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How bad can things get in Cleveland?  LeBron is gone, so the Cavs are terrible.  The Indians are playing out the string.  The Browns are ranked 32nd on most power polls, including ESPN's.  They don't even have a hockey team.  And now, one of the most prominent baseball writers for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Paul Hoynes, has written the worst thing I've read about baseball in a long time.  From this post:

"Last year, Zack Greinke of the fourth-place Kansas City Royals won the American League Cy Young award with 16 victories. In the National League, Tim Lincecum of the third-place San Francisco Giants won it with 15 victories. They were the lowest-win totals by a starting pitcher for the awards since 1994 and 1981, respectively. The 1994 and 1981 seasons were cut short by strikes.

The value of the win has been devalued by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who favor statistics meant to remove all influences on the pitcher except himself. This year, the case study will be Felix Hernandez, Seattle's fine right-hander. He leads the AL in innings pitched and strikeouts. He has everything going for him except for one thing -- he has won only 11 games headed into Saturday's start against the Angels.

Hernandez might get four more starts after Saturday. If he wins out, he could finish with 16 victories. Does that mean he should get the award over CC Sabathia, who goes for his 20th victory Monday for the first-place Yankees?

The time to give Hernandez the Cy Young award was last year when he went 19-5 with a 2.49 ERA, but he finished second to Greinke. He had the stats, including the most important one, to make a far more compelling case than this year."

For more reasonable writing exploring ways to view the great game of baseball, may we again recommend the best in the business, Joe Posnanski.  Here is a recent piece on King Felix, CC, and the Cy Young award.

Don't worry, Cleveland.  Your newspaper can always hire a new writer.  We hear Jay Mariotti is available.

I just read on CBS Sports the breaking news about our favorite White Sox pitcher, Chris Sale......

Guillen calls Sale his Closer

"From The Sports Xchange notes: RHP Bobby Jenks (elbow) was still unavailable during the series with Kansas City. As far as what awaits Jenks when he is ready to go, he will have to again prove himself. "Bobby's not my closer right now, he's not, I'm very happy with (Chris) Sale," manager Ozzie Guillen said. "I'm not saying (Jenks had) lost his job, I have to wait to see to put him in the game to see how he's doing, how he feels, he's got to throw on the side. It's another process; it might take a little while, maybe one day, two days, three days... a week." Matt Thornton likely sets up for Sale at this point, by the way.

(Updated 09/14/2010)."

Sale is eligible at Starting Pitcher in most leagues, so now is everyone's chance to try and get this extra closer in your Roto bullpen for saves.  Hopefully, you're all still competing for something.  Good luck!

There’s not a lot of baseball in this post, sorry. This is more of a big mess of psychological nonsense about feeling old. I actually recommend not reading it.

Please move on. There is nothing to see here.

When I turned 25, I had a quick thought that lingered because it made me feel old to be halfway to 50. I had to remind myself that no-one is immune; everyone gets a day older every day.

Today, September 14th, is my half birthday. Half birthdays are not really celebrated enough. Why can’t we start a tradition for half birthdays? Anyway, this time, I had a feeling of getting old because I am halfway to 67-years old.

As we get older, we get wiser, right? People usually calm down and gain perspective, right? Okay, so I’ll just keep telling myself: 33, 34, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and even 60’s aren’t old. Heck, 67 isn’t as old as it used to be.

I’ve also learned that when someone complains about their age, they should probably make sure no-one older is around. Nowadays, if a 25-year old complained to me about being old, I’d tell him to take it easy and show him that I have the vertical jump of an obese child. Similarly, there are youthful people halfway to 84, or 96, or 100-something who would feel I’m being a little ridiculous today. My grandmother is 91, and even 75 seems like a long, long time ago.

