10.02.2005
Introducing Our Contestants....
It's the day after the 2005 season ended, but there's not all that much to reflect on really. Brian Roberts, Derrek Lee, yadda yadda. The AL had no standout pitchers. A bunch of pitchers got hit by comebackers. There was something about steroids; I can't remember. The Cardinals were good this year. Bonds didn't feel like playing. That's about it. Everybody says, every year, that this season has been the most exciting in years, when in fact 2005 had nothing special about it and should just go ahead and give way to the ensuing year.
We can't move on yet though; there's still a playoff string to be carried out. The teams still standing do all have at least some potential, so they deserve some mention.
Atlanta Braves -- Nobody knows what to expect. There are too many wild variables, too many unknowns. Rookies everywhere, scouting reports being hastily scribbled on the backs of programs, surprised baserunners stopping halfway to third when they realize Jeff Francoeur's throw has already arrived. A good time to be a Braves fan: second-best team in the league, loaded with local boys made good, success affirmed for at least five more years or so. But a strong-looking playoff team is what would really hit the spot; it would be the first one in six years after all.
Two problems with this plan, though. First, Andruw Jones has an evil twin, an infuriatingly infantile alter ego who has a tendency to swing at too many bad pitches, possibly in attempt to end the game quickly so he can get back to the Gold Club. Good Andruw has kept Bad Andruw suppressed long enough this year to put together that long-awaited MVP-caliber season, but Bad Andruw is still lurking down there somewhere, I'm telling you. Second, nobody knows what the bullpen is supposed to look like after Kyle Farnsworth and (gulp) Chris Reitsma. There is no consensus on which pitchers to take among the assortment of Kyle Davies, Blaine Boyer, Macay McBride, Jim Brower, Dan Kolb, Joey Devine, and Anthony Lerew. The list goes on, and nobody knows the answer. This story never has a happy ending. Verdict: NLCS at best.
St. Louis Cardinals -- Never has a team been such a shoo-in from start to finish in a division. Their healthy season-long cushion in the standings has allowed them to absorb the injury to Scott Rolen, experiment with various drugs on Larry Walker to see what will keep him upright and alert throughout October, compile and send out catchily-sloganed pamphlets as part of their "Chris Carpenter for Cy Young" campaign, run through prospects like Scott Seabol and John Rodriguez to see who sticks, and even allow So "Very" Taguchi to nurture that rare treasure known as a 400-AB season.
St. Louis is the one Contestant that hasn't played a game that mattered in months. That means nothing come Tuesday of course, at least not as much as the fact that Carpenter might be fading, that Rolen is gone until 2006, and that they're still probably the NL's best hope by a safe margin anyway. This is because of Albert Pujols, who has only led the Cardinals in runs, RBI, homers, hits, doubles, total bases, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and stolen bases. Something tells me he is going to play a role. Verdict: Series bound, Pujols wins NL MVP, Carpenter wins Cy Young. Not a bad year overall.
San Diego Padres -- As weak stepsisters go, the Padres are weaker than weak; in fact they just plain suck. They're the worst team ever to make the playoffs in baseball history outside of the strike-ravaged 1981 season. But this has all been well-documented. We all know this ends with the Padres as a mere footnote to the 2005 season. What we need to be ready for is the moment when Jake Peavy comes up big and stakes his team to a 1-0 lead over the Cardinals. We need to take a deep breath now, in preparation for when that moment happens. Let's not freak out, people! Verdict: Down in four.
Houston Astros -- In every sport's postseason there is a "Team that Nobody Wants to Face," and the Astros are now baseball's TtNWtF for the second year in a row. This does not entail much more than having stellar starting pitching, but there's no denying Houston has the, um, stellarest of the stellar. In a series that runs seven games or fewer, the troika of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt should be all the aces you need. Additional good news is that Houston faces the Braves, whom they've finally been able to handle in the playoffs in recent years. The bad news is, the Braves can tell you all about how far a top-notch rotation and little else will get you in October. Verdict: Outside shot at a Series run.
