TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Sunday, October 03, 2004

End of the Year Hardware, Revisited

Sunday night on the last day of the season, and that's time to dust off my pre-season predictions, update them, and compare them to the reality as we know it.

Here's a recap of my pre-season predictions:

Red Sox (Yankees 2nd, Wild Card)
Royals (Twins 2nd)
Angels

Phillies (Braves 3rd)
Cubs (Astros 2nd, Wild Card)
Padres (Dodgers 2nd)

Red Sox over Angels in LCS
Astros over Cubs in LCS

Red Sox over Astros in 7 in WS

AL MVP: Vlad
AL Cy: Curt Schilling
AL ROY: "none of the above"

NL MVP: Albert Pujols
NY Cy: Roy Oswalt
NY ROY: Aaron Miles

OK, so I was really, really wrong with the Royals. Other than that, not bad.

So, what are my guesses for the post-season NOW?

The Twins will take the Yankees in four -- two Santana wins and a Radke win on the road.

Boston will beat Anaheim in four. The hidden weapon of Bronson Arroyo will combine with Curt Schilling to beat the depleted Angels, who won't quite be able to make it to their 7th-8th-9th-inning dominators with a lead.

Boston will beat the Twins in a hotly-contested seven-game LCS. With the rotations slightly off, the Twins may have a hard time making the most of their home-field advantage.

In the NL, Houston will easily beat the Braves in four games, as the fraudulent Braves rotation finally catches up with it and Clemens and Roy Oswalt continue their dominance of September.

St. Louis will have a hard time with the Dodgers but will win in five in historic slugfests. The St. Louis bullpen, however, will be run down in the process.

The Astros will shock everybody by beating St. Louis in the LCS in seven games. Garner's run and gun game will stymie the St. Louis team, and the weak St. Louis defense up the middle will prove to be the team's achilles heel.

And finally, in the World Series, I see a relatively easy Boston victory -- let's say six games just to be craven -- as the team's offensive depth and dominant 1-2 starting punch overcomes the finally-exhausted Roger Clemens. Jeff Bagwell will make a crucial error while the crowd at Fenway yells "Larry Anderson! Larry Anderson!" in the final game six.

Here's my picks for post-season hardware -- my ballot -- and predictions.

AL MVP

My pick - Mariano Rivera. Who will win: Vlad Guerrero.

Guerrero had a clutch 2-run homer in the division-deciding game Saturday, and that's usually what sends players over the edge. It's not just that Manny Ramirez wasn't possibly even the most valuable guy on his team -- I'd rate Curt Schilling and Johnny Damon ahead of him in terms of value to a winning way -- it's more like Manny had just another year like he usually has. So did Vlad, come to think of it, but it was a stellar year.

I find my ballot this year stuffed with a couple of starting pitchers - Curt Schilling and Johan Santana. "Most Valuable" of course isn't quite like Cy Young, which we award to the best pitching performance. I give Schilling extra marks for the way he commanded both the clubhouse and the fans in a way almost unique in modern baseball. And Santana simply made the Twins from an adequate ball club ito one that can contend.

But I picked Mariano Rivera because -- where on the earth would the Yanks be without him this year? Their pen was shaky, their rotation a shambles, the offense on again, off-again. The Yankees came from behind in half their wins this year. They blew two games in the eighth all year, though, both to the Red Sox.

My complete ballot of AL Most Valuable Player:

1. Mariano Rivera
2. Johnny Damon
3. Johan Santana
4. Vlad Guerrero
5. Curt Schilling
6. Gary Sheffield
7. Manny Ramirez
8. Travis Hafner
9. Mark Texeira
10. Melvin Mora

Additional comments:

As I've been agitating the last part of the year, I think Johnny Damon was the true sparkplug for the Red Sox, and everything that happened in that lineup that year was because the alpha and omega was, quite literally, Damon, who could get on, steal, and hit with power while playing very good defense. But his unique contribution to the success of his club was not nearly as unique as Rivera's.

Remember when the Yankees were about to sign Vlad Guerrero, but Steinbrenner intervened and insisted on Gary Sheffield instead? Sheffield was not only the Yankees' offensive leader, he was virtually the only player consistently good all year. He had "just another" typical Sheff year, like Vlad, but in terms of personality was far better a fit than the retiring Guerrero would have been in the Bronx.

Travis Hafner had a HUGE year this year -- he was second in OPS behind Manny Ramirez! The Cleveland team's brief flirtation with contention was in part due to CC Sabathia and Jake Westbrook (especially the latter), but Hafner's bat made the lineup from a pesky one into a dangerous one.

