Back From Vacation, Back To Previewing

So....i haven't written anything in a week. I was on vacation....had me a nice 4-day weekend. But now it's time to get back to business. With that......on to the games.

Phillies vs. Braves

Kendrick vs.Hanson Tuesday-MLB Network

TBD vs. Hudson- Wednesday ESPN

Interest Level: 7

This might be only the third week of the season, but this NL East match-up is still important. The Phillies have a razor-thin 1 game edge over the Braves. For the Phillies, they have Kendrick starting...he has been absolutely brutal in his first two starts.

The Braves are one of the more interesting teams in the league. Jason Heyward alone makes them worth watching as you never know what he's going to pull off. Both Hanson & Hudson are off to solid starts and if they keep it up....everyone's prediction of the Phillies running away with this division could turn out to be very wrong.

Royals vs. Blue Jays Wednesday MLB Network

Greinke vs. Marcum

Interest Level: 5

The Royals are off to a 5-7 start and considering the job their GM did in the off-season, this could pass as over-achieving. The Royals are giving reigning Cy Young award winner Zach Greinke the start. He is 0-2 this year but this can be attributed to the ineptness of the team around him and not Greinke himself as he has a respectable (though not 2009-level) 114 ERA+

The Blue Jays have gotten off to a better than expected 8-6 start. If they want to sustain this strong start or even stay above .500, they are going to need Shaun Marcum to stay healthy for throughout the season (having Vernon Wells continue to hit the cover off the ball wouldn't hurt either).

Indians vs. Twins Thursday MLB Network

Talbot vs. Baker

Interest Level: 7

A sneakingly interesting early AL Central Match-Up. The Twins have thus far taken their rightful place on top of the AL Central. This game gets extra points due to fantasy implications as J.J Hardy (hasn't done much since hitting a couple homers in the first week) and Michael Cuddyer (off to a nice start) are on my fantasy team. The Twins have Scott Baker starting...text-book definition of a solid but not great pitcher.

The Indians, expected to head straight to the cellar, have a fairly respectable 6-6 record. Speaking of my fantasy team, one player that has allowed the Indians to be respectable 6-6 and my team to be 2-0 is Shin-Soo Choo. Coming off a quietly strong 20-20 season....he's hit the ground running in 2010 and hit the cover off the ball (to the tune of a 240 OPS+!!!!). His last week was insane 11-19 3 Homers 11 RBIs 6 walks (that's a .680 OBP!!!!!!).....is it too early to talk MVP? Not according to this guy. But....one totally epic season does not win a division or allow you to be good (isn't that right Kansas City Royals?)...and some competency from the other 24 players is still needed.

The Indians start Mitch Talbot. He has 3 career starts under his belt. Two of them have come in 2010. So far, so good (1-1 3.21 era 120 ERA+). I'm not sure how sustainable this performance is but if he can continue to play fairly well and Shin-Soo Choo ends up breaking into the elite this year, the Indians could surprise some people this year.

Rangers vs. Red Sox Thursday MLB Network

Wilson vs. Bucholz

Interest Level:5

The Rangers have slogged to a 5-7 start thus far. Not too much about this team screams contender to me. The Rangers are starting C.J. Wilson in this one. Not sure how he will hold up the entire year as a starter (he spent the last 4 seasons exclusively in relief, 3 of them as a closer). One thing at least is for sure, you can't blame the Rangers slow start on Wilson (0-1 2.08 era 206 ERA+).....he even has a complete game under his belt....not bad for a player who has Ed Vosberg as his #1 comparable on baseball-reference.

I'm pretty sure not many people were expecting the Red Sox to start 4-9. Whether this is a sign of things to come or they are getting their worst stretch out of the way early, it is too early to tell. They have Clay Bucholz taking the hill for this game. Like Wilson, the Red Sox early struggles can't really be blamed on Bucholz as he has also started off well (1-1 1.80 era 242 ERA+). Are we in the middle of Clay Bucholz's breakout season? The Red Sox may need it if they want to be in contention.

AL East Preview Part II

Our Standings after the First Half:

Red Sox-18

Yankees-21

Rays-31

Orioles-31

Blue Jays-34

Starting Rotation:

Red Sox-4.5

Rays-9

Yankees-13.5

Orioles-18

Blue Jays-22.5

When I started looking at this area, I was debating between placing Boston or New York at #1 but obviously changed my mind. The Red Sox are behind at the ace spot (Lester versus Sabathia) but are stronger at the 2/3 spots (Beckett/Lackey) versus (Burnett/Pettite). The biggest question mark in the Red Sox rotation is Dice-K but I think they get more out of Bucholz than the Yankees will with whatever their 2010 version of the Joba Rules are.

