America has a predictions addiction. We want to know the answers and we want them now! We have less patience that Veruca Salt. "But daddy, I want to know who wins the World Series NOW!"

Hold your horses. Despite the fact that we can scratch off certain teams from contention right now (I'd say somewhere between 12 and 14 teams have anywhere from a big to small chance of winning the World Series this season) we still have to play the games. Who would have guessed that the Diamondbacks would win the NL West? Who could have foreseen the Red Sox missing the playoffs? And who would guesstimated that Miguel Tejada was still in the league?

This will be the last season of baseball ever, unless we band together and force Matt Cain to live up to his contract in a post-Mayan apocalypse world. The last chance for predictions on who wins every division, award, and the busts and breakouts of 2012.

I forced the writers at FakeTeams to send me there predictions and also had a few of them throw me some explanations as to why they made their ridiculous picks that should have been exactly the same as mine! What's the point of making picks if we're all different! That's confusing to the reader!

The A's and M's have already played two games which wildly effects out selections* but we're going to march on anyway. What happens in Japan, stays in Japan.

*There is almost zero mention of the A's and M's so it didn't effect it at all.

So, on with it, am I right? Wasting a lot of time here for no apparent reason but just follow through after the jump so you can look at the picks, look for your favorite team, and steal your mom's credit card to run up some bets on the internet.

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Robert and Kenny have completed their 2012 MLB Team Previews and Fantasy Baseball Spotlight articles. In the Team Preview articles, Robert provides his 2012 outlook and takes a look at the home ballpark, manager and coaching staff, spring position battles, projected lineup, and spring story lines, among other topics. In the Fantasy Spotlight articles, Kenny gives you his opinion on who the best hitter and best pitcher is on each team, along with candidates who could breakout and disappoint in 2012, and also gives you the rookie to watch this season.

In case you missed them, make sure you check out the links below:

NL East

Braves: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Marlins: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Mets: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Phillies: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Nationals: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

NL Central

Cubs: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Reds: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Astros: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Brewers: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Pirates: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Cardinals: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

NL West

Diamondbacks: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Rockies: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Dodgers: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Padres: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Giants: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

AL East

Orioles: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Red Sox: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Yankees: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Rays: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Blue Jays: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

AL Central

White Sox: Team Preview |Fantasy Spotlight

Indians: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Tigers: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Royals: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Twins: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

AL West

Angels: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Athletics: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Mariners: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

Rangers: Team Preview | Fantasy Spotlight

The 30-team preview consisting of 60 articles total by Robert and myself is finally over! Well, after you read Roberts piece on the Rangers and mine right now. Then it will officially be over. I hope you enjoyed it and that it helped at least a little bit.

Pretty soon all of this speculation will turn into reality and we can be like "Yeah buddy, we made it! We got the championship! Woohoo!" or even "Aww man, this sucks, I am in last place. Thanks a lot Kenneth!!"

You're welcome!

We finish up the previews with the Rangers of Texas. The Rangers of Texas are on a mission to be the Buffalo Bills of baseball. Nolan Ryan has guided this team (no he hasn't) to back-to-back World Series, only to fall short of winning the whole thing which gives Texas as many titles over the last two years as the Royals, Pirates, and Mariners. Actually, it still gives them zero World Series titles, which means that the Mariners and Rangers still have that in common!

On the bright side, Texas has a lot of money, a lot of TV money, a lot of fan money, and so they've used all of that money to put more good baseball on the field year after year. Thanks to a deep farm system that has produced a lot of talent, the Rangers got good and then they used that "got good-ness" on resources that have been used on guys like Adrian Beltre and Yu Darvish. The Rangers lost CJ Wilson, but they got a younger starting pitcher that could very well be much, much better than Wilson.

The Rangers have more than a couple fantasy studs this year and this is the time of the article now when I talk about them so let's talk about them.

Best Hitter: Ian Kinsler

This is a tough one, only because Josh Hamilton should be, arguably, the best hitter in baseball. He could be a .330/.400/.600 hitter with 35 HR/20 SB, and all the trappings that come with numbers like that. It's unfortunate that you can't count on his health and that he's got personal demons that will follow him no matter where he goes. I root for Josh Hamilton (even as a Mariners fan, you don't want to see a person go through what he's gone through) but from a fantasy perspective, you've got to have skepticism. Ian Kinsler is just the safer bet.