Anahellhole Angels -- In many ways they are the same Angels team that won it all in 2002. Except they have Vladimir Guerrero now, and that and as a result the rest of the offense has apparently decided not to even bother. Vladimir has the only OPS above .900, Casey Kotchman has the only OPS above .800, and after that you get into names like Bengie Molina and the now-decrepit Orlando Cabrera and Adam Kennedy. But like the '02 squad they still have the great equalizer in Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez, and the pitching rotation has been a solid group effort from Jarrod Washburn, John Lackey, Paul Byrd and Bartolo Colon, who cracked twenty wins again and is a Cy Young darkhorse. This is when it begins to dawn on us that Bartolo Colon is going to hang around for a long time and probably end up in Cooperstown based on career totals. Verdict: World Series loser.
Chicago White Sox -- It was a fun run, but seriously you guys. No more kidding around. We'll look back on your run with great fondness, more so than the '93-'94 Frank Thomas-Jack McDowell run. It was the year 2005. Kids everywhere were grooving to Katrina benefit songs, supermodel Kate Moss did cocaine during the Super Bowl halftime show, it was revealed that the old NES game Contra had been part of a subtle propaganda campaign by portraying the scary foreigners as aliens [this is scheduled for next month], and Scott Podsednik was stealing bases by the dozen. Ah yes, sweet memories those were. But they're not really going to run Jon Garland out there in a playoff game, are they? Verdict: Down in five.
New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox -- Okay, stop. Let's just not even go here. Other people do these two teams better than I do. Better to just move on to--oh, screw it. Why do we have to suffer through more of this Yankees-Red Sox sludge every stinking fall now? There needs to be a sweeping movement of overall fan sentiment that diverts some of that collective good ol' Yankee hatred over to Boston as well. Major League Baseball had arguably the best running subplot of any major sport: Perennial losers, eighty years without a title, perpetually the Yankees' bitch, so many near misses, and so on. Now it's gone, ruined. Without it the Red Sox are not one iota more likable than the Yankees: same mammoth budget, same super-saturated media coverage, same annoying propensity to acquire (pick one) John Olerud, Matt Lawton, or Shawn Chacon with surprisingly little fanfare after the trading deadline has passed and every other team is trying to make do with what they have. At the risk of going all Bill Simmons, this is like a sitcom where the two romantic leads have gotten together. There's nowhere to go from here. Now we have to come up with some big new thing. Hey, I've got an idea: let's make a big deal out of steroids for a while! Verdict: Yankees down in four, Red Sox bow out in ALCS.
We can't move on yet though; there's still a playoff string to be carried out. The teams still standing do all have at least some potential, so they deserve some mention.
Atlanta Braves -- Nobody knows what to expect. There are too many wild variables, too many unknowns. Rookies everywhere, scouting reports being hastily scribbled on the backs of programs, surprised baserunners stopping halfway to third when they realize Jeff Francoeur's throw has already arrived. A good time to be a Braves fan: second-best team in the league, loaded with local boys made good, success affirmed for at least five more years or so. But a strong-looking playoff team is what would really hit the spot; it would be the first one in six years after all.
Two problems with this plan, though. First, Andruw Jones has an evil twin, an infuriatingly infantile alter ego who has a tendency to swing at too many bad pitches, possibly in attempt to end the game quickly so he can get back to the Gold Club. Good Andruw has kept Bad Andruw suppressed long enough this year to put together that long-awaited MVP-caliber season, but Bad Andruw is still lurking down there somewhere, I'm telling you. Second, nobody knows what the bullpen is supposed to look like after Kyle Farnsworth and (gulp) Chris Reitsma. There is no consensus on which pitchers to take among the assortment of Kyle Davies, Blaine Boyer, Macay McBride, Jim Brower, Dan Kolb, Joey Devine, and Anthony Lerew. The list goes on, and nobody knows the answer. This story never has a happy ending. Verdict: NLCS at best.
St. Louis Cardinals -- Never has a team been such a shoo-in from start to finish in a division. Their healthy season-long cushion in the standings has allowed them to absorb the injury to Scott Rolen, experiment with various drugs on Larry Walker to see what will keep him upright and alert throughout October, compile and send out catchily-sloganed pamphlets as part of their "Chris Carpenter for Cy Young" campaign, run through prospects like Scott Seabol and John Rodriguez to see who sticks, and even allow So "Very" Taguchi to nurture that rare treasure known as a 400-AB season.
