Wednesday Night:A No-No In Progress, No Support For Sheets & Whatever Else Come To Mind

Alright, it's a rainy night (despite the calender saying it is late April) I felt it was the right time to do a live-ish blog for part of the night. My original plan was to have the Angels-Tigers game running on the HD Background (this game appears to have been pre-empted for an LA Kings Playoff Game) but instead I'm "settling" for MLB Tonight.

On the MLB.tv feed, I was able to catch the last couple innings of the Brewers victory over the Pirates. It turns out LaTroy Hawkins is capable of holding a lead. Unfortunately, said lead has to be around 8 runs. Still, i'm happy that the Brewers have won 3 in a row and have managed to make it back to .500.

In terms of fantasy implications, plenty of games to keep me entertained (Yankees-A's, Angels-Tigers, Twins-Indians (Cuddyer just hit a 2-run triple) Rays-White Sox and Cardinals-D Backs).

So many places to go where I land nobody knows. I guess this should mean I shouldn't have to sit through too many commercials. Since theres only half an inning left with the Twins-Indians, i'll stay in this neighborhood for a few minutes.

Didn't get a chance to see Liriano pitch....i'm not sure what happened but it seems like this could be 2006 all over again (sans the injury). This is now his second straight start without surrendering a run....is it too early to put him in Cy Young consideration or the very least comeback player of the year (i know he played in 29 games last year but he didn't pitch that great).

Whoa.....i didn't know Mark Grudzielanek was still playing in the bigs. I thought he had retired but appearantly I had thought wrong. But hey when you get the chance to sign the player who finished 27th in 2003's MVP voting, you gotta go for it. I must be in the right place if the game i'm watching on MLB.tv is the same as the one on MLB Network as the Twins are on the verge of their 11th win...as the Indians are down to their last strike...which has been elusive the last couple of pitches.......game over......seems fitting that Joe Mauer gets the last out to finish it out.

Time to ask the question of What's Next? I would move on to the Rays-White Sox but that games pretty much a blow-out. I would go on to the Angels-Tigers but that's blacked out.

I guess i'll check out what the Yankees and A's are up to. Didn't know it but Ben Sheets is getting the start for the A's tonight. It's gotta be a good sign that Sheets has made it to his fourth start without missing anytime. It's gotta be a good thing that Sheets has done his part to justify his 2010 salary thus far.

The state of my team: 2-0 right now......things are going good so far this week as I have a 28 point lead (If/when Teixiera, Wood and Vasquez get things going) this team's solid play should continue. Just saw that Phil Hughes was pitching for the Yankees and decided to check out his baseball-reference page. Which happens to be sponsored by something called The Buffet Is Closed. With promises of bad Yankee journalism being skewered my mediocre journalism...hasn't been updated since last summer and it involves the Yankees and bloggers that don't like some guy named Peter Abraham.

So apparently, the Cubs have moved Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen. I know he's struggled this year but it should be interesting to see how this move works out. I wonder if he'll get enough work to hold onto his NL lead in Wild Pitches. If nothing else, his strike outs haven't lagged 12.1 K/9 this year. Either way, i'd hate to be a gatorade machine right now.

The Yankees have pulled out to a 2-0 lead. Rumor has it if you watch a Yankees game for more than 20 minutes you get ESPN syndrome where what the Yankees do is more important than every other team combined....actually, I came up with this far-fetched legend off the top of my head.

Time to see what the Cardinals-D Backs are up to. With Carpenter on my team, this is one case where I don't mind if my player doesn't always have a great game (as they lead the Brewers by a couple games right now). So far its 3-2 Cardinals in the 5th. I'm reading an article by Jeff Passan from Yahoo where he argues that the concept of divisions should be eliminated.

Honestly, i'm not sure how I would feel about a set-up like this. In the article it says this would address inequality but i'm not sure how eradicating divisions would address the revenue inequalities between the top and bottom markets (I should make a sarcastic comment about this thing called a salary cap but the odds of this coming to MLB is slim and none.....and he acknowledges that would be the best idea but that would never happen so you can't really hold this against him)

Still, it's hard to see how this would change the chances and hopes of mid to small market teams in either a good or bad......the upside to his argument

So blow it up. Start over. Unalign. Allow teams to keep the current sharing agreement while addressing the balance problem. Sacrifice the bonanza of Yankees-Red Sox 18 times a year – sorry, ESPN – for a schedule that evenly spreads games against them and gives every AL team a substantive piece of the New York-Boston ticket spike

Anything that forces ESPN to show the other 28 teams more often can't be that bad of a thing.

Somewhere during that rant, the Cards-D Backs game went to the sixth and the Cards tacked another run to their lead but hey it's baseball, these things happen

Carpenter seems to be cruising along in Arizona. Still not feeling the rooting for a divisional rival thing......moving back to the Yankees-A's game.

At this point, the Yankees have held on to their 2-0 lead into the fifth. If it was tomorrow we would be seeing Sabathia pitch (i'm still slightly surprised he didn't sign with the Giants or Dodgers when he was a free-agent). Sure, the Yankees have the money but with Sabathia from NorCal I felt that those two NL West teams had a legit shot.

