Baseball – Page 2 – Fascination Place

Regarding the Yankees’ Payroll

A couple of sharply contrasting articles about the New York Yankees and their payroll coming in the wake of their World Series victory: Sportswriter Joe Posnanski believes it’s an unfair advantage, somewhat obscured by baseball’s 3-tier playoff structure (some follow-up comments here), while Apple blogger Jon Gruber thinks the Yankees are just trying to win, which is more than can be said for some teams. My own opinion is closer to Posnanski’s than Gruber’s, although Gruber has a few good points.

(It’s very hard for baseball fans to objectively discuss this issue. Anti-Yankee bias is extremely strong throughout baseball – as a Red Sox fan, I admit to chortling gleefully whenever their season comes to a premature end. I suspect Posnanski has some of this bias, and that Gruber is colored by bias as a Yankee fan; indeed, his gloating at their championship and his past comments on sports makes me think he can’t really assess his team rationally. Then again, it’s sports; rationality isn’t required.)

I think the Yankees’ market and payroll do represent an unfair advantage, but they don’t give the Yankees a “pat hand” as Posnanski puts it. You also have to try to win, as Gruber says (and I do think there are teams that don’t try seriously to win), and you have to be skilled in your trying. The Yankees’ days in the wilderness in the 1980s were because they had fallen behind other teams in collecting talent and assembling their roster. Their approach changed in the early 1990s, which laid the foundation for their run of success since then. But once you have all three elements – a huge payroll, a desire to win, and the skills to assemble winning talent – you’re going to be a winning team most years.

There are teams which have two components, but who lack the large payroll, and they are simply and clearly at a significant disadvantage compared to the Yankees (and to a lesser extent the Red Sox). The Athletics are a popular example. The Angels are a well-run team which have been regularly run over by the Yankees and Red Sox since they won their 2002 championship. And the Rays are one of the best-run teams in baseball (a few years ago if I’d said that you would have asked me what I’ve been smoking), but not only are they at a payroll disadvantage, but they’re in the same division as the two richest teams in baseball and so were on the outside looking in coming the 2009 playoffs. (The Blue Jays are in some ways the Rays writ small.)

To look at it another way, you could be the best-run team in baseball, but given their financial resources, if the Yankees and Red Sox are among the top five best-run teams, then their payrolls give them a huge ability to cover for their mistakes and outbid other teams for the top free agent talent, that they’ve just got a huge built-in advantage over you.

Revenue and payroll are not the whole story, but they’re a significant factor.

There have been some interesting articles about market size written over the years. The seminal work, by Mike Jones, seems to no longer be available. Nate Silver wrote some articles in 2007 keying off of that work, but you have to be a Baseball Prospectus subscriber to read them. (If you are, you can find them here: One, two, three, four.) One point I recall from Jones’ original article was that the New York City area is a large enough market to support four teams, maybe as many as five or six, teams, each with a revenue stream competitive with other Major League teams. NYC is a really big market, folks.

And that’s kind of Posnanski’s point: You can’t really underestimate how big the New York market is, and how much that plays into the success of the Yankees. The Yankees have been a well-run franchise for nearly 20 years, and that counts for a lot, but their market counts for an awful lot as well.

I agree with Gruber that the Steinbrenners’ drive for success and excellence is admirable (is it, though, any more admirable than Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis’ stated desire to win?). Also admirable is the fact that they put their revenue back into the team, creating a feedback cycle of economic and on-the-field success. Not every team does this. (Gruber seems to imply by omission that the Yankees are special in this way, which I think understates what many other teams have done with much less.) And I’m certainly in favor of putting the earnings of baseball back into the game, and ultimately funneling much of it to the players who are, after all, where the true value in the game is created.

It’s not that I blame the Steinbrenners or the Yankees for this state of affairs. I do believe there are some structural problems in the business of baseball, for which the Yankees are somewhat culpable as co-owners of Major League Baseball (how much they specifically are culpable I can’t tell). But having purchased the most lucrative property in baseball and owned it for nearly 40 years now, I can’t fault them for exploiting what they’ve got for the greatest gain and success possible.

