2008 MLB predictions

Sabathia and Lebron James will be in Cleveland for many many years

 

Not many teams have strong four and five starters, and i think Westbrook is "strong", he was just slowed by injury at the beginning of the season. In august and september when we really needed him he came up huge and pitched the way he should've all season. I also have trouble believing Carmona just got lucky. The guy throughs 94 with a ton of movement and has learned to hit that inside corner on righties. Torii Hunter said that he felt like he was drunk up at the plate against Carmona and he's one of the better hitters in the league. You're right about Miller, he's coming off an injury plagued year, but i'm hoping he could be a late season help in the pen and progress into a starter in 09. The guy who really impressed me though was Aaron Laffey who came up and did nothing but throw strikes and get groundball outs. Not to mention the 5 shutout innings he threw against the Red Sox in the playoffs. He's a lot better than most teams no. 5 starter. As for C.C., i think he wants 5-7 years and the indians don't want to make that committment, but they'd better wise up because if he becomes a free agent and goes to the Yankees or Red Sox, not just the indians are screwed, everyone's screwed.

 

Love the confidence, lets hope so.

 

Then you're delusional. No non-Indians fan thinks he's "strong" or even has the potential to be "strong." Westbrook is a solid pitcher, and you do need those, but they're going to need someone else to be better than solid if they're going to compete with Detroit, Anaheim, New York, and Boston.

There's virtually no question that he got lucky, the debate is about how lucky. His LOB% was 77.6% last season, which is ludicrously high for a non-strikeout pitcher. That won't repeat, and when it comes down to about 70% or so, that ERA is going to rise. His BABIP of .281 also looks lucky, as pitchers will naturally regress to around .300. Now I'm not saying he'll be terrible, but his '08 ERA is probably going to be around 4.

I don't agree. I think he's about league average for a 5th starter.

 

Cleveland owners are tired of not winning the championships, so they're going to keep their best players. They're in a long process of trying to find them the perfect "team". Cleveland still has alot of old money, they'll be fine.

(has nothing to do with me moving to Cleveland soon)

 

I actually agree with colon there.

 

Carmona is a ground ball pitcher meaning he gets a shit load of double plays, in fact i believe he led the league in that category. Thats not luck thats movement on your sinker. He gives up a lot of hits, but limits the damage because he gets ground ball outs. There is no luck involved in getting people to ground out, there's a reason they get on top of the ball. Also he really mastered his change up at the end of the season and does have the potential to become a strikeout pitcher. I just don't think winning 19 games is a stroke of luck especially against AL teams. He was 2-1 with a 3.41 era against detroit arguably the best hitting team last year and 1-0 with a 0.00 era against the Redsox (excluding the playoffs) one of the other best hitting teams. He's only 24 so only time will tell, but i think he'll only get better. As for Westbrook, when i say strong i don't mean one of the best pitchers in the league, i mean if he hadn't been injured he would've been a legitimate candidate to win 15 games. I think thats strong. Laffey no one really knows, but not many teams have decent # 5 starters, and from what he did last year he looks like he could easily be one of the better ones next year. And by the way our pitching pretty much shut down detroit and Anaheim last year. And we took down the Yanks in the playoffs, and came one game away from taking out Boston, and the only reason we didn't was because we choked, not because of skill. And we did all that with the same pitching staff. So i'm not worried for next year, because New York's worse, Boston's the same, the Angels are still the worst of the big 5 and the Tigers didn't improve their bullpen or their starting staff (don't say Willis is an improvement, he had an era over 5 in the NL).

 

Caromona is a decent pitcher. In now way, shape, or form am I saying that he is bad. But, for one pitchers do have amazing years and then fall off the face of the earth. I know he didn't win 19 games, but there was a huge buzz surrounding John Patterson of the Nationals a few years ago and what the hell have you heard about him lately? You have to look at career numbers and whether they are consistent or not. Carmona has played 2 years in the bigs and he was 1-10 in his first year. I wouldn't go crazy just yet. He could develop into a very very good consistent pitcher, but I wouldn't say he is already. Then again, he could be sent back to AAA before this year is over.

 

Carmona

In his 1st year he was tried out as a closer, which he did terribly at because he didn't have that closer mentality. He was not bad as a starter in 06 however and in 07 when he had a full year at starter he did nothing but impress. If you watched pretty much every one of his outings like i did, you'd now how good his stuff is, and how he is developing great control. Trust me he won't be seeing AAA unless it's for car insurance.

 

without a doubt he has one of the best sinkers in baseball. I'm not saying that he isn't going to be great, I just don't think that he has reached that point yet, and I don't think that you can safely say that he is going to be great with just one stellar season. Hey, I hope the best for the guy. I'm not an indians fan, nor do I dislike them as long as they beat the shit out of the black sox.