Fenway Park, bathed in the warm
glow of the east sun late on a summer’s morning, is one of the truly
spectacular and transcendent experiences that a baseball fan, let alone a human
being, can ever aspire to have. Even
after two world championships in the last decade, night games at the park still
feature a palpable buzz, an excitement akin to the late ‘70s New York (heresy!)
of CBGB’s and Studio 54, but it’s in the daytime that the place really comes
alive.
Because no one is there. Because in those still quiet moments before
Yawkey Way is closed off for the game day traffic of food vendors and the
throng of crimson-clad diehards and bandwagon jumpers (the dreaded pink hats,
in the local lexicon, so dubbed for the women’s pink ballcap that the club started
hocking around the time when Johnny Damon was still a hirsute matinee idol in
those parts), when custodial workers are spraying down the street, when the
Yawkey Way Souvenir Store (surely one of the best located retail spots in the
country) has yet to give its first ballpark tour of the day, the true magic and
grandeur of the place is revealed. As
the sunlight gradually illuminates the exterior corners of the old girl, the
aged concrete crevices of Yaz and Teddy Ballgame’s day seem to perfectly blend
with the reconstructed brick and Green Monster Seats of the
Pedroia/Pedro/Nomaaah era. It’s a
fitting metaphor for the cocktail of nostalgia and modernism that is the Red
Sox fan experience.
So it was that I stood on Yawkey
Way several summers ago, strolling around the exterior of the park taking
pictures of the championship banners here, the Ted Williams statue there. So engrossed was I in forever capturing these
indelible features on film that I only noticed too late that my wallet was
gone. Spinning around, I tried to
retrace my steps, but couldn’t figure out how I had lost it. Then it hit me: that damn extreme Dutch
angle. In my thirst for the most
memorable of shots, I had laid on my back on the pavement in the hopes of
shooting those numerous banners from a perspective that would make future
viewers question just what it was they were seeing. In pursuing the shot, I had removed my wallet
so that I could lie completely flat. And
I had forgotten to pick it back up.
By this point, I had walked halfway
around the park, so it was with exquisite haste that I flew back around to
where I had left the wallet. But, of
course, it was nowhere to be found. My
mind flew back to Paris, 1995, when, as an 18 year-old fresh out of high
school, I had accidentally left my wallet on the airplane from America. That cumbersome and annoying experience rang
through my head until I heard a deep voice behind me.
“Hey man, are you lookin’ for
this?” the voice bellowed.
I spun around and there he
was. David Ortiz. Big Papi.
The clutchest of all clutch hitters, the post-season legend, the
cartoonish object of New England’s adoring attention. The man himself. And he had picked up my wallet on his way
into the park for that day’s pre-game practice.
I’d like to say that I was calm
and collected about the whole thing, but come on now. Like you’d believe that. Amidst my jitters and stuttering, I managed
to squeak out a “geez, you really saved me there.” Ortiz’s benevolent smile said everything that
I was trying to muster, so I just shook his hand, thanked him again and made my
way back into Kenmore Square.
It’s a great story that I’ll
always remember.
It’s also almost entirely a pack
of lies.
And it illustrates what seems to
be a growing trend in modern baseball coverage.
In the last few years, but especially this spring, national baseball
prognosticators have seemingly fallen head over heels in love with certain
teams and players, starstruck like a pack of teenage girls gone gaga over the
latest celebrity mega-hunk. And like
those young gals, they’d much rather focus on what’s drool-inducing about these
players than on the stark truths about their faults. The stories are enticing and romantic, but
they’re often just that: stories.
It’s enough to make a level-headed
guy look like the world’s greatest cynic.
Take Stephen Strasburg, the Washington Nationals’ stud pitching prospect
who electrified the game in his first handful of starts in his 2010 rookie
campaign. As he blew away hitter after
hitter, the popular narrative became one of the next Randy Johnson, of Dwight
Gooden without the drug problems and epic flameouts.
I saw Mark Prior.
Yep, the highly touted Cubs
prospect out of USC, the guy who, when he arrived on the scene in 2002 was
touted as having perfect mechanics for a future ace and Hall of Famer. The same guy who is now hoping for at least
one more stab at a comeback after a career derailed by arm problems, many
caused by arm problems from that same delivery (which turned out to be more
herky jerky than Hall of Fame.) When
Strasburg debuted two years ago, I saw tremendous raw talent, but I also saw
mechanics that put too much stress on his elbow. One Tommy John surgery later, he’s making his
way back with the hopes of fulfilling that potential.
