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2012 Predictions April 4, 2012, 9:12 a.m. This is just too easy. Can of corn. It's like, some of this stuff, I can just pluck right out of last year's column. Here are some of the things that are almost certain to happen in the year 2012. Probably. With the lifetime home run record now clearly out of reach, Alex Rodriguez gets one step closer to retirement. A-Rod’s numbers: .260, 25 homers, 75 RBIs, in not an inning more than 120 games played. The American League Most Valuable Player goes to Robinson Cano. As usual, the World Series will be a better, truer, more spontaneous event than the Super Bowl, with actual crowd shots of real fans, but the commercials won’t be nearly as good. The debate over Joba Chamberlain's worthiness as a starter or reliever skips a year. Derek Jeter will appear on “Saturday Night Live" with Donald Trump (or Darrell Hammond). The New York Yankees fall short of the World Series, at least one Steinbrenner goes berserk, with Joe Girardi exiting by mid-October. Larry Lucchino will become part owner of a team working on a new stadium deal. AL team pegged most likely to improve that doesn't – Toronto Blue Jays. The Orioles make a nice little run, raising hope for the future in Baltimore, and finish within a few games of .500. The American League East will finish this way: Rays, Yankees (Wild Card), Red Sox, Jays, Orioles... Detroit’s Tigers are baseball's first team to clinch. These players will miss significant chunks of playing time due to injury: Carlos Beltran, Jonathan Broxton, A.J. Burnett, Justin Duchscherer, Jacoby Ellsbury, Rafael Furcal, Josh Hamilton, Rich Harden, Josh Johnson, Chipper Jones, Kendrys Morales, Justin Morneau, Jake Peavy, Jose Reyes, Alex Rodriguez, Scott Rolen, Johan Santana, Huston Street, Chase Utley, Jayson Werth, Kerry Wood, David Wright and at least half of the Giants' planned starting eight. These men will play through an array of injuries and ailments, and appear in 155-plus games. Billy Butler, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Nick Markakis, Andrew McCuthen, Matt Kemp, Dustin Pedroia, Hunter Pence, Ichiro Suzuki, Mark Teixeira, Troy Tulowitzski, Dan Uggla and Ben Zobrist. Sinkerballer Derek Lowe will lead baseball in comebackers not fielded. A Gold Glove Award winner will lead his position in errors. Several prominent major leaguers will miss action, delayed by visa problems. Ozzie Guillen will not be missed by Ken Williams in Chicago, nor by anyone else, for that matter. AL Central: Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Indians, Royals... "Five-tool player” will regain its rightful position as the most overused phrase in baseball, leaving "we all have to be on the same page" in the dust. "Flu-like symptoms," "strained oblique," "anything can happen in a short series," “back in the day,” "intestinal fortitude,” “it is what it is," "there’s no crying in baseball” and “it’s only May” round out the top ten. Countless players, play-by-play guys, and color commentators will refer to a just completed contest using the word "tonight," even though it was a day game. After missing out on his 11th straight year accomplishing the feat, Ichiro begins a new streak of 200-hit, .300 hitting seasons. Top-five MVP finisher Adrian Beltre, and another Gold Glove. Roy Oswalt makes a nice mid-season comeback with the Texas Rangers. AL Cy Young Award goes to Jered Weaver, and it’s not close. AL West: Angels, Rangers (Wild Card), Athletics, Mariners… NL team predicted most likely to contend that doesn't – Washington Nationals. Breakout, 20-win season for Tommy Hanson. Baseball’s first manager to be fired will be Terry Collins. Additional managers cut loose include Girardi, John Farrell, Brad Mills, Eric Wedge and whoever follows Collins. NL East: Phillies, Braves (Wild Card), Marlins, Nationals, Mets... A prominent player will test positive for performance-enhancing drugs. He’ll deny deny deny, come up with the most fantastic excuse known to man, and lose the obligatory appeal. America will celebrate. World Series home field advantage is handed to the American League for the final time, as Major League Baseball drops the All-Star Game brainchild and goes back to an every-other-year schedule. A proposal is floated to award Series home field to the league prevailing in the Home Run Derby, but the vote falls just short. Motivated in its final season as an NL club, Houston’s Astros soar to a fifth place finish in the Central. NL Central: Cardinals, Brewers, Reds, Cubs, Astros, Pirates… Padres worst season since their 1969 introduction to San Diego, when