Season Standings

Well we are now at the All Star break and more than half way through the season.  While the game was yesterday and I already talked about my personal All Star picks today I’m going to talk about my second half projections.  Today I’ll do my second half rankings and Friday (I hope) that I’ll have a little something more.  So lets go right to it on my team rankings for the rest of the season.

AL

West-

1)   Oakland Athletics

2)   LA Angels

3)   Texas Rangers

4)   Seattle Mariners

5)   Houston Astros

I don’t know what’s wrong with Texas but they’re just not hitting enough for me and they haven’t been hitting “Texas like” for a while now.  Unlike the Angels I haven’t seen anything that makes me feel confident a turn around is on the way.  Oakland looks great and I can see them taking this with Texas kinda falling off, and as I said the Angels are starting to show that improvement that they need to show to pass up Texas.  Very disappointed in Seattle honestly, I thought they could be better than this but I guess not.  The Astros are a rebuilding team and could be in the picture 2-3 years from now.

Central-

1)   Detroit Tigers

2)   Cleveland Indians

3)   Kansas City Royals

4)   Minnesota Twins

5)   Chicago White Sox

This is one that could come down to the wire; both Detroit and Cleveland face over 20 series with teams whose winning percentage is sub .500.  With that said Detroit is still the better team whose bullpen situation seems to have settled for now.  The other 3 teams can look to improve next year, Kansas City is still showing great improvement and if they can get guys like Loranzo Cain and Eric Hosmer to stay consistent they could be dangerous.

East-

1)   Boston Red Sox

2)   Baltimore Orioles

3)   Tampa Bay Rays

4)   New York Yankees

5)   Toronto Blue Jays

Boston looks so good right now and I just can’t see a team in the division really over coming them unless Boston gets hurt with injuries.  Just to make it clear how good they’ve been Boston Owns a team BA of .289 for the last 2 months, the next team down is Baltimore with a .269 a 20 point difference.  I still think Baltimore is a playoff team but with Tampa making a surge and playing the way we all thought they would preseason it could be interesting.  It’s very possible we see both Wild Cards come from here.  New York has just been hurt but could still make a push late if they make a trade though I don’t see that happening and Toronto needs to fix the holes next year, we may have had too high of hopes for this team this year.  Next year though it could be different.

NL

West-

1)   Arizona Diamondbacks

2)   Los Angeles Dodgers

3)   San Francisco Giants

4)   Colorado Rockies

5)   San Diego Padres

This really is a tough one to gauge since the Dodgers have turned it up a notch and since the return of Hanley Ramirez have gotten much more consistent even if they still lack starting pitching.  Arizona will probably not make many moves moving forward and stick with what they have, they may try to find some bullpen help if they feel it necessary.  As for both the Giants and Dodgers I see both making moves trying to come out on top; Dodgers need a starter and Giants need a big bat.  Colorado has been a surprise this year and, along with San Diego, will improve next year and could be a dark horse contender.

Central-

1)   St. Louis Cardinals

2)   Pittsburg Pirates

3)   Cincinnati Reds

4)   Chicago Cubs

5)   Milwaukee Brewers

This may be a lot tighter of a race than I predicted month’s back, Pittsburg looks very good and the pitching looks to rival the best in the NL at this point.  St. Louis needs to keep playing well to stay them off the rest of the way.  Cincinnati is in no way out of this race and could get lucky if the other two teams start faltering in any way.  Chicago looks to the future and it’s looking better than Milwaukee’s who may have quite some time before they become relevant again.

East-

1)   Atlanta Braves

2)   Washington Nationals

3)   Philadelphia Phillies

4)   New York Mets

5)   Miami Marlins

With the recent injuries suffered by Atlanta this could be a very important time for them.  Washington has been playing better, not what I expected them to do but better.  Philadelphia seems to be in sell mode but we shall see how the plans sticks if Atlanta starts to stall.  Atlanta is still the best team but losing your entire OF and your best player in Freddie Freeman could be a massive blow.  New York and Miami aren’t even in the picture for next season or the season after that.