Biased Season Preview: The 2013 Chicago White Sox

With the Village Tavern back to quasi-active status, I decided it was time to send it back towards its roots – in other words, a not very timely or intellectual sports article.  Here is the Village Tavern’s preview of the 2013 White Sox season.

Hitting:

Last year, the White Sox were almost an exactly average offense, finishing 15^th in baseball in runs scored.  They finished 3^rd in the league with 211 home runs, but only in the middle of the pack in OBP and batting average.  Based on following them as a fan, the lineup felt more out-prone than the team’s .318 OBP would suggest, and you’d expect a team that finished 15^th in OBP and 3^rd in HRs to be a top-ten offense.  Part of the problem was that the Sox seemed to struggle to get that big hit with men in scoring position.  A power-heavy offense also lends itself to a boom-and-bust quality, which is not great news for their record, but which shouldn’t affect the aggregate numbers too much.

What’s changed this season?  Tyler Flowers will finally get a chance as the full-time starting catcher.  He’s actually already 27, but his debut in the role was delayed by A.J.’s long tenure and willingness to stay with the Sox on relatively cheap, short-term contracts for awhile.  The consensus on Flowers seems to be that he should hit 30+ home runs as a full-time starter in a hitter’s park (which would be roughly on track with his career HRs/AB to this point, and possibly even low), but that he’s also going to hit around .220.  In other words, in comparison to AJ, more power and fewer times on base, which will skew the offense even more towards power...just what we needed.  Personally, I think the .220s predictions will end up being low; Flowers hit in the .270s and .280s in the minors, and his more recent .220 seasons have come as a young backup moving up and down from the minors to the bigs, which isn’t easy for a hitter to deal with.

The other projected new starter, Jeff Keppinger, will provide almost no power, but hit over .300 in part-time work last year, and should hopefully get on base more than Kevin Youkillis (who at least provided power) or Brent Morel (who didn’t get on base much or hit for power).  Keppinger is also known for being difficult to strike out, so this move may have been made with the Tigers in mind – no team in baseball is more reliant on the strikeout to escape from innings than Detroit, who for the most part has great pitching and terrible fielding.  Keppinger may end up as one of those players who is better suited for a bench/utility role than as a full-time starter that other teams spend time game-planning for, so I’m actually vaguely pessimistic here, although he shouldn’t be the offensive black hole that 3B was for most of last year.

Looking at the lineup in total, this looks to be more of the same.  Power is the most obvious team strength: every regular starter but Keppinger should easily hit double figures in homers, Rios, Konerko, Viciedo, and Flowers have a chance to go over 30, and Dunn should be among the league leaders.  This will be a very scary team for opponents in games where the Sox are tied or trailing by one late, as nearly everyone in the lineup is a threat to alter the game with one swing.  I’m also hearing “regression” thrown around with this lineup a lot, especially with Dunn and Rios.  Frankly, with Dunn, it doesn’t make any sense at all, at least not if you can remember (or look things up from) further than two years into the past.  While Dunn was a feel-good story in 2012 because of his rebound from a truly horrific 2011, his 2012 season was actually right in line with his career numbers – actually, slightly worse in some respects.  If you look at his baseball card, 2011 jumps out as an obvious outlier, and that’s without considering that he had surgery early in the season and was living his first year in a new city.  He’ll be fine.  I do understand it with Rios, and to be honest, I never know what we’re going to get from him, but he seems to have fixed his approach last season and I’m cautiously optimistic there.

However, the offense is average or worse in other respects, and they will probably frustrate us fans by having more than their share of 1-2-3 innings, and teamwide slumps are going to be a possibility when they either aren’t hitting for power or are hitting too many solo shots.  In other words, this is pretty much the offense White Sox fans know and love and loathe.

Fielding:

First off, I’ll say that fielding might be one of the few parts of baseball left where statistics haven’t quite caught up to “the eye test.”  That said, the Sox had good defensive numbers last season, leading the league in fielding percentage and finishing eighth (and within .005) of first in defensive efficiency ratio (which is basically the rate at which balls in play are turned into outs).  However, they were only slightly above average in defensive runs saved.   So, while calling the White Sox defense “mediocre” (as Grantland’s preview did) is lazy and ill-informed, depending on what stats you value more, they were either elite or slightly above average on defense last year.

Having watched most of last season, I felt like the Sox were very good defensively, especially up the middle and with Rios in right field, but they didn’t make me feel like I was watching one of the best fielding teams in the league.  Some of the credit goes to Robin Ventura for putting more effort into positioning the defense for individual hitters than Ozzie did (the 2011 Sox, with a lot of the same players, were also near the top in fielding percentage but were 22^nd in defensive efficiency with an ugly .687).

Fielding is going to be hugely important and needs to be one of the strengths of the team.  For one thing, Don Cooper’s pitch-to-contact philosophy requires good fielders to work, and for another, it’s potentially the only significant advantage the White Sox have over Detroit.  Flowers has generally been regarded as solid defensively to this point, and for once the Sox might even have a catcher that other teams don’t enjoy running on so much.  The Sox aren’t going to have a defensive ace like Morel at 3B anymore, but whatever they come up with will probably not be worse than Youkillis was, and the age of glove-only players like Morel having careers as starters is pretty much over anyway.  However, with Ramirez and Beckham, hitters aren’t going to have much room to work with over the middle.  You’d assume that Konerko is a bad fielder because he’s so aggressively old, white, and unathletic (I can’t really think of a less athletic professional athlete that isn’t fat), but he rarely makes mistakes and seems to have better range than you’d expect, and first basemen need to make hundreds of routine plays for every chance they get at a spectacular one anyway.  The outfield is good, but not amazing, and may improve a bit this year as none of the starting outfielders last season had a ton of recent MLB experience at their specific positions.

Pitching:

The ability to draft and develop pitching is the White Sox’s biggest consistent strength as an organization – the closer and five of the six pitchers expected to start this season have played all or substantially all of their big league careers with the Sox, and there are also Gio Gonzalez, Daniel Hudson, Mark Buehrle, Brandon McCarthy, and Sergio Santos floating around as surplus products of the “perpetually weak” farm system (although in fairness, they haven’t been nearly as successful in developing field players).

Frankly, pitching coach Don Cooper gives this team an advantage and needs to be kept around as long as possible, routinely turning pitchers with one or zero plus-pitches into viable starters – and, in Buehrle’s case, an ace and multi-time all-star.  Buehrle really embodied Cooper’s philosophy more than any other starter – don’t waste a bunch of time on the mound, pitch to contact, force groundballs, and avoid walks.  This is primarily designed to avoid giving up home runs and walks, which strikeout pitchers tend to do more of, and despite U.S. Cellular’s reputation as a homer haven, the Sox pitching staff is generally middle-of-the-pack or better in home runs allowed.

Number one starter Chris Sale is one of the primary reasons to be excited for this season.  The Sox have always had two or more good starters in the time I’ve been following them, Contreras submitted one of the best 12-month runs by a pitcher ever (the second half of ’05 and the first half of ’06), and if you offered me a deal where Sale would obtain the same amount of career and team success as Buehrle did in his White Sox career, I’d jump all over it.  All that said, the Sox haven’t really had a dominating strikeout pitcher since Jack McDowell; while Buehrle and, at times, Contreras, Loaiza, and even Garland made me feel like the Sox had a great chance to win all of their starts, I never really scheduled anything differently to get a chance to watch them pitch.  As an added bonus, his youthful age means that he’s the one White Sox player that experts won’t automatically assume to be declining from season to season!

Last season also gave us a chance to see a full healthy season from post-surgery Peavy.  While it’s a safe bet to say he’s won his last Cy Young Award, he remains a very good #2 starter, and understands how to pitch well enough that his lack of any single killer pitch doesn’t hurt him that much (which is impressive for a guy that used to have three or four such pitches).  Last season definitely took him, in my mind, from “I cannot wait until we are out of this contract,” to “uh, we sort of can’t afford to lose this guy,” sort of like a better version of what Carlos Boozer is doing this year for the Bulls.  Gavin Floyd will have amazing stretches and rough patches as usual, which is the consequence of having a devastating out pitch (his curveball) that you can only sometimes throw for strikes.

So far, I’m basically describing an average rotation for a decent MLB team – one Cy Young contender, a solid #2 starter who might make the all-star team but can’t really be described as dominant, and an up-and-down third starter who will hopefully be more good than bad.  The wild card this season will be how the back of the rotation does.  The last two spots are going to be divided by some combination of Jose Quintana, Dylan Axelrod, and John Danks When and If He is Healthy.   While Quintana and Axelrod have both pitched very well at times and are at the stage in their careers where they should improve, neither is really established yet and I’m still nervous every time they pitch.  In order to have a contending-calibur rotation, the Sox need at least one of the back three to be a reliable starter this year, and no more than one to be a disaster.  Even though his recovery is supposedly going wellish, I’m considering anything we get from Danks to be a bonus given his track record over the last couple of seasons, but if Quintana or Axelrod flame out, it will quickly become a necessity.  The other question mark is whether changing catchers will affect the rotation, as AJ was known for calling games well.  On the other hand, I’m sure that Cooper and the veteran starters have a lot of input on game planning for hitters, so this may not make much difference.

