Monday, March 29, 2010

MLB Power Rankings: Preseason Edition



Presented to you completely homer-free:

1. New York Yankees
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. Boston Red Sox
4. St. Louis Cardinals
5. Seattle Mariners
6. Colorado Rockies
7. Tampa Bay Rays
8. Atlanta Braves
9. Minnesota Twins
10. Los Angeles Dodgers
11. Los Angeles Angels
12. Texas Rangers
13. San Francisco Giants
14. Arizona Diamondbacks
15. Florida Marlins
16. Chicago Cubs
17. Milwaukee Brewers
18. Detroit Tigers
19. Chicago White Sox
20. Cincinnati Reds
21. Oakland Athletics
22. Washington Nationals
23. Houston Astros
24. New York Mets
25. Toronto Blue Jays
26. Baltimore Orioles
27. Cleveland Indians
28. Pittsburgh Pirates
29. Kansas City Royals
30. San Diego Padres

In the next couple of days, I'm going to do an in-depth preview with predictions and what not. Stay tuned for that.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I Been Gone A Long Time...

Man, I'm a bad blogger. I haven't posted in ages - to my loyal followers, I sincerely apologize for that. I even promised Shelby I'd keep it updated; that also is right on the border of making me not only a bad blogger (as stated above), but a bad friend too.

Anyway, with this being the first day of what is, in my mind, the greatest series of sporting events of the year (outside of the Major League Baseball postseason), I mostly wrote this post so I could share my bracket with y'all:



I'm telling you right now: take that shit to the bank, because it's as good as money. Also, I have a few thoughts on this year's NCAA Tournament concerning the seeding, matchups, upset picks, and the like.

First of all, I think BYU is under-seeded for the fourth straight season. In the past three years, they've lost 8-9 games to Xavier and Texas A&M (twice), and you could argue that any team who is put in the position of being under-seeded and having to play stronger competition could fall victim to the same first round demise. However, with all of that being said, I can't say that I necessarily feel sympathy for the Kewgz, either. Here's the deal - although they technically have the right to complain about seeding, they can only do it so much. Why, you ask? I'll lay it all out for you here: BYU does not/cannot/will not play on Sundays. So, that takes them out of the mix for half of the bracket each year (because half of the first and second round games are of the Friday/Sunday format, while the others are Thursday/Saturday games). This significantly reduces the committee's options for BYU, which is what is leading to them being grossly under-seeded in some years. I don't really want to get into the whole rivalry aspect of things (as everyone knows, I'm a huge Utah fan), but maybe you should win a first round game before being concerned about possibly having to play on a Sunday? Just sayin'...

Also, as you can see by my bracket, I have laid out quite a few upset possibilities. The one I truly believe will happen is the Siena Saints over the Purdue Boilermakers. The Boilermakers simply aren't the team that they were before Robbie Hummel was injured, and really shouldn't be a 4-seed. Meanwhile, Siena is big game-tested and despite their conference affiliation, is a very good team. Don't be surprised if, or should I say, when the Saints beat Purdue tomorrow. Another upset that I believe is very likely to happen is the Murray State Racers over the Vanderbilt Commodores. For some reason, I just cannot picture the Commodores as a legitimate college basketball program. Meanwhile, the Racers went 30-4 this season and outscored their opponents by 17 points per game. To sum it all up, Purdue and Vanderbilt are fucked.

I'm going to post pictures of my basement soon (which I'll say is coming along very nicely). My deadline date is still locked in for April 5th - which, not-so-coincidentally, is the same day as MLB's opening day. It's safe to say that I won't be at work that day, and that I'll be taking in a whole lot of spirits - to go with a whole lot of baseball.