Or take the Rays’ Matt Moore, the
current darling of the press set, with his phenomenally easy cheese and fluid
mechanics. With their deep farm system,
scrappy playing style and ace pitching staff, the Rays are once again the
trendy pick to return to the top of the American League East, and Moore is
being touted as one of the key pieces of the starting rotation. Hey, I wish the guy all the best, and I’ll
take more young and talented pitchers any day.
But here’s that reality check again: Moore has thrown a total of 9 1/3
major league innings. Yes, they were
dominant innings, including his masterful seven inning taming of the eventual
AL Champion Rangers in Game 1 of the Divisional Series. But they were 9 1/3 innings. Has everyone forgotten that whole thing
about teams adjusting to pitchers their second time around the league? Hell, Moore hasn’t even it made it halfway
through his first time around the circuit.
Now, I don’t want you to think
that I’m pulling out my cane and stogie and pontificating about how rotten the
game is these days. On the contrary,
this might be one of the most exciting times in modern baseball, with an influx
of youthful superstars around the league and a revenue sharing system that is
keeping the game more unpredictable than in past years. But enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily have to
equal irrationality. Maybe it’s the
hype-driven times that we live in, where it’s much easier to buy into the
narrative of the emperor’s clothes than to take an extra few seconds to check
him out in the buff, but it’s still okay to take a step back and remember what
has come before in looking at this coming season (and yeah, there’s a big
stinkin’ mixed metaphor fer ya! Now get
offa my lawn!)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
EAST
Philadelphia
Miami (Wild Card)
Atlanta
Washington
New York
These are precarious times for a
Phillies fan. That once potent office is
starting to look increasingly threadbare.
Ryan Howard is out for the first part of the season, Chase Utley is a
question mark healthwise and the top of the lineup (Jimmy Rollins, Placido Polanco
and Shane Victorino) is investing in more Just for Men than stocks. But there’s still the starting rotation, one
of the most dangerous combos in all of baseball. In Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, they have the
most consistent, reliable duo that anyone could ask for, and now that Cole
Hamels has fully bounced back from his
2009 hiccup, he provides the Phils with a legitimate third #1. Add in the promising Vance Worley, the still
reliable Joe Blanton and a peaking Jonathan Papelbon (who should benefit from
the senior circuit’s weaker offenses) to close out games and Philadelphia still
has enough to hold off the competition, especially if Howard and Utley don’t
log significant time on the DL.
But that sixth straight divisional
title won’t come easy, for the NL East has become vastly improved over the last
few years. It might not rival its
American League counterpart for pure firepower, but each team has a much more
solid nucleus than even five years ago.
Until Arte Moreno opened up his piggy bank, the Marlins were the clear
superstars of the winter meetings, inking Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes and Heath
Bell to extravagant contracts, a win now mentality taking the organization in
its grasp. Realistically, you could poke
quite a few holes in the Miami dream of a championship in the first year of
their newly christened electronic pleasuredome..I mean, stadium. Closers have a notoriously short lifespan,
and for all of his recent success, Bell is 34 and the owner of a K/BB ratio that
took a sharp plunge last year (a fairly reliable precursor for decline.) The Reyes story (all-world talent, fragile
body) is well-known. Ace Josh Johnson is returning from a long
injury layoff. And of yeah, there’s that
pesky situation with budding malcontent Hanley Ramirez and his plummeting OPS
and initial grumbling about switching to third base to accommodate Reyes. But the Marlins also have breakout
star-in-the-making Giancarlo Stanton and his otherworldy power to anchor the
lineup. And for my money, Buerhle is the
best signing they made all offseason.
He’s proven himself as a reliable innings eater in the brutal American
League, and even though his days of touching twenty wins are receding, he’s
still a valuable veteran presence on a young club. There’s enough volatile energy in South Beach
to give their rivals up north a run for the riches.
On paper, Atlanta still fields a
strong team and a possible contender, but the return of key players from injury
(Tim Hudson, Tommy Hanson) and the comeback of one of those aforementioned
future stars (Jason Heyward, who was hyped to the moon as Willie Mays Mk. II in
2010, only to crash to earth last year) will dictate whether the Braves will
pester the Marlins and Phillies or whether Fredi Gonzalez will have to wait out
a painful recovery process until 2013.
The potentially punchless nature of the lineup is also a concern,
although the Atlanta bullpen (with shutdown studs Jonny Venters and Craig
Kimbrel) remains one of the strongest in the game and might help ease the
burden of the somewhat tattered rotation.