Could someone get Ben Sheets some run support here?! Or some base-runners. If I didn't dislike the Yankees I probably wouldn't mention the fact that Phil Hughes has a no-hitter going through 5 (is it just me or does it seem like a lot of pitchers have taken no-hitters fairly deep into the game this year). Either way, it's good to see that Ben Sheets still has it.

Wandering around aimlessley through ESPN.....checking out some excerpts of their 30 for 30 doc. about fantasy baseball.....sorta distracted by the 30 for 30....just noticed Hughes has a no-no through 6.

Looks like Ben Sheets' night is done. Good that he had a good start bad that he'll unfairly get tagged with a loss. Broadcasters said the magic words of his club is yet to get a hit. Which probably means the A's will lead off the 7th with one of these said hits.

So 9 outs away from a no-no, can Phil Hughes pull it off? At 77 pitches and 9 Ks....its an impressive outing either way. The announcers reference the no-hitter again (for the second time). For the second time the exact same broadcast is blaring from the laptop and MLB Network. With a pop-foul that would have gone into the stands in just about any other stadium, it's now a no-no through 6 1/3. No hitter reference count up to 3. Down to 7 outs which MLB Network has now deemed both a Developing Story AND Breaking News. If not for that pesky 1st inning walk....we could be talking about a wait for it.......perfect game.

Despite 7 innings.....hes only at 87 pitches..........Blevins is back to pitch in the 8th but this game is unlikely to be remembered for whatever Blevins does in his second inning of work......well it's that time of the night where my day is comin to an end.....does Hughes throw the no-no?....stay tuned to find out

Random Rants Loosely Based Around Padres-Rockies Game

Alright......the blacked out you can only see 1 game portion of the Saturday MLB schedule and off to 5 PM Pacific Time on Saturday when you can watch several games at once. A few games tonight with fantasy implications for myself that will get primary focus (Padres-Rockies, Pirate-D-Backs, Angels-A's).

Still sorta waking up a bit as I took a lovely 2-hour nap that took me to about 15 minutes before first pitch.

Just realized Doumit is up right now....he's worked the count against Haren to a full 3-2. Showed lots of promise in 2008......off to a solid start....now its a matter of maintaining said start and staying healthy....and not striking out very often like he just did to end his teams half of the first.

Padres-Rockies game playing on the laptop right now. Gonzales is up right now, Blanks is on deck and Tony Gwynn Jr. is trying to argue his way out of a call that got him picked off from second. Gonzales strikes out to end Top of the first....looks like I have to wait a bit longer for Blanks to come up.

Blanks...sees ball....hits ball.....to short for a harmless groundout...the early season slump continues.

In other stuff going on in the bigs........Milton Bradley is in mid-season form as he flipped off some Rangers fans (c'mon Miton we aren't even a week into the season). Bradley has all the talent in the world but c'mon you can't be doing that stuff especially in your first week on a new team when you are 1 for 17. Even with this, he's still better for this team than Carlos Silva.

Speaking of Milton Bradley & The Rangers this reminds me of an incident back in September of 2008. I ended up taking in a Rangers-A's game towards the tail end of what has been Bradley's best season to date. Anyways, somewhere in the middle of the game (4th ish inning) Milton Bradley has one of his standard temper tantrums and gets himself ejected.

At this game, I happened to be sitting in the left field bleachers which gave me a straight view of the Rangers dugout which was on the first-base side and thus a clear view of the tunnel Bradley would be walking towards to get back to wherever ejected players go. The one thing that stuck out ion Bradley's walk was he knew exactly where he was going. This obviously wasn't the first time he got kicked out of a game and from the way he was walking it was obvious this was a walk he's taken mid-game many times before....it was almost like he went on auto-pilot when he got kicked out.

The Rockies-Padres game flashed back to a home run Ian Stewart launched off of Yovani Gallardo on opening day. If his series against the Crew is any indication, my prediction of him struggling this year could turn out to be horribly wrong.....at least the Brewers took 2 out of 3 in the series.

In the I guess it serves me right having a Yankee on my fantasy team department: In the random CBS League, I had been getting pretty good production from my starting pitchers.....then Vasquez made his start Friday....pitched bad enough to get negative points and was one of the catalysts from going from a 30 point cushion I had going into Friday to being down 20 points to my opponent for the week in one day...Seriously I got outscored by something along the lines of 60-8. Obviously it takes a whole team to fail epically like that but giving up 8 runs in 5 innings doesn't help that any......an early indication to not expect the crazy production he gave during 2009.

Just noticed Doumit is up and that he's behind 0-2 in the count. Again, Doumit strikes out to end the inning. A bit creepy how that sequence parallels the sequence from about half an hour ago in the first inning.

It took till the 3rd inning but Chris Ianetta ends Mat Latos' no-hit bid by taking him yard. Just stumbled across a Forbes special report about The Business of Baseball. My take on this, is time for me to give some input on the Randy Levine controversy going on right now. Mark Levine pretty much told Brewers owner Mark Attanasio to stop complaining about the salary mis-balance in baseball.

