Yeah, sure, everyone and their stepbrother are making their standard preseason predictions this weekend (here's mine!), but I think more fun than who-gets-to-come-in-second-in-the-AL-West is just predicting randomly specific things about various players and teams.
I'll get the ball rolling:
- Howie Kendrick will hit higher than .340, more than 45 doubles, will walk twice as much per AB than he did prior to '09, and will steal 30 bags. He'll also be top 5 in MVP balloting. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.
- Gary Matthews will either have less than 100, or more than 400 ABs for the Angels.
- One of our Opening-Day-roster pitchers will be traded before June 1.
- The A's will spend at least 30 days in first place.
- The Royals will be this year's Miracle Team in the AL.
- Jeff Mathis will hit at least .240, with decent power. Angels catcher will combine for at least 35 home runs.
- The team will score more than 5 runs per game, hit the most homers of any Scioscia squad since 2000, all while flirting with the league lead in GIDP.
- There will be strong pressure -- on Halos Heaven at least! -- to cut Justin Speier during the year.
- Jered Weaver will lead the team in wins, and finish top 15 in Cy Young voting.
- At least until one of our first four hitters gets hurt, we will be top 2 in the league in first-inning runs.
- There will be collective amnesia on this site about how much people were hating on Howie Kendrick after last year's playoffs.
- Mike Scioscia will be the subject of an interesting Sports Illustrated feature.
- At least two L.A. Times sportswriters will talk about how the Angels have somehow failed to "capture the imagination of L.A."
- Jeff Miller will write a lot more horseshit, like his column of today, which is a neat encapsulation of Everything That Went Wrong With Newspaper Sportswriting.
Your list?
Poll
Did you read Jeff Miller's column today?
Enough to make me want to secede from California, yes. (10 votes)
Who is Jeff Miller? (108 votes)
You're right, Matt, this is emblematic of everything that's gone wrong with newspaper sportswriting for decades. (38 votes)
All of the above. (41 votes)
Lighten up, dude. (50 votes)
247 total votes




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