Thanks For A Loyal 3 Months!

Since I began recording page views 3 months ago today, I am happy to see support coming from a multitude of places. Thanks to those few and loyal viewers. Here is a shoutout to all ya'll....

Hopkins vs. Palioca Update

With a huge Week 11 sack total, Palioca's team has begun storming back from what once seemed an insurmountable deficit. Led by Julius Peppers' 3 sacks against a horrific Miami offense, Palioca's team racked up 9 sacks on the week, trouncing Hopkins sum of two and a half. Aside from single QB take-downs by Terrell Suggs and Jared Allen, as well as a half-sack from Demarcus Ware, Hopkins team was shutout across the board. Meanwhile, Palioca's five remaining players each had a prized sack, including multiple sacks by Mario Williams, James Harrison, and the previously mentioned Julius Peppers. The total score on the year has Hopkins winning by a consistently tightening margin, 44-25. Above is a snapshot of each team's player totals. With six weeks remaining in the season, Hopkins can only hope to increase his lead. With a full strength squad in 2011, Palioca's team looks to be the superior squad in the near future.

Revamping the Red Sox

It's funny how down Red Sox fans can get on their team after winning two World Series in four years after an 86-year drought. But in New England, we have come to expect nothing but championship-caliber rosters, competition, and success in all of our professional sports. We were jaded after the Pats won three Super Bowls from 2001-2005. Ray Allen and KG brought Celtic pride back to Boston with banner 17 in their first season as part of the "Big 3". Even the Bruins young core that includes Kreiji, Bergeron, Seguin, Lucic, Horton, and Rask, are showing toughness and have been competitive over the past few seasons. But to sports fans in New England, the past is nothing but a distant memory.
The Red Sox have seen a downward trend since their division-winning, World Series championship team in 2007. We all remember the '08 team that lost a heartbreaker in game 7 of the ALCS in Tampa. 2009 was even worse, as they were bounced by the Angels in the ALDS without putting up much of a fight. This season they finally reached rock bottom, as they not only missed the playoffs and finished third in the AL East, but they finished shy of 90 wins for the first time since 2006. It wasn't so much the fact that the Sox were losing too many games, but rather in the way there were doing so. The 2010 team was supposed to be about "pitching and defense", a motto that Theo Epstein preached from day one. Instead, they led the league in total bases and had a top-three finish in most major offensive categories. As for the pitching and defense? The 4.19 staff ERA was good for 9th in the AL, they were second in blown saves (22), and even while leading the league in strikeouts still found a way to have the third from worst fielding percentage in the AL. The Yankees had 42 less errors as a team! The play of one-year stopgap Adrian Beltre was the lone bright spot on the diamond, along with starting pitchers Buchholz and the always-reliable Lester. It is hard to place the blame on Theo, as coming into the season the rotation of Lester/Beckett/Lackey/Dice-K/Buchholz looked like one of the best rotations in baseball. Who knew that Beckett would be so bad, and that Lackey so inconsistent?
The first step of determining just what will fix this team is to look at the certainties for 2011. Scutaro will be at shortstop, Pedroia at second, Drew in right, and Ortiz DHing. Youkilis will be at one of the corners, and rumor has it that Theo sees him as a permanent third baseman, even with his Gold Glove caliber play at first. Even without knowing his true reasoning, it is certainly easier to find a first baseman worthy of playing in the competitive AL East than a third baseman. At catcher, Saltalamacchia will either platoon with a re-signed Varitek, or will be the backup to Victor Martinez in the unlikely event he returns.
As for the rotation, it is virtually set to be almost the same. Beckett and Lackey's deals are immovable, and the Sox surely will hope they can get more consistency and wins out of the both of them in 2011. Lester and Buchholz are untouchables. Wakefield has seen his last days in a Sox uniform, unless they sign him to make spot starts and spend the majority of the season on the DL with "unspecified injuries". It would be nice to see Matsuzaka dealt, but as an opposing GM I wouldn't touch him unless I was a NL club desperate for arms. The rotation will be rounded out by either Dice-K, Doubront, or a low risk/high reward free agent arm that Theo brings in, and we all know how well that has worked in the past (ie Smoltz, Penny, etc.). The bullpen needs a few solid arms, which it desperately lacked in 2010. We will hear the yearly speculation of Papelbon being dealt this offseason, but it won't happen because of his price tag after arbitration. Bard is the only definite return-reliever, with the possibility of newly acquired Taylor Buchholz and/or Andrew Miller joining him. Okajima won't be back unless it's on a low cost one year deal. Bowden struggled as a reliever and may not be the prospect he was made out to be, and Atchison will probably end up as the fifth or sixth arm in the pen. The bullpen is ultimately the biggest project of the offseason, as the majority of familiar faces are either long-gone or about to be jettisoned. But as a Red Sox fan, I am quite happy to not have to endure the struggles of Delcarmen, Ramirez, or Schoeneweis again.
Based on those players still under contract and the speculation by Boston sports writers, below is the 2011 Red Sox lineup as of November:

