Call It Wishful Thinking

With the baseball season's first pitch (in North America) less than 24 hours away, I felt it was time to offer up my predictions for the upcoming campaign. As always, these merely represent my personal views, and will certainly not pan out by October. Enjoy.

AL

East: Boston
Central: Detroit
West: Los Angeles
Wild Card: Toronto

Yes, I have the Yankees not making the playoffs, and Toronto getting in. The Wild Card will be an amazing race this year, as, in addition to New York and Toronto, expect to see challenges from Cleveland and Seattle. I believe it will go down to the last day.

AL Champion: Los Angeles

NL

East: New York
Central: Chicago
West: Los Angeles
Wild Card: Arizona

The NL West is the league's best division, and its most difficult to predict. With the exception of the Giants, every team has a realistic shot at playoff ball. It's time for Joe Torre to prove that he can win without the bottomless pockets of the Yankees.

NL Champion: New York

World Series: New York (Mets) over Los Angeles (Angels)

Call it a hunch: teams that blow division leads (like the Mets did last year) either collapse further down the standings or rally around it and succeed. With the addition of the majors' best pitcher, Johan Santana, the Mets have the ability to succeed. The only question is, can the Mets get past the mental block of last September and win it all? I think they can.