AL East Preview
Wrapping up my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL East teams listed in order of predicted finish. While I admit it is not easy for me to be objective about the AL East, I’ll give it my best shot.
Boston Red Sox. It pains me to say so, but the Red Sox have done everything right over the past four plus years to build a championship contending team. It pains me so much to say that previous sentence that I can’t say any more about this team.
New York Yankees. It seems as though every year for the past several years, the Yankees start out the season with a record of 11-18 and everyone writes them off at that point. But then come October, the Yankees are still playing. I don’t see this year as being any different, at least in terms of seeing a team that at some point will hit a low – say a stretch of playing 8 to 10 games under .500 for a month. But this team is still too good to not overcome any bad spell and play the next month at 15 games over .500.
Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays have been a team that pundits have enjoyed predicting will finally break the Yankees-Red Sox domination of the AL East, but I don’t see it happening. While I think that Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan will continue to improve in the rotation, this team is too fragile and the competition in the American League is just too strong for the Blue Jays to break through.
Tampa Bay Rays. The team formerly known as the Devil Rays actually has a large number of young, potential All-Stars on their roster. But there are simply too many really young and inexperienced players on this team to make an impact this year. At some point, this team needs to make the transition from a team of talented young players into a contender the way the Twins and A’s did at the beginning of this decade. But in this division, I can’t see that happening.
Baltimore Orioles. Look, I really have nothing against the D.C. and Maryland teams. It’s not my fault that they are quite bad.
AL Central Preview
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL Central teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Detroit Tigers. Let’s get this out of the way first. The Detroit Tigers are not going to score 1,000 run this season. Every year during the pre-season, baseball writers, analysts, and fans anoint a team as being the one that will score 1,000 runs during the upcoming season. The Yankee teams of recent years have been perennial favorites to score 1,000 runs. But guess what? Even in these days of record breaking individual offensive production, only one team in the past 57 years has scored 1,000 runs: the 1999 Cleveland Indians. And while the 2008 Tigers are good enough to win their division, they won’t be scoring 1,000 runs this year.
Cleveland Indians. The media loves to latch on to an up-and-coming team and announce that they are going to make the playoffs. The problem is that they are usually two years too early. Three years ago, it was the Indians and the Brewers that were the darlings of baseball pre-season prognosticators, but those two teams didn’t have any success until last year. Even though the Indians time is now, the competition in the American League is too fierce for the Indians to repeat their division title.
Minnesota Twins. A lot rests on the left arm of Francisco Liriano, whose numbers in 2006 at age 22 were just amazing before succumbing to Tommy John surgery at the end of that year. If Liriano can return to that form, and either Boof Bonser or Scott Baker can break out at age 26, they Twins might have some success.
Kansas City Royals. After years of struggling, you can say that finishing in fourth place is a step in the right direction for this team.
Chicago White Sox. How long will it be before the White Sox get tired of Ozzie Guillen? It seems like less managers get fired in mid-season than they used to, but my vote is for Ozzie to be the first to go this year.
AL West Preview
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the AL West teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Seattle Mariners. Despite being the Arizona Diamondbacks of the American League in 2007 (having given up more runs than they scored), the Mariners look like a real contender in the division. Yes, their lineup is aging, but the pitching is solid, with the addition of Eric Bedard being just what they need to compliment Felix Hernandez and a good bullpen.
California Angels. Essentially the same team as last year isn’t quite good enough to win the division this year.
Oakland A’s. Everyone’s favorite Moneyball team traded away Dan Haren and Nick Swisher – arguably the A’s two best players from last year. Where does that leave the A’s this year, other than hoping Bobby Crosby and Rich Harden can stay healthy for an entire season.
Texas Rangers. The Ballpark in Arlington didn’t even play as that much of a hitter’s park last year so you can’t blame the ballpark for the poor pitching on this team.
NL West Preview
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the NL West teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Arizona Diamondbacks. As usual, the NL West looks to be a very tight race, with any of four teams being able to win the division. You would expect that a team which significantly outperformed their Pythagorean record last year to have a fall back the following year, but the Diamondbacks went out and improved. Dan Haren gives this team two Cy Young contenders, along with Brandon Webb. Chris Young and Stephen Drew are a year older and now should be able to provide some much needed spark in a lineup that was lacking in runs last year.
San Diego Padres. Jake Peavy and the second Chris Young in the NL West (the one from Princeton) lead a team with a mix of veterans and young players. They look to have just the right mix to make a run in the West.