Needless to say, Randy Levine is not my favorite person right now. Taking a look at the Forbes make it even clearer that Levine is acting like a grown bully. The current value of the Yankees is almost twice as high as the next closest team (Red Sox) and about 5 times higher than the Brewers which obviously makes it a bigger deal for the Brewers to dish out an A-Rod/Jeter type salary than it would be for a team like the Brewers. It's also easier for the Yankees to do this when their revenue runs circles around teams like the Brewers (441 million to 171 million) and runs circles around the next closest team (Mets-268 million) ....To recap, teams from massive markets like New York are easily able to generate revenue and pay players to more lucrative contracts and Levine is ready to taunt anyone who calls out the mis-balances of this system.

Whew, that was a long rant. Time to watch Blanks go to the plate and hit. Blanks finally manages to get on base as he just got hit by a pitch. Will Venable: Clutch Hitter....first Padres at-bat with the bases juiced (according to their announcers) Venable turns a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead within seconds......also Angels-A's are underway as well....despite no fantasy implications, i'm anxious to see how Ben Sheets does in his start tonight.

I guess the Angels had seen enough out of Wood for now to not put him in tonight's line-up as Izturis gets the start tonight. The Ben Sheets era starts out good enough for Oakland as he has induced a harmless line out to second.

What in the name of Billy Beane is going on? The Fox Sports West broadcast just showed a brief capsule of the A's of Low Payroll (What else is new) Young deep pitching rotation (Hudson, Zito, Mulder: The Next Generation) and Small Ball (Small Ball ???!!!!!! your talking about small ball....dude your Billy Beane...the same Billy Beane that tought us about how small ball was a waste out of outs....i don't care how many bases Ricky Henderson thinks Rajai Davis can steal......Jack Cust is still a more valuable offensively player because hey hitting home runs leads to more runs than stealing bases (oh wait--that's right Jack Cust just got DFA'd right before opening day).

It looks like we have a potential Coors Field slugfest on our hands as Hawpe just went deep to pull the Rockies within 4-3. Your classic Coors Field home run as the Hawpe home run has initiated a discussion about how they thought it was just another fly ball that the ball park was going to contain.

Going to the 5th in the Padres-Rockies game...Gwynn, Eckstein, Gonzales due up......another chance for Blanks if one of the above gets on base. Get to see Ben Sheets try to pitch his way out of some trouble as the Angels have runners on 1st and 2nd with 2 gone and and Kendrick coming up the answer to that...so far so good as he induces a fielders choice....good to see Sheets off to a good start.

Tulowitzki is doing his part to postpone Blanks' next plate appearance to the 6th as he makes a nice catch. That's followed by David Eckstein getting the ball out of the infield (good) which led to a running catch by Gonzales (bad).....Padres go down in order......we play the waiting game for the next Kyle Blanks at bat.

Just looked at the interface for my CBS league team and saw Ryan Doumit struck out a 3rd time for the night. This week, my team has struck out 45 times in 171 At-Bats.

A sign that your team isn't contending this year: The broadcast team speculates about your team's chance of being respectable....not good...not contenders....but respectability.

Latos has a nice 1-2-3 fifth....induces a couple of strikeouts leaving us a commercial break away from Kyle Blanks next at-bat.......the cold stretch continues as he strikes out.

Off to the Pirates-D-Backs game as Doumit is on deck......Pirates looking in position to win as they have a comfy 6-0 lead aided by a Kelly Johnson falling asleep on defense....Hideki Matsui welcomes Ben Sheets to the American League by driving in a run to put the Angels up 1-0

Doumit.....racks up his 4th strikeout of the game....back to the Padres-Rockies game which has proven to be much more entertaining......wasn't on the Pirates-D-Backs game very long but long enough to get the quote of the night from one of the announcers "you can train a chimpanzee for 2 weeks to do this job"........classic.......it may have been said as a joke but sometimes it seems there is a kernel of truth considering the following situation has gone down several teams.....Cheddarhead is watching random baseball game on TV and the conversation turns to some observation about the game going on......only to hear the announcers say the EXACT SAME THING pretty much verbatim about an inning or two later

Hawpe just hit another homer to tie it at 4-all during the middle of the previous paragraph.

Sorta spacing in and out of these games Padres-Rockies go into the 7th inning stretch tied.....Angels just broke a tie with the A's---wandering around aimlessly through ballhype looking through what else is going on. Luke Gregerson coming into pitch for the Padres......appearantly the dude was awesome at Petco.....terrible outside of Petco (according to the graphic they just showed).

Tony Gwynn Jr. is doing his part to help Gregerson improve on the road as he just made a really good catch. Looks like Ben Sheets first A's start isn't looking as good as a couple innings ago as he has fallen behind 3-1 and has runners in scoring position.......but he manages to get out without digging into a deeper hole.

