This year's new Hall of Famers will be announced the day after tomorrow. In honor of that, I made up my own Hall of Fame ballot. I'm not a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, so my vote carries no weight, whatsoever. It's just my opinion on who should be in the Hall of Fame.
Showing posts with label Baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baseball. Show all posts
Monday, January 6, 2014
Monday, November 4, 2013
Paying the Piper - A look back at the 2013 baseball season
Posted on 4:29 PM by alex
Yes, I'm bitter. My hatred for the Red Sox just flows through me. I will admit, however, that the Sox had some incredible beards, though! One of the first posts I made on this blog was my predictions for the baseball season. So, it's time to pay the piper and see how I did.
I had the Orioles winning the AL East. They did not.
I had the Tigers winning the AL Central. They did!
I had the Angels winning the AL West. They weren't even close.
I had the Blue Jays and White Sox winning the 2 Wild Card spots. They finished a combined 25 games under .500, and nowhere near the playoffs!
I had the Nationals winning the NL East. They did not.
I predicted that the Reds would win the NL Central. Nope.
I felt that the Giants would win the NL West. They finished 16 games back.
The NL Wild Cards, I thought, would be won by the Cardinals and the Dodgers. They were not.
Now, in the NL, I had 3 of the 5 playoff teams correct, just in the wrong place!
All in all, I got 40% of the MLB playoff teams correct. How'd you do??
Just for kicks, who's my money on for next year? The Dodgers.
I had the Orioles winning the AL East. They did not.
I had the Tigers winning the AL Central. They did!
I had the Angels winning the AL West. They weren't even close.
I had the Blue Jays and White Sox winning the 2 Wild Card spots. They finished a combined 25 games under .500, and nowhere near the playoffs!
I had the Nationals winning the NL East. They did not.
I predicted that the Reds would win the NL Central. Nope.
I felt that the Giants would win the NL West. They finished 16 games back.
The NL Wild Cards, I thought, would be won by the Cardinals and the Dodgers. They were not.
Now, in the NL, I had 3 of the 5 playoff teams correct, just in the wrong place!
All in all, I got 40% of the MLB playoff teams correct. How'd you do??
Just for kicks, who's my money on for next year? The Dodgers.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Quarter Season Look-In
Posted on 12:20 AM by alex
We're a little more than 1/4 of the way through the 2013 baseball season. I made some predictions for the 2013 season, which you can find here.
Today, I'm going to offer some of my awards for the first half of the first half of the baseball season.
Starting with the senior circuit, the National League.
My pick for NL MVP so far is none other than Paul Goldschmidt. If you're not a baseball follower, this name probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you. But Goldschimidt, who plays first base for the Arizona Diamondbacks, has had a fantastic first quarter-season. He's hitting .335 with 12 homers and 35 RBI's. His Diamondbacks are 6 games above .500 and sitting a game ahead of the Giants in the NL West.
However, the most incredible stat for Goldschimdt would have to be his WAR. WAR is the ultimate sabermetric stat, it's the abbreviation for "Wins Above Replacement." Effectively, what WAR calculates is how many wins a particular player is worth over a replacement (generally a Triple-A-level player). The formula for WAR is wildly complex, taking into account six components (batting runs, baserunning rins, runs added or lost due to grounding into double plays in double play situations, fielding runs, positional adjustment runs and replacement level runs [based on playing time]). Seriously, this is the most complex statistic in the world. Suffice it to say the higher the number, the better off you are (according to sabermetrics).
To put this into perspective, last year Mike Trout led the major leagues in WAR with a 10.9 (absolutely off the charts). Miguel Cabrera, who won the Triple Crown and the AL MVP over Trout had a WAR of 7.3. Divide those by 4, and you'd have (sort of) 2.7 for Trout and 1.8 for Cabrera over 1/4 of a season.
Goldschmidt is at 2.8 right now. An incredible start to the season, if he continues at his current pace, he'll definitely be the NL MVP.
Honorable Mentions for NL MVP: I'll give the nod to a few other players for Honorable Mention in the NL, namely Justin Upton and Joey Votto, both of whom are having fantastic seasons!