Colorado Rockies. While the Rockies have a very solid lineup, I can’t imagine pitchers Jeff Francis, Ubaldo Jimenez, Franklin Morales and Manny Corpas all having the kind of year they had last year.
Los Angeles Dodgers. While the Dodgers have some talented young players on their rosters, I can’t foresee any of them making an impact as long as Joe Torre has plenty of mediocre aging veterans to turn to in his lineup. But this team could make a run if pitchers Brad Penny, Jason Schimdt, Derek Lowe, and Japanese import Hiroki Kuroda all have decent years. I just don’t see that happening.
San Francisco Giants. The Giants young pitchers have been hyped, but Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Noah Lowry haven’t lived up to the hype so far. Even if one of them has a breakout year, it won’t be nearly enough to turn this team around.
TV review: The McLaughlin Group
I find it hard to believe that I first watched The McLaughlin Group exactly 20 years ago. The 1988 Presidential election sparked my interest more than you would believe it could for someone who was not even old enough to vote. At the time, there were very few shows on television about politics, and none as entertaining as The McLaughlin Group. As I got older, my interest in politics waned, and I hadn’t watched The McLaughlin Group for about the last 15 years until recently, as this year’s Presidential election is turning out to be one of the most interesting in my lifetime.
It was by chance that I stumbled upon The McLaughlin Group recently, and was surprised that the show was still on the air. Even more surprising is that after 20 years some of the same panelists not only continue to appear on the show but also look the same as they did 20 years ago. While media coverage has changed significantly in the past 20 years, I still find the heated debates and bickering by the panelists rather entertaining, even if the show does not have quite the same relevance as a source of information that it had 20 years ago.
Book review: The Hardball Time Baseball Annual 2008
We are living in a golden age of baseball writing, as evidenced by all of the enjoyable, thought-provoking and engaging content being written about all aspects of the game in many different media (books, newspapers, and the internet). The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008 is yet another example of this high quality writing in what is already a crowded market for baseball books.
Written shortly after the end of the 2007 season, The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008 is a good mix of content, broken down into the 2007 season review, commentary, analysis, history, and team statistics. While at first glance, you might think that The Hardball Times Baseball Annual is similar to Baseball Prospectus, the two are fairly different, even if the opinions and focus on statistical analysis by the writers is similar. The Hardball Times Baseball Annual is more of an interesting read than Baseball Prospectus because the focus is on articles from various writers instead of BP’s team-based player analysis and predictions.
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008 has a little bit of everything: articles on new ways to evaluate player production, the impact of managers, the globalization of the game, and the business of baseball report are just a few of the enjoyable articles from the first half of the book. Bill James himself contributes a look into his current research around clutch hitting (which doesn’t exist IMO, no matter what he says).
While I found that not all of the content demanded my full attention, such as the 2007 season review and an article about how Derek Jeter is a below average fielder (which even Yankee fans know by now), there is a good mix of varied content in The Hardball Time Baseball Annual 2008 to make it worth reading in the early part of the 2008 season.
NL Central Preview
Continuing my Major League Baseball season preview by division, here are the NL Central teams listed in order of predicted finish.
Chicago Cubs. Kosuke Fukudome will round out this team quite nicely. The pitching staff is nothing special but is deep enough and good enough to lead the Cubs to the division title.
Milwaukee Brewers. Solid young hitters in the lineup like Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun proved to be the real deal last year, along with starters Ben Sheets and Yovani Gallardo bring about decent balance on this team. While there is lots to be excited about here, in the end I think the bullpen may fall just short of the Cubs.
Houston Astros. The Astros are an intriguing team, led by one of the consistently best pitchers in baseball in Roy Oswalt and some big bats in the lineup: Miguel Tejada, Lance Berkman, and Carlos Lee. Add in a couple of former Diamondbacks to the bullpen (Jose Valverde and Oscar Villarreal) and you have a team that could surprise some people.
Cincinnati Reds. I’d love to pick the Reds as a sleeper team in the National League, but I’m afraid they aren’t quite good enough. Prospects such as Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce may bring some excitement to the team in the future, but other than Aaron Harang, the rest of the team leaves little to get excited about. Look for Adam Dunn to be traded by the deadline.
St. Louis Cardinals. Where is this team heading? World Series champs just two seasons ago, you can’t blame all of the current woes on injuries. The latest prognosis on Albert Pujols looks like if this team isn’t in the race in July, he’ll have surgery. There’s a very good chance he’ll be having that surgery in July.