But I don’t think we can or should paper over the fact that the Yankees do have a large built-in advantage over every other team in baseball. (And I readily admit that the Red Sox have the second-largest built-in advantage, although the margin between #2 and #3 is much smaller than that between #1 and #2.) I think this is unfair, and it does make the Yankees’ successes less impressive by comparison with those of other teams. (I wonder who the team of the decade would be if you somehow adjusted for market and/or revenue stream? The Cardinals?)

I don’t know of a solution to this problem. Revenue sharing will never be big enough to have an impact. MLB isn’t going to put 2-3 more teams in New York City. (Look at how difficult it’s been just for the Athletics to move to a county which doesn’t even have another Major League team, since the Giants ostensibly claim the San Jose area as their market.) A salary cap would punish the players unfairly. What else is there?

In any event, complaining about the Yankees’ built-in competitive advantage will never go away, and that’s because it really exists.

Just Sick

I’m home sick today – with a cold, not the flu, thank goodness. (At least, it feels like just a cold!) Slept in, read comic books, noodled about on the Internet, blew my nose a zillion times (but that’s better than the sore throat I had last night). Grabbed In-n-Out Burger for dinner while Debbi went shopping with her friend Lisa.

Some other year this would have been a great day to curl up in the evening and watch the World Series. But I just can’t watch playoff games with the Hated Yankees (not even Red Sox/Yankees series), so no World Series for me. Someday maybe MLB will put a couple more teams in New York City and level the playing field a bit. But I won’t hold my breath.

I read a tweet tonight that said “Yankees:Apple::Red Sox:???”. Given the Yankees’ cash flow, free agent signings and aging roster that looks like it had a very healthy dose of luck this year, it’s clearly the Red Sox who more closely resemble Apple, with their more blended line-up, and cutting-edge analytic approach to team management. Just the notion of comparing the Yankees to Apple makes my head hurt. Probably another reason why using sports as a metaphor for real life is a bad idea.

(Besides, if you’re honest about it, it’s the Devil Rays who look the most like Apple.)

Anyway, yeah yeah yeah, as with all things sports, wins by New York teams make the world a little blacker. But I guess it wouldn’t be dramatic without some black hats to root against.

Hopefully things will look brighter tomorrow assuming I can shake the rest of this cold!

On Perfect Games

Yesterday, Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle threw the 18th perfect game in Major League history, winning 5-0 against the Tampa Bay Rays. Thus sending baseball geeks everywhere scurrying to learn about the history of perfect games, and I’m no different.

One interesting thing is how unevenly distributed the perfect games are through baseball’s history. Even if we exclude the 2 19th-century perfectos (since I’ve never been very confident that baseball’s record-keeping from that century was all that great), there have been 16 in the so-called modern era, of which:

2 were thrown in the deadball era (1904 and 1908)
1 was thrown in 1922
Then you have to go all the way to 1956 for the next one (Don Larsen’s famous World Series game)
There were 3 in the 1960s
And the other 9 have been thrown since 1980, all during an era of relatively high offense, free agency, and the most intense competition in the history of the game

Is it a fluke that over half of the modern-era perfect games have been thrown in a little over a quarter of the modern era? Or is it indicative of something about today’s pitchers?

(And consider that just two weeks ago, San Francisco Giants pitcher Jonathan Sanchez threw a no-hitter which would have been a perfect game if not for an error by one of the fielders. Now how much would you pay?)

The other remarkable thing is that Buehrle threw his perfect game against a good offense, the Rays, who through yesterday’s games are third in the American League in runs scored, and third in on-base percentage. Only two Rays hitters who played yesterday have an OBP which is significantly below league average (Gabe Kapler’s is 333; the AL average is 334), so it’s not like the Rays were sitting their good players. Buehrle beat a squad of the better hitters in baseball.

