MLB Midterm Review

Now that the MLB All-Star game has been played, it is time to take a look back on what has happened thus far in the 2013 season.  On opening day, I made several predictions (and if you want to check them out you can just click here http://bit.ly/YWPdDP), and to be honest not too many of them were very good.  The worst prediction I made was that the Angels and Blue Jays were going to be the cream of the crop in the American League.  Boy was I wrong about that!  Both teams have been subpar.  I successfully jinxed both of my Cy Young winners; Jered Weaver suffered a freak broken elbow in his non-pitching arm and Stephen Strasburg has been pretty good but still has a losing record at the break.  Joey Votto was once again an All-Star but is hardly having an MVP season and Mike Trout is having an MVP season but it is for the most disappointing team in baseball.  The Rookie of the Year race in both leagues is up for grabs but the talent seems to be all in the National League where Evan Gattis, Shelby Miller, Julio Teheran, and Dodger phenom Yasiel Puig seem poised for an exciting finish whereas the lackluster AL rookie battle can conceivably be won by a player who has less than 20 RBI at the break.  It’s like Joaquin Andujar once said, “You can sum it up in one word: You never know.”  Without further ado, here are my most pleasant surprises and most disappointing ones for the first half.

Most Pleasantly Surprising Team

NL-Pittsburgh Pirates: How can anyone not root for these guys and this franchise that has not had a winning season in 21 years?  I am not completely surprised that they are having a great season but I am surprised that they have the second best record in the NL thus far.  They have a nice mixture of young talent (Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, Pedro Alvarez) and some strong veteran leadership (A.J. Burnett, Russell Martin, Francisco Liriano), not to mention what may be the best story in MLB this season in closer Jason Grilli.  Grilli has converted 29/30 save opportunities and has an ERA less than 2.00.  Not bad for a 36-year-old guy who only had five career saves coming in to this season. 

AL-Cleveland Indians: It is hard to imagine that the Indians are only one game behind the Detroit Tigers for the Central division lead.  Seriously, who does this team have?  Well, they were aggressive in the offseason getting guys like Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher, they have made great trades over the past few years acquiring Justin Masterson, developing young talent like Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana, and going to the scrap heap to revive the careers of guys like Mark Reynolds and Scott Kazmir.  Oh yeah, they also brought in some guy named Francona to manage them.  Supposedly he broke some kind of curse in Boston or something.  Maybe he can do the same in Cleveland, a town that has not won a professional sports championship since 1964. 

Most Disappointing Team

NL-San Francisco Giants: To think that the team that has won two of the last three World Series is twelve games below .500 at the All-Star break is unfathomable, especially when you consider it is pretty much the same group of guys.  The starting rotation still includes Cain, Lincecum, and Bumgarner and the lineup still has Posey, Scutaro, Pence, and Sandoval.  Bruce Bochy hasn’t forgotten how to manage.  So what’s the problem?  Some of it has been injuries but most of it has been lackluster pitching combined with mediocre hitting.  I believe the Giants will get things turned around but they have too far to climb to be a contender this year.

AL-Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: The Blue Jays made a million trades in the offseason and were poised to have the best rotation in the AL if not all of baseball so the fact their pitching has been atrocious (and that may be a kind description) makes perfect sense, right?  And the Angels have spent billions of dollars the past two offseasons getting arms and bats so it just stands to reason they are only mediocre.  What else can you say about these two teams other than there is no reason they should be a combined nine games under .500 at the break.

Pleasant NL Youth Movement

Young arms have emerged and dominated in the National League this year.  The hapless Mets have a young stud in All-Star Game starter Matt Harvey and they have another waiting in Zack Wheeler, whom they received at the trading deadline two years ago in the Carlos Beltran trade with San Francisco.  These two could the cornerstone of the Mets rotation for the next decade.  Shelby Miller has been a rock in the St. Louis Cardinals rotation.  It seems the Cardinals have an endless abundance of starting pitching just laying in the weeds.  No wonder many analysts say they have the best farm system in baseball.  Patrick Corbin has been phenomenal this year for the first place Diamondbacks.  He has more wins that Harvey and the same ERA but gets much less hype due to playing in the desert.  And there are some young bats, too.  Evan Gattis, Jean Segura, and Yasiel Puig will make the highlight reels for many years to come.

