2015 MLB Preview: NL East

We are now just five days away from kicking off the 2015 Major League Baseball season, which means I need to get back to the predictions.

Yesterday saw a look at the American League East, and today we're swapping leagues while staying out east. Last year's predictions for this division were much more on the money, other than being swapped around at the bottom. Like last year, this division has a clear favorite, though the wild card chances are probably greatly diminished.

2015 MLB Preview: AL East

Spring is upon us. It's starting to warm up again (finally), we've had about a month of spring training baseball to whet the appetite, and we're just a week away from lighting mups at Wrigley Field.

So, as is my custom, I'm going to go division by division and take a look at all 30 clubs, complete with predictions. I look forward to totally overrating a couple clubs while some surprises sneak in and throw everything off, as happens every year.

Since last year's World Series champion came out of the National League West, I'm starting in the opposite league on the opposite coast. You can view last year's AL East predictions here.

Mr. Mitzel's Extra Credit Opportunity- Week 2

Welcome back O'Neill Middle School students! Last week, Mrs. Mitzel offered you some extra credit points for answering a couple math questions related to the NCAA Tournament. With the field now narrowed down to the Sweet 16, we've decided to offer another opportunity for some extra credit.

Before we get to this week's questions, here's an answer key from last week. I heard there were some questions about the answers this week, so hopefully this will clear it up a little bit.

1. You guys have learned about percents and the percent proportion, so we'll apply it to last year's NCAA Tournament bracket. Of all the "Second Round/Round of 64" games last year, what percentage of those games were "upsets"? (For those of you who aren't familiar with the NCAA Tournament or sports in general: the bracket is split up into four groups of 16 teams who receive a "seed", a number from 1 to 16. The 1 seed is the best team, the 2 seed is second best, and so on. An "upset" is where the team with a higher number seed wins over the team with the lower number seed. For example, the 12 seed beating the 5 seed would be an upset.)

Looking at the 2014 bracket, there are 32 games in the "Second Round/Round of 64". Of those games, eight met the definition of an "upset": #9 Pitt beating #8 Colorado, #12 Stephen F. Austin beating #5 VCU, #11 Dayton beating #6 Ohio State, #10 Stanford beating #7 New Mexico, #12 Harvard beating #5 Cincinnati, #12 North Dakota State beating #5 Oklahoma, #11 Tennessee beating #6 Massachusetts, and #14 Mercer beating #3 Duke. So, using the percent proportion, we multiply 8 by 100 and divide that by 32. 8*100 = 800; 800/32 = 25. So, 25 percent of the "Second Round/Round of 64" games last year were upsets. However, in talking to Mrs. Mitzel, it sounds like some of you misunderstood what I meant by "Second Round", and looked at the "Third Round/Round of 32" instead (not your fault; the NCAA is dumb). Those of you who found five upsets were correct, and out of 16 games, the correct answer would be 31.25 percent.

2. We're going to try a probability question. Starting on Thursday, the field of 64 will start playing, and by Sunday, only 16 teams (known as the "Sweet 16") will still be in the Tournament. If you pick one team out of the 64, what is the probability that they will make the Sweet 16? Express this answer as a percent (rounded to the nearest whole number), a decimal (rounded to the nearest hundredth), and a fraction.

Dictionary.com defines probability as "the relative possibility that an event will occur, as expressed by the ratio of the number of actual occurrences to the total number of possible occurrences." Basically, you're dividing the number of outcomes you want by the total number of possible outcomes. A good comparison would be to take a bag of 64 marbles. 16 are blue, 20 are red, 24 are green, and 4 are yellow, and you want to know what the probability of drawing a blue marble would be. This would mean you divide 16 by 64. 16/64 = 1/4 = 0.25 =25%.

If you have any further questions, you can leave them in the comments below or ask Mrs. Mitzel. In the meantime, here is this week's question.

1. You guys may have learned about this last year, but if not, you will have to look up how to do it (yes, you can use Google). Look at the bracket and take note of the seeds (this will be the number next to each team listed on games scheduled for either March 26th or March 27th) of the 16 remaining teams. Find the mean, median, and mode of this set of data. Round all answers to the nearest hundredth.

Like last week, please send your answers back to Mrs. Mitzel in an email by the end of school on Thursday. Mrs. Mitzel will give you an extra credit point for each of these correct answers. On top of those, for a possible additional extra credit point, look at the Sweet 16, and pick one team that you think will make the Final Four. Here's the catch: you cannot pick the same team that you picked last week. So those of you who wasted your extra credit point on Kentucky last week... sorry, I'm not sorry. If whatever team you pick does make it, you will get that bonus point.

NCAA Tournament Preview: West Region

We're down to 64 teams. And with that, the best four day stretch in all of sports can begin.

Adam and I have spent the last three days hard at work looking over the bracket, thinking about possibilities, rethinking them, and writing up predictions on what we think will happen. Today, we finish stuff out just in time for the opening tip.

