Michael Melvin Blog
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The calendar week bisecting the two nearly-equal halves of the Major League Baseball season is upon us. The All-Star break signifies a time for reflection on past missteps, and, for the more fortunate, a time to become ready for a stretch run into the playoffs.
The teams who find themselves at the bottom of the standings go back to the drawing board and develop strategies for improving their team’s weaknesses for next year -- reflection. Teams who are in contention develop strategies for acquiring improvements to the team before the trade deadline at the end of July – becoming ready. Thus, the All-Star break is an exciting time in baseball, the penciled in layout for the season can now be slowly gone over in ink – unfolding whether or not predictions hold true or are proven incorrect.
Let’s start with predictions and work our way down from there.
American League Champion – World Series Champion
The Detroit Tigers demonstrated to everyone last year they were a serious contender by making it to the Series only to be upset by the St. Louis Cardinals in five games.
The fact of the matter remains; the Tigers have the best pitching rotation in the American League. Jeremy Bonderman, their ace, is among the top 15 in the entire league in strikeouts (98), Nate Robertson just won a big decision over Boston just a few days ago, Justin Verlander ranks 4th in the AL in wins (10) and 7th in ERA (3.14) and obviously he threw the 2nd no hitter this season against Milwaukee a good offensive team, and Kenny Rogers returned to the rotation just before the break to win 3 decisions in a row during the while posting an astounding 1.04 ERA.
Their bullpen is decent, Grilli, Seay, Miner, and Durbin get the job done, but they really aren’t called upon because the starters are going deep into the games (ironically they only have 1 complete game). The closer, Todd Jones, is 5th in the AL in saves, and has only 4 blown saves in 38 games.
The most potent part of this Tigers team is not their excellent pitching; it is their stellar offensive lineup. The Tigers rank 1st across the entire league in runs, batting average, hits, RBIs, doubles, and slugging percentage. Their lineup is absolutely stacked but the middle of their lineup, is the best in baseball, better than the Yankees’ Jeter-Rodriguez-Posada (especially this season.)
Sheffield, Ordonez, Guillen and Rodriguez all pose an unbelievable task for opposing pitchers to work through. Ordonez leads the league in batting average and is second in RBIs. He will definitely be in contention for the AL MVP award. Sheffield, who started the season slow, has caught fire as of late and leads the team in home runs (21). Guillen hits for average but also has great power and Ivan Rodriguez is always consistent. All of these guys are unforgiving and each has the power to potentially break a game open every time they come to the plate.
The Tigers never showed signs of slowing down coming into the All-Star break and expect them to continue things into the second half of the season. It will be interesting watching them fend of the Indians who have been right behind them all season. The two teams play eight more times before season’s end.
National League Champion
The Padres have the best overall pitching rotation in the MLB. Jake Peavy leads the NL in strikeouts (125) and is 2nd in ERA (2.19). The second starter in the rotation, Chris Young, is the only other person who has a better ERA than Peavy. Greg Maddux and David Wells are both living legends, and Justin Germano won his first five decisions posting a 2.63 ERA over that period of time.
Trevor Hoffman is the closing pitcher for the Padres and every time the man makes another successful save he rewrites history. Hoffman is the all-time leader in saves therefore he personifies consistency and teams facing him have an arduous task of coming back to win.
San Diego will have to rely on their pitching for a championship because their offense is terrible. They rank in the bottom half of the league in runs and 2nd to last in batting average.
However, the teams who face San Diego will run the risk of seeing Peavy, a pitcher who only needs a one or two run buffer, twice in a seven game series. Add Chris Young and playoff veterans Maddux and Wells into the mix and the Padres will be tough to beat in the playoffs. .
Honorable Mention for American League Champion: Boston Red Sox
Boston has the 3rd best pitching rotation in the American League (Detroit-Oakland). David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are the best 3-4 hitters baseball has seen in years. Daisuke Matsuzaka has proven to be worth the money he received and Kevin Youkilis has been the biggest surprise in the AL this year. Look to see if Boston can keep the pace up throughout the second half of the season.