The Rockies end the 7th without going deep or scoring a run......bad news which means no free Whoppers for people in the Denver area.

Betancourt comes in for the Rockies. According to the graphic shown on TV, he's pretty good against the Padres. If anyone gets on base for the Padres, we'll get another Kyle Blanks plate appearance. David Eckstein just "grounded out" on a pitch that hit the bottom knob of his bat (below his choked up hands). So let me get this straight, in addition to not being very good at hitting he somehow manages to botch a routine HBP........wow.....

Gonzales rips a single to right.....can Blanks improve on his .062 average now.....stay tuned to find out.....while Blanks attempt to go yard was unsuccessful...he did rip a double to get runners in scoring position for Headley......i'll take it as progress. Headley strikes out.....on a pitch that goes in the dirt......the Padres have a 4th out to play with...bases loaded....Venable gets a chance to make a further dent in the game.....Venable drops to a .500 average with the bases juiced as he strikes out to end the inning......

Even though there are fantasy implications with the Pirates game and the Ben Sheets storyline in the A's game......at this point i've gotten heavily engaged in the Padres-Rockies game and the A's-Angels game has taken a background role.........Mike Adams now in the game for the Padres with Ben Sheets already pitching, Adams is the second injury-prone ex-Brewers player to pitch in a game in the last couple of hours.

Starts off strong as he strikes out Fowler. This shouldn't be shocking as the dude has struck out 9.1 batters per 9 innings in his career. According to the broadcasters, the Rockies are 0 for 16 against Adams so the fact that he's put down the first two hitters should not be a surprise. For a moment, it sounded like Tulowitzki changed that to a 1 for 17 with a homer......however, the ball harmlessly lands in Kyle Blanks' glove instead.

The Rockies are handing things over to Franklin Morales. The in my best interest scenario involves the Padres scoring 1-3 runs in the top of the 9th and Heath Bell coming in to get a save.....will this happen....we'll know for sure fairly soon. The Padres pinch-hit one junior (Tony Gwynn) for another (Jerry Hairston)......I wonder what the single season record for one junior pinch-hitting for another is........regardless the Rockies get out of the 9th and get an opportunity to win in their last At-Bat.

Cesar Ramos' turn to keep this game a 4-all affair. A tall order considering he is making his 8th career appearance. Appearantly Ramos is the Padres LOOGY as he strikes out a couple of lefties and is promptly pulled from the game. It may be the 1st week of the season but this game has a semi-epic intense feeling to it. With this change, it's up to Mujica to force some extra frames. He may not have the best body of work (career 83 ERA+) but he gets the job done.

EXTRA INNINGS!!!!!! Extra Innings De-neh-nuh-nuh-neh. Also, Blanks is due up 3rd....could he be the one to get a game winning hit here.....stay tuned to find out. It also looks like the 4K game by Doumit is official as the Pirates game ended with the Pirates winning 6-3

Matt Daley takes the hill to start the 10th. A couple quick ground outs bring us to another Kyle Blanks plate appearance..with my fantasy team down 22.5 points....a home run would help a lot. Gets a basehit.....that brings him to 2 for the game.....more encouraging in the long term that possibly the slump he's in is relatively short lived.....also has a chance to score the winning run as he moved to 3rd on a Headley single......only down by 21.5 points now.....speaking of right now.....another pitching change.....the Rockies counter with their LOOGY Randy Flores.....again Venable is up with a chance to do some serious damage.....for the second time in 3 innings....Venable is unable to replicate his 4th inning appearance as the Padres squander another opportunity for Blanks to score a run and Bell to come in and get a save.

Jason Giambi is up pinch-hitting.....just realized that he looks pretty old.......old enough to not bite on any pitches not even close to the strike zone.....and promptly gets pulled for a pinch runner.........Giambi getting some pretty intense high fives for standing there and drawing the walk...almost as if he had gotten a game winning hit.....the pinch-runner strategy turned out to be a pretty big fail/non-factor as an inning-ending double play was induced.......11th INNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Matt Belisle gets handed the task of keepin it at 4-all. I can't tell if the Padres are looking to score runs or if they're trying to engage Brad Hawpe in a game of pepper. Matt Stairs pinch-hitting....let me re-state that; Professional Hitter Matt Stairs.....Stairs penchant for going for the home run swing gets the best of him as he strikes out chasing a pitch out of the zone.........speaking of Matt Stairs....the Padres are team #12 he has played for........my take is that he should just go all in and try to play for all 30 teams before he retires....sure age isn't on his side (he's 42)....but c'mon for that shot of immortality it's worth the shot.

Tim Stauffer's turn to extend the game. Ouch, dude just got slammed by the broadcast team for not having the career of a 4th overall draft pick. File that under signs that things have not gone as planned. His career may not have gone well but he did his part to force a 12th inning.

For what seems like the umpteenth time tonight, Blanks is due up fourth in this inning. In all this focus on the Padres-Rockies game has completely obscured the fact that the Angels and A's are tied in the 9th. Gonzales is getting the intentional pass......Blanks gets a chance to hit with two runners on.....Yes!!!!!!

