Trade Line Check Up

With slightly more than 100 games played in the season.. the deadline now dead.. here's the shakedown on MLB as I see it.

There were some interesting moves made within the last 48 hours. I think Abreu moving over to the Yankees and the fact that neither the Red Sox or the Blue Jays did anything much to help their causes.. The Yankees were our pick in the beginning and I think they give the AL East a good run.

The Red Sox have been getting such tremendous production from their young closer, together with some incredibly timely hitting by Big Papi and Manny, they have shown what a Championship seasoned team can do. But, the season is far from over and this two team battle is going to be one of the most entertaining and exciting races to watch.

There really is no pressure on the NL East leading NY Mets. With the sweep of the Atlanta Braves.. the East is pretty much wrapped up. They made a nice move to shore up the pitching rotation loss of Duaner Sanchez (injured in a car accident and out for the season) by picking up Hernandez from the Pirates. Since Roberto has been with the Mets in the past and proven he can play under the pressure of the Big Apple press.. I think that was a safe and very solid move on the Mets' part.

Over to the wild and whacky West. In the AL it is still a tightly bunched up Division. From top to bottom the separation is 3.5 games. I put my hat in the ring with the Mariners early in the season and I think they are playing fairly decent ball recently. They have some issues in the pitching department .. but only 3.5 games back and the troubles in this Division they could still pull it off.

As for the trading.. It appears the Rangers have made the biggest moves in an attempt to make a run at the top. Although the wise move might be to go with the Angels who are stacked.. or the Rangers with all the moves.. or even the A's who still have the best pitching staff in this group.. I have to go with what I picked in the beginning. The bat of Sexton has been heating up and Ichiro's leadership will make a difference in the end.

As for the NL West.. speaking of leadership.. The Dodgers made a leadership type of move when they picked up Greg Maddux. A certain HOF'er .. his game may not be so perfect after his big 5-0 start to the year.. but.. his leadership abilities are without question. He may be just the stabilizing force the Dodger staff needs.. especially following the embarrassing tirade put on by Brad Penny in his last start. The injuries continue to slow the Dodger parade though. They can't seem to keep the same lineup on the field.. Nomar and Kent have been in and out all year.. No Bill Mueller. Letting go of Izturis and picking up Lugo may end up being a super move in the long run. The Dodgers have some outstanding young talent in the farm system as far as their position players are concerned. This move makes a lot of sense to me. Five games back and at the bottom of the NL West does not bode well for my early season pick.. but hey, it ain't over til it's over.

The Detroit Tigers look like they have finally separated a bit from the Chicago White Sox. Ozzie showing a bit of frustration a few games back may be just the chink in the armor that the Tigers needed to see. Since that time the Tigers have steadily pulled away. I see them finishing strong. The White Sox will battle for the Wild Card.

The NL Central looks like St. Louis staying strong. Although, the Reds made some nice moves to shore up their pitching staff and 3.5 games is not that large a deficit if they can get on a bit of a roll. Strong hitting leads the way for both clubs and it will come down to whether the pitching additions were the smart move or not.

All in all the season has been outstanding.. with tremendous plays (remember Matthews, Jr's catch?) incredible hitting performances.. now it is Chase Utley in the spotlight.. and topsy turvy divisonal races. Baseball is awesome and I am proud to be involved in my own little way.

Enjoy the rest of the season!

60 Game Check on MLB

Looking around the league there are plenty of stories to excite us so far in the season. The unexpected leaders, the expected leaders, the great play of some lesser knowns and the great play of the very well knowns.

Assessing our earlier comments about where we thought the cream of the crop would end up, we are looking fairly prophetic slightly over 1/3 of the way into the season. They Yanks and Red Sox.. pretty much neck and neck.. with the Blue Jays playing well, this is surely looking like a 3 horse race. The Blue Jays team Batting average is over .300! That has to come as a surprise to most analysts. Our feeling though was the Yanks hand was a better play.. and although they have had some crippling injuries.. we'll stay with that horse. Jeter is the ace in the hole.

