Opening Day Ramblings

Hooray. Hooray. Hooray. It's opening day. And no matter whom you root for, no matter where they play, it's opening day. It's opening day. It's opening day.

Okay, so that's not good haiku or even much of anything, but it's a cheer that almost every baseball fan has when this day, March 31, 2011, arrives. It seems to have come very fast for us, but here it is. And we thought we'd throw out a few opening day ramblings that are rumbling around our brain right now, from the nonsense to the off the cuff predictions that have nothing to do with PEVA or SPRO or any of those other new stats baseballevaluation.com has come up with. Well, not much to do with them anyway.

1) 60% of the opening day starters this year, who were eligible for the draft, were drafted in the first round. That's remarkable really, and not what we would have thought. Yes, we always knew that being a first rounder indicated a greater chance of making it to the majors. And a second rounder behind, but a decent chance, too, with rounds lower than that pretty much a flip of the coin. But 60%. So folks. On draft day this June, pay a whole lot of attention to who your favorite team chooses, because it apparently is pretty important that they choose well.

2) Will this be the opening day when the greatest amount of team face snow in the forecast. We're pretty used to seeing that in Colorado, and formerly in Montreal, but it seems that in the northeast a good amount of teams could face this today and tomorrow. Nothing like mittens at a baseball game, and I'm not talking about only in the stands.

3) We think the Phillies are gonna sprint out of the gates, even though their lineup has taken a few hits with the injuries to Utley and the departure of Werth. We think Ben Francisco, and later in the year, Domonic Brown, are gonna fill in pretty well for Werth, and we don't like their bench at all, but pitching is gonna keep them in tons of games. For some reason, we're not that concerned about the loss of Lidge for awhile. The last two years haven't seen consistent production out of Brad anyway.

4) Who will have one of the best seasons ever and join the list of players in our Stat Geek Baseball, the Best Ever Book. Well, we think Troy Tulowitski is gonna be fantastic, and think the park in Boston is gonna make Adrian Gonzalez a household name, just to state a few. Hey, and take a look at our book and think about buying it. I know we're not a household name like Baseball America, but those 5,000 hours of research into who was the best ever in the history of baseball gave us a pretty unique and interesting take on the subject. And we need your support to carry it on. Thanks.

5) Who will be the surprise team of 2011? Well, we don't know about surprise, but we do think the Milwaukee Brewers are gonna contend for the National League title and wouldn't be surprised if the Oakland A's won the American League West. We don't think they will, coming up a couple wins short, but we wouldn't be surprised.

6) We're really hoping this is the year Bud Selig stops trying to come up with new ideas about expanding the playoffs and let's baseball succeed where it is. Com'n, unless you have a team in the first round, you already don't care about it. I mean, we follow baseball pretty darn closely and I couldn't care less, if my team isn't in it, about the playoffs until they're playing for the right to go to the World Series.

7) How many people are gonna be buying ice cream at the park on Opening Day when they can get a snow cone from the arm rest on their seat?

Well, that's enough nonsense from us for now. Enjoy Opening Day, baseball fans, no matter what the weather in your city is like. Here's hoping you have a great baseball season in 2011 and that your team wins more games than anyone is predicting.

Staff
Baseballevaluation.com