On the off chance you heard me on the radio tonight (I wound up going on at about 8:45 instead of 9:05, as scheduled), I vented about the problems with said all-star game. Why should the Red Sox/Yankees and Phillies have to worry a potential at-bat between Aaron Crow and Miguel Montero to determine home field advantage? I'll be perfectly honest, I consider myself a prettay, prettay big baseball fan, and before I scoured the all-star rosters, I had never heard of Aaron Crow. He's a rookie middle-reliever having a decent season for the Royals, but if there were no requirements for every team to be represented, I'd still have no idea an Aaron Crow even existed.
There are several other notably horrendous selections this season. Russell Martin was picked as the third catcher on the A.L. roster, despite a paltry .220 batting average. That's the lowest by an American League all-star since 1968. Matt Wieters of the Orioles, another catcher, is 48th in the junior circuit in batting yet he qualified for the team just because he fills Baltimore's quota.
I could go on and nitpick more, but I'll say this: why can't baseball just have home-field in the World Series be based on the team with the best record, as is the case in basketball and hockey? Time to ramble on other stuff I missed these past few weeks.
-How exactly did Nick Lidstrom win the Norris Trophy over Zdeno Chara? Just because he's Nick Lidstrom? Sure, his offensive numbers were still there this year (16-46-62) compared to Chara's 14-30-44 total, but Lidstrom became the first Norris winner since Randy Carlyle in 1981 to take home the award with a negative +/- rating (-2). Chara, conversely, finished with a league leading +33 rating. The Norris ain't a scoring contest, it's about the being the best defensive player in the league.
-Not only did the Sedin's fall short in winning the Stanley Cup, they each fell short of winning the Hart Trophy, which is awarded to the NHL's most valuable player. Corey Perry of Anaheim skated away with it instead. Personally I thought Timmy Thomas shoulda taken that in addition to the Vezina, but hey.
-Sounds like the NFL lockout is about to end.
-Sounds like the NBA lockout isn't.
-Is Derek Jeter the greatest Yankee of all-time now that he's reached the 3,000 hit plateau there? Combine that with his five rings, the case has never been stronger. Of course, Ruth/Gehrig/DiMaggio/Berra/Mantle/Costanza are all still acceptable arguments.
-Joe Corvo, Benoit Puliout in; Michael Ryder, Tomas Kaberle out (and Recchi's retirement). All fine by me. You can't bring back the exact same team to defend a championship; minor tweaks are always necessary. And while Ryder stepped up big time during the playoffs, another regular season of frustrations wasn't going to cut it on Causeway Street. More importantly, these defections will allow the B's to have more flexibility when it comes to signing Marchand and Krejci to long-term deals. The Puliout signing is definitely curious, and Jack Edwards certainly won't be a fan, but it never hurts to take a low-risk flier on a former no. 4 overall draft pick.
-Since my last blog post on June 20, here's some Red Sox batting lines:
- Dustin Pedroia: .338, 5 HR, 12 RBI, 1.077 OPS
- Jacoby Ellsbury: .329, 3 HR, 13 RBI, .953 OPS
- Adrian Gonzalez: .375, 2 HR, 13 RBI, .986 OPS
- Kevin Youkilis: .377, 2 HR, 13 RBI, 1.056 OPS
No comments:
Post a Comment