibanez, francisco, ruiz, valdez. Every one of them, FWIW, over 30.

    and other than Howard, not one guy you look at and are afraid of (or even think, wow, I wish my team had that guy!)
• Met Maniac March 31, 2011 at 1:20 pm

  I hope the Mets win the wild card, I think they can win 85 games but with a little luck mayb that number can go higher. No matter what they would do the rect of the way, if they were to really win a wild card, I would be thrilled and satisfied and would be the first to call on Omar Minaya as Executive of the Year.
  • t agee March 31, 2011 at 1:28 pm

    Executive of the year? That’s the funniest one I’ve heard since Bernazard was fired.
    • Met Maniac March 31, 2011 at 1:33 pm

      If the Met do win, it will be because of Angel Pagan, Josh Thole, Jose Reyes, Mike Pelfrey, RA Dickey, Jon Niese, Bobby Parnell, KRod, Beltran, Bay and Ike Davis!

      Not becuase of Ronny Paulino, Blaine Boyer, Pedro Beato and DJ Carrasco.

      Who do you consider the top five players on the 2011 Mets by the way?
      • t agee March 31, 2011 at 2:18 pm

        I have to go top 7 Maniac for 2011 performance relative to winning games. Reyes, Wright, Davis, Niese, Dickey, Pagan, Pelfrey in that order.

        Now I know what your going to say. That Omar was responsible for all these players but that is simply not true. Omar inherited three of them. Two of them were #1 draft choices which should hit once in a while, one was a terrific 5th round pick and one was an afterthought for AAA rotation depth strongly recommended by Warthen and a guy Omar knew from Texas.

        Pelfrey was no “find.” He had been drafted before and was represented by Boras. Niese was a fantastic “find” but if that 2005 draft (Pelfrey, Niese, Parnell, Thole) was so good why was Bove (the guy who ran the draft) demoted a few months later for Terrases who’s drafts sucked.

        Ike (and Havens) were real good picks both in talent and need but one, it was left up to chance that we would be able to select Ike simply for the fact that we got him by letting Glavine go as a 40 year old. Pure luck we even had that pick and he was no “find” either coming from ASU one of the biggest baseball schools in the Country.

        Regardless of how well the players he did get do, it also has to be balanced out by what else could have been done with all the money and other draft picks that was spent through the years and whether those assets would have been better used elsewhere. Illuminating only one side of the story only accomplishes the opposite.

        It still is a team with a 140 Million dollar payroll that is iffy offensively at RF, LF and 2B and against RHP at catcher as well as two spots in the rotation (could have been just one if not for the injury to Santana)

        Could the existing payroll have been allocated better than 19 M to Castillo, Perez and GMJ?

        Would we be in better shape if we had drafted Kyle Drabek instead of signing Billy Wagner? Would the Phillies have even been able to get Halliday if we didn’t sign Wagner?

        What if Omar had put his drafting acumen to work in 2007 and instead of giving away our #1 pick drafted Mike Stanton?

        Could Lasting Milledge with whom Omar made the right call on have brought back 2 players who A)played better than Church and Shneider and B)were still here.

        Could Alderson have done more and better if he had K-Rod’s 12 M and Bay’s 16M to work with? What kind of prospects could we have as trade pieces if we hadn’t signed those two players? What kind of options would they have provided? The Angels drafted a RHP and a LHP and two outfielders with the four picks they got for losing K-Rod and Tex, one of whom is the #1 prospect in the minors, a player who will be dominating for them for 6 years or more at a fraction of what K-Rod makes which allows them to afford to spend elsewhere like Reyes and Wright allowed Omar when he got here. What ramifications are there for us beyond just this year?

        One way to look at this team is to give credit to the former GM for the players he provided but that has to be balanced out with other decisions he made as well.

        I feel that if this team were to win this year it would be partly due to some of the players he brought here but mostly in spite of the moves he made in general.

        I know we disagree on this and I think Omar was in a tough position. Win now and rebuild too. That can’t be done in a short period of time and the pressure from the Wilpon win now to fill seats and dig them out of this hole became all consuming which cost a good man his best chance but Omar made a ton of mistakes as well. He isn’t the first one the Wilpon’s pressured to go the quick fix and crash method.

        Relax the book on Omar’s era will be open for another decade. We have plenty of time to examine the results and give credit where it is due.
      • Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 2:20 pm

        I have no problem giving Minaya credit where it’s due if they win but it stands to reason that if your going to sit here and say Alderson gets no credit if they win then by the same token he gets no blame if they lose.

        Personally I will just wait to see if they win 1st than trying to predict a day before Opening Day who is responsible for it. I mean the Mets may win because Alderson did a trade at the deadline that was critical in them winning but since I can’t see the future I have to wait to see what lead to the Mets winning if and when they do win.
      • jessep March 31, 2011 at 7:48 pm

        Couldn’t one make a very convincing argument that IF the Mets do as you say and win 85 games that guys like Capuano, Young, Emaus, and the lack of Ollie P and Castillo in the locker room have just as significant an impact as guys like Parnell, Thole etc?

