You have the Mets dying, the Cubs crying, the Phillies trying.....
3 games left and only the NL West is decided. The Cubs could clinch the Central but they have seemingly forgotten how to win one game.
Oh well, at least I got three of four of the AL teams right in my pre-season predictions (Tigers out, Red Sox in). If the Mets finish their gag job and the Phillies get in, I go 0-for the NL.
Maybe next year.
Interesting article by Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus ranking the all-time gag-jobs:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6764
Mets would be 2nd all-time on his list, Cubs 12th. The 1964 Phillies and the 1969 Cubs are ranked surprisingly low using his methodology. Considering these are two of the poster-teams for late-season collapses. Silver highlights some others.
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BONDS WILL NOT BE A GIANT NEXT YEAR
Nothing really shocking here. There was a good shot he might not have been in a Giant uniform this year (if the Giants had signed Soriano or Carlos Lee) so we'll go through the "Who's' going to want Barry Sweepstakes" again in the off-season.
Early possibilities:
Detroit - Leland's there and Sheffield. They should have won the WS last year vs. the Cards and this year, not even in the playoffs. That spells re-loading. They have the bucks to spend and the need for a bat. With the PR of the Aaron chase behind, it comes down to purely a decision based on wins and losses.
UPDATE - Leland has been quoted in the Detroit papers as saying Bonds will not be a Tiger next year, so scratch them off the list.
Angels - depends how well they do in the playoffs, as well as in the potential A-Rod sweepstakes.
Yankees - only if they lose A-Rod. Or if the Red Sox make a move first. But especially if the should lose A-Rod to the Mets. The Boss would have to make a back-page counter move and Andruw Jones just might not cut it after his sub-par year.
Red Sox - he'd look great in the lineup, but terrible in the back pages of the sports section here. Not a good fit.
Seattle - their late season swoon puts them in a let's-take-a-peak-under the-hood mode at the very least.
Oakland - possible for attendance bump. His high-OBA fits their approach. They would look for a hometown discount or an incentive laden contract. Or both.
Tampa Bay - looks good for attendance, and not by much. Doesn't help wins and losses much, he can't pitch. They may not want his influence on the young bats coming up the chain as well. Kind of silly thought considering where some of those prospects have been. He might actually provide a stabilizing influence on the youth.
Cardinals - only if LaRussa returns would they even remotely express interest. But Bonds protecting Pujols or vice-versa. Intriguing lineup possibilities. Need a speedy center fielder.
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POINT COUNTER-POINT FROM THE BLOG-OSPHERE RE: BONDS BYE-BYE:
From BaseballMusings.com
I hear Barry Bonds won't be returning to the Giants. Tim Kawakami sums up the reasons the Giants parted ways with Barry:
The Giants are still angry he held them up for ransom last year. Ridiculous action by Bonds. Hope he's happy with the $16M he got this year, but it cost him any shot at 2008.
(Plus the angry reaction from fans after the Giants caved to him last year shocked the heck out of management and told them that the Bonds love affair is over. That's why they signed Barry Zito, and that's a whole other problem.)
Will any team pick him up? Bonds is old, he's not playing much, but he's still very good when he does play. Would an AL team be willing to take him on as a DH? Or will 762 be his final home run total? I'm guessing the latter.
FROM OnlyBaseballMatters.com and Baseball Prospectus article by Joe Sheehan
http://www.onlybaseballmatters.com/archives/2007/09/23/mvp-redux/
BP’s Joe Sheehan tells it like it is, and it isn’t pretty:
…. The naked glee generated by this decision was embarrassing (links courtesy Buster Olney’s ESPN.com blog), with the San Francisco writers falling all over themselves to praise McGowan for cutting loose the best player in franchise history, the most productive player on the current roster, the best hitter in the National League and, dollar for dollar, one of the better values in the game. The press pool showed no recognition that Bonds remains an amazing player and an asset to any team, even one far from contention. Yes, he requires special treatment; is it some kind of news to everyone that the very best people in any line of work tend to get perks that separate themselves from their peers?
…. The Giants are free to run their team however they care to, but we shouldn’t persist in this fiction that Bonds is what stands in the way of the rebuilding process. The Giants, as effective as they’ve been in drafting and developing pitchers, have had little success with hitters. The Dan Ortmeiers and Rajai Davises populating the outfield and the lineup aren’t prospects, they’re MLB fourth and fifth outfielders who are being evaluated generously by virtue of not being Barry Bonds. The Giants have no prospects being blocked by Bonds, and if they did, they’d actually be being blocked by Dave Roberts and Randy Winn. As we saw with Alex Rodriguez and the Rangers, the team, the press and the public is focusing far too much on the best player with the biggest contract, rather than the money being wasted on the ridiculous contracts for inferior players throughout the rest of the roster. Bonds is worth the money; Ray Durham and Barry Zito, not so much.
Barry Bonds is still a great player. Concerned about how often he can be a great player for your team? At 41 and 42, he’s averaged 127 games and close to 500 PAs a season while playing in the field regularly. This notion that he’s a part-time player who can’t stay in the lineup is another of the myths propagated by the industrious San Francisco media. Bonds is just shy of an everyday player in the National League, and for an American League team, getting most of his playing time as a DH, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t play more often. Even at 125 games and 500 PAs, Bonds is a force to be reckoned with, and a team signing him would be in good position to add in some playing time for him in October.
The local media have portrayed Bonds like a serial killer, and he’s been nothing short of a consumate professional for 15 seasons. Steroid rumors? As Sheehan says, let me know when the guys who have actually tested positive for using steroids give money back, or their teams void their contracts, or give back wins. Until then, all that’s been proven of Bonds is that he’s the best player alive, and has been for almost 20 years.
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