Your “Wait, Is Anyone Doing an MLB Preview?” MLB Preview!

/looks around

Nope? I guess I better get to it.

/puts on Yankees cap
/gets pelted with… rubber chickens? Come on, you guys, I’m worth more than Svengoolie!
/gets pelted with whole raw chickens

That’s better. Anyway, the baseball season starts in a couple hours and resident Master of Sexymonies theeWeeBabySeamus is unable to reprise his duties from last year, so your friendly neighborhood Senor Weaselo gets to pinch hit. That was almost a clever joke, so I guess I’m in midseason form. Anyway, thank goodness it’s just for the baseball, and not for the sexy… FOR NOW. So let’s get started and I’ll try to keep this under War and Peace in terms of length, deal?

AL East
1. BOS: Ugh. But Betts and Bogaerts are studs with Benintendi as the consensus ROY pick and even with Price shelved for awhile they’ve got a solid rotation with Porcello and Sale, and Craig Kimbrel’s still in the back of the pen. Thank god I don’t have to see David Ortiz anymore.
2. TOR: Even losing Edwin Encarnacion and his stupid as all fuck parrot (you’re not a pirate), the offense can mash and the rotation is strong with Sanchez and Stroman.
3. NYY: Woo, improvement in the standings, go Baby Bombers! Gary “Pablo” Sanchez and Greg Bird “Person” can rake, and the pen is solid. The rotation is a large question mark beyond Tanaka. And CC to an extent.
4. BAL: Similar to the Yanks in terms of the one or two guys who can rake (Machado and Jones). But the pen’s not as deep (how do you get to Zach Britton?) and the rotation’s fewer questions because for fuck’s sake Ubaldo Jimenez is still in the rotation. UBALDO FUCKING JIMENEZ! Also thank goodness it looks like Mark Trumbo will be the DH because check out his defensive metrics. They’re hilariously bad. And that’s for right field at Camden Yards. Also Buck is still cursed from the ’95 Division Series.
5. TB: Chris Archer will be better than last year, Jake Odorizzi can deal, Kevin Kiermeier is sick nasty in center. They still can’t hit.

AL Central
1. CLE: If the rotation can stay healthy they’re the best 1–5 in the AL, they have a solid bullpen unless Andrew Miller’s arm’s fallen off from last year, and then they went out to get a masher in still-not-a-fucking-pirate Edwin Encarnacion.
2. DET: Solid top of the rotation in Verlander and Fulmer and Daniel Norris has potential when he’s not in his van down by the river. Between Miggy and V-Mart you just expect one of them t0 break down over the year, but even last year when they played pretty much the whole year it wasn’t enough.
3. KC: The rotation isn’t great (RIP Yordano Ventura) and the bullpen isn’t what it was two or three years ago where they were a Madison Bumgarner away from winning the first year and then beat the Mets, which amused me greatly.
4. MIN: They’ve got some young hitters with Buxton and Sano (when he makes contact), Dozier’s solid but isn’t going to hit 42 again, but still a ways away.
5. CWS: Okay, is it CWS or CHW? That’s always irked me. MLB has it as CWS, fine. Anyway, the farm system’s the best in the majors, but the now… less so. And who’ll take my bet that Jose Quintana will be somewhere else by July 31st? Nobody? Come on, I could go for free money!

AL West
1. HOU: Went back and forth a little on this one, but the Astros have enough pitching depth to keep up with Texas’s two aces and the up the middle combo of Correa and Altuve may be the best in the majors. Also the Rangers are starting the season a bit banged up, with the back of their rotation in Cashner and Ross, third baseman and Hall of Fame anti-head toucher Adrian Beltre, and best name in the league candidate Tanner Scheppers all on the shelf, among others.
2. TEX: What I said above. But they’re obviously dangerous in the Wild Card round considering they can throw Darvish or Hamels out. The Rangers had the best record in the AL last year, ppl forget that. Also the part where Rougned Odor punched Jose Bautista.
3. SEA: Rotation’s pretty strong with King Felix and Iwakuma, and there’s a strong middle of the order with Cano and Cruz, but there isn’t enough around them.
4. LAA (of A, of CA, of USA, of E, of SS, of MWG, of LG, of VS, of LS, of tU): Yes, that is mandatory every time. Anyway, Mike Trout is good at all the baseball, Albert Pujols is still good at hitting the baseball, Andrelton Simmons is good at catching and throwing the baseball, the rest of the team… eh.
5. OAK: The pen looks pretty good. Or at least consists of people who have been pretty good. Sonny Gray’s apparently still on the team, even though he didn’t have a good year last year.