Pittsburgh Pirates. Do they still play baseball in Pittsburgh?
Music review: Cruising With Ruben And The Jets by Frank Zappa
Along with Lumpy Gravy, Cruising With Ruben And The Jets is one of my least favorite of Frank Zappa’s early output. Wikipedia sums up the album as a “simultaneous parody of and tribute to the doo-wop music Frank… grew up with.” I didn’t grow up with doo-wop music, so maybe that leads me to not appreciate this album as much. But more realistically I think Zappa’s type of doo-wop tunes are best consumed in small doses, as many other Zappa albums have doo-wop tunes on them, but those doo-wop songs compliment the album rather than feature on the album (Burnt Weeney Sandwich, for example).
Also similar to Lumpy Gravy, some of the best songs on Cruising With Ruben And The Jets appear on other albums in better versions, specifically “You Didn’t Try to Call Me” and “Any Way the Wind Blows” which are both standout tracks on Freak Out. But the versions on Cruising don’t measure up to the original versions.
If you like Frank Zappa and you like doo-wop, then this is an album for you. If you didn’t grow up listening to doo-wop but are a Frank Zappa fan, you are better off listening to any of his early works before giving Cruising a try.
Rating: 5 out of 10.
NL East Preview
Part one of my Major League Baseball season preview by division begins with the NL East. Teams are listed in order of predicted finish.
New York Mets. The Mets have a lot of question marks for a team predicted to win their division. Can you really expect to get much production out of Pedro Martinez and El Duque in the starting rotation? Can Oliver Perez and John Maine have the consistency they’ve lacked in the past? Besides Billy Wagner, who is going to solidify the bullpen? Does their high priced, aging lineup have enough left in the tank? David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Johan Santana are bona fide stars, but the Mets are going to need production from other guys as well. The one thing the Mets have going for them is that the NL East is a relatively weak division.
Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies are built very similar to the Mets in terms of their star players. Those players consist of one starting pitcher, Cole Hamels, and two young infielders, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Last year Jimmy Rollins had one of the most mediocre seasons that an MVP has ever had. If the Phillies get some good years from Brett Myers (who is still only 27 years old) and Adam Eaton, they could win the division.
Atlanta Braves. A starting rotation of John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton and Tim Hudson would have been great 7 years ago.
Washington Nationals and Florida Marlins. Does it really matter which of these teams finishes fourth and which finishes fifth? Each team will be hard pressed to top last year’s 73 and 71 wins, respectively. While the Marlins have some nice young hitters led by Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla, what happened to some of the young pitchers that brought a little excitement to this team in 2006? We’ll see if Scott Olsen and Anibal Sanchez can improve. As for the Nats, all I can say is to enjoy your new stadium.
Bach Cantata BWV 20: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort
The sixth and final cantata contained on Volume 1 of John Eliot Gardiner’s series of Bach Cantata recordings is number 20: O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort.
The cantata starts out with an average chorus. Movement 3 is a tenor aria. Movement 5 is wonderful bass aria with truly winning accompaniment by three oboes. It is highlights such as this movement, entitled Gott ist gerecht in seinen Werken, which make the Bach cantatas so special. Movement 6 is a short alto aria. Part one closes with a short chorale in movement 7. The short part two opens with a good bass aria with trumpet accompaniment in movement 8. Movement 10 is a duet for alto and tenor with only continuo (organ) accompaniment. The cantata closes in movement 11 with a chorale.
Again as with most of the cantatas on the Gardiner CD, I have also heard the performance by Harnoncourt. The two are fairly similar in the opening chorus, but Gardiner takes the movements 3 and 10 arias briskly, whereas Harnoncourt labors through them. Gardiner’s oboes shine in movement 5. Gardiner’s brisk tempi and polished playing make him the clear choice.
Having completed reviewing the individual cantatas on Volume 1 of John Eliot Gardiner’s series of Bach Cantatas, the whole CD is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. While I only rated one cantata a 9 out of 10, the entire CD deserves that same rating. The consistenly the high quality of the singing and the instrumental playing is hard to match. And there are plenty of standout movements from among the six on this CD to showcase the genius of Bach’s writing.
Rating for Cantata 20: 7.5 out of 10.
Rating for the entire CD of Volume 1 of Gardiner’s Bach Cantatas: 9 out of 10.