• Catcher - Jarrod Saltalamacchia
• 1st Base - TBD
  
• 2nd Base - Dustin Pedroia
• 3rd Base - Kevin Youkilis
• Shortstop - Marco Scutaro
• Right Field - JD Drew
  
• Center Field - Mike Cameron
  
• Left Field - Jacoby Ellsbury
  
• DH - David Ortiz

• SP1 - Jon Lester
• SP2 - Clay Buchholz
• SP3 - Josh Beckett
• SP4 - John Lackey
• SP5 - Daisuke Matsuzaka
  
• RP - Felix Doubront
  
• RP - Taylor Buchholz
  
• RP - Daniel Bard
  
• CL - Jonathan Papelbon

Obviously, nothing is set in stone. But after establishing the pieces the Red Sox have to deal, the speculation begins. The first decisions come with the free agent class. The Red Sox will look to sign a big bat to play either in the outfield or at first base. They are looking for a long-term signing for an outfielder, and a one-year first baseman to pave the way to Adrian Gonzalez's inevitable arrival to Boston.

1. Jayson Werth - He will hit around .300 annually, and is a 30 HR / 100 RBI caliber player with a good glove and fielding ability. He is going to command a $100+ million contract, and at 31 it wouldn't be wise to go over four years with a deal. Theo probably agrees, and would probably give Werth a maximum deal of 5 years/$115 million. But Werth should be Plan C for this team, as he is a right fielder and is prone to injuries. He certainly would improve the team, but would be more of a "want" than a "need" for this team.
2. Carl Crawford - Many feel Crawford has long been destined to be a Red Sox. He has excellent speed, can play RF or CF, and is only 29 years old. Signing him would give the Sox ample lineup options, including moving Pedroia to leadoff and playing Crawford in the two hole. He is worthy of a five or six year deal, and will probably get the latter. Theo will have to fully commit to Crawford to lure him to Boston, with a contract in the ballpark of 6 years for $120 million or more. But Crawford should be Plan A. He fits many of the Red Sox needs, and brings the "star power" this team has lacked since Manny's departure.

Unless Theo works out a deal for a young outfielder to the likes of Justin Upton, signing a FA is the only way to improve the outfield situation. But dealing for an outfielder would certainly deplete the Sox stockpile of youngsters, and possibly inhibit them from making an early run at Adrian Gonzalez.
While on the subject of first base, Gonzalez needs to be in Boston sooner than later. The Padres have conceded that he will not be with the team in 2012, as he enters free agency, and will opt to deal him either this offseason or at the deadline. The Red Sox need to do what it takes to get him now, and lock him up. He rounds out what would be an excellent infield, allowing Youk to move to third. Even though the young arms of Casey Kelly, Anthony Ranaudo, Junichi Tazawa, and Doubront are considered top prospects, the Red Sox have a solid rotation for the next 4-5 years already. Dealing their young guns won't deplete the major league roster, and is necessary to win now. Gonzo should be in Boston prior to the start of the season if the Red Sox want to start the season off hot.
As I stated before, the bullpen is the major offseason project. They need to sign a proven reliever to give their bullpen any sort of credibility. Here's who they should target:

