The Royals Were 10-8 Against Them

The National League should be removed from the Major League baseball playoffs this year. The powers that be should just let the top eight American League teams battle for the World Series. That’s where the real battle is anyway. Does anybody really think that the NL is going to win the World Series? I sure don’t. The last two trips, they are 0-8. Smoked.

All right, maybe I’m being too harsh. One team can join the AL playoffs, seven AL teams and one NL team. I used to think that the Mets should get an automatic pass for this spot, but they have struggled some recently, and their pitching staff seems to be losing a player a day on average. If Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine aren’t one hundred percent come playoff time, the NL is a crapshoot. So I say we give the AL teams two weeks off and let the four best NL teams play best-of-three series to determine their representative. That team gets the eighth slot in the playoffs, and we have some fun from there.

The NL is just a joke this year. They have nine teams within 6.5 games of the Wild Card leading Reds. That 6.5 game difference is the same difference the 73-51 Chicago White Sox trail the AL Central leading Tigers by. How can a team (the Florida Marlins) be 58-66 on August 22 and still have a shot at a playoff spot?

The reason behind my thinking is this. The Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins are arguably three of the top five teams in baseball this year. And one of them will be watching the playoffs from their couch. That is ludicrous. There is going to be a team in the NL that is right around or at .500, if not two teams, if not three teams. One of those AL Central teams is going to have 93-plus wins and be going home.

Here is what this format would look like (records and seeding as of games completed before August 22)

1) Detroit Tigers (80-45)
2) New York Yankees (75-48)
3) Chicago White Sox (73-51)
4) Minnesota Twins (72-51)
5) Oakland A’s (71-54)
6) Boston Red Sox (69-55)
7) Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (66-59)
8) NL Representative (most likely the Mets or Cardinals)

Wouldn’t that be fun? Mets/Cardinals at Tigers, Blue Jays/Angels at Yankees, Red Sox at White Sox, A’s at Twins. Much more interesting, and the tougher AL gets rewarded for having to deal with the brutal schedule they face day-in and day-out.

If you still don't believe the NL is terrible, just go back and read the title.

Unappreciated Man(ny)

I’ve got the most unappreciated player in baseball for you. He has a .327 batting average, 34 home runs, 99 RBI, and a 1.071 OPS through 118 games. His name has also been mentioned more in trade rumors than MVP talk in the past year. He is Manny Ramirez.

Here’s a great one for you. Manny has never won an MVP award. Shocked? So was I. How can a guy hit .333 with 44 homers and 165 RBI in 1999 and not win the Most Valuable Player Award? The winner that year, Ivan Rodriguez. He hit .332 with 35 homers and 113 RBI. How does that make any sense whatsoever? Sure, Pudge stole 25 bases that year, and was better defensively than Ramirez was, but the offensive numbers don’t even come close. Manny actually finished fourth that year. Behind future teammate Pedro Martinez and current teammate Roberto Alomar. To me, that is baffling. For the RBI’s alone Ramirez should have been rewarded. That was the 13th best single RBI season in baseball history, and it was the best since 1938. 1938!

The only other time he was that close was in 2004 when he finished third behind winner Vladimir Guerrero and runner up Gary Sheffield. The numbers in this race were pretty close; any of the three, plus David Ortiz who came in fourth, could have won.

Guerrero 39 HR 126 RBI .337 BA 15 SB
Sheffield 36 HR 123 RBI .290 BA 5 SB
Ramirez 43 HR 130 RBI .308 BA 2 SB
Ortiz 41 HR 139 RBI .301 BA 0 SB

The argument for this year is that these four players were so close (and Miguel Tejada, who drove in 150 runs for a bad Baltimore team that year came in 5th) yet Guerrero ran away with the voting, collecting 21 of the 27 first place votes, with five going to Sheffield and one a piece for Ramirez and Ortiz.

And this season it appears that Manny isn’t even on the MVP radar despite the numbers I listed above. On a recent ESPN nation poll they listed these players for the country to vote for: David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, and Joe Mauer. No Manny Ramirez to be seen. As a White Sox fan I love Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome, but Manny has better numbers than they do, sorry. Mauer has an incredible batting average (in the .350 - .360 range) but Manny is hitting right around .330 with far better power numbers than Mauer. The same can be said for Jeter, who has a high batting average, but not ridiculously higher than Ramirez. Should he be the 2006 MVP? No. Not now, he could have a huge September. My vote is for David Ortiz, but Manny should at least be considered. Put in the running. It’d be really funny if one of the best hitters of this generation, hell one of the best hitters of all time, never finished higher than third in the MVP vote.

Calling It As I See It (II)

I’ve had a revelation on some of girl speak. For guys, it is very difficult to decode what a girl is really saying. Almost as though they are talking in code. I’ve got a breakdown of some of that code. Unfortunately, like most of the stuff I discover, it is totally useless, but it is a start.

When girl one says girl two is “cute” that means that girls two is less attractive than girl one, and therefore not a threat. The other possibility is that the two girls have been friends for a long time and are okay openly admitting that they have a slight physical attraction to each other.

When girl one calls girl two “a bitch” that means girl two is more attractive than girl one, and therefore a major threat. Girl one must defend her territory and not allow a more attractive female to rule her land. One other possibility is that girl two actually is very mean and generally dislikable. One other possibility is that girl two stole girl one’s boyfriend because she was more attractive.

Hugs and Handshakes

Be it long nights in a good friends basement or friendly wagers on the practice green of a local golf course, this summer was a time to remember. I wish it could have lasted forever, but I wish that with just about everything these days. I know I’ll be thinking the same thing when this school year concludes in the spring. The reason being that I am getting older, and I don’t want that to happen. I wish that I could be frozen at this time and just live out the rest of my days like this. Seeing all of my friends while at home was an awesome experience, being at school with only one of them makes the times at home with the rest of you all that more enjoyable. Not seeing someone who you are close with for nine months of the year makes the three months that you do get to see them awesome. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? To my friends, you will be missed.

As usual, some new faces crossed into my world this summer and those were some of my highlights. I love when I meet someone who I get along with. As many people know, I’m not the most outgoing person on the planet, so when I am outgoing it usually means that I really enjoy the company of the person I am speaking with. To the new faces, you will be missed.

It’s a scary year for all that are my age. Juniors in college. Where has the time gone? This great experience is halfway over, and with each day the real world inches closer to becoming our reality. I’m looking forward to it, yet in the same way not. Who wants to leave college? Nobody. It’s something that we all have to come to grips with eventually, but I am not ready for it yet. Hopefully I will be in two very short years.