Kyle Blanks swung at 2 pitches outside the zone and racked up another K........No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a fan of leaving things hanging like a Lost episode but the reality it's pushing 9 pm on a Saturday Night.....I got places to be................

Baseball On TV This Weekend

Braves vs. Giants Friday MLB Network

Hudson vs. Sanchez

Interest Level: 6

Will this be the beginning of Tim Hudson's bounce-back season? What will Jason Heyward do to help his team (As a side note, I am glad that the Braves bypassed the send him down for a couple months to bypass the arbitration rules, realized Heyward was their best option and let him start the season in Atlanta....I wouldn't be shocked to see the Braves awarded karmically with a post-season berth for not trying (poorly) to convince everyone that he needs time to "develop" his game say until late-May/early-June when he would "magically" be ready to face major-league pitching

The Giants counter with Jonathan Sanchez. Had an interesting '09 started poorly, threw a no-hitter, finished strong. Is this the start of a 2010 breakout season? On a side note, the Giants handled their prospect situation (Buster Posey) differently be sending him down to Triple-A despite a strong spring.

A's vs. Angels Saturday MLB Network

Sheets vs. Weaver

Interest Level: 9

This week has seen my first exposure to J.J Hardy in a non-Brewers uniform and it looks like our first exposure to Ben Sheets in a non-Brewers uniform. Of course, this is Sheets first big league appearance since 2008 and this step one of the journey to see whether Sheets is worth the investment and can he actually stay healthy for a full season. He has the talent, just a matter of staying healthy to make a full season worth of starts.

The Angels start Jered Weaver ( who happens to be the best MLB pitcher that I watched in-person while they were still in college---he was the starting pitcher for a Long Beach State vs. Cal Poly game I went to in 2003.....I don't know much about college baseball but I know that he DESTROYED Big West hitting)...and on a fantasy baseball note.....will Brandon Wood break out of his slump?

Yankees vs. Rays Saturday Fox, Sunday TBS

Sabathia vs. Davis Saturday

Burnett vs. Shields Sunday

Interest Level:4

Umpire Joe West made news this week by saying that the Yankees and Red Sox take too many timeouts and are making the length of games longer. Not sure how true that is but the Yankees and Rays took their sweet time determining who would be starting their games this weekend (single-handedly pushing back the posting of this post by a day)....Personally i'm more concerened with the Randy Levine vs.Mark Attanasio dispute over salary distribution. My take: once every team has their own network to run their games (YES Network) and a national network (ESPN) obsessed with their every move.....then he may have a point. Sure these things have nothing to do with the upcoming games but c'mon it's the Yankees, if you miss these games all you have to do is wait a couple of days.

Mariners vs. Rangers Saturday FOX

Hernandez vs. Harrison

Interest Level: 6

With FOX's regional coverage combined with living on the west coast....i'm probably stuck with this game and this game only regardless of personal preference. On the bright side, this should be my first chance to see this year's re-tooled Mariners team in action. Felix Hernandez, the reigning AL leader in Wins, Winning Percentage, Wild Pitches & Hits/9 Innnings gets start #2 of the season.

The Rangers counter with Matt Harrison who is making career start #27 but has yet to replicate the success of his Saturday counterpart. If nothing else, he has shown a high level of endurance as he threw 2 complete games in his 11 starts from '09 (good for 9th in the AL)

Brewers vs. Cardinals Saturday Fox, Sunday ESPN

See series preview post.

If Thursday is the New Friday than this is the preview for some televised early weekend games

So, originally I planned on previewing all of the weekend action (Thursday-Sunday) in one post but since TBD is tentatively scheduled to make several starts for several teams from Friday to Sunday, I decided to give Friday-Sunday its own post and break down what was left (tomorrow's MLB Network Triple-Header).

Dodgers vs. Pirates Thursday MLB Network

Billingsley vs. Malholm

Interest Level: 5

On paper this should be a mismatch in favor of the Dodgers but considering how the Pirates destroyed the Dodgers on Opening day, that isn't a given. Is this the start that allows Billingsley to bounce back from a weak 2009 season or do his struggles continue?

What to make of Malholm? He was a top-10 pick in 2003 but so far has been a fairly average pitcher. Is 2010 his breakout season? How long do the Pirates stay in first? Will Ryan Church stop driving in runs and allow me to rise above 11th place in a league with only 10 human teams?

Mariners vs. A's Thursday MLB Network

Fister vs. Anderson

Interest Level: 5

Doug Fister starts his first full season in the bigs (pitched in 11 games last year) against AL West Divisional Rival Oakland.

Brett Anderson is the main reason to pay attention to this game. He held his own in his rookie year last year and it's scary how good he could be within a couple of years (he's only 22). As good as he will be in a few years, the A's will be bad this year as they seem to replicate the as little offense as possible model as their neighbors on the other side of the bay, the Giants.

