MLB Preview: NL West

We here at the Pretzel Factory are proud to present an absolutely absurd look into our idea of what will happen this year in Major League baseball team by team. They are broken down by division and in the order of predicted finish for your enjoyment. Enjoy your preview of the National League West, friends!

San Diego Padres:
Does your team have brothers hitting at the top of the lineup? Huh? Didn't think so. That reminds me ... "My blood runs cold! My memory has just been sold! My angel is the centerfold, Angel is the centerfold." Wait ... you mean it's the J. Geils Band? Not Giles, as in rightfielder Brian and newly acquired second baseman Marcus? No shit? Damn. Well, whatever. In between tons of hotfoot pranks, violent games of Doorknob and some kick ass Nerf basketball tournaments in the locker room, the brothers will regain their batting stroke and, along with Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Kouzmanoff (so far the only man in recorded human history to hit the first major league pitch he's ever seen for a grand slam) form a vastly improved offense.

Oh ... you mean they're still in Petco?

Never mind then.

At least there's Jake Peavy. And Greg Maddux. And Chris Young. And Trevor Hoffman. And David Wells. Which reminds me ... hey, new skipper Bud Black? You might want to keep some Twinkies and animal crackers around when Boomer's pitching. And some Capri Sun. You might have to help him with those little pointed straws, though. Them's a bitch. Wins: 91. Playoffs: Eliminated in the World Series.

Los Angeles Dodgers:
Can I have one of those Chesterfields now? Thanks. You know, I like to read. About baseball, and the environment - that shit fascinates me. Here's something you may not know: With speedsters Rafael Furcal (hopefully not drunk) and Juan Pierre at the top of the order, and very little behind Nomar Garciaparra and Jeff Kent to drive them in, Grady Little will let the little scamps run wild. And oh, boy, will they! They'll do so much runnin' - hahaha, yeah! - they'll do so much runnin' that the friction will heat up the surface temperature of the Earth by one whole degree, causing a catastrophic portion of the polar ice caps to melt. The Pacific will creep up and into Chavez Ravine, and all the Dodger fans will be able to leave in the fifth inning instead of the seventh. Oh, and eggplants. Something about eggplants. Wins: 89 (WC). Playoffs: Eliminated in first round of playoffs.

Arizona Diamondbacks:
Hey, they got new uniforms! Sweet! I guess they figured out it's not 1992 anymore and that looking like a walking bruise isn't so cool! Which is funny, because they didn't exist until 1998! I don't know why I keep using exclamation points! Oh, because the Big Unit is back in the National League. Over/under on when he'll either bean a mentally disabled kid in the third row or surgically insert a pair of game-worn spikes up a beat writer's rectum? I'd say June 14. Sounds good, anyway. You know what else sounds good? Having a beer with Eric Byrnes. Seriously, that guy's the shit. Wins: 86. No playoffs.

Colorado Rockies:
The Rockies will, for a while at least, continue where they left off last year. Garrett Atkins and Matt Holliday crushing the ball. The starters actually getting some ground balls and giving way to the bullpen to do a pretty damn good job. The humidor keeping the baseballs as moist as Paris Hilton at the NBA All-Star Weekend. But something won't be right ... er, how do I put this?

Ok. Here goes. You ever have Rocky Mountain Oysters? No? Well, th- no, not real oysters. Have you ever been to Colorado? Damn. Anyway, to put it lightly, they're ... bull balls. That's right - cow nuts.

I know what you're thinking: "I wouldn't be caught dead eating bull's testicles." Yeah, but you thought nobody would ever find out about that thing you do in the shower with the luffa, didn't you? Well, just so happens that during a Super Bowl party when I was about seven or eight, I ate some RMOs. I didn't know it. I didn't ask. I assumed - and later thought, based on the taste - that it was chicken. And when I did, it was decent; a little chewy, perhaps, but edible. But when I found out what it was, I felt sick.

Hence your 2007 Colorado Rockies: the bull's balls of MLB. Wins: 79. No playoffs.

San Francisco Giants:
Barry Zito will wow the San Francisco crowd w- Hey, what's going on?



AHHHH!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! IT'S GROWING! IT'S FILLING EVERY EMPTY SPACE IN THE UNIVERSE! YOUR WEAPONS ARE POWERLESS AGAINST IT!!! Wins: 0 (Forced to forfeit the entire season when Bonds eats a horse on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball). No, no, no, no no no no no no no no no playoffs. C'mon.

MLB Preview: NL Central

We here at the Pretzel Factory are proud to present an absolutely absurd look into our idea of what will happen this year in Major League baseball team by team. They are broken down by division and in the order of predicted finish for your enjoyment. Enjoy your preview of the National League Central, friends!

