If this past season has taught us anything, it's that Obstructed View should be your go-to source for any baseball-related predictions. As we prepare to watch the Red Sox, Indians, Marlins, and Phillies battle in the playoffs, it's time to update those. Aisley, DJ, and The Enigmatic AC were unavailable, which is probably a good thing because I'm tired of compiling. Forge on, intrepid baseball observers!
Predictions
| Play-Ins | ||
| NL | AL | |
| Berselius | Braves | Rangers |
| GW | Cardinals | Rangers |
| MB21 | Braves | Rangers |
| Josh | Braves | Rangers |
| Vegas | Braves (62%) | Rangers (64%) |
| Divisional | ||
| Berselius | Nats, Giants | Yanks, Tigers |
| GW | Nats, Reds | Yanks, Tigers |
| MB21 | Braves, Reds | Rangers, Tigers |
| Josh | Nats, Reds | Rangers, A's |
| Vegas | Nats, Reds | Yanks, Tigers |
| Pennant | ||
| Berselius | Nats | Tigers |
| GW | Reds | Yanks |
| MB21 | Reds | Tigers |
| Josh | Nats | A's |
| Vegas | Nats | Yanks |
| World Series | ||
| Berselius | Nats (DeRo>all) | |
| GW | Yanks | |
| MB21 | Reds | |
| Josh | A's | |
| Vegas | Yanks | |
Four different World Series picks! Our diversity must be acknowledged.
General Thoughts on the Play-In Games, Semantic or Otherwise:
MB21: Adds excitement due to the one and done nature. Nothing has really changed regarding the playoffs. It's still an 8-team field. The only difference is that two teams in each league have to play game 163 to enter the field.
Josh: I don't like the word "play-in."
GW: I'm on board!
Most Overrated Team:
GW: The Nationals feel fluky to me. They have ridden career years from Ian Desmond, Adam LaRoche, Gio Gonzalez, and Danny Espinosa.
Josh: Yankees, but Texas has been floundering as well.
Berselius: Orioles
MB21: Yankees
Most Underrated Team:
Berselius: Braves
MB21: Reds
Josh: A's
GW: Cards (Ugh…)
Other storylines to be aware of for Cubs fans who stopped watching baseball three months ago:
Josh: Holy shit Adam Jones! Also, the A's have an Australian guy. WTF?
MB21: Dusty Baker (see below).
GW: Hey, loogit all those rookies on the A's! Bow to Kris Medlen, minor deity of second half fantasy baseball.
Berselius: I kind of stopped watching baseball three months ago, too.
Players you are excited see:
Berselius: Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera. I think I was the only Cubs fan who liked Prince Fielder when he played for the Brewers. I'm also excited to see Cabrera's comically awful defense at 3b.
GW: Manny Machado, Andrelton Simmons, Bryce Harper
MB21: Clayton Kershaw, Matt Cain, CC Sabathia, Robinson Cano
Josh: Adam Jones, post season flavored Nelson Cruz
Players you are disappointed not to see:
MB21: Starlin Castro
Berselius: Mike Trout. NL MVP Shawn Camp.
Josh: Trout – Sorry your team sucks, dude.
GW: Really, Walt Jocketty? You couldn't have used Billy Hamilton as a pinch-runner? Throw us a fucking bone, here.
Which team are you rooting for?
MB21: Yankees in the AL and the Braves in the NL.
Berselius: Nationals
Josh: Oakland
GW: Baltimore
Ex-Cubs Players you wish well or ill of:
Josh: Hope Demp does well, but I don't think this is Texas's year, again.
GW: Josh Donaldson!
Berselius: I wish Sammy Sosa well, and wish they would retire his number already. I wish all of the Cubs fans who took glee in Dempster's implosion on Wednesday ill.
MB21: I wish all of them well
Dusty Baker has been in the news due to recent health issues, do you want him to see him win it all?
MB21: I'd like to see him win it.
Berselius: I would not be unhappy to see him win, but I'm not necessarily pulling for him either.
Josh: Nah.
GW: Not in the least.
Thoughts on the TBS/MLBN/Fox Coverage:
Berselius: At least this will keep Joe Buck away from calling NFL games for a few weeks. (GW: This!)
Josh: Extremely annoying. I listen to the Gameday audio feeds.
MB21: Shit.
I hate baseball right now. Is there anything else to do?
Berselius: While sitting through a 5 hour delay in DFW on my way back from Japan, I picked up The Name of the Wind on GW's advice. Despite a shout-out in the acknowledgments to noted hack writer Kevin J. Anderson, it's been good so far. Movie-wise, if you have not seen The Cabin in the Woods, you should go buy/rent/stream it immediately.