ROY: Andrew Benintendi, BOS
MVP: Mookie Betts, BOS
Cy Young: Corey Kluber, CLE
Wild Card: (4) TEX over (5) TOR
ALDS: (1) CLE over (4) TEX, (2) BOS over (3) HOU
ALCS: (1) CLE over (2) BOS

NL East
1. WAS: Similar to the White Sox, WAS vs. WSH. MLB says WAS. Anywho, the Nats remain pretty damn stacked. Scherzer and Strasberg remain a top-tier 1-2 staff and the position players are pretty solid. And they’ve gotta be in win-now mode considering they have 2 years until the Yankees probably overpay for Harper. I don’t know where they’d put him if Frazier and Judge and Rutherford and the rest pan out, but who knows?
2. NYM: If the pitching stays healthy it’s arguably the best rotation in the league. The problem is it never has. Matz is starting on the DL, Harvey hasn’t fully recovered from Tommy John surgery yet, so right now it’s Syndergaard and deGrom. But Syndergaard and deGrom alone are still pretty damn good.
3. ATL: They’ll be better than they’ve been the last couple years now that they’re in the new digs, and short of Dansby Swanson stabbing Phil Niekro, Hank Aaron, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Chipper Jones—yes, all six of them—the Braves will have won the Shelby Miller for Swanson trade.
4. MIA: Yeah, flipped a coin for the basement. The Marlins get the advantage for Giancarlo Stanton wrecking shit, Ichiro being Spider-Man forever, and Donnie Baseball still managing them. (Don’t make a Jose Fernandez joke…)
5. PHI: Well Maikel Franco’s pretty solid. But the Phils are still aways away.

NL Central
1. CHC: Sky blue, water wet, box seats suck.
2. STL: Still a solid team, although losing Alex Reyes definitely hurts. Rotation’s good, lineup’s pretty solid, Yadier Molina’s still an excellent defensive catcher, poached Dexter Fowler away from the Cubs whether the #BFIB like that or not (hint, they didn’t once he said anything about anything).
3. PIT: Moving Andrew McCutcheon to right was big news, but I don’t think Pittsburgh can keep up with the two teams above them in pitching.
4. MIL: As awful as A-Rod was in his steroid case, Ryan Braun got a judge fired. Ppl definitely forget that. Fuck that guy.
5. CIN: Joey Votto can still hit for average but you know the Reds would trade him in a heartbeat if there were any takers.

NL West
1. LAD: The Dodgers won the division last year and Kershaw was hurt for a couple months. And they’re a different team with him vs. without him. Namely, a much better team. Do I think Rich Hill will come back to earth? Sure, but again, a full-season Kershaw makes up for it (assuming he makes 30-something starts of course)
2. SF: Hey, Eduardo Nunez is playing 3rd for the Giants, good for you, Nuney! Sources say his helmet fell off the plane from Minneapolis somewhere around Nebraska.
3. ARI: Zach Greinke can’t possibly have a worse season than last year. Shelby Miller also can’t possibly have a worse season than last year. So the rotation has to be better, because if it was any worse it would have like a 7 ERA or something.
4. COL: Speaking of 7 ERA or something! Yeah, we all know the Rockies by now, they’ll hit, they won’t pitch, they’ll lose a lot of 9–7, 10–8 games.
5. SD: At least there’s the… oh right. At least there’s former Yankee farmhand and my second-favorite name in the National League, Yangervis Solarte? (First of course is Antonio Bastardo.)

ROY: Dansby Swanson, ATL
MVP: Bryce Harper, WAS
Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw, LAD
Wild Card: (5) SF over (4) NYM (again, Madison Bumgarner + big game = you lose)
NLDS: (1) CHC over (5) SF, (2) WAS over (3) LAD
NLCS: (1) CHC over (2) WAS

Shit, we have a rematch.

World Series: Cubs over Indians, and sure, let’s make it 7. And since This One No Longer Counts, that means the Cubs celebrate at Wrigley and our favorite statistics mistress is far, far away. Like, anywhere else for a solid week.

All right, that’ll do it. Let’s see how fucked these predictions I finished at 2 AM the night before are by the All-Star Break, right? So now what? Um… how bout sexy umpires? Come on Google…

Oh come on, they’re all referees, this is bullshit! Fine, Naked Gun it is.

And now, as the last two words of the national anthem say… play ball!