        I mean look I think the overall argument is silly. Does this mean if they do well that Jerry should get credit and not Collins?

        The bottom line is whether you will admit it or not Maniac… you are the co-captain for the select Mets fans who want to see Alderson-DePodesta-Ricciardi fail. Admitting it would at least make your views more tolerable, pretending that’s not the case is laughable
  • BTF March 31, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    That won’t happen obviously, but I definitely see your point. Alderson wont get much credit for signing a number 8 hitter, filling out the bench and back of rotation and bullpen. He should have traded for at least one frontline player, because essentially of the 140 million payroll, 130 of it is Omar, and only 10 is Alderson. That’s less than 10%.
    • any March 31, 2011 at 4:44 pm

      every new GM inherits a team, and in their first year rolls out mostly carry over players. So this is not new.

      It may have been more on the fringes (not unexpected, being payroll constrained), but the OD roster is ~ 50% new from the end of last year. And not much was in the organization. That is significant turnover.

      if nothing else, it is up to the new GM to correctly evaluate the inherited talent and decide what to keep and what to dump.

      So props to Omar for having some base in place that was worth keeping, though he also has to take the heat for the duds dragging the team (and payroll) down!
• gregga March 31, 2011 at 1:30 pm

  I’m thinking our Mets to win the NL East. The Phils have a bunch of question marks, (Utley’s injured, Rollins hasn’t played well in 2 years, Lidge hurt), and the Braves don’t really impress me. In fact, I think losing Cox, is going to cost the Braves about five wins this season. Its April, if you can’t be positive in April, when can you be?
• Satish Ram March 31, 2011 at 2:06 pm

  Didn’t get mine in time, lol.
  Here are mine.

  AL East – Boston Red Sox
  AL Central – Chicago White Sox
  AL West – Los Angeles Angels
  Wild Card – Minnesota Twins
  AL Champion – Boston Red Sox

  NL East – Philadelphia Phillies
  NL Central – Milwaukee Brewers
  NL West – Colorado Rockies
  Wild Card – San Francisco Giants
  NL Champion – Milwaukee Brewers

  World Series Champion – Boston Red Sox
• Annie Savoy March 31, 2011 at 2:41 pm

  Am I eligible? If so, here they are:

  AL East – Baltimore Orioles
  AL Central – Minnesota Twins
  AL West – Los Angeles Angels
  Wild Card – Boston Red Sox
  AL Chanmpion – Baltimore Orioles

  NL East – Philadelphia Phillies
  NL Central – Chicago Cubs
  NL West – San Francisco Giants
  Wild Card – New York Mets
  NL Champion – Philadelphia Phillies

  World Series Winner – Baltimore Orioles
  • Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Nice!

    DC Niner check it out.

    Annie has the Orioles winning the AL Championship.
    • Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 3:02 pm

      My bad W.S. winner as well.

      Way to go there Annie. FWIW my daughter agrees with you.
      • Annie Savoy March 31, 2011 at 3:20 pm

        Thanks – So glad to hear your daughter agrees with me!!! I kept looking for Baltimore on all the lists/charts and it wasn’t there. Don’t people know that there is a New Guy leading this team now??? And he really understands the game……..
        • Mr North Jersey March 31, 2011 at 3:41 pm

          My daughter really loves the players the Orioles have on the team she tells me constantly that they are going to surprise many people with how well they will be this year.

          Of course she also loves Ollie P so I joke with her that that hurts her credibility with me
          • Matt March 31, 2011 at 4:30 pm

            If history stays true…The O’s will win the World Series the season after Showalter leaves as the Yankees and Diamondbacks did.

            (Disregard the season following Showalter’s dismissal from the Rangers…apparently, they did not get the memo about the Post-Showalter W.S. parade.)
• sarge March 31, 2011 at 6:14 pm

  I’ not completely sold on Sox winning it all
  They have an improved lineup with Gonzo, Craw, Youklis and Pedrosia and Ortiz back but their rotation after Lester, Bucholtz and Lackey is not dependable neither is Papelbon reliable.
  Dice K and Wake and Beckett are not reliable especially Beckett who has the same career stats as A.J. and a high ERA.
  Hitting might carry them but in playoffs pitching and defense are more important.

  I see Mets in contention for wild card especially if Johan can come back and contribute.
• jessep March 31, 2011 at 8:07 pm

  Since these picks were taken I’ve seen the light

  NL West: Dodgers
  NL Wild: Colorado
• francis March 31, 2011 at 10:41 pm

  3 teams that nobody chose that have a shot:

  Dodgers
  D’backs
  Mariners

  Of the rarely picked teams:

  Cards
  Angels

  I don’t see why anyone even bothers predicting the Phillies and the Red Sox. If those were really my picks, I wouldn’t even bother printing them.