You want awards? We've got awards. The envelopes please.
AL MVP: Jason Giambi
We were starting the engine on that Giambi bandwagon two weeks ago. So what would have happened in the last two weeks to change our minds? This is a man hitting .376 in September, with 12 home runs and 29 RBI. This is a man with a September on-base percentage over .500. This is a man who has hit close to .350 with runners in scoring position. This is a man whose team is 20-6 since he returned Sept. 2 after a cortisone shot in his shoulder. Remember that just about everyone around him in the lineup is getting carded at the hotel bar, so he has to be The Man. And his numbers are closer to Frank Thomas' than most people realize. But unlike Frank, this guy actually owns a glove. Apologies to: Thomas, A-Rod, Pedro, Manny Ramirez, David Justice.
NL MVP: Jeff Kent
Much as we admire Barry Bonds and Mike Piazza, no one has meant more to a team heading for the playoffs than Kent. You can ask his teammates. He's their MVP, which speaks volumes about Bonds' off-the-field contributions (or lack thereof). And he's the opposition's MVP. As one NL executive put it this week, "There's no one in the league I hate seeing come to the plate with a man in scoring position more than Jeff Kent." The Bonds proponents say he's been by far their hottest hitter in this second-half surge. But he has 53 RBI since July 1, to Kent's 47. For the season, though, Kent leads Barry by 19. And it's hard not to note that while Bonds has 106 RBI, he's driven in a teammate only 57 times. With the other 49 RBI, he's driven in himself (on home runs). Kent hit .306 against Arizona this year, .414 against the Mets, .424 against the Braves -- to Bonds' .194, .323 and .238 respectively. It's a tough call. But this should be Jeff Kent's trophy. Apologies to: Bonds, Piazza, Jim Edmonds, Andruw Jones, Robb Nen.
AL LVP (Least valuable player): Vinny Castilla
Somehow, no player sums up his team's plunge from preseason hope to end-of-season nightmare better than Castilla. He was supposed to be one of the centerpieces of one of the great power quartets ever assembled. Now here we are in the last weekend of the season, and he has six home runs, fewer than Deivi Cruz, Melvin Mora and Frank Catalanotto. And his team is tied for 26th in the big leagues in homers. Cousin Vinny has hit exactly .203, with one homer, against left-handed pitching, and .207, with two homers, at home. Of course, his home is no longer a mile above sea level. But neither is almost anyone else's.
NL LVP: Matt Williams
We hand out this award with some regret, because we know Williams is better than this when he's healthy -- and he hasn't been all year. But this is a man who needed a late-September hot streak just to get to within 99 RBI of his total last year (142). According to the Elias Sports Bureau's Randy Robles, only one player in history has seen his RBI total plunge by a greater margin in back-to-back seasons of more than 300 at-bats. That's Hack Wilson, who followed up his famed 191-RBI season in 1930 with a 61-RBI season the next year. Where would the Diamondbacks be right now if their cleanup man had driven in 99 more runs? Not in third place. That's for sure. Sorry, Matt.
AL Cy Young: Pedro Whatsisname
Come on. Is there anybody out there who doesn't think a man with a 1.74 ERA, an ERA nearly two runs per game lower than the next-closest starter (Roger Clemens, at 3.73), an ERA more than three runs per game lower than the average AL starter (5.09) isn't the Cy Young? David Wells and Tim Hudson and Andy Pettite have more wins. But Pedro allowed 56 fewer runs this year (44) than Wells and Hudson (100 apiece), 58 fewer than Pettitte (102). So case dismissed. You were expecting maybe Sean Bergman?
NL Cy Young: Randy Johnson
Much as we'd love to cast a vote for one of our favorite pitchers, Tom Glavine, consider the evidence. The Unit has more wins (19-17) and a lower ERA (2.38-3.48) than he had in his Cy Young season last year -- and has 342 strikeouts (compared with last year's 364). And as great as Glavine has been, especially down the stretch (12-4 since July 1, with eight of those wins following a Braves loss), this is not a vote played by the same rules as the MVP award. It's about dominance, not value. And it's hard to argue anyone has been more dominant than Johnson.
AL Cy Yuk: Roy Halladay
There's no tougher call than this derby. We love David Cone, but he has made $12 million and won four games. Sean Bergman had a 9.66 ERA when the Twins pulled his plug. Chris Carpenter, Joe Mays, Jerry Spradlin and a host of middle relievers everywhere have given us reason to think this one through many times. But we keep coming back to the same thing: Roy Halladay started the year as an ace in waiting. He will end the year with the highest single-season ERA in modern history. (It was 10.64 at last look, with the help of the seven unearned runs he allowed Thursday in Baltimore.) And that's Cy Yuk material if we've ever seen it.
