All right, gang, the 2011 baseball season is underway, and it’s high time to start predicting how teams and players will perform.

First off, the whole Cincinnati Reds team. They can easily be projected to finish the season at 162-0, a historic, never-before-done feat. Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Pirates are on pace for the same mark.

Strangely, the Reds don’t project to have any starter win a single one of those 162 games, as the bullpen will get every single win. On the plus side, at least none of the starters are projected to have any losses.

As for players, Joey Votto looks to be even better this year than last. Based on his performance so far, we can expect a whopping 162 home runs from him and 324 runs batted in. He’d seem like a shoo-in for MVP were it not for teammate Ramon Hernandez who, in addition to those 162 home runs, is on track for an unbelievable 486 RBI. Votto will have a better slugging percentage, at 2.6 to Hernandez’s 2.2, so it’ll be up to the voters to decide.

Perhaps the best projection, though, comes from that of the St. Louis Cardinals. The 2010 MVP runner-up, Albert Pujols looks like he’ll have the worst contract year in the history of contract years. Based on his performance, we can predict a batting average of .000, and, in what will surely break the record, he will ground into 486 double plays.

The Cardinals are on pace to go winless on the season and also to lose 162 players to the disabled list. It’s going to be a rough year in St. Louis.

Opening Day for the 2011 season is finally here! I’m pretty excited about it, and for the first time in a long time, I have legitimate hopes of the Cincinnati Reds doing well. (I wasn’t nearly so optimistic about them last year.)

Without further rambling, here’s my guesses about the finishing places of each of the teams in the 2011 National League Central. Let’s hope I’m more accurate than I was in my NCAA bracket, where I predicted 0 of the Final Four.

6th: Houston Astros
It looks to me like the Astros gave up on this season as last season was winding up. I see nothing from them: not pitching, not batting, not fielding, and not promising rookies. Their minor league system is consistently ranked as one of the worst in the majors, and the owner is trying to sell the team. Mark this as another lost year.

5th: Pittsburgh Pirates
There’s a lot I like about the Pirates. Every year they try. It’s usually misdirected–I’m looking at you Dave Littlefield–but it’s an attempt. And unlike the Astros this year, the Pirates are trying, and a bit more intelligently these days. Between Andrew McCutcheon and Jose Tabata, they have two young players that people outside of the organization think will be good ball players. And there are more with promise.

The team still doesn’t have enough to be competitive, but it feels like they’re closer than they’ve been in a long time. The Pirates have actually accumulated real talent since Neal Huntington took over, and if the players reach their potential, a competent year might not be a ridiculous pipe dream.

It won’t happen in 2011. They’ll have another losing season. What will that be? 19? Ouch. But they’ll be better than the Astros.

4th: Chicago Cubs
The Cubs owe too much money to too many old players who can’t come close to producing enough to make it worthwhile. Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukdome, etc. The list of bad contracts is long, and the Cubs now seem to be waiting until some of them end. (They’ll be waiting a long time for Soriano’s.)

The club has a new manager and did show some new moves, letting Carlos Silva go after a mediocre spring training. Silva also got into a dugout fight with his teammates, like Zambrano last year. Apparently, the Cubs don’t want to put up with that any more. That’s probably a good thing. It’s hard to be a lovable loser when your team is covered in self-inflicted bruises. No one loves cutters.

The Cubs should be the best of the bottom half of the Central. Unfortunately, as I know from the Reds achieving that a time or two, there’s no trophy for that.

3rd: St. Louis Cardinals
How the mighty have fallen. The Cardinals are hard to predict. Sure, they have Albert Pujols, but there’s so little around him. Outside of Matt Holliday, the team has no real offense. Sure, they signed Lance Berkman to serve as protection, but I don’t think that’s going to work. Plus, the addition of him–and Ryan Theriot at short–gives them a bad defense.

Losing Adam Wainwright was a huge blow. His absence will place a lot more strain or an already fragile Chris Carpenter, and the young Jaime Garcia. The team will win more than it loses, but it doesn’t have the depth to last the grueling 162-game marathon.

2nd: Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers made the biggest splash this off-season, getting Zach Greinke and Shaun Marcum to instantly upgrade their starting rotation. It was quite an upgrade. Unfortunately, Greinke hurt a rib playing basketball and will miss a couple weeks at the start of the season. Also, Marcum had some health issues during Spring Training.

Still, those guys the Brewers emptied their farm system for will pitch a lot of games. And the offense, lead by Prince Fielder, will score a lot of runs. But the primary reason I’m not picking the Brewers for first place is because of their defense. I think it’s bad enough that it’ll make the studs in the rotation that much more ineffective. And I’ve seen firsthand how much worse pitching can be when the defense behind it is unstable.