Similarly, Mark Texeira really broke out as had been predicted since the day he was drafted, and elevated Texas' lineup into a near-contender.

Finally, Melvin Mora had a terrific year, finishing fifth in OPS, batting .340, taking lots of extra bases, and in general keeping the Orioles respectable. The O's never did get close to contention this year -- too many pitching problems -- but without Mora they'd be cellar dwellers.


NL MVP

My pick: Barry Bonds. Who will win: Barry Bonds.

My pre-season pick, Albert Pujols, will probably finish second, since his fellow Cardinal candidates Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds both missed stretches of time.

You simply can't make much of an argument against Barry. He kept his team in the race until the middle of the day on the last day of the season, and only Jason Schmidt of the same Giants provided as single-handed a contribution to a weak team.

My complete ballot:

1. Barry Bonds
2. Jason Schmidt
3. Carlos Beltran
4. Brad Lidge
5. Adrian Beltre
6. Eric Gagne
7. Albert Pujols
8. Scott Rolen
9. Roger Clemens
10. Carlos Zambrano
11. JD Drew

Additional Comments:

OK, this is another weird ballot. Five pitchers? It's because key pitching performances were the most important part of several teams' success. Schmidt, as mentioned above, was uniquely the only good pitcher on a team that nearly went into the playoffs. He played hurt, he went deep in the game, he came back on the last day of the season and pitched a gem. As much as Barry was a force unto himself in about 80% of the games his team played, Schmidt was about 50% of the pitching staff for SF this year.

I put Carlos Beltran in at number three, because the trade of Beltran coincided with the Astros' big comeback. Of course, it was closely followed by the firing of Jimy Williams and the hiring of Old School Phil Garner, who loves to run, and he set Beltran loose at the number 2 hole. Beltran smacked the ball around, he tracked down balls all over that huge center field at Enron/Minute Maid, and he stole third nearly as often as he stole second, coming to within a whisker of a 40/40 year combined between KC and Houston. It's hard not to think he made Biggio and Bagwell, batting on either side of him, that much better.

Brad Lidge was another mid-season promotee, promoted to closer from set-up man after the Astros traded Dotel to get Beltran. Lidge struck out a remarkable 153 batters, and went more than one inning for his saves a half dozen times. Dotel wasn't that dominant, nor even was Billy Wagner in his Houston heyday, not even to mention his Philly Phlop.

Adrian Beltre's breakout year saw him finish fifth in the league in OPS, playing every day in one of the more extreme pitcher's parks. He had virtually no strength around him in the lineup, unlike the Cardinalas and Astros (such as Lance Berkman, regrettably forced off my ballot by circumstance). He played outstanding defense that would be gold glove were it not for Scott Rolen's presence in the lineup in St. Louis.

As with the Giants and Bonds, it's hard to imagine the Dodgers lasting into October without Beltre, but it's even harder to imagine the Dodgers without Eric Gagne. Sure, he blew a couple of saves finally. But he also stepped it up when Guillermo Mota was traded and Darren Dreifort was hurt and Wilson Alvarez switched back into the rotation, and covered multiple-inning saves for the first time in two years. He may now be paying the price with shoulder wear and tear -- I only hope he isn't about to go the way of Bobby Thigpen -- but in sending the Dodgers to the playoffs, he has to be considered nearly as valuable to his team overall as Beltre.

Now my great favorite, Albert Pujols. Superlatives have been spread all over about Pujols, and overall he not only had the second-best offensive year in the league after Bonds, he played really great first base. But with all that help around him in the St. Louis lineup, it's difficult to point to him -- or any Cardinal -- as being truly an irreplaceable most-valuable player.

I put Rolen slightly behind Pujols in part because he benefitted from Pujols in front and Edmonds behind him, and in part because he missed a number of games down the stretch to injury (admittedly having no bearing on his team's success by that point). His defense remains historically great, and he had a career year, but it's hard to rank him among the league leaders when you lok at his company.

Clemems presence in Houston galvanized the community, the fan base, and the club. His steadfastness held the team afloat, and his September was incredible. He nearly got the start on the last day of the season, but for a case of stomach flu, and if he'd won the deciding game that might've rocketed up a notch or three, to coin a phrase. Roy Oswalt was pretty good, too, so Clemens was not nearly as important as Schmidt was to the Giants. But as with Curt Schilling on the Red Sox, the winning, championship attitude, despite the fact he rarely traveled with the club, seemed to be contagious.

