The Pennant Races Are Heating Up
I was going to put up a post about politics and such, but who wants to talk about that when the pennant races are heating up?
Currently, three divisions only have a game and a half separating the top two teams in the standings and a fourth only has half a game. True, some of the drama is lacking from the AL East race as the loser will almost certainly win the wild card, but it's still there. I think that, whatever the final results of that race are, one additional win by the losing team in their last series against each other would have flipped the results. I'm pulling for the trailing team in three of these four races, with the lone exception being the Cubs. This would be a great year for them to win it all -- the 100th anniversary of their first World Series victory. The Cubs, of course, were the first team to win consecutive World Series titles; that's the tradition of excellence I signed up for when I became a Cubs fan.
I had thought that the Diamondbacks would drop out of the playoff picture, but that's looking less likely. It's still possible, and I do think the Padres will win the division, but they have a large enough lead over the Phillies, Rockies, et al, that they'll probably pull it out. The Rockies and Diamondbacks play against each other the last weekend of the season, though, which gives Colorado a chance if it can pick up a couple of games in the next week.
Being in Arizona, I hear a good deal of talk claiming Jose Valverde is one of the best closers (or the best) in baseball. This annoys me to no end. Mostly, it's due to an over-reliance on the "save" statistic (the correct amount of reliance on that stat would be "zero"). Yes, Valverde has more saves than anyone else this season, and there's a good chance he will remain the leader. However, he also has more save opportunities than anyone else and is among the leaders in blown saves. Along these lines, a lot has been made of Mariano Rivera's decline in saves, but he entered September with only 25 save chances, which makes it kinda hard to rack up 40+ saves (he has racked up eight saves this month already, though). A couple weeks ago, Jayson Stark wrote a column on revising the save rule. Well, maybe not so much revising, because it's become entrenched -- as he acknowledges -- but creating a new stat to take its place, and would apply to middle relief as well. While there would still be the issue of opportunities to achieve this stat (just as there are for not just saves, but wins, RBI's, and assorted other stats), it would be an enormous improvement. I also like its application to middle relief, for several reasons. First and foremost, it would tend to eliminate the silly notion that you save your best reliever for the ninth inning. Bob Wickman could still be in Atlanta. Secondly, middle relievers already were getting credited with blown saves, which makes no sense if you're not going to give them credit for the save (making the blown save a stat less meaningful than the save). Thirdly, the hold is a useless stat, and I believe still has competing standards for its use (though maybe those got worked out before this season); under at least one standard, you can have more earned runs allowed than outs recorded and still get credit for a hold. So, hopefully, this "stop" -- or something similar -- will catch on.
Ken Griffey, Jr., finally suffered his annual injury, but this one occurred close enough to the end of the season that he barely missed playing as much as he did his first year in Cincinnati (one game or eight plate appearances, depending on which metric you prefer, though eight games and sixty-four fewer innings defensively).
Barry Bonds could fail to meet my games played prediction, but that's due to an injured toe, not because Giants management went with the unthinking talking heads and reduced his playing time to 2-3 games a week. It will be interesting to see where he ends up next season. I think he'll make less than the $19 million or so (including bonuses) he made this year.
Sammy Sosa is also looking for a team to play for next year, hoping it will be the Rangers. Somebody's going to pay too much for him based on his RBI total (currently 90) and the fact that he's somehow hitting .336 with runners in scoring position (hence the RBI total). He's hitting .253 overall (meaning about .212 without runners in scoring position (that was a quick mental calculation, it could be slightly off)) and you figure that those numbers will tend to even out. I believe he's played more against left-handed pitchers the last couple of months (when he's only been a part time player) which would explain why his batting average is back over .250.
As long as I'm mentioning players who will be free agents, how about Alex Rodriguez? People have thrown out figures such as $30 million a season and 10 years (not sure if they've done both together, though). It would be a bad idea for a team to do either. However, I wouldn't put it past several different teams. He went on a tear after the last time I mentioned his play, but I still maintain that his season has not been as amazing as it's made out to be. It's been very good, even great, but it's not some historically amazing season. His OPS is close to dipping back down enough to give Bonds the major league lead. It's hard to claim that your season was historically significant when your OPS was bested by a 43-year-old (unless you're talking about something like Granderson's triples, where he's had a shot at the highest modern season total outside of Chief Wilson's obscene 36 in 1912 (the most anyone else has ever had in the modern era is 26; Granderson currently has 23 (most since 1949, nobody has had more since 1925)) where OPS is not relevant to that specialized facet).
More baseball to come at season's end, including my take on assorted awards, the playoffs (hopefully with better predictions than last year) and a recap of my pre-season predictions.