they went 52-110. Whenever and wherever Arizona sweeps a series, a newspaper in the losing team’s city will run the following headline: “Fill-in-the-blank Snake-bit by Diamondbacks." Contrary to popular opinion, it’s the Dbacks, rather than the Giants, who sport the division’s best starting staff. Southpaw Jamie Moyer will be referred to as “crafty” on a regular basis. No right-handers will be so-called even as much as once. Moyer will tire of the label, and retire. Even with a healthy Buster Posey available for the full season, San Francisco manages to score less than its 2011 league-worst 570 runs, with an even lower than its 2011 league-lowest .303 on base percentage. A ballpark in China Basin will be renamed for a telecommunications company. Brian Wilson will spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to look clever…and fail. Chavez Ravine construction begins with improvements on the Loge, Reserve and Top Deck levels, but not the God-awful-550-feet-from-home-plate right field upper deck section that Orel Hershiser would like to see built. There will be no connecting of the pavilions, and capacity will remain at exactly 56,000. Fatburger and Starbucks stands open around the park. Hershiser and Steve Garvey, none too pleased with their status as former Dodger greats, will find some other money-making project to attach themselves to. Mark Ellis will remind no one of Jeff Kent, but will have you thinking about Jamey Carroll. Ellis will hit some 20 points below Carroll’s 2011 .290 average, but will best the former Dodger infielder’s .193 with runners in scoring position by about 100, with ten homers, while driving in 50. While Dee Gordon may prove what we all know, that young shortstops make errors, he’ll commit fewer E-6s than Bill Russell in his first season as the Dodgers’ primary shortstop (34 errors in 1972), Maury Wills in his first year as the regular (40 in 1960), or Pee Wee Reese in his (47 in 1941). Gordon’s numbers: .285, 175 hits, 100 runs, 55 RBIs, an OBP of .350 and 75 steals. Andre Ethier leaves Los Angeles for the biggest free agent offer on the table, whether it’s from a contender or not. NL MVP: Matt Kemp. Hitting in front of Ethier, Kemp establishes a career-high in walks. Aaron Harang is L.A.’s second best starting pitcher. Frustrated, the Dodgers finally give up on Chad Billingsley. Back-to-back NL Cy Young Awards for Clayton Kershaw, who manages to top his 2011 season, not so much in the triple crown categories, but by reducing his pitch counts and WHIP figure, tossing his first career no-hitter and winning at least one postseason game. The Dodgers will acquire a corner infielder, an impact outfielder, and a prominent starting pitcher, beginning a mid-season makeover several weeks before the July 31 trading deadline. A battery of free agent signings brings Russell Martin and Cole Hamels to Los Angeles. Sandy Koufax finally gets his statue at Dodger Stadium. NL West: Dodgers, Dbacks, Giants, Rockies, Padres... Remember, glove conquers all....
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Ranks of Cooperstown and voting process improving January 11, 2011 6:20 p.m. Whatever you think of the current state of Hall of Fame voting practices, and the electorate itself, the writers of today are considerably more adept at handling their responsibilities than were their predecessors. And they’re headed in the right direction. Contrary to what certain members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) may think (and I’ve communicated with enough of them, so I know what they think), I did not create the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) in 2009 because I thought the men of the BBWAA were a bunch of clowns in need of replacing. Well, I thought Jay Mariotti needed replacing, but one bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch girl. Or something. I was frustrated to some degree with the regular Cooperstown exclusion of Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven. Sure. But more importantly, I saw the BBWAA as a rather slow-to-evolve, even slower-to-think-on-its feet group, which charges its members hundreds in yearly dues, and makes it extremely difficult for new blood – and in particular, Internet writing new blood – to join. Newspapers were “falling like flies in the vicinity of Andruw Jones,” I said at the time (remember, Jones was a fat Dodger in 2009), the BBWAA needed to react properly and wasn’t, and I wanted a vote. I wanted a vote for Internet writers like me, and I wanted to organize them. I wanted to show a little initiative, and a dose of creativity – fine, balls – which was