Prologue to The Hunt for Red October?

It's with a sigh of relief that I confirm that baseball season is, indeed, here again.  I'm in the lab working, which means I have to watch for the numbers to change in the box scores online rather than watch the Reds shut down the Marlins in person or on tv/radio.  Even though I'm working, Opening Day is still a holiday on my calendar.  So I'll use 15 minutes to look ahead at the 2012 season.  It should be pretty entertaining in 6 months to see how wildly inaccurate my predictions are.  Sean Marshall just closed out the 9th in 11 pitches, getting the season off on a winning foot.  Even though the hype about the Reds in the NL Central seemed to temper by the end of Spring Training, the additions of guys like Marshall, Mat Latos, and Ryan Ludwick have me feeling optimistic.  I'll feel all the better if Scott Rolen plays even 2/3 of the season.  And, at any rate, I'm hoping to match or exceed last year's (5) number of visits to Great American Ball Park.


MY PREDICTIONS

World Series:  Rangers 4, Reds 2

The Rangers lost CJ Wilson, but he was hardly the sole reason they're the 2x-reigning AL Champs.  If it's not Texas I image it will be Detroit over the... what?!?... Cincinnati Reds in the World Series?!?  Yeah, I don't know.  I feel like believing this year.  I saw an SI prediction last winter that actually justified predicting the Reds as WS Champions because they could follow the sneaky formula that St. Louis used to become surprise winners last year.  I'll echo that logic, I guess, for lack of motivation in generating my own.  If I don't have a little confidence this year, I may never get the chance.  In 2013 Rolen will be a year older and Brandon Phillips may have moved on.

MVPs: Curtis Granderson and Andrew McCutchen

Granderson was in the conversation for AL MVP last year, and deservedly so.  Yet I guess these picks have more of a wish list feel than any true educated guesses, because I value the guy's brains (really, what proportion of major leaguers have finished college and been any good?) and he's easily my favorite player on the perennial-winning Yankees (though that particular point doesn't say very much).  As for McCutchen, there's a long shot.  He's an All-Star outfielder on a team that will probably keep improving (even without AJ Burnett for awhile, if he was really going to make a huge difference anyway).  He seems like a professional to me, he's super talented, and I'd mostly like to say I saw an MVP play here in Indianapolis (he was with the Triple-A Indians before being called up).

Cy Youngs: Justin Verlander and Tim Lincecum

Going with the safe picks for the CY Awards.  Both have won before, and both are awesome.  Made that easy.

Guess we'll see how everything goes...