American League over/unders

Bovada in Las Vegas has posted its over/unders for every big league team in 2015.  It’s an inexact science to be sure, and not only can I tell you which way to go, but I’ve got my own over/under for each team.  Let’s start with the American League.

Baltimore Orioles 82.5

Baltimore has made the playoffs two of the last three seasons, and last year they advanced to the ALCS before they ran into Ned Yost and his magical fairy dust-covered Royals.  They retained JJ Hardy, but lost Nelson Cruz and Andrew Miller.  They get Matt Wieters back for a full season, and Chris Davis is back legally on his Adderall (of course he was using it last year and sucked).  I think they can easily win 83 games,  so…

Over.

Bonus over/under - 10.5 – Take the over on the number of times I try to convince my wife to let me order a “I got crabs in Baltimore” t-shirt.

Boston Red Sox 85.5

So, they’re hoarding 3’s and 4’s for their starting pitching, and everyone expects them to finally give in and trade for Cole Hamels.  I didn’t really understand their infatuation (see what I did there?) with Pablo Sandoval ¹, at least not at that price.  I’ll be interested to see how long before Hanley Ramirez says “fuck this” about playing in that stupid closet they call left field in Fenway and tries to push Xander Bogaerts off of shortstop.  The Sawx are going to miss Jon Lester, of course, but they’ll really miss David Ross who was the glue to their entire team ²

They’ve gone worst to first twice in recent years, and they might do it again.  I’m worried they have a lot of players to weed out, especially in the outfield, and they’ll need to find takers for expensive spare parts like Shane Victorino and Allen Craig, and find a home for supersub Brock Holt ³

I’ll begrudgingly take the over.

Bonus over/under – 9.5 – Over, number of times Ben Cherrington gets slapped by Larry Lucchino for even thinking about trading one of his surplus outfielders with Theo.

Chicago White Sox 81.5

I think Vegas has this right.  The Sox get deserved credit for filling a bunch of holes on this team, but the reality is they have a shitload more to fill.  They have crap at second base ⁴, third base, behind the plate, most of the bullpen, the end of the rotation, and I’m pretty sure that the fondest Sox fans will feel about Avisail Garcia was last year when he wasn’t playing.

Under.

Bonus over/under – 200 – Over…way over – Skanks that Jeff Samardzija and Neal Cotts will pull from Alsip alone.

Cleveland Indians 83.5

I like the Indians more than the Sox, mostly because their pitching is deeper.  I’d like them even more if they didn’t have Nick “Bro-hio” Swisher polluting the roster.  Michael Brantley won’t do THAT again, and their impulse buy of Michael Bourn hasn’t worked out.  On second thought, that outfield is…not good.

Under.

Bonus over/under – Zero – (So…push?) Equals the number of fucks given by the Indians management when people complain about Chief Wahoo.

Detroit Tigers 84.5

Max Scherzer is gone, Rick Porcello is gone, Victor Martinez fell off of Moises Alou’s treadmill before spring training started, they’re still putting Miggy Cabrera together from last year, so this is an easy under right?

Nope.  They’re still the class of his suddenly overrated division.  They get a full season of David Price, Anibal Sanchez is back healthy, they added Yoenis Cespedes to the outfield, and they get Jose Iglesias back to play shortstop.

I’d feel better about this if I thought Joe Nathan had anything left, but still…

Over.

Bonus over/under – 14 – Over – Number of Phil Spector’s wigs Mike Illitch bought when Spector went into the big house.

Houston Astros 74.5

My favorite stat ⁵ is that George Springer, the Astros super rookie last year, is older than Starlin Castro.  Houston’s rebuild is moving slower than the Cubs, and not signing one of your number one draft picks and waiting on Mark Appel to get his head out of his ass will do that to you.  They do, however, have Luis Valbuena, which should be a huge swing in their favor.  Then again, they have to be smart enough to use him.  The Astros are getting better, and 75 wins would be a modest five win improvement over last year.

Over

Bonus over/under – 1,000 – Under – Number of people in Houston who realize the network their games are shown on is actually on their cable systems this year.