It’s impossible to predict what will happen to any bullpen over the course of the year.  Addison Reed was a mediocre closer last season, but he’s young, he throws hard, and he doesn’t walk people, so there’s certainly potential for him to become a top closer, perhaps even this season.  Jesse Crain and Matt Thornton are both very reliable setup guys who shouldn’t be asked to close regularly (or, in Thornton’s case, ever).  The rest of the bullpen is made up of young guys who could pitch very well or could be disastrous, although it’s a better group than you’d expect given how bad the Sox farm system allegedly always is.  Donnie Veal and Nate Jones are vaguely promising but not really reliable, Hector Santiago is vaguely reliable but not really that promising, and I will probably turn the game off if Septimo or Omogrosso comes in.

Depth/Intangibles:

Robin Ventura enters his second year as manager, which should be good news; he didn’t have much prior experience and may be better at the job this season (not that I have any real complaints from last year).  The bench is mostly made up of young guys who I haven’t heard of before, and pseudo-fan-favorite DeWayne Wise, who is somehow on the White Sox again.  Considering also that Lillibridge has signed with the Cubs, I’m guessing that the Chicago area houses in the MLB bench player price range are hard to sell.  Jordan Danks and/or Jared Mitchell might come up from the minors this season, possibly for good in Danks’s case, but barring an injury neither one is going to regularly start.  Last season’s better-than-expected record, and the fact that most predictions seemed to be using 2012’s original predictions as a baseline rather than the actual results, will hopefully give the team a combination of a feel-good vibe and an “us against the world” mentality that may give them a minor edge, to the extent that stuff like that actually helps.

Expectations/Prediction:

Most mainstream previews I’ve read of the Sox have them at about .500 or slightly under.  Honestly, that seems just a bit goofy to me.  Sox fans are used to being .500 or better (10 of the last 13 seasons), so the thought of a losing record leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  It also doesn’t really seem all that realistic – if you view their young players in the light Royals and Indians youngsters are viewed and their veterans the way Detroit’s old-timers are, this team should easily win over 100 games.  More realistically, I think they win somewhere between 85 and 90 again.  The team hasn’t changed substantially and I don’t see a reason to think they’ll be substantially worse than last year’s 85-77, and that was actually below their expected wins based on run differential, so it isn’t like they were lucky to have that record.

Is that enough for the playoffs?

Detroit is the obvious hurdle in the division.  The Tigers have some problems which could come up to bite them; many of their key players are already getting old, they don’t really have a closer, and their infield defense is somewhere between “bad” and “one of the worst of all time.”  Despite these flaws, the batting order and rotation are so good that they should be a 90-win team or close to it for at least one or two more years, and even without a clear closer, it isn’t like their bullpen is terrible.  Additionally, while Detroit doesn’t look like a super deep team this season, they addressed some of last season’s depth issues by adding Torii Hunter and by developing their younger pitchers.  While the Sox certainly are capable of finishing ahead of Detroit, it’s honestly not that likely unless the Tigers underachieve significantly or one of their “big three” gets hurt.

You'll hear some hype about the other teams in this division from time to time, but to be honest, as someone who follows them regularly, the rest of the division is pretty bad.  Cleveland and Kansas City are supposedly young and up-and-coming teams, but on the other hand, as the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me every year for ten seasons in a row, and I must be so stupid that I shouldn’t be allowed to buy my own groceries.  The Royals honestly could end up around .500ish if everything goes right and will put up a fight in every individual series, but their bullpen and the back of the rotation are excruciatingly bad, which will keep them from being close to the division lead over the course of a whole season.  As for Cleveland and Minnesota, I’ll just say that, in my fantasy baseball league (a highly competitive 12-teamer with a roster format that emphasizes starting pitching), a grand total of one starting pitcher was taken from those teams, and that was a late-round flyer on Ubaldo Jimenez.  While it's easy to assume that beating Detroit is priority #1, the type of season the Sox have will largely be dependent on whether they can beat up on the other three division rivals, or whether they end up around .500 in those games.

With two good/decent teams and three bad ones, the AL Central could have a decent chance to produce a Wild Card team, and this might be the most likely way in for the Sox.  The AL East has long been a Wild Card factory, but with Boston and New York declining and the Orioles and (maybe) Jays improving, it’s a hard division to make sense of.  The best-case scenario for our Wild Card hopes is that the East ends up being a division with five good teams but no great or terrible ones, where everybody beats up on each other and nobody is able to get past the high 80s in wins.  The AL East might produce a 90-game winner this year, but I don’t see it producing two of them, like it often has in the past.

The West looks a little more likely to produce at least one Wild Card, although it's also tougher to figure out than the Central is.  The Mariners should still be bad for at least a couple more years, which helps the rest of the division.  Texas continues to have good pitching, but with Hamilton and Napoli gone, this could be the year that their annual free agent losses catch up to them.  The Angels are positively terrifying on paper, but they also were last year and it didn’t translate to anything amazing on the field.  Defending division champ Oakland is the toughest to read – last year looked like a return to Billy Beane’s glory days, where they routinely win division titles with a bunch of players that nobody’s ever heard of.

Looking at the league this way, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that it takes less than 90 wins to get a wild card spot this year.  The final prediction for the season: 87-75, 2^nd in AL Central, and into the playoffs as the AL’s second wild card team.

Is Anyone Still There?

Does anyone else realize that we have 3 straight posts about video games? I know that the last entry was dated in October, which means it only took me 6 months to figure that out, but that is still unacceptable. I may have to announce my 2nd comeback again (a la MJ with the Wizards) so we can get back to our first love of sports. If we can get 3 legit comments to this post, I'll write about my Masters' experience with Yates. There are some funny stories that I still haven not told about that weekend. If that goes well (big if), I may even find the urge to write about my beloved Hawks in the playoffs for the first time in 9 years, my hopeful plans for the Falcons to draft Glenn Dorsey with the 3rd overall pick this Saturday, and why I feel the Braves are at a crossroads during this season. So get excited (or if you know me, expect this little update to be my last post for the next six months)...

What Went Wrong

Contrary to popular opinion, I have actually decided not to leave my day job at AIU and quit writing for the VT in order to begin a career of picking baseball playoff games. In fact, as you may have noticed, I followed up my 0-4 record in the Division Series by not picking the LCS, or mentioning the World Series before it had actually started. And I’d defend this by saying that if you were waiting for me to make my picks so you could bet your house on them, you’re just an idiot, and if you were waiting so you could pick against my selections, I’m not really interested in helping you.

I have always been of the opinion, though, that it’s generally a good idea to try and learn from one’s mistakes, and in rare instances even alter one’s behavior based on this. And in this case it’s clear that my playoff baseball rules need some serious tweaking.

First the Twins and A’s…I really just picked the wrong team here. I still think the AL Central was a lot better than the West this year, and I still think that’s a legitimate consideration. I just forgot what’s now going to be rule #5, which is that you never pick a team from Minnesota to win a playoff series unless they’re heavily favored and there’s almost no realistic way they could lose. I don’t know why this is – maybe it’s the Metrodome, maybe it’s karmic payback for their undeserved reputation as a good sports down, or maybe it’s just a run of bad luck. But that’s how things are working out right now, and it kind of sucks for the fans out there, but there’s no point in fighting it at this point.

When I picked the Yanks over the Tigers, I simply forgot the #1 most important rule of picking any playoff series in any team sport – in the playoffs, a great defensive team can, and probably will, shut down the best offensive teams they play, and the only chance the offensive team has to win is if they have a good enough defensive to respond in kind. Well, it was obvious that the Yanks didn’t have such a defense…in fact, even though all of my picks were obviously wrong, this was the only one that I’m willing to say was downright stupid. Rule #6 is also in play here, and that’s that you can’t win in baseball if you have more than a couple of crappy relievers on the playoff roster (although based on the teams that did make it through, it’s apparently ok if one of your crappy guys is the closer…should make for some interesting finishes).

Now, the Evil Empire must go back to the drawing board, and they should keep this rule in mind. I was really hoping they would start by firing Joe Torre (bear in mind that I don’t want the Yankees to do well). Look, Torre is one of the all-time great managers, it’s established by now. Winning four championships in eleven years is an absolutely ridiculous expectation, as is making the playoffs eleven times in a row, especially in baseball, the only major sport left where multiple good teams miss the playoffs every year. And yes, I know that all eleven of those teams should have made the playoffs this year, but still, how many managers do you know that make the playoffs every time they have a playoff-caliber team? That’s what I thought. Take this year, for example: the Yankees had a great team on paper, but still a very flawed one, especially as far as defense and pitching were concerned. Once you factored in the injuries they had, you could easily make the case that the White Sox, Red Sox, Angels, and Indians were all just as good or better on paper…and yet none of those teams were within four games of the playoffs, and one of them wasn’t even .500. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Torre has to deal with Stienbrenner, the New York media, the New York fans, and more goofy, Tysonic, head-case players than there are on any other baseball team. After what Torre has done, he should be allowed to manage the Yankees until he doesn’t want to any more, even if it winds up hurting the team for a couple of seasons towards the end (like the Packers have allowed Brett Favre to).