The Braves’ running mates in the
division are where we run into the slightly irrational excitement that I
described way back at the beginning of this essay. Sure the Nationals are exciting and young. A full season of Strasburg could prove to be
something special, and after years of futility, this franchise is finally
starting to emerge from the post-Expos hangover. But that youth movement also carries with it
a load of questions. Can Gio Gonzalez sake
the control problems that dogged him in Oakland? How will Michael Morse’s season-opening DL
stint affect his continued growth? If
mega-prospect Bryce Harper spends significant time with the big club, will he
blossom or just annoy people with a mouth that seems to match his prodigious
talents? And will veteran Jayson Worth
regain any of his former stroke, or will his signing go down as one of the last
bum moves for this star-crossed franchise (assuming that the seemingly
prescient locking up of Ryan Zimmerman pays off as expected)? Yep, a load of questions translates into
continued improvement, but this club is still a year away from making a run at
a playoff spot.
The best news that the Mets
received this offseason was twofold: the end of the Bernie Madoff/Wilpon family
fiasco and the return of Johan Santana after nearly a year and a half on the
shelf. And maybe the promise of David
Wright regaining some of his power now that the club has moved in the fences at
Citi Field. But aside from those matters,
this is still a franchise in dire straits.
With Sandy Alderson running the show, there’s always hope for a return
to glory, but the only New York team that’ll be flirting with the postseason
for the next few years is run by the Steinbrenner family.
CENTRAL
Cincinnati
St. Louis (Wild Card)
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
Chicago
Houston
As opposed to the NL East, the
Central requires much less of a word count, if only because it’s (as always)
less stacked with talent, especially in the cases of the bottom three
clubs. Now after preaching the value of
restraint in evaluating teams earlier in this essay, I’ll cop to having fallen
prey to overestimating a seemingly up and coming club in recent years. Case in point: the Reds. For four years now, I’ve been high on them
for the division crown, only to see them go from 78 wins to 91 wins and then
back to 79 wins. The pitching has been
wildly inconsistent and the offense has at times been baffling. But if this offseason showed anything, it was
that Walt Jocketty was going all in to win now.
He gave up quite the ransom to pry Mat Latos away from the Padres, but
his peripherals and age make the acquisition a shrewd bet. With Johnny Cueto evolving into a dominant
front line starter, a steadily improving Mike Leake and the likelihood that
former prospect Homer Bailey might be a decent number five, Cincinnati can
afford to gamble on Bronson Arroyo rebounding from a subpar 2011 to fill out
what could be the premiere staff in the division. And now that Joey Votto is signed up through
his age 39 year, the offense has reliability in the middle for some time to
come. The keys to the Reds’ success will
be if Ryan Ludwick, Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips can maintain any consistency
in their offensive output. Bruce has
prodigious power, but will need to increase his walk rate if he’s going to be
Votto’s partner in crime in the heart of the lineup. As well, Ryan Madson’s season-ending injury
has thrown the bullpen into some doubt, but it’s still deep and could benefit
tremendously from the addition of the always ready to bust out Aroldis Chapman.
If Chris Carpenter is healthy,
the Cardinals will contend. If Chris
Carpenter is out for long stretches of time, the Cardinals will still
contend. Remember the script from last
year, when co-ace Adam Wainwright missed the entire season, thus supposedly
signifying a St. Louis collapse? See how
that worked out? It’s old hat at this
point, but the Cardinals are such a sound organization that they’re able to
retool and rehab pitchers while plugging bit players and aging vets into the
lineup. If the Reds underachieve (which
is always a possibility with that franchise), St. Louis could once again take
the division, although the loss of Albert Pujols is going to be tougher than
most of their recent losses.
And speaking of Central sluggers
who took their act to the junior circuit, Prince Fielder’s departure is likely
enough to derail a repeat from the Brewers.
The starting three of Zack Greinke, Yovanni Gallardo and Shaun Marcum
have the potential to be lights out, and the K-Rod/John Axford bullpen duo is strong
enough to give credence to the possibility of Milwaukee surprising
everyone. But there are a few too many
if’s there, and Fielder drove the offense so much that his absence is probably
too tough to overcome. At least for this
year.
The bottom of the division
contains a trio of once proud franchises who are all in a state of flux. Theo Epstein’s arrival gives the Cubs the
most immediate hope for a return to glory, although he and Jed Hoyer have a lot
of work to do before Wrigley Field hosts a playoff game again. The Pirates continue to build a strong
offensive core, but the starting rotation is still too weak. And the Astros are marking time until they
switch over to the American League in 2013.
WEST
San Francisco
Arizona
Los Angeles
Colorado
This division is a pretty simple
case, as it depends on one thing: pitching.
