With the season just 1 week away, it’s time to kick off Prediction Week here at The Ghost of Moonlight Graham. Monday through Friday of this week, I will make my predictions for the Cy Young, ROY, MVP, Comeback Player of the Year, Division Winners, Wild Card and of course the World Series champion.
Here is the schedule for predictions
Monday – AL & NL Cy Young Award
Tuesday – AL & NL Rookie of the Year
Wednesday – AL & NL Comeback Player of the Year
Thursday – AL & NL MVP
Friday – Division Winners, Wild Card, PLayoff & World Series Champion
Since today is Monday, let’s kick off Prediction Week by predicting the NL & AL Cy Young Award winners.
NL Cy Young
Contenders – Johan Santana, Cole Hamels, Brandon Webb, Chad Billingsley, Tim Lincecum
NL Cy Young Award – Cole Hamels
NL Cy Young winner?
Why – It was a tough decision between Santana and Hamels but I think Hamels win the Cy Young for a couple of reasons:
1. Hamels got better as the season went on last year (2.98 2nd half era) and I think he carries that over to this season.
2. Hamels only had 14 wins in 08 but wth the Philles expected to be the favorites in the NL East again, I expect his wins to increase.
And no, I am not concerned about Hamels elbow. He threw 45 pitches on the 26th and reported no problems. He was scheduled to pitch in a minor league game on Sunday but that got rained out.
AL Cy Young
Contenders – Josh Beckett, CC Sabathia, Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay, Scott Baker
AL Cy Young Award – Zack Greinke
Why – About 3 weeks ago I was talking to my buddy Tom and I mentioned that I thought that Greinke would win the Cy Young. In a snickering response he said “put that in your blog.” Ok, I will. Zach Greinke will win the AL Cy Young.
Now in Peter Gammons’ blog he mentioned that one AL GM think Greinke will win the Cy Young as well. I hope it wasn’t Royals GM, Dayton Moore playing favorites. Even though this GM stole a little bit of my thunder, here is why I like Greinke this year:
1. He is only 25 and entering the prime of his career
2. His K/9 rate in the second half was 9.3 which means he got better as the season went on.
3. He won 13 games last year on a 75 win team. The Royals should be much improved in 2009, which will enable Greinke to get more opportunities for wins.