As for the NL teams, my biggest problem was that I really didn’t follow the National League at all this year aside from my fantasy guys, and went ahead and made picks anyway. I don’t know what I really expected. For the Cards over the Padres, I’ll just invoke Rule #7: If one team seems just looks way better than the other team on paper and is just too obvious…pick them! And the Dodgers did have several likable guys who had been in the playoffs a lot, but I kind of ignored that they were predominately guys who lose in the playoffs a lot. So apparently when you build an entire team of guys that always lose in the playoffs…your team loses in the playoffs. Surprise, surprise. Side note about the Dodgers: I actually was going to put something on the Dodgers to win it all at the beginning of the playoffs, except that they were only getting 7.5 to one odds. Considering that there are 8 teams in the playoffs, and that (based on seeding/record) they should technically have been the underdogs in the whole thing, I thought those were pretty crappy odds. Sports betting is such a crock, remind me never to do it (although the Cards were 12 to one, which looks great now).

So who am I picking in the Series? Well, sorry Detroit fans, but I’m going to pick the Tigers in six. They just remind me of the 2005 Sox in every possible way, other than that they finished the season poorly, which they’ve clearly rebounded from. Plus, this is the worst Cardinals team of the last three years – any St. Louis fan will admit this – so it would be a little odd (although maybe a little fitting) if this was the one that finally broke through. And yes, I already know that Detroit is down 1-0, and that the Cards starters are all pitching over their heads (which is key in the playoffs), but I’m not really that shocked that Verlander looked bad in game one – he doesn’t really step up in big games and tends to give up the long ball too often, which is why the Sox always lit him up this year. But the Tigers are coming back with another solid starter, as they will each game this series, and I can’t think the St. Louis starters are going to keep this run going. And if you think this was a jinx attempt to prevent Magglio, Pudge, and co. from winning the whole thing…well, you can draw your own conclusions.

The playoffs are in action, baseball is as popular as it ever was pre-strike, and this summer I finally got to the point where I could stand watching the occasional baseball game (thank you fantasy sports, thank you): sounds like the perfect time to write another baseball article for the rejuvenated Village Tavern!

Last year at about this time, I wrote about how baseball had it all wrong when it came to individual awards. This year, I’ll tackles a different problem facing America’s Favorite Past-time. As the playoffs have started, one team has arisen as the over-whelming favorite to win it all. The New York Yankees. On top of that, the New York Mets are the odds-on favorite to win the pathetically weak National League. Once again, the larger the market team, the more likely they are to succeed.

It seems every year the Yankees or Red Sox are able to make an extra move at the trade deadline (which somehow passes, and 5 moves are still made in the following 3 weeks, could someone please explain this to me?) to put them over the top. This year, once again, it was the Yankees getting Bobby Abreau. The Yankees went from being in a tight race with the Red Sox, to the dominating Division Champs. They also went arrived as having the most dominating hitting lineup in baseball (history?), whereas before they were… well, still really freakin’ good! But still, it was a move that helped secure their spot as the odds-on favorite to win the World Series (which, by the way, happened before the MLB season began. It was called the World Baseball Classi, and Japan, not the US of A or any south American country, won it).

I’ve always hated the Yankees. Hate the New York hype, hate any team that seems to always win (unless it’s my team of course), and even before I had any other reason I always hated that stupid logo with the pin-striped top hat and baseball bat. It’s the most retarded logo in sports, at least until the 90’s hit and we were blessed with the Grizzlies, the Orlando Magic, and the Washington Wizards…


But don’t blame the Yankees for winning, and don’t blame them for the fact that when the MLB season starts, there are only a small handful of teams with a real chance of winning. In an age where parody has made the NFL far and away the most popular professional sports league in America, MLB is insulting its fans every year. Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Colorado and many others; what chance do they have? Why should their owners spend as much money as possible, to maybe, just maybe, finish around .500 and still out of the playoffs? Look at Toronto. They’re spending money, but does anyone really think they can outspend the Yankees or Red Sox? They might make the playoffs here or there one year (especially if the Red Sox don’t shape up), but it won’t be because they spent more money. If it happens, it’ll be because they got more bang for their buck.

If you were a major league team in a sport with no salary cap, would you pass up on a player you could pay a little extra to get at the trading deadline if it guaranteed you a playoff birth and World Series contention? I wouldn’t. If you’re honest with yourself, neither would you. Don’t blame the Yankees, this is Major League Baseball’s problem. They need a salary cap, revenue sharing, and regulations that require small market teams to spend a certain amount of money (I’m not oblivious to the fact that teams like Pittsburgh turn a huge profit every year and refuse to spend enough to be competitive). It’s not going to be an easy change, but it’s a necessary one. But until it happens, don’t blame the Yankees. Don’t hate the player, hate the game…

Breaking Out the DS

The other day we had some cheesecake with cherries at work (sometimes having a job rocks, although it’s rare). One of my co-workers is pregnant, and she mentioned that, while the cherries were good, it would be better topped with strawberries…or chicken. The lesson here is that pregnant women are nuts.

You know what’s equally nuts though? The Village Tavern’s been running as a sports site for a year now and nobody is picking playoff games on here yet, other then when I (correctly, of course) picked the last Super Bowl. Well, we’re changing that now.

Minnesota Twins vs. Oakland A’s:

The Tigers could have made this a lot easier by beating the Royals once and setting up Tigers/A’s and Twins/Yankees, as I could have then simply gone with the “pick against the teams that lose in the ALDS every year” strategy. Instead, we get the battle of the two teams that always gripe about their “small market” status (ok, their fans do), yet routinely make the playoffs and play in two of the largest stadiums in baseball. I actually think the big football stadiums are part of the reason these teams lose in the first round so often – in the playoffs, you either have 60,000 people at a baseball game, half of whom have seats facing random places in the outfield, or you have several empty seats at a playoff game. Either one just feels weird, and home-field advantage is as much about the home team being comfortable as it is anything else. Anyway, this one’s a really tough call, so I’m going to apply what I’ll call MLB playoffs rule #1: If it’s not obvious, pick the team from the better division. That’s the Twins in this case, so I’m taking them.

New York Yankees vs. Detroit Tigers:

This is another tough one. I’ll say that the Tigers remind me more of the 2005 Sox than any other team playing this year, including the 2006 Sox: they have a great rotation, all of their relievers are having career years, they don’t make mistakes defensively, they can manufacture runs, and they have a good mix of guys that are genuinely likable and guys that are a little bit abrasive (and you need both). But rule #2 comes into play here: “Don’t pay attention to the second-half record like everyone else does, just look at what the team did in the last week and a half or so.” Look, winning a five or seven game series requires something totally different than sustaining excellence over a 162-game season, and it frequently just comes down to who’s hot at the right time. From looking at it quickly, I thought the Tigers, A’s, and Cardinals all looked bad, while one team (we’ll get to that later) looked really good. The most disturbing thing was the pitching for Detroit – over the last six games they gave up 3, 7, 8, 9, 9, and 10 runs. And the Yankees have a slightly better lineup than the Royals do.

Also, although I hate to be involved in giving this more coverage than it’s going to get, I love moving A-Rod (it’s an annoying nickname, but it’s also really easy to type…) down in the lineup – as a 3 or 4 hitter he absolutely kills you because he never comes up big in the clutch, but as a 5 or 6, where the pitcher’s a little worn down from facing the heart of the lineup, and you can go 0-fo-5 without killing the team, it’s perfect. Of course, now that he’s not being expected to carry the offense, it’s no longer sufficient to just say that A-Rod is the most overpaid athlete in sports. I’d now say that if you made a list of the ten most overpaid people in the world, Rodriguez would probably be number four or five, and everyone else on the list would be a close friend or relative of a third-world dictator. But, with all that said, I’ll take the Yankees (I’m now going to go take a bath in Listerine).

St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Diego Padres:

This is one of those weird picks where it almost feels like both teams are a little too obvious: San Diego because they’ve been relatively hot, especially considering how the Cardinals backed their way in, and the Cardinals because they’re clearly the better team on paper. I’m going to go with the Padres, partly because the San Diego Chicken makes me crave some cheesecake, but mostly because the Cards have so many problems. They don’t have a closer (and it was one of those situations that was such as mess that nobody even got excited about picking up the backup closer in fantasy leagues when Isringhausen went down), between the late season skid and all the injuries the season kind of has a “it’s just not our year” kind of feel for them, other than Carpenter the rotation’s been hideous, and they’re starting to get to that dangerous point the Braves were at where nobody really gets all that excited about just making the playoffs. Also, both rule #1 and rule #2 are in effect in this case. We’ll call this one rule #3: Don’t pick a team based on talent unless there’s at least one other decent reason to pick them. So Padres it is.

