Cramer: National League World Series Prediction

In the next two days I'm going to make my NL and AL World Series Predictions, and then choose a winner:

It's the end of August and that means it's time to start thinking about what's going to come out of the long baseball season. Baseball is the one sport, in my estimation, where the regular season has almost no bearing on what happens in the postseason.

Football could fall in the same category, but when baseball teams get down they start pressing and tend to fail to come out victorious. In football it's not really the same. Even though it's one game, if a team gets down, star power can still get you back in a game with speed and athleticism. In a best out of 5 game series (which the first round of the baseball playoffs are) if a team loses game 1, they're in real trouble, even if they're the better team.

Year after year we've seen the Yankees teams get in the playoffs and have a team slump because they lose an unexpected game early in a series and they start pressing (see A-Rod). Anyway, I digress...

I watched a little bit of the Rockies vs. Giants series this weekend and I realized something... the Giants are really good. Their pitching is unbelievably good. Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Barry Zito form a three-some that could get this team to the World Series... seriously. Add Brad Penny to the mix, and we really could be talking about the team that wins the National League pennant. Oh and did I mention that Jonathan Sanchez pitched a no-hitter early in the season? Side note: I know Penny was cut by the Sox for a reason, but pitchers tend to exhibit a lot of success when they make the move from the AL to the NL mid-season (see Cliff Lee, Sabathia, and others).

Offensively they're not the best, but in the playoffs they could get hot as they have at times during the season (see the weekend series vs. Colorado). Sure, they have to win the wild card first, but I'm gonna choose them. The Rockies are a good team, but they don't have the pitching that San Fran does. So now they're in the playoffs and they have to get by the Phils, Cards, and Dodgers.

It's unlikely that they will play Man Ram and crew, but I could see them beating the Dodgers (unfortunately they wouldn't play them in the first round due to the fact that they are in the same division). I could also see them beating the Phils due to their pitching superiority (though Philly isn't too shabby with the addition of Cliff Lee who has, besides one blemish, been un-hittable). The team that they should hope to avoid in the first round is the Cardinals, because they are the only team that can really rival their pitching dominance with Carpenter and Wainwright. If they can get Philly in the first round, and LA in the second... I think we could potentially be looking at a World Series participant.

I'm not ready to say that's going to happen though... so I teased you a little and I apologize for that. I don't like the Dodgers struggles in the second half (don't throw stats at me about them actually having the best pitching staff, they haven't been as good in my eyes). The Phillies are good... but I love the Cardinals after getting Matty Holliday. They got protection for Pujols, and they have one of the best staffs in the MLB. So.............. my prediction?

National Leauge Winner: St. Louis Cardinals