Results tagged ‘ National League ’
Mulling Over The NL West
The encouraging trend for the Phoenix nine is their unusually young team that led the NL in wins is now a year older, and All Star Game starter Dan Haren has replaced fading Livan Hernandez. The bad news is that leading a major league in wins while being outscored by one’s opponents has happened only once in baseball history for a reason. Teams that are seasonally outscored just arent very good and cant be relied upon to regularly contend.
Here’s a macro picture of this year’s Diamondback model:
- It will be better (RS/RA) than last year’s team, but with a worse won lost record (sub 90 wins)
- The young hitting will almost certainly improve, perhaps significantly. There’s no power failure, as the 07 squad hit as many homers (171) as the Rockies, but they need to get on base alot more. Coming off a league low team BA & OBP (in a very favorable park), there’s no place for a more seasoned team to go but up. The question is: By how much?
- Pitching, despite the Haren upgrade, should decline. Expect Danny’s ERA to be about a run higher than last year, due to the huge park change (more than compensating for the NL’s lack of DH), his propensity for yielding big flies, and a gaudy 2007 first half that outpaced underlying performance. Similar, latent concerns ( based on FIP, etc) linger about the rest of the staff; especially Brandon Lyon, Micah Owings and Doug Davis, whose collectively razor thin successes are largely expected to evaporate. Lyon, one of three "Brandons" pitching on the 40 man, will close in place of exiled All Star Jose Valverde, the NL’s reigning seasonal saves leader.
Also:
- The bench should be worse (ie they will not lead the entire majors in pinch hit home runs again, will they?)
- The defense is good ( I think better than most stats suggest) and nobody absconded bags while preventing same quite as efficiently as Bob Melvin’s boys. Barring an injury to Snyder, that relative asset shouldn’t degrade much, even as the youngsters run more.
What about the competition?
Apart from the Dan Ortmeier-led Giants (thank you, Brain Sabean!), conventional wisdom anticipates a tight division, with Dodgeball and our Desert Diamonds on the upswing and the Rockies and Padres tougher to gauge, independent of Colorado’s fabulous September run. I wont bother with detailed roster analysis here to support that statement – god knows you can find it elsewhere. Suffice it to say all NL West teams are flawed, most seriously.
LA and SD both appear to be grasping with unlikely fixes to the rear ends of their rotations. Prior, Wolf, Kuroda, Loaiza, Schmidt ? Big names, but I wouldnt start a season depending on any of ‘em. Whether Randy Johnson flames out (Edgar Gonzalez) or not (ie Davis, Owings), advantage Diamondbacks.
The surprisingly effective Rockie staff lost no less than four valuable bullpen cogs (Herges, Affeldt, Hawkins and Julio) , lacks a #1 stopper and will rely on talented but fairly green starters to log significant innings. That’s a lot of uncertainty to address. Anticipate a regression. The offense is solid (not great). The defense was great with Matsui – and is still excellent.
The Padres are much better hitters than credited. The hopeful addition of rickety Edmonds and imminent gamebreaker Hairston to a solid infield quintet, might make this Gaslamp Gang the division’s best with the bats, however the Pads are also the majors’ worst at throwing out base stealers, and with Scotty and Giles flanking an aging Hollywood (or healthy understudy) instead of Mike Cameron, plenty of Padre pitchers will prematurely age, or possibly puke, perceiving pop ups passively plop in panoramic Petco.
Of course, leave it to the real Hollywood to capture maximum buzz, inserting a fresh batch of overrated stars (incl. Torre, Kuroda and Andruw Jones) to augment worn out celebrity "insertees", Tommy LaSorda and Alyssa Milano. That’s not to say the Dodgers cant be good. Like a six course Italian feast or a high class call girl, they can be fantastic – in an expensive sort of way.
It just wont be veterans leading the way. In complete contrast to the Diamondbacks, whose offense (such as it was) was driven by lone veterans Byrnes and Hudson, Dodger fortunes hinge on the youthful trio of Loney, Martin and Kemp. Kent can still hit and Andruw could rebound some, but veterans alone arent going to propel this team. Furcal has declined at the plate and there’s a word for Juan Pierre and Nomar. Holes. If the kid trio struggles, these veterans arent collectively good enough to pick up the slack. Not across a long season.
