Final Thoughts on 2010 MLB Season: Everybody's a fool

Another Major League Baseball season concluded sooner than I had anticipated with an ending that was certainly more exciting for some, but left me pretty lukewarm about the whole postseason. Indeed, we went through October with only one of the seven series played going the maximum number of games—and even that one set that did go to a winner-take-all finale was pretty ho-hum.

Still, I'm sure my bitterness has a little something to do with the fact that my pick before this season began was, of course, my favorite team in the league. And seeing as how their season slowly unraveled until finally falling apart altogether in the Division Series with the eventual World Champions, it's hard to get too enthusiastic about the eventual result—especially when you consider how I felt about Barry Bonds and the Bay Area fans that mostly remain apologists for him.

But looking back, the way this season played out certainly defied most every expert's initial prediction—which is usually the case when the New York Yankees somehow aren't involved in the Fall Classic.

2010 World Series Pick: The lesser of two mehs

I suppose that on the one hand, it was incredibly satisfying to see the Yankees get thumped by Texas in the ALCS because it's always fun to watch the Yankees lose. Considering that it feels as though they end up winning, you know, every other year, it's important to take a little joy in those rare occasions when they get flat-out embarrassed.

So now the final series of the 2010 Major League Baseball season is a matchup that I'm fairly certain absolutely nobody had penned in when the first pitch was thrown out on Opening Day. And that's certainly refreshing to get something other than the widely expected New York-Philadelphia World Series that had been a pretty popular expectation coming into October.

There's been some fairly entertaining moments so far this postseason, and I'm willing to bet that we could be in store for a solid final chapter to this 2010 season—even if the television ratings reflect a record number of viewers. I can't say, however, I'm terribly passionate about either team really winning. For me, it's more of a case of holding old grudges.

League Championship Series Predictions: Who do I actually root for?

Looking back at last year's postseason predictions, I forgot that ESPN doesn't maintain a consistent set of experts throughout the postseason for predicting each series on a round-by-round basis. So after just one round of baseball predictions, it appears I'm already going to lose a significant number of the experts I'd anticipated comparing my own picks to. And actually, of the four people they've got predictions for the outcome of the ALCS, not one of them was included last round. Nice job, Mother Ship.

But hey! Yahoo's keeping up, so we'll scratch ESPN's panel from the standings and keep this a five-horse race, I guess—not that's it really going to be all that much of a race, of course. There's only two matchups this round and one last one after that, so maybe I'll remember next year not to bother trying to do this ... although I'm almost certainly going to forget again.

Final Thoughts on 2010 Atlanta Braves: Long Live No. 6

There's the temptation to grumble about any one of the missed calls from umpires that didn't go the Braves' way in a number of games in their Division Series, but the ultimate truth remains that a beat-up squad got beaten down even further by their own fielding. And so it seemed that just as soon as Atlanta fans could celebrate their first post-season berth since 2005—clinched on the final day of the season—the whole thing came to an end on Monday night when the Braves lost their final game. Fittingly enough, every single game of their first-round series with the San Francisco Giants was decided by just a single run.

While the team was unable to bring Bobby Cox one last chance at a World Series title before his retirement, the 2010 season will be remembered as one in which the legendary manager once again got the absolute best out of his roster—one that was ultimately decimated by injuries.

The Braves' Fourth Quarter: Staying Alive

Well, one last division title may have eluded Bobby Cox, but the good part has to be that indeed the Braves will be headed back into the postseason for one final shot at another World Series win. And when you consider the loss not only of Chipper Jones, but the additional injury suffered by Martin Prado—not to mention nagging setbacks suffered on the pitching staff, most notably to Jair Jurrjens—Atlanta certainly lived up to that "suspense" part of the title I had used last quarter.

It wasn't until that very last day of the season that the Braves managed to squeak into the playoffs via a Wild Card berth. Sure, it's a little disappointing to watch the East slip away after holding on to the lead for so much of the season, but still playing baseball in October—whatever title it is that got you there—is a helluva lot better than not qualifying at all. And while the depleted roster and a hot second-half opponent has pretty much made most experts think San Francisco's going to walk right into the NLCS, I do like the two points Gondee made over at Talking Chop: The Giants have lost to a Wild Card team each of the last four times they've qualified for the postseason, and three of those four teams went on to win the World Series. So I'll take any reason for optimism I can find:

Division Series Predictions: Allow me some wishful thinking

I guess I did technically improve my regular-season prognosticating for Major League Baseball this past season, getting 10 of the 30 teams' final places in the standings correct. And while half of the eight teams about to play in the post-season are indeed clubs I had said would be there, only one is going in as the division winner I thought they'd be. I guess it was a down year for a lot of people though.