Honorable Mention for National League Champion: New York Mets
The Mets are another team that have it all – the young superstars, decent pitching, excellent coaching and a potent offensive lineup. Interestingly, the older players in the lineup have not been their major injury concern thus far, but as the second half progresses it’s something they will need to keep an eye on. If the Mets can get healthy and stay healthy they will go deep in the post-season.
Biggest Disappointment
Everyone knows the numbers; 195.2M in salaries, and yet one game under .500 going into the All-Star break. The New York Yankees are a psychological mess. This team has been plagued with injuries the entire season and has never found consistency because of it.
The Phil Hughes story is a tragic one if you are a Yankee fan. The rookie pitcher takes a no-hitter into the 7th inning only to be forced out of the game with a hamstring injury. Hughes hasn’t been seen since….
The Yankees signed Kei Igawa to answer the Matsuzaka signing up in Boston. Igawa has not performed as advertised. The Japanese pitcher was a strikeout champion back home, but there he lived up in the strike zone. Pitchers cannot be successful by pitching this way in the MLB. Igawa felt the repercussions that come with pitching up in the zone because opposing batters teed off on him early in the season thus forcing the Yankees to send him down to A-ball. This is a demotion of substantial magnitude, a player gets sent from the Majors to A-ball only if there is something direly wrong with the player. This should be a lesson for management to not preemptively sign a pitcher with minimal scouting.
Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada have put together wonderful seasons at this point but it is Alex Rodriguez’s beacon of light which is recognized so easily throughout baseball this season. A-Rod has the second most home runs going into an All-Star break (30) only to Roger Maris (33) who accomplished this when made his infamous run in 1961. He leads the entire league in RBIs and could potentially win the Triple Crown if he gets his batting average up a little bit more. A-Rod has been the Yankees’ savior this season which has quelled some critics who argue A-Rod chokes in the clutch. Rodriguez, granted he does not go into an absolute slump, will have himself another AL MVP award.
If the Yankees play like they did in the series against Minnesota and Anaheim right before the All-Star break, they have a legitimate shot at reaching the Wild Card. At this moment, however, the Yanks have not shown they can sustain consistent winning baseball and I would not expect them to reach the playoffs this year.
Biggest Surprise
Prince Fielder. J.J. Hardy. Ben Sheets. The Milwaukee Brewers took a page out of Detroit’s 2006 manual and seemingly emerged out of nowhere. They are winning games in style and doing it decisively; they are 9th in the entire league in runs scored and 2nd overall in home runs and slugging percentage, all this with a $71M payroll (middle of the pack.)
They will definitely win more than the 75 games they did last year and have a very good chance at taking the NL Central division. Quite impressive considering the reigning World Series Champion Cardinals, Houston Astros – always a playoff contender, and Chicago Cubs -- a team that was supposed to do great things in ‘07, all call this division home.
Prince Fielder is the front runner for the NL MVP award and, again, should have it locked up if he continues to put up the numbers he has this season.
The All-Star Game
It won’t be a surprise when the American League wins again this year. They have won 10 of the last 10 games which came to a decision.
The balance of talent always seems to roll in trends, in the 70’s to early 80’s it was the NL who won all of the All-Star games, now the all of the talent is in the AL.
The best part of the All-Star Game is that the game itself is important nowadays. Sure the players took pride in winning the game in the past, but ever since the winner of the All-Star Game gets home field advantage in the World Series, the games have become increasingly more interesting.
I predict the AL wins 13-7 giving the Tigers the advantage over the Padres in the Series.
The MLB season has been excellent so far. Fans have been treated to a couple no-hit games (and potential ones too; Hughes-Wang, Yankees, Schilling, Red Sox), Frank Thomas has reached the 500 home run plateau, and Craig Biggio reached the 3,000 hit mark.
The second half of the season will be even better.
Whether you love him or hate him, Barry Bonds will break Hank Aaron’s home run record before the end of July, Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome, and Manny Ramirez should reach 500 home runs, and Tom Glavine will win his 300th game.
Also, not one team is drastically out of playoff contention (except Tampa Bay or Kansas City) which means anything can happen. Teams have come out of nowhere before to make the playoffs, furthermore, teams who were on top all season have collapsed.
This is shaping up to be one of the best baseball seasons in recent memory. I know I’ll be watching how everything pans out. Will you?
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