Baseball Future Bets

While watching the opening night game between the Braves and Phillies--and, hey, why not with Derek Lowe, Ibanez and Victorino on my fantasy team this is a pretty big game--how about I toss out a few future bets for the 2009 baseball season.

Texas Rangers, Over 74.5 wins. I love this team. They have the best lineup in the AL West. While their pitching leaves a lot to be desired, they are solid enough with their top two in the rotation and at the back half of their games to expect some improvement in that department. I expect this club to bring up a pair of minor league studs at some point this season to solidify the bullpen even more. They've won 75 or more games five years running, including four seasons of at least 79 victories. Heading into Opening Day, the Rangers stand stronger than they did with either of those clubs. They might be a year away from legit contention, but I expect the Rangers to get at least 80 wins. With Texas opening with six in a row against the local Indians and Tigers, we'll see a lot of the Rangers in the first week. I'll go deeper into why I made this pick throughout the week as those games unfold.j

St. Louis Cardinals, Over 83.5 wins I dont know if the Cards can overtake the Cubbies in the division race, but I would be stunned if St. Louis isn't the main NL Central rival pushing the north siders all the way to the end. I'm banking on full seasons out of Adam Wainwright and, more importantly, Chris Carpenter. The word out of spring is that Carpenter is back. If he gets 30 starts, they'll take the division race all the way to the final week. At the least, the Cards will flirt with 90 wins and will also be a major player in the Wild Card race. In the NL Central, the Astros will be bad, the Pirates worse and the Brewers, despite a sweet lineup, will struggle to stay at the .500 mark in the wake of the Sabathia and Sheet departures. The Cardinals will take advantage of all those divisional games to put up a nice record this season.

Los Angeles Dodgers, to win NL West, +120 I debated between taking the Dodgers Over 85 wins or the win-the-division bet. The won this division last season with 85 wins last year and can do that again this year. I think they're easily the best team in the NL West and when the win the division, it wont matter how many wins they'll have. A full season out of Manny and the shred addition of Orlando Cabrera gives the Dodgers the chance to be a big front runner in this field. And, I'll just pretend I'm not worried that that team I picked is trotting out Kurduda as an opening day starter.

Miguel Cabrera, Over 33.5 home runs My only player future bet. Miggy is hitting his prime. He's in a lineup that offers a lot of protection and has a full year of the American League and being in a northern city under his belt. Once he got comfy last season, he tore through AL pitching. He'll get a full season of comfortable this season and his already impressive numbers will spike up even more. He'll be closer to 40 big bombs than the 30. Doing this gives me some financial stake in the Tigers season. The Homer in me wanted to go Over 81.5 wins, but the Tigers look like a mess in so many spots that they could win or lose 10 more games than that numbers, and I would not be surprised. One area where they wont have a question mark is in Cabrera's spot in the lineup from where he will pen a MVP caliber season.

All four of these are for two units and should give me something to follow all season. I may add a quick fifth on before the first pitch gets thrown tomorrow. We'll see.