Thursday, July 16, 2009

Wishful Thinking for the Second Half

Just about every baseball writer there is writes some kind of post or article concerning:

- First half surprises
- First half awards
- Second half predictions
- Second half things to look for
- Trades that will help teams in the second half...

You get the idea. It's an age-old tradition, mostly because there isn't much else to write about for three days during the All Star break. Hey, did you catch that, "Legends/Celebrity Softball" game? No. Didn't think so. Anyway, since we have to write something to fill the dead space between the schedule, the Fan might as well do the expected. Let's add a little twist to things though. What follows is a list of second half wishes followed by what will probably happen instead:

Wishful Thinking: The Brewers will win the National League Central. The Fan just digs the way Braun and Fielder relate to each other and do that cool boxing routine when one of them does something good.
What Will Probably Happen: The Cardinals will win the division. Grrrr...that LaRussa.

Wishful Thinking: The Marlins will win the National League East. After watching that team for two and a half weeks while on vacation in Florida, the Fan really enjoyed that team.
What Will Probably Happen: The Phillies will win the division. Grrrr...Hate that same old same old.

Wishful Thinking: The Twins will win the American League Central. Morneau and Mauer are just amazing players playing in a small market with a stadium that has baggies for outfield walls.
What Will Probably Happen: The Tigers will win the division. But that's pretty cool too because no one expected them to.

Wishful Thinking: Roy Halladay will win the Cy Young Award...while pitching the entire season for the Blue Jays.
What Will Probably Happen: Halladay gets traded to the Yankees for Joba Chamberlain and the Yankees top centerfield prospect.

Wishful Thinking: Pedro Martinez will come back with a swagger and win eight out of his ten starts.
What Will Probably Happen: He'll pitch eight games, go 3-3 with an ERA around 5.00 and then get hurt.

Wishful Thinking: The Dodgers will face the Red Sox in the World Series and Manny Ramirez will personally destroy his old team. Now that would be fun to watch.
What Will Probably Happen: The Dodgers will lose the NLCS and all the sanctimonious writers will say it's Manny's fault.

Wishful Thinking: Micah Owings will go on a run and win eight out of twelve while hitting six more homers.
What Will Probably Happen: He'll continue to pitch one good game and two bad ones and hit the occasional bomb.

Wishful Thinking: The Yankees face the Red Sox in the ALCS and purge the 2004 series from memory.
What Will Probably Happen: The Bay Rays overtake the Yankees for the wildcard and Girardi will get fired. Personally, this observer thinks Girardi has done a great job.

Wishful Thinking: Jeter will end the season at .320/.390/.480 with 200 hits, 100 runs scored and 15 homers.
What Will Probably Happen: He'll do exactly that and cement his HOF credentials.

Wishful Thinking: The Angels and Mariners will fade again and the Rangers will win the AL West. It would be so much fun to see a different team in the playoffs!
What Will Probably Happen: The Rangers will be the team that fades and those dang Halos will win the darn thing again.

Wishful Thinking: Albert Pujols will win the triple crown. He is such a cool guy and seems as great a guy as he is a player.
What Will Probably Happen: He'll lose out on one of the categories because everyone walks the guy now. Personally, that's crap and any manager who does that is cheating baseball and cheating the fans...and is a gigantic buck buck buck chicken.

Wishful Thinking: Carl Crawford steals 100 bases, the first guy to do it in decades.
What Will Probably Happen: He'll end up with 80 or something.

Wishful Thinking: Tim Wakefield will win 20 games this year.
What Will Probably Happen: He'll win 16 or so.

Wishful Thinking: We'll have plenty to talk about because MLB is always new and always exciting and we'll see things we've never seen before.
What Will Probably Happen: Exactly that because that's why we love this game.

1 comment:

Josh Borenstein said...

If the Yankees DO make that trade, they would make out like bandits IMO. Joba is injury-prone and hasn't lived up to the hype as a starter. Austin Jackson may wind up being good. Then again, he may not. With Halladay, you know what you're getting. He would be the second coming of Catfish Hunter.