YFSF

Soothy

It's time for our predictaroo retrospective.  Back in March, a nation looked towards a year of great debate as it set to choosing new leadership while welcoming the dawn of a bright new age of enlightenment and reason.  Instead, the Phillies won the series while a team from the spring training circuit stunned pundits everywhere, and for much of the year, gas cost more than milk, resulting in many people giving up their SUVs in favor of riding cows to work.  Prior to the events that transpired, your intrepid authors donned their fortune teller turbins and peered into the future.  With today's announcement of The Gnat as AL MVP, it's time to take a look back and decide which author was the most accurate.  Or more accurately, least wrong, as we boggle at how ridiculous a lot of those prognostications turned out to be.

Since none of my fellow authors authorized, asked, or really care one hoot about this, I'm going to be completely arbitrary in my scoring and dictatorial in awarding the "Soothy" to the soothiest soother to have soothed a sooth.  And so we begin.

The AL East predictions are the creamed corn.  I don't know what creamed corn has to do with anything.  I just like saying "creamed corn."  Anyway, you get this wrong, you lose.  Everyone got it wrong, so in effect, this contest is already less attractive than a seven-day walkabout in Flint in February.  YF, Nick, SF, and Paul were homers.  John and ag went with Beantown.  +1 point for everyone since all six participants had Boston in the post.  +1 point to YF, Nick, and ag for picking the Rays to finish in front of the Jays.  +1 to ag for being the least wrong in the beast, and therefore, the winner of the coveted RayJay award for being the beast's best handicapper.  Unfortunately, that's all ag will win the rest of the way.

Prediction Throwdown

You know what I think (Sox in six), so as we prepare for what most expect to be a knock-down, drag-out ALCS, it's time to hear from you.

Team, games and why? Go!

Never Fear: Carl Pavano is (Almost) Here

In college, at the end of certain nights of particular debauchery my friends and I would sometimes sit around and play a game of "what's worse?", in which we'd think up - and then force each other to answer - appalling questions like, "Would you rather be forced to wear, for a week straight, a sweater made of X's pubic hair (insert disgusting public figure for "X") or drink nothing but Y for a day (insert hideous concoction that would make Ozzy Osborne gag for "Y")?".  It led to all kinds of deep thoughts, like whether ingesting something gross was worse than donning something slightly less gross.  Why go into this other than to ruin any possible future career in politics for myself?  Because I can't help but think about the "what's worse" game when I raise the following question for all YFs: "Would you rather have the Yankee rotation rounded out by Sidney Ponson or Carl Pavano?"

Bold Prediction

Manny will play for the Boston Red Sox in 2009. I don't know how, but I know it's more likely than Steve Buckley's suggestion:

But now it’s time for the Red Sox to be big boys about all this and either continue with the enabling . . . or, and let’s say it again, toss Manny out.

Literally. Throw him out. No, wait, that would be violent. And we don’t want to be advocating violence here. That’s Manny’s job - you know, tossing 64-year-old men to the ground and all that.

So escort Manny out to the pavement, right out there on Yawkey Way, and tell him to take his whiny agents and sycophants with him.

Literally. That would be quite the spectacle. I'd imagine if I were a Sox fan walking along on Yawkey Way and I saw this situation, I'd think I was tripping the light fantastic.

You Heard It Here Last

The Yankees will make the playoffs this year. Take it to the bank. Okay, maybe better to stuff it under the mattress. I will admit that our Yanks are no great shakes. The bottom of the lineup is anemic, everyone's aging, the back half of the pitching staff is suspect. So be it. Look at the WC standings.Minnesota, Detroit, and Oakland are behind us, and for all of our problems, there's no reason to think any of those teams are in better shape. So the Yanks should be able to hold them off. What's ahead? Boston and Tampa. Realistically, Boston looks like the division winner. Tampa? They're skidding, only 3 up in the loss column, and their run differential (+40) is already worse than the Yanks's (+50). Both teams have talent floating around in the minors/DL that could help down the stretch. But the Yanks are better equiped, at least financially, to go out and make a deadline deal to improve. So, yes, you heard it here first. The Stadium will live for October baseball. But what happens then, well, it might not be pretty. Or maybe it will be. One last title for the House of Ruth? Just could be.

