Finally

The Crystal Ball

Finally, it's time. The silliness in Japan has been concluded. The off-site exhibition games are done. MLB Extra Innings has been ordered. Tonight, the Washington Nationals unveil their new ballpark vs. the Braves. Real baseball tonight. I am so happy I can almost forget that I'll have to listen to Bozo (Joe Morgan) and Balloon-Head (John Miller) for three hours.

And it's time for confident, well-reasoned, fearless predictions. Set them out there like stately Titanics and hope they dodge all those icebergs. Hope and gullibility spring eternal at this time of year. Here we go:

AL East: The idiots on ESPN are gushing over how much better Toronto and Tampa are going to be this season . . . ummmm, no. It's Boston and New York. It's close, but I'll give Boston (the New Evil Empire) the division. Can Baltimore win 65 games this year? Congress wants to investigate something, they should look into Peter Angelos' destruction of a once-great franchise.

AL Central: There's reasons to devalue the chances of every team in this division. I honestly think everyone but KC has a shot here. An awful lot went right for Cleveland last year. Detroit should score a ton of runs, but you never know for sure. Plus their bullpen is putrid/hurt and they have questions in the rotation. The White Sox can't hit as poorly as last year (probably). The Twins are going to be OK without Santana. Cleveland I guess wins it.

AL West: The Mariners are the off-season darlings, having added Bedard. Well, not so fast. Can anyone really know what Felix Hernandez will do this year? Will they really have a better offense? The Angels looked odds-on before the Escobar and Lackey injuries. Texas and Oakland look to be pretty horrible. Angels win.

AL Wild Card: Your New York Yankees. I actually kind of like the team going in. My gut feeling is that the two kids will pitch well enough, the bullpen might actually be a plus for the first time in years, and the offense should be fine, provided Jumpin' Jacks Girardi doesn't go nuts with the bunting and "small ball" (ewwwwwwwww). Assuming Wang has a more or less typical year, a lot is riding on the health/effectiveness of Mussina and Pettitte. I think it will work out OK.

NL East: Mets potentially have an offense composed of three extremely good players and a bunch of nothing around them, particularly if Delgado isn't effective and Alou is hurt (gasp! what? he's hurt already?) Everyone seems to be assuming that Pedro is going to just slide right back into dominant form after basically not pitching for two years. Ummm, yeah. Mike Pelfry or 71-year-old El Duque in the rotation. 'Nuff said. Two bad teams in the division, but two good ones too. Atlanta, Philly, and the Mets fighting it out. Braves.

NL Central: I must love baseball if I'm even covering this division. Cubs in a more or less putrid field. Brewers will challenge them, some.

NL West: They say four teams have a shot here. That's another way of saying no one team is that good. Arizona is the chalk pick. I have a feeling they won't win it. Colorado won't -- last year was not a year, but a great streak at the right time. Joe "The Fire Eater" Torre doesn't help LA quite enough. San Diego wins.

NL Wild Card: Phillies.

ALCS: Yankees over Boston.
NLCS: Braves over Cubs.
World Series: Yankees over Braves. Same as it ever was.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Thankfully.

Play Ball!!!!!!!

iris Is Wise; Pitching . . . Bench . . .

No Writer's Strike Here!

I was away from the PC . . . when I came back, iris had left Me the following instant messages:

--Not sure if you saw this, but
--Jose Vizcaino has a bad elbow, is getting an MRI on it
--The image on the MRI is going to show Joe Torre waving for the bullpen

I love that girl . . .


And another from the iris file . . .

We were watching a game last Sunday and Jason Lane was playing. "Who's this guy?" iris said. I didn't know -- teams always have 157 guys at spring training. I looked him up and saw that Jason Lane is not a high average hitter. OK, must have some power. Hmmm . . . nope. All righty then, he's got speed! Checking . . . checking . . . nope, no speed. As I'm checking all this, Lane makes a throw in from the outfield to home plate. Not in time. Hm, so let's get this straight:

--No average
--No power
--No speed
--No arm

Wow! The very rare zero-tool player!