The Rays don't have a full on ace pitcher (which is why they don't get the 1-spot) but they have greater depth in the back of their rotation (Davis/Niemann) who while they may not be as familiar to baseball fans as Javier Vasquez (no way he repeats his 2009 performance) and Joba Chamberlain (not sure what the Yankees will do with him this year but whatever it is is likely to backfire)

Overall, the Blue Jays/Orioles rotations are nothing to write home about. I don't see Millwood repeating his strong 2009 performance....there's no way Guthrie would be the #2 starter for a contender. On the same token, nothing really excites me about the Blue Jays rotation. The Orioles avoid the cellar because the young pitchers they have (Bergesen/Matusz/Tillman) have more talent/potential than the Blue Jays starters and there's a solid chance at least one of them (either Matusz and/or Bergesen) are on the cusp of a breakout season.

Bullpen:

Yankees-4.5

Red Sox-9

Rays-13.5

Orioles-18

Blue Jays-22.5

Who would you rather have with the game on the line.......Rivera or Papelbon? That's a very, very tough question. The Red Sox and Yankees have the back of their bullpen anchored by two of the elite closers in the game, this one is a toss-up. The arbitrary factoid that gives Rivera the nod as tie breaker: He enters the game to "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. That also happens to be the ringtone on my cellphone.

Final Standings:

Red Sox-31.5

Yankees-39

Rays-53.5

Orioles-67

Blue Jays-79

AL East Preview: Part I

Time to head East to the American League:

Catcher

1-Matt Wieters

2-Victor Martinez

3-Jorge Posada

4-Kelly Shoppach

5-John Buck

Tough call at this position. Wieters had a nice finish to 2009 and all signs indicate that he'll take some significant steps forward. Victor Martinez had a solid 2009 but couldn't justify him at #1 for a couple of reasons a) His OPS was 161 points lower at Catcher than at First AND the Red Sox have openly stated they plan to use him primarily behind the plate b) Is the Victor Martinez of 2007/2009 that had 13% of his flyballs turn into home runs or are we going to see the Victor Martinez that only saw 3% of his flyballs and 2 of his 266 At Bats turn into home runs.

First Base

1-Mark Teixiera

2-Kevin Youkilis

3-Carlos Pena

4-Lyle Overbay

5-Michael Aubrey

A Toss-Up between Teixiera and Youkilis. Teixiera has the slight power edge and a right field porch more suited for Little League giving him the edge. Both Youkilis and Pena have a penchant for hitting plenty of homers and drawing plenty of walks. Youkilis has a significant edge over Pena as Youkilis is able to draw his walks and hit his homers while still hitting .300 while Pena is usually south of .250

Second Base

1-Dustin Pedroia

2-Robinson Cano

3-Aaron Hill

4-Ben Zobrist

5-Brian Roberts

An very loaded field at Second. You have tier, 1 (Pedroia/Cano) where their performance is established and you know (mostly) what you are going to get. Could see Pedroia going 20-20, I don't see Cano hitting 27 out again. You have your second tier (Hill/Zobrist) of players who had breakout seasons last year but its still unclear how sustainable their level of production is going to be. Look for these two to settle into a rhythm of hitting from .260 to .280 with around 20 homers.

Shortstop

1-Derek Jeter

2-Marco Scutaro

3-Jason Bartlett

4-Alex Gonzales

5- Cesar Izturis

While Derek Jeter is one of the more over-rated players in baseball, he's still considerably better than the rest of the field. There was somewhat of a bidding war for Scutaro over the winter, i'm still trying to figure out why. That's nice that Bartlett had a great season last year. Too bad, that his home run numbers are not sustainable based on Bartlett's past.

Third Base:

1-Alex Rodriguez

2-Evan Longoria

3-Adrian Beltre

4-Garrett Atkins

5-Edwin Encarnacion

A-Rod may be one of the more unlikable players in baseball. He's also still one of the elite hitters in baseball. Evan Longoria has been a hitting machine ever since being called up in 2008. Longoria looks to move himself deeper into the elite echelon of Third Basemen this year. There is an off chance that Beltre could have a big season considering he's playing for a contract and getting away from Safeco field but this is far from a sure thing.