St. Louis is the one Contestant that hasn't played a game that mattered in months. That means nothing come Tuesday of course, at least not as much as the fact that Carpenter might be fading, that Rolen is gone until 2006, and that they're still probably the NL's best hope by a safe margin anyway. This is because of Albert Pujols, who has only led the Cardinals in runs, RBI, homers, hits, doubles, total bases, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and stolen bases. Something tells me he is going to play a role. Verdict: Series bound, Pujols wins NL MVP, Carpenter wins Cy Young. Not a bad year overall.
San Diego Padres -- As weak stepsisters go, the Padres are weaker than weak; in fact they just plain suck. They're the worst team ever to make the playoffs in baseball history outside of the strike-ravaged 1981 season. But this has all been well-documented. We all know this ends with the Padres as a mere footnote to the 2005 season. What we need to be ready for is the moment when Jake Peavy comes up big and stakes his team to a 1-0 lead over the Cardinals. We need to take a deep breath now, in preparation for when that moment happens. Let's not freak out, people! Verdict: Down in four.
Houston Astros -- In every sport's postseason there is a "Team that Nobody Wants to Face," and the Astros are now baseball's TtNWtF for the second year in a row. This does not entail much more than having stellar starting pitching, but there's no denying Houston has the, um, stellarest of the stellar. In a series that runs seven games or fewer, the troika of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt should be all the aces you need. Additional good news is that Houston faces the Braves, whom they've finally been able to handle in the playoffs in recent years. The bad news is, the Braves can tell you all about how far a top-notch rotation and little else will get you in October. Verdict: Outside shot at a Series run.
Anahellhole Angels -- In many ways they are the same Angels team that won it all in 2002. Except they have Vladimir Guerrero now, and that and as a result the rest of the offense has apparently decided not to even bother. Vladimir has the only OPS above .900, Casey Kotchman has the only OPS above .800, and after that you get into names like Bengie Molina and the now-decrepit Orlando Cabrera and Adam Kennedy. But like the '02 squad they still have the great equalizer in Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez, and the pitching rotation has been a solid group effort from Jarrod Washburn, John Lackey, Paul Byrd and Bartolo Colon, who cracked twenty wins again and is a Cy Young darkhorse. This is when it begins to dawn on us that Bartolo Colon is going to hang around for a long time and probably end up in Cooperstown based on career totals. Verdict: World Series loser.
Chicago White Sox -- It was a fun run, but seriously you guys. No more kidding around. We'll look back on your run with great fondness, more so than the '93-'94 Frank Thomas-Jack McDowell run. It was the year 2005. Kids everywhere were grooving to Katrina benefit songs, supermodel Kate Moss did cocaine during the Super Bowl halftime show, it was revealed that the old NES game Contra had been part of a subtle propaganda campaign by portraying the scary foreigners as aliens [this is scheduled for next month], and Scott Podsednik was stealing bases by the dozen. Ah yes, sweet memories those were. But they're not really going to run Jon Garland out there in a playoff game, are they? Verdict: Down in five.
New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox -- Okay, stop. Let's just not even go here. Other people do these two teams better than I do. Better to just move on to--oh, screw it. Why do we have to suffer through more of this Yankees-Red Sox sludge every stinking fall now? There needs to be a sweeping movement of overall fan sentiment that diverts some of that collective good ol' Yankee hatred over to Boston as well. Major League Baseball had arguably the best running subplot of any major sport: Perennial losers, eighty years without a title, perpetually the Yankees' bitch, so many near misses, and so on. Now it's gone, ruined. Without it the Red Sox are not one iota more likable than the Yankees: same mammoth budget, same super-saturated media coverage, same annoying propensity to acquire (pick one) John Olerud, Matt Lawton, or Shawn Chacon with surprisingly little fanfare after the trading deadline has passed and every other team is trying to make do with what they have. At the risk of going all Bill Simmons, this is like a sitcom where the two romantic leads have gotten together. There's nowhere to go from here. Now we have to come up with some big new thing. Hey, I've got an idea: let's make a big deal out of steroids for a while! Verdict: Yankees down in four, Red Sox bow out in ALCS.
