The Jaco Pastorius Award for best low end: Named after the greatest bassist of all time, this award is going to be given out to the best last place team in all of MLB…YOUR Cleveland Indians.  Of course this is self-serving and just an excuse to pimp up the team I wish could pimp itself, but I stand firm.  The Tribe have been slowly getting their shit together and are actually looking like a team that’s not destined for poopery, instead looking like the most glorious sub-.500 team of ALL TIME.

/loads gun

The John Coltrane Award for the most kickass, freight train team of the divison: Well what do we have here?  The Detroit Tigers?  Well howabout that?  Putting aside the Dodgers, who get the benefit of playing in a division with four minor league teams (this isn’t even arguable…as bad as the AL Central is, the other four teams actually have players who belong in the majors), the Tigers are the owners of the best run differential in baseball, and have been rolling of late, ignoring the fact their bullpen is the living embodiment of premature ejactulation by riding great starting pitching and a potent offense.

For some reason, this isn’t as painful as say, if the Meth Sox were in first, because the Tigers are fun to watch and have my man Curtis Granderson setting the table and my other man Justin Verlander pitching like it’s 2007.  This isn’t a fluke…and provided any late season run by the Twins, the Tigers are looking like the class of the division and have the inside track to the division crown.

…and yet, it’s 12:48 and Michigan still sucks.  The more things change, the more they stay the same. Read the rest of this entry »

In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we previewed all 30 teams. If you missed any, please click here. Then kindly show yourself the door for not reading them all as soon as they were published. Some of us (not me) spent upwards of 20 minutes on these things you ungrateful bastard.

Despite previously establishing the fact that no one gives a shit about the Astros, here I am ready to give you my full 10% on an actual preview.

Pitching

Roy Oswalt is considered a top-tier pitcher.  He always gets his man. Always.

Did you know Mike Hampton was still alive? He had 13 starts last year for Atlanta after missing all of 2006 and 2007 due to… vacation, I believe. He signed with Houston in the off season for $2 million plus performance-based incentives. Hampton won 22 games for the ‘99 Astros. He made $4.1 million that season. He’ll probably earn just as much if he gets 10 wins this year.

They also have a solid closer named *shuffles papers* Jose Valverde. He had 44 saves last year. Unfortunately, this is a “What have you done for me lately?” kind of team. So he better get more saves or people will be like, “You haven’t done anything good for me lately.” Read the rest of this entry »

In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we will be previewing all 30 teams over the next month. To see all of our team previews, please click here.

Hi, my name is Heffy Hefflestein and I live in a National League West city. I attend about 20 games a year and I watch most of the Diamondbacks games that are on TV because I like baseball and they’re on after most of the other games are finished. In fact, over the years, I’ve come to really enjoy watching the Diamondbacks because of all the young players they’ve developed.  Despite all of this, I am a loyal Red Sox fan who agrees with most of the hate-filled bile that oozes out of Spence’s mouth regarding the National League’s inferiority to the American League*. Why start a preview of the Rockies with such information? Because I’m tired of writing about the NL West and all the shittiness contained therein.  This is the worst division in all of baseball and I have reviewed every single one of these piece of shit teams and I’m glad we’re done with the lot.  Oh wait.  I’ve just been informed that calling the NL West shitty doesn’t count as a team preview.  Fine.  Here’s some more interesting facts about the Colorado Rockies (/sincere). Read the rest of this entry »

In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we will be previewing all 30 teams over the next month. To see all of our team previews, please click here.

Two. Best. Young. Sluggers. EvAR!

Last year, the Reds finished 74-88, a mere 16 games out of the Wildcard. During the course of another losing season, the Reds cut ties with two of their biggest (only?) offensive forces of the past few seasons. First, Adam Dunn was shipped off to Arizona for a fairly so-so package of never-will-be’s. Micah Owings will likely be the only guy in the trade who’ll break camp in Cincinnati. You can count on two things with respect to Micah: 1) He’ll be a league average-ish at best starter, and 2) Announcers will fawn over his hitting abilities, which will really come in handy. (/sincere) Second, the Ken Griffey, Jr. era finally came to an end when he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for a potential utility infielder. (Insert applause, fireworks, etc.) As good as Griffey used to be, he quickly deteriorated into a barely above replacement level outfielder. He still has some life left in his bat (versus righties mostly), but his poor outfield defense almost completely negates his offense. Read the rest of this entry »

Gayest. Logo. Ever.

