Larry Brown Sports

1. Diamondbacks — The best got better acquiring a front line starter like Dan Haren. Their bullpen is weaker without Jose Valverde closing games, and overall it should regress from their stellar performance last year. On the other hand, their offense will improve with the young guns performing closer to their expectations. Overall, they have too much good pitching, defense, and an offense that will be improved to be beaten. If I could give them one thing, I’d give em … a power hitting first baseman.

2. Dodgers — Their offense is much improved just for the simple fact that they have the youngsters up to begin the year. Adding Andruw Jones was a boost, but Juan Pierre is the weak link in left and shouldn’t be taking away ABs from Ethier or Kemp. Furcal will turn things around and the pitching staff is solid enough to keep them over .500. They make too many fundamental mistakes such as poor baserunning and this will cost them a few games. They’ll come up short because outside of Saito, they don’t have a hitter or pitcher that will wow you. You need a few of those to make the playoffs. If I could give them one thing, I’d give em … a compass.

3. Rockies — It took the September from heaven to make the playoffs. Before that, they were around a .500 team. I give their offense tons of credit and think Corpas is money in the pen, but I have a hard time envisioning Ubaldo, Franklin Morales, and Mark Redman being as lock-down as they were late in the year. They’re still a good team that will win games but won’t replicate last year’s run. If I could give them one thing, I’d give em … a picture of the World Series trophy, cuz they’re not sniffing that again.

4. Padres — The appeal with this club is the pitching. But everyone’s a year older (notably Maddux and Hoffman), and everything went right for Peavy last year (probably won’t this year). They still have a good staff but it’s not good enough to carry that horrendous offense the way it did last year. Outside of Adrian Gonzalez and Khalil Greene, they’re punchless and they’ll struggle to score runs. If I could give them one thing, I’d give em … Brian Giles of ’99.

5. Giants — When Rich Aurilia (de-roided) and Dan Ortmeier are manning the corners, you’re in deep trouble. This offense is bad. Really bad. Aaron Rowand and Randy Winn would be good 6-7 hitters, but they’re not middle/top of the order guys which is where they’ll be. Zito, Lincecum, and Cain are excellent assets, and I like Kevin Correia, but man, this team is just brutal. They’ll have a stranglehold on last place for sure. If I could give them one thing, I’d give em … Greg Anderson’s phone number.