Coming Soon: Predictions
(photos courtesy of AP/Morry Gash)
Bleary Yes, Blurry No
Earlier in his career, we never cared much for Greg Maddux. Didnt despise him or anything, but felt his status as a legend was somewhat compromised by the wide berth umpires granted him through the 1990s. One could certainly argue that he facilitated or even earned it, but all the same, that and some visible mound fussiness never sat real well with us. So, like most Diamondback fans, we took particular glee watching the perennial All Star fume as we beat him up on an improbably regular basis.
Well, the old man’s beaten us twice in a week now (reliever Cameron was credited with the Aug 29 W), in the heat of a pennant race, and I have to say, he’s really earned some newfound admiration. I know he benefits greatly from Petco, and he still gets calls, and the NL is very weak. But for all the talk about Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson and, more recently, Tom Glavine, this Maddux guy captains this generation’s ship of aging mound marvels. All four geezers masterfully screw with hitters’ balance and timing, but Clemens and Johnson enjoy the physical advantage of being power pitchers – the two ex-Braves do not.
With Glavine, we hear constantly how he never gives in. Well, Maddux rarely gives in either; the difference is Maddux doesnt give in and stays in the strike zone. And I do mean stays. Forty nine innings without a free pass? Across a wide range of opponents, home plate umps and ballparks? Not even an intentional one to some "pitch around" power threat? Maddux hasnt walked a single batter… since July!
It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a 41 year old pitcher without overpowering stuff; a testament not only to his committment not to beat himself, but also to his physical ability in seeing that through. It’s not like he’s at a county fair either, just grooving it in there, knockin’ down milk bottles. Manager Bud Black:
He’s a phenomenal strike thrower. And he’s a phenomenal ball thrower, too. I mean, he can throw a ball when he wants and he can throw a strike when he wants. That’s what makes Greg Greg, is his ability to command the ball."
And Maddux on Maddux:
"The last thing you want to do is have a meaningless walk streak affect how you go about hitters. "I’m not good enough to just lay it in there and save a walk streak. I think my last one ended when I intentionally walked somebody."
More Captain Marvel? The other day, at Petco, he pounced off the hill to his right – away from a RHP’s natural follow through momenutm – to snare a high chopper and fluidly, calmly throw out a streaking Justin Upton at home. Could even 20% of RHPs, including those half Mad Dog’s age, have executed that play? I doubt it. For one thing, Maddux doesnt have any follow through momentum – he releases the ball perfectly balanced on the mound and has great fielding range in either direction – a big "secret" to those sixteen gold gloves. Earlier in the game, with speedster Chris Young eyeing MLB’s worst throwing catcher (Josh Bard) from first, Maddux lulled Young with several throws, finally got him rocking the wrong way, and picked him off – a potentially huge turnaround in what resulted in a very close game.
And yesterday, the old man cruised along in a hitter’s paradise with an early lead, in the comfortable knowledge that only walks could beat him, especially against a young lineup that strings together hits like a blind man strings a pearl necklace. And so, true to a winner’s form, Maddux didnt issue any walks. He didnt dominate or blow people away. Yielded a homer, a triple, but no real damage. He just didnt beat himself.
Later in the game, the old man 
hit a double . Not exactly Micah Owings, but all things considered, like pennants for example, one doubts the Padres are itching to go "younger, cheaper, or ostensibly better" anytime soon. Folks have been waiting for Greg Maddux to fade away. However, if Labor Day was any indication, we saw Greg Maddux and the Padres quite clearly. The only thing fading, at the moment, is "Sedona Red".
( photos courtesy of AP/ Pual Connors )
Sinker Swami
Despite pitching his worst game of the year on election day, sinker swami Brandon Webb held off a logjam of allegedly comparable candidates to win the 2006 NL Cy Young Award.
Diamondhacks didnt predict any winner, but we’re delighted with the outcome, having written and written that the unassuming Webb and Astro Roy Oswalt were the most deserving candidates.
The leading vote getters were:
| Voting results ¬ | ||||
| Player, Club | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Points |
| Brandon Webb, Diamondbacks | 15 | 7 | 7 | 103 |
| Trevor Hoffman, Padres | 12 | 3 | 8 | 77 |
| Chris Carpenter, Cardinals | 2 | 16 | 5 | 63 |
| Roy Oswalt, Astros | 3 | 3 | 7 | 31 |
| Carlos Zambrano, Cubs | 1 | 3 | 6 | |
| Billy Wagner, Mets | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
For all the yammering about how inseparable Webb and Carpenter appeared, it’s worth noting how decisively Webb won the battle of starters, with 15 first place votes to Carpenter’s pair. Carpenter, relentlessly ballyhooed as one of two clear frontrunners, finished third, exactly where he belonged. We were disappointed, however, that Hoffman outpolled Oswalt, most likely one of the league’s two best starters.