Did you see the episode of Louie on FX, when his comic pals introduce him to a group of girls and tell them, frankly, that “He’s over 40”? The girls make icky faces, and one of them says, “Really?!”, and Louie says, “I’m actually 42.” Louie is a youthful guy. He’s a comedian, a good one. He sees things in life that I think are funny. I find myself identifying with someone who’s 42. Does that make me feel any “older”? Yes, it does. Should it? I don’t think so. When I was 15, I identified with Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza, and they were in their 30’s. I also identified with Sofia and Dorothy of The Golden Girls. There were times I knew what Mr. Holland was feeling while writing his opus, and that movie came out when I was in college. Okay, okay, something is starting to make sense.

I don’t think people need mantras, but little reminders are helpful: Time flies. Each day is precious. Yada, yada, yada, you’re only as old as you feel. Don’t worry about what you cannot control. Make the most of every opportunity.

Since no-one gives a hoot about half birthdays, I thought we could celebrate the birthdays of a few memorable ballplayers from the past.

Out of current Major Leaguers, Delmon Young turns 25 today. Unfortunately, he’ll have to do something remarkable during a postseason moment I’m rooting for, learn to walk more than 35 times a season, stop trying to steal bases*, or join the Cubs and be awesome before we celebrate his birthday.

*Last season, Delmon stole 2 bases and was thrown out 5 times. This year, he has stolen 4 bases in 8 attempts. Over his career, across 587 games, has 32 steals in 51 attempts. As a base stealer, Delmon Young is only helping the opposition with numbers like that.

Happy 141st Birthday to Hall of Famer Kid Nichols!

Charles Augustus Nichols was born in Madison, Wisconsin and went to Queen Elizabeth Secondary School in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. What was high school like in the 1880’s? Were the girls stuck up? Were there even girls there? What was the curriculum? What was history class like? You get to 1870, and everything else is “current events”, right? This is the kind of garbage I wonder about.

Kid made a name for himself and became a Hall of Famer as a pitcher in the 1890’s and early part of last century for the Boston Beaneaters, St. Louis Cardinals, and Philadelphia Phillies. The bulk of his career spanned from 1890 through 1901 with the Beaneaters. He was known in the 1890’s as Cy Young’s main rival for best pitcher in the National League.

It’s fascinating looking back at teams back then. They also used 25-man rosters, but they often carried 20 position players and 5 pitchers.

Starting pitchers back then used to throw complete games regularly, and if they could not, managers would often use another day’s starter to finish the job.

In Kid Nichols's 15-year career, he started 562 games and threw 532 Complete Games. He was used as a relief pitcher 56 times, and he finished all 56 of those contests. Nichols averaged 291 innings per season and was consistently excellent throughout his career. The game was different back then, but standard stats (Wins and ERA) and advanced stats (ERA+ and WAR) show that he performed at a Hall of Fame level for 13-and-a-half of his 15-year career.

Happy 86th birthday to the Yankee living legend Jerry Coleman!

Coleman debuted on 4/20/49 and earned 3rd place in the American League Rookie of the Year balloting as their second baseman. The next season, 1950, Jerry Coleman was an All Star. In his first two seasons, Coleman had shown a terrific eye at the plate. His On base percentage and K/BB ratio were outstanding the first two years.

1949: .367 OBP, 68 walks, 44 strikeouts
1950: .372 OBP, 67 walks, 38 strikeouts

In 1951, Coleman struggled and found himself in a more crowded infield.  Gil McDougal joined the Yankees as an infielder and won Rookie of the Year.  Jerry Coleman did not show enough power or base stealing ability the first three seasons. In those three years, he only managed to hit 11 homeruns and steal 17 bases. The Yankees won the World Series in 1949, 1950, and 1951 with Coleman playing over 120 games, but for the rest of his career, he would be a reserve player for the Yankees. Phil Rizzuto and Billy Martin played middle infield the majority of the time for the 1952 Yankees.  In Jerry Coleman's nine seasons, his Yankees won 6 pennants and 4 World Series titles. Glory days pass everyone by, except the Yankees, apparently.

Happy 74th Birthday Stan Williams!