Consider the opposing teams in the other perfect games since 1980:

Randy Johnson, 2004, vs. Atlanta Braves: 6th of 16 teams in runs, 5th in OBP
David Cone, 1999, vs. Montreal Expos: 14th of 16 teams in runs, last in OBP
David Wells, 1998, vs. Minnesota Twins: 11th of 14 teams in runs, 11th in OBP
Kenny Rogers, 1994, vs. California Angels: last of 14 teams in runs, 12th in OBP
Dennis Martinez, 1991, vs. Los Angeles Dodgers: 5th of 12 teams in runs, 3rd in OBP
Tom Browning, 1988, vs. Los Angeles Dodgers: 7th of 12 teams in runs, 11th in OBP (the Dodgers won the World Series two months later)
Mike Witt, 1984, vs. Texas Rangers: 13th of 14 teams in runs, last in OBP
Len Barker, 1981, vs. Toronto Blue Jays: last of 14 teams in runs, last in OBP

Historically notable pitching performances often come against bad offenses, and this list seems to validate that. On the other hand, it takes two to tango, and a great pitching performance backed up by outstanding defense can overcome even good hitting. (Of course, any perfect game is a remarkable achievement, no matter who it was pitched against; every hitter who makes it to the Majors is by definition a tough out.)

It’s also interesting to see that almost every pitcher who’s thrown a perfect game should be familiar to a serious baseball fan. (Lee Richmond, Charlie Robertson and Len Barker are the only three I’m not really familiar with.)

It seems like every couple of years we have a baseball player performing another nigh-unthinkable feat, be it a perfect game, an unassisted triple play, or what-have-you. Truly this is the golden age of professional baseball.

What’s Wrong With The A’s?

I can’t really improve on the title of Rob Neyer’s article on the Oakland Athletics’ downward spiral. Neyer rebuts Columnist Monte Poole’s contention that Oakland GM Billy Beane’s decision to let shortstop Miguel Tejada walk after 2003 and sign third baseman Eric Chavez to a 6-year deal after 2004 is a big part of the reason.

Neyer fails to mention a point which bolsters his case: In 2003, the A’s had Jermaine Dye signed to a big deal which didn’t expire until after 2004. Tejada was a free agent after 2003, but the A’s cash flow – never noted for its voluminous flow – didn’t have space to sign a big free agent until after 2004, when Dye’s deal was up. Chavez’ contract status dovetailed nicely with Dye’s departure, but Tejada’s did not.

Nonetheless, I myself can’t shake the feeling that there’s something awry with Billy Beane’s strategy of running the A’s. The great A’s teams of the turn of the millennium were primarily driven by some great players drafted by the previous administration (Giambi, Tejada, Chavez, Hudson, Mulder). Beane did a fine job filling in the gaps around those players, but as they departed, Beane has largely replaced them with more good gap-fillers, rather than franchise players. While he’s had some bad luck in this regard, the A’s draft record under Beane does not look particularly strong.

Beane’s strategy in a broad sense has been described as looking to exploit inefficiencies in the “market” for baseball players. To be fair to Beane, the market has gotten a lot more efficient over the last decade (a point I believe he’s made himself) as the rest of the league as adopted and adapted his strengths. However, I think the inefficiencies he’s tried to exploit have gone from major facets (on-base percentage), to secondary skills (team defense), to relatively minor factors (signing Jason Giambi cheaply in the hopes that he’s not quite done). In the meantime, the A’s lineup features a number of fairly pedestrian hitters who are markedly devoid of power – a skill which is arguably overvalued, but which is still quite important. Guys like Jack Cust and Kurt Suzuki are nice complementary players, but they’re not guys to center your team around.

While the A’s have had plenty of bad fortune, I think Neyer goes a little wrong in pointing out that the Red Sox and Dodgers have made plenty of mistakes and they’re doing okay. One thing that a high payroll buys a team is more flexibility to cover for their mistakes (not infinite flexibility, but more). The Red Sox and Dodgers have that, the A’s have less such flexibility than almost any team in the Majors.

