Over/Under wins for the year
Toronto over 69½ -1.20 (BetGameDay)
Don’t think for a second that the departure of Carlos Delgado is going to make much of a difference because it’s not. Heavy hitting first baseman in this league are a dime a dozen and most of them are grossly overpaid. Center fielder Vernon Wells is one of the game's unknown stars. Second baseman Orlando Hudson is a good player that just keeps getting better and the Jays added some offense in third baseman Corey Koskie and in trading for first baseman Shea Hillenbrand (Hillenbrand will likely do most of the DHing). A huge problem for the Jays last year and every year since the days of Tom Heinke was the bullpen. The bullpen could be pretty good with Miguel Batista , Jason Frasor, Justin Speier and Scott Schoeneweis. Batista will get the opportunity to close out games but we like Frasor, a guy with a great arm who showed plenty of promise last year. The rotation sets up like this: Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly, David Bush, Gustavo Chacin and Josh Towers. Halliday went through an extensive off-season training program and expect him to be among the leaders in everything in the AL. Ted Lilly is hot and cold but he can dominate when he’s on. Josh Towers has battled injuries his whole career but has been real sharp in the spring and in fact, so has everyone else. Alex Rios in right field is a guy to keep your eye on. The kid can flat out play defense and he can get on base too. Rios swiped 15 bases last year and along with Wells, Hinske, Hudson and Koskie, you can expect the Jays to steal plenty more. Manager John Gibbons assures that the Jays will be very aggressive on the bases. A slew of games against Tampa and Baltimore (don’t believe for a second that Baltimore will contend this year, that’s ludicrous) plus a good schedule in inter-league play, not to mention the other AL teams that aren’t much better than Toronto (that includes K.C., the White Sox, Minnesota, Detroit, Cleveland, Seattle, Oakland and Texas), and 70 wins appears very attainable indeed. The Yanks are Bosox are juggernauts, however, the Jays don’t need to win many games against that duo to go over this total. All they need to do is play .500 ball against the rest and this one goes over in late August. Jays are in much better shape than last year when they won 67 games after a horrible start in April and May. Play: Toronto over 69½ -1.20 (Risking 2.4 units to win 2).
Philadelphia under 83½ -1.05 (BetGameDay)
The Phillies chances of finishing better than fourth in the division are extremely slim when you consider that Atlanta, the Mets and Florida, along with the Nationals, are in the same division. Hell, they might finish last. The one good thing that the Phillies did was fire Mount Bowa and replaced him with a much more relaxed Charlie Manuel. However, when your rotation consists of Jon Lieber, Randy Wolf, Cory Lidle, Bret Myers and unproven Gavin Floyd (the kid has looked pretty good in the spring but was lit up big time in his last spring outing) than you’ve got more issues than a managerial change. Lidle went 10-13 last year with a 4.46 ERA in his first year in the NL and now that he’s been seen a bunch of times expect about six wins in 35 starts and an ERA over 5.00, that’s if he’s healthy. Randy Wolf’s best years are behind him and Brett Myers transition from reliever to starter panned out for one year and it wasn’t in 2004. Jon Leiber used to be good but his declining numbers and age (35) can’t be a good sign. Also, pitching at this homerun haven in Philadelphia is not good for a pitcher like Leiber who throws strikes with not much velocity and very little movement. It says here he doesn’t make it through the year as a starter. Fantasy players should stay way clear of this guy. Offensively, there’s Bobby Abreu, Jim Thome and Jimmy Rollins leading off. After that, this might be the worst hitting team in baseball. Kenny Lofton is going Ricky Henderson and just won’t hang ‘em up. If he has a good year, he’ll bat .240. David Bell at third base should be the lowest paid player in the league. Bell will get you a homer every now and than, however, when he does expect the score to be about 8-1. Someone is going to lose their job to top prospect Ryan Howard, however, Howard is a first baseman so that poses a problem. I guess he’ll either have to switch to third or play outfield or something. Anyway, we don’t see this edition of the Phillies being anything other than a bunch of aging, overpaid players (aside from Abreu and Rollins), that’ll be fortunate to win 73 games let alone 84. The starting rotation might be baseball’s worst and they’ll play half their games in this extremely friendly hitters park. That means tons of reliever innings and plenty of worn out arms. The Phillies have a great closer in Billy Wagner but to close games you have to be leading them and chances are Wagner will be praying for rallies all year long. Philly winning this many games has about the same chance of Jose Canseco winning the “Man of the Year” award. Play: Philadelphia under 83½ -1.05 (Risking 2.10 units to win 2).
