Belief in the power.
Posted on 09/25/2005 8:19:55 PM PDT by ken5050
Good Sunday evening to you, fellow Freeper baseball fanatics. Great week just past, and an unreal last week to the season upon us..I wanted to get the thread up now, since I may not have a chance to do so tomorrow..The races are wilder, and tighter, than ever..
Ladies and Gentlemen..it is the LAST week of the regular season, and the Mets, yes..my beloved Metsies, are actually playing MEANINGFUL games..Oh happy days... They are still mathematically ALIVE for the NL wild card, and they are on fire....FUEGO..they are HOT, HOT, HOT!!!
But because, as the ancient Greek prophesy fortells...."Whom the Gods would destroy, they will first make mad..." Tis so true, because the other love of my life..the NY JETS...they really , REALLY SUCK..once again taking the pipe big time....but hope springs eternal..the Nets' season starts soon..
OK..here we go..as usual..
AMERICAN LEAGUE
AL EAST: Red Sox and Yankees are tied. Down to the wire we go..
AL CENTRAL: White Sox lead the Tribe by 2.5
AL WEST: Angels lead the A's by 4.0
AL WILDCARD: Tribe leads the Red Sox and Yankees by .5
In the AL East, I think Boston has an edge..They're at home for the last 7 games, and they get the O's next, for 4 games. Baltimore has quit.mailed it in..they've lost 8 straight...are dealing with the whole Palmiero mess...and they can't wait for the season to be over. I think they lay down for the Red Sox...Yankees are on the road for the final 7..next 4 in Toronto. BJs have a good staff, have a winning record at home..and can make their season by sticking it to the Yanks...I think there's a good chance Boston goes into the final series up by one, possibly two games...
In the AL Central...White Sox got a strong pitching performance today. and gainmed a game on the Tribe..Cleveland lost a heartbreaker..They survived a bases loaded no out inning...with two great fieldng plays to cut down runners at home, only to lose when Grady Sizemore lost a fly ball in the sun...Yet the ball actually hit him on the way down..I expected him to catch it off his shoulder..If Cleveland gets it back to 1 game down going into the last week, they'll overtake the Chisox..if not they're the WC....
In the AL WEST..A's are on life support...They have to run the table...The wild card is wide open....though the Tribe still looks to be a strong favorite..Yankees still are going home early, it says here..
NATIONAL LEAGUE
NL EAST: Braves lead the Phillies by 5.0
NL CENTRAL: Cards want the ring, and the NL MVP and CYA winners..(Trivia question: when was the last time BOTH winners came from the same team, in either league?)
NL WEST: Holy smokes, Batman..in the division nobody wants, the Pods lead the Jints by 4.0, and they start a 4 games series Monday.. SD has their stud going..if he wins..the race is over..if not..look out..
NL WILDCARD: 'Stros lead the Phils by 1.0
Houston lost a tough game today. Pettitte pitched a great game, but the pen blew it..big time..Phillies have the better closer...it may well be the difference down the stretch..but Houston's starters can dominate. Philly's Millwood could win the ERA title with a losing record....he's bounced back from a long stretch of no run support..
When you add your comments..if you're inclined...name your 8 play-off teams...we'll see who has the most mojo working...
My take...AL: Red Sox, Tribe, Angels..WC is the White Sox...in the NL..Braves, Cards, Pods, and the 'Stros are the WC...
Good evening all..Down to the wire we go..
Special last week of the season bumperooski....
Tribe has got to take it one game at a time. No looking past Tampa Bay.
Tribe has got to take it one game at a time. No looking past Tampa Bay.
AL: New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Oakland (A’s 4 out)
NL: Atlanta, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Houston, San Diego, and San Francisco (Giants 4 out)
Four huge head-to-head series coming up in this last week:
Monday-Thursday (4 games each): San Diego-San Fran and LA-Oakland, with the Bay Area teams needing 3 out of 4 to have any chance and 4-game sweeps to tie
Friday-Sunday (3 games each): Boston-New York and Chicago-Cleveland, probably/possibly to decide their divisions. Of the four teams, Yanks, BoSox, ChiSox, and Tribe, three will go on and one will go home.
Phils and Astros tight for NL WC.
The easiest, earliest wrap-up, the Cards, have been limping along and sputtering these last couple of weeks, 6-8 in their last 14 games. And their big award candidates, Pujols and Carpenter, have been tailing off lately. More on that in an upcoming post.
Well, I want 5. There, I said it.
Cleveland might not need more than 3 or 4.
Nonetheless, I want 5.
That is all.
Belief in the power.
