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A 2013 MLB Preview Befitting A Bathroom Break

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Excited for the 2013 MLB season yet tired of reading all those overly analytical, long form previews? Well then you’ve come to right spot as this preview will teach you everything you need to know about the upcoming baseball season in the amount of time it takes for you to finish up and flush.

AL EAST

The Rays will win the division because of their starting pitching. Second place is anyone’s guess but a lot of people seem to like the Blue Jays because of all their offseason moves but remember most of those guys were part of a Marlins team last year that lost close to 100 games. The Red Sox have rookie, and Grapefruit League MVP, Jackie Bradley Jr plus old pitching coach John Ferrell is back to restore some of the karma Bobby Valentine demolished in his turkey BLT wrap. The Yankees, well you probably won’t recognize many of the faces they’ll be trotting out there Opening Day as Jeter, A-Rod and Teixeira have been replaced by Nunez, Youkilis and Overbay. I like the Orioles to finish 2nd and earn their second straight wild card bid because well I’m a homer and Buck Showalter may or may not be my father.

AL Central

Breaking News!!!! Justin Verlander is about to get paid millions upon millions of dollars because he wins Cy Young’s and dates supermodels like Kate Upton. The Tigers roll to the best record in the AL because the White Sox are rebuilding, the Indians can’t pitch or play defense, the Royals still aren’t all that great even with James Shields, and the Twins have turned into a total small market disaster who may as well suite up Gary Gaetti, Kent Hrbek and Dan Gladden.

AL West

Mike Trout will be the best baseball player ever named after a fish. Better than Tim Salmon, Catfish Hunter and Kevin Bass. If the Angels can stay healthy, I’m looking at you Albert Pujols and you Josh Hamilton, then they’ll win the division in front of the Rangers, A’s and a surprisingly spunky Mariners team led by a rejuvenated Jason Bay of all people. Oh, almost forgot to mention the Astros who this season will be making their initial foray in the American League where they will lose over 100 games. But hey, congrats on those sweet retro uniforms.

NL East

DC is flooding with “Natitude” and for good reason as the Nationals have the best team in baseball, at least on paper. The only thing that could derail Washington from winning the pennant is if William Howard Taft runs into Stephen Strasburg and blows out the ace’s ACL. The Braves are going to hit a ton of home runs and the Phillies will surprise those pundits who have pencilled in their demise a bit prematurely. The Mets outfield belongs in the Roosevelt Island recreational softball league while the Marlins have Giancarlo Stanton and…Giancarlo Stanton.

NL Central

The Reds remain the team to beat followed closely by the Cardinals and Brewers. The Pirates probably won’t reach that elusive .500 record and the Cubs are at least two years away from respectability even with franchise cornerstones Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo.

NL West

The Giants won’t hit but they can pitch while the Dodgers are spending so much money that owner Magic Johnson has had to raise the price of a Starbucks triple shot skim milk latte to over $10. The Diamondbacks are a trendy pick for the wild card because manager Kirk Gibson has threatened all Arizona beat reporters with a dead leg and wedgie if they don’t pump up his ball club. The Rockies and Padres are basically irrelevant until the Yankees or Red Sox can pull off a massive deal for Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.

AL Playoff Teams: Rays, Tigers, Angels, Orioles and White Sox

NL Playoff Team: Nationals, Reds, Giants, Dodgers and Phillies

World Series: Tigers over Nationals in 7

view from Nationals Park courtesy of @Raprasrav

 

March Madness: Follow The Money

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Your sports infographic of the day comes from of all places the New Yorker that final bastion of meandering profiles and incongruent animal cartoons. This particular interactive feature charts out March Madness results by budget with a specific eye towards determining whether or not the money a college basketball programs spends and earns determines their success in the NCAA tournament. For instance, Kansas, the top seed in the south region, has $13M in expenses compared to $16M in revenue. Conversely, Western Kentucky, the Jayhawks second round opponent, spent only $3M with $3M in revenue. So, was money the primary reason Kansas defeated Western Kentucky by a final score of 64-57 or are there other more important factors involved?

In my opinion it’s hard not to listen to Deep Throat and “follow the money” as programs like Kansas can afford to spend more money to attract the best coaches who’ll then be given access to vast amounts of recruiting resources which will help them attract the nation’s best high school basketball talent. If each round of the NCAA tournament was played as best of 7 series then you’d normally see the bigger budgeted programs win out. But because it’s single elimination schools like Florida Gulf Coast, $1M expenses, can defeat two schools, Georgetown $10M and San Diego St $4M, that spend a lot more money. The irony is that with FGC’s improbable run to the Sweet 16 school regents are scrambling to raise the cash necessary to keep coach Andy Enfield around for a few more years.

Take a look at this New Yorker article, it’s really interesting and who knows, may come in handy as you fill out the remainder of your bracket. – JL

view of the NCAA Money Bracket courtesy of @NewYorker 

Instant Bracketification: Sweet Sixteen Edition

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Welcome back to work America as we gear up for the Easter holiday and another heavy dose of college basketball starting Thursday. I took a quick glance at the brackets this morning and here is what I could come up with for a quick preview of the Sweet Sixteen.

Midwest (Indianapolis)

(12) Oregon is the best example of the NCAA selection committee screwing up tournament seedings as the Ducks are obviously much better than a #12. (2) Duke is led by Mason Plumlee a really athletic, active big man who reminds me of those super zombies from Will Smith’s I Am Legend. My original pick (3) Michigan St. is still going strong, even after that unfortunate towel throwing incident, amd I won’t switch directions even though with each game (1) Louisville suffocates their competition it is becoming increasingly likely that the Cardinals roll into Atlanta without so much as sweating through a single digit game.

