Last night I mentioned that BP released it's projected standings for the 2009 season and I was just waiting to find them online before I could comment.
Well, here they are. I know the Sox and their fans will probably take it as a slight that we're picked to finish dead last in the Central, but I really don't think that's the case. The Central is very tightly packed, the Sox are only projected 5 games behind 2nd place Minnesota and 10 games behind projected champ Cleveland. Look at the rest of the divisions. The Orioles are projected to finish 32 games behind the Red Sox in the AL East. The Pirates are projected 30 games behind the Cubs. A 10-game swing is not that unreasonable,
last year five American League teams posted 5-game or greater differences from their Pythagorean record, and two more had 4-game differences.
Now, that said, this does underscore that even casual, national observers can tell that the Sox have some serious holes to plug. Spring Training kicks off Sunday in Glendale and the Sox still have not addressed some of their problems. While it's nice to think all of them can be fixed internally, the Sox's recent player development history makes me believe otherwise.
Anyways, when combined with yesterday's predictions from Cleveland, the running sum of combined AL Central predictions is:
- Minnesota (average preditced position: 1.5)
- Cleveland (2.0)
- WHITE SOX (3.5)
- Detroit (3.5)
- Royals (4.5)
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