The surprising Tigers and White Sox .. running away with the Central. I still have to ponder.. is it because both teams use the XLR8 Practice Balls :-)

Seriously though, these two teams have proven to be solid up and down the lineup. Great pitching: The Tigers lead MLB in ERA. They hold the AL lead in ERA by nearly a 1/2 run over the Yankees, White Sox sitting 3rd. Hitting is a toss up between these two Central Division leaders. The White Sox are first in AL in HR's with 87 and the Tigers sit right behind them with 86! Only the REDS with Griffey and Dunn have more (88). I think this surprises most people this far into the season. Jim Leyland has done a masterful job with this team and I think he has truly gotten more from them than even he has realized. A talented coaching staff and great moves from GM Dave Dombrowski have this team in position for the long haul. I think they can pull it off although I am hesitant to hang my hat just yet as the White Sox are defending WS Champs and are playing supreme baseball. We'll continue to watch and be entertained by this Division.

Rounding up the AL with the mediocre WEST; Not alot to say here as no team looks strong enough to push much farther than a Division Championship. Funny things happen and you never know with this game. But from the start of the season until now we haven't seen much from this group. Believe it or not, I think the best team here is the Mariners. Sitting just 4 1/2 games out of the lead and to this point not having any significant win streak. They have solid pitching, fielding and hitting . .ranking in the top 1 or 2 in the West in all categories. With Sexon swinging a solid power bat and Ichiro being Ichiro (hitting over .500 in his last 10 games!) .. This could be the team that comes out on top here.

Sliding over to the NL the Phillies have made a small push at the Mets, closing within 5 1/2 at the time of this writing. Although they are in lower half in BA for the NL, they are fourth in HR totals behind the Reds, Brewers (!) and Mets. The power could be the key factor. But, I don't think they have the horsepower in the long run as the Mets are just too solid up and down. The Mets lead the NL in Pitching and I think that will be the difference. I'm sticking with em and hope Rick Down gets that elusive ring this year.

The Central is a little different animal. With Pujols on DL the Reds have seized the opportunity to get solidly back in position to steal this Division. Griffey and Dunn provide the power and the run production has been fantastic, trailing only the Dodgers in the NL. The achilles heel here though is the fielding; 2nd to last in MLB in fielding and not a solid enough pitching to staff to compensate. I say the Cardinals run away with this Division as soon as Pujols makes his return. His health is a huge factor, there is no question there. The Cardinals are solid though, even without PhatAlbert. I'm on the RedBirds here and feel very confident with that choice.

The NL West has really shaped up to be a great Division. The Diamondbacks have played outstanding baseball. The Padres were really smoking earlier in the season, proving that their young talent is capable of making a run. But.. injuries and all the Blue Crew is at the top of the heap. Outstanding run production with very little power has been a key for the team. They are outstanding with RISP and have a young group of guys that are excited to take the field every day. With Gagne on the return.. Nomar playing like his old self.. this is the team I chose at the start and I'll stay with them. You may see some interesting battles with the Diamondbacks though. Arizona has a very solid team and with the right trade at the right time.. they could end up making this long season a memorable one.

So.. lets just let em play and enjoy the games.

Matsui: The Pride of the Yankees

Matsui: The Pride of the Yankees
by Tom Plate
Los Angeles --- In the sports-happy, globe-oblivious country of United States, probably more people know who Hideki Matsui is than who Junichiro Koizumi is.

The former is the star left fielder of the New York Yankees baseball team. The latter is only the prime minister of Japan. But for a shining few minutes late last week in New York, you could very well make the case that Matsui was the most important Japanese celebrity in the world.

The dramatic situation was this. It was early in a feral game against the hated Boston Red Sox baseball club. A sharp line drive was slammed into left field in the general direction of Matsui. An excellent fielder as well as batter, a Yankee star and a baseball superstar in Japan, Matsui charged the liner without fear, lunged for it, fell to the ground and rolled over onto his left wrist and arm.
The capacity crowd at historic Yankee Stadium in the Bronx gasped at the sight of the fallen warrior on the ground unable to move because the pain was so great. The team doctor and teammates ran to his aid, but nothing could be done. The arm was broken, the star had to leave the game, the recovery period is said to require months.

But here is where Matsui exceeded his greatness as individual player with great dignity as a human being and as a team player. In the age of the coddled athlete, the widely overpaid athlete, the agent-protected athlete, and the totally obnoxious superstar athlete, Matsui from Japan did something that hardly anyone could remember another athlete doing in a long time.

