American League East
Projected order of finish
1. New York Yankees
2. Boston
3. Baltimore
4. Toronto
5. Tampa Bay
Hey, they might all finish above .500! Well, except for Toronto and Tampa. So that’s not really much, is it?
Yankees
The Yankees were really kind of a mess last year. They got nothing out of first or second base, their centerfielder runs like his knees are taped together and their bench was useless. In the bullpen they only had two guys who could get anybody out.
And they won 100 games and were one pitch away from the World Series.
So they added Randy Johnson, eschewed paying Carlos Beltran $400 billion dollars and threw money at Carl Pavano (could work) and Jaret Wright (no way), and are hoping that Giambi can crawl off his deathbed and be productive again.
Oh, and they brought back Tino Martinez.
Here’s the thing. When you bring back an old player who can’t really play, for his leadership, yeah, you’re hiring another coach. Look, they already did that with Joe Girardi and finally made an honest coach out of him, why not do it with Tino, too?
Oh, and they signed Tony Womack?!? But at least they have the good sense to bat him ninth.
But the real reason they will win? They dumped Kenny Lofton. That guy can hold any team down.
Red Sox
Honestly, how can you go from Destiny’s Darlings to insufferable assbags this quickly? Does anybody who’s not from Boston want to see them win anything now? Actually, if you tied cinderblocks around Kevin Millar and Curt Schilling and took those two swimming, then they’d probably be likable again, but until then…no way.
Plus, there’s a movie coming out that portrays Jimmy Fallon as the ultimate Red Sox fan. There’s your curse. He’s like Ronnie Woo Woo with teeth.
Of bigger concern to the Red Sox though, has to be their pitching. Every starter they added has something wrong with him. David Wells is fat and has a bad back, oh and he’s old. Wade Miller’s labrum is already torn. Matt Clement has a vagina. How are you going to win with that?
Oh, that’s right, they have a boy genius as their general manager.
And I’ve been watching Edgar Renteria this spring and he’s been horrible. Not just at the plate (.222) but he’s not getting to a lot of grounders. He had back problems with the Cardinals, but we assumed not being raped in the shower every day by Jim Edmonds would cure him of those. What you really wonder though with Edgar is how old he is. He claims to be 29, but remember how everybody was so impressed that a 21 year old could be as good as he was in the 1997 World Series? Maybe he was 25 then? Suddenly, the drop off at the plate and in range isn’t so unusual…you know, if he’s 33.
Boston fans can delude themselves into thinking that getting rid of Nomar won them the World Series last year, even though Orlando Cabrera didn’t exactly set the world on fire with them (he wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t great). But they’ll miss him this year.
Orioles
They’re trapped in the AL East behind nearly 400 million worth of payroll, and they’ve got an offense that can match anybody, so it’s all going to waste.
The Orioles were the one team willing to put up with the Sammy Sosa sideshow, and in the spring they’ve been happy with it. He’s hitting .340 with .604 slugging, so what’s not to like? You know, other than the whole Congressional hearing and him getting tossed from his third game as an Oriole while he was standing in the outifeld?
What really makes the Orioles go is their obscenely productive left side of the infield with Miguel Tejada and Melvin Mora. I could play right field for them and they’d have a great offense.
On the mound, though, they just lack any kind of depth. And they added Steve Kline. Why anybody would do that on purpose is beyond reason. I’m sure Steve and Sammy will have some interesting interactions this year.
Kline: (flips off Sammy)
Sammy: Hey buddy! I’m number one? Thanks, buddy!
Blue Jays
Sports Ill-stated’s Tom Verducci spent a week in Blue Jays’ camp and almost made the team. What does that tell you about how bad they are? (Not that Tom’s ego should be too puffed up, the Jays have announced that the Today Show’s Ann Curry is going to play left field this year.)
The Jays have some good players, like Vernon Wells and…well, there’s Vernon Wells! And Roy Halladay.
They signed Corey Koskie to take third base away from Eric Hinske, moved Eric to first and then signed Shea Hillenbrand to take first away from him. There’s a confidence building winter, eh, Eric?
But think about the plight of the Jays. For the first time ever, they have Canada all to themselves.
But who wants Canada?
Unless you’re having “cheap prescription refill and back bacon night” is it worth it? I didn’t think so.
Devil Rays
You have to give Rays General Manager Chuck LaMar a lot of credit. It’s hard to have a decade to build a team and still have one this bad. Way to go! How does he keep his job? He must have photos of Vince Naimoli naked with the Hussein boys or something.
Tampa has some young talent, but a decade in, shouldn’t they have…you know..more of it?
It’s great that Aubrey Huff and Carl Crawford and BJ Upton and Delmon Young look like good players, but what the hell did they do for the first seven years? I mean other than sign Jose Canseco, Wade Boggs, Fred McGriff (three times) and Vinny Castilla?
And this year they had two guys, Roberto Alomar and Danny Bautista, retire on the same day in spring training. That has to be a record.
Hey I got teef now, muthafuckah.
Hey that Hinske’s great. Jim Hendry is a boob for dealing him and Dontrelle Willis!
Never mind the fact that…
…Hinske’s bad…
…Clement gave us three good years, AND…
…helped us make the playoffs AND…
…actually won a playoff game (same one where Dontrelle got shellacked)…
…Willis is actually an overrated walk machine anyway (THINK black Ryan Dempster)…
…Hendry WASN’T EVEN GM when the trades were made…
…My only analytical strength is always based on 20/20 hindsight…
…Oh, and never mind the fact that I don’t know what I’m talking about…
…Jim Hendry’s a boob!
What happens in the locker room STAYS in the locker room.
Wow -“But when you’re the Tigers and nobody will take your money, you just start waving it around like the Elephant Man in a strip bar. Eventually, somebody will start grinding.” Good thing I wasn’t drinking my coffe on that one. funniest thing I have read in a long time!
“quote”
…Hendry WASN’T EVEN GM when the trades were made…
…My only analytical strength is always based on 20/20 hindsight…
…Oh, and never mind the fact that I don’t know what I’m talking about…
…Jim Hendry’s a boob!
“end quote”
You are the Brown’s Fried Chicken caller of the night!
First of all, it wasn’t his appendix. Secondly, it was a spork.
We’ve always been insufferable assbags, it just that the Insufferable Assbags of The Bronx have always been there to keep us in our place.
“National League pitchers get 2 to 3 free innings a game”. Hey Don, what about the bogus wins that AL pitchers like Jon Garland get that would be losses or no d’s cuz they would have been lifted 3 innings ago. It all evens out you boner. Oh, that’s right, you do have the best staff in the game.
Don Cooper is the best!!!
Seriously, everyone has got to read Phil Rogers’ new column at espn. It is even funny for him.
Yeah, it doesn’t bother me to watch people paying 40 bucks for a ticket to watch pitchers bat four times a game. Or to watch them get hurt on freak plays while running the bases.
What does bother me is the fact that they no longer start every third day, and that, with rare exceptions, the measure of a man is no longer correlated to his finishing what he starts.
At least they still walk .240 batters to get to a guy who doesn’t even take batting practice but every fifth day –now that’s entertainment!
Real clever. Pitchers should always bat, just like in Little League, or be subbed out for a pinch-hitter. Stop monkeying with tradition.
And isn’t interleague play great? It really adds interest to the game!
(and, uh, hey –have we found a closer yet…?)
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