Chicago White Sox under 80½ +1.25 (Bowmans)
Could have gone under 82½ at BetGameDay, however, we’d have to lay -1.20 and we much prefer a take-back of +1.25 despite the number being two games less. The White Sox have been the majors biggest underachievers for years and now things have gone from bad to worse. Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Lee, the team’s two best hitters are gone and now Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye will bat third and fourth, respectively. Now it’s one thing to put up good numbers when you’re batting with Mags and Lee in the line-up but take them out and opposing teams can easily pitch any way they want to you. Yeah, we’re talking about Konerko, a guy that is going to see a million more pitches this year that he’s not going to like. Jermaine Dye batting clean-up? C’mon. The South Side could have gone after 200 other free agents that would’ve filled that position better. Frank Thomas is out until at least mid-May and while he’ll help when he returns, The Big Hurt is no longer the Big Hurt. A.J Pierznyski will be behind the plate and that helps offensively but defensively he’s not a small liability, he’s a huge one. So is his attitude, which is why nobody else wanted him. Left fielder Scott Podsednik can fly and center fielder Aaron Rowand can move. Podsednik stole 70 bases but he had a disappointing batting average (.244) and on-base percentage (.313) last year. The plan is to go with speed and defense, and Ozzie Guillen is the right manager for that. They call it small ball and that worked well when Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson were on the mound. Thing is, the White Sox rotation consists of Freddy Garcia, Mark Buehrle, Jose Contreras, Orlando Hernandez, and John Garland. Buehrle might put up good numbers but that’s a big might. If he has a great year, he’ll win 15 games. Freddy Garcia reaped the benefits of pitching at Safeco Field in Seattle but the new Comiskey is not pitcher friendly and Garcia is a very average pitcher, mo more, no less. The rest of the rotation is weak at best and the White Sox don’t have near enough offense to compensate. The rest of the teams in the division have improved with perhaps the exception of Minnesota but the Twins are still much better than the White Sox. Chicago won 83 times last year with a decent line-up and finished ahead of Detroit, Cleveland and K.C. This year they won’t be looking down at anyone and it says here they finish last in the division. Play: Chicago White Sox under 80½ +1.25 (Risking 2 units).
Toronto over 69½ -1.20 (BetGameDay)
Don’t think for a second that the departure of Carlos Delgado is going to make much of a difference because it’s not. Heavy hitting first baseman in this league are a dime a dozen and most of them are grossly overpaid. Center fielder Vernon Wells is one of the game's unknown stars. Second baseman Orlando Hudson is a good player that just keeps getting better and the Jays added some offense in third baseman Corey Koskie and in trading for first baseman Shea Hillenbrand (Hillenbrand will likely do most of the DHing). A huge problem for the Jays last year and every year since the days of Tom Heinke was the bullpen. The bullpen could be pretty good with Miguel Batista , Jason Frasor, Justin Speier and Scott Schoeneweis. Batista will get the opportunity to close out games but we like Frasor, a guy with a great arm who showed plenty of promise last year. The rotation sets up like this: Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly, David Bush, Gustavo Chacin and Josh Towers. Halliday went through an extensive off-season training program and expect him to be among the leaders in everything in the AL. Ted Lilly is hot and cold but he can dominate when he’s on. Josh Towers has battled injuries his whole career but has been real sharp in the spring and in fact, so has everyone else. Alex Rios in right field is a guy to keep your eye on. The kid can flat out play defense and he can get on base too. Rios swiped 15 bases last year and along with Wells, Hinske, Hudson and Koskie, you can expect the Jays to steal plenty more. Manager John Gibbons assures that the Jays will be very aggressive on the bases. A slew of games against Tampa and Baltimore (don’t believe for a second that Baltimore will contend this year, that’s ludicrous) plus a good schedule in inter-league play, not to mention the other AL teams that aren’t much better than Toronto (that includes K.C., the White Sox, Minnesota, Detroit, Cleveland, Seattle, Oakland and Texas), and 70 wins appears very attainable indeed. The Yanks are Bosox are juggernauts, however, the Jays don’t need to win many games against that duo to go over this total. All they need to do is play .500 ball against the rest and this one goes over in late August. Jays are in much better shape than last year when they won 67 games after a horrible start in April and May. Play: Toronto over 69½ -1.20 (Risking 2.4 units to win 2).