Two different guys?
'91-Pendleton and Glavine, Braves
Sometimes one pitcher wins both awards: Willie Hernandez, '84 Tigers; Bob Gibson, '68 Cards. Did Eckersley win both the same year for the A's?
Trust me, there's no such thing as a division nobody wants. The Twins once won the World Series in 1987 despite being outscored over the entire season. Losing more games than you won? Pah! it all starts back at 0-0 once the playoffs begin.
Yep, and no way did he deserve it.
If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said MVP Pujols and CY Carpenter, easily. Now maybe both still, but maybe not.
On September 10, Pujols was hitting .338 with 39 HRs and 107 RBI and a season-high 1.068 OPS. Now he's hitting .333 with the same 39 HRs and only a few more RBI, 110, and an OPS down closer to 1.040. In the last 14 games, Prince Albert is hitting only .267 with 0 HR and 3 RBI. His feet and leg have been paining him, curtailing his power.
The thing is, Andy Jones has tailed off, too, with only a few RBI in his last ten games. Sure he's got the HR and the RBI, but he's hitting only .265 for the year and his OPS is well down the line.
Derrek Lee has continued strong, and his stats are at least as good as Albert's, and even a little better. But people hold the Cubs' mediocre team standing against him.
Those are the only three legitimate candidates for MVP. I think Albert still might have the edge.
Two weeks ago, I thought Carpenter was even more of a lock than Pujols. But now I think less. Willis may have pulled past Carp. He's got one more win and better ERA now. In his last three starts, Carp has gone from bad to worse to worst. Over that span, he's 0-1, 15.2 innings, 27 hits, 17 ER, and a 10.07 ERA. In contrast, over his last three starts, Willis is 2-1, 25 innings, 17 hits, 5 ER, and a 1.80 ERA. Now I'd rate the CY a toss-up between the two, depending on their start(s) this week.
So 1) Pujols, 2) Lee, 3) Jones for NL MVP. 1T) Willis and Carp for CY.
AL next.
1993, Chicago White Sox guys Frank Thomas won the MVP and Jack McDowell won the Cy Young.
The White Sox took three of four from a good Twins team. They're not "done."
I think Lee is the frontrunner, and has been so all season. Sure, his team hasn't been making much noise in the standings, but I think the man has clearly been the best player in the National League this year, and by a good edge.
I could not agree more. I don't care if a relief pitcher wins the MVP award, but I do have issues when it comes to a relief pitcher winning the Cy Young award. Relief pitchers are just that; pitchers who relieve the regular pitching staff because they are inferior to the starters and consequently be used for only 1-2 innings at a time.
The stat "save" was invented in order to make relievers feel more important, yet unlike, say, wins and losses, a save is based on arbitrary numbers; pitch one inning without giving up the lead when leading by three or less, get a save. Pitch three innings, regardless of the score, without giving up the lead, get a save.
Plus, the other major stat used to judge relief pitchers, ERA, cannot be compared to the ERA of a starter. Sure, a reliever may have an ERA of 1.50, or something like that, but does that necessarily make him more valuable than a starter who pitched more than twice as many innings and ended up with, say, an ERA of 3.00? Not only does the starter have to pitch many more innings, but he has to pitch a number of the in a row, while a reliever gets to pitch them one at a time usually, with at least 24 hours rest in between.
Starters and relievers cannot be compared as easily as some would like. Dennis Eckersley, Eric Gagne, and other relievers who have won the Cy Young award hardly deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Cy Young, never mind receive an award named after him.
AL MVP: Ortiz? Hafner? No!!! No DH should be MVP!!! Especially when there are position players with close numbers. Manny plays OF, but he's a defensive liabilty and bad for team chemistry. So I give it to a guy with great numbers, fine defense, and on a contending team: A-Rod.
So I give the awards to two HOF players from the Evil Empire, Mo-Riv and A-Rod.
Have I mentioned I hate the DH?
I guess I'm more extreme than you. Absent a season like what Mike Marshall put up when he pitched 200 innings in relief, I don't think a reliever is a quality candidate for either the Cy Young or MVP awards. They just don't pitch enough innings to match the value of the best starters (or players). Perhaps the one exception besides Marshall is Jim Kern in 1979, who I think I would have voted for in the Cy Young race, though interestingly enough he didn't win.
I'd vote for Santana, who I think has been best this year. I think he's going to be hurt, though, by the fact that this season he's not been as good as he was last year when he won the Cy. It's not so easy to beat the drum enthusiastically for someone who's regressed. I have a hunch Mariano's going to sneak in and take it.
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