One of the true feel good stories of the 2012 season doesn\u2019t seem to be getting a lot of love ahead of the 2013 season \u2013 the longest shot in the AL East. <\/p>\n
Odds to Win AL East<\/strong>: +900 The Baltimore Orioles certainly caught lightning in a bottle last year and were the most improbable playoff team in the Bigs in 2012. The trick will be to continue the improbable momentum with an average pitching staff and an average batting order this season.<\/p>\n 1. Nate McLouth, LF The batting order was the weakness of the Orioles last year and figures to be once again this year. Adam Jones is an absolute stud but injury prone Nick Markakis figures to be the X-factor. If he can stay on the field, the O\u2019s will be at least competitive. The rest of the lineup scares nobody and rightfully so. Young, unproven talent and average veteran talent litter this lineup. To keep up in the AL East, teams have to score and I can\u2019t see the Orioles doing that with any regularity this year.<\/p>\n 1. Jason Hammel Like the battling order, the starting rotation is not exactly talent-latent. They have some horses in the rotation but none is exactly Cy Young caliber. The rotation\u2019s job will be to keep the games close and let Baltimore\u2019s terrific bullpen do their thing. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/p>\n Closer: Jim Johnson The Orioles had the third best pen in the AL last year and the team returns all of the talent that put them in that spot. There is no reason to think this group won\u2019t be the strength of the team this year. But if the team can\u2019t score runs it won\u2019t really matter what the pen does.<\/p>\n C Taylor Teagarden, IF Alexi Casilla, IF Danny Valencia, OF Nolan Reimold<\/p>\n The bench is just like the rest of the team \u2013 unflattering and just average. No reason to think that one of these role players emerges this year.<\/p>\n A step back is inevitable for the Baltimore Orioles \u2013 it is extremely difficult to see them repeating their success from last year. What they do have going for them is their Manager Buck Showalter whose skills style and smarts is worth a few wins by themselves. An elite manager can bring the best out of an average lineup but in this case enough to contend again?<\/p>\n The O\u2019s won\u2019t sneak up on anybody in 2013 \u2013 teams will bring their best against them each and every night. The pitching won\u2019t bail them out and the offense likely won\u2019t provide enough run support.<\/p>\n Bottom Line<\/strong>: The Orioles surprised us all last year by finishing 20 games over .500. Everybody was waiting for the wheels to fall off but they never did. This year, my feeling is that the wheels won\u2019t get going at the same pace they did last year and the O\u2019s finish out of a playoff spot \u2013 4th in the AL East.<\/p>\n 2013 MLB Team Preview: Baltimore Orioles One of the true feel good stories of the 2012 season doesn\u2019t seem to be getting a lot of love ahead of the 2013 season \u2013 the longest shot in the AL East.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":30496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[58289,58291,24742,10737,10736,10728,10730,10731,44477,66513,10729,66497,678,681,10735,24788,10734,10866,44478],"class_list":["post-60202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-2013-mlb-team-preview","tag-2013-orioles","tag-al-east","tag-al-east-predictions","tag-al-east-preview","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-baltimore-orioles-picks","tag-baltimore-orioles-predictions","tag-baltimore-world-series-futures","tag-handicapping","tag-handicapping-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-betting","tag-mlb-gambling","tag-orioles-futures","tag-orioles-mlb-picks","tag-orioles-odds","tag-orioles-predictions","tag-orioles-world-series-odds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107964,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60202\/revisions\/107964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOdds to Win World Series<\/strong>: 40\/1<\/p>\nProbable lineup<\/h3>\n
\n2. J.J. Hardy, SS
\n3. Nick Markakis, RF
\n4. Adam Jones, CF
\n5. Matt Wieters, C
\n6. Chris Davis, 1B
\n7. Manny Machado, 3B
\n8. Wilson Betemit, DH
\n9. Brian Roberts, 2B<\/p>\nProbable rotation<\/h3>\n
\n2. Wei-Yin Chen
\n3. Chris Tillman
\n4. Miguel Gonzalez
\n5. Jair Jurrjens<\/p>\nBullpen<\/h3>\n
\nSetup: Pedro Strop, Darren O’Day, Luis Ayala
\nLefty specialist: Brian Matusz
\nLong reliever: Tommy Hunter<\/p>\nNotable bench players<\/h3>\n
Betting Prediction:<\/h3>\n
View The MLB Cappers Leaderboard For 2012 – Picks Packages for 2013 On Sale! \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"