Via The Book Blog, Vegas over/under lines. If I had to pick two, I’d take the over on the Marlins and the under on the Red Sox. The Marlins seem on the cusp of maturing into a very good team, and the owners, with the union on their back, might spend the money to improve the team mid-season. The Red Sox are one of two teams with a predicted high win total. The team strikes me as a bit more injury prone than the Yankees, so I’d take the under on them. Please do not bet on my advice.
I’ll take the over on the Orioles. They’ve made a bunch of good, non-splashy moves this offseason. And I’ll take the under on San Francisco. They weren’t actually very good last year, and management is going to continue to give at bats to Bengie Molina.
The Yankees do seem low, but you have the age factor (Jeter, A-Rod-due to hip, Posada and Mo), and more importantly, depth at starting pitching (AJ and Andy might be a tad brittle, as is Joba). Unlike the Red Sox, the Yankees seem in a poorer position to absorb salary at the trading deadline to fill a hole.
The real wild card in the East, no pun intended, is how much will TBR and the Orioles improve. Both could be a surprise and take away wins from the Red Sox and Yankees. OTOH, a couple of injuries and TBR might just go into dumping salary mode, and trade Pena and Crawford for prospects.
I could see the Yankees winning 100+ games this year, and the Red Sox failing to hit 90, but both of those events would require a health dividend for the Yankees and 0 age related declines, and injuries or age related declines (Papi) for the Red Sox.
The Red Sox could approach 100 wins if Cameron and Beltre(contract year)like Fenway. Papi is also in a defacto contract year, as is V-Mart, and Pedroia is coming off a poor season for him. JD and perhaps Scutaro could be expected to regress.
I would expect some regression from Jeter and Swisher. Their new CF’er might have a big year, and A-Rod might have a big year if he can DH some against LHP.
I think they did a good job hedging their bets at 94.5 and 94, but frankly, when was the last time an AL East team failed to win 95 games. I would rather take the over on either (both) the Red Sox or (and) the Yankees than the under, but better do neither and just enjoy the games.
I always enjoy Maddog Russo going over the over/unders for football and baseball.
I’ll take Houston under and Minnesota over. I think the Astros are finally getting ready to get young and may start dealing. Like the Twins in a new park. Seems to help teams.