Matsui apologized.

He publicly apologized to his manager for the injury that would keep him out of the team's lineup indefinitely, and he apologized to his fellow players for having to withdraw from the front lines of the battle to allow his broken left wrist to heal back together.

The apology was so unusual and unexpected and uncharacteristic, it became a major news story in the American media. The New York Times devoted a major feature to the Matsui apology. Countless news organizations picked up the story for the astonishing if almost unprecedented development that it represented: a superstar athlete and celebrity actually and sincerely saying he was sorry.

Apologies are as rare in the United States as they may be unexceptional in Japan. In this country even major newspapers fail to apologize to a citizen who has clearly been wronged by a story. To date, nearly 2,500 Americans have died in the Iraq war (and who knows how many Iraqis) and nothing remotely close to an apology has been issued by the perpetrators of this unnecessary calamity. In Los Angeles a driver on a cell phone will drift mentally off into Mars, make a serious life-endangering driving error, cause a multi- car pileup, and will you hear an apology? More likely you'll hear first from his lawyer or his insurance company.

It was against this stony-faced culture of arrogance that the Matsui "I'm sorry' rang across America like the ringing of some new liberty bell, freeing us from a culture of smugness. Unprompted by media advisors, unforced by barristers, it offered the feeling of sincerity and of coming deep from the heart.

In American baseball lore, few phrases or gestures are memorable enough to last longer than the next newspaper edition. Perhaps the most famous gesture of all time is Yankee slugger-of-history Babe Ruth's alleged gesture to the bleachers right before hitting one more or less exactly there. Another is Lou Gehrig's famous "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" phrase memorably delivered in Yankee Stadium during a ceremony saluting the great player's struggle against a fatal disease.

Matsui's apology probably will not go down in history to quite that degree of gravity. But to this ear it was memorable. Like Ruth or Gehrig before him, Matsui, the happy but humble warrior from Japan, gave a public and moving demonstration that reflected the pride of a Yankee.

UCLA Prof. Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, is an American journalist who has worked at Time, New York, Newsday and The Los Angeles Times. © Tom Plate, 2005. Distributed by the UCLA Media Center, Oct. 1, 2005.

Reprinted and distributed with permission by Nagase Kenko Corporation.

'06 Individual Performances

Where do you start? So far this year we have seen Jimmy Rollins scare the all-time hitting streak record. Kevin Mench has just fallen short of the all-time MLB record of consecutive games with a Home Run. Mench clubbed a round tripper in 7 straight. Ken Griffey Jr., Don Mattingly and a fellow named Dale Long (Pittsburgh Pirates - 1956)share the record at 8. Mench, however is the only right handed hitter in that group and holds that distinction. Mench tied another all-time mark back in June when he smashed a homerun in three consecutive innings vs the LA Angels. During his current binge, Mench hit two Grand Slams and drove in 20 RBI's!

Speaking of Griffey, he has surpassed Mickey Mantle and continues to climb the all-time Home Run list. Mike Piazza crushed his 400th Home Run. Barry, yes Barry... he climbed over Babe Ruth. No, not for the Home Runs. Barry has amassed more walks in his career than The Babe. How many more marks will he topple? He sits just 3 Home Runs shy of Ruth for second place all-time. The problem for Barry is... nobody seems to care. MLB plans no celebration, the Ruth family seems distant. A far cry from the moments in 1998 that featured Mammoth Mark eclipsing Roger Maris. Poor Barry. Do you think the trust factor might be missing?

And oh.. mentioning the Babe Ruth records. One more of Babe's records could be tied this year. His pitching prowess is completely forgotten. But, the Babe could chuck the rock! Curt Schilling takes aim at tying Babe Ruth and Pedro Martinez (if he could only hit like the Babe)as the only Red Sox pitchers to chalk up five wins in April.

What else is happening out there? Oh, who could forget.. possibly the most intimidating hitter in the league (yea, even more than Bonds); Albert Pujols is drumming the opposing pitchers. Big Bad Mr. Albert (can't call him Fat) set the MLB record for most Home Runs in the opening month of the season - 14! Should we get a blood test here? Only kidding. I think Albert is as legit as they come... Humble, confident and completely honorable, there doesn't appear to be any "fat" on the man. We could be seeing something special from him this year.