YFSF Predictaroo, Election-Year Style

Now is no longer the winter of our discontent. Well, at least no longer than now lasts, which will be for a couple of days once the season kicks off in a couple hours, until those intrepid Sock and Athletic travelers return for a few more [fake] pre-season games state-side after their [real] battles in The Land of the Rising Sun. I'm rooting for Ghidorah.

As is customary on the cusp of a new season, we have spent dozens of minutes preparing predictions for your enjoyment, in(di)gestion, and prime bookmark material come October. Please note that YFSF staff predictions should be used for entertainment value only and should not be used for investment purposes. Or for entertainment value.

Will Carroll: Jacoby Ellsbury will slip on a banana peel in 2008.

Okay, he doesn't say that, but Baseball Prospectus' injury expert Will Carroll does list the talented rookie as a red light in his team health report for the Boston Red Sox (subscription needed). Carroll points to Ellsbury's youth and reliance on speed as risk factors. JD Drew and Clay Buccholz also get reds.

As I'm a Yanks fan, there's no need to report more optimistic predictions. But you can feel okay that one player's blister problems are a thing of the past, and that Dice-K is seeing green, even if he's already pitched 4 billion innings in his young life.

Also, it should be noted that Will Carroll feels Boston's medical staff is on the cutting edge. He didn't say it, but the Yanks are still using bloodletting, hot whiskey and Freudian analysis. We'll see who ends up healthier in the end!

The New Hero in the Dark

Last year, Hideki Okajima induced chuckles everywhere when he told the press corps he was perfectly fine being in Daisuke Matsuzaka's shadow.

"I am willing to be a hero in the dark," he said. You may have heard this quote roughly 2,000 times by now.

The problem with being a hero in the dark is that you can't do it twice. Put it this way: In October, the Colorado Rockies weren't exactly wondering why Matsuzaka had suddenly developed a massive neck twitch during his delivery. Okajima was no longer in shadow.

So for the Red Sox to be successful in 2008, another hero will likely have to emerge from the shadows. Someone we don't expect to be a major contributor but who -- either through talent or circumstance -- requires he be used regularly by October.

My nominee: Craig Hansen.

Hansen is fresh off surgery for sleep apnea; he's told the press he feels well rested for the first time in years. He seemed to finally have put it together at the end of 2007 after a year-plus of horrific struggles. So mark it down: Craig Hansen will be the bullpen cog the Red Sox can't be without come the September pennant race.

With this, the final day before pitchers and catchers report, and some congressional hearing going on in Washington, let's use this thread for some old-fashioned, optimistic spring baseball discussion.

Who do you see as the 2008 hero in the dark, for either team?

First to Third

Who's the best baserunner in the game? Lee Panas at Tiger Tales conducted a statistical survey, and found Jose Reyes to be rounding third with the rest of MLB scattered between home and second. In the AL, Johnny Damon (3) and Alex Rodriguez (7) are both in the top 10. Boston's Coco Crisp ranked fifth, and Julio Lugo also made it onto the leaderboard. (No sign of Jeter.) Hat tip to Alex Belth.

Projecting the 2008 Yankees

Here we go with Round 2. As a reminder, the Red Sox, based on the newly released PECOTA projections, are supposed to go 101-61 in 2008.

The Yankees, like the Red Sox, enter the season with few new names -- just a lot of young ones getting older and more experienced. Also like the Red Sox, the Yankees were unlucky when it came to one-run games -- which led to an underperformance of their Pythagorean record, and should be kept in mind when we get to projecting a record at the end of this post.

All that said, let's get to it.