Drive by predictions+ Award picks (with explanations later)

Division Series:

Phillies over Rockies in 3
Cardinals over Dodgers in 5

Red Sox over Angels in 4
Yankees over Twins in 3

LCS:

Yankees over Red Sox in 6
Cardinals over Phillies in 5

World Series:

Yankees over Cardinals in 5

Personal picks for awards (not predictions)

AL MVP: Joe Mauer
NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke
NL Cy Young: Tim Lincecum

AL Rookie of the Year: Andrew Bailey
NL Rookie of the Year: Chris Coghlan

so...

Accuse me of homeristic Yankee hate, but here goes:

How the hell is Mark Teixeira the league MVP when he's only the third or fourth best hitter at his own position?

Kevin Youkilis: .306/.421/.554
Miguel Cabrera: .335/.400/.554
Justin Morneau: .298/.386/.555
Mark Teixeira: .283/.381/.557

Don't give me his RBI totals. He plays on a loaded offense, in a bandbox of a new stadium

Speaking of that stadium, here are his home/road splits:

Home: .308/.397/.634. 1.031 OPS. 19 HR, 50 RBI in 257 plate appearances.
Road: .258/.366/.483. .849 OPS. 12 HR, 39 RBi in 279 plate appearances.

To be fair, Miguel Cabrera has an even bigger home/road split, but his overall numbers are better as well. Morneau's split is significant but not as dramatic, and Youkilis has actually been better on the road this season.

All in all, however, Mark Teixeira has been, at best, the third or fourth best offensive first baseman in the league. I don't see how that makes him MVP. Frankly, none of these guys should be; I'm firmly in the Joe Mauer for MVP camp. But that's for another time.

edit: aaaand the Yankees go and drop 20 on the Sox after I write this, with Teixeira going 3 for 5 with a walk and three RBI. So it goes.

Mr. Nice Guy

I've refrained from writing about David Ortiz's positive steroid test from 2003 thus far. I suppose the reason is that I've simply grown numb to new steroid revelations. Sure, the Red Sox titles from 2004 and 2007 are now called into question. Yeah, one would have to be blind to think that any of the World Series champs of the last 10-15 years or so were steroid free. But honestly, after the Patriots spycam debacle, I've grown numb to caterwauling about the legitimacy of Boston titles as well. And honestly, I'd be an idiot and/or a total homer to reject such calls outright; it's doubtful that many champs had two superstars like David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez using PEDs.

Regardless, as the dust settled over the last week, I began to feel a tinge of... what, sorrow? I can't even really tell. Simply put, it sucked to find out that Ortiz used. Manny Ramirez less so, if only because after his suspension for PED use this year, it was safe to assume that he'd been using for some time before.

Honestly, the same could be said for Papi. No, he'd never tested positive, and he'd been rather combative in his comments about steroid users. But he fit the mold we'd seen several times before; he was a decent, slightly above average hitter who posted a career year in 2003, and saw his offensive numbers climb closer to the stratosphere each ensuing season. Then he seemed to hit something of a wall recently, dropping well below his usual hitting dominance while dealing with nagging injuries. I seriously doubt that many Red Sox fans were genuinely surprised by the revelation of Ortiz's positive test.

So why does it nag on me now? I think the answer is simple: Ortiz seemed like a good, loveable guy in perhaps the most visible baseball market in the country. He probably still is, really. Steroid use doesn't preclude one from being a good guy. But it does place an unremovable stain on the guilty party, one that may well hound them forever. Previous high profile players to be outed for their PED use hadn't been nearly as affable or popular as Big Papi. Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and Roger Clemens all carried bad reputations for demeanor and attitude well before they had tested positive. Rafael Palmiero and Andy Pettite? Neither carried Papi's clout in the public eye. Big Papi was the face of the Red Sox, even as he struggled this year. And now, like it or not, he's been sullied in the public eye. His herculean effort in the 2004 ALCS? His team-record breaking 2006 season? No longer were they they efforts of a big, loveable lug.

So while I'm not the least bit surprised that Ortiz used, my cynicism about that era in baseball doesn't lessen the sting.

Coming attractions

So... yeah. I haven't updated this blog in few weeks. (Thanks for reminding me, Katy)

Anyway, being bored and lazy this summer, I've decided to compile a pair of lists, in which I try to determine both the best World Series winner of the decade and the worst team of my lifetime. Why the discrepancy in time frames? Well, I chose this decade for World Series winners because the double-aughts have provided a nice variety of teams that should make for some compelling research. Also, it keeps me from having to choose the 1998 Yankees by default.

Likewise, every year features some bad teams, but truly, truly awful teams (the 1996 and 2003 Tigers, the 1988 Orioles, and, potentially, the 2009 Nationals) are a wonder to behold. Unlike World Series winners, they don't happen every year. Granted, I haven't been watching baseball my whole life, but going with my lifetime gives me a fairly arbitrary cutoff date that still lets me frame it in some context relevant to me. And really, given that this is my blog and my readership is about 4, that's all that matters.

So, get ready in the upcoming week for some long dissertations on greatness and futility.