With time running out, if you're still looking for a pool to join, you can join the official Confessions of a Sportscaster pool. I'm pretty sure it closes when the games start, so time is short.

And with that, here's our thoughts on the West region.

The Future of Football

With the NFL's offseason in full swing, a lot of crazy stuff has been happening. We've been documenting it over on UKEndzone. Between podcasts and articles, you can keep up with just about everything going on. Yet with the new discussions going on this week, I feel compelled to address what everyone else is talking about.

On Monday, San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland shocked the world by announcing his retirement. He had just finished a rookie year where he played all but the final two games, and still racked up 84 solo tackles, a sack, five pass deflections, two picks and a fumble recovery. He earned my vote for Defensive Rookie of the Year, which helped him place fourth in UKEndzone's voting.

Screenshot from overthecap.com.

He was in line to replace Patrick Willis at middle linebacker for a 49er team that was falling apart. He was on a pace to make about $3 million over the course of his rookie deal, and made about $600,000 in that one year. He'll have to return some of that with his retirement, but he commented that it's not about the money. To him, it's all about his health and being able to spend time with his family. I'm sure it was a tough decision to make, and I commend him for it.

Of course, the meatheads came out in full force after the fact. One major rule of the Internet is "Don't read the comments," though I do anyway because some of them are amusing. Of course, you had the obligatory "Borland is a quitter," "The pussification of America continues," "You're screwing over your team," comments, all of which are easily refutable and I won't waste my time doing so here. The alarming thing, however, comes from some professionals. SI's Michael Rosenberg penned a piece that boggles the mind (I linked to a tweet and not the article, because I refuse to give SI ad revenue for clicks to asinine content), and then, not to be outdone, an NFL shill came out to respond to Borland's appearance on Outside the Lines today.

Here's the thing: riding a bike or a skateboard can cause harm, yes. So can youth football. Concussion protocol has improved in the NFL, and by extension, at the NCAA, high school, and even youth levels. Problem is, it's not just concussions. All those little hits to the head add up over time. As more research has been done, it comes out that changes have needed to be made, but none of that disputes the fact that yes, football can be dangerous, even if it is "safer than ever before."

Photo by Patrick Kunzer (Daily Herald)

Don't get me wrong: I love football. I have since I was a kid. It wouldn't have comprised just less than 50 percent of the posts on Confessions of a Sportscaster (a total of 218, unless I missed some way back when before I started tagging these posts) if I didn't. I enjoy throwing the ball around with friends and using my height and reach (which gave me the nickname Rodan) to play decent defense. Before I started high school, I got a call from then-Aurora Christian head coach Oz Price about joining the football team. I remember telling him that I would think about it. I told my mom, who was in the room at the time, about the call. She told me there was no way I was playing football. I don't blame her; I was 5'11" or so and about 120 pounds soaking wet at the time. I probably would have gotten hurt, and this was before the concussion issues really started to come to light. I look back and kind of wonder, "What if?" sometimes, but I don't think missing out on playing football hurt me any.

That said, I do wonder about the future of the NFL and football in general. For right now, it seems like it's too big to fail. The NFL brings in billions of dollars of revenue a year. There are millions of kids who play high school football every fall in the hopes of playing in college, then thousands who play in college in hopes of making it to the elite level of the NFL. The success rate of those high schools kids isn't very high, but their chances of getting hurt remain. Positive steps have been taken with regards to injuries, but even so, there will be parents who will be like mine and refuse to let their sons participate in football because there are and always will be risks. It's possible that down the line, I will be one of those parents as well.

For all we know, the NFL will continue on as it has been and continue to grow in popularity, and the lower levels will also get along just fine. Even if they do, the NFL needs to take a better approach than by just saying, "Oh, the game is safer than it's ever been!" Many of their decisions prioritize "protecting the shield" over protecting its players and alumni. Being willing to come further forward than they have and taking increased steps for player safety (say, working with helmet developers or more closely with neurologists while also being open minded about head injuries) will go a long way towards maintaining the integrity of the shield.

NCAA Tournament Preview: South Region

Two regions down, two to go.

Adam and I are halfway through our early set of predictions for the NCAA Tournament. If you're just joining us, we're going region by region to make some picks about what we think will happen.

If you want to join us for some overall bracket filling, you can join my Yahoo! group and see if you can beat us.

Today, we are on to the South region.

NCAA Tournament Preview: East Region

Happy Tuesday! We get the First Four starting tonight to whittle the field down a little bit, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't impact our selections here.

Yesterday, Adam and I began our region by region look at the 2015 bracket. I'll have a link to that posted below.

With a couple days left, you still have time to join in on the official Confessions of a Sportscaster bracket pool. It's free to join, and while there's no money to be made, you can earn bragging rights, which are pretty cool in and of themselves.

Today, we're going across the bracket to the East Region. Let's get to it.