Not sure what Billy Beane was thinking when he DFA'd Jack Cust. He made his legacy/reputation on building a team around guys like Cust....sure other GMs eventually ripped off his strategies/methods making it harder for him to get the players he wanted. Seriously, this team was already power challenged before this DFA and getting rid of a player who's gone yard 84 times in the last 3 years is not going to help any.

Cubs vs. Braves Thursday MLB Network

Wells vs. Hanson

Interest Level: 6

A battle between a couple pitchers who had strong rookie years and are looking to avoid the sophomore slump. Hanson got the upper hand in the Rookie of the Year voting (3rd vs. 6th), came into the 2009 season with much more hype surrounding him......does he make this a clean sweep by ultimately producing more than Wells or will this 6-seed prevail in the end?

AL West Preview Part Two

So, we did the first part of the AL West preview, yesterday. At the halfway point the power rankings are as follows:

Angels-16

Rangers-19

Mariners-23

Athletics-30

Now off to the Pitchers, First the Starters.

Mariners- Felix Hernandez/Cliff Lee/Ryan Rowland-Smith/Ian Snell/Luke French-4.5

Angels- Jered Weaver/Joe Saunders/Scott Kazmir/Ervin Santana/Matt Palmer-9

Athletics- Dallas Braden/Brett Anderson/Ben Sheets/Trevor Cahill/Vin Mazzaro-13.5

Rangers-Scott Feldman/Rich Harden/Derek Holland/Tommy Hunter/Brandon McCarthy

The Mariners might be a bit short at the back of the rotation but have a couple of things going for them.

1) Felix Hernandez/Cliff Lee is a VERY potent 1-2 punch

2) It's a contract year for Cliff Lee so expect his A-Game (and a possible Cy Young in 2010.

In terms of depth, the Angeles are stronger but i'm not buying Weaver as a staff ace. The A's have a lot of good young talent (Braden, Anderson, etc.) that will make this rotation to be reckoned with in a few years. Anderson is on the cusp on a breakout season but Braden, Cahill, et.al are still a couple years away. The wild-card in this equation is Ben Sheets. If they can somehow get 25-plus starts out of Sheets, they could push themselves into the second best rotation in the division but if being a Brewers fan has taught me anything it's that getting that many starts out of Sheets is anything but guaranteed.

The Rangers.......their rotation hinges on Rich Harden staying healthy (an even bigger IF than Ben Sheets staying healthy) but beyond Harden, nothing about the Rangers rotation is particularly impressive.

If the game is on the line, we are likely to see

4.5 Athletics- Andrew Bailey/Michael Wuertz/Craig Breslow

9- Rangers Frank Francisco/Darren O'Day/Neftali Feliz

13.5 Mariners-David Aardsma/Mark Lowe/Sean White

18-Angels-Brian Fuentes/Fernando Rodney/Scot Shields

Andrew Bailey had a pretty epic rookie year and looks poised to have a strong follow-up. Wuertz and Breslow had solid seasons last year and I see that continuing in '10.

Went back and forth on the positioning for the Rangers and Mariners. I'm skeptical on Aardsma ability to follow-up his 2009 season and that ended up being the deciding factor.

As for the Angels, yes Fuentes racked up a bunch of saves but that seems to be more because the Angels are in the position to win more often than not. Fuentes and Rodney may be familiar to more fans but i've never been blown away by these two pitchers. Add in that Shields is coming off an injury marred year and may or may not be effective and that's why their bullpen ranks dead last.

The total scores for the pitching staffs are:

Athletics -18

Mariners- 18

Angels-27

Rangers- 27

Bringing us to a final tally off:

Mariners-41 1st

Angels-43 2nd

Rangers-46 3rd

Athletics-48 4th

So what do we have here? A division that is pretty close top to bottom and a division where 10 games or less could be the difference between first and last. Looking into my crystal ball that may or may not exist, I see the 1-2 combo of Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez to do enough to mask other weaknesses (back of the rotation) and injury concerns (Milton Bradley...matter of when not if) to win their first AL West title since 2001.

For the Angels, A weak bullpen may cause them to miss the playoffs for the first time since '06. For the Rangers, weak pitching is likely to undermine their offensive prowess (in other words the Rangers are in the same predicament they've been in for the last 15 years).

The Athletics are definitely a team on the rise....I think their time will come in a few years but they still have a few too many holes to put together a playoff run.

AL West Preview--Part One

So with the Spring Training games starting Today, I felt it was time to preview the season and make some predictions for the upcoming season. I also devised a system for doing this. Starting with this post i'm going to look at each division and see how they stack on a position by position basis from top to bottom. The point system for this will be golf-style (i.e. the lower the score the better i.e. the strongest team by position gets 1 point, 2 points for second, etc......this will be the scoring system for position players......)

For Pitching (Part Two of each divisional post) the scoring will be adjusted to equalize for hitting and pitching. For the AL, the scoring will go 4.5, 9, 13.5, etc. from best to worst for starting rotation and the bullpens (Note: In the NL it will be 4, 8, 12......)