Kansas City Royals 80.5

The Royals won 89 games last year, shoved a horseshoe up their hiney and mounted a comeback on Jon Lester in the wild card game last year and then ran their way ⁶ to the World Series.  They lost James Shields to free agency ⁷ and replaced him with Edinson Volquez.  They replaced Billy Butler’s bat with Kendrys Morales ⁸.  They bought a lottery ticket on Kris Medlen, and they get Luke Hochever back and if they’re smart they’ll leave him in the bullpen.  Mike Moustakas was more useful in the playoffs than he’d been before, Eric Hosmer’s light may have finally turned on for good and Lorenzo Cain was a stud in the playoffs.  They might not be as good as they were last year, but they’re not nine wins worse.

Over.

Bonus over/under – 150% – Over – How much I want this Moustakas bobblhead they’re giving away this year.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 88.5

They bring back mostly the same team, minus Howie Kendrick, but with the addition of Andrew Heaney and presumably, a full season of Garrett Richards.  Sure, Josh Hamilton is already hurt, again, but they’re used to that. ⁹

They won 98 games last year, somehow, and it would take a lot to win 10 fewer, especially when you have Mike Trout around to bail you out of stuff.

But I don’t think they’re a 90 win team, and it’s a pretty slim margin to go over when you don’t think that.

Under.

Bonus over/under – 40.5 – Over – “Thirty five year old” ¹⁰ Albert Pujols’ real age.

Minnesota Twins 70.5

In a couple of years, the Twins will have Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton in their lineup and they’ll finally be interesting again.  But not this year.  Paul Molitor’s recovery from illicit substances will be put to the test watching this shitheap every night.  But hey, Torii Hunter is back!  About four years after he was actually still useful.  When players return “home” to bad teams after years away, there are only two good moments.  The press conference ¹¹ and the home opener.  After that, it’s just an old guy who can’t play, on a bad team full of younger guys who also can’t play.

Under.

Bonus over/under – 32 – Over – Games into the season before Joe Mauer starts using first base as a pillow during the long parade of Twins pitching changes.

New York Yankees 81.5

Just go over.  This is not a really good Yankees team, by any stretch, but they’re not winning fewer than 82 games.  Losing David Robertson wasn’t a loss, they added the vastly superior Andrew Miller and they have Dellin Betances.  Didi Gregorious won’t hit, but he’ll get to approximately 2,000 more grounders than Derek Jeter was able to last year.  They should get more out of Michael Pineda this year ¹² A big key will be if Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow ligament finally snaps, but even if it does, the Yankees will steal a useful starter from somebody and eek out 82 wins.  They are not, however, good enough to run with the Red Sox, and probably not the Orioles or Blue Jays.

Over.

Bonus over/under – 1% – Under – Chance that Carlos Beltran will ever get that huge mole on his ear removed.  That thing is nasty.

Oakland A’s 80.5

Billy Beane’s a genius.  Billy Beane’s an idiot.  Billy Beane’s a fraud who wrote a book about how great he was.  Lots of dumb people have dumb ideas about Billy Beane (Hawk Harrelson and Kenny Williams among them.)   The truth is, he’s a hyperaggressive general manager who is dealing with a limited payroll.  He tries to trade guys before their value peaks and starts to decline, so you get trades like Josh Donaldson for what looks like a bag of literal beans.  His trades for Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester made sense, because he had a good team and was trying to finally win a pennant.  But he had no way of getting anything for Lester when he left, and got a dubious return for Samardzija.  So now, they’re reshaping the roster, again.  He has a very good manager in Bob Melvin and they have pitching, so as they try to cobble together some semblance of an offense, they won’t bottom out.  81 wins doesn’t seem impossible, so, what the hell.  Plus, they added Ben Zobrist, so either he helps them win, or at the deadline they have somebody else to flip.  Same with Tyler Clippard.

Over.