Problem is, Lane is going nuts during this game. In the space of half an hour or so he hits a home run and a triple.

At that moment iris nails it.

"i know who he is . . . he's this year's Josh Phelps!"

And it dawns on Me.

Yep. Josh Phelps . . . the guy who comes to spring training, hits the tar out of the ball, and makes the team over better players who unfortunately didn't have as good a spring. Of course once the season starts he totally sucks, thus messing up the bench for half a season.

Thankfully Lane has cooled off some. Morgan Ensberg, however, might still turn out to be this year's Josh Phelps.


Speaking of the Bench . . .

According to John Sterling on the Yankees' radiocast today, the Yankees for some ridiculous reason are going to carry twelve pitchers. To Me that shows a total lack of trust in the bullpen, but OK, they don't have too many off-days in April, so twelve pitchers it is.

That leaves 13 position players. So let's see . . .

Damon Melky Abreu across the outfield. Matsui DH. Giambi, Cano Jeter, A-Rod, Posada, Molina. That's ten.

Benemit. Duncan. And . . . ?

According to Suzyn Waldman, the decision on that 13th guy depends on how well Benemit can play shortstop. If Benemit can play SS acceptably, then most likely lucky #13 will be an outfielder (Jason "Zero Tool" Lane, anyone?). If not, then that thirteenth position player will have to be someone who can handle SS. (Alberto Gonzalez?)

To me that doesn't make so much sense, since we already have two guys, Matsui and Duncan, who can play the outfield. I think the 25th guy should be a speed/bunter/pinch-runner type who can fill in at SS if need be. I don't fancy the pinch-running stylings of Duncan, Benemit, or Gonzalez.


I can't stop thinking about it. Twelve Pitchers?

Sorry, but I need to work out this twelve pitchers thing. Do we even have twelve pitchers we really want to keep around?

Pettite, Mussina, Wang, Hughes, Kennedy.

Mariano, Joba, Farnsworth, Hawkins. There's nine.

Karstens is the long man? Ten.

So, pick any two:

Bruney, Britton, Ramirez, Henn, Ohlendorf, Veras, Albaladejo, Igawa, Chase Wright (note that if you don't pick Wright or Igawa or Henn there's no lefty in the pen, if that matters to you)

From that list I like Britton and Ohlendorf. Now that Torre is gone perhaps Britton will get a semblance of a legit shot at showing what he can do. To carry eleven pitchers, I pick between Britton and Ohlendorf, based on the spring.

The real issue is the existence of Farnsworth and Hawkins on this roster. Without these two dead weights, you could have Britton and Ohlendorf and a lefty and you have eleven pitchers instead of a bloated twelve.


Center Field Update.

Melky was 1-2 today, raising his average this spring to .417. The combined average of all the other center fielders is about .062. End of update.

Hatin' on the Melkster . . . A Sad Sad Tale

He's Young, And He Can Play! Quick! Trade Him!

Weird noises emanating from Girardi and Cashman about Melky Cabrera. Cashman talking up Austin Jackson, Jose Tabata, Brett Gardner, and I think the beer vendor as center field prospects. Girardi, making the assertion that "the best thing for young players is competition" in response to a question about Melky being the center fielder. (Manager Joe's statement is correct -- about 50% of the time.) Girardi also suggested (and he was sober, as far as anyone knows) that Damon could play center and Matsui could play left.

I don't get the organizational obsession with making Melky prove and re-prove himself.

--In 2006, Melky was a huge reason that the season didn't go down in flames after the Sheffield and Matsui injuries.
--Last year, he singlehandedly fixed the outfield issues, allowing Damon to move to left, where he looked a lot better than he was looking in center, and allowing Matsui (whose defense seems to have deserted him all at once) take over as DH.
--Melky was basically winning Game 2 of the ALDS all by himself until The Attack of the Flies.
--Melky brings an energy that this team badly needs. Torre's inability to see that and thus not play Melky in the 2006 ALDS should have been the final straw and gotten Torre fired after that season.
--Is there some law against the Yankees having a few young players worth rooting for?
--Or some law against having great arms in the outfield?