Milwaukee Brewers:
Like all Milwaukee teams since the early 80s, the 2007 Brewers will be gut-bustingly average until this guy shows up to race as one of the sausages sometime in late July. For a whole week he'll ponder the most difficult choice he's ever encountered in his life: bratwurst, Italian sausage, Polish sausage, hot dog or the newly-roasted chorizo? It won't matter, however, as Prince Fielder will eat them all and grow to a gargantuan 352 lbs. From that point on he'll hit 47 homers and drive in 128 runs. Even better, he'll convince Jeff Suppan (to that point 2-15 with a 6.29 ERA) to quit pitching and instead invest all that unearned money in stem cell research and cloning, so they can grow more Prince Fielders. After beaning Bernie Brewer with a wild warm-up toss and causing him to slide during an opponent's homer, Derrick Turnbow will shave his head in shame and regain his form. Tony Gwynn Jr. will hit .383 and New Era will have to invent a new super-fabric to compensate for Kevin Mench's ever-burgeoning dome. Wins: 89. Playoffs: Eliminated in the NLCS.

Chicago Cubs:
Frustrated with losing yet another ball in either the sun or the swirling winds of Wrigley, Alfonso Soriano will go apeshit crazy in a game against the Diamondbacks. First he'll turn his back during a live play and walk to the wall, where he'll take a huge grumpy on the warning track and smear it all over the Under Armour ads on the doors. With boos reigning down upon him (well, a few cheers - these are drunks we're talking about) he'll smile that megawatt smile and begin grazing on the ivy. After the game, Lou Piniella will go on a Lee Elia-like rant in graceful Spanish, at one point calling Jay Mariotti the "dim-witted, mullet-wearing, fascist cum-dumpster son of Artie Lange and Roseanne Barr who couldn't spell Jim Murray if you spotted him 'Jim' and everything else but the two fucking r's." Not knowing Spanish - or, rather, Spanish not knowing him - Mariotti will later ask his buddie Ozzie Guillen to translate, and Oz will say, simply, "He called you a fag." Despite this, the team will actually mesh fairly well and lead the division in early September ... until calling up Mark Prior. Forced into a spot start against the Reds because Carlos Zambrano sprained an ankle tripping over first while running out a routine grounder, Prior will be cruising when, in the seventh, Kerry Wood begins warming up. Simultaneously their arms will snap, and the sound will be heard by a farmer in Moldova. Wins: 87. No playoffs.

St. Louis Cardinals:
Look, shitbirds, you guys inexplicably won a championship with your worst team of the last four years. Isn't that enough? No? Ok ... Jim Edmonds will make a guest appearance on 24. Jack Bauer will infiltrate a small, ambitious terrorist cell and steal their new prototype biological weapon: a small, Lucite ball with a gelatinous center, which, when dropped or thrown against something, releases a noxious gas that turns every living thing it touches into that gooey mess Stripe turns into at the end of Gremlins. After a tense battle in a second-story office, the Lucite ball will fall out the window, and Bauer will scream for somebody to catch it. Edmonds, as a random stranger on the street, will dive and snag it inches from the ground - even though he was standing directly under it and just happened to be watching it fall the whole time. Tony La Russa will visit Edmonds on set, and after two glasses of pinot noir will pass out in the director's chair, about to say "Action!" Wins: 84. No playoffs.

Houston Astros:
Therapist: So, Brad, tell me what's troubling you.
Brad Lidge: Well, I ... I can't keep it down.
Therapist: Brad, that's really more of a doctor thing. They even say in the commercial, "if symptoms persist for more than four hours, consult a doctor" or something like that.
Brad Lidge: No, no ... my pitches. I leave everything up. In the zone. I get hit harder than Ron Artest's wife.
Therapist: Where do you think this stems from?
Brad Lidge: Umm ... it may have started when I gave up this huge home run to Albert Pujols. It was the ...
Therapist: You know Albert Pujols? I love him! Do you think you could get me his autograph?
Brad Lidge: [sigh]

Later, in the Astros' spring training clubhouse...

Carlos Lee: Hey, choo Brad Leedge?
Brad Lidge: Yeah, Carlos. Nice to meet you. I'm looking forward to playing with you th-
Carlos Lee: Right, right, yeah. Look, man, Carlos s'gon hit some big muddafuckin' homerons, you see? An' I no want choo coughin' that sheet up. Stop being such a puta maricon and fro dat ball by dose muddafuckin' hitters, man.
Wins: 79. No playoffs.

Cincinnati Reds:
After moving to rightfield, Ken Griffey Jr. will once again regain the stroke that made him, for about ten years, the best player on the planet. Then, while spooning some rice pilaf onto his plate in his kitchen at home, his hamstring will explode, his femur will snap in half and he'll tear some ligaments in his (non-spooning) wrist. Meanwhile, Al Gore will harness the awesome wind that is Adam Dunn's constant swing-and-misses and power half of Ohio. The most shocking realization, though, will come in mid-May, when Ryan Freel runs head-first into the outfield wall at the Great American Ball Park. While writhing on the ground in pain, Freel will admit that he's been cheating on Farney with Hufflepants, a four-legged clown with the head of a platypus. After the season Bronson Arroyo will hit #86 on the Billboard charts with his song "I Used to Play for the Red Sox, Remember? A Real Team? Do You Remember That?" Wins: 73. No playoffs.