NL Cy Yuk: Jose Lima
Remember back when Lima was a 20-game winner? That would be, let's see, way, way back, oh, 12 months ago. This year, hoo boy. Lima can be fun when he's good. But that wouldn't describe him this year. He set the NL gopherball record (48). He gave up 108 extra-base hits -- a total so humongous no one has been able to unearth the last pitcher to allow that many. His 6.65 ERA was the highest in the league. The .313 batting average allowed was the highest in the league. And the .578 slugging percentage he allowed effectively turned every hitter he faced into Edgar Martinez (.576). So even in a year in which Omar Daal made quite a run at 20 losses, no one out-yukked Jose Lima.
Al Rookie of the Year: Terrence Long
Kazuhiro Sasaki will probably win this thing. But we ask you this: If Trevor Hoffman went to Japan and they named him their rookie of the year, what would we think of that? We'd think it was an affront to that league he pitched in over here all those years. So as good as Sasaki has been, how can we possibly define him as a "rookie?" Long, on the other hand, is 24 years old. And he leads all AL rookies in hits, runs, doubles and RBI. So doesn't he better embody the spirit of this award than a guy who is 32 years old and whose rookie status has been determined only by continent, not by experience level?
NL Rookie of the Year: Rafael Furcal
With apologies to Pat Burrell (75 RBI despite missing 50 games) and the brilliant Rick Ankiel, Furcal has been practically the MVP for a team packed with veteran, accomplished players. How do you not give this award to a guy with a .392 on-base percentage and 40 stolen bases? If he really is 19, this is one of the greatest seasons ever by a 19-year-old. And if he's not, it's still a rookie-of-the-year kind of season.
Managers of the Year: Jerry Manuel and Dusty Baker
Apologies to Jimy Williams, Art Howe, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox. But think back on the records you thought the White Sox and Giants would have when they left spring training. Did anyone think they would have the best record in each league? We rest our case.
Elsewhere, not even the clubs involved in potential makeup and tie-breaking games next week seem too clear on the circumstances under which they would and wouldn't play. So we'll do our best to lay this out:
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List of the week
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With his 30-8 record two years into his career, Oakland's Tim Hudson is among a handful of pitchers who started their careers at 22 games over .500 or better after their first two seasons. The others, courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau's Randy Robles:
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Games over .500
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Pitcher
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Record
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Years
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30
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Boo Ferriss
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46-16
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'45-46
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28
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Dwight Gooden
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41-13
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'84-85
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23
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Vean Gregg
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43-20
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'11-12
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22
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Ed Summers
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43-21
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'08-09
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22
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Larry Jansen
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39-17
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'47-48
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22
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Tim Hudson
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30-8
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'99-00
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The A's don't have to make up their game in Tampa Bay on Monday if they're a half-game ahead of Seattle and both teams finish Sunday ahead of Cleveland. That's because Oakland won the season series from Seattle, and that would determine first place in the AL West if both are going to get into the playoffs.
But the A's do have to make up that game if they're a half-game ahead of Seattle and the Mariners have the same record as Cleveland after Sunday. That's because if Oakland were to lose in Tampa Bay, the three-way tie-breaker procedure goes into effect and Cleveland gets an automatic spot if that happens. The A's and Mariners then would have to play off Tuesday in Seattle to decide the final spot.
The Yankees have to make up their game with the Marlins on Monday under almost all scenarios. If they're a half-game ahead of or behind Seattle and within a game of Oakland after Sunday, they need to play to settle home-field advantage. If they're a half-game ahead of Seattle (which won the season series from the Yanks) or a game behind Oakland (which lost the season series to the Yankees), they have to play to settle home-field advantage. The Yankees can avoid playing only if none of the above take place. Got all that?
One playoff that would not have to take place is in the event of a three-way tie for home-field advantage in the National League. If that happens, the Braves get home field because they have the best head-to-head record against the other two teams. The Giants then would get the second seed because they won the season series against St. Louis.
The union is on record as being against playing any games Monday just to determine home-field advantage. But Katy Feeney of the commissioner's office says that once the union-approved agreement that home-field advantage in the playoffs would be determined by best record and not at random went into effect, it committed everyone to a situation this muddled.
