This year’s darlings from Queens are hardly perfect, not to mention every other team in the NL East division is competing for the consolation prize after the Washington Nationals, but there’s elements to like on the Mets roster.
National League West, you have been put on notice. The Padres are serious about becoming playoff contenders in the NL after years of futility in sleepy San Diego. Padres newly-minted general manager A.J. Preller gave the team a significant facelift in the offseason with an eye for contending right now.
While the Twins were for years a resourceful small-market ballclub in the mold of the Oakland Athletics, recent seasons have seen this franchise slump.
After years of penny-pinching and fire sales, many people around baseball are high on the Marlins, and with good reason.
The Royals epic post season run fell 90 feet short as they watched the tying run get stranded at 3rd base in game 7 of the 2014 World Series. Now, Kansas City will look to use that momentum and swagger that got them to the World Series and hope to repeat their performance in 2015.
The trend in Cincinnati over the years has been a downward spiral. In 2012, the Reds won an astounding 97 games. It looked as if baseball was becoming relevant once again in Cinci. 2013 followed the same trend as they racked up 90 wins.
It’s been hard to not hear about the Indians this off season. The media has given them massive recognition and some have even deemed them as a potential World Series contender.
Billy Beane as always been deemed a genius when it comes to baseball. He’s taken the lowest of teams and turned them into World Series contenders. He’s going to have that exact task this year as the Oakland A’s shipped away many veterans this offseason as they went toward the youth direction for 2015.
The Arizona Diamondbacks will be looking to improve upon a disastrous 2014 campaign that saw the team go 64-98 when they take to the field in 2015 with a lineup eerily similar to the one that underwhelmed in a big way last year.
The class of the AL Central comes in as slim as a favorite as they’ve been in quite some time. With the Indians returning their whole team, the Royals becoming relevant following their 2014 run, and now the White Sox making a splash in the offseason, the Central is now jammed packed with 4 legit contenders.
The Cubs, by far, made the biggest moves this off season and grabbed the attention of bettors. The question people are beginning to ask are whether or not the Cubs can live up to the big expectations people are giving them or is it just an overhype? Chicago will look to bring the World Series trophy to Wrigley for the first time since 1908.
The Orioles lost their 2014 big bopper, OF/DH Nelson Cruz, to the Seattle Mariners in free agency, but the restoration of health of some of the club’s either key pieces might be enough to pretty well mitigate that departure.
The L.A. Dodgers have all the pieces to be one of the league’s best teams and barring a slew of catastrophic injuries or misfortune this team should clean up in the NL West for a third straight season.
There has been a lot of hype and disappointment with the Toronto Blue Jays over the last couple of seasons.
After some very lean times the Pittsburgh Pirates have been to the playoffs in back to back seasons. They are in a very competitive division – the NL Central – but there is no reason they should not be in the mix again in 2015.
The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most consistent franchises around. Since 2000 they have missed the playoffs only four times. Over that stretch they have won two World Series and played in two others. In short if you have been betting against these guys you have not been making money.