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Our team-by-team preview of the 2012 MLB season from a fantasy perspective concludes today with the Texas Rangers. If you've just jumped on with our series or need a reminder, we are spending a day with each major league team, looking at 9 different fantasy angles for each franchise while also paying homage to the things we watch for as real life fans. The hope is that through this exercise we might all come to a greater understanding of the various environments that contain the players we spend so much time obsessing over. Fantasy baseball would be a lot easier if these guys played in a vacuum, but since they don't, it's a good idea to learn as much as we can about the circumstances that affect their play.

Make sure you check out Kenneth Arthur's spotlight on various Rangers players, scheduled to post later today.

2011 in Review & 2012 Outlook

After reaching the World Series and losing in 5 games in 2010, many assumed that the Texas Rangers' chances of recapturing the pennant were dependent on whether or not they could keep Cliff Lee. After a bit of manufactured drama, Lee bolted for Philadelphia and it seemed that Texas might just be a one-hit wonder. Indeed, thanks largely to a mess of a bullpen and an early season injury to Josh Hamilton, the Rangers were only 3 games above .500 at 44-41 on July 3 before they ripped off a 12-game winning streak that coincided nicely with Seattle's 17-game skid. After holding off a late charge from the Angels, Texas finished 96-66, 10 games clear of their rivals. They were the hottest team in the league heading into the playoffs, and they were able to ride that momentum to another pennant and a considerably more gut-wrenching loss in the World Series, where they came 1 strike away from winning it all twice. I don't want to talk about it.

Heading into 2012, the Rangers are one of a handful of teams that can legitimately say that their goal is to win it all, but they'll have quite a fight within the division as they attempt to hold off the new-look Angels. They made a free agent splash of their own, signing the highly sought-after Yu Darvish in an attempt to replace the departed C.J. Wilson. If they can avoid major injuries and overcome regression at the plate from Mike Napoli and Michael Young, they'll be in a great position to return to the playoffs for a third straight year.

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This morning, at 3 AM Seattle Mariners time, the M's laughed in the faces of doubters, silenced the critics, and Dustin Ackley and Ichiro blasted Seattle past the Oakland A's and into first place in the division. What's the point of even playing the next 161 games?

Clearly, the Mariners are in a class of their own so let's hoist up the trophy in the Pacific Northwest and call it a season, okay? Please? PRETTY PLEASE!!!??? Okay fine, I guess we can play the rest of the year, but kind of a formality, no? Or maybe it's just that the M's won a baseball game, and it took 11 innings, and Felix is the King while the A's are the A's.

I will try to write this as objectively as possible. The M's are indeed my heart and soul but there are some clear holes in their game this year that will most likely prevent them from making the postseason for another year, though the crop of young talent is as good as it's been in a decade and a half.... overall, it might be the best ever.

We've already got one game of data (!!) although it came in a stadium that Seattle will only play in one more time all season and it was at 3 o'clock in the morning, and we can't expect Ichiro to bat .800 this year. (Or can we?) Let's take a look at what to watch for in terms of fantasy baseball on the 2012 Seattle Mariners:

Best Hitter: Dustin Ackley

No power? Ack-Attack is on pace for 162 home runs this year, which would be 156 more than he hit last season in 90 games! I've been a firm defender of Dustin since he was drafted and during his slumps that would last for a single month and bring the haters out in full droves to call him overrated. He always answers his critics and during his 90 game trial with Seattle last year he put up 2.7 WAR, which led all M's hitters.

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Our team-by-team preview of the 2012 MLB season from a fantasy perspective continues today with the Seattle Mariners. If you've just jumped on with our series or need a reminder, we are spending a day with each major league team, looking at 9 different fantasy angles for each franchise while also paying homage to the things we watch for as real life fans. The hope is that through this exercise we might all come to a greater understanding of the various environments that contain the players we spend so much time obsessing over. Fantasy baseball would be a lot easier if these guys played in a vacuum, but since they don't, it's a good idea to learn as much as we can about the circumstances that affect their play.

Make sure you check out Kenneth Arthur's spotlight on various Mariners players, scheduled to post later today. Our series will conclude tomorrow with the Texas Rangers.

