My Baseball Predictions for 2006

As a Lifetime Phillies Phan transplanted to New Orleans many years ago, now working in Houston due to Katrina, but returning to New Orleans after Easter, I have bought into a lot of NFL Saints preseason hype for years, only to be disappointed. I feel less optimistic right now about the Phillies than I normally due for a mediocre Saints team. Here’s why: Preseason games mean nothing. If the Phillies come out of the gate strong like they did in 1993, I’ll jump on the Magic Carpet. If they start bad like Phillies teams of recent years, it’ll just be heartbreak all summer as they try to get back to .500. If Floyd and Madson are the best two pitchers, why are they 4th and 5th in the rotation? The fifth guy never pitches as much and it appears that Gavin Floyd is the best pitcher right now. Lieber and Lidle don’t excite me. The bullpen has really dropped off from last year. Do we have a closer? Who knows? Will the old man, 38 year old closer Tom Gordon, ride a wheelchair from the bullpen and use a cane while on the mound? Offensively, we still have the black hole in the lineup. (the black hole is third baseman David Bell and catcher Mike Lieberthal who bat 7th and 8th in the lineup and rarely provide any offense.)
Before a season starts we always see our favorite team in its most favorable light. We always view the opposition in less than glowing terms. I think we’re wearing Phillies Pink eyeglasses when we look at this team. The Phillies broke my heart as a boy in 1964 and always let me down with those great teams under Danny Ozark that couldn’t win in the playoffs in the mid 70s. I see the Phillies as a team on the downslide in the beginning of the rebuilding process. I don’t see them in the playoffs let alone the World Series. I fully expect a third place division finish and I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they finish higher. However, saying that, in baseball anything can happen as attested by a humorous shirt I saw this week sporting an Apollo 13 theme. The shirt read, “Houston...We have a World Series.” I see a Red World Series, a rematch from 2004, with the Cardinals winning over the Red Sox.