New York Mets vs. Los Angeles Dodgers:

Ok, here’s the thing – the Mets are the best team in the NL this year. It’s obvious enough that it can’t really be denied. They probably would even have been a playoff team in the American League. But the best team doesn’t always win a five game series. And there’s something about the Dodgers this year – the way they lost Gagne for the season without being affected at all, that goofy five homerun game, the way they managed to avoid getting lit up or going on a costly losing streak, despite not really having a starter that you would seriously consider an ace. This sort of thing only happens to special teams. Plus, the Dodgers are pretty much a collection of players that should be in the playoffs, even if you don’t think of any of them as Dodgers – Nomar, Maddux, Kenny Lofton, Jeff Kent, Rafael Furcal, Odalis Perez (just wanted to see if you were awake), and even Derek Lowe. It’s completely realistic to expect any of those guys to come up huge in this series. But the biggest factor in play is rule #4: Teams that win those crazy wild-card races with the entire league should scare the crap out of you. If you’ve been following baseball, you know what I mean – it’s frequently the wild card in the inferior (at the top) league, so the temptation is to write them off, but by default it’s a team that’s hot at the right time, and usually is from a good division. Plus, I can’t pick both New York teams. That would be sickening. So Dodgers it is.

And for the rest of it…you’re just going to have to wait.

Rapid Hope Loss

“Think of one moment you can call
the happiest moment of your life.
It’s gone.”
-Moneen

It was never supposed to end like this.

It may have been awhile since I honestly and objectively thought this team would win a World Series – it hasn’t felt like that kind of team since June – but it also didn’t feel like a team that would spend the last week of September playing out the string and looking like they can’t wait for the season to be over.

And at this point, neither can I. Because rooting for a good baseball team that’s completely falling apart isn’t like the same experience with football or basketball. It’s more like having a crappy job or being in a bad relationship – you can try not to think about it, but because it’s there almost every day this really doesn’t work. In a lot of ways, it’s almost better to root for a team that’s downright embarrassing, because you can relax fairly early in the season and almost make them into a running joke.

I shouldn’t complain much, because there are a lot of sports fans who wait their entire lives and never have something like we got last year, and quite frankly a lot of baseball fans who will have a long wait to get a season like this year was. But as far as seasons go, this has to be one of the toughest kinds to take – the one that goes from “crazy optimism” to “justified optimism” to “ok, there are some problems, but there’s still time to fix them” to “oh crap, I guess there wasn’t” in seven months. Yeah, some things in sports are worse, but not by a whole ton, at least not over this kind of period of time.

Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez absolutely killed us last week. In some ways, it was a weird sort of justice – the Sox had to get rid of Magglio to win a championship, and the hubris of victory was part of what enabled them to get rid of Frank. I have no problem with what happened with Magglio – he deliberately lied about his health to make money, and they found a replacement who was superior in every possible way – but the Frank Thomas thing was grossly mishandled. Yes, he was a self-centered a-hole, but he bled black and white and could have been kept relatively cheaply, and I think sometimes franchises take the “sports is a business” thing too far with their franchise players (although when I tried to avoid this with Ek’s Machine, Priest Holmes ran me into the ground for two years with injuries, so there might be a reason). I’m just honestly shocked we had to face both of those guys that late in the season – I’ll put it this way: from 2000 to 2004, the White Sox were a lock to make the playoffs as long as both Thomas and Ordonez could avoid major injuries (the Sox made the playoffs one time during that stretch).

The thing that’s a little vexing is that I have no idea how to go about fixing or improving this team – yes, it was dumb to not have a backup outfielder, especially since we had to watch The Adventures of Rob Mackowiak and Pablo Ozuna in the outfield all year, which made me jump in stark terror more times than the trailer for “The Descent.” And another middle reliever or two would help, except that middle relief guys are like kickers in fantasy football: they’re relatively cheap, there are usually decent ones available, they absolutely cannot be relied on from one year to the next, and it’s dumb to invest too much into that part of the team for those reasons. As frustrating as the lack of fundamentals was offensively, any Sox fan that would rather have the 2005 lineup than the 2006 one is a moron, and despite the fact that the rotation underachieved, I still wouldn’t trade our five starters for anyone else’s in the AL except for Oakland and maybe Minnesota.

Minnesota – ugh. I hate that we lost to those guys. I’ve always thought that the Cubs-White Sox “rivalry” was stupid and overblown: our real rivals are the Twins. Ironically, it seemed like all the injuries the Twins had actually helped them, as every underperforming veteran that went down was replaced by one of those young guys who doesn’t put up great numbers, but manages to hit in the .250s to .280s, plays with a ton of energy every day, and seems to come through when it matters a little more often than they should (the White Sox had a ton of those guys last season, and basically none this year, even though it was mostly the same players). I’ll also let you in on a secret that I’ve observed. Are you ready for it? Here it comes...

Minneapolis is a crappy sports town! It’s true! In the United States, the only other city in its league for crappy, disinterested fans is Atlanta (sorry Lewis, but you can’t really deny it). Now your first thought is going to be “wait, what about those crazy loud fans?” It’s because of that freaking Metrodome. All of those huge indoor stadiums amplify crowd noise, but the Metrodome seems to be among the worst/best in this respect, to the point that when Rex Grossman threw the game winner last Sunday, it sounded like it had happened at a Bears home game. Unless half of the people there were starting Rasheid Davis in their fantasy leagues that week, it should have been a tomb at that point. That place has to be the worst venue in American sports, and I’ll even include IHL rinks and minor-league baseball stadiums in the mix. Like most combo stadiums, it’s positively awful for baseball – they fold up the seats like at a high school gym and cover them with a big plastic tarp. This is defensible given the architectural problems involved, but what I don’t get is why they decided to make the roof the same color as the baseball, ensuring that the Metrodome ceiling will be involved in at least five “worst gems” every year (and it seems to happen to the Twins as often as the road team, so it’s not really an advantage). Everything they tried with the fake grass there has been a disaster, and I can’t remember the last time the Bears played there without somebody getting a turf-related injury.

Plus, the attendance numbers are awful for both the Timberwolves (which is defensible since they were awful for years and just finished wasting KG’s prime) and the Twins, who at one point were drawing so poorly that MLB was openly considering contracting the team, even though they were winning the AL Central every year at that point. They also had barely over 18,000 for their playoff clincher, after arguably their most enjoyable season since the 80s…I mean, could you even imagine that happening at a potential clincher in Chicago, or New York, or Boston, or Seattle or Miami or Anaheim? Or anywhere else besides maybe Atlanta? I actually don’t like to put a lot of stock in attendance to measure a fan base – Sox fans were unfairly ripped for this for years – but the other problem is that, with a few exceptions, the people I know from Minnesota are the people who I actually can’t just talk trash to when their teams tank: I have to inform them their team is tanking, then talk trash to them. That’s not even true of anyone I know from the South or the West coast (I should mention now that everyone I’ve met from that area has been very nice, and I know several cool people from around there…it’s just that it IS a bad sports town, and everyone assumes it isn’t because it’s in the Midwest).

After enough time goes by, I will look back fondly on this season, and you won’t hear me using this space to call for the Sox to get rid of Kenny Williams, Ozzie, or any of the hitters or rotation guys – for the most part, they were part of a championship team and I’ll hate to see any of them go. And I don’t think this happened because of bad pitchers or bad hitters or even bad fielders…but the Sox had something special, and sometime this summer, for reasons unexplained, they lost it.

Ok, I’m done. The Bears look fantastic, don’t they?

The Braves Are Going To Get Their 15th Straight Division Title

One of the biggest reasons that I wanted to come back to the Village Tavern was to be able to write some blog articles about the Atlanta Braves. Having spent the majority of my life in Georgia, the Braves have always been my favorite professional sports team. In fact, my earliest memory is a Braves game that my family attended for my 6th birthday in 1988. I don’t remember much about the game itself, but I remember the view from our seats halfway up the third base line. I also remember getting sunburned on my legs. Granted, these aren’t great baseball insights, but, then again, I was only six years old. The next year (1989), my family attended a dinner and baseball clinic that the Atlanta organization put on for the fans. I took grounders from Mark Lemke and spent sometime on the field of Atlanta Fulton County Stadium (fondly called the “Launching Pad” because of its propensity to yield home runs). Other early games that I attended include the 1991 NLCS game 1 against the Pittsburgh Pirates (Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, and Barry Bonds were all on this Pirates team) and a LA Dodgers game that year (it was Darryl Strawberry’s first season with the Dodgers and everyone was wearing Strawberry foam hats - remember, I was 9 so I was focused in on the nuisances of the game).

