September 2008
Postseason Divisional Series
Now is the time of year that everyone makes their bold playoff predictions. Who will be a bust? Who will be the Cinderella team? Who will win it all?
The first series will be the Twins/White Sox vs. the Rays. I don’t think it matters who wins in the Twins/White Sox playoff, the Rays are going to win this series. Scott Kazmir and the defense are excellent. The Rays don’t have a tremendous offense but they do have home field advantage and will win this series.
The Red Sox and the Angels I feel is the best series by far. I think this will go 5 games and will have Franky Rodriguez shut the door in the ninth to clinch the series. Don’t get me wrong Bo Sox fans, the Red Sox are an excellent team. The Angels however are better. With the addition of Teixeira the Angels became the best team in all of baseball. Boston will not go down without a fight, but the Angels will prevail.
Next up is the Brew Crew and the Phillies. I am almost positive that C.C. Sabathia will completely overwhelm the Phillies offense and get at least 2 victories in the series. I think this will go at least 4 games. But in the end the Brewers have C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets. Oh and don’t forget about that Prince Fielder guy, he isn’t bad either. Brewers take the series in at least 4 games.
The final division series is the Cubs and the Dodgers. I think of this as more of a warm up series for the Cubs. Even with Manny Ramirez, the Dodgers are not very good. They have some pitching. Ok, I lied. They don’t have any. The Cubs happen to have 2 aces. Ryan Dempster is their third guy. He would be the second one on almost any other team. The Cubs have way to much pitching and way to much offense. I’m calling the sweep, 3 games and out for the Dodgers.
Chipper finally wins the batting title.
The final day of the season sealed Chipper’s quest for his first batting title. Jones beat out Albert Pujols by 7 points. Not bad for someone who was considered by many to be “washed up”. How are you Chipper haters feeling now? That .364 average proves you wrong.
Sure, he may not win the MVP. But Mr. Pujols sure will. But what about Ryan Howard? Well the answer is no. Ryan Howard does not in anyway deserve the MVP award. You may think “but he has 48 home runs and 146 runs batted in.” So what. You left out the fact that he struck out 199 times.
With a little math you can quickly find that Ryan Howard strikes out 33% of the time. Simply put, that sucks. With some more math you can find that he drives in a run in 23% of his at bats and hits a home run in 7% of his at bats. I truly do not believe that he deserves the MVP award.
The most valuable player should not strike out that many times. Let’s go back to Albert Pujols for a second. Pujols struck out 54 times this year. That is not a miss type. 54 times. With some more of the before mentioned math you can figure out that he strikes out only 10% of the time. Sounds pretty darn good to me. Another nice little stat is how he walked 104 times. That is almost 2 walks for every strikeout. Is Ryan Howard still your MVP?
If my memory serves me well, this is the second year in a row that only 2 players walked more times then struck out. Correct me if I’m wrong. The other player happens to be Chipper Jones. Who has struck out 61 times opposed to 90 walks.
The overall point of this to say that it does not matter how many home runs you hit or how many runs you bat in. If you strike out almost 200 times you are hurting your team. The other point is to give Chipper the credit he deserves. Good job Chip, you deserve it.
Braves end season with a loss, what’s new?
Is it just me, or are the other Braves fans scratching their heads
wondering what the heck happened? Atlanta went from a solid team to an
injury destroyed joke in about a month. I came into the season having
high hopes. Philly is overrated every year while the Mets will collapse
before they can clinch anything. Atlanta had a wide open shot at the NL
East title. Look what happened.
I will be the first to defend
a Braves player to the death. But, in all honesty, they brought the
suck this year. Injuries mutilated the pitching staff and may have cost
Chipper a shot at the MVP. Jo-Jo Reyes threw any ability he had last
year away and didn’t tell anyone. By the way, thanks a lot Jo-Jo. I
liked you, but you killed the Braves this year more than the Phillies.
Maybe you should request a trade to the Royals, thay are used to losing
over there.
Not only did the Braves suck this year, I was
reminded of it constantly. It seemed everytime I looked at the tv the
ESPN bottom line ticker reminded me they lost. It didn’t help that my
ESPN mobile updates told me how much they were losing by after the 3rd,
6th, and 9th inning.
Next year looks good though. Atlanta
happens to be loaded while C.C Sabathia will be a free agent. Chaces
are the Yankees will come up with 600 trillion more dollars to sign him
and the rest of the free agent market, while everyone else gets 40 year
old, washed up vets who need a walker to get to their car and an oxygen
mask between innings. Oh well, whats new?
Hopefully Atlanta will
get someone of value in the off season to add to the rotation. I hear
rumors of Jon Garland. Eh, not bad but I want C.C.. If it takes all 40
million they have to spend I don’t care. The man is an absolute beast.
Since being traded it is unfair that he is able to take the mound. The
opposing team should just lay their bats down because there is a better
chance of him throwing a wild pitch and it hitting the bat than there
is of anyone getting a hit off of him.
Salary Cap? Who needs a salary cap?
Baseball, that’s who. I am tired of my favorite team riding in the back of the financial bus. What happened to athletic equality. The most talented teams are supposed to win, not the richest. Baseball has gone from a game of talent to a game of money. Please Bud, do something. If you won’t do something, then we need someone else who will.
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