1st: Cincinnati Reds
Like there was ever any doubt. The Reds are the defending Central division champions, and I don’t think anything has changed to unseat them. They have one of the best offenses in the majors, lead by the 2010 Most Valuable Player Joey Votto. Behind him, Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs seem set to have excellent years, themselves. They also have one of the best defenses in the majors. New this year is a competent glove at shortstop in Paul Janish.

That makes one of the deepest pitching staffs all the better. While the team doesn’t have any starters in the true ace mold–and they did have their share of injuries in the final week of spring training–they do make up for it in numbers. And unlike the Jim Bowden garbage years, these pitchers are good and can be expected to keep the team in the game.

This is a good team. Unlike the 2000s, the ifs surrounding this team would take them from good to great. The Reds have a lot to play for. They were embarrassed in the 2010 playoffs. The only way to change that is to get back there. Granted, no Reds team has made the playoffs in back-to-back years since the 1975-76 Reds, but I’m predicting that this is the year it happens again.

And it starts today.

Yesterday Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times took a look at some of the all-time milestones that are due to be met and/or exceeded by managers this year. I’m no fan of how much love one Tony LaRussa gets in the article, but Dusty Baker gets his mention as well, so I figured it was worth a link.

The milestone in question is the 200th career meet-up between Baker and LaRussa (See? It’s always gotta be about TLR). That’s a lot of toothpicks and sunglasses. And despite it all–the base clogging comments and lineup malconstruction and veteran love–I still think we’ve got the better end of the match up, if only because, after all these years, Baker complains a whole lot less.

This week, the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans–not too mention Albert Pujols–got a good look of how much on the brink their 2011 season is. They’ve already lost Adam Wainwright to Tommy John surgery. That places a lot of pressure on Chris Carpenter to somehow pick up the slack, which is why Cardinals fans everywhere felt a great disturbance Tuesday when Carpenter left a game early due to injury.

What’s even worse is that later in that same game, Wainwright replacement candidate Mitchell Boggs also left early thanks to an injury.

This weekend, Cardinals fans can relax somewhat. Carpenter threw catch yesterday. “I still feel (the leg injury) a little bit,” said Carpenter, “but if it keeps getting better every day like it has, then it will be fine.” He suffered a minor strain to his left hamstring that should improve by the start of the season. At 35, his health is a definite concern, though.

As for Boggs, it was his lower back that he hurt, and it is improving, as well. He played catch with Carpenter yesterday, from as far away as 90 feet. “Each day’s progression has been really good, what I’ve expected,” he said. “So I would be pretty shocked if within the next week I wasn’t ready to go.”

There are other injury concerns with the team, too. Third baseman David Freese has yet to play a game and is waiting to test out his surgically repaired ankles. And outfielder Lance Berkman’s legs are already starting to bother him, as he was scratched from a start due to calf tightness.

Will this be a snake-bit season for the Cardinals? Maybe, but the Reds still shouldn’t discount them. They’ve been winning a long time, and winning often begets winning, even when the talent doesn’t seem to be there.

Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jonny Gomes started some controversy following news of the elbow injury to St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright yesterday. According to Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News, he heard Gomes happily singing, “Wainwright’s gone! Wainwright’s gone!” Mention of this has since been removed from McCoy’s post.

Cincinnati Enquirer’s Reds beat reporter John Fay had a different take on events.

Gomes walked out of the players dining room singing the Karate Kid song: ”You’re the best around. I’ll never let you down . . .”

He continued and mentioned Adam Wainwright. Gomes said he sang “Is Wainwright gone?

Fay then says he didn’t remember what Gomes sang, but obviously he didn’t find it news- or quote-worthy. In fact, when Fay interviewed Gomes later, he said, “I would never wish injury on anyone. If he’s hurt, I wish him a speedy recovery. I know Wainwright. He’s a good dude. It’s a great organization.”

What’s interesting about this story is the firestorm it created online, especially on Twitter. It seems Cardinals fans don’t like opponents being happy when their best player gets a season-ending boo-boo. Sampling the comments on McCoy’s article gives an overview of the vitriol.

“Garbage. That’s what the whole Reds organization is.”

“The Reds can take pleasure in Wainright’s injury. But that won’t change the fact that they are a band of losers.”

“What a piece of garbage Gomes is for being happy about the injury of another player.”

I don’t get it. This doesn’t sound like the “best fans in baseball” to me. Assuming Gomes did say what McCoy quoted him as saying, isn’t that a sign of respect? It’s acknowledging that Wainwright is a very, very good pitcher. I understand the disappointment of losing one of your favorite team’s best players to injury. I followed the Reds when Ken Griffey Jr was there, after all. But the angry verbal attacks from Cardinals fans against the Reds is worse than what they purport to be offended by.

Overall, I think the Cardinals fans have gotten too used to winning to know how to lose. I think that Brandon Phillips’ comments about the Cardinals from last year ring more and more true. “All they do is bitch and moan about everything, all of them, they’re little bitches, all of ‘em.” It certainly applies to a good portion of Cardinals fans right now.