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Well, the first two games were played this past week, with the A's and BoSox splitting a pair in Japan. Thought I'd start the regular season thread and post predictions for the coming year:

AL East

BoSox
Yanks
Jays
Devil-less Rays
Orioles

AL Central

Tiggers
Indians
Twins
ChiSox
Royals

AL West

Angels
A's
Mariners
Rangers

AL WC: Yanks

NL East

Mets
Phillies
Braves
Nationals
Marlins

NL Central

Cubs
Brewers
Reds
Cardinals
Astros
Pirates

NL West

Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Padres
Rox
Giants

NL WC: Phillies

AL MVP: Vlad Guerrero
NL MVP: David Wright
AL Cy: Verlander
NL Cy: Santana
AL ROY: ?
NL ROY: ?

More in-depth thoughts later.

-Mark

AL East
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Tampa Bay Rays
Baltimore Orioles

AL Central
Detroit Tigers
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Minnesota Twins
Kansas City Royals

AL West
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Seattle Mariners
Oakland Athletics
Texas Rangers

AL WC: White Sox

NL East
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Atlanta Braves
Washington Nationals
Florida Marlins

NL Central
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
St. Louis Cardinals
Cincinnati Reds
Houston Astros
Pittsburgh Pirates

NL West
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
Colorado Rockies
San Francisco Giants

NL WC: Phillies

It pains me as a Yankees fan to think that they won't even make the playoffs this year, but I have no faith in the pitching.

NL West:

1. Dodgers - Assuming the pitching holds up and "clutch hitting" actually exists on this team. At least Joe Torre has enough cred to tell Jeff Kent to shut his fucking pie-hole.
2. D'backs - Their pitching is better with Dan Haren in the rotation, but their hitting remains a question mark.
3. Rockies - The good news for the Rockies is that they kept most of the team that went to the World Series. However, it is the same team that hovered around .500 until they got hot in August/September.
4. Padres - There is only so far this franchise can get by with other teams' sloppy seconds. Having Jim Edmonds replace Mike Cameron in CF is already biting them in the ass. They better hope Randy Wolf's arm doesn't explode like it did last season.
5. Giants - They'll finish dead last, but it will be a quiet last place finish without Barry Bonds.

NL Central:

1. Brewers - Chris Capuano is on the 15-day DL, but they should be okay as long as Ben Sheets remains healthy and effective. The only question mark is how effective Eric Gagne will be without the juice.
2. Cubs - No Alfonso Soriano for awhile, but Lou Pinella will find a way to get these guys to win.
3. Cardinals - Let the rebuilding begin!
4. Reds - They might become a better team when Griffey finally retires and they say goodbye to Adam Dunn, the human whiff machine.
5. Astros - Yep, they needed a strong pitcher to go along with Roy Oswalt in the rotation, so they got Miguel Tejada instead.
6. Pirates - Arrr! Last place again, mateys!

NL East:

1. Mets - Letting Paul LoDuca, Shawn Green, and Lastings Milledge was clearly the case of "addition by subtraction" (though the jury is still out on Milledge). Getting Johan Santana to bolster a pretty solid rotation will get the Mets back into the post-season.
2. Phillies - They won't get lucky this season.
3. Nationals - The Jim Bowden Home For Wayward Baseball Players is the East Coast dark side of the West Coast feel good Padres, but they will break .500 and scare the hell out of the Mets and Phils.
4. Braves - Who the hell are they fooling? Their downward spiral back to the basement continues.
5. Marlins - Kinda sucks to have most of your starting rotation on the DL from last season.

Wild Card: D'backs
Pennant: Dodgers (I can dream)

AL West:

1. Angels - Even with John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar on the shelf, the Angels still own the AL West.
2. Seattle - Sorry guys, but Erik Beddard ain't the stud the writers were proclaiming him to be this past off-season.
3. A's - Let the rebuilding continue!
4. Rangers - Once again, this team will be languishing in last place while the baseball writers will place bets on who will the next to be traded for prospects. My money's on Michael Young. Milton Bradley will be good for a few meltdowns and broken bats after getting struck out.