I give you all of this background just to prove that I was raised a Braves fan and have been a loyal follower ever since that time (when a team is as successful as the Braves, you get a lot of bandwagon fans). Furthermore, I’m knowledgeable about the Braves because I’ve been following them consistently since 1991. Given my knowledge of this team’s history, I can safely say that the Braves are going to win their 15th straight division title. As I write this article, the Braves are 16-19, sitting 6.0 games behind the New York Mets. They’ve been as many as 9 games behind the Mets thus far this season. Following the Braves this season, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that their run is over. The Mets are too good and too dominant; the Braves are too young and inexperienced. While the Braves maybe younger than most of their previous years (except last year when some of these same players were rookies), they have plenty of talent and experience to win the division title. Let’s examine the facts:

1. The Braves have one of the game’s best players in his prime in Andruw Jones. Andruw had a monster year last year when he turned 28 at the beginning of the season. He’s now 29 and firmly entrenched in the prime years of his career (historically, the prime years for a major league baseball position players are 28-34). Regardless of how the baseball writer’s voted last season, he was the Most Valuable Player on any team last year (by the way, we need a definitive ruling on the actual meaning of this award since every league treats it differently: in baseball, it’s the person with the best all-around number (Pujolos); in basketball, it’s the player who’s most indispensable to his team (Nash the past two seasons); in football, it’s the guy that has a record setting season (Peyton the year before and then Alexander this season)). Andruw will continue to put up these kinds of numbers this season. Also, it’s not just straight numbers with Andruw. He probably saves 2-3 runs a week with his defense in center field (8 consecutive Gold Gloves), and no National Player is better in the clutch (see 21 game-winning RBI and 19 late-inning home runs last season).

2. The Mets record is skewed by playing bad teams. Before this week, the Mets had played 1 team with a record above .500. I’m sorry, but if you are a good team (and let’s be honest, the Mets are good team - definitely talented enough to challenge for the division title and the wild card), you should be off to a great start when the schedule makers help you out so much. As the season progresses, the Mets will have to play more teams with records above .500, and their record will suffer because of it. You can already see this effect beginning to occur as the Braves have made up 3 games on the Mets since their series closed last Sunday (the Mets played the above .500 Phillies and the .500 Brewers this week).

3. The Braves sophomores aren’t really slumping. Much has been made of the supposed sophomore struggles of many of the Braves 2nd year players (specifically OF Ryan Langerhans, C Brian McCann, and OF Jeff Francoeur). While Jeff’s average has suffered early in the season (remember he came up last July and hit .300 with 14 HR’s, 45 RBI’s), he’s still been putting up decent RBI and HR numbers (he’s currently on pace for 28 HR’s and 120 RBI’s while “struggling”). Furthermore, in the last 10 games, Francoeur has begun to improve his batting average hitting by hitting .326 in that span along with a 10-game hitting streak. His early season struggles are just part of the adjustment to Major League Baseball. When you come up as a rookie, you have an advantage as a hitter because teams do not have a great scouting report against you. As you get more plate appearances (1/2 of a season’s worth from last year), teams can develop a way to pitch you. The hitter must then learn how teams are pitching him and make the necessary adjustments. Jeff is beginning to make these adjustments over the last 10 games. McCann is actually hitting 69 points higher this season than last (.347 compared to .278). Ryan Langerhans is hitting for the exact same batting average that he has in each of his major league seasons (.267). I think it’s safe to say that the “slump” talk has been overblown.

4. The Mets don’t have the starting pitching to match the Braves over the course of the season. I’ll give you that Pedro and Glavine are a solid 1-2 combination at the beginning of a rotation (even if they are old and susceptible to breaking down), but it’s hard to have worse 3, 4, and 5 starters than the Mets. Steve Trachsel, Jeremi Gonzalez, and Jose Lima are hardly the kind of pitching depth you want when you are trying to knock-off the 14-time defending champs. Trachsel’s ERA is 4.91, Lima’s currently sits at 9.31, and Gonzalez is coming off two right elbow surgeries in the past two seasons. The Mets may have a potent offense, but it isn’t nearly good enough to carry these 3 sub-par starters all season long. You need deep starting pitching to be successful over the course of a 162 game season.

In conclusion, it’s still really early in the season. I’m not sure why everyone has been so quick to dismiss the Braves’ chances at a fifteenth straight division title. Hopefully my arguments have made you think twice before you dismiss this team like all of the “experts” have done. There is a reason that lifetime baseball guys tell you not to check the standings until the end of May.

Rooting for the Bad Guys

I’m not sure when it really dawned on me. It might have been when I heard about adding payroll. It might have been when they added Jim Thome, giving up the (nationally) underappreciated Aaron Rowand, or when they picked up Javier Vazquez as part of their ongoing quest to prove Don Cooper’s superiority to the Yankee’s pitching coaches. But I think it really happened at the beginning of the season…the slow start, which was accompanied by everyone proclaiming the team dead, followed by going on a tear against overmatched opponents like the Royals and Tigers. Then I realized, “this is kind of how a lot of Yankees seasons start…

HOLY CRAP I’M ROOTING FOR AN EVIL BIG MARKET BASEBALL TEAM.”

The tricky thing is, I hated teams like this. I had a little bit of a soft spot for the Red Sox thanks to my dad, but I never liked that the Sox wouldn’t have a shot at any top level trade or free agent because of them, the Yanks, the Cubs, Cardinals, Mets, Indians for awhile, Angels, Braves, etc. (and yes, I’m aware that not all of those teams are even good anymore). Except now, we do.

But it’s more than that. It’s knowing that anything less than a Division Championship would be a complete failure, and also knowing that it would pretty much take a disaster to miss the playoffs…and it’s April. It’s also knowing that, if I wasn’t a Sox fan, I’d be sick of hearing how Mark Buehrle and Paul Konerko are such humble leaders and good guys, how everyone still loves Aaron Rowand, how Thome fits right in, or what crazy thing Ozzie Guillen said this week, or what a nut-case AJ Piersynewski is (I’m not checking the spelling. Just be glad I’m finally writing an article, ok? But AJ warrants his own column at some point. He’s also ramped up his crazy person persona this year by growing out his hair and having 1930s circus music play before his at bats. Ok, enough spoiling the future column).

And maybe the Sox Saturation isn’t that bad if you don’t live in Chicago. The whole country has had to deal with Yankees-Red Sox hype for years, even when neither team was defending a championship. Maybe the White Sox-Indians rivalry deserves some of the spotlight for awhile (although, please, everyone, I don’t like the Indians, and most Sox fans don’t, but please understand that the Twins are our rival. Not the Indians, not the Cubs. I don’t know a single non-Sox fan who really gets this. I’ll just say that when there were rumors about the Twins being contracted…well, I got a little bit excited). But it’s a bigger problem than competitive balance or talent monopolization. Teams like this are the reason that baseball is no longer the sport where you can spend $5 on upper-deck seats and wind up watching most of the game from the tenth row. It’s good for the game financially, but I still kind of miss that (even if I never did it myself).

The problem is, this is every medium-to-small market baseball fan’s dream: have the team take a couple of risks that pay off, get the right manager and the right group of guys, win the whole thing, and use the boost in attention to become a big market team indefinitely, like the Sox are doing now or the Angels did in 2002 (people forget that the Halos team that won it all was a bunch of no-names, although at least the team had a name people could recognize back then). And once you reach a certain age, your rooting interest in a team stops being conditional. If it’s true of teams that are crappy indefinitely, it’s also true when a team gets good and changes it’s identity into something you didn’t like before.

Looks like I’m coming to the Dark Side.

Ball Park Dogs

I’m on my way to becoming a baseball fan (collective gasp). There are two primary factors involved in this sudden and unforeseen turn of events.

The first reason is this little thing called “Fantasy Baseball”, you may have heard of it before. A few people are playing it now. And if fantasy sports have taught us anything, it’s that they can turn even the most indifferent sports fan into an interested onlooker (at the very least). And a mere week and a half into my first Fantasy Baseball season, I’m already liking baseball more and more. And even if I still don’t really enjoy it all that much, I have to have SOMETHING to fill the void between the end of March Madness and the start of the College and NFL Football seasons (and to break up the monotonous eternity that becomes the NBA Playoffs).

The second reason is inspired by my experience the other night. I had the opportunity to attend a Double-A Minor League game. Chattanooga’s very own Lookouts, versus the Mudcats from… some other city not big enough to have an MLB or even a Triple-A team… Anyways, it was the first game I had been to in a while, and it was fun.




I should note that the quality of my experience was much aided by the fact that my tickets were A) Free, and B) for a Box-suite. These tickets were provided, most graciously, by our team Doc. And so, never being the group to turn down anything free, our little group of Athletic Training students headed to the park. And let’s be honest, there’s always something especially “gratis-fying” about enjoying entertainment or fine dining on someone else’s tab (although I must admit I’ve been on the other end of this coin one too many times). When it’s Box-seats, it’s taken to a whole ‘nother level. Personal service, free chips and salsa, and an air-conditioned room with bar stools and tables sitting next to a column of sliding doors. Nothing quite like sitting in the open air with an air-conditioned room at your back (only in America my friends).

There are just a few things about going to the Park that can’t be fully explained, but since I’m writing this article, I guess I’ll have to try.