Stan Wilson (Big Daddy) Williams debuted in the National League the first year after Jerry Coleman retired, 1958. His Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series in 1959, and he went on to have a few good seasons pitching in the same rotation, and therefore in the shadows, of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. According to Incredible People, “In 1970, he went 10-1 on the season in relief, with a 1.99 ERA, one of the best seasons a relief pitcher has ever had.”

Lastly, from the “we didn’t really want to find something interesting to say about you, but it’s still your birthday” department: Happy 53rd birthday to Tim Wallach and 38th to David Bell.

It has been twenty years since this photo was taken, yet I saw it for the first time yesterday.  Why is this photo not more celebrated?

Anybody know where I can get a fake ID?

Perhaps, I'm exaggerating the comedic value of a photograph, as I've been known to do.  For example, look at the next photo of Orel Hershiser.  Am I the only one who thinks it's a hysterical picture, especially for a baseball card?  Who poses like that for a baseball card?  Who poses like that, at all?

"Hey ladies, ever cuddle with a bulldog?"

Still, I look at Giambi's big smile and slim frame from his 1990 Alaska Goldpanners photo and can't help but smile right back.  What a joke.  When I saw him, from about 75 feet away at Wrigley Field as a Yankee in 2003, he looked like a WWE wrestler.  I've had experience seeing WWF wrestlers up close from a backstage pass in the summer of 1995.

Anyway, we've all seen Giambi's long hair, tatts, and 'roided out biceps.  Why haven't ween scene more images like this on PTI, or something?

The shaved sideburn mullets were all the rage in 1990 Alaska

What makes me wonder is how have we, as a generation, been affected by witnessing basically an entire generation of ballplayers age unnaturally, or supernaturally.  Unless you are old enough to remember people retiring in the early '90s, it's hard to know if anyone has aged "normally".  Of course, we hold on to hope for guys like Griffey Jr, Jeter, and Maddux did things the right way, but we saw a majority of players slow the affects of aging and skew the perceptions of aging ballplayers in general.

Bonds has had his skinny-Bonds and giant-Bonds differences pointed out many times.

Boooooooooooooooooooooo!

Boooooooooooooooooo!

Steroids didn't have to do with the pigment change, but Sammy Sosa went from being a skinny kid with a soul glo perm, to a 'roided up masher, and now he turned Michael Jackson White!

"Man, what language you talkin'? I'm Sammy Sosa."

Roger Clemens was 44 going on 34 in 2007.

Photo dated: November 2007

Mark McGuire is just a weirdo, who's neck looked stretched way too far at the end of his career, then shriveled up in his retirement.

"I'm delusional!"

"Please stop staring at my neck."

I'm not about to investigate more and open up a psychology or sociology textbook from my "college" box in my office.  Maybe there is no point to this feeling; I'm probably thinking very strangely and have no point.  It just feels like if more than 50% of ballplayers, or at least STAR players, were on steroids/HGH, then younger fans, as a generation, are missing something.  This younger generation of fans isn't being inculcated with the lessons of time and age that baseball fans of the previous 90 years were accustomed to seeing.  I'm probably making too much of it.  US sports fans conversely see the running back position in the NFL evolving to where their career spans are shortening to just a handful of productive years.  I'm definitely making too much of this. Who even worries about younger baseball fans?  They have their whole lives ahead of them, for crying out loud.

Enjoy the games tonight, folks.  That Oakland @ Kansas City matchup starting up in about an hour is bursting with Quadruple A flavor.

How great is the NL West?  This is turning out to be an all-time great race.  It's keeping my attention, as I check the standings daily and don't even really care who wins.

Rookie & Comeback Players of the Year: Posey and Huff

We mentioned on Thursday that we were looking forward to the four-game series in San Diego this weekend.  San Francisco just tied the Padres for the division lead with a 6-1 victory.  Tim Lincecum has seemingly rebounded from a rough stretch by pitching well today and the last couple of weeks.

The way both of these teams have been built and performed make them very likable stories, but the best story in the National League could again be the comeback Rockies.  In recent years, the Rockies have put together furious winning streaks in a chase to win the pennant.

