Hi fellow O's fans! ESPN has the O's in at 4th place in the AL East. Who will finish 2nd and 3rd? The Vaughn-less but Have-Hamelin Red Sox? The Blue Jays? Am I too optimistic to think that the O's can finish in 2nd and might get the wildcard??? No question about it, the Yankees will win the East. The Central belongs to the Indians, who have an All-Star at every position. No way that the wildcard team can come from the central, so lets look at the West. I see the Angels winning it, followed by Texas and Seattle. Junior and Arod can hit as many HR as they want, Seattle has no pitching. That leaves the only contenders for the wildcard the Orioles,Rangers,Boston and Toronto. I'm pretty sure that we can take care of Boston and Toronto, so we only have to worry about Texas. Of course, the Orioles have to take care of themselves first. Actually I really liked this off-season. Here is my take. DeShields: Will be a good replacement for Alomar. Alomar was never the            same after the spitting incident. DeShields will have less            power but brings in much more speed on the _base_paths. B.J: I like B.J! Always gives 100% and much underrated. Has a good arm      and will be a good RF. Maybe the contract was a little long, but      B.J should produce well this year. Albert Belle: What can I say. Hit 49HR at Comiskey, how many will he hit               @OPACY? Will Clark: We will see less power from 1b for sure. Lets hope he stays             healthy. Johnson: One of the best defensive catchers in the league. Great arm.          I don't really care about his batting avg. Will throw out runners          much better than Hoiles. Alone his presence behind the plate          will make runners less reluctant to run, so pitchers can          concentrate on pitching, rather than on worrying about that 5th          stoles _base_ of the game. Pitching: Pretty much everything what could go wrong last year went wrong.           Moose, Key, Kaminicky on the DL.           How many games would the Yankees have won with Wells, Cone,           Pettite on the DL?           This year, we have Moose, erickson, Guzman for the whole year,           an improved Ponson and a proven closer.           I know that it's to easy to blame everything on injuries.           Mussina only missed a couple of starts, but did you really           expect him to be the same after that hit he took? In retrospect, I'm looking forward to this season. I'm not really worried about those damn Yankees. No way we can catch them. As a matter of fact, and this will sound weird, I will cheer for them. Let them beat up on the AL West teams and let them help us win the wildcard. We only have to take care of the Rangers and maybe Boston and Toronto. Maybe 88 wins would do. And remember, if the wildcard comes from the East, (hopefully the O's), we will play the AL West winner and the Yankees are stuck with the Indians. You never know what can happen in a short series. Okay, before I get to carried away, I will stop. Let's go O's. I got tickets for all O's games here against the Yankees. Opinions/bashing welcomed! Wei-An An Orioles fan stuck in Yankee town

And remember, if the wildcard comes from the East, (hopefully the O's), we will play the AL West winner and the Yankees are stuck with the Indians. How do you know?  The O's would be playing the Indians if the Indians have a better record than the West winner. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Check out my O's page, with all the recaps I wrote in '98: http://hometown.aol.com/BiffFoil/bball.htm You tried your best, and you failed miserably.  The lesson is: never try. -Homer Simpson

Actually, he hit 29 homers in Comiskey, and 20 on the road.  So let's see, he hit 49 homers last year with half his games at Comiskey, how many homers will he hit in Camden Yards?  I'd say...49 or 50.  Believe it or not, Camden Yards is actually the second-WORST hitter's park in the league, behind only Comiskey. I think  people put too much faith in numbers and averages. If I turned myself into a logic  ANALyzer then I would be _b_link__ing my eyes like  crazy like Harry Mudd's robots were doing on one of the Star Trek episodes. Doesn't anyone else think if Comiskey is the hardest park to hit a homerun and then Belle shouldn't have hit more at home than on the road, right ? Isn't that illogical hitting more at a harder park than easier ones ?

         I know that it's to easy to blame everything on injuries.          Mussina only missed a couple of starts, but did you really          expect him to be the same after that hit he took? In retrospect, I'm looking forward to this season. I'm not really worried about those damn Yankees. No way we can catch them. As a matter of fact, and this will sound weird, I will cheer for them. Let them beat up on the AL West teams and let them help us win the wildcard. We only have to take care of the Rangers and maybe Boston and Toronto. Maybe 88 wins would do. Unlikely, but that's about 8 more wins than they'll have.

Unlikely, but that's about 8 more wins than they'll have. Nonsense. 84 - 86 wins is totally within reach. Totally. You give their competition too much credit, seeing as how there are only about 6 decent teams in the whole AL. Ummm, if by decent you mean around as good or better than the O's , then you've got Seattle, Anaheim, Texas, and Oakland. Cleveland, maybe(probably not, but they've got talent) Chicago. New York, Boston, Toronto, Baltimore. This team is thoroughly average. 80-84 wins.

         I know that it's to easy to blame everything on injuries.          Mussina only missed a couple of starts, but did you really          expect him to be the same after that hit he took? In retrospect, I'm looking forward to this season. I'm not really worried about those damn Yankees. No way we can catch them. As a matter of fact, and this will sound weird, I will cheer for them. Let them beat up on the AL West teams and let them help us win the wildcard. We only have to take care of the Rangers and maybe Boston and Toronto. Maybe 88 wins would do. Unlikely, but that's about 8 more wins than they'll have. Nonsense. 84 - 86 wins is totally within reach. Totally. You give their competition too much credit, seeing as how there are only about 6 decent teams in the whole AL. Since there are 14 teams, 6 is about the right number to be decent. That's not an unusually low figure, as you seem to be implying. 86 wins is within reach if *everything* goes right.  No injuries, nobody we expected to be good has a bad year, or anything like that. That might happen with a young team; it's highly unlikely to happen with a team older than dirt.  (And 86 wins wouldn't be very likely to get the WC, anyway.) The Orioles should be expected to do this year about like last year.  I see _no_ reason why not.   You give their competition far too little credit.  You dismiss out of hand teams like Boston and Toronto, both of whom were better than the Orioles last year.  And nothing about those teams screams fluke.  It's not like the Cubs coming from nowhere to win the WC.