Carlos Zambrano makes a surprise appearance at number ten on my list. Yes, the Cubs didn't make it. That was due to a variety of problems, not the least of which was lack of execution by the starting staff. But Zambrano was the exception. Cubs fans will probably stew over his wretched final start in the crucial last week o fhte season, but Carlos still managed to finish fourth in the league in ERA, pitched over 200 innings, and was a genuine stopper for a team often adrift.

Finally, I added an 11th guy to substitute for any of the pitchers above for those who might think I put too many pitchers on this list. JD Drew, traded in the off-season to the Braves, remarkably managed a whole year without some injury. He held down right field, finished eighth in OPS, and like the guy he replaced -- Gary Sheffield -- managed to be the only consistent hitter on a club that had as many problems as stars in its lineup. The Braves would be nowhere without Drew this year (albeit in a division full of nowhere teams this year).

AL Cy Young

My pick: Johan Santana. Who will win: Santana.

My ballot:

1. Santana
2. Curt Schilling
3. Mariano Rivera
4. Jake Westbrook
5. Joe Nathan

Man, I hate having two closers on this list, but there were all sorts of deficiencies with some of the usual candidates (e.g. Pedro Martinez), and Joe Nathan made the cut since this is about performance, not necessarily team value.

Santana's the no-brainer: lead the league in ERA, Stirkeouts, and just one behind in Wins. Schilling, as outlined above, was pretty valuable to his team, but his 228 innings were pretty dominant. Still, to put Santana's year into proper perspective, Schilling's ERA was 2/3 a run per appearance worse than Santana's. Rivera, as outlined above, had a fantastic year, digging deep when his team needed him the most and nearly always coming up big, and ended up with an historic 53 saves. Finally, Jake Westbook finished third in the league in ERA, and while his win and K totals will probably mean in real life he won't get any Cy Votes, if you watched him pitch, you could see that he was the cream of the crop.

NL Cy Young:

My pick: Roger Clemens. Who will win: Roger Clemens.

My ballot:

1. Clemens
2. Jason Schmidt
3. Randy Johnson
4. Ben Sheets
5. Oliver Perez

A case can be made for Randy Johnson on performance, and Randy's certainly been lobbying for the award. He pitched a perfect game for a lousy defensive team, and with a 2.60 ERA (second in the league behind Jake Peavy, who only pitched 166 IP due to injury and a short leash) for an incredible 245 IP. But Randy's performances seemed hollow on a last-place team, and this was no 1972 Steve Carlton. It was an extremely good pitcher having an extremely good year but one which can't quite be called the best pitching performance of the year, because there was no pressure.

Clemens, on the other hand, was hailed as a dual messiah in Houston, and after Andy Pettite proved the Yankees knew something when they let him go, stepped up to the rubber with a vengeance. He finished fifth in ERA, fifth in strikeouts, and pretty remarkably, eight in IP over the cours of the year. His win total was helped early on by some luck and hurt in the middle when his bullpen ate a few games. What I find truly champion about this year was it was Clemens' first in the NL. Hitters are supposedly on the short end the first time they see a pitcher, so that might've helped, but the way Clemens picked apart hitters was as if he'd been pitching against them for twenty years intead of the AL. And he did all this in a notorious hitter's park. Not bad for an old man.

Readers will note I left off a couple of relievers off my Cy Young list that were on my "most valuable" list, closers Brad Lidge and Eric Gagne. In terms of overall performance, I think a closer has to be truly exceptional in terms of dominance. Lidge only had a half a year, and Gagne did not quite have the kind of campaign he had last year relative to the quality of the starters.

Ben Sheets and Oliver Perez, however, had fantastic years for bad teams. Sheets was second in the league in ERA at 2.70, just behind Johnson, also with bad defense behind him, pitched 237 IP, and was second in the league in Ks with 264 (just ahead of Schmidt, who had three fewer starts). Perez finished fourth in Ks, was sixth in ERA, and managed 12 wins on a club with no offense, mediocre defense, and no pen. He was aided a bit by the pitcher's park, and only pitched 196 IP -- it's possible had he made the half-dozen starts he missed, he'd've done better or worse.

I left off Jake Peavy, the league ERA champ, largely because of his low (166) IP total in 27 starts. That's about 3/4 of a great year, but you don't get on my Cy Young ballot if you can't contribute most of the year.

