Dr. Seuss posted on June 28, 2009 14:30
The HRL season is just past the mid way point, and with nearly half the season left it’s time to start prognosticating the seeds for the first ever 20 team tournament for The Cup. The top four seeds will go to the four division winners, and if the season ended today those seeds would go to the Braves, Reds, Red Sox and Astros. With the Reds being the only team up by more than two games on the rest of the division, look for these seeds to jump around before play-off time, particularly if the Royals get Truck back soon, the Phillies keep their winning streak alive, the Tribe and X turn it on, and the Giants and Twins have strong second halves.
The next four seeds belong to the red hot Phillies, the dangerous Giants, the Royals and Twins. After that we have the Pirates (who are just 2.5 games out of their division,) Indians, X and the solid noob-Dodgers. Then we get to the “first rounders,” which will be playing each other with the reward of facing one of the four division winners in the second round (this is where upsets start making things exciting.) The Cubbies and Marlins are essentially tied so a coin flip determined their hypothetical seeds, followed by the Two-Bat lead White Sox, and Tony “Mickey Mantel” Thompson’s Colt .45s, all of whom are capable of sending a top squad to the losers bracket on day one. Rounding out the field are the Angels, A’s, Mets and Blue Jays.
One thing to keep in mind, the tourney is double elimination, which the bracket below does not indicate. One thing of note, last year’s teams from the stacked Eagan West division are all in the same quarter cluster of the bracket. Scorched Play-off Earth anyone?