“What about the Rays? They traded Edwin Jackson for Matt Joyce!” says Neyer. Yeah, but the Rays look a lot like the team that Beane was piloting back in 1999-2000. Can they keep it up without one of the larger payrolls in baseball? It’s too soon to tell.

As for the A’s, given their financial situation it’s hard to say what they should be doing differently other than having a little good luck for a change. But somehow they’re on a downhill slide, while the Minnesota Twins – who have been a comparable team in many ways throughout the decade – continue to remain contenders, in a genrally stronger division. So the task shouldn’t be insurmountable.

Maybe it is just a matter of luck.

What a Series!

The first Red Sox/Yankees series of the year concluded, and it’s hard to imagine later series getting any better than this one!

Unless you’re, uh, a Yankees fan. Because the Red Sox swept the 3-game series at Fenway Park.

Friday’s game one was a 12-inning affair in which the Sox were down 4-2 in the bottom of the 9th, Jason Bay tied it with a 2-run homer, and then Kevin Youkilis hit a walk-off shot to win it. Joba Chamberlain and Jon Lester pitched well to start the game, but two of the better relievers on both teams (Mariano Rivera and Hideki Okajima) imploded later on.

Saturday’s game two was epic. I’d expected the Josh Beckett-A.J. Burnett matchup to be the series’ best chance for a pitcher’s duel, but it was anything but: Beckett imploded, giving up 8 runs in 5 innings. The Sox were down 6-0 in the 4th, but closed to 6-5 in the bottom half thanks to Jason Varitek’s grand slam. Burnett also ended up giving up 8 runs in 5 innings. The bullpens provided little relief (Okajima got hit hard again), but the Yankees’ bullpen completely melted down, leading to a 16-11 Sox win, in a little under 4-1/2 hours.

Game two included such plays as Johnny Damon being picked off base, Jorge Posada getting caught in a rundown heading for home plate and tagged out at third when two runners ended up at that base, and Jacoby Ellsbury reaching base on catcher’s interference.

Sunday’s game three will be remembered for some months for Ellsbury stealing home on Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, mainly because the Yankees had the shift on for J.D. Drew and Pettitte wasn’t really paying attention. (Video recap here.) It hardly mattered since Drew hit the next pitch for an automatic double, and the Sox won 4-1. Justin Masterson started for the Sox and pitched quite well against one of the better offenses in baseball, and then two rookie pitchers combined to shut down the Yankees the rest of the way, allowing just one hit over 3-2/3 innings. Ellsbury’s accomplishment is being overrated by fans and the media, but stealing home happens so rarely it’s quite a thing to see. Masterson was the true Sox MVP of the day.

Three hard-fought games, and the “right” team won them all (well, as far as I’m concerned!). What a great weekend of baseball!

Oh, and Sox manager Terry Francona seemed pretty happy, too:

Red Sox Days

These past two evenings have been taken up with two trips to Oakland to see my Boston Red Sox in their only trip to the area this year.

Monday night we took my friend Joar and his wife Karin to their first baseball game since they moved here from Sweden a couple of years ago. We’d meant to go last year, but it never happened (mainly, I think, due to my own sloth). I don’t think either of them are really sports people, but obviously they’ve heard about the game and Joar’s seen my own enthusiasm for it on display plenty.

I explained the basics of how baseball works, which is a bigger challenge than I’d expected: What innings are, what outs are, the fielders and the batting line-up, how balls and strikes work, what foul balls and home runs are, and how outs are actually made. That doesn’t even get to things like stolen bases or double plays or pitching changes or any of that. Never mind the Seventh Inning Stretch.

All this was much easier once the game began and I could point out how the umpire indicates balls and strikes, where the foul lines are, how the runners move around the bases, etc. It really brought home how I take the play of the game for granted, having absorbed it mostly through watching a whole bunch of games as a teenager.

