Oddities as of September 24th (primarily due to the dominance of the NL Central)

No, this isn't a post about Yogi Berra.  He was one of the game's all time greats, and his wit will be missed.

Oddities.  

1. The Kansas City Royals are currently the best team in the AL.  If they were in the NL Central, they would be in 4th place.  Realize this--that means they wouldn't even make it into the NL wild card game.
2. One of the top three teams in MLB through the regular season will be out of the playoffs after the initial NL wild card game.
3. The Yankees, who were not picked by many folks to make it this far, have a good grip on the AL 1st wild card.  
4. The Astros... have the 2nd AL wild card currently, but could easily be overcome by either the Twins (picked by almost nobody) and/or the Angels (who were expected to win the AL West... which is led by the Texas Rangers... who pretty much nobody picked).
5. The Mariners, a popular pick to make it to the World Series, are 5.5 games back in the race for the 2nd wild card.  They are not mathematically eliminated, but there's no way they will get close to winning.
6. The Nationals, an almost universally picked team to win the NL, are 10.5 games back in the race for the 2nd NL wild card.  They have played 151 games.  11 to go.  They are probably going to be mathematically eliminated today.
7. The Cubs, the Lovable Loser Cubs, are 89 - 63, have pretty good lock on the 2nd wild card spot.  The Giants, happily not heading for the playoffs (it is an even year, after all), are 9.5 games back in the wild card race.  It would take a historically brilliant collapse by the Cubs (or Pirates) and a historically tremendous run by the Giants to make alter this.  Not happening.  These Cubs are for real.
8. If the NL Central were a team, they would be in
1. 3rd in the AL East
2. 2nd in the AL Central
3. 2nd in the AL West
4. 2nd in the NL East
5. 4th in the NL Central (circular reasoning?)
6. 2nd in the NL West
9. Nobody sucks as bad as the Phillies.  They are probably going to get 100 L's for the year.  Still, they are a mere 28 games back of first place in their division.  The Brewers and Reds are 32 and 32.5 games back in theirs.  Of course, the Brewers and Reds are in the NL Central.  If they were in the NL East, they'd displace both the Braves and the Phillies.
10. These ten items are not in any special order--just the order in which I wrote them.  Also, my Cleveland Indians are in no special order, but doing better than most Cleveland fans expected them to be after seeing that Sports Illustrated put them on their cover.

So there you go.

Why Kershaw shouldn't have been MVP

Kershaw had a tremendous year.  He well-deserved the Cy Young award, though he pitched in less games than every other pitcher who had votes.  Phenomenal year.  That being said... he didn't deserve the MVP award.  

First, the exceptionally easy part--because he only played in 28 freaking games.

That is the easiest, most reasonable answer there is.  He played in 17.284% of his team's games.  Tell me how that was MVP-able.  How many Dodgers contributed in more games than Kershaw did?  15 position players, 7 relief pitchers, and 2 starting pitchers.

Oops.  Wait a minute.  I was wrong on the 28 games.  According to Baseballreference.com, he only played in 27.  That's 16.6667% of the team's games.

Not very MVP-able.

Innings played?  I'm working on the numbers now, but innings played for the regular players isn't something I'm going to catch exactly.  I'll see how close I can get to real data on that without paying for services, but I'd bet he didn't play the most innings in his 28 games, nor 2nd or 3rd or 4th or 5th most innings during those games.  After all, pitchers need relieved.  He only played a whole game 6 times all year.  Eleven regular players played more complete games in Kershaw's 27 games than he did.  Most of those more than doubled him.

So, not only did he play 1/6th of his teams games, but he didn't even play all of most of those individual games.

Here are the players who played more of Kershaw's games from beginning to end:

Kemp	24
Gonzalez	22
Gordon	22
Puig	21
Ellis	20
Crawford	12
Uribe	12
Ethier	10
Van Slyke	9
Ramirez	7
Turner	7

As you can see, even some scrubs played whole games during Kershaw's games more than he did.

What else happened in Kershaw games?  Here are the leaders for a few categories:

Runs - Ramirez, with 18

Hits - Kemp, with 29

RBIs - Kemp, with 18

Walks - Ellis, with 15

Batting Average (minimum 3.1 x 27 plate appearances, which is 83.7) - Kemp, .326.  

On Base Pct (same minimums) - Kemp, .394

By the way, four other batters had higher batting averages in Kershaw-pitched games:

Crawford, .407, 55 plate appearances

Ethier, .378, 49 pa's

Turner, .353, 37 pa's

Ramirez, .329, 82 pa's--just 1.7 too few to count as the leader
Oh, by the way, Kershaw had 67 plate appearances during his 27 games played.

It is a little shocking to read Kemp's name so frequently, knowing that they dumped him within their own division during the off-season.  That ought to make things interesting when the Padres come to town, eh?

It seems like Kemp may have been the MVP of Kershaw pitched games, really.  Maybe Kershaw will buy him a car.

Pete Rose

If you are reading this, you are likely someone who knows that Pete Rose is attempting to get released from his lifelong banishment from Major League Baseball.  