West (Los Angeles)

 (9) Wichita St. is a well coached mid major representing the Valley Conference, the best conference nickname name in all of collegiate athletics, well ahead of the Big Ten’s Legends and Leaders, and (13) La Salle, or “The Salle”, is named after my 2nd favorite European explorer right behind Jacques Cartier who “discovered” what is now known as the St. Lawrence River. Neither of these teams stand a chance against either (2) Ohio St. who lives to fight another round thanks to Aaron Craft’s last second 3-pointer against Temple, and (6) Arizona. Fans are generally split on Craft with race being brought up as a factor in how you potentially view the Buckeye point guard. White, black or orange the kid always plays the game at full speed and has the cojones to take the big shot, which is part of the reason I’m sticking with my original pick of OSU.

East (Washington) 

(4) Syracuse is flying under the radar right now mostly because they played their second and third round games out in San Jose but also because all people can talk about is the looming NCAA bombshell that could potentially invalidate all the Orange accomplish this March. I’d love to pick (3) Marquette, my 6th favorite explorer, but find it hard to go against (1) Indiana even though the Hoosiers will face a stern test in (2) Miami. And regarding my earlier pick of UNLV, I was under the incorrect assumption that the Running Rebels were still being led by Stacey Augmon and Larry Johnson which is why I mistakenly took them to reach the Final Four.

South (Arlington, Tx)

(4) Michigan is today’s trendy pick after blowing out yesterday’s soup du jour VCU and here’s hoping the basketball team has more success in Cowboy Stadium than the Wolverine football team which was destroyed by eventual national champions Alabama in Arlington last fall. (1) Kansas is solid but not flashy which is the exact opposite of (15) Florida Gulf Coast, a school that even Siri believes doesn’t exists. The Eagles are now unfortunately facing some minor backlash following their jubilant dismissal of San Diego St which should be expected from older internet trolls who long for the days of Vince Lombardi and “act like you’ve been there before and you’ll be there again”. The (3) Florida Gators and Billy Donovan have been there before and are the best bet to get there again this year.

Semifinals

Michigan St over Ohio St

Florida over Indiana

National Championship

Florida over Indiana

view from Arlington, Texas courtesy of @gashaheen

Harvard Wins One For The NESCAC

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Harvard’s win over New Mexico in the second round of the NCAA tournament was good news for all of us hoping to see the New England Small Conference Athletic Conference make the leap to DI athletics. The Ivy League, just like the NESCAC, does not award athletic scholarships, which certainly didn’t look like it mattered Thursday evening as the Crimson’s speed around the perimeter created a lot of open three point shots exposing the sluggish Lobo defense, eventually busting a whole bunch of NCAA brackets.

The NESCAC is at the top of DIII athletics with schools like Williams, Bowdoin, and Trinity competing at some of the highest levels of collegiate competition regardless of level. ‘Cac schools do not award athletic scholarships relying instead on massive endowments to award need based scholarships to offset the exorbitant costs of higher education helping to create and promote socio-economic diversity.  Generally  NESCAC schools are smaller than the Ivies but the infrastructure exists within some of these rural New England institutions to increase the size of the student body and properly support DI athletic programs.

The questions for the NESCAC is why should they make the move to DI? The answer is simple: exposure and revenue. The NESCAC brand is already strong with over achieving high schoolers looking for an alternative to the Ivy and Patriot Leagues and adding DI athletics would not dilute the applicant pool but rather serve to increase the national profile of schools that are still relying heavily on the Northeast to fill their dormitories. More bodies in beds means more tuition money. Plus former NESCAC athletes like myself would love the move which will lead to an increase in school pride and a rise in annual giving.

Plus with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany threatening a move to DIII should Ed O’Bannon’s lawsuit against the NCAA go through there could all of a sudden be a massive void in top tier collegiate athletics which could be filled by the likes of Wesleyan, Amherst, and Tufts. I say the NESCAC should call Delany’s bluff and 10 years from now I want to be talking about the Bates College Bobcats pushing Butler in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Ok, maybe not Bates but you get my point. – JL

view from Harvard gymnasium courtesy of @SchwartzHub

Alfonso Soriano Made Me Do It

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I recently received an email from my Uncle Bruce, a lifelong Chicago Cubs fans, about his team’s prospects for the upcoming 2013 MLB season and what follows reveals absolutely everything and nothing about what it feels like to be a Northsider:

Most Cub fans know two things for sure; they will never win the World Series, and this is the year they win the World Series.

Parsing through this brief response may seem like child’s play but you’re gonna need more than a slide ruler and abacus to sift through the many contradictory levels of optimism and self loathing perfectly defined in 140 character or less. If Bruce is right, and I for one would never question his loyalty to Wrigley Field, then rooting for the 2013 Chicago Cubs is going to feel a lot like watching Requiem For A Dream except for that scene where Jared Leto loses his arm.

With all the carnage and depravity set to take place in Wrigleyville again this season got me wondering whether or not some deranged Cubs fanatic has ever used the team’s long history of losing as a motive for committing a crime. In this case, if the judge also happened to be a fan would the defendant be absolved of all wrong doing? Inquiring minds want to know. – JL

 view from outside Wrigley Field courtesy of @ScottFeinberg