2011 Wild and Crazy Baseball Predictions, AL Style

First a disclaimer. These team predictions are for entertainment purposes only. In some cases they may reflect my genuine sentiment of a team (or one or more of its players), but exaggerated to make them more entertaining. Hopefully at the end of the season, I can look back on these and see that more than one was close to being correct. Normally my posts are about probabilities, stats and are based in logic (well, hopefully they are) - but this is an escape from all of that for one day. Behold below, my 2011 wild and crazy baseball predictions for the American League (NL is next up)...

Team	Prediction
AL East
Yankees	The Yankees will finish near .500 due to bad injuries to both Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Russell Martin will get Madonna pregnant.
Red Sox	The Red Sox win over 100 games, easily winning the once mighty AL East. New comer Adrian Gonzalez is the AL MVP.
Rays	The 2011 Rays turn out to be a sham and finish below .500. Top Prospect Jeremy Hellickson blows out his elbow in June.
Blue Jays	The Blue Jays will find a sucker to unload Vernon Wells on. Oh wait…
Orioles	The Orioles who had the fourth best record in all of baseball from August 1st on, will make the playoffs as the AL wild-card team.
AL Central
Twins	The Twins have their early struggles but Joe Mauer and the underrated Twins pitching staff carry the team past the finish line as they narrowly win the AL Central title.
White Sox	Heads roll as the White Sox struggle and win only 78 games. Head coach Ozzie Guillen gets fired after making a profanity laced racist comment.
Tigers	The Tigers are the first place team headed into September, lead by the AL Cy Young Max Scherzer. They falter down the stretch and end up in second place and out of the playoffs.
Indians	The Indians finish comfortably ahead of the Royals, which is not saying much. Shin Soo Choo narrowly misses becoming the first Korean player to win an MVP.
Royals	The Royals have a terrible season winning only 57 games. Moustakas gets called up in late June and makes a run at ROY.
AL West
Rangers	Lots of disappointment in Arlington where the Rangers get knocked out of playoff contention on the last day of the season.
Athletics	The A's are the first team to 20 wins and hold off a late charge from the Rangers to win the NL West.
Angels	A major league worst 14 game losing streak in May drops the Angels out of contention early on. They finish with 75 wins.
Mariners	A dead cat bounce and a great season from ROY Michael Pineda propel the Mariners to a last place tie with the Angels.

Post-Season
AL East	Red Sox
AL Central	Twins
AL West	Atheletics
Wild-Card	Orioles
Cy Young	Max Scherzer
MVP	Adrian Gonzalez
ROY	Michael Pineda
AL Champ	Atheletics