Root For Whom?

Sports are a funny thing. Think about this scenario: I love the Oakland A’s, Matt loves the Yankees, and Owen loves the Red Sox, and I assume it’s been this way for most of our lives. This has nothing to do with who’s on the teams, and everything to do with where we were born, perhaps also which team our parents or friends were rooting for when we were younger.

What do the 2007 Oakland A’s of Jack Cust and Chad Gaudin have to do with the first team I clearly remember rooting for, the 1988 A’s of Jose Canseco and Dave Stewart? Well, nothing except for their wearing similar looking uniforms and playing in that same concrete fishbowl known as the Oakland Coliseum – though the stadium doesn’t even look that much like it used to, and changed its official name from the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to the McAfee Coliseum.

When the season began, I didn’t know that J.J. Furmaniak, Jack Hannahan and Andrew Brown would be staples of the A’s roster come September, but I committed myself to rooting for them anyway, and they will be my team again in 2008, no matter who is on the roster.

This isn’t so in other areas. Say you like a certain band, but they put out a record you don’t like. You simply won’t listen to it. Same goes for a favorite actor or director, whose movie you won’t see if it doesn’t look good. You don’t root for your two senators simply because they represent your state; you pick and choose which senators you like and which ones you criticize.

In sports, we love our teams, no matter who is on them. Think about it, if your favorite team completely swapped rosters with another team, whom would you root for? Sure we criticize decisions made by the GM, coaches and owners, and we have players that we don’t like quite as much. But we’re expected to practice uncritical, blind devotion.

So I will continue to root for the A’s in September, especially Mark Ellis, Marco Scutaro, Shannon Stewart, Nick Swisher, and Mike Piazza – the only five position players who were on the active roster both opening day and today, and most of whom won’t be around next April.

Hughes v. Beckett

Man, I have been CRAZY busy lately. Once you start slagging off on the blog, it’s hard to pick it back up again.

Anyway, thought this was kind of neat: a side-by-side comparison of 21-year-old Hughes and 21-year-old Beckett, after their first seven starts in the big leagues. The runs allowed are off of course – and that’s partly because the Yankee bullpen has allowed a few inherited runners to score – but otherwise, the hits, walks, strikeouts, OBP against, etc are pretty similar.

If Hughes is this similar to Beckett, then maybe Brian Cashman should start saving up on blister pads? HA!

Hanley Ramirez for MVP

I have to say, I'm totally blown away by Hanley Ramirez this year: so much so that I think he's the most deserving candidate for MVP in the National League (especially since Utley went down...).

As of this weekend, he's hitting .340 with a .393 OBP, and slugging .578 (over 20 home runs) from the shortstop position. Plus throw in nearly 40 steals. He's second in the NL in Runs Created, behind teammate Miggy Cabrera, and he's among the leaders in Win Shares and a slew of other stats.

That means he's among the best offensive players in the league, period - and that means he's the best offensive shortstop in the game right now (with apologies to Reyes, Rollins and Jeter).

The only knock against him is his defense, which for a shortstop is a serious one. According to the more reliable defensive stats like Defensive Win Shares and Revised Zone Rating, he lags WAY behind most regular shortstops in the majors, and is a solidly below-average defender at present. But he is so much better than every other shortstop offensively - including Reyes, who everyone seems to want to canonize - that I believe it makes up for his defensive shortcomings.

Ultimately, he's my pick not only because of his dominance at the plate, but because he's doing it as a shortstop. That's why he's leading everybody in Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) - because it's so hard to find a shortstop who can do what he's doing.

In my post a month ago I didn't even mention Hanley. I think a part of that was based on my belief that he was going to fade; but as his production has kept up, it's become clear that he doesn't just deserve a mention in the debate, but he deserves to be at the top.

#@#$!!ing Yankees

I thought this was pretty funny (apologies for the swearing). Especially the way it ends.

Petco?

Here’s a line written by Roger Angell, one of the great baseball writers of all time, published in the New Yorker, the beacon of fact-checking:

Bonds’s record dinger, in the fifth inning of a night game against the Washington Nationals at Petco Park, in San Francisco…

Ouch. That stadium in SF has been called a lot of things in its eight years, but never Petco Park.

Spoiler Alert

If the A’s aren’t in the playoff race next month, they could still be the outsider team with the biggest influence on who’s playing in October and who isn’t. Starting August 31, the A’s play the Angles 6 times, Seattle 6 times, Cleveland 3 times, Detroit 3 times, Boston 2 times, and 7 meaningless games against Texas. All I’m saying is, if the A’s are hot, good news for that team from the Bronx.

In other A’s news, this table was printed in the SF Chronicle today to compare Jack Cust’s stats to other DH-types:

Player-AB-HR-RBI

Gary Sheffield, Tigers 408-24-71
Jack Cust, A's 260-20-63
David Ortiz, Red Sox 402-19-71
Travis Hafner, Indians 395-18-70
Frank Thomas, Blue Jays 383-18-69
Jim Thome, White Sox 295-18-59
Sammy Sosa, Rangers 345-16-72
Raul Ibañez, Mariners 406-11-74

That’s right, he’s second in homers, sixth in RBI (nine off of the lead), and close to the top in average, OBP and OPS. Cust was acquired in May, so has a month less playing time than most of those guys. If only he could hit with some consistency.

In a word...crap.

Eric Gagne has a 15.75 ERA since joining Boston. His junk is rubbing off on the rest of the bullpen, whose ERA has jumped from 2.73 to 4.44 according to ESPN. Two blown games against Baltimore and New York is only four games back.

Meanwhile, this Joba kid on the Yankees is really good, and Rivera is pitching more like himself.