With Further Ado, here are my rankings for the AL West

Catcher:

Kurt Suzuki-1

Jarod Saltalamacchia-2

Jeff Mathis-3

Rob Johnson-4

By far the weakest position area division wide. Ironically, this is also the only position where the A's stand out offensively. Out of the only three the only thing memorable is how long Saltalamacchia's last name is. Kurt Suzuki will have a solid year for the other 3 teams, a glaring weakness.

First Base:

Kendry Morales-1

Daric Barton-2

Chris Davis-3

Mike Carp-4

Not sure if Morales is going to repeat last year (my prediction: about .300 hitter still but homers in the low 20s) but he's still the class of the AL West first basemen. Daric Barton is never going to be a power threat but he's a solid candidate for having a bounce-back season. Chris Davis, is an entirely different story.

As i've mentioned earlier, I received Ron Shandler's baseball forecaster in the mail about a month ago and have taken a look at the numbers for various players that have piqued my interest. I've also came up with an All-Star team that no player want's to be a part of, The Bill Hall All-Stars.

Named after former Brewer Bill Hall. Back in 2006, I was convinced Bill Hall was going to be a star player for the Brewers for years to come. He had a massive power surge (went yard 35 times) sure he struck out a lot (even then) but the sky seemed the limit. If I knew then what I knew know I would have known better. Obscured in his power spike was the fact that his Contact % went from 79 to 70 from 2005 to 2006. After a slight bump up in 2007, the contact rate has crashed to 64% (15% drop in a 5 year stretch).

Based on this info, I invented the Bill Hall All-Star team for players whose contact % dropped 10% or more in a five year period as a way to predict other players whose production is sadly going to spiral downwards.

What does this have to do with Chris Davis? Well factoring in the data in the Baseball Forecaster (which factors in Major League Equivalent numbers with actual MLB numbers) plus data from AA and above shows a 13% drop in contact rate in the last few years. Translation: I'm not buying on Chris Davis having a breakout season now or ever.

Second Base:

Ian Kinsler-1

Jose Lopez-2

Howie Kendrick-3

Mark Ellis-4

Position-wise, the toughest call to make as these players are fairly close from top to bottom. Kinsler has the best combination of upside and proven track record which allowed him to be above his competition.

Shortstop

Erick Aybar-1

Elvis Andrus-2

Jack Wilson-3

Cliff Pennington-4

Aybar, Andrus and Wilson are all players who strike me as more valuable to an actual team than a fantasy baseball team. While Andrus will probably be the best of these players within 2 or 3 years, I still think Aybar is a slighty better player until proven otherwise. Pennington is a distant 4th here as I wouldn't be surprised if he's one of the leagues weakest hitters this year.

Third Base

Michael Young-1

Chone Figgins-2

Kevin Kouzmanoff-3

Brandon Wood-4

The ranking for Third Base was amongst the more difficult one to make (primarily because of Brandon Wood). On talent alone, he would be in the top-2 but on the same token it's hard to justify ranking him above proven players like Young and Figgins before he even sheds the AAAA label. I wouldn't be surprised to see him go deep 25-30 times but we don't know whether he'll actually do it. While Wood's ceiling is higher than Kouzmanoff, he gets bumped to last as unlike Kouzmanoff, Wood has yet to prove he can produce at a big-league level.

Left Field

Juan Rivera-1

Milton Bradley-2

Josh Hamilton-3

Rajai Davis-4

On talent alone this Bradley or Hamilton would have gotten the nod but injury concerns bumped both of them down. I originally though Hamilton was going to bounce back in '10 but the fact that he's already dealing with injury issues gives me second thoughts. On pure talent alone, Bradley would have a good shot at #1 but it's a given he's going to either get injured, suspended and/or incite a brawl to the level of the 1984 Padres/Braves fight and get banned for life.

Center Field

Torii Hunter-1

Franklin Gutierrez-2

Julio Borbon-3

Coco Crisp-4

Torii Hunter far and away stands out amongst this group......he's an asset with both the glove and at the plate. Gutierrez is an asset with the glove but his offensive numbers will likely regress in 2010.

Right Field

Ichiro Suzuki-1

Nelson Cruz-2

Bobby Abreu-3

Ryan Sweeney-4

Went back and forth on this one. Ichiro may not have the power of Cruz and Abreu but is a better all-around player. Despite not placing him number 1, I still see Nelson Cruz having a nice follow-up to his breakout season.

Designated Hitter

Hideki Matsui-1

Jake Fox-2

Ken Griffey Jr.-3

David Murphy-4

I still think Matsui has a couple strong years in his bat. Jake Fox going to Oakland was one of the more under-rated signings this winter and I think he'll be one of the dark-horse signings.

Griffey Jr. has had a great career but he's definitely on the down side of his career.

Well, we have the offensive players ranked by position for each team in the AL West.....at the half way point of the AL West preview, the rankings are as follows (Note: The Lower the score the better)

Angels-16

Rangers-19

Mariners-23

Athletics-30

How many transactions can I cover in one post? At least five

So today a bunch of transaction moves went down in Baseball and i'm attempting to squeeze my take on all of them into one post.