Josh: Currently on my Kindle: "Fuckin' Lie Down Already" – Tom Piccirilli; "Belinda in the Pool" (Short story) – Douglas Clegg; "Feeding Ground" – Sarah Pinborough; One Buck Horror, Volume 5.
MB21: Dexter and Homeland air Sunday nights on Showtime at 8 and 9 pm respectively.
If you are really bored, check out some of Josh's insects snapshots from Phylum Arthropoda:
Female wolf spider with egg sac:
White-lined sphinx moth:
I usually pull for the NL in the World Series but if the A’s make it, and win, I hope it shuts all the “Moneyball” naysayers right up even though we all know what “Moneyball” actually is.
Okay in that other prediction, my dead reckoning put MB21 in front on total correct predictions. Has anyone done the breakdown?
How the hell did he even know who Mike Trout was?
@ josh:
It was a good call, but Trout was up last year. He was also #1 or #2 on every prospect list.
>For the record, a wolf spider is not an insect.
In order I want to win the whole thing:
Athletics
Nationals
Reds
Giants
Braves
Yankees
Orioles
Cardinals
Tigers
Rangers
@ josh:
fixed
@ GW:
No doubt. I don’t exactly keep my finger on the pulse of the other teams though. Especially AL. Cespedes and Darvish I’d heard of b/c of all the drama surrounding their signing.
@ GW:
(dying laughing)
@ josh:
he really wasn’t all that great last year. limited ab’s, though, and missed some time with injury.
Everyone was way off one when B-Jax would get called up.
So, is Bryce Harper the leading contender for NL ROY? According to fangraphs, there aren’t many great NL Rookies.
NL MVP opinions? There’s a bunch of guys all pretty close to the top in terms of fWAR. I guess Buster Posey b/c his team made the postseason this year and didn’t last year without him.
@ josh:
love those pics, btw.
@ josh:
I think Todd Frazier was the ROY favorite for a while, but Harper really surged near the end.
@ josh:
I think Wade Miley wins the ROY.
I also think that because Braun has the PED crap and McCutchen tailed off, that the voters will probably pick Buster Posey for MVP.
@ josh:
I think I would go with McCutcheon.
I like the Nats this year, but without Stras, they’re less fun (and less likely to win).
I’d lean towards Posey on the NL MVP, and Harper on ROY. While Miley is surely a good pick, I think the hype + strong finish will tilt things in Harper’s favor.
@ Rice Cube:
I forgot about pitchers. Yeah, I could see that, too.
@ GW:
I like him a lot, and it’s not a huge stretch to say his team is pretty much for shit without him, if we’re thinking about it in terms of team value.
B-Ref just added walk-off plays to their event finder.
Posey actually leads the league in rWAR if that makes any difference. I would definitely not be sad if he were the NL MVP.
When I saw that Josh picked the A’s, I thought, “I can’t believe he picked a Wild Card team.” My brain still hasn’t fully processed what happened in the AL West.
@ Rice Cube:
Also in fWAR, by a slim margin. No, he’s good. And his team making postseason is likely to carry weight. Just thinking like a journalist.
@ Rice Cube:
Posey is also tied with Braun in fWAR.
@ Rice Cube:
I’m rooting for him. I love that guy and was sad when he got hurt last year.
My thing with Miley is that he was the best rookie pitcher by a long shot, made the ASG and hung with the big boys in terms of his peripherals and his W/L record. He also almost got to 200 IP so I think that carries some weight. I think he’ll get more votes than people expect but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Harper as the ROY.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Posey is what Geo could’ve been if Geo decided not to suck at baseball all of a sudden.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
I know right!?
@ Rice Cube:
yeah, good call. I’m discounting Braun completely because REASONS.
Posey also has the most WARP in the NL: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1103858
I wonder how much of Posey’s WAR is because of the boost he gets for playing catcher. Some of it is probably evened out because he plays 1B a lot. Just curious.
josh wrote:
I’m not so sure. Edinson Volquez had a solid year with the Padres, it could be enough.
/BBRAA
Josh Vitters deserves some mention.
It seems like it’s Posey’s to lose, but I haven’t seen any buzz for any NL MVP candidates on the intertubes aside from Giants fans. Maybe this means someone random like Craig Kimbrel or Yadier Molina wins (dying laughing).
Also, I had no idea that Harper put up a 4.8 fWAR season. I remember him struggling a month or so ago and figured that would depress those numbers a fair amount.
Mish wrote:
My list:
Nats
(tiny gap)
Anyone else, except
(big gap)
Racist Chant Team
I must be misremembering, which is the racist one?