So I'm quite inclined to support Thomas Boswell's belief that making predictions about MLB's playoffs is "folly." And considering that my beloved Braves are limping into this postseason without Chipper Jones, Martin Prado, and probably not Jair Jurrjens either, hardly an expert out there is picking Atlanta to do much of anything in these October games.

But predictions are, of course, something of the norm here on BMC, and with the first pitch of the postseason only a few hours away, it's time to add some more wrongheaded logic to what I've already displayed so far this baseball season. (And just so I won't feel alone, we'll include a couple "experts" too.)

The Braves' Third Quarter: No shortage of suspense

Much like when I'd had an alternate graphic prepared for the first quarter of this Braves season, I'd thought that the memorable evening dedicated to Tommy Boy was certainly going to be a lock for this third quarter image. Instead, the horribly unfortunate hand of fate made a win in Houston feel like something of a loss as Atlanta's future Hall of Fame third baseman went down for the remainder of the season—possibly even his career (although I really doubt he's going out like that).

If indeed the pretty much universally pre-season favored Phillies complete a late-season charge to overtake the Bravos for the division, I suspect it will be that night in Houston to which many point as the point the whole thing began to go downhill. However, as a fan, I still believe Chipper was only a part of what put this team into first place. There's plenty of other assorted pieces to the puzzle that have kept them there—and could continue to if those players keep it up to the very end:

Things you couldn't care less about: Obligatory fantasy update

If you take over first place in a fantasy league where nobody's really participating, does it make a sound? Does it resonate with anybody at all? Or is everybody in this league really that bad? And how bad am I for having spent a majority of this season struggling to catch a guy who hasn't made a single adjustment to his roster since the draft day when he picked his team?

Before you begin pondering that litany of questions, however, let me remind you what my roster originally looked like back on the eve of April. And this was my attitude less than three weeks into the season. And now? Well ...:

The Braves' Second Quarter: A fortnight later

Halfway through the 2010 season, the Bravos are were making me look pretty smart—if you ignore that aside from the gimme pick of the Yankees, all my other division picks are still waiting to make their move, I guess.

But, hey—ain't no complainin' when we've got some OutKast in the house, there's a little bit of fun hazing going on, and the team tied a streak that sure makes me feel pretty good about that World Series pick. Yep, it sure does seem like Bobby's determined to go out on top this year.

After ending the first quarter of this year's campaign by being one game over .500 instead of one game under, Hotlanta quietly went about some consistent ass-kicking this past second quarter:

The Braves' First Quarter: The debut of a fancy (for me, at least) new graphic

Yeah, as I've said probably something like a million times before, I've been meaning to change up how I do these little quarterly thoughts on my Four Bs and I know I've also confessed something like a million times plus one about how the basketball and hockey playoffs typically delay my immersion into the baseball season.

Still, when you consider both how this first 41 games to the season began and ended, the Braves are kind of an ideal squad to try something different other than my usual meandering faux essay. Let us not forget that when it comes to expectations for the year, mine for the 2010 Braves were set quite high.

So far, here's how I'm feeling:

2010 MLB Predictions: This will be our year, took a long time to come

While the definite anticipation for the Stanley Cup Playoffs is once again destined to be my defining interest for the next couple months, Major League Baseball's 2010 season does have to get started at some point—seeing as each team plays as many regular-season games as an NHL team and an NBA team combined (oh, unless there's a rainout that doesn't get made up, I suppose).

And my appetite was somewhat whetted by my entering the same Fantasy Baseball league sis and bro-in-law are in, so I'll obviously have to be paying some attention—which is more than usual, since it typically takes me a good month or two to really start caring.

I didn't do all that hot last year, getting a mere two of the six division winners right and only eight of the 30 teams' final standing correct. So any sort of improvement shouldn't be too difficult—especially since (judging by most other outlets' predictions) a Yankees-Phillies rematch in the World Series is all but guaranteed. Even Joe Morgan's picking that, so if there was ever a sign ...

All I know is that I'm not picking the Indians again—which almost certainly means they'll win the whole thing. Still, let's see if I can improve upon my .267 average from last year: