My Take on This Year's Major League Baseball Season

Last Sunday, the 2015 edition of Major League Baseball began its regular season with the supposedly revamped and drastically improved Chicago Cubs once again stumbling and losing to the St. Louis Cardinals.  Oh well, they have 161 more games to try to pick things up!  The main teams I have decided to follow this year are few in number: just the Florida teams: Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins.  The Rays lost their long-time manager Joe Madden to the Chicago Cubs this year and don't seem, by anyone's estimation, to have any bright prospects this year...most likely they'll finish last.  The Marlins, on the other hand, have been greatly hyped in the media as being an upcoming team that could sneak into the playoffs as a wild card entry.  Who knows what will ultimately happen...we have six full months of games before we'll know how they end up.  I just decided to follow these two, for better or worse, because of the simple fact that reruns of their games will usually be televised after I get home from work a little past midnight.

I did watch some so-called baseball experts on of the sports channels, and they seem to think that Washington, St. Louis, and Los Angeles are the teams to beat in the National League, while Seattle, the Chicago White Sox (?), and a resurgent Boston should prevail in the American.  For me, it seems that Baltimore and Toronto are the best in the American League East while Detroit should win the Central.  The AL West should go to the Los Angeles Angels...who gets the wild card spots for the playoffs is something I'm not ready to predict, for either league.  In the National League, I tend to agree with the "experts" about the divisional winners, except perhaps in the West.  There the Dodgers should face stiff competition from defending World Series champion San Francisco and a new-look San Diego.  It should be an interesting season, but I don't think I'm going to spend as much time and effort following it as I did last year...