NL West Preview

~~NL West~~

Arizona Diamondbacks
Strengths: Stephen Drew has yet to display the frailty and girly parts that characterize his older brother Nancy.

Weaknesses: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon could probably pitch better than her namesake at this point.

Deciding factor: Starting rotation has the opportunity to keep the deficit in each game manageable for the mediocre offense until the bullpen comes in and does their best impression of Nagasaki.

Fun fact: Whenever I see Brandon Webb’s name and am trying to think of a fun fact to put in an NL West preseason preview, I think of Spiderman, and how awesome it’d be if Spiderman played in the MLB. Hell, I’d even watch Toby McGwire play in the MLB with no powers, because there’s no way that his baseball career could be worse than Spiderman 3.

Colorado Rockies

Strengths: Jeff Francis is a legitimate ace with a 4.74 career ERA, which after applying the Coors Field conversion factor is about a -327.00 ERA.

Weaknesses: The Rockies had a magical run to the World Series in 2007, winning 21 of their last 22. Unfortunately, the club’s strict Christian management believe all magic to be occult and have banned it from their team, to be replaced by good, moral, soul-crushing beatdowns at the hands of whatever other joke teams are in the semi-professional "national" league that they’re in.

Deciding factor: Troy Tulowitzki can either come back as the badass guy who hammered balls and snagged line drives or the wimpy little girl whose gets boo-boos when he can’t control the piece of wood that is the basis of his entire career.

Fun fact: Todd Helton’s beard has better range than Derek Jeter.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Strengths: Dodgers fans can expect good things from Juan Pierre if it turns out that he was recently released after being kidnapped in 1999 and had no relation to the impostor who has been playing for the last decade.

Weaknesses: Russ Martin is playing for Team Canada in this year’s World Baseball Classic, which should be enough to remind him that his career is a lost cause.

Deciding factor: Los Angeles will be in good shape as long as they keep Manny Ramirez happy by giving him everything he wants. Just hope he doesn’t ask to play shortstop, get a chance to ride the unicorns, or play in a quality division.

Fun fact: The Dodgers have found a way to battle economic hard times by selling tickets that are only good for the first two innings and last two innings, a time period where they have a surplus of empty seats.

San Diego Padres
Strengths: Signing of David Eckstein gives them a league leading HEART score of 17 and a NL West best GRIT factor of 2i^3.

Weaknesses: Some guy I’ve never heard of called Adrian Gonzalez plays at first, who might have had a shot at a career if he didn’t get signed by the Padres.

Deciding factor: If the other 15 teams in the National League disband, the Padres would have a roughly 20% chance of making the World Series.

Fun fact: If the goal of the game was to have more runs than your opponent at the end of 9 innings, the Padres would be in horrible shape.

San Francisco Giants
Strengths: In the unlikely event that you are ever at AT&T Park for a Giants game, there are as usually 9 discrete, 15-minute breaks in the action to get concessions or go to the bathroom that conveniently start right after the last opposing batter of an inning makes an out and then end right before the first opposing batter of the next inning comes to bat.

Weaknesses: Team is slightly imbalanced by the lack of players with between 5 and 5000 games worth of experience.

Deciding factor: Matt Cain’s W-L record will actually turn out to be the greatest practical joke in San Francisco history, so he’ll have two choices. Laugh it off and get the 15-20 wins he deserves with his ERA, or go on a homicidal massacre of all of his teammates, forcing the Giants to hire a completely new 25-man roster. Either way, the Giant would be much better off.

Fun fact: The only way pitcher Tim Lincecum could have been more dominating last year would have been if he had had the opportunity to pitch against the Giants a few times.

(Division previews inspired by The Onion Sports, The Brushback Report, Gamefaqs Forums, and various substances of questionable legality)