Predictions that are way too early

Isn’t it hysterical how the talking heads, and even the mumbling heads (that’s you, Kevin Millar), are making predictions about the 2016 season even though rosters haven’t been finalized?

Yeah, we thought so. In fact, so much hilarity is generated that we thought we’d play a bit ourselves. 

Preseason predictions are fun. You can make an argument for any decent team, and if it falls apart in September there’s gonna be something over the course of 162 games you can point to as reason for the misfire. You lacked information, the team was snakebit, a trade killed chemistry (hello, Billy Beane), the planets weren’t aligned properly and the league office conspired to fix the outcome; but you weren’t wrong.

We like this game!

Quite honestly, it’s not that hard. A team like the Giants has few open roster spots heading toward spring training.  You can ask who the fifth outfielder might be, posit on the possibilities of carrying a third catcher, or get creative in finding a way to shoe horn Tim Lincecum into the lineup and payroll. But overall, we can be relatively sure about the make-up of the team.

Most  teams are in the same boat. We know Yovanni Gallardo, Dexter Fowler and Austin Jackson are gonna drop somewhere and shake-up a clubhouse, maybe a prospect comes from nowhere and makes an impact, but the picture in mid-January is pretty much what we’ll see come April.

So we can say this: the Giants can print playoff tickets. Yes, the even-year magic strikes again.

Now that’s not exactly news to anyone following the National League. Let’s be real. Top to bottom, the NL sucks. It sucks hard. It sucks like a fleet of Rug Doctors.

We view the National League like Southeastern Conference NCAA football. The teams at the top are great but the undercard looks like a group of college kids suited up for a game with friends, smoked a few too many blunts, then got lost on the way to the intramural field.

“I think I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”

When you look at the worst teams in baseball, you can make the argument that six of them live in the National League. Even better, they’re evenly dispersed.

In the East, the Braves are shedding players like an English sheep dog in a sauna as they continue a massive rebuild. The Phillies got old and way too late getting into the same mode as Atlanta. The Central is home to Cincinnati and Milwaukee, yet two more teams pointed to the future at the expense of today. All are the baseball version of Amazon.com, willing to operate at a loss today in hope of greater reward somewhere down the road.

The Giants and (choke, gag) Dodgers are well aware they’ll have Colorado and San Diego to prop up the West as both organizations are in disarray. The group is complicated by Arizona, which spent like a Kardashian and put a bevy of learned people in control positions but seems to be emulating the process that failed the Padres so miserably a year ago.

Very quickly the field of top dogs narrows: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New York. It’s highly likely that the five postseason combatants come from that group of six.

Arizona is trying to join the party and Washington aims to put the ‘fun’ back in ‘dysfunctional’, but there aren’t a lot of clubs whose hopes go past the typical protestations of “Why not us?” heard every spring. By June they’ll all know why not.

Three 2015 postseason teams came from the NL Central and some would say that trio will repeat the feat. We’re not buying it.

The Giants weren’t invited to the party but the 2016 version looks like a 90-plus win team to us. We’re heavily counting on improved pitching and the top players spending less time dealing with freak injuries, bone-seeking fastballs and recurring concussion-itis, but this is an above-average team. They had a good core, then added to it. There’s a question with bench depth, but a healthy Giants team is this division’s best.

While the G-Men had a good off-season, the Dodgers had arguably the worst.  Zack Greinke signed within the division, Aroldis Chapman couldn’t be had because of his domestic abuse case, Hisashi Iwakuma was a Dodger for 15 minutes then bolted back to Seattle  after a failed physical. Attempts to land David Price and Jordan Zimmerman died like an Adam Sandler movie. 

Hope at Chavez Latrine centers around Scott Kazmir and Kenta Maeda finding a way to replace Grienke, and  Yasiel Puig staying healthy and finding ways not to have his teammates plot his kidnap and torture -- if MadBum doesn't get him first. If all goes well, they’ll still win 85 games and maybe contend for the Wild Card.

Pencil in the Mets from the woeful East, give the Central to the boys from the Southside and let the Pirates and Cardinals (it’s always the Cardinals) fight for the Wildcard with the Giants’ divisional victims.

And here’s where that even-year magic is really felt. It’s not about metaphysics, analytics, arthritics or antiparasitics (reached so hard for that one a medic is needed; but who really needs a spleen?). 

There’s a blueprint, and it works.

Look at the off years. The 2011, 2013 and 2015 campaigns had a common thread: injuries. Regardless of record, these weren’t bad teams. Only 2015 presents another factor, bad pitching depth, but even then the bruised and battered team stayed in the race. Each time they’ve faltered, management did something about it. Enter Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto and Dennard Span. Keep Hunter Pence and Joe Panik upright, pass another rule to protect Buster Posey, and this is the class of the division.

And if it doesn’t come to pass, we’ve got a full season to come up with an excuse.