Giambi hasn't changed a bit

Today, the Rockies won their 10th straight game as Jason Giambi hit a 2-run pinch hit home run to untie the game in the bottom of the 9th.  With the Giants defeating the Padres, Colorado 1.5 games behind both teams.

It's a strange feeling.  I don't really care who wins, but I feel pretty confident it'll stay a good race to the end.  NL West fever.  Catch it while you can!

Sunday morning is a good a time as any to paraphrase.  A wise baseball man once said, "Just give me their stats for the last two weeks, and that'll tell me who's going good," or something to that effect.  Thinking of that again on this Sunday morning, I checked the calendar and see it's been more than two weeks since we handed out any Fortnight Awards.  Will any of our most recent award winners, Miguel Cabrera, CJ Wilson, Omar Infante, or Mat Latos, defend their crown?  As usual, all stats mentioned have been provided by our friends at Fangraphs.

AL Hitter of the Fortnight
Hideki Matsui, Angels
This was a tough call, and there were a few candidates who are probably more popular choices: Carl Crawford (13.4 wRC), Ryan Raburn (11.4 wRC), and Mark Teixeira (11.7 wRC).  Matsui gets our vote because of his fantastic and league-leading .553 On-base percentage and .525 wOBA.

AL Pitcher of the Fortnight
Jon Lester, Red Sox

Our first 2-time winner

A quick glance at the advanced numbers made this look like an easy choice.  Lester, who won this award the first time we gave them out on July 9th, leads the league in FIP (1.27) and xFIP (1.95) by wide margins.  Second place in those stats are by his teammate, Josh Beckett (1.67 and 2.60).  Standard stats have Gio Gonzalez, Rick Porcello, Jeremy Guthrie, and Ervin Santana leading the league with three wins.  Baltimore's Jeremy Guthrie also lead the league with a 0.81 ERA.  So, that should be enough for old school folks to grant him the title.  I kind of wish I had done this yesterday to give it to King Felix.  Lester went 2-0 but with a 5.25 ERA.  It's not like we're settling the classic battle of ERA vs FIP, but choices have to be made.  We're going with Lester, and if you think it's just to side with new stats, dude also threw 30 strikeouts.

NL Hitter of the Fortnight
Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies
Amazingly, the Rockies also have the runner-up to this award: Troy Tulowitzki.  The Rockies have been rolling, winning nine in a row, and getting back in the postseason discussion 2.5 games behind the Padres.  There has been MVP, even triple crown, talk about the soon to be 25-year old outfielder.  In the last fourteen days, Carlos Gonzalez led the league with a .442 batting average and 17.5 wRC.  CarGo doesn't walk much, as evident by his 6.1 BB% career - 5.7 BB% this season.  If pitchers now start to pitch around him, he'll have to show more patience.  This screams small sample size, but as the CarGo hype machine has been taking off in the past two weeks, his BB% has improved slightly to 8.6%.

NL Pitcher of the Fortnight
Cole Hamels, Phillies
More and more, I think arguments can be made for a handful of pitchers for who's been the best the past two weeks.  Mat Latos, Carlos Zambrano, Madison Bumgarner, Jonathan Sanchez, J.A. Happ, and five other qualified starters in the National League had ERA's below 1.84.  Hamels is ranked 9th in the league in xFIP and FIP, but he went 3-0 with a 0.00 ERA, and we've learned to respect the 0.00 ERA, especially through three starts.

We're going to try to enjoy the NFL and NL West games today!  See you next week.

Brett Wallace looks like a nice boy.

Last year, when we posted our first Position Players of the Future post, we did it in late August.  So, we missed out on some September callups, notably: Buster Posey, Tyler Flowers, Eric Young, Tyler Colvin, Tommy Manzella, Chris Johnson, and Ian Desmond.

