Who is going to win it all in the AA this season?
Favorites: Sioux Falls, Grand Prairie, and Lincoln.
Darkhorse: Shreveport.
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SteveT |
Predictions for 2009 |
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Who is going to win it all in the AA this season? Favorites: Sioux Falls, Grand Prairie, and Lincoln. Darkhorse: Shreveport. |
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airhogsfan |
St Paul wins it all in 2009! | ||
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I'll take St Paul Saints to win the North over the Saltdogs. In the South will take Shreveport-Bossier Captains over the AirHogs. With the Saints taking
the title in 2009!
Dang gotta have another sweet tea! Now were talking!
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SteveT |
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Airhogsfan what is your strange fascination with this "sweet tea"? If each team offered it, would it make you a season ticket holder for life,
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airhogsfan |
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Dude when your from the south like me living in New Orleans when I was a kid. You had a granny that made us grand kids sweet tea all the time. You be crazy
about it too! My stomach can't handle carbonated drinks so all i drink is sweet tea and water. Maybe a magarita every now and then.
Ahhh yea another sweet tea!
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nudan92 |
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I haven't really looked at the other teams to see what kind of moves they made in the off season, but I do like the moves that Lincoln made so I'll go
all homer on you guys and pick the Saltdogs to win the North. I'll go with Grand Prairie in the South.....Lincoln wins it all!
Always buying and trading for Lincoln Baseball Memorabilia 1885-2008.
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HorseRaider |
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Might be wise to not make predictions until after the final rosters are set later this coming week.
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nudan92 |
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The Saltdogs only have 26 on the roster right at the moment. I've got a pretty good idea who will be retained.
Always buying and trading for Lincoln Baseball Memorabilia 1885-2008.
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lamearmjr1 |
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Nice to see the beloved Cats are not on any ones radar!!! Good, teams will take them lightly and make it a bit easier. I take FTW over Shreveport in the South
and Lincoln over Sioux City. FTW over Lincoln to bring the championship back to the Fort where it belongs!!
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HorseRaider |
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Well, the Airhogs and Cats are down to their 22, so now I'll have my say:) And I am swallowing my homer pride and trying to make an honest observation.
Just my opinion:
The North should be a three horse race. I got Lincoln by a nose over Sioux Falls and St. Paul. Lincoln has enough of their team back both on the field and on the mound, together with some nice additions to make a run to the top and stay there after making it close last season. They're like Sioux Falls was the year before last; the Canaries made a jump in the standings and then won it all last year. Sioux Falls still has a lot left from last year and it wouldn't surprise me if they won it again. Whether they can replace a starter or two remains to be seen but I expect them to be in the playoff hunt down to the very end. I'll take St.Paul to return to prominence again. The Saints were hit by injuries and players lost to pro teams last year..Tsamis knows talent and he always keeps the Saints competitive..they just don't have a bad season very often. I have Sioux City making a slide downward this season with Wichita bringing up the rear..I just didn't see much that impressed me with their rosters. The South could be a three way race as well, but I think the race could very well be for the second playoff spot. For those of you who think Grand Prairie caught lightning in a bottle last year and expect them to fall off the map this season, you are in denial and need to think again. These guys are going to be very tough again this year and could take the whole thing this time around. They have 16 of their 22 players back from last year. From what a couple of their people told me, their pitching staff will be even beter than last year. The addition of Yaconetti to their lineup was a big plus. Fort Worth will be in the middle of it all again, as I expect it to be another repeat of last year with the Airhogs and Cats going at it for the top spot. Cats' main question is if they found a closer. Treadway knows talent, so I trust he's found the right guys to plug in. Defense looks improved, judging by the exhibition games. Ryan Patterson and Kelley Gulledge add power to the lineup. So I will go with the Hogs first and the Cats second. Everyone seems to be jumping on the Shreveport-Bossier bandwagon ever since their new manager made a bunch of noise about how good his team is going to be this year. The Captains did sign a bunch of the better ex-UBL players (some of them made all UBL last year). Whether that translates into the Captains staying close to the Cats and Hogs all season remains to be seen. They should be much improved..after all they only won 9 games in the second half last season, so anything is an improvment. I'll put them in third, and a possible spoiler. As far as El Paso and Pensacola, well..they're still in the league and I don't see much change there. They'll fight it out to see who stays out of last place. As far as the playoffs go, when you have a best of five series, anyone can win it all playing a short series like that. I'll stay away from the playoff picks right now. This is just my opinion and doesn't mean a lot. Heck, last year I said the Airhogs would be the worst team in the league and be absolutely awful based on the inexperience of their manager and front office. I did get it right with Sioux Falls winning it all, so maybe my guesswork is actually getting a little better. Best of luck to all the AA teams, and let's play ball!!
Last Edited By: HorseRaider
12-May-09 09:25:00.
Edited 1 times.