Bonus over/under – Four – Over – Number of times human shit seeps into the dugouts at the Coliseum. ¹³

Seattke Mariners 86.5

This is the chic pick in the American League, and for pretty good reason.  They have one great starting pitcher in King Felix and one really good one in Hisashi Iwakuma, plus two young pitchers people are really high on in James Paxton and Taijuan Walker.  Kyle Seager’s a nice player, Robinson Cano is a stud and they added Nelson Cruz.  And, 87 wins is what they won last year.

Over.

Bonus over/under – 161 – Over – The number of times Cano looks over at first and says, “Shit, we can’t find a better firstbaseman than Logan Morrison?”

Tampa Bay Raymonds 78.5

Andrew Friedman is gone.  Joe Maddon is gone.  David Price is gone.  Ben Zobrist is gone. Wil Myers is gone.  They do have good pitching, or at least good depth.  But it’s a mostly punchless lineup, and to go over, you’d have to win one game more than last year.

I like Evan Longoria a lot, but…

Under.

Bonus over/under – 3 – Over – Number of times this year you say, “Oh, I forgot that’s where David DeJesus was.”

Texas Rangers 77.5

They were decimated by injuries last year.  It was so bad that they finished behind the Astros and Ron Washington quit for personal reasons.  They have talent, so you’re tempted to think that just by getting Prince Fielder and Shin Soo Choo and Derek Holland back, they’ll be a lot better.  But you have to factor in that the have already lost their best prospect, again, Jurickson Profar, for the season to another shoulder injury.  And does Prince look like the kind of guy who can easily bounce back from a year off? [Note]He does look like a guy who can bounce.  Really, really, high.[/note]  If everything goes well, they can contend, but what are the odds everything can go well?

Under.

Bonus over/under – Five – Over – Number of times Nate Scheirholtz comes in for defense late in games and dives after a ball that is a routine catch for the centerfielder.

 

Toronto Blue Jays 82.5

The Jays had a good offseason.  They lost Melky Cabrera, but they added Russell Martin ¹⁴ and Josh Donaldson and they still have Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista and Jose Reyes.  If Marcus Stroman continues to improve to go with inning-eating ¹⁵ RA Dickey and Mark Bueherle, this looks like a good team.  We thought that two years ago and they tanked.

Still, 83 wins seems probably.

Over.

Bonus over/under – 12 – Over – Number of times Jays ownership throws up their hands and says about manager John Gibbons, “Didn’t we fire this guy before?”

Next up: the National League over/unders.

Oh, and more bad jokes and pointless footnotes.

 

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1. Or, as Phil Rogers once infamously referred to him in print “Pablo Escobar”
2. No sane person actually believes this.  But Boston’s not full of sane people, “HOW COULD CHERRINGTON LET ROSS LEAVE?  HE WAS AWESOME!  NO ONE DENIES THIS!”
3. DO NOT BENCH BROCKHOLT! HE’S OWAH BASEBALL WES WELKAH! EVEN BETTAH, HE’S LIKE EDELMAN! HITTING DONGS AND BANGING SKANKS ON SNAPCHAT!
4. Sorry, Emilio
5. I guess age is a stat, or maybe it’s just a number
6. Well, homered, mainly, they famously stole seven bases in that game, then they stole five in their four game sweep of the Angels, but they stole just one base in the ALCS and only one in a seven game World Series.
7. And curiously didn’t get back in on him even after his price tag–or at least the years he was asking for–dropped late in the offseason
8. Letting Butler go wasn’t a bad decision, but Morales?
9. A lot of speculation has been had about why the Angels put off his shoulder surgery, taking the slim chance that rest would heal his shoulder.  Considering the recovering drug addict can’t really take any of the “good” painkillers, if I was him, and rest was any kind of option, I’d start with that.
10. Wink, wink.
11. And, Hunter fucked his up with his weird tirade against Mike Berardino when he called Mike a “prick” four times, after Berardino dared to ask Hunter about past anti-gay remarks he famously had made.
12. They could hardly get less.
13. And no, I don’t think Milton Bradley gets paroled and stops by for a visit.
14. Albeit for way too much money.
15. If not much else.