Yes, it is only Sept 14th and there is a lot of baseball to go but if Mike and Mike on ESPNRadio can do MVP, Cy Young and Wild Card updates *everyday* then we can do it too! My picks as of today (subject to revision of course!):
AL MVP: Arod (yes Ortiz is a beast, but Arod has been playing good defense this year. If Ortiz has a few more dramatic HR and they take the division with the NYY missing the playoffs then *maybe* you can make the case for Ortiz)
AL CY: Colon by default (has there been a crappier overall year for CY candidates in the AL??)
Manager of the Year: Wedge
AL East: Sox
AL Central: Sox
AL West: Angels
AL WC: Indians
AL Pennant: Indians (I kind of dismissed them last week, but every day they are really making me more and more of a believer. They have been incredible in the second half and they are going to roll into the playoffs having serious momentum (not unlike the Sox of last year).
NL MVP: Pujols (he has to win one of them right?)
NL CY: Carpenter (With Willis 2 and Rog 3)
Manager Of the Year: Cox
NL East: ATL
NL Central: Cards
NL West: Padres
NL WC: Marlins
NL Pennant: Marlins
Yup a repeat of the 97 WS! And I think the Marlins will win it again. If they actually do win it they would have 3 WS in the last 9 years - sickening.
Oh and I am officially panicking with the AL East lead down to 2.5 (2 in the AILC). If last year had never happened I'd probably be calling in sick to work right now with the horror of the Sox choking another one away. Those last three games at Fenway will be very important...
7 comments:
Its tough to argue the AL, but the turning point will be tonight's Indians-A's matchup. If the Indians win, they will probably get the wild card. If not, then it will be a four team dog fight to the end. And remember that the A's-Angels still have 6 games left, with us getting Crosby and Harden back next week. These two guys are the core of our team and if they can get back in time for the Angels series, look out.
Cy Young Discussion: I see that you are a big fan of baseball tonight since you are using wins to gauge the winner. In the AL, you have Santana and Millwood putting up better numbers than Colon, with wins being the only thing missing. Wins are very meaningless in my opinion since it has to do more with the ability of the offense to score runs, the bullpen, and defense.
When comparing the AL top pitchers of Garland, Buerhle, Colon, Santana, and Millwood, Colon is no where close to the leader in Ks, WHIP, ERA, and complete games. The only time he leads the AL is in Wins. I bet you don't really know how good of a year that Santana and Millwood are having. They are not Roger or Carpenter like, but they are probably the 3rd and 4th best pitchers in the league behind these two.
Now, lets talk about the NL CY. I think Willis is out of the top two, with the battle going between Roger and Carpenter. Aaron Gleeman writes a great article about this on Hardball Times.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/winning-and-losing/
Anyway, Roger is having a record setting year with his ERA, with it being 38% below Carpenter's ERA and having the 3rd best since Gibson's 1.12 back in 1968. Also, Aaron points out that he is doing this in a band box of a stadium at the age of 43. With this being said, you still can't dismiss what Carpenter has done. He is beating out Roger in K's while still posting a respectable ERA of 2.36, and I know the writers will be attracted to his win total. When you put Willis up to these two, he just looks very average.
SO PLEASE STOP DRINKING THE JOHN KRUK COOL-AID LOOK A LITTLE DEEPER IN THE NUMBERS INSTEAD OF WINS.
I ask you to *predict* who will win the Cy Young and I get some blabber about Kevin Millwood? You said it yourself, the writers/voters always overvalue Wins but I am aksing who will win, not "who is undervalued?", or "who is having a better year than you think?" or "who is the best under 500 pitcher this season?".
As far as NL Cy goes Roger hasn't been as brilliant the last few outings as his ERA creeps up slightly, so I don't expect him to end up with a sub 1.75 ERA. Willis continues to be nearly as good as Carpenter, and if Willis has say 23 or 24 wins to Clemens 12 I think he will slide into second place. Again the point was predicting.
SO PLEASE STOP DRINKING AND READ THE ORIGINAL POST!!
Santana and Roger should win the CY. If we were predicting on what the media should go with, probably Carpenter and Colon. Is that better Jay?
The rant was based off of your comment on the AL CY on if there has been a crappier overall year for CYs. I have to assume that you were saying that since there is only 1 guy that has a high win total without an embarassing ERA or K total. I don't believe that this year is all that bad. Would really like to know why you think this is such a bad year?
PLEASE LEARN TO SPELL KOOL-AID CORRECTLY.
KOOL-AID MAN DESERVES BETTER.
Oh yeah! (* blasts thru walls *)
anyway, about the predictions, I am truly afraid to say anything about the AL. I do not want to gooch anything at this point.
I can see the Indians making the playoffs and doing well.
I can see the Indians making the playoffs and getting swept
I can see the Indians not making the playoffs.
I can see the Indians going 12-4 over their final 16
I can see the Indians going 4-12 over their final 16.
I have no idea what to expect. I believe this is the first true pennant race for Cleveland since 1948.
Man, I'm glad we are done with the A's. They are a dangerous team with good pitching, good bullpen, and good hitters sprinkled throughout their lineup. Good luck to them over their final games.
Yes, the main point I was trying to do with a thread called "MLB Predictions" was get everyone's predictions - ie who would win the awards, pennants,etc. Sorry if that was unclear.
I think it is kind of a crappy year partly because nobody has really dominated. Even as nice of a year as Santana is having, he is nowhere near as good as he was last year when he was Pedro-In-99-ish. Plus a lot of the big name pitchers who you would have expected to be in the mix aren't having great years by their standards for injury reasons. Guys like Halladay, Schilling, Johnson, etc. Garland and Buerhle have both tailed off badly from their hot starts so aren't putting up big overall numbers (as they were projected in the 1st half.
As far as wins go, I agree they are overrated when trying to evaluate a pitchers overall effectiveness or dominance. But, the writers always value wins very highly in Cy Young voting (see Welch v Clemens and Zito v Pedro).
Back to the larger point about wins in general - I don't think you can totally dismiss wins either. My viewpoint on wins has been changed a little as I've followed Pedro's career from 98 to 05. A big reason he was struggling to get more wins the past three years or so was because he wasn't pitching as deep into games as he was previously. Thus, you are putting a heavier reliance on your team to get wins because *at least* two pitchers besides you have to do their job well for you to win (if you leave in the 7th with a lead - setup guy and the closer have to do their job). In his early years he would almost always get into the eigth inning and once in awhile the ninth. You are closing the margin for team error when your individual performance is so strong and dominant (not relying as much on other pitchers on the staff). Thats not to say you won't lose CG 1-0 (as he did a few times) and just because you didn't get a 'W' means you pitched poorly. But I think when looking at pitchers performance on a contending team, wins can't be totally overlooked.
Let's predict the NL:
Braves, Cards, Pads
WC: boy oh boy. I say Marlins.
Playoffs:
Cards in 4 over Fla
Braves in 4 over SD
Cards in 6 over Braves
MVP: How can it not be Andruw Jones?
Cy Young? Tough one. I say it will be Carpenter, because he is the #1 starter on the #1 team.
Manager: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Who is Milwaukee's Manager? Ned Yost? Probably that's the best choice. Maybe Frnak Robinson will get some votes.
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