Hobart // “Expert” picks for the 2012 season
Hobart’s annual baseball issue includes my picks for the 2012 season:
“The Phillies have won the division title five times in a row and they beat the Rays in the 2008 World Series. That feels like an eternity ago. If the team has had an Achilles heel since then, it’s been the hitters’ lack of discipline. The last two seasons ended with Ryan Howard at the plate and he will start 2012 on the DL because of a ruptured Achilles tendon. You can’t make this shit up. Of course it’s his Achilles. And now it looks like Chase Utley could miss a chunk of the season because of his bad knees. Despite the injuries, however, I remain strangely optimistic and predict that the Phils will win it one more time with its aging core of homegrown infielders: Utley, Howard, and Jimmy Rollins.”
Other contributors include Mike Czyzniejewski, Rick Moody, and by coincidence two writers who were cool enough to serve as early readers on my new novel, Nick Mainieri and Owen King.