Philadelphia under 83½ -1.05 (BetGameDay)
The Phillies chances of finishing better than fourth in the division are extremely slim when you consider that Atlanta, the Mets and Florida, along with the Nationals, are in the same division. Hell, they might finish last. The one good thing that the Phillies did was fire Mount Bowa and replaced him with a much more relaxed Charlie Manuel. However, when your rotation consists of Jon Lieber, Randy Wolf, Cory Lidle, Bret Myers and unproven Gavin Floyd (the kid has looked pretty good in the spring but was lit up big time in his last spring outing) than you’ve got more issues than a managerial change. Lidle went 10-13 last year with a 4.46 ERA in his first year in the NL and now that he’s been seen a bunch of times expect about six wins in 35 starts and an ERA over 5.00, that’s if he’s healthy. Randy Wolf’s best years are behind him and Brett Myers transition from reliever to starter panned out for one year and it wasn’t in 2004. Jon Leiber used to be good but his declining numbers and age (35) can’t be a good sign. Also, pitching at this homerun haven in Philadelphia is not good for a pitcher like Leiber who throws strikes with not much velocity and very little movement. It says here he doesn’t make it through the year as a starter. Fantasy players should stay way clear of this guy. Offensively, there’s Bobby Abreu, Jim Thome and Jimmy Rollins leading off. After that, this might be the worst hitting team in baseball. Kenny Lofton is going Ricky Henderson and just won’t hang ‘em up. If he has a good year, he’ll bat .240. David Bell at third base should be the lowest paid player in the league. Bell will get you a homer every now and than, however, when he does expect the score to be about 8-1. Someone is going to lose their job to top prospect Ryan Howard, however, Howard is a first baseman so that poses a problem. I guess he’ll either have to switch to third or play outfield or something. Anyway, we don’t see this edition of the Phillies being anything other than a bunch of aging, overpaid players (aside from Abreu and Rollins), that’ll be fortunate to win 73 games let alone 84. The starting rotation might be baseball’s worst and they’ll play half their games in this extremely friendly hitters park. That means tons of reliever innings and plenty of worn out arms. The Phillies have a great closer in Billy Wagner but to close games you have to be leading them and chances are Wagner will be praying for rallies all year long. Philly winning this many games has about the same chance of Jose Canseco winning the “Man of the Year” award. Play: Philadelphia under 83½ -1.05 (Risking 2.10 units to win 2).
Chicago White Sox under 80½ +1.25 (Bowmans)
Could have gone under 82½ at BetGameDay, however, we’d have to lay -1.20 and we much prefer a take-back of +1.25 despite the number being two games less. The White Sox have been the majors biggest underachievers for years and now things have gone from bad to worse. Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Lee, the team’s two best hitters are gone and now Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye will bat third and fourth, respectively. Now it’s one thing to put up good numbers when you’re batting with Mags and Lee in the line-up but take them out and opposing teams can easily pitch any way they want to you. Yeah, we’re talking about Konerko, a guy that is going to see a million more pitches this year that he’s not going to like. Jermaine Dye batting clean-up? C’mon. The South Side could have gone after 200 other free agents that would’ve filled that position better. Frank Thomas is out until at least mid-May and while he’ll help when he returns, The Big Hurt is no longer the Big Hurt. A.J Pierznyski will be behind the plate and that helps offensively but defensively he’s not a small liability, he’s a huge one. So is his attitude, which is why nobody else wanted him. Left fielder Scott Podsednik can fly and center fielder Aaron Rowand can move. Podsednik stole 70 bases but he had a disappointing batting average (.244) and on-base percentage (.313) last year. The plan is to go with speed and defense, and Ozzie Guillen is the right manager for that. They call it small ball and that worked well when Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson were on the mound. Thing is, the White Sox rotation consists of Freddy Garcia, Mark Buehrle, Jose Contreras, Orlando Hernandez, and John Garland. Buehrle might put up good numbers but that’s a big might. If he has a great year, he’ll win 15 games. Freddy Garcia reaped the benefits of pitching at Safeco Field in Seattle but the new Comiskey is not pitcher friendly and Garcia is a very average pitcher, mo more, no less. The rest of the rotation is weak at best and the White Sox don’t have near enough offense to compensate. The rest of the teams in the division have improved with perhaps the exception of Minnesota but the Twins are still much better than the White Sox. Chicago won 83 times last year with a decent line-up and finished ahead of Detroit, Cleveland and K.C. This year they won’t be looking down at anyone and it says here they finish last in the division. Play: Chicago White Sox under 80½ +1.25 (Risking 2 units).