AL Central:

1. Tigers - Two words: fucking loaded. I feel bad for Brandon Inge, but hey, if I had a chance to get Miguel Cabrera...
2. Indians - These guys are fucking loaded too and will fight the Tigers tooth and nail for first place.
3. White Sox - What's the over/under on Ozzie saying and/or doing something stupid this season?
4. Twins - I would have had them above the White Sox, but Liriano is starting the season in AAA. Boof Bonser and Livan Hernandez doesn't (and shouldn't) fill anyone with hope. The Twinkies will be okay without Torii Hunter.
5. Royals - I heard their classic powder blue jersey is coming back this season. Whether it will encourage the 2008 squad to play like it's 1978 remains to be seen.

AL East:

1. Red Sox - Too good not to repeat in the East. Even with J.D. Drew in the line-up.
2. Yankees - We'll how much Hank Steinbrenner misses Joe Torre.
3. Blue Jays - I'm almost tempted to put them above the Yanks, but it depends on Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett's health.
4. Rays - Yeah, this is the year the Rays make their big move out of the cellar and into fourth place!
5. Orioles - Maybe the O's can trade Peter Angelos for prospects too.

Wild Card: Indians
Pennant: Tigers

NL MVP: Prince Fielder
NL Cy Young: Brandon Webb
AL MVP: A-Rod
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander

AL East

Boston
New York
Toronto
Tampa Bay
Baltimore

AL Central

Cleveland
Detroit
Minnesota
Chicago
Kansas City

AL West

Anaheim
Seattle
Oakland
Texas

AL Wild Card

Detroit

NL East

New York
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Florida
Washington

NL Central

Chicago
Milwaukee
Cincinnati
St Louis
Houston
Pittsburgh

NL West

Arizona
San Diego
Los Angeles
Colorado
San Francisco

NL Wild Card

Philadelphia

Mets over Boston in the World Series

AL MVP: A-Rod
NL MVP: David Wright
AL Cy: Sabathia
NL Cy: Johan Santana
AL ROY: Evan Longoria
NL ROY: Kosuke Fukudome

Jay Gibbons will have to wait a bit longer to serve his suspension - the O's cut him with 2/11.9 remaining on his contract.

Also, the Big Eunich and Nomar begin the season on the DL.

Enjoy the new season everyone!

One month in:

Good ol' Ozzie Guillen...whenever he opens his mouth, something stupid comes out.

Roger Clemens apologizes for "mistakes in his personal life", but won't say whether or not he banged Mindy McCready.

Motown bids farewell to Jacque Jones.

The Clemens story is just too depressing to follow anymore. Actually, it reached that point for me about 3 months ago, and now it just seems determined to break every record for sleaze in the books. What a disaster.

-Mark

What's worse is that Clemens is determined to be an even bigger douchebag than he was before.

A few things of note for today:

Brandon Webb is justifying my belief in him winning his second Cy Young award. The guy has been un-freaking-believable so far.

The Donald talks shit about A-Rod.

Attention fantasy leaguers! Jimmy Rollins will re-join the Phils on Friday.

News of the day:

Fare thee well, Jim Edmonds. You were no Mike Cameron.

Richie "Safe" Sexson has been suspended six games for overreacting to a very high and nowhere near inside pitch. Check out the video here.

The Blue Jays trade for Kevin Mench and pick Brad Wilkerson off the scrap heap. Anything to make up for cutting Frank Thomas loose?

See, at the time the Frank Thomas thing made sense and most folks felt it was the right thing to do. Reed Johnson, however, is really coming back to bite Riccardi in the ass with the local media given his performance with the Cubs through the end of April and the revolving door in LF this year.

It's a shame, really, because they're largely getting insane starting pitching but no one is hitting the ball when it counts.

