10. New York's Title Defense. Last year, they won the AL East by 8 games and won the World Series in 6 and that was with A-Rod on the shelf until early May. This year, Alex's hip (and ego) are 100%, Curtis Granderson, Javy Vazquez, and Nick Johnson are in while Johnny Damon, Chien-Ming Wang and Hideki Matsui are out. On paper, this team appears to be head-and-shoulders above the other 29. But rarely do they play the game on paper. The Yankees are built to win now and baseball hasn't had a back-to-back champ in 10 years (when yes, the Yankees did it).
9. Homerun Milestones. Speaking of A-Rod, he is now just 17 homeruns away from 600 for his career and there's a very good shot he'll get there before his 35th birthday on July 27th. His former teammate, Ken Griffey is 20 away from 650. New Minnesota Twin Jim Thome needs 36 (and probably a team that will sign him to another one-year-deal in 2011) to reach 600. If Carlos Delgado decides not to retire after all, he's 27 homeruns away from 500 and Albert Pujols, who just turned all of 30, is 34 bombs from 400.
8. Welcome Back! Former All-Stars Jose Reyes, Johan Santana, Brandon Webb, Grady Sizemore, Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer, Tim Hudson, Geovany Soto, and Delgado (again, if he plays) all missed significant time last season due to injury. Now, all of them are presumably healthy and all of them are key to their team's respective success, especially Reyes and Santana.
7. Old Faces, New Places. Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Jason Bay, John Lackey, Chone Figgins, Vlad Guerrero, Billy Wagner, Vazquez, and Granderson were some of the big names to change teams this offseason. In doing so, many of them signed big, big contracts. Which ones will prove to worth it, and which ones won't?
6. Young Cy Young. Tim Lincecum doesn't turn 26 until the middle of June. Tim Lincecum hasn't thrown 600 career innings. But Tim Lincecum already has 40 career wins, 676 strikeouts and enters 2010 gunning for his 3rd straight Cy Young award. Only two pitchers in history have won three in a row, they're also the only two pitchers in history to win four in a row, and they're both future Hall of Famers- Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux. "The Freak" has a chance to join awfully exclusive company at an awfully tender age but it won't be easy. New NL'er Halladay, along with usual suspects Santana, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and maybe even Clayton Kershaw should prove to be strong competitors too.
5. Young Guns. This time a year ago, just about every baseball "expert" had already given the AL ROY award to either Matt Wieters or David Price with Tommy Hanson and Cameron Maybin the favorites in the NL. How wrong they were. Oakland's Andrew Bailey enjoyed the lowest OPS-against in all of baseball en route to winning the award in the AL, while the scrappy Chris Coghlan hit .372 after the All-Star break to take home the NL honor for the Marlins. This time around, Atlanta's Jason Heyward is playing the role of Wieters while the Nats' Stephen Strasburg is playing the role of Price. Will they live up to the hype or disappoint, opening the door for another dark horse or two?
4. Outdoor Baseball In Minnesota Again. After a 28-year run, the Twins are leaving the Metrodome and returning to their open-air roots. Target Field seats 40-thousand and unlike their previous digs, is not designed to be "hitter friendly." How will this impact Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau? How many games will be snowed out? How long will it take Francisco Liriano to get loose?
3. The Other New York Team. The '09 Mets were riddled with injuries, had one of the highest payrolls in baseball, lost 92 games, and saw their team leader in homeruns smack just a dozen of them. The '10 Mets look to be without Carlos Beltran for an entended period of time out of the gate, have done next-to-nothing to bolster their pitching staff, and still have a really high payroll. To top it all off, the Phillies, Braves, and Marlins look to be just as tough, if not tougher, than they were a season ago. Last season was for eye-rolling. This season, it might be heads that are rolling at Citi Field.
2. There's Always Albert. He's won three of the last five NL MVPs including two straight. In 9 seasons, he's never finished with fewer than 33 doubles, 32 homeruns, 103 RBI, a .314 average, and 99 runs scored. At 1.0547, his career OPS is best among all active players and fourth best all-time (even higher than Bonds). And so far, he is presumed to be PED-free. Now in his thirties, he has nothing left to prove but plenty still to achieve. Will he win a Triple Crown? Last year he missed it by 6 RBI and 9 hits. As I mentioned above, he should reach 400 homeruns this year and if healthy, will get to 2,000 hits next year. At his current pace, he would get to 500 homeruns early in 2013 and 3,000 hits in late 2016. Aaron, Mays, and Murray and the only clean players with that on their resume. To sum up: one of the best players ever to swing a bat is in his prime right now. Enjoy him while you can.
1. Expect The Unexpected. Some of last year's biggest surprises included A-Rod's 'roids admission, Greinke's breakout year, Buehrle's perfect game, Manny's suspension, the return of the Rockies, MVP-Mauer, Mark Reynolds' power surge, Brandon Webb's lost season, and the Yankees (and A-Rod) living up to expectations and breaking their World Series drought. So what will come out of nowhere and dominate the headlines in 2010? Will the Rays make it back to the playoffs? How good are all the O's young players? With John Lackey, Vlad, and Figgins gone, is LA's dynasty over and the AL West perennially up for grabs? Can the Nats pitch yet? Who gets traded mid-year? Is Matt Kemp really one of the game's best young players? And might this be the final season for All-Stars Griffey, Thome, Pettitte, Pedro, Smoltz or even Chipper? We'll begin to get answers to these questions and more tomorrow afternoon!
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