State of the Game

Which one of these names looks out of place atop the AL Home Run leaderboard Alex Rodriguez, Justin Morneau, Carlos Pena, Gary Sheffield and Paul Konerko. I'd say Carlos Pena's name looks pretty strange up there. Pena was released flat out last season by the Red Sox who now must be kicking themselves. I remember when Pena was drafted out of Northeaatern the Red Sox appeared to interested in keeping their hometown boy in a Red Sox uniform but the Texas Rangers got him first. Pena was then flipped to Oakland and then finally Detroit in the Jeff Weaver deal that sent Weaver to the Yankees. Pena, who is flashly with the first basemen's mitt, has always had a fatal flaw: strikeouts. In 1466 at bats with the Tigers Pena struck out 442 times. He also wasn't particulary adapt at getting on base. But he could always hit with power. The Tigers released him in 2005 and he was picked up by the Red Sox and sent to Pawtucket. The Red Sox had in the bigs for 33 at bats in 2006 and then let him walk after the season. This year he's exploded and hit .279/.389/.589 with 26 HR's putting up .978 OPS. It's been his ability to get on base to the tune of .389 that has improved his value this year making the strikeouts irrelevent. He'll soon be cashing in on those numbers. It's rare to say....but good job Tampa Bay.

Lots of surprise about Bud Selig's reaction to Barry Bonds tieing Hank Aaron's home run crown. I don't understand why? He did nothing. He just stood there and watched and did nothing. Why is that surprising. Selig has well documented history of standing there and watching and doing nothing. That's exactly would he did throughout the steriod era. Nothing. But seriously if you're not going to talk to Bonds or recognize Bonds' acheivement why even go?

Numbers. Lots of talk about how 755 used to stand for something and now because of Bonds that number loses it relevance. I disagree. People still knew Babe Ruth hit 714 after Hank Aaron broke the record. People still knew Willie Mays hit 660 and that number still means something. What I think people aren't getting that numbers are a reflection on the greatness of the acheivement. 755 will continue to be a bench mark for greatness. Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941 and that number is tied to him. Would that be diminished if some guy hit .407? I don't think so.

Is it just me or has there been a baseball wide power outage this season? At least for anyone not playing third base for the Yankees? We're into August and only one player in the AL has 30 home runs. That hasn't happened for quite some time. At least the NL has three. Beats me.

With Tom Glavine winning his 300th game the other night there's been alot of questioning of if we'll ever see another 300 game winner. Most pundits have been saying no. With five man rotations, late inning specialization and with the money being thrown at pitchers today they won't have the drive to stay in the game if they're rich. I disagree. Today except for the war years there are more forty year olds playing in the major leagues then at any other time. Careers are getting longer not shorter. Great players have a drive to compete. That drive doesn't always go away. Take Clemens for example. Now I know this guy is the greatest pitcher of my lifetime so he's an extreme example. Last time I looked hewas already rich before accepted his 20 million from the Yankees. I'm also guessing that the majority of Clemens games have been won in the five man rotation. And the specialization has been going on for years. Pitching adjusts. I imagine that every ten years or so there must a varient of these conversations especially among older players saying the kids can't do it the way we could. But take Phillip Hughes and Clay buckholtz as examples extremely young pitchers coming up to very good teams with the means to keep them and still compete for years to come. It will happen.

What's going to happen to the Cubs with Soriano out for a month? I think there's actually a bigger question is how are the Brewers going to play. If they continue to tank it the Cubs will be fine. The Brewers are a young team getting their first sniff of a pennant race so some sdjustment time is to be expected. The problem is they don't have their rock to lean on with Ben Sheets being out. The Cubs on the other hand have Derek Lee smoking the ball after falling prey to the power outage earlier this year along with Aramis Ramirez the Cubs should be ok. They luckily still have their rock in Carlos Zambrano. Along Ted Lilly the Cubs have a good one-two punch and with a bullpen that's not blowing leads every night they should be OK.

Speaking of Milwaukee how about that Ryan Braun the Brewers 23 year old third basemen? The kid flat out rakes he's hitting .346/.388/.669 and in just 266 at bats he already has 21 HRs and 54 RBI. I know most of the talk im Milwaukee has been about first basemen Prince Fielder but if the Brewers make the playoffs this kid should MVP and Rookie of the Year joining Frd Lynn and Ichiro as the only players to do that.


Lots of thoughts today


As far as the AL Rookie of the Year running it's simply a choice between members of the Red Sox. Will it be the Red Sox second basemen Dustin Pedroia who rebounded from an early season slump to put up a statline of .320/.396/.435. In most years that would be more then enough to win. But there is also rookie relief pitcher Hideki Okajima who came out of nowhere to give the Red Sox the best bullpen in baseball. How good has Hideki been? In 50 games Okajima is 2-0 with 4 saves and an ERA of 1.00 and he's averging 7.33 K's per nine innings. Not to mention a whip of 0.81. If it was any other team he'd probably be the closer. On the Red Sox he's currently number three on Boston's late inning depth chart Many called him the Red Sox first half MVP. So it's him then right? Nope it will be the Red Sox other Japanese import, Dice-K. So far he's 13-8 with an ERA of 3.70 and among the league leaders with 152 K's. Dice-K has been good but I think one of the two other players be chosen. Playing professionally in Japan for seven years before coming to the U.S. Dice-K isn't a really a rookie. Saying that his professional experience in Japan doesn't count against their rookie status is absurd. Earning a few million in Japan before coming over makes the rookie experience easier I would imagine. Knowing that you could go back to the Japanese League and make a decent living would relax me even moreso. If I were Dice-K i'd step aside so the voting would focus on my two teammates. I mean Dice-K has been outstanding so far but that was hardly unexpected. If anything he hasn't dominated the way he was supposed to. Most media (ESPECIALLY ME) Thought he come over and change baseball. He can throw deeper into games then anyone else in baseball and I figured with being on the Red Sox he could possibly lead the league in wins and complete games. Okajima came out of nowhere and has just been a relevation. So he should be rookie of the year, right? Not exactly. Okajima has the same problem as Dice-K, years of experience in Japan so cross him off. Pedroia is an actual rookie. If he couldn't cut it he'd of been off the team. That's a rookie. And he overcame a terrible slump to battle back and set him up as one of the better young second basemen in the league. He's also a recent example of the Red Sox reliance on statisical evalution of their prospects. Much like Kevin Youkilis Pedroia is the major leagues for one reason. His abilty to get on base. His minor league OBP was .392. Feeling that that is baseball's most important stat the Red Sox took a chance. It's paid off.




Phillip Hughes scares me.

It doesn't scare me that the Pythagorean Theorem (The theory is that in baseball, the greater the run differential while maintaining low scores is, the more likely a team is to win. Runs scored/(Runs scored x 1.83) + (Runs againest x 1.83) = winning percentage.) has the Yankees and Red Sox having winning percentages
RS^2
Winning Pct = WPct = ------------
RS^2 + RA^2


Red Sox 576 444
Yankees 665 514

........is tied at .564. Doesn't scare me in the least........actually it terrifies me. Just keep telling yourself that their pitching isn't deep enough.