Currently, three divisions only have a game and a half separating the top two teams in the standings and a fourth only has half a game. True, some of the drama is lacking from the AL East race as the loser will almost certainly win the wild card, but it's still there. I think that, whatever the final results of that race are, one additional win by the losing team in their last series against each other would have flipped the results. I'm pulling for the trailing team in three of these four races, with the lone exception being the Cubs. This would be a great year for them to win it all -- the 100th anniversary of their first World Series victory. The Cubs, of course, were the first team to win consecutive World Series titles; that's the tradition of excellence I signed up for when I became a Cubs fan.
I had thought that the Diamondbacks would drop out of the playoff picture, but that's looking less likely. It's still possible, and I do think the Padres will win the division, but they have a large enough lead over the Phillies, Rockies, et al, that they'll probably pull it out. The Rockies and Diamondbacks play against each other the last weekend of the season, though, which gives Colorado a chance if it can pick up a couple of games in the next week.
Being in Arizona, I hear a good deal of talk claiming Jose Valverde is one of the best closers (or the best) in baseball. This annoys me to no end. Mostly, it's due to an over-reliance on the "save" statistic (the correct amount of reliance on that stat would be "zero"). Yes, Valverde has more saves than anyone else this season, and there's a good chance he will remain the leader. However, he also has more save opportunities than anyone else and is among the leaders in blown saves. Along these lines, a lot has been made of Mariano Rivera's decline in saves, but he entered September with only 25 save chances, which makes it kinda hard to rack up 40+ saves (he has racked up eight saves this month already, though). A couple weeks ago, Jayson Stark wrote a column on revising the save rule. Well, maybe not so much revising, because it's become entrenched -- as he acknowledges -- but creating a new stat to take its place, and would apply to middle relief as well. While there would still be the issue of opportunities to achieve this stat (just as there are for not just saves, but wins, RBI's, and assorted other stats), it would be an enormous improvement. I also like its application to middle relief, for several reasons. First and foremost, it would tend to eliminate the silly notion that you save your best reliever for the ninth inning. Bob Wickman could still be in Atlanta. Secondly, middle relievers already were getting credited with blown saves, which makes no sense if you're not going to give them credit for the save (making the blown save a stat less meaningful than the save). Thirdly, the hold is a useless stat, and I believe still has competing standards for its use (though maybe those got worked out before this season); under at least one standard, you can have more earned runs allowed than outs recorded and still get credit for a hold. So, hopefully, this "stop" -- or something similar -- will catch on.
Ken Griffey, Jr., finally suffered his annual injury, but this one occurred close enough to the end of the season that he barely missed playing as much as he did his first year in Cincinnati (one game or eight plate appearances, depending on which metric you prefer, though eight games and sixty-four fewer innings defensively).
Barry Bonds could fail to meet my games played prediction, but that's due to an injured toe, not because Giants management went with the unthinking talking heads and reduced his playing time to 2-3 games a week. It will be interesting to see where he ends up next season. I think he'll make less than the $19 million or so (including bonuses) he made this year.
Sammy Sosa is also looking for a team to play for next year, hoping it will be the Rangers. Somebody's going to pay too much for him based on his RBI total (currently 90) and the fact that he's somehow hitting .336 with runners in scoring position (hence the RBI total). He's hitting .253 overall (meaning about .212 without runners in scoring position (that was a quick mental calculation, it could be slightly off)) and you figure that those numbers will tend to even out. I believe he's played more against left-handed pitchers the last couple of months (when he's only been a part time player) which would explain why his batting average is back over .250.
As long as I'm mentioning players who will be free agents, how about Alex Rodriguez? People have thrown out figures such as $30 million a season and 10 years (not sure if they've done both together, though). It would be a bad idea for a team to do either. However, I wouldn't put it past several different teams. He went on a tear after the last time I mentioned his play, but I still maintain that his season has not been as amazing as it's made out to be. It's been very good, even great, but it's not some historically amazing season. His OPS is close to dipping back down enough to give Bonds the major league lead. It's hard to claim that your season was historically significant when your OPS was bested by a 43-year-old (unless you're talking about something like Granderson's triples, where he's had a shot at the highest modern season total outside of Chief Wilson's obscene 36 in 1912 (the most anyone else has ever had in the modern era is 26; Granderson currently has 23 (most since 1949, nobody has had more since 1925)) where OPS is not relevant to that specialized facet).
More baseball to come at season's end, including my take on assorted awards, the playoffs (hopefully with better predictions than last year) and a recap of my pre-season predictions.
Labels: baseball
posted by DC | 8:15 PM
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