Pittsburgh Pirates:
When Jason Bay goes down early in June with a season-ending ACL injury, the game young Bucs will fight hard. Hard, I say! Jim Tracy will jumble the lineup around, moving Xavier Nady up to the fifth hole, etc. But nothing will work. Pittsburgh will go on a nineteen-game losing streak and quickly become the joke of baseball (the Royals will be much relieved). Looking for something - anything - to jump-start his club, Dave Littlefield will make a bold move and cut half the roster to sign the stars of Pirates of the Caribbean. At first, the buzz will be overwhelming as even stars who used to play for the team's rival will appear in Pirates garb. Jack Sparrow will prove adept at stealing third and pulling the hidden ball trick. Will Turner, despite looking like a goddamn pansy, will have surprising power to all fields. And Elizabeth Swann is just fuckin' smokin', man. But even though they'll go 7-5 in their short stint, the Major League Baseball Players Association will file a grievance, and Bud Selig will cower to it, as usual. Wins: 68. No playoffs.

MLB Preview: NL East

We here at the Pretzel Factory are proud to present an absolutely absurd look into our idea of what will happen this year in Major League baseball team by team. They are broken down by division and in the order of predicted finish for your enjoyment. Enjoy your preview of the National League East, friends!

Atlanta Braves:
The Braves will look completely lost until mid-season when John Schuerholz decides he is going to leave the team at the end of the year to run in the next Atlanta mayoral election. The team will ban together to send Johnny off with one more Division Title (and one more first round playoff loss) to add to an already stacked resume. During the first round of the playoffs, John Smoltz's arm will get caught in a pitching machine and Chipper Jones--hobbling toward third base using Andruw Jones' bat as a cane--will be the first to notice Smoltz doesn't bleed. In fact, ESPN news will break a story first reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he is, in fact, the living embodiment of The Terminator. Holy shit, brother. Stories will trickle throughout the season about other Terminators, and most of the loyal baseball fans will gripe on our blogs and finally concede that technological advancements are just part of the game... I mean if there was a mechanical feature that made getting your thoughts out there more rapidly and made it easier for people to read your ramblings on a daily basis completely possible, you would do it right? That's what I thought, cheater. Wins: 93. Eliminated in first round of playoffs.

Philadelphia Phillies:
The Phillies will relinquish both the NL East and wild card leads when Chase Utley leaves the team in July for family reasons. It will later be reported that he was actually writing a test script for a new Fox drama called "Doctor Chase." It will be about a disappointing-young-baseball-player-turned-doctor that heals beautiful women using an uncanny ability to both spot rare diseases and travel through time, though the time travel goes awry (leaving him in undisclosed modern time periods with only an invisible "Pat Burrell's vanishing OPS" to help him). I feel like I've heard this story before... I really do. Wins: 88. No playoffs.

New York Metropolitans/Amazings:
The Amazings will defy all laws of old pitchers-- Tom Glavine will win 15, and El Duque will win 13. Everything will be in place until Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran reveal their lifelong love of the Yankees. They will spiral out of control with their obsession, and will begin wearing Yankees uniforms to the games. In protest, native Queensmen will burn down Shea Stadium (and nearby areas inFlushing) to the ground-- entrapping the players in a literal ring of fire. Willie Randolph will try a Dolph Lundgren/He-Man type of rescue mission only to be foiled by a falling Subway billboard. He will crushed to death by Joe Torre's smiling face-- a telling symbol of the parity of the NYC teams. All the while, Pedro Martinez will convince Jose Reyes and (for some reason) Aaron Heilman to hang out under a displaced mango tree in the de facto Domincan section of the Mets clubhouse-- a section set up by Pedro himself with a plaque commemorating the life of Nelson De La Rosa-- without fifty cents in their collective pockets. Wins: 82. No playoffs.

Florida Marlins:
Anibal Sanchez will be foiled on his attempt to become the first pitcher to throw back to back no hitters on the last two starts of the season when Hanley Ramirez breaks tradtion by screaming "DUDE YOU GOT A NO HITTER GOING, MAN" and hotfooting him simultaneously. Shameful. Hanley will also openly challenge Dontrelle Willis to a drunk driving race to be refereed by Rafael Furcal. Neither of them will win when they hear Sporting News Radio broadcasting them in trade rumors to raise money for the rehiring of Joe Girardi away from-- wait, what the hell happened to that guy? In any event, the two will be traded to the Seattle Supersonics for Ray Allen and Smrnejnudsfgon Smyzborzga's expiring contract and the Seattle Mariners first pick in the NFL draft--Bill Simmons will officially E-X-P-L-O-D-E. Wins: 71. No Playoffs.

Washington Nationals:
They got a damn team out there? I ain't knowed about them since ought-twelve. I'll be a son of a bitch. You know who I like? That Tony Mullane. He's like a Li'l Romeo sandwich on a hot day in Jamaica, Queens, man. No shit. Say, brother, can you spare a damn dime? I'm hungry as Ryan Church on an island of Frank Robinson's apparitions. Dude, I'm the drunk as all hell. Seriously, though. I know NOTHING of the Nationals' moves or in fact, the Nationals themselves. Shoulda stayed in Minnesota's what they shoulda done. Go Jim Bowden, GO! Wins: 11teen. Playoffs? Don't talk about playoffs. Playoffs?