It’s prognosticating season for the United Cardinal Bloggers and Baseball Bloggers Alliance, so it’s time to reveal our fearless predictions for the 2010 season. As for the standings, we consulted Neil Paine’s Marcel-projected standings, BaseballProjection’s Depth-chart standings and their starting-lineup standings and the PECOTA version. Here’s how we see things going* in the National League this year:

The Cardinals and Dodgers are pretty much consensus picks, and for good reason: They have two of the most balanced lineups in the league, and certainly in their respective divisions. The only competition that the Cardinals will have will be their own bodies, though the emergence of Jaime Garcia mitigates some of the injury risk among the starting pitching. Beyond the Cardinals in the Central, the second through fourth spots are going to see a lot of churn, with the Cubs, Brewers and Reds all fighting it out. In the East, a lot of people like the Braves this year, and though they have a meritorious case, we prefer the Phillies’ lineup and first two starters. After all, one team gained Roy Halladay and the other lost Javier Vazquez.

And for the junior circuit:

We know, we know: No one is picking the Mariners to win the West, especially after last week’s news on Cliff Lee, except maybe the statheads, which title we’d proudly accept. One things for sure: They’re going to have the best defense in baseball (John Dewan projects them to save more than twice as many runs as the next-best defensive team). Though they have some delicate pieces — Milton Bradley and Ken Griffey, Jr. — and batters who generate a lot of outs — Jose Lopez and Jack Wilson — their frontline starters are enough to keep them in a division of undistinguished teams.

*On principle, we don’t pick wild-card winners or World Series champions.

This entry was posted by Pip on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 at 9:56 pm and is filed under fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.