Preview/Prediction

9 Innings Blog will be bringing you previews of every Major League Baseball team for the next 30 days. This is in accordance with our 30 teams in 30 days series.

Today, we are going to give you two previews since I missed Friday’s preview. The first preview I am going to give you is the 2011 Kansas City Royals.

The Royals finished last season in last place of the American League Central division with a record of 67-95, a mere 27 games back of the Minnesota Twins.

Going into the 2011 season, the White Sox have been recognized as strong contenders for the postseason. Most analysts see them in contention for the AL Central title. While they will face tough opponents in the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins, the biggest questions to success remain within the organization.

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MLB rookies always have a tough task of being expected to produce immediately. While some crack under the pressure, others rise to the occasion and place themselves in the conversation for Rookie of the Year.

Last season, a few impact rookies—especially Neftali Feliz and Buster Posey—burst onto the scene to help their teams. In the cases of Feliz and Posey, they even aided in their respective team’s World Series runs.

Day by day, the Major League Baseball season gets closer. The Chicago Cubs have had two consecutive disappointing seasons. Now, with a new manager at the helm, the Cubbies are looking to start anew in 2011.

Many people are pessimistic about the upcoming season. Even though they may not have reason to be optimistic, I think it's time to be more ambitious.

We're halfway through spring training, and it's come time to evaluate who is on the path for a major league roster and who might be cut or remain in the minor leagues until he can regain his stride.

Through Sunday, the Marlins are 5-10 in the Grapefruit League, but records only matter in the regular season.

Let's look at who's hot and who's not through the Marlins' first 15 spring training games.

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Hold the ticker tape, Giants fans. Sure, the Giants have just blazed through another week of spring training with the lowest team ERA in the Cactus League and the best overall record, but spring training numbers have historically meant almost nothing when it comes to predicting regular season success. In other words, it’s still too soon to begin preparations for another parade down Market Street.

We're midway through spring training, and each team has had two weeks to assess its club as we close in on Opening Day.  What's amazing is each of these teams could have the ability to contend if one or two things bounce their way. 

In other words, each team has a major question it must answer to push its season well into October.

Unlike my recent attempt to rank the 25 craftiest pitchers in baseball, it's a lot easier to quantify the best strikeout pitchers in the game.  One statistic in particular, the K/9 rate (strikeouts per nine innings), will get us most of the way there.

That doesn't mean this will simply be a list of the 25 pitchers with the best K/9 rates in 2010, though.  A couple other factors will also be at play.

How do you fix a team that has lost 100 games twice in three seasons?

That's the glaring question that general manager Jack Zduriencik and manager Eric Wedge are tasked with in 2011.

After a few nice trades and additions propelled the team a giant step forward in 2009, they took another giant step back in 2010. Though most assumed that '09 team overachieved, the additions to the club last season led those same pundits to believe we'd at least see a similar outcome, perhaps even a better one.

On April 19, 2010, rookie first baseman Issac Benjamin Davis made his first appearance in an MLB regular-season game for the New York Mets. What did Ike do in his first at-bat at Citi Field versus the Chicago Cubs' Randy Wells? Drop one into right field.

Oh, and received one of the biggest ovations in recent Mets history. It was a single, so simple a hit that if it were made by any other man on that roster, they would have received a standard applause.