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bballfan08 |
2009 | ||
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I don't see how everybody is jumping on Sioux Falls and Lincoln this season. To me both teams -- especially Sioux Falls -- are worse off than they were
last season. The Canaries no longer have Josh Patton and Grant Richardson in their line-up. And -- more importantly -- there's no more Pat Mahomes who
was the most feared pitcher in the league. Also, you'll notice that the Canaries line-up is dominated by right handers. Last year, it was left, right,
left, right throughout. Sioux Falls rotation has Ryan Ford and the new vet they acquired in Gonzalez but after that, there's question marks. I think
Travis Kane is set for a fall and Ben Moore had a high ERA last season, although he struck out a few.
Lincoln is weaker as well. They lost 3 of their vets from last season. Where did Dustin Yount go? Josh Burrus hit .263 with 10 HR in the Can-Am League. That translates to about .230 and 7 HR in the AA. Juan Richardson looks like a dangerous hitter and Carolos Guevara pitched briefly with San Diego last season so those are pretty decent pick-ups. But can Deacon Burns and Matt Maloney improve on last year's numbers? I do have faith in Marty Scott to put together a solid team so maybe they will add and subtract as the season wears on. St. Paul seems to be the team to beat in the North right now but their starting rotation still leaves something to desire. I think the North is wide open with the exception of Wichita. Sioux City has a strong line-up with Walter Young and Alex Llanos back. Carlos Arroyo put up big numbers with Edmonton -- granted he won't hit .377 in the AA but he should be among the batting leaders. Anthony Webster is another new vet to the AA and should hit for power in the middle of this line-up. Watch out for Brandon Jones too, he's a good athlete. I looked up the numbers on the Explorers bullpen and that may be the team's strength with Reid, Marotz, and Meigs -- who they got from the NL. Rotation is thin behind Singleton though and that's a concern. On paper, I see Sioux City scoring a lot of runs but giving up a lot of runs. |
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ericronke |
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Well of course this is a homer pick, but I will explain. If you look at Sioux Falls' line up if I heard right anyway we have brought back more players than
any other team. We will miss Mahomes, but we brought in a new pitcher (Gonzalez) that should be a capable replacement, and even if not having 3 returning 10+
game winners is most likely sufficient as long as the other guys are at least average. We Josh Patten and Grant Richardson were great players and we would have
loved to get them back, but in there place we have Trevor Lawhorn who only did not play for us last year because he was making a run a the bigs... otherwise
Patten or Richardson probably would not have been there, and Anthensen at 2nd is going to be an improvement in speed and defense to our infield.... and oh
yeah, he can hit the ball well too. Lastly Harris hit .312 with 14 home runs and 70 RBI in 2008 for Joliet. Not a bad addition to our line up. So in my opinion
Sioux Falls looks as good if not better than last year, with more power in the line up than we have ever had. I do not think that they will just walk away with
the title this year as there are other good teams out there as well. I think that Sioux City will be the best competition for the Canaries as they have a lot
of talented and fast guys. Of course you can never rule out Lincoln or St. Paul who always seem to pull something together no matter what they did or did not
do in the off season. It should be a fun year for the Northern Division. But my prediction is that Sioux Falls wins the 1st half and Sioux City wins the second
yet again with Sioux Falls win the division.
The south is tough for me, as I only see these guys once a year. But I am going to go against the grain and say that Ft. Worth will be the South Division champs this year. They had a pretty good team last year, and they seem to be good at always putting something together just like Saint Paul and Lincoln. This of course if just more of a hunch than an educated guess, but I had to pick someone. Championship series - Sioux Falls -vs- Ft. Worth... Canaries repeat! |
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lamearmjr1 |
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Raise you hand if you picked the Cats to be on of the teams in the playoffs, only see mine and Eric!!! Its ok I will help you guys onto the bandwagon....
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HorseRaider |
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You also said Shreveport would come in second and Lincoln would win the North, Lamearm, so don't wear out your arm patting yourself on the back just yet. Shreveport is improved and more competitive, but the entire South outside of Fort Worth is mediocre at best. At this rate, Fort Worth could hit 70 wins this season. I said : Fort Worth will be in the middle of it all again, as I expect it to be another repeat of last year with the Airhogs and Cats going at it for the top spot. Cats' main question is if they found a closer. Treadway knows talent, so I trust he's found the right guys to plug in. Defense looks improved, judging by the exhibition games. Ryan Patterson and Kelley Gulledge add power to the lineup. So I will go with the Hogs first and the Cats second.
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HorseRaider |
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Seems like everyone who picked Lincoln are looking good right now..
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nudan92 |
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Reading back through the thread it's obvious how difficult it is to make preseason predictions in a league like the American Association....there are just
too many changes throughout the season and too many question marks going in. A few did pick Lincoln to win the North..however I think I was the only one to
pick them to win it all (granted I pick them every year
), but nobody
thought Wichita or Pensacola were even going to be players this year, and Wichita was really strong all year.
Always buying and trading for Lincoln Baseball Memorabilia 1885-2008.
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