A representative ballot, constructed from the above modes looks like this:
First place: Webb(15)
Second: Carpenter(16)
Third: Hoffman(8)
What prevented that order from reflecting the official outcome were twelve 
rogue voters, who bestowed first place ballots for San Diego’s closer. Maybe they confused the Cy with a lifetime acheivement award, or were too lazy to ferret out distinctions within the tight pack of more valuable starters? Whatever their reasons, if any, to elevate a 63IP pitcher who wasnt even the best reliever on his own team(see Cla Meredith) over a trio of starting horses averaging 225IP, Hoffman jumped all the way to CY runner-up on the basis of these dozen dopes – and actually came embarassingly close to winning the trophy.
Just one look at the voting disparity between Trevor and Billy Wagner, who shared distinguished but hardly distinguishable seasons, illustrates what a sham Hoffman’s second place showing is. Each closer blew five saves with comparable ERA. Hoffman converted his extra opportunities(5) but Wagner threw 14% more innings – they’re basically the same pitcher. So, if you’re claiming Hoffman’s 63IP of 2.00ERA is worth more than 220IP of 3.00 ERA, doesnt intellectual consistency(if not common sense) compel you to also vote for Wagner second or third? Yet bozos who picked Hoffman barely gave Wagner the time of day. They wrote a bunch of starters in behind Hoffman, essentially ignoring Trevor’s virtual twin.
Not Tonight Scarlett
Despite the Mets being painted as some kind of underdogs in Game 6, I really think they enjoy an edge over the Cardinals. Chris Carpenter isnt quite as good as his reputation suggests, but the Mets should win tonight primarily because they have to and the Cardinals do not. 
To the extent that Maine capsizes, Willie Randolph, like Scarlett O’Hara before him, has to shoot his bullets today and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Tony Larussa, a modern day Ashley Wilkes, may not opt to confront such harsh realities just yet, in the event Carpenter unravels. His best firemen, Kinney and Wainwright each went 1 and 1/3 Tuesday and might be unavailable or ineffective in a potential Game 7, if either pitched today in a loss.
And most signs point to Carpenter, who does have 5 complete games, requiring relief. Perhaps he was spooked when the NL’s best hitting team knocked him out after five on Friday the 13th, but we have little reason to think he will survive the seventh tonight. The Mets are not the suddenly feeble Padres, the only team Chris has pitched effectively against in several recent big pressure games.
We see the Cardinals either grabbing an early or midgame lead and the Mets scoring late to win it, quite possibly in a walkoff.
Secondary
Often hailed as the vital cog after a win or the insurmountable obstacle after defeat, no individual position in a major team sport is more associated with that team’s success than a football quarterback. Last night, however, Rex Grossman played about as badly as an NFL quarterback can – he didnt come close to most of his receivers all night, threw several interceptions, and failed to get his team in the end zone once. Matt Leinart completed 57% of his passes, two for TDs, and didnt get intercepted in 42 attempts. Yet Grossman’s Bears still won.
Chicago’s "improbable" theft underscored why I prefer baseball to football. 
Nobody expected the Bears Cardinals game to unfold quite the way it did, but everybody expected the final outcome – at least prior the game. And when everybody can pick a winner in the NFL, everybody is almost always right. That’s far less true in baseball, especially on an individual game basis.
A big reason is because starting pitchers, not football quarterbacks, are indeed those who most influence their respective team’s success. If a starting pitcher threw as poorly as Grossman, and his counterpart "pitched" like Leinart, Leinart’s baseball team would always win. Good pitchers, or more accurately, good pitching performances, beat superior baseball teams regularly. Look up any week’s box scores and you’ll find several examples. This competitive stabilizer, organic to the game, provides a natural parity that the NFL artificially approximates through corrupt scheduling. The NBA’s stabilizer, such as it is, the enabled home court advantage, wreaks of similar artifice.
Baseball’s different. It’s a sport where a fine, or terrible, individual performance can genuinely define a team, at least for one night, at or far away from home. And you dont always know who will deliver. Perennial whipping boy(man?) Kenny Rogers can not only pitch well against the Yankees; he can beat them. If he was a quarterback, "throwing" against Jaret Wright(the Grossman equivalent), we’d be consoling Rogers about how, no matter how great he threw, someone like him just cant beat the Yankees.