I like Pete Rose.  Last year I went with a friend to hear Pete talk at an event in Dayton, Ohio.  It was fun, but it was also a little weird.  The man was dressed so casually that you might have thought he had been told about the event only moments before.  But, because Pete is a story teller, he came out without any notes and told us stories that kept our attention for ... I don't remember how long.  Two hours?  

In 1975 I was coming to consciousness of major league sports.  Baseball was, and remains, my first love.  I watch some NFL, especially around playoff time, and even more especially if the teams I love or the players I watch are involved.  I never watch any NBA games, though I'm keeping one eye on the sports pages (online, anyway), because I'm a lifelong Cleveland fan, and, gosh, it is a possibility.  I don't pay any attention to hockey at all.  College basketball I do track a bit, especially as a Buckeye fan.  College football, ditto.

But baseball is my sport love.  And, when I was becoming sport-conscious back in 1975, it was a tremendous year to be an Ohio fan.  I watched the Reds and Red Sox, which meant watching Pete Rose hustle, Joe Morgan twitch at bat, and Luis Tiant's bizarre windup.  Though Morgan was my favorite back then, I wish now that he would never ever ever ever talk politics.  Kind of spoils his good image in my head.  

But Pete?  Man... sometimes you wish he would just keep quiet.  

His stories are great.  I've read stories of him in various books over the years.  One of my favorites was of how much fun he had in game 6, even though the Reds lost that one, back in 1975.  His child-like love for the game, even as his team loses a critical game, was a beautiful thing to me.  His hustle was wonderful.  

When I look at his lifetime numbers, I can't help but seeing that he was essentially an accumulator.  But what Hall of Famer wasn't?  Rare are the guys who, like Ruth, could have had Hall of Fame careers if they had played 7 to 10 years less than they did.  Pete wouldn't have.  

So what.

As a ball player I love the man.

But, honestly, if he gets released from this "capital punishment" at this point, how can we not question the integrity of the game?  There's far more evidence of Pete's wrong-doing, even from his own lips, than there ever has been for Shoeless Joe Jackson.  How about we forgive Shoeless first--a genuine Hall of Fame caliber player.  

Sorry, man.  

Craig Biggio

Understand, first of all, that I am a Cleveland Indian fan.  Nothing shakes that, even when ownership doesn't sign star players, because owners are cheap.  Nothing changes that, even when ownership fires the best manager Cleveland had since the 40s--Mike Hargrove.  Nothing changes that, even when ... etc.

Right now, our ownership does seem to be trying to put together a winner, even though we don't spend the money that Detroit does, let alone Los Angeles (either team) or New York or Boston.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Craig Biggio.

I am definitely a fan.

Here are some of the things I love about Biggio:

• Spent his whole career with one team, even though
• That team wasn't in a large market
• That team was consistently unremarkable
• Free Agency gave him opportunities to go elsewhere ("Several times, Craig had opportunities to go elsewhere, and he chose to stay in Houston," said former Astros owner Drayton McLane)
• Doubles.  Probably my favorite hit in baseball.  Biggio was prolific at this, the most hustle-oriented hit in baseball.
• Scrappy hustler
• Team player
• Blue-collar type of player

I could probably go on with that list, but let's skip ahead to some numbers.  After all, this is baseball.

• Led the league in games played 3 times
• Led the league in plate appearances 5 times, having more than 700 in 9 different seasons, peaking at 749 in 1999.  You might say, "So what, he led the league in plate appearances".  That, and his tendency to play every game in which his team got on the field, speaks volumes to his dependability and consistency--qualities real men still respect.
• Led the league in runs twice, including 1997, when he had 146.  Had 100+ runs scored 8 times. 
• Led the league in doubles 3 times, including the two times when he topped 50.  Also, had 40+ doubles 7 times.
• Led the league in HBP 5 times, having 20+ six times, topping it all off in 1997 with 34.  Not impressed?  You try being beaned by major league pitching 34 times in one summer.  Let me know how you survive.  By the way, he was beaned 3 times by fireballer Kerry Wood.  
• Gold glove winner at 2B from 1994 to 1997
• Played more games at 2B than anyone else in the league for 7 consecutive years
• 5th all time in Doubles.  He beat people like Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, George Brett, ... well, everybody but Tris Speaker (22 seasons), Pete Rose (24 seasons), Stan Musial (22 seasons), and Ty Cobb (24 seasons).  By the way, Biggio played 20 seasons.  NOBODY else in the top ten of doubles on the all time list played as few
• 2nd all time in HBP.  Did you hear that?  More HBPs than anybody who ever played the game, except for Hughie Jennings.  Hughie - 287, Biggio - 285.  Hughie played from 1891 to 1918.  Eighteen years of... not the fastest pitches.

Oh, I missed one.  Craig also led the league in SB once, with 39, in 1994.

Some are referring to Biggio as "a compiler", which is fine.  Most of the people in the Hall of Fame played long careers.  None but four of those, though, hit more doubles than Craig Biggio.  

Congratulations on your entry to the Hall of Fame, Mr Biggio.  I'm a fan.