1. Rafael Soriano - He broke out as a closer in Tampa this year. He certainly will be coveted by any team with an opening at closer, and even the Red Sox could consider moving Papelbon and inserting Soriano into the role. But it is highly unlikely they would dish out the large type of deal that would land Soriano, especially when they have a closer-in-waiting with Bard. You can pretty much scratch Soriano off the list of Red Sox possibilities.
2. Scott Downs - The consensus is that Downs will end up either with the Yankees or Sox. The Sox need to sign him for their own needs as well as to prevent facing him. He is the nasty left-handed arm the Sox have missed for some time, and probably has a solid three or four good years left. Downs is a must have for the Sox.
3. Grant Balfour - Coming from Tampa, the Sox have seen plenty of the hard throwing righty. He would make a good addition to the pen, but only on a one year deal as he is aging and has seen both his numbers and velocity drop over the past few seasons.
4. Jon Rauch - He has closed and been a setup man, but he is probably more valuable as the latter. He wasn't the answer for the Twins when Nathan went down, and would provide solid depth as a late inning bridge to the closer. A desperate team could give him a large one year deal as a closer, but its more likely he will get a multi-year deal as a reliever. His value is slightly higher than that of his former teammate, Jesse Crain, because he has been able to remain healthy. But a healthy Crain throws harder and would fetch a better deal than Rauch.
5. A few other names to throw out are Frank Fransisco, Matt Guerrier, Jason Frasor, Miguel Batista, Chad Durbin, Kevin Gregg, Trevor Hoffman, and Dan Wheeler, just to name a few. The Sox will likely target one of the big name relievers, and fill in the holes with one or two middle of the road type arms. Relievers are often hit or miss, and in Theo's case, usually a miss. But the more the merrier when it comes to pitching, so any RP brought to Boston is a plus.

Ultimately, below is what the Red Sox roster needs to look like in order to improve on last year's win total. This lineup is based purely on bias hope from a fan's standpoint, but we all can dream right?

2011 Boston Red Sox

• Catcher - Saltalamacchia
• 1st - Gonzalez
• 2nd - Pedroia
• 3rd - Youkilis
• SS - Scutaro
• RF - Drew
• CF - Cameron
• LF - Crawford
• DH - Ortiz

• SP1 - Lester
• SP2 - Buchholz
• SP3 - Beckett
• SP4 - Lackey
• SP5 - Dice-K
• RP - Frasor
  
• RP - Downs
  
• RP - Bard
• RP - T. Buchholz
  
• CL - Papelbon

We'll see just how this offseason pans out, but things can only get better....

2010 MLB Awards

Although I am a little behind on the MLB Season Awards, I figured I would offer my input on the awards that still remain. The AL and NL Rookies of the Year were announced today, with the much-deserving Buster Posey taking it home in San Fran, and Neftali Feliz from the Rangers in the American League. Ironic how they both were on World Series winners. Jason Heyward and Austin Jackson lost by a somewhat-narrow margin, but the contributions of Posey and Feliz to their respective franchises success this year made the decision more one-sided. Here are the remaining awards, with predictions:

1. National League Cy Young (November 16th) - The race for the 2010 NL Cy Young was deemed a preseason runaway, with Roy Halladay as the easy favorite on his new Philly ball club. Now that the season has concluded, the award comes down to 4 pitchers:

- Roy Halladay - 33 GS / 250.2 Inn. / 21-10 / 2.44 ERA / 219 K
- Adam Wainwright - 33 GS / 230.1 Inn. / 20-11 / 2.42 ERA / 213 K
- Tim Lincecum - 33 GS / 212.1 Inn. / 16-10 / 3.43 ERA / 231 K
- Ubaldo Jiminez - 33 GS / 233.1 Inn. / 19-8 / 2.88 ERA / 214 K

Lincecum is the first that can be eliminated. Aside from his postseason heroics and being the number one starter on the World Series champs, his numbers aren't as impressive as the other candidates. His ERA is almost a full run higher than last year's, when he won second consecutive Cy Young. He had the least wins, highest ERA, and least innings of the final four, and since Randy Johnson in 2000-2002, no pitcher has won three Cy Young's in a row. The dynamics of the league are more volatile, as shown in the closeness of the voting.
Wainwright is the next to go. It has been a tough road for the beginning of Wainwright's career, as he has finished among the top-10 in Cy Young voting three times without having won once. Thus is the case again this year, as he will probably finish second or a close third behind Jiminez. The deciding factors are less impressive numbers (although very close), as well his the Cardinals sub-par season in which they failed to make the playoffs out of the weak NL Central.
So if the award comes down to Jiminez and Halladay, Halladay gets it by a nudge. In his first season away from Toronto, he led the NL in wins, innings, complete games, and shutouts. Jiminez was extremely impressive, as he has improved his numbers each of the past 4 years, but Halladay's numbers are simply better, as was his team. If the award went to the pitcher who was the dark-horse underdog, Jiminez would take the cake. But the Cy Young goes to the league's best pitcher, which was hands down Roy Halladay this year.