If the Giants can get any kind of offense out of their lineup, if Buster
Posey returns to his pre-injury form, if Brandon Belt’s swing is rehabbed to
their satisfaction, they win the NL West.
Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner are more solid than what
the other staffs have to offer, and that will make all the difference. Kirk Gibson’s hard-nosed style helped Arizona
to finally reach the potential they’d been teasing for several years, but the
offense is still not much better than what the Giants throw out there, and the
starting rotation is shaky beyond Ian Kennedy.
These factors and an expected regression to the mean will deny the
Diamondbacks another division title.
Now that the McCourt family soap
opera has been yanked offstage, the Dodgers and their new owners can
concentrate on restoring the franchise to its past glories. All credit to Don Mattingly, who kept this
team together last year through all the off-field drama and lack of finances
for additional on-field help. Again,
pitching is the key question here. Aside
from Clayton Kershaw, whose breakout season firmly established him as an elite
starter, there are question marks aplenty, especially with the loss of the
reliable Hiroki Kuroda and an untested bullpen.
Offensively, Matt Kemp appears to have come into his own with his MVP
campaign. The ability of Andre Ethier to
build on his progress and Dee Gordon establishing himself as a reliable leadoff
hitter will be important, but this club is still several players away from
challenging again. But now that they
have some scratch to throw around, that might come sooner rather than later. The same can’t be said for Colorado, although
the Rockies aren’t that far away from making another prolonged run. Say it one more time with me: pitching is the
key to this division. And the Rockies’
staff is both too young and too mediocre to make many waves. But in two years…
PLAYOFFS
WILD CARD PLAY-IN
Miami over St. Louis
DIVISIONAL ROUND
Philadelphia over Miami
San Francisco over St. Louis
NLCS
Philadelphia over San Francisco
AMERICAN LEAGUE
EAST
Boston
Tampa Bay (Wild Card)
New York
Toronto
Baltimore
It’s entirely appropriate for a
division that’s home to two mythical franchises to have so many myths
encircling it entering this year. So to
set things straight:
MYTH: The Red Sox are a beer
guzzlin’, fried chicken chompin’ disaster with too many large egos and a new
manager primed for an epic flameout.
REALITY: From May-August, this
team dominated baseball like no other.
With John Lackey having a historically atrocious season. And J.D. Drew’s bat finally
disappearing. Both are gone this year,
while the rest of the league’s best offense returns with bit players like Cody
Ross and Ryan Sweeney filling in some of the blanks. And that’s not even considering the
likelihood that Carl Crawford returns to at least his average career
numbers. Sure, Josh Beckett’s
peripherals will likely regress a bit, and Jon Lester might never quite make it
over the hump into dominant ace territory.
But they don’t need to for Boston to take the division, especially with
Clay Buchholz returning and a strong spring from Felix Doubront. Andrew Bailey’s potential thumb surgery at
press time complicates matters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Daniel Bard
returns to the bullpen to anchor a deep core of relievers. And yeah, Bobby Valentine is destined to
flame out at some point, but he traditionally gives his teams a bump in his
first year. Don’t be fooled by the once
in a lifetime epic September collapse; this team is still a beast.
MYTH: The Rays’ offense will be
scrappy enough to support the excellent pitching.
REALITY: This is a potentially
deeply flawed lineup. Carlos Pena is in
decline, Jose Molina could be a black hole at catcher and Luke Scott is Luke
Scott. Yes, Desmond Jennings is a star
in waiting, but he has yet to play an entire season. And the Matt Joyce/Ben Zobrist combo equals
one all-star player, but that’s not enough.
MYTH: The Yankees! They’re the Yankees!
REALITY: There are holes
everywhere in this team. Robbie Cano and
Curtis Granderson (if he repeats his 2011) aside, this is an aging lineup that’s
running out of second winds. A-Rod is in
decline, Mark Teixeira’s peripherals are headed in the wrong direction and
Derek Jeter isn’t getting any younger.
And for all the hype about the resurgent pitching staff, New York begins
the year with Michael Pineda on the DL after an inconsistent spring in which he
displayed inconsistent velocity, the enigma of Phil Hughes, Hiroki Kuroda
having to jump from the offensively impotent NL West to the shark tank of the
AL East and Ivan Nova trying to prove that his sensational rookie campaign was
no hoax. Yes, CC Sabathia is as reliable
as they come, but the last year the Yanks took advantage of Boston’s collapse
and Tampa’s last minute run to take the division. Lightning won’t strike twice this year.
MYTH: Toronto is the sleeper team
in this division.
REALITY: They really are a
sleeper, although not for a division crown.
But this is a team on the move, so watch out in 2013.