Left Field:

1-Carl Crawford

2-Nolan Reimold

3-Mike Cameron

4-Jose Bautista

5-Brett Gardner

These rankings are based on a couple of hunches 1-Carl Crawford is in his contract year, a solid chance to explode beyond his baseline .300-20 homers- 60 steal baseline. Nolan Reimold had a nice rookie year and looks to be on the cusp of a breakout season.......wouldn't be surprised to see him hit .275 and 25-30 homers. Mike Cameron is still a solid player, at this point what you see is what you get.... .250 average 20-25 homers striking out every 3 to 4 at bats and multiple hot and cold streaks.

Center Field:

1-Curtis Granderson

2-Jacoby Ellsbury

3-Adam Jones

4-Vernon Wells

5-B.J. Upton

Could see these rankings go a few different directions. Moving to Yankee Stadium should be one of the best things to happen to Granderson's career. He's already shown he can hit 30 out per year and with the little league sized porch that Yankee Stadium calls Right Field should inflate his home run totals.....now if only he can figure out hitting lefties. I'm completely unmoved by high stolen base totals which prevents Ellsbury from grabbing the top spot. Not bought or sold on Jones yet he got lucky in the first half, unlucky in the second half.....Vernon Wells had a chance to hit number-1 but then I remembered there were criterion other than contract size.

Right Field

1-J.D. Drew

2-Nick Swisher

3-Nick Markakis

4-Travis Snider

5-Gabe Kapler/Matt Joyce

One through three are fairly interchangeable sources of .270-.280 average (.250 for Swisher) and 20-30 homers. On talent alone, Drew is on top but as always, there are concerns about staying healthy. Swisher has better power than Markakis but hits for a lower average. Swisher's power was too good to pass up......plus Swisher is a cheddarhead member. Travis Snider is the toughest one to figure out.....I could see anything from struggling for a month and being sent to the minors to having a breakout season similar to what I'm expecting out of Jay Bruce and Kyle Blanks.

Designated Hitter:

1-Adam Lind

2-David Ortiz

3-Luke Scott

4-Pat Burrell

5-Nick Johnson

Skeptical on Lind hitting 35 out this year but could see him hitting .280 with 25-30 homers. Ortiz has the pedigree, and more power but the way his numbers have trended the last few years is a bit discouraging. Luke Scott.....another 20 homer hitter.....Pat Burrell, after last years epic fail anything will pass as progress.....

Standings after First Half:

Red Sox-18

Yankees-21

Rays-31

Orioles-31

Blue Jays-34

A few surprises here. The Red Sox grabbed the top spot despite having less players in the 1-spot than the Yankees (2 vs. 4). The Yankees ranking was dragged down due to weaknesses in left (Brett Gardner) and DH (Nick Johnson). A bit surprised of how far back the Rays were. The O's and Blue Jays are ranked about where I thought they would be.

An Award List.....With A Twist

So, it was announced the other day that two ex-Brewers, Bill Schroeder and Greg Vaughn into the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame.

This piqued my curiosity about other Major League Players to play in the Cape Cod League. It turns out there are plenty of Cape Cod League Alums playing in the Big Leagues. The most recent list of Active Players is this list from 2008 (I had no luck finding a list from '09). Anyways with many of the major baseball awards being handed out soon, I decided to do my own top 10 list for the Most Valuable Player. The one caveat for making this list is this list is limited to Cape Cod League Alums.

10- Mark Reynolds .260/.349/.543 123 OPS+

Reynolds made some major strides as a player this year. Reynolds seems destined to become the 2010s version of Adam Dunn. He re-wrote the record books as he struck out 223 times this year. Still, he had a solid year and proved to the league that he will be a force to reckon with (when he makes contact)

9-Carlos Pena .227/.356/.537 130 OPS+

The American League, injury prone equivalent to Reynolds. Despite missing the last month of the season, Pena still managed to lead the AL in homers.

8-Adam Lind .305/.370/.562 144 OPS+

The Blue Jays may have had a bad year, but without Lind it would have been much worse. 2009 was Adam Lind's first year playing full-time and he made the most of it. Lind's season definitely qualifies as one of the most secretive 30+ homer seasons of this decade.

7-Evan Longoria .281/.364/.526 130 OPS+

Longoria was able to avoid the sophomore slump and have a solid season. The only damper is Tampa Bay was not able to follow up on last years World Series appearance and leading the AL in GIDP. Still, Longoria is going to be a star for many years to come and he demonstrated why in '09.