Disappointing Veteran Free Agents

It doesn’t get more disappointing than B.J. Upton and Josh Hamilton.  Upton signed the largest free agent contract in the history of the Braves organization and has been an utter embarrassment at the plate through the first 95 games.  Upton has amassed 8 HR and 20 RBI in the first half.  His brother, Justin, who the Braves traded to get in the offseason, had those numbers three weeks into the season.  Josh Hamilton signed a mega-deal with the Angels much like the one that Albert Pujols signed after the 2011 season.  At the break, Hamilton has 14 HR, 39 RBI, a .224 AVG, .696 OPS, and 95 Ks in 339 at-bats.  Braves rookie Evan Gattis has 14 HR, 37 RBI, a .246 AVG, and an .873 OPS in 167 at-bats while making the major league minimum. 

All-Surprise Team : )

NAME                        TEAM             POS     HR      RBI     AVG  
Evan Gattis                 Braves             C         14        37        .246
Paul Goldschmidt       D’backs           1B       21        77        .313
Matt Carpenter           Cardinals         2B       9          45        .321 (NL leading 72 runs)
Jean Segura                Brewers           SS        11        36        .325(27 Stolen Bases)
Josh Donaldson          A’s                  3B       16        61        .310
Domonic Brown         Phillies            LF       23        67        .273
Carlos Gomez             Brewers           CF       14        45        .295 (21 SB)
Yasiel Puig                  Dodgers          RF       8          19        .391 (1.038 OPS, 38 Games)

                                                                        W-L     ERA    K         SV/OPP

Matt Harvey                 Mets                SP        7-2       2.35     147
Patrick Corbin              D’backs           SP        11-1     2.35     109
Shelby Miller               Cardinals         SP        9-6       2.92     112
Jason Grilli                   Pirates             CL                   1.99     63        29/30

All Surprise Team : (

NAME                         TEAM             POS     HR      RBI     AVG
Miguel Montero          D’backs           C         8          33        .224 (16/87/.284 2011-12)
Ike Davis                     Mets                1B       5          18        .165 (32/90/.225 2012)
Danny Espinosa          Nationals         2B       3          12        .158 (19/61/.242 2011-12)
Starlin Castro              Cubs                SS        6          29        .243 (12/72/.296 2011-12)
Mike Moustakas          Royals             3B       6          17        .215 (20/73/.242 2012)
Josh Hamilton             Angels             OF       14        39        .224 (34/111/.291 2011-12)
B.J. Upton                   Braves             CF       8          20        .177 (25/79/.244 2011-12)     
Josh Reddick              A’s                   RF       4          32        .218 (32/85/.242 2012)

                                                                        W-L     ERA    K         SV/OPP

Matt Cain                    Giants              SP        5-6       5.06     103
Josh Johnson               Blue Jays         SP        1-5       5.16     67
Mark Buehrle              Blue Jays         SP        5-6       4.89     77
R.A. Dickie                 Blue Jays         SP        8-10     4.69     92
Fernando Rodney        Rays                CL       3-2       3.79     56        22/27

Triple Crown Watch

Now that it has happened in my lifetime, I have come to expect someone to win the Triple Crown every year.  The best candidate to do so is, shockingly, Miguel Cabrera.  Coming off his 2012 Triple Crown MVP season, Cabrera only became the first player in MLB history to achieve 30+ HR and 90+ RBI at the All-Star break; all while batting a cool .365.  He could be on his way to becoming the first man ever to win the Triple Crown in back-to-back seasons.  (And let’s not forget this cat just turned 30 in April).  To accomplish that feat, though, he will have to surpass Baltimore’s Chris Davis who has 37 HR and only trails Miggy by two RBI.  I’ll say the odds are pretty good that Cabrera doesn’t repeat, but wouldn’t it be something if he did?

All in all, the first half of the season has been amazing and I see no reason why the second half won’t be even better.  The trading deadline is in two weeks and many teams will be looking to make moves.  Hold on tight, baseball fans!  It’s going to be a fantastic ride to the finish line. 

Happy Trails to the 2012 MLB Season

The Major League Baseball regular season is almost over and for the players and managers of twenty teams, it will be time to put a bow on things and head home for a little bit of normal life.  The playoffs will sustain us for the next month, weaning us off of our  baseball fix until February.  While the closing of the season is always sad for me, baseball has experienced a resurgence over the past two seasons and that makes me feel pretty good about the future of the game.   This season, just like any other, was packed with spectacular happenings; some good, some not so good.  The following is a list of things that I will take away from this season (in no particular order).

