This has nothing to do with baseball cards but it's Opening Day in Japan and I thought it might be fun to put together a consensus of pre-season picks by people who know much more than I do about NPB.

	Jason Coskrey	John Gibson	Jim Allen	Beisbol Japanes	Tsuyoshi Oshita	Masaru Uno	Takahiro Tokutsu	Susumu Otomo	Yukinaga Maeda	Hideki Asai
Central 1	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants	Giants
2	Carp	Carp	Carp	Carp	Carp	Carp	Tigers	Carp	Carp	Dragons
3	Tigers	Baystars	Swallows	Dragons	Tigers	Dragons	Carp	Dragons	Baystars	Tigers
4	Swallows	Tigers	Tigers	Baystars	Dragons	Tigers	Baystars	Tigers	Tigers	Swallows
5	Baystars	Dragons	Baystars	Tigers	Baystars	Baystars	Dragons	Baystars	Dragons	Baystars
6	Dragons	Swallows	Dragons	Swallows	Swallows	Swallows	Swallows	Swallows	Swallows	Carp
Pacific 1	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Hawks	Eagles
2	Eagles	Eagles	Eagles	Eagles	Eagles	Eagles	Marines	Fighters	Marines	Hawks
3	Marines	Lions	Marines	Fighters	Marines	Marines	Eagles	Lions	Eagles	Buffaloes
4	Lions	Marines	Buffaloes	Marines	Lions	Buffaloes	Lions	Eagles	Lions	Marines
5	Buffaloes	Buffaloes	Lions	Lions	Buffaloes	Lions	Buffaloes	Buffaloes	Fighters	Lions
6	Fighters	Fighters	Fighters	Buffaloes	Fighters	Fighters	Fighters	Marines	Buffaloes	Fighters

Taking the average predicted finish for each team give the following crowd-sourced prediction:

Central League:
Giants 1
Carp 2.5
Tigers 3.6
Dragons 4.2
Baystars 4.4
Swallows 5.3

Pacific League:
Hawks 1.1
Eagles 2.3
Marines 3.4
Lions 4.2
Buffaloes 4.8
Fighters 5.2

And in case you're wondering about the title of the post, it's the name of the best song about Opening Day ever by the Baseball Project:



Sources: Jason Coskrey, John Gibson's Central League and Pacific League picks, Beisbol Japanes, and the Tokyo Sports predictions from Yakyu Baka. Jim Allen's picks came from last week's Japan Baseball Weekly podcast.