AL Manager of the Year

My pick: Joe Torre. Who will win: Buck Showalter

1. Joe Torre
2. Terry Francona
3. Buck Showalter

Hunh? Celebrated Red Sox fan Crank gives MOY honors to the Yankees' skipper?

You betcha. The Yankees finished an incredible 12 games above their Pythagorean numbers. That's on the border of unprecedented. The starting rotation was everywhere. The offense floundered. Need I mention - George Steinbrenner. Good god, all that and the Yankees still managed to win 101 games. That's an incredible job by someone, and you just have to give Props to Torre on this one.

Francona took his team to just one over its expected W-L record, but it could have been far worse the way New Englanders love to panic. He remained calm, handled the press well, and in general dealt with his many head cases in a way which maximized the situation. He managed to fit into Theo-Ball philosophy quite well after the assumption that his hiring was a sinecure to get Schilling to sign. Good job, Terry.

So, Showalter really probably deserves a lot of the credit for the success of Texas. Getting rid of A-Rod got rid of a guy who made a big black hole in the clubhouse, and the dominant Type A Showalter took charge after he was gone. Texas was a couple of games above its Pythagorean, but all that performance came from somewhere. This is the third team that has improved remarkably after Showalter took the helm -- the Yankees and Diamondbacks were the others, and they won championships the year after Showalter was fired. He just might get a chance to ride the Texas hoss all the way this time, about 2006 or 2007 depending on how much ownership cooperates in the quest for pitching.

NL Manager of the Year

My pick: Phil Garner. Who Will Win: Bobby Cox

1. Garner
2. Felipe Alou
3. Jim Tracy

So I completely disagree with Garner's approach to strategy, tactics, on-field management, off-field management, and I've always disliked his acerbic personality dating back to his playing days. But you just cannot argue with the fact he took over an underachieving club and lead it to the playoffs. He had a little help from the front office with the acquisition of Carlos Beltran, but he also managed a depleted bullpen after Dotel left and a mess of a rotation. Great job.

I've given a lot of credit to Jason Schmidt and Barry Bonds in the writings above, but perhaps Felipe Alou deserves as much credit. The Giants, even with their two stars, just didn't have a lot of talent, particularly on the pitching staff. Yet they finished a half dozen games above their Pythagorean prediction. Felipe stuck with guys like Matt Herges a bit too long, and overused his bullpen and overstretched Schmidt and overbabied Bonds, but all that said, he managed to control his clubhouse and keep his team in it. It's a pity Alou did not have more to work with during the latter period of the Expos, and it's going to be a pity that this is as good a team as he's going to get for quite a while in SF.

Finally, I think Jim Tracy's job in LA has been much underrated. A lot of the attention mid-season was paid to the unpopular trade of Paul LoDuca and Guillermo Mota, but Tracy incorporated the changes and went along with the program in a big way. His pitching rotation was a complete mess for much of the year, and his middle relief didn't help, and the lineup wasn't that much better than last year's historically awful one. The last week was brutal. But the Dodgers hung on and finished three games above the expected mark, and that was the margin for the division. I'll give Tracy credit for those games.

AL Rookie of the Year

I think frankly ROY is a dumb award, in part because of the arbitrariness of who qualifies, an in part because of its almost nil predictive value for the career of the award winners. At the beginning of the year, I chose "none of the above" as the winner in the AL, and you know, that's pretty much what we got. Bobby Crosby will win because he was an everyday player playing a respectable shortstop and he lead rookies in the traditional offensive stats of RBI and Runs and HR.

NL Rookie of the Year

Jason Bay will and should win, despite missing a few weeks to injury. Khalil Greene had a great showing defensively at shortstop for the Padres, and like Crosby might've won by default had not his season ended a bit early due to injury and a better candidate in Bay appeared.

AL Executive of the Year

Theo Epstein. The Garciaparra trade was ballsy and spot on what the club needed, and managing the press in Boston is a job unto itself.

NL Executive of the Year

Paul DePodesta. The LoDuca trade worked out in this sense: Lo Duca and Mota did nothing for the Marlins, and the Marlins themselves could only manage a third place after acquiring them. Much was made of not luring the prima donnaish Randy Johnson, who would've been an impact pitcher for the post-season, but DePodesta protected his future. And nailing Steve Finley was pretty critical to besting the Padres, who had no other alternatives at CF; perhaps one of the best defensive trades in memory. In the process, the Dodgers cut pay roll and set an attendance record. He might not have wanted to have been the center of attention, but he handled it with aplomb and that gets a gold star from me.

posted by The Crank 9:26 PM