Dropped Third Strike

Is that a trademark? Hope not. Don’t want to get sued. Or maybe we do — heck lawsuits equal publicity, and that’s a good thing right? (Wrong). Anyway, to the point. It being almost all-star break time, and us not having anything better to do, we’re going to go ahead and give our midseason predictions. (Well, theoretically we could analyze the Harden/C.C. deals, but a) that’s been done by better and smarter folks than us, and b) it would involve some actual thought and analysis of numbers — and as you may have noticed from our frequent vacations, we’re fairly lazy). Our predictions on the other hand, are based on anecdotal evidence, hearsay, drunken arguments, drug-induced hallucinations, and a dash of good old fashioned intuition and gut feeling. Watch as we predict (with remarkable inaccuracy) the winners of each division, the wild card teams for each league, and the two MVPs and Cy Young award winners, as well as the two Rooks of the Year.

Let’s start with the American League shall we.

Division Winners

• East: R*d S*x
• Central: White Sox
• West: Angels

Wild Card: Yankees (Yeah, yeah we know we predicted the Rays would stick to their winning ways, but come on, you’re asking us to actually write down Tampa Bay as a play off team. We just can’t do that.)

MVP: Josh Hamilton (This is tricky because Hamilton’s Rangers aren’t going to end up going anywhere, but his gaudy numbers and his drugged-out-loser-turns-superstar-slugger story will be too tempting for the voters to pass up. Kevin Youkilis deserves a good long look, and A-Rod will always be up there. Depending on what happens in the A.L. East, either one of these two could take it). 

Cy Young: Cliff Lee (Another ridiculously tricky one. Joe Saunders or Ervin Santana could each end up deserving it. As could Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina, Jon Lester and John Danks. We ruled out Saunders because of his low K totals, Santana because of his tendency toward inconsistency, Mussina because he’s too gosh darned old and likely to hit the DL for a couple weeks, Lester because his ERA will probably rise just a little too high, and Danks because he remains a relative unknown. Halladay’s numbers probably make the strongest argument, but Lee’s winning percentage is so good, and he also has the comeback-story factor working for him.

Rookie of the Year: Joba Chamberlain/Evan Longoria. This one will be decided by the division race. If the Rays stay strong, it goes to E-Long, if they fade and the Yankees surge, Jobs will take it.

And now the National League.

Division Winners:

• East: Mets
• Central: Cubs
• West: D-Backs

Wild Card: Brewers (Dodgers come close.)

MVP: Who the heck knows? None of the top 12 guys in OPS in the National League play for a team that we see going to the playoffs. This leaves an odd situation. Either the MVP comes from an irrelevant team, or someone really undeserving is going to win it. Ultimately we think it’s Chipper Jones’s to lose. If he gets (and stays) healthy and keeps his average ridiculously high then he’ll win it. If Jonesy and Hamilton win the MVP awards we’re going to see a whole bunch of articles discussing the meaning of “most valuable.”

Cy Young: Johan Santan (Could also go to Tim Lincecum, Edinson Volquez, Dan Haren, Cole Hamels, and Ben Sheets. We pick Johan because of his tendency to improve in the second half [the end of last season notwithstanding] and because we see the Mets surging at the end of the season, with Santana leading the way, which will stick in voters minds.

Rookie of the Year: Geovany Soto (Does he qualify as a rookie. We believe so. We hope so.)

And there you have it. If you don’t like our predictions, well then you’re not getting a Christmas card from us this year.

This is a new section in DTS in which we bounce around, linking to and discussing the stories that interest us.

Ken Rosenthal weighs in on Manny Ramirez. Rosenthal notes that the man Ramirez shoved to the ground is 64 years old, more than a decade older than Ed Wade, Shawn Chacon’s victim. In light of that we lower his 1-Clemens rating to the full 8.5 that Chacon received. 

Rosenthal also thinks the D-Backs should target David DeJesus or Melky Cabrera to get a left-handed bat in their outfield. Hard to say what the Snakes would send back to the Bronx or K.C. but expect New York sports radio programs to get plenty of calls from Yankees’ fans clamoring for a Melky for Max Scherzer deal.

Brett Myers joins the Rich Hill club of formerly quality starters who struggle so mightily their clubs are forced to banish them to the minors. Phils’ GM Pat Gillick described Myers’ woes as “mechanical problems,” but we wonder if it’s deeper than that. Myers has bounced from the rotation to the ‘pen, and has had some off the field issues — maybe the is a case of a pitcher and a man lacking a firm identity, and lacking the focus that comes with that.

Reputable baseball news source, Us Weekly, reports that A-Rod is rumored to be having some kind of fling with 50 year old pop star Madonna. Sure, maybe it’s a sexual thing, but we think she’s just teaching him to dance.

Shyster points us to a piece in which it is revealed that Torii Hunter showed his paycheck to a recent Angels draftee to “motivate him.” Um, is “paycheck” some kind of euphemism? Otherwise what’s the deal here? Isn’t the fact that Hunter makes the proverbial “big bucks” kind of common knowledge? Was this kid flabbergasted when he saw the paycheck? Was he stunned to learn that Torii Hunter makes $16.5 million a year? If Hunter had really wanted to impress this kid maybe he should have shown him his career numbers and said “look kid, you can make this kind of money without ever really being that good just as long as you get a reputation for working hard and being a good guy. Now go get me a sandwich and bark like a dog and I’ll throw you a fifty.” 

Well it seems we’d better wrap it up already. (See what we did there? That’s the title of this post! Isn’t that clever?)