Still there is room to hope: Boston has three more games left at Tampa Bay than NY does; Beckett’s blisters abrasions have yet to appear, and he has a ridiculous 1.59 ERA on the road; and Clay “Chosen One” Buchholz is (probably) going to pitch Friday.

Prediction: Sox still win East (by three games or less) after benching Gange and finally letting Paplebon pitch two innings when necessary. Yanks lose out by half a game to Seattle for the Wildcard.

Productivity vs. MLB.tv

One of the greatest things about living on the West Coast is the delay. Life happens three hours sooner here. Growing up on the East Coast, watching baseball (any sport in general, really) was an afternoon event. But here I have begun to experience something kind of wonderful and completely destructive to my productivity…morning baseball. Combined with the magic of MLB.tv, and you’ve got a recipe for months of lost work time.

The early games, those that start as early as 12:35 pm on the East Coast, start at 9:35 am here…at the beginning of the work day. The latest Boston home game will start by 5:00 pm here and most start at 4:05, thus destroying the last hour of productivity for me. Take into account the pre- and post-game reports, and you’ve easily killed a third of the day.

It’s only going to get worse. Take next Friday for example; Angels v. Red Sox doubleheader from Fenway (Game 1 10:05 am, Game 2 4:05 pm). Probable match-ups would be Beckett – Lackey and Schilling – Weaver, though rumor has it that the BoSox might be calling up Clay Buchholz for that series if Lester’s ERA continues to balloon. So, in other words, my day is baseball. I’ll probably wander down to a bar afterwards to watch Seattle drub on Chicago and take first place in the West.

God help me when football starts.

Send Me Your Good Juju

I'm in St. Louis again until Monday (hopefully this will be the last trip), and my fingers are firmly crossed that I'll be able to sneak away for a game. The Cardinals are playing the Dodgers this weekend, and I've got my eye on that Friday night game...but, we'll see what happens. Think happy thoughts for me, maybe a week from now I'll be writing up my trip to Busch Stadium.

The only time I saw the Cards in person was in 2003 in the Bronx. It was actually one of the most memorable games I've seen: the Yankees won 13-4 in a game broken up by rain delays, and Giambi hit two home runs, but the biggest cheers were for a player on the opposing team: Tino Martinez.

Tino had joined the Cardinals in 2002, after six years as a fan favorite with the Yankees, and was making his first visit to Yankee Stadium since then. He was given a hero's welcome, with fans holding up signs saying "Welcome Home Tino" and roaring when his name was announced during the starting lineups. The crowd similarly roared when Tino homered in his first at-bat, in the 2nd inning.

After that, it was actually a semi-dull game. The Yankees were up 10-2 after the third inning and 13-2 by the ninth, powered by home runs from Giambi, Raul Mondesi, and Ruben Sierra. Tino came up with a man on in the top of the ninth, and with the crowd cheering him on, he pulled another home run to right. Well, the crowd exploded, giving him a standing O as he rounded the bases. And once again, Tino Martinez received a curtain call at Yankee Stadium.

Still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Unsung Heroes

One of my favorite players in baseball over the past five seasons has been Mark Ellis, the quietly superb second baseman for the A’s. It all started in October 2002, the last game of his rookie season.

In game five of the ALDS against Minnesota that year, with the A’s trailing 5-1 in the bottom of the ninth, Ellis hit a three-run homer to pull within a run. The A’s failed to score again, and so what could have been a hugely clutch moment was pretty much forgotten, but I’ve always had a great amount of respect for Ellis since.

Like I said, he entered the majors with Oakland in 2002, played 98 games, and provided solid defense and offense for a second baseman. He even received a few rookie of the year nods

In 2003, Ellis’ offensive production declined, but playing a full season at second, his glove work shined. Then during spring training 2004, he collided with Bobby Crosby and tore a muscle in his right (throwing) shoulder.

There was a chance he would never play again, but after sitting out the whole season, he came back in 2005 and hit .316, showed a bit more power than in the past, and even improved on defense. He’s as good as anyone I’ve seen at going deep into the hole between second and first to grab groundballs.

He followed the comeback year by setting the fielding percentage record for AL second basemen in 2006. He committed two errors all season, though the gold glove award went to a more popular player, Mark Grudzielanek.

Yesterday he set the Oakland record for consecutive games at second without an error, with 71. He has committed four errors this season.

Ellis is a genuinely sweet, hard-working middle infielder, the kind of guy that you see in an interview and it’s no surprise that he hails from South Dakota (he’s the all time HR leader from the state). Next year is his option year, when the A’s can pay him $5 million or let him walk. If he walks, I will be more upset than when Miguel Tejada left.

So does anybody else have favorite players who fly relatively below the radar?

Lookee Lookee

To quote Biff Tannen, "Well lookee what we have here." It's only August 5, and already the Yankees are going to end the day, at worst, a game back in the Wild Card race. That's the good stuff right there.

Not only that, but they have an outside shot at to become the 2nd team in 50 years to score 1,000 runs (after the 1999 Indians). Currently they're on pace for 963, but that includes the dreadful slumps that Abreu, Cano and even Matsui have been in this year.

I don't expect them to actually reach 1,000 runs - a lot of this big scoring has been against god-awful pitching of late - but the fact it's not a completely ludicrous notion is pretty awesome, considering the craptacular way they started.

Speaking of Cleveland, I noticed they played another 1-0 ballgame with Carmona on the hill (lost this time, though). What a year he's having for a youngster, eh? I don't think they expect him to do this forever - he wasn't a super-touted prospect as far as I know, and he doesn't seem to strike out enough guys to be perennially dominant - but it's nice to see that all the same.