In baseball, he can beat the Yankees. People did it seventy times this year in a variety of circumstances, including the Kansas City Royals. Twice.
The Mets are a better team than the St Louis Cardinals, but nobody really knows what will happen tonight, or the next day. That’s a big part of baseball’s charm. If the starters perform like Grossman & Leinart, their disparate performances will have primacy. They will matter. If Glavine and Weaver pitch comparably, however, the game will hinge on one hundred fine movements of the secondary players.
Two Out of Three Aint Bad
Tonight, both teams tabbed a pitcher who has no business starting in a League Championship. The Mets, behind Oliver Perez, won. They needed to. This series of rapidly diminishing returns is mercifully down to three games, which seems fitting since the Cards and Mets boast three reliable starters between them. 
Unfortunately for the Mets, two of them, Chris Carpenter and Jeff Suppan, pitch for St Louis.
Who’s going to win two of the remaining three games? Hard to say. To our Mongolian readers who may not have been apprised of the situation in the Ulan Bator papers, the New York Mets are the offensive class of the National League. Yet the Cards have the best hitter as well as an apparent pitching advantage the rest of the way.
That third effective musketeer, Tom Glavine, pitches Monday on three days rest,
circumstances under which the 40 year old is usually ineffective. After that, returning to Shea, re-Flushing as it were, Cards Carpenter and Suppan meet Met Maine and any opposing Olivers ( Darren, Perez, maybe North and the musical! if things really get out of hand).
Carpenter has been shaky but is still the league’s best pitcher over the past two seasons and capable of a strong game. Those who nervously laugh off Suppan’s Saturday night special as a fluke should know that the Cardinals’ best, indeed the league’s best, pitcher since the All Star break was not Chris Carpenter, or any Cy Young notable, but an unassuming journeyman named Jeff Suppan(2.39 ERA). And unlike Carp, who struggles on the road, Suppan hasnt yielded a run in his 
last 20 IP away from Busch.
Needless to say, the team that wins Game 5 will be the commanding favorite to take the flag. Expect both teams to come out like a bat out of ****, as if tomorrow were a Game 7, with the off day Tuesday. It should be fun and we have no idea who to favor – but if there is a genuine Game 7 at Shea, based on the pitching matchup, we like the Cardinals in a road upset.
Ya Gotta Believe?
Ya gotta believe the Mets are feeling enormous pressure right now. With Gotham’s predictably sour, overblown reaction to the Yankees collapse fresh in everyone’s minds, the Mets are playing with an awkward lack of faculty, presumably reserved for New York teams this time of year, that must have their fans concerned.
In two games, Endy Chavez and Shawn Green have managed to misplay four challenging but catchable balls, changing the course of the series . Tonight, Jose Reyes inexplicably failed to retreive a nearby richochet off Trachsel’s leg, gifting St Louis an extra base. Heartthrob David Wright, who managed just six homers after his ASG Home Run Derby meltdown, is hitless in the NLCS, despite his winning smile. And Willie Randolph’s stiff, hesitant body language conveys tension if not outright panic.
By contrast, the Cardinals, a team of everyday players steeped in the playoffs, most missing only a ring, are playing like they’ve been here before. Rolen’s barehanded and one handed grabs, Wilson’s perfect peg to nip Valentin at second, smoothly executed bunts. Journeyman Jeff Suppan has emerged as the second coming of Kenny Rogers – when his team needs him most. Even the combustible pen, Kinney and others, have risen to the occasion. After disillusioning many of their loyal but spoiled fans with lackluster, sporadic play down the stretch, the veteran Cardinals are playing as if they have been given a repreive and have something to teach their more glorified upstart counterparts.
The Mets are playing as if they have something fragile they are about to lose. Magic? Confidence? Those appear to already be gone. The only thing left to lose now is the Series.
Predictions
We know Arizona’s young late season callups generated quite a buzz, but we’re 
still having difficulty getting pumped about the Diamondbacks’ chances this postseason. Maybe ace Brandon Webb’s poor outing in his last start is what’s got us concerned. Or that uninspired stretch, where they dropped eighty six of their final one hundred and sixty two games, that simply doesnt bode well.
