As my friend Butch da Bookie sez…“Bah! There’s just no juice in year-long O/U’s!” (sucked on too many Gummi Bear lemons…I bet)
My picks are below. The numbers in brackets represent projections made by Sean Smith’s CHONE projection system, The Hardball Times, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system, and for fun, baseball superscribe Joe Posnanski. The idea is simply that we have some numbers out there that you can compare to the Vegas odds in making your picks. As always, you’ll want to do some research beyond those big, broad numbers.
(Also, these are for GUMMI BEAR PURPOSES ONLY. I’m not looking for credit if you win so many gummis that you need a root canal, nor blame if you go into candy debt.)
Atlanta Braves +350 to win NL East
One of the things I’ve noticed since starting these annual exercises is that the sharps have gotten smarter. The spread of projection systems like PECOTA, CHONE and ZIPS gives everyone – including Vegas – a chance to think analytically along with the rest of us, and also predict where people might lay their money. That means fewer and fewer great over/under opportunities every year.
With that in mind, we’re taking the Braves to usurp the Phillies in the NL East. That +350 line is amazing for a team this good. The Braves trot out a deep starting rotation led by Jair Jurrjens, a now-healthy Tim Hudson and young ace Tommy Hanson. They’re very good up the middle, led by Brian McCann and Yunel Escobar. And the great, big wild card is Jason Heyward, who’s hit so many bombs during spring training that Braves employees are considering parking their cars in Alabama.
The Phils bring back their loaded infield, along with Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino, and a pitching staff now led by the great Roy Halladay. But they still have a shaky bullpen, they’ve had a long run of great health, and they might be due for some bad luck this season. Considering the Giants – whose lineup is completely miserable outside of Pablo Sandoval – are a mere +300 to win the NL West, this Braves line looks too good to pass up.
Reader Comments and Retorts
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1. Ivan Grushenko of Hong Kong Posted: March 12, 2010 at 05:48 PM (#3478094)Oh, and Jake Peavy's ankle injury is not an issue any longer.
It's not that good health is bad, of course. It's that the Phillies have had a remarkable run of good fortune, and that baseball, like any sport, is too chaotic and random for good things to last forever. There's no hard analysis in there, just an observation that eventually the other shoe always drops.
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