*This season may (and hopefully will) mark the first Triple Crown winner in MBL since 1967 when Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox was able to pull of the magnificent feat.  Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers enters play tonight in sole possession of the lead in all three TC categories (batting average, homeruns, RBIs).  I have never been a big Miggy fan but it would be great if he were able to achieve the accomplishment since it has never happened in my lifetime.  (Heck, it's never happened in my sister's lifetime and that's saying something).

*While looking at some career numbers on Cabrera, which are absolutely unworldly, I was impressed to note that since the beginning of the 2004 season (his first full season in the show) Cabrera has never played less than 150 games in a season and has averaged 158 over that span.  The only thing more impressive is the guy holding down the other corner of the Tiger infield, Prince Fielder.  Since the start of his first full season in 2006, Fielder has missed only 13 ballgames, and 12 of those came in his first three years. 

*The no-hitter lives and can strike at any moment.  With two days left to play, there have already been seven no-nos this season.  Jered Weaver, Matt Cain, Philip Humber, Homer Bailey, Johan Santana, Felix Hernandez, and a combined effort by the Mariners achieved this amazing feat.  In the past three years, there have been 16 no-hitters, five of which were perfect games and one was the second ever postseason no-no. 

*Kris Medlen and Craig Kimbrel have become household names.  Medlen has been the second coming of Greg Maddux since being moved into the starting rotation for the Atlanta Braves.  The Braves have won Medlen's last 23 starts (dating back to 2010) setting a major league record and he has been named NL Pitcher of the Month for August and September.  Kimbrel has been nearly unhittable out of the pen this season, saving 42 games while dominating hitters.  He has struck out 113 of the 227 batters he has faced this season and has an 8:1 strikeout to walk ratio.  Kimbrel has put himself in position to get several votes for the NL Cy Young award.

*Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have proven that they belong with the big boys.  Trout has had such a great season that he will get several votes for AL MVP and may get enough to win.  If he was 30 years old and had ten years experience in the league, his numbers  would be ridiculous but when you consider he is only a 20- year-old rookie, they are almost hard to fathom.  Try this on for size: 30 HR, 83 RBI, .325 AVG, 48 SB (only been caught four times), .910 OPS, and 129 runs scored.  Harper has had a nice rookie season as well, one that could get consideration for the greatest teenage season ever.  Don't be surprised if he puts up Trout-like numbers next year when he's a seasoned 20-year-old.

*R.A. Dickey is an amazing story.  I won't go into his back story here but it is nothing short of amazing.  He finished the season with a 20-6 record, a 2.73 ERA and a chance to lead the league in strikeouts and innings pitched.  Hopefully he can pull down a Cy Young this year to add a final chapter to his amazing tale.

*Three teams have come out of nowhere this season to make the playoffs.  The Nationals, Orioles, and A's have had unbelievable seasons and find themselves playing October baseball.  The Nationals have been the whipping boys of the NL East ever since moving to the nation's capital, but not this season.  They have won 97 games and will probably be the top seed in the NL.  The Orioles are neck and neck with the Yankees for the AL East crown and make their first playoff appearance since 1997.  The A's have played a little moneyball this season and find themselves tied with the Rangers with onehead-to-head matchup left.  All three teams have won with largely unknown players even though the Nationals do have Harper and Stephen Strasburg to boost their name recognition.

*In a storyline fitting of Charles Dickens, Boston and Atlanta are indeed a Tale of Two Cities.  After both historically collapsed last September, many wondered how the two teams would respond.  Boston responded by cleaning house and trying to start over with the controversial Bobby Valentine at the helm.  Needless to say, this year has been a continuation of last September with the Red Sox losing 91 games and dumping much of their roster.  The Braves decided to not make any administrative changes and only slight changes on the field, including hiring a new hitting coach.  Manager Fredi Gonzalez adjusted the way he uses his bullpen and had great results.  As a result, last September is a long-forgotten memory as the Braves have won 93 games this season and will play in the wild card game on Friday.

*Joe Maddon is a great manager.  He has taken a Tampa Bay team that was a laughing stock for their first decade of existence and has led them to five consecutive winning seasons and three playoff appearances.  He has accomplished this feat with largely anonymous players and great young pitching.  He seems like a guy who genuinely enjoys being around the game.  With the job he has done, the Rays deserve much better fan support than they get. 

*Adam Greenberg finally got his first official major league at bat.  If you haven't heard this story, it is truly amazing and inspirational.  Greenberg made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 2005 when he was asked to pinch hit against the Marlins.  The first pitch hit Greenberg in the back of the head and he suffered from post-concussion syndrome for a long time after.  Since he was hit, he never recorded an official at bat.  A campaign was recently started for a major league team to sign Greenberg to a one-day contract to let him get his official at bat.  The Marlins agreed to take him up on the offer and seven years later Greenberg got an official at bat against knuckleball king, R.A. Dickey.  Greenberg struck out but I am willing to bet that it never felt so good to get whiffed.