Oh yeah, dumping Frank Thomas when they did was a good move. I also think getting Mench and Wilkerson will help fill the hole left by Vernon Wells getting put on the DL with that broken wrist he suffered last night. With Wells joining Eckstein and McDonald on the DL, I don't see it getting easier for your guys unless the new guys start putting up serious numbers from the get-go.

I can't see Mench or Wilkerson really stepping in and jacking the Offense to be honest. Riccardi's was taking a lot of flack for picking them up after losing the starting and backup SS instead of trying to fill that hole. Wells getting injured the next day was just convenient bad luck. Guess Rios moves to centre and then those two + Stewart or Stairs fill the corners now.

They're sticking to the plot of the last few years though. When the pitching's good, offense is weak. Offense is good, the pitching is weak. Just can't seem to line up that combo year. Halladay's gotta be going nuts though. Pitched 4 complete games already and lost 3 of them.

Anybody have any thoughts on the current drive to add instant replay, which ESPN has been flogging this week?

In my view, baseball doesn't need it -- it's arguably different in football where you only play a few games a season, so it's not impossible for a single bad game-changing call to alter a team's entire season.  But in baseball, any given play, even a spectacular one, is such a small part of what the club does over the course of a year that you figure all that stuff has to even out.  This is buttressed by my view, which is not necessarily accepted by the majority, that you can't lose a game on a bad call -- if the other team is close enough to do so much damage on a single play that it changes the outcome of the game, then you haven't done your job.

It's unfortunate that there were three obviously blown calls in a single week, but how many weeks go by when you don't have that problem?  All the others -- so, let's see, a baseball season is ~ 30 weeks, times 107 years, equals not a big deal.  ISTM that if the Commissioner has been focused on keeping game times down, replay isn't the way to do it.  Baseball officiating seems in my uninformed opinion to be mostly quite good.  And to the extent that different umps have different zones or call certain plays differently on the margins, that to me is part of the game in baseball, which is often about adapting your style of play to variable conditions (park dimensions being the most obvious).

There might be legitimate things clubs can do at different stadiums to address the particular problem of making close calls on dingers easier to read.  (That is, putting up nets or fences.)  But this just doesn't seem to me like a systemic problem.

Anybody else feel differently?

--Alex

I like the idea. I was reading an article the other day that referenced a decline in over-all offense so far, versus previous years. A lot more games are much closer in score than previous years. Every run counts. Also, a different articule pointed out that, with the exception of 3 or 4 teams, every team in MLB is within 6-7 games of each other. Revenue sharing has  led to a more competitive sport.

(not that you could tell with the way my boys in the bronx are playing. sigh)

Also, there may be less games played than in the NFL, but there's always a couple MLB pennant races that come down to the wire. See the redsox or yankees every year for the last 8 years. If the Mets had won the last game of the season in '07, they'd've made it to the post-season. Was there a botched call in Shea last year? I dunno, but all it takes is one.

Lastly, I don't follow football at all. I tried last year just to do a weekly picks pool, and I couldn't be bothered. I love baseball too much. But I do know, that most football fields are regulated to the same size and dimension, right? There's a helluva lotta difference between, say Great American and Petco. And afaik, the ump's move around from stadium to stadium. Not every baseball field and stadium has the same dimensions.

The only odd thing about this topic is Selig talking about speeding up games at the same time. Instant replay is going to add time, not subtract.

Entire pitching coaching staff kept, everyone on the batting side let go and replaced with Gaston's picks.

Tough week for Managers. Gibbons, McLaren from the M's, and Willie all gone.

Sucks to be Willie, too. He'll land on his feet, though. The Mets martyred him pretty good.

Big three-way trade as Manny Ramirez goes to the LA Dodgers, Jason Bay goes to the Boston Red Sox, and Andy LaRoche, Craig Hansen, and some prospects go to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Pittsburgh offloaded both Nady and Bay within the last week.  I think they're trying to get back to the point where their whole roster makes less than A-Rod?

As a Dodgers fan, I'm cautiously giddy over having Manny.

As someone who has Manny on his fantasy team, I'm less than thrilled.

Glad to see the Phillies leading 6-0, and another win over the Mets.