 19
to 21…
Well, yes, that’s how long people have been trying to pick
pennant races.
Volume 7, #8, April 3, 2009
Worth a Dime?
Pretty much ever since the baseball annual guide was invented,
prognosticators have been prognosticating on the upcoming season.
The first such guide came out in 1860, and was edited by none other
than the Father of Baseball, Henry Chadwick. The title, “Beadle’s
Dime Base-Ball Player: A Compendium of the Game” has sometimes
been misconstrued. Father Chadwick was NOT suggesting that baseball
players were worth a dime, rather, 10 cents is how much the 40-page
(plus cover) book cost.
While time has certainly changed both the value of baseball guides
and baseball players, it hasn’t changed the value of pre-season
prognostications. The fact is that, far too often, they’re
not worth the paper they’re printed on… or whatever
the cost of the cyberspace they appear in. In short, they’re
not worth a dime. That was as true before the 1860 season as it
was before the 2008 season, when anyone seriously suggesting that
the Phillies would win the World Series would probably have been
carted off to the booby hatch. This just isn’t that easy a
game to accurately predict – there are too many variables,
starting with the fragility and uncertainty of pitching, and running
through injuries, luck, pheenoms, and the like.
Thus, we can say that, to his everlasting credit, Chadwick may
well have done his readers a favor by NOT picking the winner of
the 1860 whip pennant in Beadle’s Dime Player, an honor that
was theoretically awarded after the season by the National Association
of Base Ball Players. The NABBP had what now seems like a highly
arcane way of determining its champion – basically, the previous
year’s titlist was considered to have held on to its crown
as long as it wasn’t defeated in a home-and-home series by
another club. Thus, since the Brooklyn Atlantics held the pennant
in 1859, and were not beaten in a home-and-home series in 1860 (they
went 12-2-2 overall), they retained their title for 1860.
Presently, we are not so wise as Chadwick, although the method
of determining a champion does make a little more sense than it
did 149 years ago. Thus, here is yet another set of predictions
for the 2009 season, with the codicil that, unlike Chadwick’s
first guide, they probably aren’t worth a dime… even
trying to be as vague as possible.
Starting with the most interesting divisions… both the National
League and the American League East figure to be two-team dogfights
this year. In the AL, the Red Sox and the Yankees will once again
go to war, with various other innocent bystanders, i.e., the Rays,
Jays and Oy Veys (aka Orioles) providing cannon fodder for the battle.
And while the Yankees have impressively re-armed after last year’s
third place finish, the feeling is that C.C. Sabathia can’t
carry the starting pitching burden by himself (‘cause you
know A.J. Burnett is going to get hurt at some point) and Mark Teixeira
can’t carry the offense by himself. You see, the Yankees’
dirty little secret is that, once you get past A-Rod (and who knows
how soon he’ll be effective when he comes back from hip surgery),
Nick Swisher (a mystifying pick-up from the White Sox, who gave
him away) and Xavier Nady, most of the offense (except Teixeira)
is aging (Damon, Posada, Matsui) and/or overrated (Jeter, Matsui
again). And, in a similar fashion, much of the front line pitching
is either old (Rivera, Pettitte) and/or overrated (Wang, Burnett,
Pettitte again). Even without Curt Schilling and Manny Ramirez,
the Red Sox aren’t overmatched in this war.
But, the Rays are. A lot of people, some of whom should know better,
have been picking the Rays to continue their 2008 success in 2009.
However, if you know baseball history, if you’ll go back and
read chapter 37 of “The Breaks Even Out and Midnight Comes
Quickly for Cinderella” (shameless plug for my new book),
if you just stop and consider the makeup of the Tampa Bay team –
it’s not going to happen. To briefly recap the basic argument…
the only, the only true Cinderella team in baseball history that
didn’t turn back into a pumpkin were the Atlanta Braves, circa
1992. Every other team that came out of nowhere to reach the World
Series, regressed towards the mean very quickly. Bill James has
called it the Plexiglas Principle, and the Rays are going to hit
a Plexiglas ceiling this year. Even with the addition of Pat Burrell,
it’s not an offense that’ll scare good pitching and
the pitching is far too dependent on young pitchers. With an ace
(Scott Kazmir) that walks too many and has command issues, and a
closer starting the season on the DL (Jason Isringhausen –
and he hasn’t been all that hot recently even when he’s
healthy), the Rays are headed for third place.
Over in the NL East, the Phillies and the Mets have as little love
for each other as do the Red Sox and the Yankees. And it should
be just as close a race. The Phillies essentially stood pat with
their 2008 World Series Champion (let us pause for a minute to revel
in that phrase……………………………………………………………)
team, with their only changes being a new fifth starter and trading
out Burrell for Raul Ibanez (a wash at best… exchanging Burrell’s
power and on base percentage for Ibanez’ average, consistency
and slightly better defense). As for the returnees, it says here
a huge factor in the race will be Brett Myers. If the good Brett
Myers shows up for a large majority of his starts, they’ll
look pretty good. If the Brett Myers who went back to the minors
last year shows up, they’ll look pretty bad.
In either case, standing pat is a risky strategy, since, in present
day baseball, standing pat is likely to be the same as losing ground.
Unless maybe you’re going up against the Mets.
