2006 Arizona Diamondbacks Predictions & Season Preview
It seems to be up and down for this ball club and we take that into account for our 2006 Arizona Diamondbacks predictions. Two years ago Arizona was the worst team in baseball and they haven’t been able to make a real turnaround to regain their former success. Last year was a lot better however, and they ended up finishing 2nd in the lousy National League West. They were still eight games under .500 and while this division isn’t going to be that difficult again this year, don’t expect that same record to give them a solid hold on 2nd place.
Over the course of the last two years this team has had to deal with losing two of the greatest pitchers of our era in Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. These two guys were the backbone of their World Championship team and brought a lot of successes to this franchise. Last year they had one of the worst ERAs in the league so they went out and tried to pick up a few arms to help their cause this season. Orlando Hernandez pitched brilliantly in the post-season and Arizona is hoping that his arm still has some life in it. Miguel Batista is also welcomed back after a couple of rocky years in Toronto. He’ll be expected to live up to the promise that was bestowed on him when coming up in Arizona. Is Brandon Webb an ace that can carry a ball club? That will be determined this season as he has slowly progressed to being a force in the rotation, but we’ll see if he can take it up to the next level and possibly get to 20+ wins.
Offense is definitely not a strong point for this Diamondback team and we don’t expect things to look too much better this season. Luis Gonzalez was battling elbow troubles the past two seasons and should be back to a healthy state, but he is getting up there in years. There aren’t a whole lot of other options on this team, Chad Tracey might be a promising young bat, but he won’t have much around him to protect him so he’ll get good pitches to drive. If Arizona is going to win, they are going to have to do so by relying on the arms on the staff and not by carrying big sticks in the lineup.
Without the dominant pitching they have had in the past, the pressure has moved to the hitters which hasn’t been good news for Arizona backers. This team was a terrible 13-41 versus lefties in 2004 and while they improved slightly in 2005 it still wasn’t very good. We expect it to improve or at least plateau in 2006. The key that we will be looking at is that this team is so bad against south paws that it skews the line a little bit when they are going against right-handers. You may see some value in those situations and our staff will personally be looking to exploit soft lines in this direction. As evidence look at this stat, last season Arizona was 34-28 on the road against right-handers for a positive 14 units.
It will be important to pick your spots with this team this season. We believe that Arizona will have success in their weak division against right-handed starters, but we are going to keep a close eye on how they perform against lefties. If the team continues to be owned by left-handers we are going to pick some spots to make nice profits off of this weakness. The other good news for the team is that their division is extremely weak so they will pick up wins just due to inferior opponents. If they can improve by only a couple of games then they should be able to get over the hump and possibly take the division, as long as they can get past the .500 mark.
A large number of individuals on our staff are sickened by these newly franchised teams in Arizona and Florida spending a bunch of money to get quick access to a World Series title and then dismantling these championship teams the next year. It seems that the D-backs overspent and had to get rid of their stud pitchers, but when you have long-time Cubs fans on the staff you are going to hear some griping. These guys get great enjoyment when we find some spots to go against these teams, but we are never reluctant to take them either. This is a great chance for us to further a point that you can’t let your emotions run wild and effect your sports betting. We are looking for opportunities and not chances to bet only our favorite teams.
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