Howdy all.

I thought I would give myself a bit of a look in at the new season before making any judgement calls on the outright markets of this year. This last fortnight or so has proved pretty valuable on the whole because although it can be risky in that you can lose a tiny amount of value on some selections, it does mean that you can sometimes avoid a season-long duffer that you may well have gone for but this small amount of hindsight can prevent!

The standout teams in the early running of this season look to be the Florida Marlins and Seattle Mariners.

Neither team was fancied to do particularly well this year by the main 'experts' but both have come out of the traps early and put in some performances.

Florida always had some power in their line up and the ability to score freely but the fitness of starter Josh Johnson and the emergence of sophomore Chris Volstad has shored up their rotation and made them a potential contender in NL East. Whilst I am impressed and a little surprised with their start, I still expect the Mets to come through that very tough division..

Seattle however are in a very open AL West this year and as such this opens up a genuine window of opportunity for a ball club that seemed to be on it's knees last year. The availability of Erik Nedard on the rotation makes a massive difference and some of the off-season captures help to improve what was already a capable but erratic offense. There was always a constant in the lineup with main man Ichiro Suzuki passing 200 hits yet again in 2008 but the likes of Endy Chavez, Ken Griffey Jr, Russell Branyan and Franklin Gutierrez seem to have revitalised the club somewhat and I could really see them rattling a few cages this year.

Stan James are still offering 101.0 on the Mariners and this isn't massively below what they were pre-season so I will have a dabble on that as a dark-horse outside interest as I believe it still represents terrific value.

In terms of what could be considered more serious contenders for the World Series, both New York ball clubs have made pretty good starts in my opinion. The Mets in 2008 had a pretty decent rotation and a good offensive line up but the two things that really let them down were the bullpen which threw away far too many leads late on and leaving runners stranded in scoring positions. Both of these are pretty criminal and one of them seems to be solved by the signings of set up man JJ Putz and closer 'K-Rod' Francisco Rodriguez. If you look at K-Rod's effect on the Angels last year in making a record number of saves you will understand my enthusiasm for the Mets this year. 13.0 is pretty solid value as I make around the 8.5 - 9.0 mark and they haven't shown me anything to dampen my enthusiasm.

The Yankees have made a very impressive start if you consider that they had an absolute shocker on opening day and have not played at home yet this season (until today). And they have done this without arguably their main offensive weapon, controversial third baseman 'A-Rod' Alex Rodriguez. The free agent signings of CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett make for a formidable rotation and Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher improve their big name offense that didn't quite catch fire as much as was expected last season. The problem with backing the Yankees is the lack of value. I make them around a 7.0 shot and the best available right now is 6.5 so I simply cannot justify backing or recommending them.

Here are my predicted final standings:

AL Wildcard - Boston Red Sox

NL Wildcard - St Louis Cardinals

AL Champion - New York Yankees

NL Champion - New York Mets

World Series Winner - New York Mets

Feel free to abuse me on my message board if I get it horrifically wrong!

RECOMMENDATIONS - 3 Points on New York Mets to win World Series 2009 @ 13 (Totesport)

1 Point on Seattle Mariners to win World Series 2009 @ 101 (Stan James)

Crafty Stan