"It's about the integrity of the game," Feeney said. "If one team is a half-game up on another team because its played one fewer game, is that fair to award them home-field advantage -- if home-field advantage has been deemed to be important and if playing that game means that team would no longer get home-field advantage? We don't want to force anyone to play. But everyone has determined that home-field advantage is important. So the best way to resolve it is to play."
The ink isn't dry on the new TV contract yet, and already there is grumbling about the fact that this $1 billion will be divided evenly among all 30 clubs (minus a slight amount to Tampa Bay and Arizona).
"If you're so concerned about the disparity in payrolls and revenue," says one prominent agent, "doesn't dividing that money equally just continue that disparity? If you distribute that money unequally, doesn't that help create more parity? But maybe if you do that a year before the labor talks begin, you can't ask the players for as much at the table as you can if there's more disparity. I'm not accusing anybody here. Just asking."
It's about time to start taking the Yankees' awful finish seriously. They've never had a 3-12 stretch in any of their World Series seasons. They've never won a World Series after a losing September. And no team has won the World Series after losing six in a row in September since the '93 Blue Jays did it in the first week of September.
"I would be concerned if I were them, and I know they are concerned," says a scout who has followed the Yankees recently. "They're not hitting well. They're not catching the ball well. And even though Tampa Bay got three well-pitched games in a row against them, they just killed Roger Clemens. And I'd be concerned about that.
"Let's face it. They're still the Yankees, and they're still very good. But to me, they're only as good as their starting pitching. And now it will be interesting to see how Clemens looks. El Duque has been up and down. Denny Neagle has been terrible. Their bullpen has been terrible. Andy Pettitte might be the key to their whole postseason."
Latest scuttlebutt in Dodgers circles has the club staying in-house for Davey Johnson's successor -- which would seem to point to Glenn Hoffman's return -- or possibly reaching out to bring back Dave Wallace. If Kevin Malone does return as GM, there's now no way he could hire Kevin Kennedy as manager -- after swearing to Bob Daly he'd never talked to Kennedy about that job.
All you need to know about Buck Showalter's future in Arizona (or lack thereof) is that the Diamondbacks reportedly gave GM Joe Garagiola Jr. an extension this week.
But the Diamondbacks may not be on as obviously a down cycle as people think. The Valley Tribune's Ed Price reports they're the 10th team since division play to win 100 games one year and fewer than 90 the next. Five of the previous nine rebounded to make the playoffs the next year -- including the '91-92 A's and '79-80 Yankees, two teams with around the same number of regulars in their 30s as Arizona has (11).
Looks more and more as if Kansas City will make a brief run at signing Johnny Damon to an extension this winter, get rebuffed and then trade him A) for pitching and B) to free up money to tie up Mike Sweeney and Jermaine Dye.
And if World Series experience means anything in October, the Giants ought to be worried. The Giants have just three players who have played in a World Series (Livan Hernandez, Robb Nen and Alan Embree). The Braves have 16, the Cardinals seven, the Mets six.
Useless information dept.
The Dodgers just had a week out of 1968. In a span of six games, they
scored just nine runs -- and somehow went 5-1. Of course, it helped that they
won three 1-0 games (two started by Chan Ho Park, one by Kevin Brown). Last
team to do that, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's Randy Robles: the
Cardinals, on July 2, 4 and 8, 1992, in games started by Donovan Osborne, Bob
Tewksbury and Omar Olivares.
If one more player gets to 30 homers over the weekend, we'll have yet another new record for most players hitting 30 or more in a season. We're at 45 through Thursday, tying the old record, set way back last season. There were 98 players with 20-plus homers through Thursday, five short of that record -- also set last year.
We'll have to go some to break the record for most 100-RBI men in a season. The record is 57 (set, yep, last year). We were at 46 through Thursday. But 15 more players were at 95 or above. If we get to 60, it would mean the average team now has two 100-RBI men. As recently as 1992, the entire National League had five.
Bet no one in the desert expected this development the day they made the Curt Schilling trade: The Phillies actually had a better record in Schilling's starts (8-8) than Arizona did (6-7). Personally, he went 6-6 as a Phillie, 5-6 as a D-Back. So maybe the cactus isn't always greener on the other side.
Meanwhile, the Phillies continue to indicate they'll be counting on their big acquisition in the Schilling deal, Travis Lee, as one of their offensive cornerstones next year. But in case they hadn't noticed, Lee's 13 RBI since arriving in Philadelphia on July 26 are only three more than noted RBI machine Luis Castillo (10). Not good.
