So 2012 will be the debut of the second wild card. Since half the people who write about baseball do it just to bash Bud Selig and all his ideas, I can already see how this will turn into a bonfire of scorn stoked by the kindling of ridicule. Starting with the AL, we'll knock out the rest of this after the jump.
AL Division winners: Tampa Bay, Detroit, Texas. These are pretty easy picks for me. The Rays' pitching is insane, Texas's lineup is stacked, and Detroit lacks real competition.
Wild Cards: And here's where the second wild card backfires. Instead of giving a team like Cleveland or Toronto a puncher's chance in October, both Wild Card spots go to teams that everyone expects to make it in anyway: the Yankees, and Los Angeles de Los Angeles. Hence it just gives everyone a chance to bash baseball for making things easier for big-market teams, even though when teams outside of the five biggest media markets make it, nobody watches. Yeah, makes sense.
AL Champion: Tampa Bay over Los Angeles in the ALCS. Yeah, I like the Rays.
AL Cy Young: Jered Weaver, LAA.
AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera, DET.
AL Rookie of the Year: Yu Darvish, TEX.
AL's biggest disappointment: Boston Red Sox. This is becoming something of a bandwagon pick, but still. Must suck for a fanbase that's gotten used to making the playoffs to miss out two years in a row. This time around they might be lucky to break .500.
AL's biggest surprise: Shin-Soo Choo (CLE) gets serious MVP consideration, and his team is in the Wild Card race up until the last week of the season. You could replace that with Brett Lawrie and Toronto, but that wouldn't surprise anyone.
Now the National League, where the second Wild Card absolutely will work as planned, because there just aren't that many good teams.
Division winners: Los Angeles, St. Louis, Philadelphia. Most people have the Cards and the Phils as the best teams in the NL, so no surprise there. The Dodgers sneak in because Arizona and San Francisco are just not that good.
Wild Cards: Milwaukee surprisingly continues to exist minus Prince Fielder; not only that, they win 88 or so games and make it to the play-in game. Miami takes the other slot behind a healthy Josh Johnson and the always-awesome Ozzie Guillen. The Reds make September interesting for them, though.
NL Champion: Philadelphia over St. Louis in the NLCS. Three aces are good in October, I hear.
NL Cy Young: The Phillies' guys split votes and Zack Greinke (MIL) takes it.
NL MVP: Matt Kemp (LA) in a make-up vote for last year.
NL Rookie of the Year: Yonder Alonso, SD.
NL's biggest disappointment: The Braves don't even have a lead in the standings to blow through in September, but they play like it anyway. Fredi Gonzalez is fired by November.
NL's biggest surprise: The Brewers hang around through June, then make a trade like they did in 2008 to spark their playoff run.
World Series: Rays over Phillies in 7 games.
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