My NL Cy Young award pick is Clayton Kershaw (duh.). Kershaw is out of this world. He's boasting a 1.40 ERA, 67 strikeouts and an incredible .87 WHIP. His record stinks right now at 4-2, but he can't be blamed for the Dodgers being a dumpster fire so far this season. Don Mattingly is absolutely mismanaging this team of superstars. Kershaw has only given up 10 runs through the season but isn't getting the support he needs from the rest of the team. I can't fathom how he's only won 4 games.
Honorable Mentions for NL Cy Young: I'll give the honorable mention to the man who plays second fiddle to Stephen Strasburg in the Nationals' rotation, Jordan Zimmerman. Matt Harvey for the Mets is also having a great season.
Onto the American League, my choice for AL MVP is Robinson Cano.
Whoa whoa whoa, major homer pick there, right? I'm sure I'm blinded by my love of all things pinstripes, but I think Cano is a definite MVP pick for this portion of the season. He's hitting .295 with 12 homers (which co-leads the AL) and 31 RBIs. He's also been the catalyst for a surprisingly strong start for the Yankees, who were picked by just about everyone to finish at best 3rd in the AL East. They're currently sitting a half-game up on Boston in the division.
Cano is making his case for an MVP trophy by leading a team that would normally be STACKED with superstar talent. This could surely be the year he adds an MVP trophy next to his Home Run Derby championship.
Sabermetrically (not sure that's a word), Cano is boasting a solid 1.4 WAR.
Honorable Mention for AL MVP: In the honorable mention category, I have to mention Miguel Cabrera. He's leading the league in two of the three triple crown categories and only one off the homerun pace currently shared by 4 other players, including Cano.
Finally, my pick for AL first half of the first half Cy Young Award is Yu Darvish. Darvish started the season off with a bang, seeking out a perfect game and has been money all season. He has a 2.97 ERA with 86 strikeouts (that's 12.76 K/9 if you're counting) and a .92 WHIP. He also boasts a great 7-1 record, helping Texas to take a 6.5 game lead in the AL West which was supposed to be DOMINATED by the Angels.
Honorable Mentions are Felix Hernandez and Matt Moore. I've got a great big baseball crush on King Felix (I was really wanting him to become a Yankee). If he were playing on the east coast, I think he'd be the biggest name in baseball, but he's playing for the Mariners in Seattle and has to deal with the east coast bias. The simple fact is, though, people aren't able to watch him pitch a lot because his games start, quite frequently, at 10:00 eastern time.
Matt Moore has had an incredible start to his season, going 8-0 for the Rays. ESPN even told me tonight that his 8-0 start is somewhat unparalleled. He's the youngest left-handed pitcher to start the season 8-0 since 1917 when a young fella named Babe Ruth did it for the Boston Red Sox.
The last baseball related topic is Biggest Surprise. The biggest surprise of the 2013 season has been the Los Angeles Angels. This team should be far and away the best in baseball. Their lineup is incredible. The 2-5 hitters are Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton and Mark Trumbo. Seriously, those names are fantastic. They traded away what was thought to be dead (old) weight in Vernon Wells. If you're counting, Wells has more homeruns than Trout, Pujols or Hamilton (tied with Trumbo at 10). He's also hitting .286, which is better than all 4 of the Angels' big bats. Maybe Wells is part of this biggest surprise, for me.
But seriously, the Angels should be MUCH better than 12 games back in their division.
Also, if you're keeping track. If the season ended today, I would've correctly picked 3 of the 10 postseason teams (none of them in their proper place though).
What about you, what do you think of my picks so far?
Today, I'm going to offer some of my awards for the first half of the first half of the baseball season.
Starting with the senior circuit, the National League.
My pick for NL MVP so far is none other than Paul Goldschmidt. If you're not a baseball follower, this name probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you. But Goldschimidt, who plays first base for the Arizona Diamondbacks, has had a fantastic first quarter-season. He's hitting .335 with 12 homers and 35 RBI's. His Diamondbacks are 6 games above .500 and sitting a game ahead of the Giants in the NL West.
However, the most incredible stat for Goldschimdt would have to be his WAR. WAR is the ultimate sabermetric stat, it's the abbreviation for "Wins Above Replacement." Effectively, what WAR calculates is how many wins a particular player is worth over a replacement (generally a Triple-A-level player). The formula for WAR is wildly complex, taking into account six components (batting runs, baserunning rins, runs added or lost due to grounding into double plays in double play situations, fielding runs, positional adjustment runs and replacement level runs [based on playing time]). Seriously, this is the most complex statistic in the world. Suffice it to say the higher the number, the better off you are (according to sabermetrics).