@ Rice Cube:
WARP gives him a positional adjustment of 5.7. rWAR gives him 5. fWAR gives him 6.2.
@ Mish:
Turn on your television and listen
@ Mish:
The Braves.
Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh…
What happened to Ask OV? I have a question.
uncle dave wrote:
Was that your question?
That was also a question.
@ Berselius:
A’s/Nats at the top, then what you said for me
@ uncle dave:
It’s in the forum
Or maybe not
@ Rice Cube:
(dying laughing) I only get one? I guess I fucked that up pretty badly.
I gotta say, my two least favorite teams are playing right now.
And here I thought starting Ross over McCann was a weird choice (I don’t know shit about Ross, btw)
Braves win.
(dying laughing) I was answering the question about players I’m excited to see as quickly as possible and for some reason thought the Dodgers were in the playoffs. I knew they weren’t, but I confused myself.
I hadn’t really thought of the Reds adding Hamilton to their playoff roster. It’s interesting. Hamilton isn’t on the 40-man roster, but the Reds do have an open spot. They have 39 guys on the 40-man roster (60-day DL guys don’t count as a roster spot).
Rice Cube wrote:
But you know if they do, it’ll be because they abandoned Moneyball. And if they don’t, it’ll be because they’re slavishly dedicated to it. I also fully expect to hear endlessly about how they got as far as they did through grit and hustle and such even though they’ve led the majors in HR over the second half of the season, much like the White Sox supposedly won the series because of small ball while being in the top five in homers.
Even if a HR is hit by someone you’ve never heard of it still counts, you guys.
/rant
@ mb21:
Yeah, they are in the process of transitioning him from ss to cf, so I think they want him to get reps in the AFL, which makes sense. But it’s just another example of a young, exciting player being kept down.
mb21 wrote:
I just figure you saw Clayton Kershaw and thought he was Buster Posey or something
/Brett Jackson
From Simmons’s mailbag today:
(dies laughing)
@ GW:
I’m not huge on stolen bases or baserunning in general. Overall it’s not of much value, but in one game, especially in the playoffs, it can be the difference between going home a loser and taking a championship home. It seems to me Hamilton is precisely the kind of 25th man you’d want on your bench. I’d think that his conversion to the outfield could be put off a few weeks if it helps them win it all. I don’t know why I never thought about this until you said something about it.
Yes, I’m exaggerating a bit when I say it’s the difference between losing and winning it all. It can certainly have a huge impact though as we saw with Dave Roberts. In the playoffs, I’d be more than happy to have an all-glove guy who couldn’t even out-hit Josh Vitters. I’d also love to have a speed guy like Hamilton.
You don’t need as many pitchers so you’re not losing any spots that you’ve been using throughout the 162 game schedule.
That was a terrible throw by Chipper.
@ mb21:
all good points.
@ mb21:
And the days off. Oy the days off!
@ Berselius:
AH. Understood. I am still not by a TV but I have no idea why I am not streaming this on my iPad right now. (dying laughing)
@ Berselius:
Speaking of Simmons, Freddie Freeman has to be the captain of the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.
What the hell just happened?
http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgersnow/la-sp-dn-kemp-shoulder-repair-20121005,0,2239756.story
I read that headline as Matt Cain for a second.
@ Berselius:
The replay I got wasn’t conclusive but I’m guessing Simmons caught Molina on his way out of the box.
@ Rice Cube:
I missed it completely. Was it an interference call?
(dying laughing), should have started reed johnson so that prado could play second
I don’t like the cardinals or anything, but good for them making the playoffs without Pujols and the genius.
Uggla —> ugly defense
(dying laughing) @ Braves
Ain’t no place to log in on the fuckin phone. And you have to enter a fake name and address for every comment – it doesn’t save them like they used to.
(dying laughing) (dying laughing) (dying laughing)
Barves
@ SK can’t log in:
It’s below the comments box. Keep scrolling until you get past the ads.
@ Rice Cube:
Rednecks > racists
Damn Cards.
@ Berselius:
How’d they get that clip of my last beer league softball game?!
Set up for a Chipper moment…
@ Rice Cube:
False.
@ Berselius:
I love Freeman’s reaction.
strokes chin, thinking “Well, now what the fuck are we gunna do?”
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Agreed.
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/projections/obstructed-view-projections-contest-results.html
Outfield fly rule!
From this morning’s thread
josh wrote:
Well, I read it that his father supports him, but still thinks that being gay isn’t completely being a man. Like: He’s my son and I love but I wish he’d be a real man…