AL EastSo 12 of the 19 experts say the Yankees will stay home this October. Only one -- Rob Neyer -- think the Red Sox will not make the playoffs.
Red Sox (14)
Yankees (5)
AL Wild Card
Cleveland (6)
Tigers (5)
Red Sox (4)
Yankees (2)
Angels (1)
Cubs (1) [so sez Pedro Gomez]
AL Pennant
Tigers (8)
Cleveland (6)
Red Sox (3)
Angels (1)
Yankees (1)
Of the three Red Sox pennants:
Tim Kurkjian: Red Sox over MetsAmy Nelson is also picking the Cubs to win the World Series, over Cleveand. The one Yankee pennant picker, Peter Pascarelli [now that's some aliteration], has the Chokers losing to Atlanta.
Eric Karabell: Cubs over Red Sox
Sean McAdam: Red Sox over Diamondbacks
Peter Gammons and Peter Pascarelli pick Manny Ramirez as the AL MVP. Steve Phillips and Karabell went with David Ortiz.
Jayson Stark, Nelson and Pascarelli predict Josh Beckett as the Cy Young winner.
Neyer, Enrique Rojas, Jonah Keri and Nate Ravitz have Clay Buchholz as the AL Rookie of the Year, while Karabell and Phil Rogers picked Jacoby Ellsbury.
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Robert MacLeod of the Globe and Mail (Canada's national newspaper) predicts this finish in the East:
Red SoxHis papermate Jeff Blair also picks the Red Sox to take the East (MFY 2nd) and to defeat the Mets in the World Series.
Rays
Yankees
Blue Jays
Orioles
Gomez's picks are all effed up. He the Cubs winning the AL wild card, the Tigers winning the NL Central and the Brewers winning the AL Central.
ReplyDeleteHe also says Nick Swisher will take home the AL MVP. ... Is that worse or better than John Shea's AL MVP pick of Torii Hunter?
Neyer's picks are not as bad as Gomez, but they embody a mistake that is typical of the breed. Seriously, hat are the chances that Clay Buchholtz wins Rookie of the Year and the Sox don't even make the play-offs? Or that Becket is Cy Young and the Sox don't make the play-offs, which is where Kevin Kennedy (that pompous jackass) came out? The picks are usually intellectually dishonest: picking the favorite gets you no attention; picking a long-shot does. So you make an off-beat pick. If you are right, you wave your pick around at the end of the Series to show how smart you were. If you were wrong, nobody remembers, and you keep quiet; it doesn't even hurt your reputation. I forget how many straight times Gammons picked the Jays as his "sleeper," but it got to be a joke. Neyer picked against the Sox in last year's play-offs; he was pretty negative about them all season.I think he's mad that the Sox hired Bill James instead of him...
ReplyDeleteOh: The New York Times picked the Red Sox to win the A.L. East. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe Herald's Tony Massarotti joined Nick Cafardo of the Globe in picking the Blue Jays to win the East.
ReplyDeleteSeveral SoSHers said Cafardo picked Toronto because JP always returns his calls.