MYTH: Baltimore is really that
bad.
REALITY: They’re bad. But not that bad. And if Dan Duquette can work the
organizational rebuilding that he did in Montreal and Boston (before he became
the most hated man in Beantown), the O’s might regain their former glory in a
few years. Or more.
CENTRAL
Detroit
Cleveland
Kansas City
Minnesota
Chicago
This division seems like a
foregone conclusion, as on paper the talent gap between Detroit and the field
is massive. The Tigers will still win it,
but any consistence in offensive production from the Indians could keep them in
the race, especially if Ubaldo Jiminez regains some of his ace form. The Tigers still face questions of
consistency in the rotation after Justin Verlander (although Doug Fister could
be the solid two that Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer have been aiming to be)
and their offense might not be the beast that everyone is predicting. Prince Fielder will still produce, but his
numbers are going to take a hit in the spacious confines of Comerica Park. And the impact of Miguel Cabrera’s move to
third base is still unknown; the defensive hit alone will likely hamper the
pitching staff. Past these two mashers,
there’s a lot of incosistence and what if’s in the rest of the offense, enough
that Cleveland’s vaunted youngsters could give them fits. A return to form for Shin-Soo Choo and
continued improvement from Asdrubal Cabrera will go a long way toward making
sure that Carlos Santana doesn’t have to shoulder the burden himself. If the Shelley Duncan, Casey Kotchman, Jack
Hannahan/Lonnie Chisenhall triumvirate can be better than league average, then
watch out for the Tribe.
Which leaves us with the Twins
and the White Sox. Minnesota is facing
the possibility that Joe Mauer will be the highest paid average part time
catcher in the league for years to come, and Justin Morneau is a question mark. That seemingly impossible formula of youth,
bit players and timely pitching that the Twins rode to success for years has
apparently run out, so it might be a rough year up north. And Chicago is clearly in rebuild mode.
WEST
Texas
Los Angeles (Wild Card)
Seattle
Oakland
And so we end with one of the
other great media narratives of the offseason: the amazing healing powers of
Albert Pujols. The Angels were widely
criticized for their reluctance to outbid their competitors for free agents
over the last few years, so it’s no surprise that, facing the slow closing of
this team’s championship, Arte Moreno threw his mad money everywhere and landed
both Pujols and C.J. Wilson. As a
result, the Los Angeles starting rotation will be a beast, possibly the best in
baseball. And Pujols is still the best
player in the game and headed toward being one of the best of all time. But it can’t be denied that his overall numbers
have been in steady decline, and that decline has occurred in a league with
weaker competition and overall weaker pitching.
He’ll mash for the Angels, but he’s not getting any younger, and even if
he defies the average aging pattern he still won’t keep up his production for
that long. Which is a problem, because
people seem to forget how bad this offense was last year. Their OPS leader? Howie Kendrick, with a subpar .802. I keep hearing that Torii Hunter is in great
shape, but he’s also 36. And don’t even
start with the Vernon Wells comeback talk.
Throw in the question of Kendrys Morales returning from injury and a
relatively unproven gaggle of youngsters and you have a club that’s better, but
not quite up to par with Texas.
Now the Rangers face the opposite
problem, as their starting staff is slightly up in the air after losing
Wilson. If Yu Darvish bucks the trend of
recent Japanese pitching flameouts, the relative depth of the starting five
should be enough to keep them in games.
Which should be enough to win the division, because the Rangers’ offense
remains scary good. Josh Hamilton is a
regression candidate, but even if his numbers fall off he has such a stellar
supporting cast around him one through nine that it might not make a
difference. Normally, I’d preach the
good gospel of great pitching outlasting a great offense, but with Los Angeles’s
anemic offense in play, the Rangers should have enough to edge them in the
West.
And then there are the Mariners
and Athletics, two teams still building for a future of some sort. For the A’s, there’s the promise of
relocation to San Jose, so this year will likely focus around the American
debut of Yoennis Cespedes and whether Manny Ramirez has any production left in
him. The Mariners still have the amazing
Felix Hernandez and a good core of young hitters (led by Dustin Ackley and
Justin Smoak), but they’re several years away from returning to the postseason.
PLAYOFFS
WILD CARD PLAY-IN
Los Angeles over Tampa Bay
DIVISIONAL ROUND
Boston over Texas
Detroit over Los Angeles
ALCS
Boston over Detroit
WORLD SERIES
Boston over Philadelphia
-One year later, the trendy 2011
pick comes true. Philly makes what might
be one last run at a title, while Boston picks themselves up and resumes their
pre-August 2011 form.