First off, you’ve got the foul balls. In his book, ‘Now I Can Die in Peace’, Bill Simmons of ESPN’s Page 2 has a segment where he talks about his experiences with foul balls. His lack of luck in ever catching one, certain sections of Fenway that are ideal for catching fly balls, etc. I understood what he was talking about it, but now I KNOW what he means.

As soon as a ball starts flying foul, there is a kid-like desire awoken inside of anyone with a pulse that makes us all want to be the one to catch it. But with our suite being behind and to the right of home plate, and under the overhanging roof, I thought our chances were slim-to-none of seeing a foul ball. In fact, I explained to my boy JoNo that the angle between the roof and the net shielding the crowd made the chances almost incalculable small. “We’re not getting any foul balls up here (in our sweet-suite seats)”, I confidently explained.

Seconds later, a foul ball pops into the stands 10 fee to our left, at the same level as our seats. Luck.

I raise my eyebrows and pretend it never happened.

Two innings later the unthinkable happens. A ball comes slicing off a home-team bat and spins just over the netting and under the roofing directly for our suite. By the time we see it coming it’s too late. Disaster strikes! One of our friends, Erin, gets hit smack dab in the head by the foul ball. Thankfully it’s a glancing blow that is mostly absorbed by here sun-glasses. Irony.

Now the Dictionary in my Sweet-Mac defines irony as: ‘a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result’. Well, I define irony as: ‘A fly ball hitting a friend of mine in the head minutes after I explain how impossible the angle would have to be, and when the group of people in attendance happens to consist of 15 Athletic Training students and one Certified Athletic Trainer.’

Moments later a stadium worker comes up to make sure she’s okay, at this point we’ve given here five Cranial Nerve tests and 3 complete concussion evaluations, but thanks for asking…

There’s another thing about being at the park that makes it memorable, beyond the actual events of the game. There’s the camaraderie, and the enjoyment of recently created inside jokes (which may or may not be funny).

Like when the Lookouts hit a long, hard ball directly to center. The ball hits 2/3 of the way up the green wall at center field that inexplicably sits 8 Feet higher than the rest of the wall, and Rickie and I simultaneously exclaim, “Stopped by the Green-Monster!”

“The Green Monster” we echo ourselves… “Anywhere but Fenwa…. Er… BELL SOUTH PARK!” I add as we crack up at ourselves!


And then there’s always the personal attack on players. This is especially fun at a Minor-League game because no one knows any of the players before you get to the park. So all of your jokes are guaranteed to be original (even if they don’t even approach being truly funny) to the audience present.

“Votto, your BOY!” I joke with JoNo as the first batter comes to the plate (and yes, I got this habit from you, Lewis).

“What, just because his name ends in vowel, he’s my boy?!” says JoNo defensively, thinking I was making a joke about his Italian heritage, when in reality I just felt like saying something… (it should be noted that later Gary Patchett would become my boy because it sounded like a nice, white-christian name).

But my personal favorite player had to be Alex Sanchez (you know where this is going). Not afraid to approach the racial line, I immediately start to muse about the possibility of his nickname being Alex “Dirty” Sanchez. This of course evolves into “Deer-tay” (as in Joe Deer-tay) and the Legend is born. Every time we go to a Lookouts game this summer (and hopefully we’ll get a few more games in the box seats!), we’ll remember our boy Alex “Deer-tay” Sanchez. That’s just another day at the park for you.

And so what I have learned from this experience, which has produced an almost three-page article for this fine sports-forum? Sometimes you had to be there. And in baseball’s case, you USUALLY had to be there. But when you give it the opportunity (or when the opportunity is handed to you), it’s an experience worth having. So beg, burrow, buy or schmooze a ticket. Grab yourself a dog and even (gasp!) a beer, and take yourself out to the ball game…

Super Bowl Appetizer: Nachorama style!

Despite that fact that James Exley feels that the entire “Nachorama” article idea is lame, I am presenting a small assortment of appetizing stories. Let’s be honest, no one ever really took Jamie’s opinion seriously did they? That, and despite some very tasting chicken tenders in both Buffalo and Normal varieties, the Nachorama is the Village Tavern’s greatest strength…

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“I’d like to tender my resignation.”

Has there ever been a more confusing series of events in a Professional front office? Earlier this off-season Red Sox’ GM Theo Epstein left what he had always painted as his ‘Dream Job’ citing burnout and lack of personal time as his reasons for leaving. However, people around the sports business speculated that both contract issues, and a personal fall-out between Theo and his mentor Larry Lucchino had led to his growing discontentment with daily interactions that his ‘dream job’ entailed.

Yet strangely enough, come a week or so ago, Theo was back as the head man for Red Sox Nation, trying to replace the incredibly popular Johnny Damon at centerfield. What change? Peace of mind. Theo made a small power play, and he won. He was upset with not having as much authority as he wanted in personnel and business decisions, so he made a bold move. Leave, and at the very worst he would have a handful of other GM jobs to choose from. Win, and he could get back his ‘dream job’, with more power, more respect, probably a new contract, and great trips to Hawaii and South Africa under his belt. Theo won. Don’t be surprised to see a few of the people that had a part in his frustration the first go-round, finding themselves looking for new jobs in the next year or so…

“And while I’m here, would you like to see my Resume?”

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While the Theo situation has been a debacle that I didn’t really see coming, there’s another situation that has gone from being an issue begs questioning, to one that has become a yearly spectacle: is this the end of Brett Favre’s career? What was once a question firmly situated at the back of every Green Bay Packers fans’ minds at the end of each season, has now become a media frenzy of ridiculous proportions. I like Brett Favre. I like the way he has fun playing football, I like that he’s not afraid to take chances. And I love that for years he’s had the ability to make throws that people once thought to be not only ill-advised, but near impossible.

This is all I can tell you about the Brett Favre retirement circus extravaganza. Keep your shirts on, calm down, and don’t bust out the ‘Jump To Conclusions Mats” just yet. The fact of the matter is this; Brett Favre isn’t sure what he’s doing next year, just like he has been unsure for the last 3 or 4 off-seasons. Don’t buy too much into what is said in the upcoming weeks until there is not only a final retirement announcement, but until the coin toss of next years first regular season game has been made, and Favre is not only not in uniform, or on the sidelines, but not even in the stadium, in Green Bay, or anywhere in the state of Wisconsin.

Cause there’s two things you always have to remember about Brett Favre. Just when you think you have him figured out, you don’t, AND this man has the Jordan-esque type competitive nature that will make it almost impossible for him to walk away from the game if he is not being carted off the field by a golf cart and an Athletic Trainer.

Oh yeah, there is one other thing about Brett Favre: to quote ‘Monday Night John’, “You could have 11 Brett Favre’s on the same team, and there’d still only be one Brett Favre!”

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What’s in the water in Anaheim? First, the Angels decide to change their name from the California Angels, to the Anaheim Angels. Then, this season they went from the Anaheim Angels to what is undoubtedly the worst name in sports history (largely because the name makes up an entire sentence in and of itself). ‘The Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim’. Hmmm… so where do they play again? Hell, if your going to actually call them, should they just go back to the California Angels? I mean, you don’t want to be associated with just one city in California, then why not go back to claiming the entire state again?

Well, if the Disney classic taught us anything about our Avian friend the Duck it is this, “Ducks fly together” (Well, that and that there is no one more unstoppable and important move in all of hockey than the triple deke…). Or so we though!

How is this pertinent? Well, as if this one incident wasn’t enough for the identity-crisis-stricken people of Anaheim, earlier this week the Anaheim Mighty Ducks announced that next year they will be dropping the ‘Mighty’ part of their moniker. Was this change inspired by disappointing performance as of late, or in an effort to intimidate their opponents? I mean, a duck, in and of itself is pretty intimidating! Maybe it’s subliminal appeal for all the Monty Python fans out there to support Anaheim’s team. Or maybe there is just something (besides a flock of Ducks, of course) in the water.

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This just in, JEROME BETTIS IS FROM DETROIT!!! Could there have been any more overplayed story at this Super Bowl? I think it’s a great story; you know, to have never been mentioned until the pre-game show when they do a video montage of the entire Pittsburgh team at the Bettis household for a big meal. Nothing more.

I did get a real chuckle out of the whole thing after the AFC Championship game when a reporter ask The Bus what people should be excited about having the Super Bowl in Detroit. His response: “You know, it’s just a great city”. First of all, this is a blatant lie. I’ve been to Detroit. Secondly, is that all you can come up with after all the media hoopla of why you so badly want to get ‘home’ for what is probably (it’s about time) your last game in the NFL? How about, “the people there are great”, or “it just brings back many memories of my childhood”. Anything.


I’m also convinced there is a massive media conspiracy to help the city of Detroit with its image. I really can’t speak against this, the city needs a little love. It’s had some (really) hard times, and I am glad they’ll benefit from the economic benefits of be the Super Bowl host city. But this has been a classic example of people coming in with REALLY low expectations (understandably), and being pleasantly surprised enough to brain wash themselves into thinking the city is nicer than it really is. Whatever works guys, as long as it gives the media something other than Jerome’s homecoming to talk about.