(Rumor has it that, if they get off to a bad start, former Met
great Bobby Pfeil will be brought in to manage and the team’s
name will be changed, in the great tradition of the Cleveland Naps,
to the New York Pfeil Pfolders.) While they have addressed their
biggest weakness – the back end of the bullpen – the
Mess (as Bill Chuck likes to call them) didn’t address the
front end of their bullpen, nor the fact that exactly half of their
offense (Carloses Delgado and Beltran) is aging and seemingly on
the downside of their careers. If the two Carloses don’t produce
at a high level, and if one or more of their starters behind Johan
Santana (who still hasn’t changed his evil ways) break down
(Maine) or blow up (Perez, Hernandez), the Mets may not get a chance
to fold in September this year.
If you live within listening or reading distance of Atlanta, you
know that all that’s been said about the upcoming Braves team
is the usual boosterism… aka, the Braves are going to be great
again in 2009. Get a grip, people. This is a team that lost 90 games
last year. A team that finished 20 games behind the Phillies (let
us pause for a minute to revel in that phrase……………………………………………………),
a team that had exactly two good hitters, and one reliable starting
pitcher. To put it bluntly, they stunk in 2008. Yes, the rotation
has been rebuilt, and Derek Lowe is a good starter (as long as he
doesn’t get his sinker up – note what happened in the
2008 NLCS). But all Javier Vasquez does is bring innings to the
table, Jair Jurrgens is still in just his second year, Tom Glavine
can’t, at the moment, break a pane of glass with his “fast”
ball, and their other starter (Kamikazee? Kawasaki?) has yet to
throw a pitch in an official major league game. Plus, the bullpen
is practically all made up of refugees from a MASH unit and the
offense is still “McCann and Jones and Then Pick the Bones.”
They’ll battle the Marlins for third place… which is
still an improvement… they were more than a dozen games behind
Florida last year.
Returning to the American League, the West can be quickly dismissed
as irrelevant and obvious. Even with half of their rotation in drydock,
the Angels (with Bobby Abreu added to the offense) are still easily
the class of the division. Anyone (and there have been a few of
these misguided souls also) who thinks the A’s can contend
with a mediocre miscellaneous pitching staff (their only good and
experienced pitcher – Justin Duchscherer -- having just undergone
elbow surgery) is crazy, and should probably be sent to the booby
hatch.
The AL Central is much more interesting, with three flawed though
potentially good teams (White Sox, Twins, Indians) lining up for
the pennant run and the team everyone thought would be the best
– the Tigers – trying to figure out where they went
wrong. It’s hard to say what happened, but 2009 doesn’t
look much better in Detroit, not with Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle
Willis (an anxiety disorder diagnosed by a blood test – someone
isn’t telling the truth) and Joel Zumaya on the DL, leaving
Justin Verlander as their only front-line pitcher. Speaking of pitchers,
the Twins’ rotation is in even worse shape, possibly through
divine retribution for having given Santana (who still hasn’t
changed his evil ways) away to the Mets. With Joe Mauer and Justin
Morneau having back problems, the way seems open for the Indians
to move up from third to first. At least everyone of importance
except Jake Westbrook is healthy. As for the Sox of White, they’ve
already showed the white flag (i.e., they must be building for the
future – that makes more sense than any other explanation)
by giving away Swisher and Vazquez for virtually nothing. (The Royals?
No way. No top talent outside of Zach Greinke.)
Whereas the AL Central looks like a three-team scramble among three
fairly evenly matched teams, the NL Central is a walkover. The Cubs
would seem to have the best team in the National League –
certainly the best pitching – despite their interest in Milton
Bradley. The only question here is, how will they implode in the
postseason this time? In other words, who’ll be the goat?
The rest of the division can be quickly dismissed… the Brewers
don’t have the pitching, the Reds are too young and unproven,
Albert Pujols should sue for non-support, and the Astros are run
by Ed Wade. And that concludes the major league teams in the NL
Central.
Just as there have been a slew of wrong-headed predictions about
the Rays, A’s and Royals, so too have the prognosticators
been falling all over themselves in praising the Dodgers. BULLETIN:
Manny can only bat once each time through the lineup. And the rest
of the offense is just a bunch of nice, complimentary, basically
unscary hitters, as was illustrated in last year’s NLCS by
the soon-to-be World Series Champion Phillies (let us pause for
a long minute to revel in that phrase…………………………………………………………………………………………).
Yes, the Bums’ pitching MIGHT be pretty good, but, like England
after World War I, there’s an entire generation missing…
the Dodgers hurlers are all either very young (Kershaw, Broxton,
Billingsley) or old and decrepit (Schmidt, Milton). Still, they’ll
certainly win the weak, weak NL West, but that’s about the
extent of their success. It’s a shame the Giants, with their
fabulous starting pitching, didn’t make a pre-emptive strike
and sign Manny away from their long term arch enemies. It would
have made for a good two-team race in the West, and would have stirred
up yet another saga in the Dodger/Giant rivalry. As it is, the G’ints
don’t have the offense to contend, and the other three teams
don’t have enough to be mentioned.
Thus concludes yet another attempt at prognostication. Maybe Henry
Chadwick did have it right… don’t commit to anything,
and certainly not the post season. Having seen inexplicable happenings
of various sorts in the last four post season tourneys, it should
seem obvious that trying to predict that far out is folly. Ask me
in another six months…
-- John Shiffert
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