Sunday, March 31, 2013

2013 Predictions

AL EAST
  1. Toronto Blue Jays (90-72)
  2. Tampa Bay Rays* (87-75)
  3. New York Yankees (83-79)
  4. Boston Red Sox (80-82)
  5. Baltimore Orioles (77-85)
AL CENTRAL
  1. Detroit Tigers (93-69)
  2. Cleveland Indians (82-80)
  3. Kansas City Royals (79-83)
  4. Chicago White Sox (77-85)
  5. Minnesota Twins (66-96)
 AL WEST
  1. Los Angeles Angels (93-69) 
  2. Texas Rangers* (91-71) 
  3. Oakland Athletics (83-79)
  4. Seattle Mariners (76-86)
  5. Houston Astros (56-106)
    NL EAST
  1. Washington Nationals (95-67)
  2. Atlanta Braves* (91-71)
  3. Philadelphia Phillies (79-83)
  4. New York Mets (72-90)
  5. Miami Marlins (65-97)
  NL CENTRAL
  1. Cincinnati Reds (92-70)
  2. St. Louis Cardinals* (89-73)
  3. Milwaukee Brewers (80-82)
  4. Pittsburgh Pirates (76-86)
  5. Chicago Cubs (68-94)
  NL WEST
  1. San Francisco Giants (90-72)
  2. Los Angeles Dodgers (88-74)
  3. Arizona Diamondbacks (86-76)
  4. San Diego Padres (79-83)
  5. Colorado Rockies (68-94)
POSTSEASON

Monday, March 11, 2013

1995 World Baseball Classic

While watching the World Baseball Classic, I couldn’t help but consider what this would have looked like in the past. Two hours later, I had come up with a provisional roster for the WBC if it had taken place in 1995.

I chose the year basically at random. The first WBC was in 2006, so I started out just going back a decade. But then I thought that it would make sense to have the first WBC in ‘95 (in the summer, say) as a way for the industry to apologize for the player’s strike.

I did the best I could to determine nationality for each roster, but it was difficult, as I was just going through Baseball Reference and clicking on players to find out their nationality. After I was nearly done, I found this tremendously helpful page at Baseball Almanac which shows a list of players’ nationality by year. It almost saved me a lot of trouble.