In any case, we’re not picking Arizona to do anything from here on out. Please dont label us traitors – we just dont have a good feeling at all here.
Who does Diamondhacks like? Well, we’ve always admired the Jones boys – Andruw and Chipper – and expect their usual chop-chop this time of year. Baseball people know what we mean when we say that. And it’s suicide to bet against a genius like Dusty Baker, so we like the Giants. A lot actually. Braves-Giants it is.
Braves in two.
The American League?
Sorry, we just dont follow the AL that closely.
Mist Calling
PHOENIX — As we’ve laid out a rather forceful case for Brandon Webb’s Cy Young Award credentials, Diamondhacks has been underwhelmed by lack of same from the local professional reporting corps.
We certainly dont want reporters blindly allied with the home team, but we do expect journalists to pursue a healthy allegiance with facts, in an effort to produce truthful impressions and crystalize public perception. Instead, what we tend to find in the local papers and online, are lazily researched articles that reinforce established, superficial impressions – and do little justice to Webb.
Here’s two examples of the lukewarm coverage:
From The Republic’s normally reliable Bob McManaman, entitled " Webb, Carpenter battle for Cy Young till end ":
The pitching statistics between Webb and Carpenter, the 2005 Cy Young winner, are virtually identical.
One writer with an NL Cy Young vote told The Republic he is waiting until the final game because "it’s just too close to call.
And our favorite:
The biggest difference might be that Carpenter is pitching for a winning team.
With the Diamondbacks out of the postseason picture, Webb’s final starts won’t include pressure-packed dependency.
To be fair, McManaman’s effective love letter to the Cards’ ace was filed before Carpenter’s latest and greatest meltdown, and Bob appears to finally be putting at least one foot on the Webb bus today, but we still find his comparitive analysis seriously lacking. All things considered, is it really a hardship for Carpenter to pitch on a winning team, in a pitcher’s park, against demonstrably weaker opposition all year long? Poor fellah – all that "pressure packed dependency", dontchya know. And then there’s carefree and *** Brandon, apparently so very lucky to pitch for a last place team, in a bandbox, against some of the league’s stiffest competition. Why, it’s no wonder he leads the league in Wins and ERA with all those advantages.
Then there’s this rubbish from diamondbacks.com, remarkably filed after last night’s games:
Webb, who finds himself locked in a neck-and-neck battle with the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter for the National League Cy Young Award, wound up with a no-decision, but still may have strengthened his case for the award.
May have strengthened his case? Neck and neck after last night?
If diamondbacks.com is to be believed, Webb (23 quality starts), is fortunate to be mentioned in the same sentence as the Combustible Cardinal(19 QS), let alone be granted the by now obvious tag of most deserving CYA recipient.
Contrast these milquetoast conclusions with those of Rich Draper, the Giants’ beat man covering the same game. His sister recap concentrates on Matt Morris and Moises Alou, which is perfectly fine. Apart from a Mike Stanton quote about the high caliber of Brandon’s stuff, here’s Draper’s sole Webb reference:
Arizona’s Brandon Webb, the NL’s top candidate for the Cy Young Award with a 16-7 record, held the Giants to only three hits over seven frames, including Pedro Feliz’s third-inning double.
Simple enough. Brandon is not "neck and neck", or even a top CY candidate. He’s 
the top candidate. Period.
Perhaps Draper understands about season long park effects and strength of schedule? Or maybe he’s watched Carpenter sink like a fiery zeppelin out of the Cy Young runnning? Maybe he’s spent more than 10 minutes researching the contextual issues?
Thanks to Draper and others, Giants fans see Webb as clearly as a sunny day on the bay.
Relying on Phoenix reporters, however, one wouldn’t have the foggiest.
Dbacks Ensure All-Time Pitching Record
We’ve discussed this phenomenon for a month now but perhaps the most interesting ramification of the Diamondbacks kicking away Brandon Webb’s 17th win last night is that it means the NL’s seasonal pitching Wins leader will finish with fewer victories than in any previous full major league season.
Ever.
That’s a lot of seasons – more than 200 across both leagues. The current low water mark for a league leader, 18 wins, was set in 1955, tied in 1960, and most recently matched by Rick Sutcliffe in 1987.
Barring any eleventh hour spot relief manipulations, that mark will soon be history. Only three pitchers, Brad Penny, Carlos Zambrano and Brandon Webb have a chance at 17 victories, but no one will reach 18 in the National League.
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