Fall of a giant

Everyone who follows sports possesses a handful memories that they particularly cherish. Perhaps they are shared by millions of fellow fans, but you still cling to them like a glorious, vis-a-vis meeting with a hero. I have my own. At the very top of the list is David Ortiz's performance in the 2004 ALCS. Even after almost five years of hindsight, his performance amazes. There were many astonishing performances by Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS, but it was Big Papi who won game 4 and gave us a taste of survival. It was Papi who breathed life back into game 5 after the Yankees rallied to take the lead, and it was Papi again who ended that marathon with a simple two-out, bloop single. And in Game 7, he delivered the first blow, with a first inning shot that gave the Red Sox an early lead they would not relinquish.

Now watch him, a crumbling, sad figure on the field. He cannot seem to catch up to a fastball for the life of him. As of this writing, he's hitting .203. His slugging percentage is a mind-boggling .293, 254 points below his career average. Of course, the potential explanations fly about like sand in the Santa Ana winds (SoCal reference, sorry). Is it psychological? An injury? Has he hit a thirty-something wall? Is it (God forbid) a post PED crash?

Right now, I honestly don't care. Others can speculate until they are content. I, however, continue to rue the sad reality that Big Papi is Big Papi no more, or certainly not how we remember. Other players have rebounded from disastrous seasons to productivity before. Hell, I was pretty sure that Andruw Jones was done after posting a terrifyingly tiny 34 OPS+ last season. This year he has posted a .447 OBP... granted, in just 83 PA, but still, it's miles more than Papi has shown this season.

Regardless, I guess this entire post can be summed up as a sad ramble about my favorite former power hitter. Watching him strike out twice and ground out feebly tonight, my memories of his great feats of the past seem paradoxically more distant and yet visible.

Get well soon, Jerry.

While I started this blog with the intention of avoiding short blurbs, I want to wish Jerry Remy a swift recovery from his lung cancer surgery. He underwent surgery last year and has taken indefinite leave to fully recover.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2009/05/remy_taking_ind.html

Lazy+sick+other responsibilities= copout post

I need to finish an article I'm writing for the Torch. I'm battling a cold. I haven't updated in a week. Here's something I wrote after the Sox' game 5 comeback in last year's ALCS that I posted on a whim of Facebook. Hopefully, you haven't read it yet:

It's Saturday and I'm putting off a weekend of homework. Time for some thoughts about baseball, before tonight's big Game 6.

I'm a talkative person. Scratch that. I'm a regular motormouth. I work on it, I swear I do. I'm much more interested in conversation than I am in hearing myself speak. But I am what I am. My mind moves a mile a minute. I often have blamed my awful handwriting on the notion that my mind is moving faster than my limbs. Math has often given me the same problem: I can understand the concepts without issue, but when actually doing the problems I'm prone to skipping too far ahead and missing minute details. Other interests of mine reflect this tendency. I read more poetry and short stories than novels. When I sing, it's all I can do to keep three years of training and technique in mind once I step on stage.

I'm thinking about all this for a simple reason: I'm a crazed baseball fanatic. I've lived and breathed baseball for the better part of the last 13 years. Even after witnessing the Red Sox win two World Series, I still take baseball as seriously as I did from day one. How on earth does a game that is so deliberate have such a grip on me?

Baseball is often dismissed as a boring game. I defy anyone who watched the Red Sox come back to beat the Rays from 7-0 down on Thursday night/Friday morning to say such a thing. Baseball is pastoral, yes, but like a Flannery O'Connor story it can turn brutal, exciting, and frightening in moments. No other game builds drama so effectively. It's the polar opposite of instant gratification. The wait between each pitch, which can seem interminable to some, becomes Michael Myers slowly walking towards you in "Halloween". The walk to load the bases in the ninth in a tie game gives me the same feeling I got at the first sighting of the Misfit's car in "A Good Man is Hard to Find": looming dread, and the feeling that doom is inevitable, even if the story isn't over. The walkoff hit, or the game ending strikeout, are pure exhilaration after unbearable buildup... and I can't even think of a simile. Any literature reference would have to be compared to baseball in that regard. Baseball demands attention and pays great rewards to those who can wait.

Many writers before me have spoken of the poetic nature of the game, almost in Wordsworthian terms. Please. I've never been a sepia-toned baseball fan. Memories are great and vital, but I'm more for the moment and the tension. Baseball is poetry, but it's more "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" than "Tintern Abbey".

What line better sums up game 5's comeback better than "Though wise men at their end know dark is right/ because their words had forked no lightning they/ do not go gentle into that good night"? And in moments of heartbreak, such as the 2003 ALCS, few poetic lines better describe my feelings than "And you my father, there on the sad height/ curse, bless me now with your fierce tears I pray." My dad had been through the devastation of '86, my grandfather had '46, and now I had had my moment.

I got the same feeling watching Pedro Martinez in his prime pitch that I do when I read the ending of "The Dead", or listen to "The Tracks of My Tears". None of these things are related in tone or content. What binds them? Listen to Smokey Robinson launch into his falsetto, or watch a clip of Pedro tossing an inhuman changeup. The way the snow in Joyce's story falls through the universe, covering all the living and the dead, such feelings towards different mediums bind them.

Anyway, I'd long promised never to write a George Will-style dissertation on the glories of baseball as something more than a game. In the end, baseball is just a game. It happens to be one that appeals to me on levels that go beyond a need for distraction.

-note: I'm not speaking ill of Wordsworth. He's easily one of my favorite poets.