This year, we've seen the debuts of at least twenty genuinely exciting prospects.  Before getting to the list, we'll acknowledge this year's honorable mention to: Jon Jay, Will Rhymes, Danny Espinosa, Ruben Tejada, Scott Sizemore, Brian Bogusevic, Jason Donald, Ryan Kalish, and Lorenzo Cain.

Austin Jackson's HR:K ratio is 3 to 149

25.) Chris Carter, Athletics
24.) Mitch Moreland, Rangers
23.) Brennan Boesch, Tigers
22.) Danny Valencia, Twins
21.) Josh Bell, Orioles
20.) Brett Wallace, Astros
19.) Jason Castro, Astros
18.) Jose Tabata, Pirates
17.) Austin Jackson, Tigers
16.) Justin Smoak, Rangers
15.) Freddie Freeman, Braves
14.) Wilson Ramos, Twins
13.) Dayan Viciedo, White Sox
12.) J.P. Arencibia, Blue Jays
11.) Mike Stanton, Marlins
10.) Lars Anderson, Red Sox
Is Chris Berman still on TV regularly?  Does he do baseball highlights?  I'd like to see him try to call this guy Lars And-theRealGirl-derson.  We are bullish on Anderson because he's a big, strong kid, with a good power-hitter's frame, smooth swing, and as soxprospects.com said back in June: "impeccable batting eye".

9.) Yonder Alonso, Reds
It's pretty great that we find eight position players more exciting than Alonso, whom we were wondering about a good two months before his debut.  The Havana born 23-year old is soaking in ambiance of a pennant race.  If he can play left field, the Reds will be even more dangerous.  Adding his influence to a lineup with Joey Votto, a maturing Brandon Phillips, an improving Jay Bruce, and the ageless Rolen should score plenty of runs for a young rotation fronted by Leake, Chapman, Volquez, Cueto, Bailey or Harang, et al.

8.) Domonic Brown, Phillies
It's taking a little while for Dom Brown's bat to find the Major League ball, but he's already showing off three of the five basic tools.  He will eventually slide comfortably into Jayson Werth's current role on the team.

7.) Desmond Jennings, Rays
Jennings has yet to get exposed to regular playing time, but as is true in most sports, there's no substitute for speed.  Crawford is definitely leaving Tampa this offseason, and Desmond Jennings will play.  Nothing short of a Brandon Wood performance will give Desmond a chance to showoff his ability to get on base and go.  As an illustration: in 1,830 plate appearances across five minor league seasons, he had a .384 OBP and 171 stolen bases, against getting thrown out just 33 times.

6.) Ike Davis, Mets
We didn't anticipate Ike Davis's debut until about two days before it happened, but we've been awfully impressed by his performance.  He has a 111 OPS+, which isn't outstanding for a first baseman, but it is very good for a first-year player.  We also appreciate his experience at Arizona State and think that school has an extra special knack at churning out professional hitters.

5.) Starlin Castro, Cubs
Starlin Castro is the youngest player in the Major Leagues, in fact, the only Major Leaguer born in the '90s.  He was born in the Dominican Republic and signed by the Cubs as a 16-year old.  He's hitting an impressive, but empty .317.  As they say, you don't walk off the island, and Castro is no different.  In 436 plate appearances, he only has 24 walks.  Having this kind of success as a 20-year old foreshadows an outstanding future, when comparing to the best shortstop in the game.  When Hanley Ramirez was 20-years old, across three levels of minor league baseball, rookie ball, high-A, and double-AA ball, Hanley had 428 plate appearances, batting .314, with only 6 HR's and 29 walks.  He flashed some speed, with 25 steals in 35 attempts.  Castro doesn't look like a runner, but that could be due to inexperience.  He only has 8 SB's this season in the Majors, but last year in A and Double A, he swiped 28 bags.  It should be fun to see how good this kid can be.

4.) Carlos Santana, Indians
Knee injuries be damned!  This kid hovers over the plate like a beast waiting to unleash his wrath on American League pitching.  Had Santana not blown out his knee during a collision at home plate this summer, he'd probably be #2 on this list.  This has been an outstanding season for hitting debuts.  We're discussing at least twenty legitimate future stars here.