To put this into perspective, last year Mike Trout led the major leagues in WAR with a 10.9 (absolutely off the charts). Miguel Cabrera, who won the Triple Crown and the AL MVP over Trout had a WAR of 7.3. Divide those by 4, and you'd have (sort of) 2.7 for Trout and 1.8 for Cabrera over 1/4 of a season.
Goldschmidt is at 2.8 right now. An incredible start to the season, if he continues at his current pace, he'll definitely be the NL MVP.
Honorable Mentions for NL MVP: I'll give the nod to a few other players for Honorable Mention in the NL, namely Justin Upton and Joey Votto, both of whom are having fantastic seasons!
My NL Cy Young award pick is Clayton Kershaw (duh.). Kershaw is out of this world. He's boasting a 1.40 ERA, 67 strikeouts and an incredible .87 WHIP. His record stinks right now at 4-2, but he can't be blamed for the Dodgers being a dumpster fire so far this season. Don Mattingly is absolutely mismanaging this team of superstars. Kershaw has only given up 10 runs through the season but isn't getting the support he needs from the rest of the team. I can't fathom how he's only won 4 games.
Honorable Mentions for NL Cy Young: I'll give the honorable mention to the man who plays second fiddle to Stephen Strasburg in the Nationals' rotation, Jordan Zimmerman. Matt Harvey for the Mets is also having a great season.
Onto the American League, my choice for AL MVP is Robinson Cano.
Whoa whoa whoa, major homer pick there, right? I'm sure I'm blinded by my love of all things pinstripes, but I think Cano is a definite MVP pick for this portion of the season. He's hitting .295 with 12 homers (which co-leads the AL) and 31 RBIs. He's also been the catalyst for a surprisingly strong start for the Yankees, who were picked by just about everyone to finish at best 3rd in the AL East. They're currently sitting a half-game up on Boston in the division.
Cano is making his case for an MVP trophy by leading a team that would normally be STACKED with superstar talent. This could surely be the year he adds an MVP trophy next to his Home Run Derby championship.
Sabermetrically (not sure that's a word), Cano is boasting a solid 1.4 WAR.
Honorable Mention for AL MVP: In the honorable mention category, I have to mention Miguel Cabrera. He's leading the league in two of the three triple crown categories and only one off the homerun pace currently shared by 4 other players, including Cano.
Finally, my pick for AL first half of the first half Cy Young Award is Yu Darvish. Darvish started the season off with a bang, seeking out a perfect game and has been money all season. He has a 2.97 ERA with 86 strikeouts (that's 12.76 K/9 if you're counting) and a .92 WHIP. He also boasts a great 7-1 record, helping Texas to take a 6.5 game lead in the AL West which was supposed to be DOMINATED by the Angels.
Honorable Mentions are Felix Hernandez and Matt Moore. I've got a great big baseball crush on King Felix (I was really wanting him to become a Yankee). If he were playing on the east coast, I think he'd be the biggest name in baseball, but he's playing for the Mariners in Seattle and has to deal with the east coast bias. The simple fact is, though, people aren't able to watch him pitch a lot because his games start, quite frequently, at 10:00 eastern time.
Matt Moore has had an incredible start to his season, going 8-0 for the Rays. ESPN even told me tonight that his 8-0 start is somewhat unparalleled. He's the youngest left-handed pitcher to start the season 8-0 since 1917 when a young fella named Babe Ruth did it for the Boston Red Sox.
The last baseball related topic is Biggest Surprise. The biggest surprise of the 2013 season has been the Los Angeles Angels. This team should be far and away the best in baseball. Their lineup is incredible. The 2-5 hitters are Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton and Mark Trumbo. Seriously, those names are fantastic. They traded away what was thought to be dead (old) weight in Vernon Wells. If you're counting, Wells has more homeruns than Trout, Pujols or Hamilton (tied with Trumbo at 10). He's also hitting .286, which is better than all 4 of the Angels' big bats. Maybe Wells is part of this biggest surprise, for me.
But seriously, the Angels should be MUCH better than 12 games back in their division.
Also, if you're keeping track. If the season ended today, I would've correctly picked 3 of the 10 postseason teams (none of them in their proper place though).
