Good Morning Baltimore

Back in early March I applied for the MLB dream job, and part of the application process was an essay about what I thought would be the biggest storyline of the 2011 baseball season.  Well, I didn't get the job (no surprise there) but with the Orioles playing the way they are 9 games into the season, I am pretty happy with the essay I wrote.  Here is what I said on March 3rd:

"With every new baseball season, there is one standout team that defies expectations, makes headlines, and steals the show.  A few years ago that team was the Tampa Bay Rays, and last year it was the San Francisco Giants.  This year, I believe that team will be the Baltimore Orioles.  That’s right, not the Phillies, not the Red Sox, but the Orioles, and here are my reasons why: 

Last August the Orioles fired their skipper, and replaced interim manager Juan Samuel with experienced manager Buck Showalter.  Showalter is a two-time American League Manager of the Year winner who has made a career of fixing broken teams.  He managed the Yankees through disarray in the early 1990s and the team won the World Series the year after he left.  Showalter then went on to manage a new expansion team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and that team also went on to win the World Series the year after Buck left.  While Showalter was not physically present in the dugout for either team’s World Series win, it was his hard work and motivating managerial techniques that got the Yankees and the Diamondbacks their titles.  Just last year, when Showalter joined the Orioles on August 3rd, the team went from a losing record of 32-73, to finish off the season with a 34-23 stint.  The mere presence of Buck Showalter in the dugout improved the Orioles’ game dramatically.  This season Buck will be with the Orioles from the very beginning, and as a result we will see some exciting baseball played in Camden Yards for the first time in over a decade. 

Buck Showalter

While Showalter is a fantastic manager, he alone cannot make the Orioles stand out in 2011.  The team already had some talent in the likes of Nick Markakis and Brian Roberts, but the offseason signings of big bats like Vladimir Guerrero and Derrek Lee are going to help Baltimore offensively.  Furthermore, parting with Ty Wigginton at third base was an improvement in and of itself, but the addition of a hopefully healthy Mark Reynolds will help the Orioles both at the plate and in the field.  Lastly, a young pitching staff does not necessarily translate to a bad pitching staff, and with a rotation lead by Brian Matusz, the Orioles are not going down without a fight. 

Will the Baltimore Orioles be our 2011 World Series Champions?  Definitely not.  Will the team even make the playoffs?  Probably not.  However, with Buck Showalter at the helm combined with a balance of fresh young talent and skilled veterans, the Orioles will not only have their first winning season since 1997, but they will do so in a way that will catch the attention of the baseball community."  

Now I know the season is only two weeks old, but the Orioles are in first place in the AL East and delivered the undefeated Texas Rangers their first loss.  Like I said, I do not believe the Orioles are going to be our 2011 World Series Champions, and I highly doubt they will make the playoffs, but I am confident that for the first time since 1997, the Orioles will be a threat and a contender in the American League's loaded Eastern Division.

Forget New Era, the Best Cap for Baseball is the Salary Cap

First and foremost I want to apologize for the lack of entries since last October.  I was so happy that my wish/prediction for a Rangers vs Giants World Series came true, and so depressed that baseball season was over, that I stopped writing.  But now, Spring Training is in full swing (the pun was completely intended, I’m not gonna lie) and I am ready to spew my thoughts on the 2011 season.  Before I do that, I would like to post a rant about salary caps in Major League Baseball, don’t all jump for joy at once.  I am getting this out of the way before the season officially starts because thinking about it takes some of the joy out of watching the game.  Having said that, it is also something I feel I need to write about, so here we go…

A salary cap for MLB is an idea whose time has come.  A cap would benefit small market teams and their fans by creating a more balanced level of talent and competition.  The Yankees and Red Sox are two of the big market teams that have seemingly unlimited financial resources which make it difficult for less wealthy franchises to compete in the free agent market.  Worse, these smaller clubs often lose their best players to free agency because they cannot compete with the salaries offered by wealthier teams.  MLB’s salary cap should place limits on how much a player can be paid and how high a team’s payroll can be.  Although the Boston fan in me would love to see Albert Pujols playing almost any position in a Red Sox uniform, the baseball fan in me wants to see the Cardinals and other teams keep their top players.

Over the past decade, salaries for Major League Baseball players have increased exponentially, all starting with Alex Rodriguez and the Texas Rangers signing a groundbreaking multi-million dollar deal in 2001.  Now athletes say “hey, player X was given this amount of money and since I am at least as good as him, I deserve to get paid at least as much.”  I am going to risk sounding trite, and quote Jerry Maguire…everyone is saying “SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!”  No one wants to play for small market teams anymore because that is not where the money is.  As a result, fans of teams like the Padres and the Royals are suffering, and getting turned off to baseball, as their players depart for clubs with fatter wallets.