It’s a horrible thing to have to review a team you hate more than anything in the world besides the Yankees.  On the one hand, if I go too far with my anger, my entire review will be dismissed as overly subjective and not worth the internet paper my mind projected it onto.  On the other hand, if I say nice things about this team, I’ll vomit all over myself.

I’m not entirely sure where my hatred of the Dodgers came from.  For starters, I grew up in Phoenix and you can only live here so long before you start to hate all those LA homos who wear their Laker gear to every Suns game (even when they’re playing the Spurs) or their Dodger gear to every Dbacks game (even when they’re playing the Dodgers).

Also, my house growing up was never Dodger friendly.  My dad’s from North Jersey and I always heard him badmouthing LA.  My mother’s from Cape Cod and while she wasn’t as vocal in her disdain for them, she would always roll her eyes whenever anyone spoke of the team.  These are things you pick up on when you’re a kid.  Add all this to the fact that I grew up right up the street from where the Giants played Spring Training and let’s just say I’ve heard enough curse words in the same sentence as the Dodgers to make quite an impression on me.

But mostly they’re a bunch of cousin fucking homos.

I guess I’ll try to be objective:

Pitching: Read the rest of this entry »

As you probably know by now, MLJ is previewing all 30 teams for the 2009 season. If you want to see the other ones, click here.

Last season the Twins exceeded all expectations en route to tying for first in the AL Central. Rather than giving the Twins the division, or at least letting them host the playoff game because they won the season series with the White Sox. Due to a coin flip however, they were forced to go on the road and even though Nick Blackburn was fantastic, the Twins bats were asleep all night as they lost 1-0 and were knocked out of the playoffs.

Although the Twins’ offense will probably take a bit of a step back this year, a massive leap forward from the starting staff, and the bullpen getting back to normal could return the Twins to the top of the AL Central heap. Read the rest of this entry »

In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we will be previewing all 30 teams over the next month. To see all of our team previews, please click here.

The beauty of previewing 30 teams in 30 weekdays is that some of us have the pleasure of previewing a terrible team and in doing so try to flower their shittiness with roses. So without further ado, let me blow smoke up the collective asses of the Washington Nationals: Read the rest of this entry »

In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we will be previewing all 30 teams over the next month. To see all of our team previews, please click here.

This team is coming off a World Series victory… like 8 years ago! [Ed: Try two.]

The Cardinals have one of the drunkest/sleepiest/best managers in the game in Tony La Russa. In addition to having a future Hall of Famer for a manager, they are also affectionately known to fans as the Buzzsaw. Read the rest of this entry »

In anticipation of the coming baseball season, we will be previewing all 30 teams over the next month. To see all of our team previews, please click here.

Welcome to the Pittsburgh Pirates Preview – It’s alliteration!

What do I know about the Pirates? Not much. What does anyone know about the Pirates besides the fact that they’re a professional farm team. Once they’ve developed a decent player, they ship him off to the big leagues and a real team.

So what do I know about the 2009 Pirates in particular? Not much. I know they signed those two Indian kids and they’ll probably never sniff the major leagues. Not that you can’t just grab some random person and make them into a professional baseball player – I’m pretty sure that’s what happened with David Eckstein. Read the rest of this entry »

At 68-93, the Baltimore Orioles didn’t quite have the year they were looking for at the major league level. But with the development of Chris Tillman, the explosion of Matt Wieters, and the drafting of Brian Matusz, the Os stumbled upon perhaps the best prospect trio in baseball. Add that to Adam Jones and Nick Markakis and things are looking up in Baltimore.

The two biggest offseason moves were the trades of Garrett Olson and a PTBNL to the Cubs in separate deals for Felix Pie and Rich Hill.

Pie has good minor league numbers, but it hasn’t translated over to the majors yet. Quite frankly the Cubs didn’t handle him well and I think killed his confidence in their quest to win now. Pie can slot into left field and hit 8th or 9th pressure free. His defensive numbers have been spotty, but he has the tools to succeed. He probably doesn’t have the bat to carry a corner OF spot, but he will be well above average in left.

Rich Hill had tons of promise as a prospect, but really struggled with his control last year, eventually getting sent down to A ball. I think he’ll be able to win a job in the Os rotation, or at the very least be the long man in the bullpen, and is a good low risk, high reward player to take a gamble on. I don’t know who the potential PTBNLs are, but we should know within a month or two. Read the rest of this entry »