Pierce's Picks - MLB Regular Season Finale

The baseball season is ending.  It's been a pretty wild ride.  We had some surprise surges, including memorable first halves of the season by Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and we had some pretty surprising teams fall off - can you say 100 losses in Minnesota this season?  So, since I picked up this blog late in the season, I'm going to tell you how the rest of things will play out.

1) Justin Verlander will be the AL Cy Young winner, but he will not win the MVP, despite being the clear MVP, because he is a pitcher.  While Tigers fans will initially feel burned by this, they won't feel so bad when Verlander takes his quiet fury into the playoffs, is even better than he was in the regular season, and leads them to their first World Series victory since the year of my birth, 1984.

2) Yes, that's a formal prediction - the Tigers are going to win the World Series.

3) The Red Sox fail to collapse entirely (an overblown story, in my opinion) and take the Wild Card spot over the Tampa Bay Rays, only to be swept by the Tigers or Rangers.

4) I really like Clayton Kershaw for the NL Cy Young.  He deserves it; but I can't shake the feeling that somehow either Halladay or Lee end up with it.

5) Atlanta is the NL Wild Card.  This has been known to me since June.  I'm amused at how analysts seem to still think this is a race somehow.

6) I'm not buying the Phillies entirely yet.  Anything can happen in that NL playoff field.

7) On that note - the Diamondbacks meet (and lose to) the Tigers in the World Series.  Really.  I'm going to call it the Sparky Anderson Classic.

8) I predict I don't follow the NL closely enough (outside of pitching stats) to declare an MVP.  Ah, I see I got one prediction right!

9) The Minnesota Twins will become, if memory serves, the second member of the 100-100 club - losing 100+ games with a $100M+ payroll.  I can't see them winning 4 of 11 to finish the season and avoid it.  They'd be joining the 2008 Seattle Mariners, who were the inaugural member of said club.

10) More detailed playoff predictions:

ALDS - Tigers over Red Sox in 3 / Yankees over Rangers in 4.
NLDS - D-Backs over Phillies in 5 / Brewers over Braves in 4.

ALCS - Tigers over Yankees in 6.
NLCS - D-Backs over Brewers in 7.

World Series - Tigers over D-Backs in 4.