I’ve always contended that baseball got it right with their regular season. The best way for the cream to rise to the top is for the season to break down into a series of smaller series. Unlike the other major sports you play a team three to four times in a row instead of one shot at a time. In football its impractical to do it the MLB way, but the NBA could pull it off, and I could almost guarantee that there would be more quality in the playoffs on a yearly basis, plus everybody goes to the damn playoffs in the NBA  anyway. 

Nope, baseball is as close to perfection as you get year in and year out. Let’s look at the4 playoff picture now that the teams are almost set, and maybe through in few bold predictions for all you gamblers out there hard up enough to take my advice.

The NL

Since the NL is completely decided let’s start there. In Los Angeles we have the Dodgers and the Cardinals facing off. Both teams limped into the playoffs, but one team has a bigger issue than the other. The Dodgers are going with Randy Wolf as their number one starter; despite the fact that everyone thinks that Clayton Kershaw is a better pitcher.

What I find troubling is that the pitching issue may be having a psychological affect on the starting rotation. Kershaw has good stuff but has proven not to be reliable past the sixth inning which is troubling when you talk playoffs. With the Dodger bats going quiet things just don’t look good.

The only bit of good news for LA is that the Cards are struggling as well, so it becomes a race to see who can get hot first and sustain that heat for a complete series.

As far as speculation goes I will say this, the winner of this series will likely represent the NL in the World Series.

On the other side of NL spectrum you have the defending champion Phillies taking on the upstart Rockies. This is familiar territory for both teams, and therein lies the problem. For one the Phillies aren’t nearly as dominant as repeat teams of the past. Plus the AL is more likely to field a higher quality team than last year’s Rays who were exposed last year in the series (I know what I said earlier, I was there when I said it, but light in every sport a team can catch lightning in a bottle at least once).

The Rockies got hot and the NL West race interesting, but odds are good that they don’t have much left in the tank. The Phillies are the better team and should win that series with relative ease. The reason I feel like the Dodgers or the Cards can beat them is because both teams have improved over last season and closed the gap in talent that existed last year between the Phillies and the rest of the NL.

Like I said before the Phillies and the Rockies are playing to see who’ll lose in the second round.

The AL

The Yankee’s are waiting patiently to see who wins between the Tigers and the Twins who square off today at the Metrodome. While the one game playoff is exciting I think it will be too emotionally draining for the winner, especially if it is a tough game. I can’t even guess as to who will win this game, but I’m pretty sure the winner will be quickly shown the door by the Yankees anyway.

The real first round series is the Ali-Frasier grudge match that was once the ALDS. Apparently there is a reservation for the Angels and Red Sox every year and everybody else is p[laying for nothing. This marks the third year in a row that the two teams will face off in the playoffs. The only team in Baseball I dislike truly is the Anaheim Angels (because if you lived in Los Angeles you would know that Anaheim is not friggin Los Angeles) but even I have to admit that they probably won’t lose to the Red Sox for a third consecutive time.  

So, if that is the case then it looks like I have the Angels versus the Yankees in the ALCS. The eyeball test says that the Yankees should take it, but there is something about the Yankees and being good on paper that makes me cautious. They should win, but will they?

Check back with us for another update after the first round and we’ll see where we stand at that point.