And if we must talk about Jerome Bettis, why has it never been pointed out that it is more than a little ironic that Jerome Bettis’ last game, and first Super Bowl, is “Super Bowl XL”?

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Is there a worst trend in the NBA than the full leg-length tights? I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I have a pair. I wore them for track, when I live in Chicago and I had to run in sub-30º weather while snow was falling. NOT in a temperature controlled NBA arena. There’s a little difference.

The first person I remember doing this was Jerry Stackhouse. Now, I know he’s still playing, but Stack hasn’t been relevant enough as an NBA player in the last few years for me to check up on whether or not he’s still wearing them. I also know that Kobe wore them for a stretch last year I think. Thankfully, the man who once scored 81 points in a game, and has nicknamed himself “Black Mamba”, no longer wears the tights on a regular basis. And now, after wearing them one game for an injury, which subsequently started a nice winning streak, LeBron James is wearing the tights every game. I understand superstitions, but come on!

This is not only the most ridiculous fashion statement I’ve ever seen, but I think the NBA needs to put a stop to it. I understand that with a very minor hamstring, quadriceps, or groin injury, some compression can help prevent further straining the muscle. I’m all for that; wear compression shorts. So, assuming a player maybe has a mild calf injury, wear a compression sleeve on your calf. My point is, if it’s necessary fine, but if not, it shouldn’t be allowed.

My reasons for why the NBA should step in on this are twofold. First of all, it looks ridiculous. I’m sorry, playing indoor basketball in pants has always, and will always look ridiculous. Secondly, and more objectively, how can a league that fines players for not wearing socks that match the color of a players shoes (which are determined by whether they are home or away), as well as fining players for their shorts being too long, tolerate this. On top of gameplay dress code, this is the same NBA which instituted by far the most stringent dress code in all of professional sports this off-season. The tights must go!


Oh yeah, and did you know that Jerome Bettis, playing in his first Super Bowl, and probably his last game, is from Detroit?

Heating up the Hot Stove

Every year at the end of the NBA season, ESPN’s Sports Guy writes a column breaking down the trade value of the top forty players. It’s one of my favorite sports-related articles of the year. Unfortunately, nobody is doing anything similar for the other sports. So I’m going to rip it off. Here are the rules (some are Simmons’ and some are mine).

1) Suppose Team A proposes a straight-up trade with Team B of player A for player B. If Team A would make the trade, but Team B wouldn’t, player B is ranked higher, and vice versa.
2) Degrees matter. For example, if you considered a trade of Derek Jeter for Derrek Lee (yes, that is the correct spelling), it’s unlikely either team would do it, but the Yankees would think “hmmm, Derrek Lee is available,” while the Cubs would say, “Oh sure, we’ll through in Mark Prior and pay for a new stadium, too!” and then hang up and laugh. Actually this is the Cubs, so you never know…lets move on.
3) Salaries matter. Would you rather have Alex Rodriguez for $25.7 million or Hank Blaylock for $800,000?
4) Age matters. Would you rather have Curt Schilling for the next two years or Mark Buehrle for the next ten?
5) For the sake of this column only, we’re assuming the following things, none of which are actually true:
a. Every team is trying to be at least somewhat competitive. So we’re not penalizing guys who have big contracts on bad teams that would likely be looking to dump them (unless they’re actually bad contracts).
b. On the other hand, every team is trying to be at least reasonably responsible with their money. So the numerous players with bad contracts for big market teams don’t get a free pass just because the teams they’re on can afford a few contracts like that.
c. No players have no-trade clauses, and nobody is threatening to do anything ridiculous to either force or prevent a trade. If you want to be a GM, apply for the job. Otherwise, just play.
d. No trades where the team giving up a player picks up part of his contract. I’ve always thought that was bogus anyway. Could you imagine this happening in anything other than professional baseball? If you want someone on your team, pay him.
6) I didn’t consider minor leaguers for this column, even though there are probably a few who would crack the list. In order to be in my top fifty, you have to have at least done something at the major league level.

GROUP F: AVAILABLE FOR THE RIGHT PRICE:

These are all good players, and many of them are key components of good teams, but all of them have one or two issues (age, salary, injury concerns, pending court cases, etc) that would prevent somebody from giving up the farm for them.

50. Bartolo Colon
Unlike a lot of White Sox fans, I was totally ok with Bartolo Colon winning the AL Cy Young this year. He had a very solid season, and nobody else was really lights-out for the whole year. However, he did pitch for the Sox for a couple years, and I never once thought, “This game’s in the bag, Bartolo Colon is pitching.” A franchise pitcher needs to at least have stretches where you have that feeling. Plus, as of two months ago he couldn’t move his pitching arm.
49. Ivan Rodriguez
Wait, you mean signing Pudge didn’t make the Tigers immediately respectable? Who knew? Still, after watching the playoffs in 2003, I have to say this guy would improve almost any team in baseball’s chances in a playoff series. Why aren’t there rumors about Pudge getting traded to a contender every year? Oh, wait, I remember now, that would be because the Yankees and Red Sox already have catchers.
48. Vernon Wells
A solid player who can do a little bit of everything, although he’s encroaching into “so many people think he’s underrated that he’s actually overrated” territory.
47. Alfonso Soriano
Yes, he’s supposedly making about $10 million next year, which is a lot for a .268 hitter. And the whole “potential MVP and ten-time all-star” buzz quickly died down after he left New York (I was as surprised as you were). But there just isn’t exactly a plethora of second basemen who can give you 35+ homers a year, and even fewer that can steal bases and won’t kill you defensively.
46. Alex Rodriguez
Has there ever been a situation in baseball quite like A-Rod’s? I mean, he’s clearly one of the best all-around players in the game, and yet, his failures in big situations have become so reliable that fans of his own team aren’t surprised or even really upset by them anymore. It’s also a little disturbing that every team he’s left has improved significantly immediately after his departure. The biggest problem is still his contract, however. If it was something remotely reasonable, there’d be some .500 team that would take a shot on this guy, but it doesn’t really make sense to spend $25 million on one player unless you already have a borderline playoff-calibur team, and if you do, you’re probably looking for somebody that you won’t consider benching after the playoffs start. Incidentally, if you thought the Vikings going from “Sexy Super Bowl Pick” to “One of the Worst Teams in the NFL” to “Surprise Playoff Contender” (and coming soon…“Vikings Team That Blew it in December Again!”) in one season, consider A-Rod’s career. Over the course of eleven years, he’s been a “Promising, Somewhat Over Hyped Prospect,” “Up-and-coming Franchise Player,” “Overpaid Star on a Crappy Team,” “Possible Franchise Savior,” “Arch-villain,” and now “Superstar That Inexplicably Always Screws Up/Disappears at the Worst Possible Time.” To make matters worse, the Yankees are probably the worst team in any sport to be on for a player in that last phase.
45. Victor Martinez
A promising young hitter at a key position where there aren’t a ton of great hitters. He’s gotten so much buzz in the last couple of years that you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that he had fewer RBIs last season than Geoff Jenkins, Emil Brown, Felipe Lopez, Pedro Feliz, and the power-hitting Carl Crawford, fewer home runs than Shawn Green, Jhonny Peralta, and Rod Barajas, and a lower OBP than Placido Polanco, David Wright, and the always disciplined Adam Dunn. He actually put up solid #s for a 6 hitter, but I just don’t see him as a middle of the order guy. Actually, I really don’t get the whole Cleveland thing period. 6 all-stars on a sub .500 team a couple of years ago? And the manager didn’t get fired? They were supposed to make up 15 games on a team with four #1 starters? Really? Did they move to New York three years ago? How did I miss that? I mean, I realize that they were loaded in the 90s, and that they hadn’t been good for a while before that, but can we please get over this? And yet, I know there will be people picking them to win the AL Central next year, despite the fact that the AL Central includes the most dominant team of the decade so far, a perennial playoff team due for a rebound year, and neither of them are the Indians (Although this did result in one of my favorite ironic television scheduling moments of the year, when Outside the Lines ran a thirty-minute piece on the resurgent Indians about three hours after they were eliminated from the AL Central Race and while they were in full late-season collapse mode. In context, I thought it was hilarious.).
44. Ichiro
Just had a downright awful year by his standards (and not a great season for most leadoff hitters), I won’t even tell you what his stats were. Still, how could I remove him from the list entirely when he practices hitting balls off of a trampoline so that he can get better at fishing pitches out of the dirt? Unless you somehow think walks from a leadoff hitter are helpful, what’s not to like about that? Plus, American sports needs more one-name only guys.
43. John Lackey
Not a guy you’d think of as an elite starter, but he’s 27, he’s probably not going to get a ridiculous contract, and last season he was 14-5 with 209 IP, a 3.44 ERA, and 199 strikeouts (which is only one less than 200). Plus, he’s a former World Series hero and was supposed to be the next Greg Maddux three years ago. That counts for something.
42. Freddy Garcia
Had he not been part of a championship team in Chicago (which ensures legendary status for multiple decades), he probably never would have been fully appreciated here since almost all of his best starts have been on the road, he usually gives up three runs in the first inning, and too many people liked the players that were traded for him (Jeremy Reed, who was then a hot prospect, and Miguel Olivo, who was referred to as “a crazy man” by Ozzie Guillen, which is the baseball equivalent of Randy Moss’s statement that he wouldn’t play with Terrell Owens because TO has too much baggage). Still, his reputation as a big-game pitcher is pretty much ensured for the rest of his career. And he looks like The Rock. That counts for something, too. Especially at a position where intimidation is helpful.