Has anyone had a more top-secret 142-RBI year than Mike Sweeney? Not only has he knocked in 142, but he's done it with just 28 homers. Only three other men since 1900 have driven in 142 runs or more without hitting 30 homers: Tommy Davis in 1962 (153-27), Don Hurst in 1932 (143-24) and some guy named Lou Gehrig in 1928 (142-27). Wow.
Now that Edgar Martinez has 140 RBI himself, this just in: The oldest previous hitter to drive in 140 or more was a 36-year-old by the name of George Herman Ruth, who drove in 163 in 1931.
Will Clark now has hit grand slams in each league this year. And the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent reports he's only the second player ever to do that. The other: Greg Vaughn in 1996.
The Padres have brought Xavier Nady straight to the big leagues. If he gets into a game, Padres publicity whiz Glenn Geffner reports, he'll be the 18th player to play his first major league game before his first minor league game (and the first since John Olerud). But the really historic news is that Nady also would be the 56th player to play for the Padres, tying the major league record set by the 1915 Philadelphia A's, whose list of notables included Tink (Don't Call Me Tina) Turner, Squiz Pillion and the great Socks Seibold.
One year to the day after he started the last game at Tiger Stadium and lost his shutout on the first batter he faced (Luis Polonia led off with a homer), Jeff Suppan handed the Tigers their 15th shutout of the year Wednesday. The Tigers are the first nonexpansion team of the rocketball era to get shut out 15 times, the first since 1992 (when six teams did it) and the first Tigers team since 1989. Amazingly, they didn't even face Pedro Martinez, the man who led the league in shutouts, this year. Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler reports that the last Tigers team to get shut out more than 15 times was the '76 crew, which was blanked 19 times.
Not that you need more evidence this is a different offensive age, but here goes: Seven players stand a good chance to finish the year in the 100 RBI, 100 Run, .300 Average, 40 Double, 30 Homer Club. In the entire decade of the '80s, exactly one player had a season like that: Don Mattingly (in '85 and '86). And only one player in the '70s did it: Fred Lynn (1979). The seven in the running this year: Todd Helton, Jeff Kent, Richard Hidalgo, Luis Gonzalez, Frank Thomas, Carlos Delgado and Bobby Higginson.
One of the strangest pitching developments of the season took place last Saturday, when Rockies starter John Wasdin ripped off an 11-strikeout game in a game shortened by rain. Wasdin's strikeout high over the previous five seasons -- which included 207 appearances -- was barely half that (six).
The final totals on Greg Maddux's 39 straight shutout innings: In those 39 innings, he gave up only 17 hits, had a 33-1 strikeout-walk ratio and allowed just nine runners past first base. Vintage Maddux.
SABR's Lee Sinins reports that David Justice was just the third player to change teams in the midst of a 40-homer season. The others: Mark McGwire and Greg Vaughn.
Another scary development for the Indians: One of the two games they won in their four-game series with Minnesota was Tuesday, when the Twins played a lineup more anonymous than the South African Olympic team's. Trusty Tribe beat man Jim Ingraham, of the News-Herald, reports that the combined salary of the 10 players in the Indians' starting lineup that night was $54.4 million. The combined salary of the Twins? starters: $2 million -- or less than Sandy Alomar.
In last week's list of RBI records Luis Castillo has a chance to break, we left out this one: Fewest RBI for a player who played atleast 150 games. That's 20, shared by Alvaro Espinoza for the 1990 Yankees and the great Richie Ashburn for the 1959 Phillies.
This week's greatest Tigers feats, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press' John Lowe. On Tuesday, they managed to give up three runs in the seventh and eighth innings (two in the seventh, one in the eighth) despite allowing no hits. And in the same game, they had an inning in which three Kansas City pitchers threw 12 straight balls out of the strike zone (ball, hit batter, four-pitch walk, four-pitch walk, 2-0 to Billy McMillon) -- and they still didn't score. But the inning took so long that Brian Moehler stiffened up, started the next inning by walking the No. 8 and No. 9 hitters and blew a two-run lead. This is what you call true innovation.
Lost in the Astros' rubble is one of the great seasons ever, by Jeff Bagwell. Astros p.r. director Warren Miller reports that Bagwell is the first National Leaguer to score 150 runs since Chuck Klein's 152 in 1932. And he becomes just the fifth man in history to have a 45-homer, 100-RBI, 150-run season. You've heard of the others: Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com. Rumblings and Grumblings will appear each Saturday. | |
ALSO SEE
Jayson Stark archive
Stark: Week in Review
Stark: Year in Review
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