What about you, what do you think of my picks so far?
Saturday, March 30, 2013
2013 MLB Predictions
Posted on 12:03 PM by alex
I love a lot of things. I love my family; I love ministry; I love gaming; I love reading. And one of my loves is baseball.
When I went to MVNU in the fall of 2002, I was most assuredly not a baseball fan. In fact, I don't believe I had ever sat down to watch a game on tv, including the world series, all star game, whatever. I remember watching Mark McGuire break Roger Maris' record in 1998. But, I was not a fan. If you had asked who my favorite team was, I would've said Reds or Indians... but I had no idea.
That all changed living in Oakwood Hall. I became friends with real baseball fans. They were split 50/50 between the Reds and the Indians, although, two of my friends Jack and James were from Indianapolis, and they represented the Chicago rivalry. Jack was (and is) a huge Cubs fan. James was (and is) a big White Sox fan.
A lot of my friends from that year had grown up playing and loving baseball. I didn't have a heritage of baseball, so I decided to pick a team to be my favorite. I chose the team everyone on the entire campus hated the most...
The Yankees.
So, since the 2003 baseball season, I've become a Yankees fan. Baseball is my favorite sport. I have a subscription to MLB.tv, and watch at least 80% of the Yankees game throughout the season. Xavier loves to watch baseball, too. He sits and watches, mesmerized. He does not have the same affinity for football or basketball (for what it's worth).
Anyrate, I love making predictions for the upcoming season. Two years ago, I publicly made dreadfully bad predictions, so why not do the same this year?! Without further ado, my 2013 MLB predictions:
AL East Winner: Baltimore Orioles
AL Central Winner: Detroit Tigers
AL West Winner: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
AL Wild Card: Toronto Blue Jays
AL Wild Card: Chicago White Sox
NL East Winner: Washington Nationals
NL Central Winner: Cincinnati Reds
NL West Winner: San Francisco Giants
NL Wild Card: St. Louis Cardinals
NL Wild Card: Los Angeles Dodgers
ALCS: Angels vs Orioles
NLCS: Nationals vs Reds
World Series: Angels vs Nationals
Angels in 6.
I'm ready for the season, hope my predictions are wrong and the Yankees win the whole thing. Who do you think is going to win the world series? Leave your answer in the comments!
When I went to MVNU in the fall of 2002, I was most assuredly not a baseball fan. In fact, I don't believe I had ever sat down to watch a game on tv, including the world series, all star game, whatever. I remember watching Mark McGuire break Roger Maris' record in 1998. But, I was not a fan. If you had asked who my favorite team was, I would've said Reds or Indians... but I had no idea.
That all changed living in Oakwood Hall. I became friends with real baseball fans. They were split 50/50 between the Reds and the Indians, although, two of my friends Jack and James were from Indianapolis, and they represented the Chicago rivalry. Jack was (and is) a huge Cubs fan. James was (and is) a big White Sox fan.
A lot of my friends from that year had grown up playing and loving baseball. I didn't have a heritage of baseball, so I decided to pick a team to be my favorite. I chose the team everyone on the entire campus hated the most...
The Yankees.
So, since the 2003 baseball season, I've become a Yankees fan. Baseball is my favorite sport. I have a subscription to MLB.tv, and watch at least 80% of the Yankees game throughout the season. Xavier loves to watch baseball, too. He sits and watches, mesmerized. He does not have the same affinity for football or basketball (for what it's worth).
Anyrate, I love making predictions for the upcoming season. Two years ago, I publicly made dreadfully bad predictions, so why not do the same this year?! Without further ado, my 2013 MLB predictions:
AL East Winner: Baltimore Orioles
AL Central Winner: Detroit Tigers
AL West Winner: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
AL Wild Card: Toronto Blue Jays
AL Wild Card: Chicago White Sox
NL East Winner: Washington Nationals
NL Central Winner: Cincinnati Reds
NL West Winner: San Francisco Giants
NL Wild Card: St. Louis Cardinals
NL Wild Card: Los Angeles Dodgers
ALCS: Angels vs Orioles
NLCS: Nationals vs Reds
World Series: Angels vs Nationals
Angels in 6.
I'm ready for the season, hope my predictions are wrong and the Yankees win the whole thing. Who do you think is going to win the world series? Leave your answer in the comments!
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