I think they enjoyed the game more than they’d expected, especially Karin who was watching the game quite intently as it progressed – which is saying something because it was a pretty mediocre game, as the A’s clubbed the Sox’ pitching into submission and rolled to an 8-2 victory. But we had great seats in the second deck behind home plate (and Joar nearly got his head taken off by a foul ball, but it was deflected at the last second), and it was a fairly warm night. We even saw the Red Sox pick off not one but two runners from first base in the same inning, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Next I’ll try to get them to a Giants game, hopefully for a weekend day game so they can appreciate Pac Bell Park.

Debbi and I went back last night for the second game of the series, which was considerably less fun, because the temperature was in the 40s and the wind was in the 20-30 MPH range, so it was goddamned freezing, even with the extra layers we wore. Hot cocoa and Irish coffee only staved off the chill for a few minutes.

Which is too bad because it was quite a good game: Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka melted down in the first inning (and went on the DL today), but Justin Masterson held the A’s scoreless for 4 innings, and the Sox came back to tie it 5-5. Finally we got too cold and left in the middle of the 8th, and the game was still going on by the time we got home and went to bed. I learned this morning that the A’s won 6-5 in 12 innings, so I’m rather glad we didn’t stay to the bitter end.

Of course, the Sox saved the best for today’s day game, which is a bummer, but at least they won one. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to see it.

And even more sorry they won’t be back for another visit later in the summer. Darn the unbalanced schedule anyway!

Fantasy Baseball 2009

If it’s April, then we must have had our fantasy baseball draft by now, right? Right!

Here’s the team I ended up with:

Pos	Player	Team	Round/ Pick	Age	Comments
C	Jarrod Saltalamacchia	TEX	5/78	23	Another year with a tandem of two half-decent catchers. At least they’re both young this year!
C	Jesus Flores	WAS	13/206	24
1B	Albert Pujols	SLN	Kept	29
2B	Kelly Johnson	ATL	1/14	27
2B	Mark Ellis	OAK	21/334	31
2B/SS	Clint Barmes	COL	10/158	30	Wonder how long he’ll have a starting job?
3B	Ryan Zimmerman	WAS	2/30	24	He’s going to break out some year, right?
3B	Bill Hall	MIL	15/238	29
SS	Derek Jeter	NYA	4/62	34	As a Red Sox fan, I’m happy his bat is declining rapidly. If he does have one more great year in him, though, it’d be great if 2009 is it.
OF	Daniel Murphy	NYN	6/94	24
OF	Chris Young	ARI	Kept	25
OF	Josh Hamilton	TEX	Kept	27
OF	Mike Cameron	MIL	11/174	36
OF	Michael Cuddyer	MIN	19/302	30
OF	Juan Rivera	LAA	22/348	30
SP	James Shields	TBA	Kept	26
SP	Hiroki Kuroda	LAN	Kept	34
SP	Zack Greinke	KCA	Kept	25
SP	Edinson Volquez	CIN	Kept	25
SP	Paul Maholm	PIT	7/110	27
SP	Andy Pettitte	NYA	8/126	36
SP	Jon Garland	ARI	14/222	29
SP	Anthony Reyes	CLE	16/254	27
SP	Ross Ohlendorf	PIT	17/270	26
SP	Doug Davis	ARI	18/286	33
SP	Jordan Zimmermann	WAS	9/142	23	Should be in the Majors in a few weeks.
RP	Jonathan Broxton	LAN	3/46	24
RP	J.J. Putz	NYN	12/190	32
RP	Bobby Howry	SFN	20/318	35
RP	Justin Masterson	BOS	23/361	24

The draft this year was really weird: We got down to the end of the draft, where last year I took Paul Maholm and Zach Duke with my last two picks, and the year before I took Josh Hamilton with my last pick. This year, though, there was no one left I wanted, not role players with guaranteed starting time, not second-tier prospects, nothing. So I passed my last 5 picks. I’m not sure whether the player pool is smaller this year for some reason, or if the league as a whole is drafting better. Or maybe I’m just too picky. But I felt I’d do better waiting to see how roles change in April than drafting guys with those last 5 picks.

