Sports Illustrated Predicts

I was reading over CNNSI.com this morning and they have provided us with their Sports Illustrated’s Season Predictions. SI predicts an all California World Series, with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim beating the Los Angeles Dodgers ( Eazy E would be proud).

Notably, the publication predicts the Cleveland Indians to win the AL Central and the Yankees to win the AL East. SI predicts the Atlanta Braves and the Boston Red Sox as the Wild Card teams for each league. Not much surprise there, as they’ve practically done this for the past 10 years it seems.

They rate the Washington Nationals as the #30 ranked team in all of baseball, just behind the Royals (#29) and the Devil Rays (#28). Surprising to me, they pick the beloved Reds to finish dead last in the NL Central, which I can tell you will NOT happen. It’s amazing that a cube monkey like me can out-predict ‘paid experts’ but I am telling you, these guys are just crazy with some of their stuff.

Overall, Sports Illustrated just doesn’t go out on a limb too much. They don’t really pick any team to come out of nowhere to really make a change from last season, say a team that emerges as a Detroit Tigers 2006 squad did. If you had to make the case for anyone, it would have to be the Indians, whom they have getting knocked off by the mighty Yankees in the first round of the playoffs.

Time will tell, as in the week leading up to the season we will have many different publications predicting How They’ll Finish.