2. AL & NL Manager of the Year (November 17th) - The AL award goes to Ron Washington, who led the Rangers to not only their first playoff series victory, but their first World Series appearance as well. The Rangers took the AL West crown from the Angels for the first time since Oakland won it in 2006, and Texas hadn't won the West since 1999.
In the National League, the race should be a little tighter. Bobby Cox led the Braves to the playoffs in his final season, and could win it as a type of "career achievement" type acknowledgment. But realistically, the award will go to Bud Black of San Diego. The Padres were 75-87 in 2009, and finished 20 games out of the division. With virtually the same squad, the Pads went 90-72, narrowly missing a wild card spot by a game. Their winning-ways carried through the whole season, and a late season surge by the Giants was all that kept them from the playoffs. In any case, Bud Black most deserves (and should win) the award.

3. American League Cy Young (November 18th) - One thing is certain, Zach Greinke will not be a repeat winner for the Cy Young this year. But as usual, the AL version will be highly controversial regardless of who wins. My final candidates are as follows:

- Felix Hernandez - 34 GS / 249.2 Inn. / 13-12 / 2.27 ERA / 232 K
- David Price - 31 GS / 208.2 Inn. / 19-6 / 2.72 ERA / 188 K
- CC Sabathia - 34 GS / 237.2 Inn. / 21-7 / 3.18 ERA / 197 K
- Jon Lester - 32 GS / 208 Inn. / 19-9 / 3.25 ERA / 225 K

First thing you're probably wondering is where's Clay Buchholz? A quick answer is that as impressive as he was, he only started 28 games and pitched 173 innings. Although he was second in ERA and won 17 games, his strikeout number of 120 is very weakening in his case, and if he had pitched a full season would've certainly been in consideration.
Sabathia is the first pitcher I would eliminate. Johan Santana is the only multi-award winner in the last decade out of the AL. Sabathia's win total is much attributed to the high-powered Yankee offense, and his ERA is almost a run higher than that of Price and Felix. He ranks in the top of each statistical category, but finished first only in wins and only boasted 2 complete games.
It is hard to make an argument against the remaining three, so I'll justify why Hernandez WILL win the award. His record of 13-12 is very deceptive, as he pitched for possibly the worst team in baseball. He had the worst run support of ALL qualifying pitchers in the AL at 3.75 runs per game, all while leading the league in ERA and quality starts (30). He led the league in innings, while allowing less hits than the likes of Cliff Lee or Sabathia. It will be argued that he doesn't deserve it mainly because he pitched for a team that finished dead last in the AL at 61-101, but thankfully the award is for the BEST PITCHER, not the most valuable. Hernandez should win it, as he definitely deserves it. He is consistently dominant, and has the nastiest stuff of any pitcher in baseball. The award has escaped him one too many times, and that comes to an end this year.

4. National League MVP (November 22nd) - The NL MVP race should come down to four candidates: Albert Pujols, Adrian Gonzalez, Carlos Gonzalez, and Joey Votto. Because each of the listed players had offensive numbers that are so close, they can't really be used to justify one over the other. Also, pitchers can be discounted simply because no pitcher has won an MVP since Dennis Eckersley in 1992. My belief about the award is that the team's overall performance should be a large factor. Three time winner Pujols, who has won the last two, guided his team to a division title last year, but still won the award on a mediocre 86-76 team in 2008 that didn't make the playoffs. Carlos Gonzalez had the most overall impressive numbers, but voters usually discount hitters at Coors Field (which isn't necessarily true). Adrian Gonzalez is easily the best player on the Padres, and certainly the team's MVP. But in 2010, Joey Votto deserves to win the award. The Reds only won 78 games in 2009, but he carried them to a division title with 91 wins in 2010. He led his team in every major offensive category, and helped a team that didn't have a clear-cut number one starting pitcher to its first playoff appearance since 1995. He improved from his 2009 numbers across the board, and at 27 years old and earning just under $600,000, he is easily the most valuable player to his team of any player in the National League. I cannot with any certainty say that he will win the award, but he definitely is the most deserving and will win the NL MVP if voters get it right.

5. American League MVP (November 23rd) - There isn't an argument for the AL's version of the MVP. Josh Hamilton is the hands down winner. He batted .359, which was .31 points higher than Miguel Cabrera, who finished second. He finished 5th in home runs with 32, and 12th in RBI's with 100. He had an extraordinary OPS of 1.044, and did all of this coming off of a season where he missed 73 games with injuries. He led Texas to their first playoff series victory, and kept them atop of their division for the entire season. Josh Hamilton will win this years AL MVP, no question.