The Texas Rangers are going to win the AL West.
Millwood will win the AL Cy Young
These are a couple of the 2006 predictions by Jim Evans over at Baseball Digest Daily. This is what he says about Millwood in his predictions article..
With all of Texas cheering him on, and Tom Hicks installing a giant fan to counteract the jet stream effect that occurred when he built a luxury box addition to Arlington Stadium, Millwood wins the Cy Young with an ERA of 2.98, and a 23 win season. Johann Santana fans cry foul again, as he leads the league in ERA and strikeouts, but wins 6 less games.
23 wins? 2.98 ERA at our field? A Ranger pitcher a Cy Young winner? Jim, I think you have some bad leftover Egg Nog there. That’s way out there. I’m a Ranger fan, and while I like the optimism, I’d be totally and absolutely stunned if anything like this actually happened. Plus the “giant fan” remark kind of makes the whole paragraph seem like a bit of a joke to me.
Minor rant aside, check out Jim’s article. Has some intersting names turning up in his predictions.
He also makes a remark about imported players like Ichiro & Jojima from Japan being ineligible for Rookie of the Year starting in 2007. That’s a good rule if true – I hadn’t heard of it before. Never felt those guys should be eligible for ROY in the first place. Nothing against them, I love Ichiro a lot as a player, but to call him a “rookie” is a bit of a joke.