2013 MLB draft

The MLB draft starts tonight. The Red Sox have the 7th overall pick, and then pick again at #45 (in round 2), and then the 7th pick of each round.   Last year, they did draft a Canadian, Keaton Briscoe, who is now playing for the Greenville Drive. This year, there are several promising Canadian players eligible for the draft, including several from Alberta. I have a rundown of the top Albertans here.  Hoping the Red Sox select one of them.  I will update this if/when the Sox do pick a Canadian player.  

Canadian Red Sox News

Haven't posted much lately. The Red Sox are off to a great start and there's lots to talk about, but again I want to focus my writings on this blog to be about items that are of particular interest to us Canadian Red Sox fans. For more general Red Sox news, please follow one of the many other Red Sox blogs that I have listed here. For daily updates in particular, I like reading some other Red Sox BBA member blogs, including Christine's posts at Boston Red Thoughts Allan's updates at  Joy of Sox, and Cyn's musings at Toeing the Rubber. Of course, readers from South of the 49th and anywhere else in the world are welcome and even encouraged to read my ramblings and leave comments.

Anyhow, a few Canadian related notes of interest for Red Sox fans:

In previous years I have forecasted how the MLB season would play out.  Some predictions were good (Giants / Tigers World Series last year) some not so much (A's / Rockies in 2011).  I've been questioned, mocked and ridiculed but that's not enough for me to stop.

Anyhow, this year, I'm going to take a slightly different approach. Instead of predicting exactly where each team will finish, I am going to go with a 75% confidence interval on number of wins per team.  I will also make some observations and a few unexpected specific predictions along the way. I welcome fans of any of these teams to mock me.  I had a preview on four teams last week, that I have repeated here along with the rest of the MLB teams, listed by division in the order that the teams finished last year:

AL East:

NY Yankees - Their infield DL payroll is higher than several teams' entire payroll. But unlike previous years where the Evil Empire (go ahead and sue me for copyright infringement) would just spend more money on buying some more all-stars, it looks like their opening day lineup may actually include long time Yankee legends such as Eduardo Nunez and Francisco Cervelli, as well as the newly added Vernon Wells. This team is really hard to project. If this wasn't the Yankees, they’d be reasonably expected to be a solid 70 win team. But I know better.

2013 Predictions Preview

In previous years I have forecasted how the MLB season would play out.  Some predictions were good (Giants / Tigers World Series last year) some not so much (A's / Rockies in 2011).  I've been questioned, mocked and ridiculed but that's not enough for me to stop.

Anyhow, this year, I'm going to take a slightly different approach. Instead of predicting exactly where each team will finish, I am going to go with a 75% confidence interval on number of wins per team.  I will post my expected win interval for each team along with some other observations before Opening Day.

Here is a preview of what you will see, revealing my predictions on a few teams:

NY Yankees - Their infield DL payroll is higher than several teams' entire payroll. But unlike previous years where the Evil Empire (go ahead and sue me for copyright infringement) would just spend more money on buying some more all-stars, it looks like their opening day lineup may actually include long time Yankee legends such as Eduardo Nunez, Francisco Cervelli and Juan Rivera, as well as the newly added Vernon Wells. This team is really hard to project. If this wasn't the Yankees, they’d be reasonably expected to be a solid 70 win team. But I know better. I have no confidence they are going to stick to their self imposed spending limits for next year. I'll believe it when I see it. My (not-so) bold prediction is that they are going to pay to acquire some much needed pieces and explain that they had to due to all the unexpected injuries. When they do and if all their stars come back healthy and produce, 95 wins is not out of the question. Of course, if they stubbornly refuse to spend and Cano gets injured 70 wins may be a stretch. I have narrowed my guess to a 10 game win interval between 77 and 87 wins.

Toronto - Everyone (north of the border anyways) has already anointed them World Series Champions.