As usual I ended up with a bunch of quality hitters, and a pretty weak pitching staff. It seemed like the pitchers I wanted kept getting taken just before I wanted them, and there was always a good hitter I wanted more than the next other pitchers. I had especially hoped to get Josh Beckett with my first-round pick (14th overall), but he went 2 picks before me.

I feel like the rest of the league is passing me by in drafting prospects who stick, as it’s been a while since I’ve drafted a young impact player at a premium position, so I keep spending early picks on 2B, 3B, SS and even catcher (although the “two decent catchers in tandem” strategy has worked surprisingly well). And I still haven’t worked out how to draft pitchers.

But I don’t think I have a bad team. And I did finish in third place last year (out of 16), and I finish in the top half more often than not.. So maybe I’m overly pessimistic.

The Power to Believe

Great article by Joe Posnanski about Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols. (via Rob Neyer)

One thing fantasy baseball does for me is gives me a little more connection to players I’d otherwise be somewhat indifferent towards – well, to the extent that one can be indifferent towards the best player in baseball. Back in 2001 during our league draft I decided to take a flyer on a guy named Pujols, who had spent most of 2000 in A-ball, and was filling in at third base while Bobby Bonilla was on the DL.

Someone in the room said, “They’ll send him down as soon as Bonilla comes back.”

A couple of weeks later, Bonilla came back. Rather than sending down Pujols, the Cardinals released John Mabry. Pujols has since gone on to beat the living daylights out of National League pitching.

I drafted Pujols in the 16th round that year (this is a keeper league, so that’s like taking him in the 21st round in non-keeper leagues). Overall he was the 248th player taken in the draft – 362nd if you include the keepers.

And I’ve had him on my team ever since.

Anyway.

If anything, I think Pujols is underrated. He’s been hurt in one way or another for most of his career – he has a bad elbow which may eventually need reconstructive surgery, and for which he had surgery this offseason to correct a nerve problem and hopefully alleviate the pain he feels in it. That’s the main reason he plays first base, to avoid aggravating his elbow by having to throw more often. He came up as a third baseman and played all four corners (first, third, left field, and right field) his first two seasons. Last year he played one game at second base. Okay, events like that are flukes. But still. How great would it have been if he’d been able to spend his career at third base or in the outfield and been fully healthy?

The only thing he can’t do is pitch. As far as we know.

Since I don’t believe in god (in my Facebook profile my “Religion” field reads “unbeliever/heathen”), it’s strange for me to read about his clearly deep religious beliefs. It’s an aspect of him I can’t realte to or even really understand. “He played baseball, and he went to church, and that seemed about all that interested him.” On the other hand, if it works for him and his life, then that works for me.

I hope – for his own peace of mind – he’s telling the truth that he doesn’t care whether people believe that he’s not using steroids. The steroid witch-hunt has been such a disaster for baseball – to my mind much worse than any actual use of steroids has been. I hope the reigning Best Player in Baseball can escape the witch-hunt. Because I just want to see him play.

MVP Notes

We’re in the thick of baseball awards season, and it’s made for some interesting reading.

In the National League, Albert Pujols won the MVP in both the Internet Baseball Awards (by a very wide margin) and the official voting (by a narrower margin). This seems only natural since Pujols was far-and-away the best hitter in baseball – and it wasn’t particularly close. While you could argue that Hanley Ramirez or Chase Utley might be more valuable because of their position, they had to make up a good amount of ground compared to Pujols’ advantage with the bat, and while Pujols does play the easiest defensive position on the diamond, he’s a plus defender there, too. He came up as a third baseman, and has also played both outfield corners; he’s only at first base due to his bum elbow which his team naturally wants to protect as much as possible.