2011 in Review & 2012 Outlook

On the morning of July 6, 2011, the Seattle Mariners, having beaten Oakland 4-2 in 10 innings the night before, sported a 43-43 record, just 1.5 games out of first place. After a disastrous 2010 that started with the infamous #6org article and ended with Jack Zduriencik making apologetic commercials, everybody had expected the M's to be terrible in 2011. On July 6, it looked like everybody might be wrong. What happened next was perhaps the most Seattle thing that could have happened: they lost 17 games in a row, a franchise record. The streak was so long that when you visit the team's Baseball-Reference page, a scroll button appears at the bottom of the screen because the "streak" box has to be expanded to accommodate all of those minus signs. Hey, at least this happened to them in July - plenty of teams collapse in August after they've already traded away the farm to make a late season run.

Even before the losing streak, however, there were warning signs. The Mariners offense was the worst in baseball by almost every measure, and that was the case all season long. To counter that, Jack Z traded Michael Pineda to the Yankees for highly regarded prospect Jesus Montero. Pineda was a revelation for the M's in 2011, but Montero fills a team need. The Mariners are hoping his presence in the middle of the lineup will be enough to get the team over the 600 run threshold.

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Trevor Cahill-Brett Anderson-Gio Gonzalez-Dallas Braden-Brandon McCarthy. A pretty sick starting rotation of potential, no? Your number four starter has a perfect game on his record and your number five starter posted a 3.32 ERA in 2011 and walked 25 batters in 170.2 innings. The Oakland Athletics could be pretty good in 2012.

That was a statement that could have potentially been made if the A's didn't suffer major injuries to Anderson and Braden, and trade away Cahill and Gonzalez. But what happens and happens and the A's are rebuilding... again. No amount of Moneyball is going to change the fact that the A's are going to have to win with fundamental baseball again, except it probably won't amount to over 75 wins.

Oakland's best hitter (and most desirable in fantasy) might be a guy that's never played a single minor or major league game. Their best starting pitcher is a guy that spent five years struggling on the White Sox and Rangers. No miracles this season for the A's. No movies. Not even a Lifetime Movie of the Week, unless Tyson Ross has to deal with being a pregnant teen.

Just baseball. Boring, no homer, fundamental baseball. (Welcome to my world.)

Best Hitter: Yoenis Cespedes

Screw it, what do I have to lose? The only returning player from 2011 that had more than 8 home runs for the A's last season is Kurt Suzuki and his 14 HR, 44 RBI, .237 season. Might as well take a chance on the new guy.

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Our team-by-team preview of the 2012 MLB season from a fantasy perspective continues today with the Oakland Athletics. If you've just jumped on with our series or need a reminder, we are spending a day with each major league team, looking at 9 different fantasy angles for each franchise while also paying homage to the things we watch for as real life fans. The hope is that through this exercise we might all come to a greater understanding of the various environments that contain the players we spend so much time obsessing over. Fantasy baseball would be a lot easier if these guys played in a vacuum, but since they don't, it's a good idea to learn as much as we can about the circumstances that affect their play.

Make sure you check out Kenneth Arthur's spotlight on various Athletics players, scheduled to post later today. Our series will continue tomorrow with the Seattle Mariners.

2011 in Review & 2012 Outlook

The Oakland A's were a trendy pick to win the division in 2011. The Texas Rangers had just won the AL pennant, but they were viewed as a fluke, and after all, Cliff Lee spurned them for Philadelphia. Over in Anaheim, Tony Reagins was busy being Tony Reagins, and the Mariners had problems of their own. The Athletics had spent 2010 dominating the league with their starting pitching while the bats lagged behind, so the natural reaction to the additions of Hideki Matsui and Josh Willingham was summed up well by this poll on Athletics Nation.

As it turned out, Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden pitched 101.3 innings between them thanks to injuries, and Trevor Cahill's luck-fueled 2010 was exposed for what it was. The A's were a middle of the road team when it came to run prevention, and their hitting was even worse, despite Willingham and Matsui meeting net expectations. They never led the division and finished at 74-88, 22 games out of first place.

Thanks to some trades involving Trevor Cahill and Brad Peacock, the A's are now in full-on rebuilding mode, seemingly biding their time until they can move to San Jose. At one point this offseason, the A's depth chart looked like this, but after an outfielder shopping spree, there now appear to be enough players to take the field once the regular season starts in Tokyo on Wednesday.

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