3.) Pedro Alvarez, Pirates
As soon as Sean Johnston declared his intentions to attend Vanderbilt in the 1994, I knew the school was a serious player in college baseball.  Sean went on to sign with the Mets, who drafted him out of high school.  In the past 15 years, we've seen Vandy churn out some serviceable Major Leaguers: Jeremy Sowers and Jensen Lewis.  They've had a few superstar players in recent years: David Price, Pedro Alvarez, and Mike Minor.

2.) Logan Morrison, Marlins
LoMo has not disappointed during his time with the Marlins.  Much like Yonder Alonso, he is a first base prospect currently blocked by an effective Major Leaguer.  Morrison has been given an opportunity, and he snagged the starting left field position right away.  He's even batting in the top if the lineup most nights, hitting 2nd or 3rd.  In the 40 games he's played since his debut, LoMo's triple slash line is an outstanding .314/.425/.487.  He's only hit one homerun but has sixteen doubles.  In time, some of those shots will start to find the seats.  It doesn't hurt that he's red hot, having reached base in thirty straight games heading into Saturday's contest.

1.) Jason Heyward, Braves
Heyward is also devastatingly young; he just turned 21 last month.  He has started for the Braves since Opening Day, and the only complaints Braves fans can have is that he gets hampered by minor injuries here and there a bit too frequently, and he doesn't hit like Pujols, yet.  Scouts have raves about Heyward's size, strength, and mostly his balance at the plate.  We've read in Buster Olney's column people call him Pujols as an Outfielder.

Putting hyperbole aside in a moment, Heyward is an impressive player when he strikes out looking.  He looks dangerous at the plate, is dangerous at the plate, and despite the phenom attention, has a level head on his shoulders.  (If you don't know the story of how Jason Heyward decided to wear #22 and everything else that goes along with it, read it.  You just might have a new favorite player.)

Back to the dangerous at the plate part.  His minor league stats page listed him at 6'5" 240 lbs, as a 20-year old.  For comparison's sake, Albert Pujos is listed at 6' 3" 230 lbs and Ron Artest is listed as a more comparable 6'6" 244.  These comparisons scream to me "That means he's a big kid!" in the same voice and manner as Brown and Williamson's attorney, in Michael Mann's The Insider, when he tersely directed Russell Crowe's character: "That means you don't talk!"

It feels like the wheels to this post are completely falling off, so let's finish it with what is quite possibly my favorite line in the movie.  The opposing attorney in the film's scene is the fine American actor, Bruce McGill.  McGill has hard a remarkable career.  He played the infamous Daniel Simpson Day in Animal House, the plot changing Sheriff Farley in My Cousin Vinny, George Tenet in W, and of course the unforgettable Jack Dalton on 19 episodes of MacGyver, not to mention another 130+ titles including Ali and Legally Blond 2.  Let's take it back to the deposition scene in The Insider.

Big Tobacco's attorney says: "Dr. Wigand, I am instructing you not to answer that question in accordance to the terms of the contractual obligations undertaken by you not to disclose any information about your work at the Brown and Williamson tobacco company, and in accordance with the force and effect of the temporary restraining order that has been entered against you by the court in the state of Kentucky. That means you don't talk! Mr. Motley we have rights here."

Mr Motley (Bruce McGill) says: "Oh yeah boy, you got rights... and lefts. Ups and downs and middles. So what? You don't get to instruct anything around here! This is not North Carolina, not South Carolina, nor Kentucky! This is the sovereign state of Mississippi's proceedings. Wipe that smirk off your face! Dr. Wigand's deposition will be part of this record! And I'm gonna take my witness' testimony whether the hell you like it or not!"

You just can't beat "This is the sovereign state of Mississippi and "Wipe that smirk off your face!"

Thanks for reading this far.  I'm really sorry about this.  Do you see what happens?  Do you see what happens?  Do you see what happens when you run a blog without an editor?