in short supply at the BBWAA, it seemed to me. And I am just not one to sit on my bountiful behind (ala Jones) and complain about the world, without making an effort to change what irks me. We can discuss the merits of bloggers and the future of Hall of Fame voting in another post. Because like I said, the BBWAA of today has it hands-down over the old guys. Uh, older guys. You don’t want to get me started on the various incarnations of the Veteran’s Committee, which more often than not has proven only that Hall members vote out of familiarity, favoritism and with considerably less intelligent thought than do the writers, and since I don’t have a solution to institutions such as cronyism, I better just leave well enough alone. The BBWAA elected Barry Larkin this year, the IBWAA voters managed the 75% threshold for absolutely no one, and in this instance, the old guard did the better job. But listen, Hall of Fame voting is a subjective grab bag of contradiction and strangeness, with voters playing a game of “if so and so is already a Hall of Famer, then what’s his whozits also needs to be in” as a matter of course. It’s difficult not to go that route, and most of us are guilty of employing the strategy at one time or another. Or always. But if you question the Hall-worthiness of players like Barry Larkin, wait till you get a load of this bunch. And since we’re talking shortstops, let’s start there. When it comes to head-scratching Cooperstown choices for the position, my personal favorite is John Montgomery Ward, a career .275 hitter, and a man who made Jose Offerman look like Ozzie Smith squared. Yes, it’s pre-1900, pre-baseball-gloves-worth-a-damn, but how in the world is it physically possible to field .887 lifetime? Well, Ward committed 60-plus errors nine times, topping out at 105 miscues in 1890. That’s how. Shortstop Rabbit Maranville hit .258 lifetime, was responsible for 700 errors, and was named on 83% of the ballots in 1954. Meanwhile, Dave Concepcion hit nine points higher for a career, made 300 less errors, won twice as many World Series championships, was a key player on a decade's worth of great teams, had more doubles, triples, homers and RBIs in less games, and never bettered 17% in an election. I’m sorry to mess with such lofty history, people, but Joe Tinker, and Tinker to Evers to Chance? Tinker hit a whopping .262 lifetime, with 1687 hits, to go along with 635 errors at shortstop, including 50 or more seven times, 60-plus twice and 72 once. Johnny Evers managed a career .270, with, are you ready, 447 errors at second base. Evers booted 54 one year, 44 another, and 30-plus in seven additional seasons. And he’s in for his glove. The stud of the group, Frank Chance, made 138 errors as a first baseman, which is doing something, but since he banged out 20 homers lifetime, with nearly 600 RBIs, he’s an HOF’er. So the lesson must be, star in a baseball expression and you're a shoe-in. Warren Spahn’s a member, so surely Johnny Sain should follow. And you know what, just think of all that rain has meant to the game. How about a special place for precipitation in the museum? George Kell is a big-name Hall guy, but should he be? The .306 is nice, but are the 78 homers, 870 RBIs and 2054 even remotely close to Jeff Bagwell’s accomplishments? And lest we forget Travis Jackson (1768 hits and .149 in four World Series), High Pockets Kelly (20 homers three times), Dave Bancroft (.279, with 32 homers and 591 RBIs), Harry Hooper (.281, 75, 817) and Jesse Haines (210-158, with 981 Ks and a 3.64). Wait, Eppa Rixey won 15 more games than he lost, struck out 1300, with an ERA of 3.62, but he did lose a World Series game that one time. And Bobby Wallace hit .268 with those 34 dingers. Hall of Famers both. Jimmy Collins (65 homers), Roger Bresnahan (.279, 26 HR and 530 RBIs) and Tommy McCarthy (1493 hits, 44 and 732). All in. Bobby Wallace hit .268 lifetime, with 2309 hits. A nice little career, sure, but Cooperstown-worthy and better than Tim Raines? Rube Waddell won 60 less games than Jack Morris, with zero in October. Morris won seven in the Series. These guys are in too: Ray Schalk, .253 with 11 homers lifetime; Dave Bancroft, .279 with 32 homers; Harry Hooper, .281 with 75 homers; and Bid McPhee, .271 with 53 homers. Yeah, yeah, yeah; the dead ball era, but .271 and 53. Is Elmer Flick a Hall of Famer or a cartoon character? Flick had a handful of great seasons, actually, but as to why he’s got a place in Cooperstown exactly, I have no idea. But maybe I’m just looney tunes. The en, the enn, the een…that’s all folks!
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