6-Lance Berkman .274/.399/.509 139 OPS+

One of the few bright stops in an otherwise terrible year for the Astros. It should be interesting to see how long he can keep his productivity up.

5- Jason Bay .267/.384/.537 134 OPS+

Jason Bay had a strong year in his first full year in Boston. He did a good job keeping the left field spot in Boston productive. He definitely showed why hes going to be one of the most sought after free agents in the winter.

4-Kevin Youkilis .305/.413/.548 145 OPS+

Another solid year from Youk. In these rankings, Youk and Bay are fairly interchangeable.

3- Tim Lincecum 15-7 2.48 era 176 ERA+

The only pitcher to appear on this list. Lincecum had another excellent year and further cemented himself as one of the best pitchers of our generation. He already has one Cy Young Award to his name......with possibly a second one coming soon.

2-Chase Utley .282/.397/.508 136 OPS+

An elite second baseman on a Phillies team that went to a second straight World Series. Plus he was mentioned prominently in an episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia as Mac was trying so hard to meet him and hand deliver a letter to him.

1-Mark Teixeira .292/.383/.565 149 OPS+

Teixiera had a strong first year for the Yankees. As much as I don't like the Yankees, Teixiera did enough to rise above the competition from his Cape Cod League Alumni. Still doesn't change the fact that he's not going to get the actual MVP (That goes to Joe Mauer)

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

Handicapping the 33rd Man Competition: AL Version

Today was the day where all-star rosters were announced for both the american and national leagues. Also, the voting on MLB.com was opened up for who gets the last spot on each all star team. It is a nice gesture to add another deserving player to the all-star exhibition game.

Tonight I am handicapping the AL Vote going from who is least deserving to who is most deserving....

Chone Figgins .316/.392/.410 110 OPS+

Alright so he can steal some bases and he is a gritty player. He strikes me more as an intangibles guy but not a player that screams superstar. He's always struck me as a slightly more talented version of David Eckstein. Point being gritty (i.e. non-superstar) players may be good as a teammate but not what I would immediately associate an all-star label with.

Carlos Pena .233/.365/.540 131 OPS+

Another good player but just not good enough to be an all-star. This guy is the american league version of Adam Dunn in that he is one of the better 3TO (three true outcomes types player) while a Pena selection would mean possibly seeing him in the home run derby.....I would prefer an all-star selection to not have a part of their game stick out like a sore-eye. The batting average is the offending area. While I generally place more emphasis on money-ball type stats (i.e. OPS,OBS, OPS+, etc.) than batting average, when your 86th out of 95 qualified players in a certain statistic and are doing worse than players such as gerald laird, chris getz and david dejesus..........you are definitely not an all-star

Ian Kinsler .256/.333/.50o OPS+ 116

I will concede that he is one of the better power hitting second baseman in the bigs. But then again, isn't that almost a prerequisite for playing for the Texas Rangers? He's on pace to obliberate his career-high in homers. However, in his peripherals (especially batting average and ops) he seems to have regressed from last season. Being an all-star....I would rather see players recognized who have maintained or improved from prior years.

Brandon Inge .269/.363/.505 OPS +124

On the subject of improved players, Brandon Inge has seemed to put things together this year. He's had a fairly pedestrian career, endured a few position changes and for all intensive purposes is in the middle of a breakout year. Has career prior to this year has been so non-star that amongst his 10 similar players hitting wise are players such as joe oliver, greg myers and gregg zaun.

All i've got to say is ouuuch. However, this involves what these players have done this year and just like the Tigers, he has played much better than expected.....I actually did struggle between making him the most worthy 33-rd man but he got overshadowed (albeit barely) by the most-worthy 33rd man..........

Adam Lind .309/.384/.553 OPS +144

Lind is one of those players having a break-out season even if nobody is really even noticing. It's tough to notice any of the flaws that undermine the chances of others.......he's not a "scrappy" player that just isn't overly exciting, he doesn't rank near the bottom of any commonly-used statistical category. He's definitely improved more than any of the other aforementioned players (even Inge who deserves recognition for his break-out). Breaking it down, he's simply having the best season out of the five candidates and will most likely be the best of the bunch several years down the road. When it comes down to it he's hitting for good average, good power and considering his 26th birthday isn't for another couple of weeks this guy has the potential to get even better and become a perennial all-star.....in other words, the type of player that the All-Star Game recognizes......all he has to worry about is getting recognition playing in Toronto