A) Indians trade Carl Pavano to the Twins for a play to be named later.

Wow....the Indians have traded away so many players that they are now down to trading players that aren't even good (Pavano) apparently just for the sake of trading players away. While it is commendable that Pavano has not been injured for 90% of the season for once......he just hasn't been that good 9-8 5.37 era 84 ERA+

For the Twins this is a low-risk/high desperation move.....this is an apparent attempt at them to strengthen their starting rotation in the hopes of winning the AL Central (they're 4 1/2 back going into today)...the only problem is that Pavano is no better or worse than the back of rotation pitchers such as Francisco Liriano, Glen Perkins, Kevin Slowey and Anthony Swarzak....it's not that I think Pavano is going to bomb out (like he did for the Yankees) I just don't see him putting the twins over the hump.

B) The possible unceremonious ending to a couple of careers.

The night after a rough outing in New York, the Red Sox pulled the cord on John Smoltz. Since coming back from injury he has had a disastarous season going 2-5 with a 8.32 era. I really hope that this isn't the end for Smoltz since he deserves to go out on his own terms and another chance to help a contending team in desperate need of pitching.......in light of his career post-season success some team may take a flier on him but after his stint in Boston, that's unlikely

Jason Giambi got released while still on the DL. This potential ending isn't too shocking since his batting average was south of the mendoza line but he still had a somewhat respectable obp of .332........he did endure controversy with his steroid use...but he taught us an important lesson....if you admit to doing something wrong, even if you don't say explicitly what that said wrong thing is......you won't necessarily be forgiven you just won't have your entire reputation tarnished.....players such as Clemens, Bonds, Sosa could learn an important lesson from this


C) Alex Rios got claimed on waivers from a team......but which team.....nobody knows?

This has been one of the more bizarre stories in a while. It seems like overkill to say that another team made a claim on him but shhhhhh.....we can't say who it is. This almost sounds like a story you'd see in The Onion...........this move will impact the pennant race in some point....assuming he got picked up by a contender.....but there's no way of knowing since his future team is some league-held secret

D) Brewers call up Jesus Colome from Nashville

Low Risk/High Reward move.....the Brewers have had success with pitchers picked up the scrap heap in recent years [Todd Coffey is a perfect example of this] and Colome does fit the example of this since he pitched bad enough that not even the Nationals wanted him.

In limited duty in Nashville, Colome pitched really well. However, it's tough to see if this will translate into big league success. On the bright side, even if this turns out not to be a genius move, there's no way he can be worse than the player he replaced [R.J. Swindle]


whew.........that was a lot to cover in the post.......back to watching more MLB Network

Weekend Preview: Start of the second half

Well, the all-star break is over (thankfully) and the second part of this exciting baseball season is upon us. Also, the weekend is upon us which means another preview of all of the exciting (and not so exciting) action....as always the games are rated from 1 to 5 as follows

1=take a nap
2=if you got nothing better to do
3=worth at least a look
4=pretty compelling match up
5=must-see

Saturday:

Mets (Santana) vs. Braves (Kawakami) =3

First match up between these two teams since they consummated the epic Church for Francoeur trade. The Mets have their ace Johan Santana pitching for them against Kawakami who sometimes pitches like an ace....Both teams have underachieved this year (especially the Mets) and both teams need to get hot.....like now if they're going to have any legitimate post-season hopes....the Mets might be the more dysfunctional team but Santana will get them a win in this one

Orioles (Guthrie) vs. White Sox (Danks) =2

Decent pitching match-up, two pretty uninspiring teams. The O's have the pieces together to contend.....in a couple of years.....the White Sox still have a chance despite a mediocre first half as they are 3 1/2 back in a weak AL central. The Sox have the better team and better starter going Saturday...which means they'll win this one easily

Angels (Weaver) vs. Athletics (Mazzaro) =1

Hmm...first place team with their best pitcher going or some no-name pitcher on a last place team that will get even less attention and be worse once they inevitably trade Matt Holliday.....Angels in a blow out

Twins (Baker) vs. Rangers (Feldman)=2

A game with two teams who are quietly in contention. Both teams are solid, not too inspiring and are likely to fade from the pennant race at some point during the summer. Rangers win this one and hold off their fade for another day.

Sunday

Tigers (Verlander) vs. Yankees (TBD) =3.5

Possible play-off preview. Would have been rated higher but the Yankees are on more often than Every Loves Raymond reruns...which makes this a not as compelling match-up. This Tigers are surprisingly in first-place this year and having Justin Verlander as a staff ace helps this along. I usually rank Yankees games lower by default but Verlander alone is worth watching at least part of this game. The Tigers get one step closer to winning the title in this one and the Yankees loosen their grip on the wild card lead.

Mets (Nieve) vs. Braves (Vasquez) =2.5

Uninspiring match-up between two uninspiring teams. Javier Vasquez has been quietly dominant this year (he's been way better than his 6-7 record indicates) .....I see him having no trouble with the Mets depleted lineup....wouldn't be surprised if he completely dominates this game.