Tuesday, July 13, 2004
E.K. Nation Mid-Season Analysis Extravanganza Party Gala
Back in April, the wizards at E.K. Nation picked teams such as the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Houston Astros to win their divisions in Major League Baseball, and the Toronto Blue Jays to be the A.L. wild card. Shows how much we know here. Arizona is the worst team in all of baseball. Toronto is ten games under. These two picks admittedly were shots in the dark, as each season has at least a couple of surprises.
The only two reasons I picked Arizona to win it were that they seemed to be a solid young team, with a veteran pitching ace in Randy Johnson, and that I couldn't decide between San Francisco, San Diego or Los Angeles.
The real surprise is the failure of the Houston Astros to be any better than fifth in the N.L. Central. The pitching rotation of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Wade Miller and Roy Oswalt et al., while beset by minor injuries, hasn't done much to put the Astros above .500--they're at 44-44, ten-and-a-half games behind St. Louis for first. I felt that this rotation was just as good if not better than that of the Chicago Cubs, but the Cubs are still three-and-a-half games better despite being hit with an even bigger injury bug this year.
However, a closer look at the wild-card standings reveals that Houston isn't as bad off in its attempt to fulfill the E.K. Nation prediction of National League champion: They're only four-and-a-half games back in the wild-card standings.
Then again, an even closer look at the wild-card race shows eight teams ahead of the Astros--and this doesn't count the division leaders. Yes, it's not horrible to be four-and-a-half games back in a race. It is, however, horrible to be in ninth place during any baseball race.
What We've Gotten Right (Or Close To Right, For The Most Part): Our pick to win it all, the Yankees, is clearly the class of Major League Baseball. And they will follow through and prove us to be right.
We were also right in thinking the Angels would bounce back and be much better than they were in the World-Series-follow-up season of 2003. Our projected NLCS loser, Philadelphia, has rebounded from a slow start to stand in first at the Break. Our N.L. wild-card pick, the Cubs, is one game behind the Giants. And our pick to win the A.L. Central, the White Sox, is indeed in first, albeit by a half-game over the Twins.
Postseason Hardware Possibilities: We didn't make any picks for player awards, but here's who we'd go with for the first half:
For the N.L. Cy Young, starter-wise, it's almost a toss-up between four guys with nearly-identical stats: Jason Schmidt, Ben Sheets, Roger Clemens and Carlos Zambrano. Sheets has much fewer walks than the others and a lower ERA, so a slight edge goes to him statistically. However, Schmidt is simply dominating right now, and we think he's poised to continue to dominate. Then again, we can't forget about Eric Gagne, who's been virtually unhittable again in his relief role, or the shocking 0.98 ERA of Armando Benitez, who is second in saves (30) to Danny Graves. All things being equal, which they are not, we'd go Eric Gagne so far.
We think the relievers have the goods in the A.L.: From the 0.99 ERA of Mariano Rivera to the 1.17 ERA of former Giant Joe Nathan ("I'm a little verklempt! Talk amongst yourselves!") to the superb set-up/closer combined effort of Frankie Rodriguez (17 holds, 7 saves, 1.34 ERA and 71 K's in 47 IPs). We'll go with Rodriguez, but we can see the future and it contains Johan Santana of the Twins going absolutely insane.
The MVP of the National League is Barry Bonds. (Come to think of it, let's also give him the Cy Young Award.) We'll take Manny Ramirez by a nose over Vladimir Guerrero for A.L. MVP so far.
The only two reasons I picked Arizona to win it were that they seemed to be a solid young team, with a veteran pitching ace in Randy Johnson, and that I couldn't decide between San Francisco, San Diego or Los Angeles.
The real surprise is the failure of the Houston Astros to be any better than fifth in the N.L. Central. The pitching rotation of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Wade Miller and Roy Oswalt et al., while beset by minor injuries, hasn't done much to put the Astros above .500--they're at 44-44, ten-and-a-half games behind St. Louis for first. I felt that this rotation was just as good if not better than that of the Chicago Cubs, but the Cubs are still three-and-a-half games better despite being hit with an even bigger injury bug this year.
However, a closer look at the wild-card standings reveals that Houston isn't as bad off in its attempt to fulfill the E.K. Nation prediction of National League champion: They're only four-and-a-half games back in the wild-card standings.
Then again, an even closer look at the wild-card race shows eight teams ahead of the Astros--and this doesn't count the division leaders. Yes, it's not horrible to be four-and-a-half games back in a race. It is, however, horrible to be in ninth place during any baseball race.
What We've Gotten Right (Or Close To Right, For The Most Part): Our pick to win it all, the Yankees, is clearly the class of Major League Baseball. And they will follow through and prove us to be right.
We were also right in thinking the Angels would bounce back and be much better than they were in the World-Series-follow-up season of 2003. Our projected NLCS loser, Philadelphia, has rebounded from a slow start to stand in first at the Break. Our N.L. wild-card pick, the Cubs, is one game behind the Giants. And our pick to win the A.L. Central, the White Sox, is indeed in first, albeit by a half-game over the Twins.
Postseason Hardware Possibilities: We didn't make any picks for player awards, but here's who we'd go with for the first half:
For the N.L. Cy Young, starter-wise, it's almost a toss-up between four guys with nearly-identical stats: Jason Schmidt, Ben Sheets, Roger Clemens and Carlos Zambrano. Sheets has much fewer walks than the others and a lower ERA, so a slight edge goes to him statistically. However, Schmidt is simply dominating right now, and we think he's poised to continue to dominate. Then again, we can't forget about Eric Gagne, who's been virtually unhittable again in his relief role, or the shocking 0.98 ERA of Armando Benitez, who is second in saves (30) to Danny Graves. All things being equal, which they are not, we'd go Eric Gagne so far.
We think the relievers have the goods in the A.L.: From the 0.99 ERA of Mariano Rivera to the 1.17 ERA of former Giant Joe Nathan ("I'm a little verklempt! Talk amongst yourselves!") to the superb set-up/closer combined effort of Frankie Rodriguez (17 holds, 7 saves, 1.34 ERA and 71 K's in 47 IPs). We'll go with Rodriguez, but we can see the future and it contains Johan Santana of the Twins going absolutely insane.
The MVP of the National League is Barry Bonds. (Come to think of it, let's also give him the Cy Young Award.) We'll take Manny Ramirez by a nose over Vladimir Guerrero for A.L. MVP so far.