*Melky Cabrera took a sharp fall from grace; going from All-Star Game MVP to humiliated cheater after testing positive for PEDs.  I have nothing for Melky after spending an uneventful year in Atlanta but he did win some points by asking that a loophole that would have allowed him to win the NL batting title not be put to use.  The Giants also won some points by saying they were not going to add Cabrera to the postseason roster even though he would be eligible after five playoff games.

*The game is better for having Chipper Jones be a part of it the past 18 years.  There are not many like him left in the game.

*Just a few days away from the debut of the Wild Card game and I already don't like it.  There is too much at stake for this to be a one game situation.  Should the team that loses the Wild Card game actually be able to claim they made the playoffs?  It certainly won't feel like they did.

Hopefully October 2012 will be as interesting and fulfilling as October 2011 was and with a little bit of luck, great pitching, and timely hitting, the Braves will send Chipper Jones into the sunset with a second World Series championship.

 

The Weekend That Was

As usual, this past weekend was great for a baseball enthusiast and college football nut like me. (It helped that I went 9-2 on my picks in the college game over the weekend.)   And the NFL was not too shabby either.  The extra wild card slot in MLB has added additional drama to the baseball season.  One has to go back a decade and a half to find the last time that the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland A’s were playing meaningful games this time of the year.  You have to go back to November 1998 to find the last time that Florida State, Kansas State, and Notre Dame were all ranked in the top 10 in the country.  And you have to go all the way back to 1974 to find the last time a Cardinals football team started a season 3-0.  What is going on?  Here are four things we learned this past weekend in MLB, four things in NCAA football, and four things in the NFL.

MLB

1. Miguel Cabrera now has a legitimate shot to win the American League Triple Crown, a feat that has not been accomplished since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967.  To put that in perspective, there has never been a Triple Crown winner in the post-moon landing era.  (It has not happened in the National League since Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals did it in 1937.)  Right now, Miggy has 42 HR (tied for first with Josh Hamilton), 131 RBI, and .331 AVG.  I am not sure if he can hang on but you can expect a player of his caliber to be locked in as the Tigers are desperately trying to win the AL Central.
2. R.A. Dickey has a legitimate chance to become the first knuckleball pitcher to win the Cy Young.  Right now, Dickey is in the top two in all three pitching Triple Crown categories (wins, ERA, strikeouts).  Dickey is second in with 19 wins, first with a 2.66 ERA, and second in strikeouts.  His main competition for the award is Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez who has 20 wins but has a slightly higher ERA and slightly fewer Ks and a significantly fewer innings pitched than Dickey.  A couple things that will hurt Dickey in the vote are that he plays on a fourth-place team (which should not hurt him but probably will) and lack of respect for the knuckleball.
3. The more you see the Orioles and A’s play, the more fun they are to watch.  The Orioles are winning on the strength of a bunch of young guys in the lineup and a slew of anonymous pitchers.  And if it goes into extra innings, they are money, winning 16 in a row this season.  The A’s have some young arms but their lineup is made up of mostly castaways and has beens, at least by baseball standards.  Raise your hand if you can name five everyday starters for Oakland without looking at a box score.  (If you raised your hand, I’m calling foul on that one.)
4. The Brewers are going to make the second wild card in the NL very interesting.  They are a hot team with some experience and they have been getting timely pitching, which never hurts this time of the year.