The absence of a salary cap means more than just an upset in the balance of power around the Majors.  In a time where most baseball fans are unemployed, just scraping by financially, or starting to recover from the recession, Major League Baseball players are demanding multi-million dollar contracts.  This is AMERICA’S pastime, and the disconnect between average Americans and ballplayers is upsetting.  Higher salaries equal higher ticket prices, which in turn means that many fans will not be able to afford tickets to games.  If ballplayers really care about what is best for the game of baseball and its fans, they will not demand such high salaries.  Until that happens, I have to say that no matter how much I truly love baseball, I am a little disappointed in its players.  Having said all that, nothing can ruin the wonderful feeling I get every March when I heard those two fantastic words for the first time: Play Ball!

My Postseason Musings aka I Want a Rangers vs Giants World Series

The 2010 American and National League Championship Series are, in my opinion, the most captivating postseason series Major League Baseball has had in years.  With the Phillies' Roy Halladay and the Giants' Tim Lincecum on the mound in game one of the NLCS (one of the greatest postseason pitching match-ups ever), it is impossible to predict which team will be victorious, but one thing is for certain, these two pitchers know how to make history.  Furthermore, the camaraderie and chemistry in Texas (i.e. the ginger ale celebration and the support the Rangers showed their manager) is what being a great team is all about and is a story that captivates fans and keeps people tuned in to playoff baseball.  While most people are predicting a repeat of last year's Phillies vs. Yankees World Series, neither team is a shoo-in for the title of repeat league champion.  Here is how I think the Giants can beat the Phillies and the Rangers can beat the Yankees:

(stats courtesy of http://espn.go.com/mlb/)

San Francisco Giants vs. Philadelphia Phillies:

After sweeping the Reds in the NLDS, most baseball enthusiasts are in agreement that nothing can stop the Phillies from going back to the World Series for the third year in a row.  I am not writing the Giants off that quickly, however, and believe that San Francisco has a decent shot at going to the World Series this year.  It is safe to say that the Giants have one of the best pitching staffs in all of Major League Baseball.  San Francisco's three main starters, Tim Lincecum aka The Freak (who, by the way, dropped an F-bomb on live TV twice in one week), Matt Cain, and Jonathan Sanchez, had an ERA of 1.23 in the NLDS, and Sanchez was the only one of those starters to give up an earned run to the Braves.  While the Phillies are definitely a better hitting team than the Braves were this season, Philadelphia only hit .212 with one home run against the Reds, whose starting three pitchers had an ERA of 3.94 in the regular season and 8.36 in the NLDS.  If the Phillies could not hit for power or average against the Reds rotation, how are they going to score runs against a much superior Giants staff, whose three NLDS starters had a combined regular season ERA of 3.21?  While the Giants, who batted .212 in the NLDS against the Braves, are not going to be hitting balls out of the park against the likes of Halladay, Hammels and Oswalt, they can play small ball to get base runners.  If leadoff man Andres Torres can bunt up the third-base line, a 34 year old, injured Polanco, might not be able to make a play.  Torres is a threat to steal bases and he can set up potential RBI situations for the big bats, Buster Posey and Pat Burrell.  With the three pitching match-ups planned for the first three games of the series, one run can mean the difference in each game.  Unlike in the steroid years of the past, the 2010 NLCS will be all about the pitcher and playing small ball.


  Texas Rangers vs. New York Yankees

A big question mark for the Yankees this year has been the team's starting pitching.  Their only consistent pitcher has been CC Sabathia, and while they swept the twins in the ALDS, the Texas Rangers offense is much more threatening than the anemic Twins lineup (one that was missing 2006 MVP award winner Justin Morneau).  With the fantastic pitching of Cliff Lee (who is undefeated in the postseason), and Cliff Lee Jr. (oh, I mean CJ Wilson), all the Rangers have to do is get Josh Hamilton, who batted .111 with no home runs in the ALDS, back to his pre-September form, and Texas is in good shape to blow the Yankees out of the water.  The question of how to get Josh Hamilton's bat back is an easy one to answer.  With Vlad Guerrero having a sub-par ALDS, batting .263 with no home runs and one RBI, Hamilton was not getting any pitches to hit. If a powerful bat follows Hamilton in the lineup, he will see better pitches, more strikes, and less junk.  No pitcher will want to pitch around the number three hitter, Hamilton, to get to the clean-up hitter if the number four batter is a threat to blast one out of the park.  The lack of good pitches to hit, combined with a month of sitting on the bench, left Hamilton with little hope of putting up big numbers in the Division Series.  Now that Hamilton has gotten the opportunity to warm-up, his bat should be all ready for the Championship Series against the Yankees.  What manager Ron Washington needs to do is rearrange the batting order so that his number three hitter is protected.  Move Guerrero, who is not hitting for power, down to the number six spot in the lineup, and move Ian Kinsler, who batted .444 with 3 home runs and 6 RBI in the ALDS, to the clean-up spot, with the always dangerous Nelson Cruz, who batted .400 with 3 home runs and 3 RBI, hitting fifth.  With those changes and a great pitching rotation, I believe the Rangers are unstoppable, even against an all-star lineup like the Yankees.