GROUP E: RUMOR MILL FODDER

These, for the most part, are the guys who are at the level where they’re perpetually rumored to be traded, especially if their teams are out of it early in the season. You know, those guys who are good enough that they could help a contender, but not so good that their fans would start a riot if they got shipped out for prospects and cash.

41. Brandon Webb
Any young pitcher that can go 14-12 for a team as bad as the Diamondbacks is worth giving a shot in my book. Tends to get overlooked since he’s not a big strikeout guy and he hasn’t been around for that long. Oh, and because he plays for Arizona.
40. Billy Wagner
He’s the opposite of Bobby Jenks. Instead of being intimidating because he’s a fastball-chucking behemoth, he’s intimidating because he looks like a little evil leprechaun/gremlin/elf whipping fastballs and sliders over the plate. Here’s where you have to apply one of the video game boss rules for intimidation: most bosses are at least three times as big as the hero, so when you run across some little guy, you know there’s something tricky going on.
39. Scott Rolen
I’m aware that he completely disappeared in the 2004 World Series and hasn’t really been heard from since. I’m not faulting him for that Series, the Red Sox were destined to win, so it was a little bit of an odd situation. Also, it’s not really fair to evaluate a player based on four bad games (provided that the player does not have a $25 million contract). The only thing that concerns me is that the Cardinals didn’t seem to get worse at all when he got hurt.
38. Chad Cordero
I kind of felt sorry for Expos fans. First the team leaves after being terrible for years, and then it immediately becomes relevant. Then I realized that there weren’t any Expos fans, and if there were, most of them were from Quebec.
37. Hank Blaylock
He’s pretty much a younger, cheaper version of JOOOEEEE!!!! CREEEEDEEEE!!!!!, (as Hawk calls him now) except that he’s not a World Series and ALCS hero, and I feel like he has slightly less letdown potential. Of course, if Crede has anything remotely close to the season that many Sox fans are expecting next year, I’m going to look like an idiot for putting Blaylock here instead.
36. Joe Mauer
Definitely a little overrated, as a .294 hitter with little power, and picking him ahead of Prior was Isaiah Thomas-esque, but he’s the type of catcher who can impact an entire team’s defense, and guys like that who won’t kill you at the plate are rare. Ok, I hate hearing this guy get hyped, so that’s quite enough.
35. Scott Podsednik
Could easily run for Mayor of Chicago and win right now. And Mayor Daley, being a huge Sox fan, wouldn’t even have him whacked. Seemed to have recovered from the nagging injuries by the playoffs, so it’s not a major concern at this point. In fact, the White Sox attempt to reinvent baseball for the post-steroids era (which was probably at least half unintentional, remember that the lineup was originally being built around Thomas and Konerko) would not have even come close to working without Pods wreaking havoc on the bases.
34. Eric Gagne
If you have any doubt about how valuable Gagne is to the Dodgers, you clearly didn’t watch Yhency Brazoban (10 losses and 21 saves) trying to close out games.
33. Jake Peavy
Another guy firmly in “so many people think he’s underrated that he’s overrated” territory, except that I could easily see him being the #1 starter for a championship team. He’s not there yet, though, and he’s not breaking into the top thirty until he gets there.
32. Zach Duke
“Phenom” is usually synonymous with “overrated,” but 8-2 on a crappy team with a 1.81 ERA…damn.
31. Josh Beckett
A proven playoff ace whose regular season career has been decidedly unspectacular. Actually, this may be a little high, since there Marlins apparently consider his trade value to be equivalent to nothing.

COMING SOON: The top thirty

Wrong again..

Yesterday Major League Baseball announced Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankees third baseman, as the American League Most Valuable Player, or MVP. This is Rodriguez second MVP, but it is also his first as a third baseman, and his first since he started “playing in pinstripes”. A-Rod won the award over Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz, aka “Big Papi”.

Earlier this week St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter won the National League Cy Young Award. Carpenter won the award over the likes of Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins of the greater Miami area, and Roger Clemens (most recently of the Houston Astros).

These two announcements proved to me, once again, that baseball has it all wrong. This is not to say that other professional sports leagues have it right. But I’ve always appreciated being able to point out ways that baseball has it wrong. From steroids (not going there with this article) to extremely prolonged game progression, there are a lot of things wrong with both the sport of baseball, and its major league identity. Thankfully we can rest on the legacy of a game were Rafael Palmiero and Mark McGuire didn’t do steroids, Babe Ruth wasn’t a raging alcoholic and Ty Cobb wasn’t a racist…

Let’s take A-Rod for example. A-Rod is a two time MVP of the American League. He’s a great player, in fact you could make a case that he is the best player in baseball from a skills standpoint. He is an above average defensive fielder (in fact he probably gets less credit than he deserves for his relatively smooth transition from shortstop to third base following his trade to the Yankees), he hits with great power for a shortstop/third-baseman, and apparently, he’s a great poker player…

Rodriguez is also notorious for never having been able to get that big hit when his team really needs it. The Sports Guy once described him as the scariest player in baseball when you’re already down two runs. He lacks that killer instinct, the eye of the Tiger, what the French call a certain… I don’t know what… He puts up numbers, but he doesn’t help his team win tough games.

On the other hand we have David Ortiz. During last years playoffs he single handedly kept Boston alive, and sparked them to a World Series victory; even if he did have to un-retire his glove to play some first base when the games were played in St. Louis. Once again this season Big Papi had big hit after big hit. He batted runs in (a little things I like to call “ribbies”), hit homeruns and played solid defense by having the least errors in the league. Okay, that last part was a joke, but somehow if you look at it from a skewed enough angle, it helps his case. Ortiz was, in many respects, the anti-A-Rod.

Listen to expert analysis on any major sporting award. MVP candidates from losing teams never win, they usually get eliminated from the running immediately, or don’t even really get considered at all. Not in baseball! No, A-Rod has already won an MVP on the last place Texas Rangers. Now, after helping the highest paid and possibly most talented team in baseball history underachieve for the majority of the season, and NOT win a World Series, we give A-Rod the MVP award. Instead of giving it to a player who single handedly won his team games, we give it to a player who single handedly padded his teams scores, make sure they didn’t win games by one run, but instead won them by two or three.

Okay, now let’s take the whole A-Rod and David Ortiz thing and put it aside for a second. Imagine it’s a piece of raw meat that still needs cooking and seasoning, but we’re not ready to eat it yet. We’re going to put it in the freezer for a while…

So as we discussed before, Chris Carpenter won the NL Cy Young Award over Dontrelle Willis and Roger Clemens. In the case of Willis and Carpenter, I think you could make a very legitimate and equally matched argument for both sides. They had almost identical numbers from ERA to number of wins. This was not the case in the comparison between Clemens in Carpenter. Clemens was significantly better in every statistical category save one; wins. Clemens simply could not get any run support. I remember watching a game (while I was in Vegas, winning $300 in a poker game), where Clemens even hit a homerun, only to lose 2-1. Statistically speaking, Clemens was lights out in that game and during this season; having one of his best seasons ever and one of the best seasons in baseball history.
The point is that wins are the most over-rated statistic in the history of sports. This isn’t basketball where scoring 35 points but allowing your defensive assignment to score 36 is a net loss of 1 point. A pitcher has one job, to pitch. Even when a pitcher has to go to the plate, anything a team gets from him is gravy. Pitching 9 innings of 2 hit, 1 run baseball is fantastic, whether a he gets the win or not. I mean how can anyone defend the significance of wins, when a pitcher can leave the game up 5 runs, only to watch his closer collapse, thus losing the win for him. The win statistic can, in many cases, have NOTHING to do with the performance of the pitcher who earns said stat. This goes both ways you say? Pitchers who give up 7 or 8 runs can also get a win, despite pitching horribly, you say? My point exactly.

Roger Clemens should have won the National League Cy Young because he was the best pitcher in baseball (not just the National League). Now Randy Johnson should also have won the Cy Young last year so, in a way, justice was served for Clemens. But Randy Johnson didn’t get his due, and Chris Carpenter got a freebee. The Cy Young is an individual award and it should be given to a pitcher based on his individual performance, not on his teams situational offensive ineptitude.

In the case of the Most Valuable Player award, just the opposite is true. It is an award that goes to an individual based on how much he helps his team. Helping you team comes down to one thing; winning games. David Ortiz did just that, he won games for the Boston Red Sox. Alex Rodriguez put up numbers. Who would you want on your team? I’d take Big Papi and Roger Clemens anytime, and in Clemens’ case, no matter how old he is.