NCAA Football

1. I have said all along you can never count out a Bill Snyder-coached team.  Snyder’s Kansas State Wildcats marched into Norman, Oklahoma and gave a good Sooner team their first loss of the season.  K-State QB Collin Klein has positioned himself as the front runner for the Heisman (cause that changes weekly these days) and if you base it on nicknames alone, he is the hands down winner.  Optimus Klein, as he has become known, has put Manhattan, Kansas back on the map and has propelled them onto the national scene.  (What else would you expect from the leader of the Autobots?)
2. Wow, Florida State is really good.  I mean, really, really good.  It has been a few minutes since they have been a factor on the national scene, or even in the ACC for that matter.  Once the ACC expanded to 12 teams and created a conference championship game, it was expected that nearly every year, the Seminoles would be playing for that trophy.  (Miami was even placed in the opposite division in hopes that the two would square off more often than not.  So much for best laid plans.)  Once the Noles went down by 14 to Clemson in the second half, I think most were eager to see how Jimbo Fisher’s team would respond.  Were they going to fold like recent FSU teams may have or were they going to fight back?  They fought back, outscoring Clemson 35-9 the rest of the way.  Jimbo, I think the Noles are back.
3. What has happened to the Big 10?  I thought those guys knew how to play some football.  The two best teams thus far seem to be Northwestern and Minnesota.  With traditional powers Ohio State and Penn State ineligible to win the conference, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, and Michigan State looked poised to be the top dogs in the conference.  Then Michigan gets pummeled by Bama and loses over the weekend to Notre Dame; Wisconsin gets a taste of their own medicine against Oregon State; Nebraska gets stretched out by UCLA; and Michigan State gets dominated by Notre Dame.  Iowa has been terrible, losing this past weekend to Central Michigan and Illinois is even worse than that, losing a home game to Louisiana Tech by a score of 52-24.  Perhaps the biggest Big 10 game this week will be Indiana vs. Northwestern; not Wisconsin vs. Nebraska.
4. The SEC has some teams that aren’t very good, other than my beloved Wildcats.  Arkansas had QB Tyler Wilson back against Rutgers but lost their third in a row.  Auburn played a great game against LSU but could not win, causing the War Eagles to lose three games before the first of October for the first time in the history of the storied program.  And honestly, they could have lost to Louisiana-Monroe and been 0-4.  Vanderbilt, welcome back.  I'm not sure if you got a good look at the semi that rolled over you but it had Georgia tags.  And my beloved UK Wildcats, playing without starting QB Maxwell Smith, kept it close for a quarter (better than they could say the previous four seasons) before getting chomped by the Gators. 

NFL

1. The Saints aren't marching in this year...to the playoffs, that is.  After an ugly offseason where several key players and coaches were suspended (the players have since been reinstated) and the team received a black eye across the league for the infamous bounty scandal, the beginning of the season has not been much better.  The Saints were sitting pretty yesterday with a 24-6 lead on the lowly Chiefs before unraveling and losing for the third straight week 27-24 in overtime.  With head coach Sean Payton out for the entire season and interim coach Joe Vitt out a few more weeks (Can someone please explain to me how the players can be reinstated but the coaches still have to sit out?), the season may be getting long in New Orleans; especially considering that they are already three games back of a stout Atlanta Falcons team.
2. While many teams have been Jekyll and Hyde the first three weeks of the season, a couple have been able to separate themselves from the pack.  While everyone was busy anointing the San Francisco 49ers as the class of the NFL after two weeks, after week 3 the Niners won't have home field advantage over the Minnesota Vikings if it comes to that.  While the jury is still out on how could the Vikes can be this year, they are off to a great start and look to be much better than projected in the preseason.  The Cardinals of Arizona are off to their first 3-0 start since 1974 when they were the Cardinals of St. Louis.  This year's teams is being led by a strong defense that has allowed only 40 points in the first three games.  The aforementioned Falcons seem to be the class of the NFC thus far and the Houston Texans appear to be their counterpart in the AFC (yes, you read that correctly).
3. Playing a game every Thursday night in the NFL does not make sense to me; especially when you let a team play on Thursday one week and give them the Monday night game the following week as is the case with Green Bay this week.  It seems to me that team almost gains a second bye week.  And how about the Ravens playing a Sunday night game and then following that up with a Thursday game.  That's a pretty quick turnaround.  I'm all for doing that on Thanksgiving and later in the year but every week just seems a tad ridiculous.  Now the NFL week runs from Thursday to Monday.  Plus, several people don't even get the NFL Network, including me.  Not a big fan of this move.
4. You might as well get over the fact that replacement officials are doing the games right now.  While the NFL did lock the officials out, they have no incentive to settle the dispute.  Fans are still filling the seats, ratings are still through the roof, no games have been decided by a bad call yet, and most importantly, the players aren't giving the officials their full support.  If the players are truly tired of having replacement officials, they would threaten to not play until the issue is resolved.  But they don't have that in them.  As for the berating, belittling, and bullying of officials by players and coaches, I think they need to concentrate on things they can control instead of acting like fools.  Chasing down officials or grabbing them as they run off the field has never been acceptable.  I have seen professional NFL refs make many terrible calls but I have never seen them brow-beaten the way these guys are getting it.  I say job well done to the official last night who flagged John Harbaugh for relentlessly arguing (he claims he was trying to call a timeout) in a crucial point in the game.  And by the way, that field goal was good.  I guess the refs got one right.