Despite this, folks like Thomas Boswell thinks Ryan Howard should have been the league’s MVP. I like Boswell’s writing, his book The Heart of the Order is among my favorites, but his whole argument is just ridiculously wrong. That he’s bringing up RBI and the position the player’s team finished as anything other than a tiebreaker is just plain silly, and, well Joe Posnanski writes a nifty refutation of Boswell’s position which says all that and more.

I think people still underestimate just how valuable it is for a hitter to not make an out. Pujols is the complete package as a hitter in a way that no other active player is. He’s really that good, and it’s amazing that people seriously question whether he should have been the MVP.

Over in the American League, I was mildly surprised when Red Sock Dustin Pedroia won the IBA, and even more so when he won the real deal.

This was a tougher award to pick. Pedroia was third in the AL in VORP, behind Alex Rodriguez and Grady Sizemore. Pedroia logged significantly more plate appearances than most of his competition (only Sizemore logged more, and Josh Hamilton was a little behind). And most of the competition also played difficult defensive positions (Pedroia plays second base). There were also some good pitchers in the mix, as either Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay would have been a credible MVP.

I think you could build a reasonable argument for any number of these players being the MVP. I think the reason Pedroia won the actual award is that he plays for a high-profile playoff team, and he put up what was probably his career year. Voters like those sorts of things.

Rob Neyer picks Twins catcher Joe Mauer as his guy, and I think he’s a credible choice, too, although I don’t think he’s clearly better than Pedroia. Mauer did get overlooked by voters in each pool, although I think he was swimming uphill given the tendencies of the voters. I think Neyer’s right that he just never had the buzz, and with so many credible candidates he needed something to make him stand out in their minds. Additionally, I think there’s a perception that Mauer’s been a little disappointing since he hasn’t developed big-time power. Of course, he’s only 25, so he still has time.

(Boswell suggests that Francisco Rodriguez and his newly-minted saves record should have been the MVP, which is just absurd, as K-Rod wasn’t even the best reliever in his league, or particularly close to being so, and his record was due to the peculiar circumstances of his being on a good team in a poor division. His comparison to Dennis Eckersley‘s 1992 season doesn’t hold water either, since Eck was considerably more dominant than K-Rod was. Even then there were many better candidates among both the hitters and the pitchers.)

I think the awards are partly to honor players who reached the pinnacle of their profession in a given year, and partly to give us fans something to argue about. There’s plenty of red meat to chew on for the AL award, but I’m sure Pedroia and his fans are just happy to have made it this far. (Two years ago a lot of people wondered if he’d ever hit enough to be a solid Major League regular.)

But on the NL side I think we should just sit back and appreciate Albert Pujols as the greatest active hitter (and he’d be the greatest hitter of his era if he hadn’t spent the first few years of his career competing with one of the two greatest hitters of any era). At this point it looks like the only thing that can stop him is his own elbow.

Congratulations to the Phillies

Congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies and their fans (including my cow-orker Todd, and my sister and her son) on winning the World Series! After a 2-day rain delay (no, really!), they beat the Rays 4-3 in the clinching game, winning 4 games to 1.

The Phillies are a long-suffering team, having existed in the shadow of the Philadelphia Athletics until the A’s left town in the 50s. They’re the only team in existence with more than 10,000 (that’s ten thousand) losses. And they’ve won a single World Series in their 126-year existence, back in 1980. But they’ve been a pretty good team in this decade, and they finally managed to vault past the Mets and Braves and push through the playoffs for the win.

In a sign of my own prognosticative skills, I did pick the series to end in 5 games – but I predicted the Rays would run over the Phillies. Instead the Phils won both of Cole Hamels’ starts, won a close one in game 3 in a wild 9th inning, and brought out the big sticks to club the Rays in game 4.

As for the Rays, well, they’re going to be a good team for years to come, so I don’t feel too badly for them. They’re going to make things tough for my Red Sox. But it ought to make for some exciting games.