Hopefully Cashman and Gerardi's comments were just a ham-handed attempt to fire Melky up and not reflective of an organizational desire to get rid of him. But the ferocity with which the Yankees have tried to trade Melky for just about anyone, from basically the moment he showed he could play, tells Me otherwise.

Can't wait to see which 37 year old .500 starter we trade Melky for in July. Enjoy Kansas City or Milwaukee or San Diego or wherever the hell you end up, Melky.

Season Three Looms: Third Time's The Charm?

2008 will be the third season for this blog, and this time, I really (really) want to make it through the entire season. 2006, I stopped posting in May; 2007, I made it until August.

So the trend at least is promising.

We ARE Having An Actual Baseball Season, Yes?

I pose that question because it seems that all the "experts" are pretty much crowning the Red Sox as repeat champions. (Except for one baseball analyst on ESPN who predicted an Indians-Cubs World Series -- I am praying whatever he is on is legal so that I can try some.)

The "logic" of the Boston Repeat Prognosticators is basically "they're bringing everyone back." Gosh, that's brilliant analysis -- no wonder these guys make the big bucks.

Here is the official list of Boston Questions for 2008.

1. Starting pitching. It's not a given that Beckett will have another career year. Beckett is 77-52 for his career, 25 games over .500. 13 of those 25 came last year when he was 20-7. A repeat performance is by no means certain.

Everyone seems to be convinced that Dice-K will have a better year in 2008. For all the hoopla, Matsuzaka was 15-12, 4,40, on the World Champions last year. He might improve significantly this year, but while he's more familiar with the League, the League is also more familiar with him.

Clay Buckholz had better be the real deal. With Schilling most likely not a factor this season, and Wakefield being what he is, a .500 innings-eater, the Red Sox need Buckholz and Lester to be very good. They might be. But only in the fevered dreams of ESPN Sox-whores is it a given.

Theo didn't take a flyer on Bartolo Calzone (thanks, bostondirtdogs.com) as a humanitarian gesture.

2. Manny will be Manny but will he be good? Was last year just a blip, or the beginning of Manny Ramirez starting to run down? He may bounce back strongly this year, or he may be slowing down, and who knows -- perhaps even the seemingly unflappable Manny might press a bit, knowing the $20 million option is dangling out there?

3. Pedroia and Youklis. They must continue where they left off. If they don't, a sound strategy will be to simply let Ortiz and Manny hit as many solo HRs as they like. At some point AL pitchers are going to realize that Youkliis is a .280 hitter, meaning he makes an out 72% of the time he puts the ball in play, and will stop pitching to him like he's Babe Ruth on HGH.

4. Ellsbury is going to live up to the hype? He very well might . . . his first 116 at-bats were great (sans power, but he did hit .353) . . . but he's not going to be a .353 career hitter.

5. Did Papelbon's shoulder miraculously revert to a state of perfection and no one is saying? The whole motivation behind the now apparently shelved idea of making Papelbon a starter was to (supposedly) put less stress on his shoulder. Did that suddenly stop being a concern? Just wondering, especially because . . .

6. Okajima faltered badly down the stretch last year, clearly overused. He may respond to that better this year, or like many middle relievers, he may follow a good year with a crummy one.

That's the Boston Questions for 2008, going in. I don't intend to imply that the Yankees don't have a bunch of questoins, too . . . certainly they do, and Boston should be the favorite to win the division again, but it is worth remembering that a baseball season rarely goes as predicted.


Stuff I Hear Every Off-Season That Never Ends Up Being True

"Toronto is a lot better this year"
"Tampa is going to surprise some people"
"The Mets finally matter again"
"The Brewers are ready to break out"
"The Indians are taking the next step"
"The Cubs finally have all the pieces in place"

Uh huh.