Lo, There Shall Be...A Blog!

And welcome to OW!, a semi-regular blog dedicated to the musings/rantings of your author, Anthony J. Punt. On this blog, I will be exploring a wide range of topics, including politics, literature, sports, interesting and/or bizarre moments from pop culture, and whatever else I feel like getting off at my chest. In addition, from time to time I will be posting creative and scholarly works in progress. Really, you should expect this space to be the virtual literary equivalent of a Kwik-E-Mart--so if you're not interested in the topic I'm going on about that particular day, chances are I'll be offering something more to your liking on another occasion. Your comments are always appreciated, of course, and I thank you for taking the time to read this.

So now that we've gotten those formalities out of the way, I wanted to kick things off by talking a little baseball. With the season fast approaching, I plan on devoting the first half-dozen posts to dissecting each of the 30 MLB teams as well as offering my predictions as to where they will finish in their respective divisions this year. Because I'm such a rebel, rather than organizing my analysis of the teams by league as many pre-season predictors might, I'll be doing so by geographic region: thus, I'll be starting with the AL East, followed by the NL East, AL Central, NL Central, and so on. Basically, one of my main motivations in doing things this way is that I get to discuss my Mets as early as possible (spoiler alert: I'm picking them to win the NL East this year). So without further ado, here's my look at the AL East for 2009:

AL EAST
1. Boston Red Sox
I love the off-season moves the Red Sox made in signing John Smoltz, Brad Penny, and Takashi Saito, all talented veteran pitchers coming off injury, to low-risk, one year contracts. They provide tremendous depth to a pitching staff that already was the best in the AL last year; even on the off chance that none of the three vets pan out, the Sawx have well-regarded, hard-throwing youngsters such as Bucholtz, Masterson, and Bowden to step in. About the questionable decision the front office made was re-signing washed-up catcher Jason Varitek, but the move is somewhat defensible considering that there was no one inside the organization (or anyone attainable on the free-agent/trade market) good enough to take his place. Despite that misstep, the Red Sox are more than enough on-field talent to not only win the division, but the pennant as well. Consider this: at the moment, their post-season rotation projects to be Beckett, Lester, Dice-K, and Smoltz, with Penny and Wakefield in the ‘pen. That’s simply sick, and when October rolls around AL lineups that face Boston pitching will experience those feelings of nausea first-hand.

2. Tampa Bay Rays
Blame it on a simple twist of fate: the second-best team in the AL resides in the AL East, and it is for that reason alone that they’ll enter the playoffs as the Wild Card. Put it this way: if the Rays were in the AL West, or especially the AL Central, they’d probably win the division by 6 or 7 games. Yet much of the media seems to think that they are a one-year wonder and/or are so star-struck by the shiny new baubles the Yankees bought in the off-season that they can’t see straight. (And that, in a nutshell, why 90-95% of sportswriters are complete morons.) For my money, however, the Rays have the most young talent of any team in baseball, and many of those youngsters, particularly B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria, still have plenty of room to improve. Plus, Tampa Bay’s front office made one of the best value free-agent signings this offseason in Pat Burrell, who as a righty-slugging DH shores up two of the team’s biggest areas of need last season. So in short, the media and the rest of the AL better get used to it—this team is going to be around for quite a while.

3. New York Yankees
When you consider that one-third of the teams in MLB have payrolls less than $70M—not to mention the fact that the country is in a serious economic downturn, but let’s not use that scary “D” word though, you might make people nervous—the Yankees recent $250M off-season shopping spree seems obnoxious even for a franchise that has perfected the art. But take heart, Yankee haters: despite all the millions spent, the franchise is doomed to a Sisyphean fate of pushing towards the top of the division, only to have the Red Sox and Rays knocking them back down to third place. If you need further evidence, just take a look at the roster that the Yankee brass, in their infinite wisdom, have assembled: a starting catcher with a chronically messed-up throwing shoulder, a shortstop who is noticeably slipping both in the field and at the plate, a center field position that’s a sucking black hole, one of the big-name pitchers they just signed (Sabathia) would much rather be playing out on the West Coast, while the other one (Burnett) is both wildly overrated and grossly overpaid…and of course, the third baseman is a walking fucking catastrophe. Furthermore, while Boston and Tampa are stacked with young talent, the only good young players New York has are Robinson Cano, an inconsistent underachiever, and Joba Chamberlain, who is a legit stud and not just a product of the NY hype machine (*cough*PhilHughes*cough*) but who also has injury and endurance questions to go along with that promise. So when you add it all up, you tell me: is there any way the Yankees make the playoffs this year? Or even in the next five?

4. Baltimore Orioles
For the first time in over a decade, Orioles fans have a team to legitimately be excited about: they have the makings of one of the game’s best young OF’s with Felix Pie, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis, one of the best 2B and leadoff hitters in baseball in Brian Roberts, and a catching prospect that projects to be a switch-hitting Mike Piazza in Matt Wieters. That’s a pretty tasty core to build around; of course, their pitching is nothing to write home about, so they’ll probably have to win their faire share of 11-10 games in order to keep their head above water in the ultra-competitive AL East. Still, considering that this team has stunk since Davey Johnson left (and that was a looong time ago, kids), if the O’s do nothing other than establish Wieters, Jones, and Pie as solid everyday players, and dig up some kid pitchers from the farm, 2009 should be considered a successful season. And now that I currently reside in the Maryland area, I look forward to closely watching the O’s baby steps towards relevance this season. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and make A Bold Prediction: Baltimore will finish the season with a .500 record. That may not sound like much, but when you consider that the O’s won 68 games last year—and have only averaged 69 wins over the past three seasons—a 13 game improvement starts to seem like a big deal, doesn’t it?

5. Toronto Blue Jays
In NBA parlance, the Blue Jays are the equivalent of an eight-seed in the playoffs: not bad enough record-wise to be one of the bottom-dwellers, but also not good enough talent-wise to be among the league’s elite. In essence, this describes the problem with Toronto’s team: they have plenty of decent little role players but, with the notable exception of ace Roy Halladay, no one whom you would consider a “game changer.” To make matters worse, the Jays don’t have the financial coffers of the Yankees and Red Sox, to say the least, and thus they’re not able to buy their way out of trouble like those two teams can. Toronto’s relative poverty was made painfully evident when the team conceded the loss of their number-two starter, A.J. Burnett, to the Yankees, and not only failed to replace him but didn’t sign any free agents of note. So with all that being said, here’s my Second Bold Prediction: realizing that the franchise is in competitive limbo, the Jays’ front office finally starts to tear down the team in order to build for a brighter (or at least cheaper) future. Thus, one of the biggest X-factors at the July 31st trade deadline will be which teams end up with players the Jays trade away—especially Halladay—while on the flip side, the Blue Jays’ season will be determined by the quality of the prospects they get back in order to start the much-needed rebuilding process.