Bos-Wash Corridor

The Grass Isn't Greener Elsewhere

A New York Post article today talking about the Mets and a good post from the Red Sox blog Over The Monster each hit a similar theme—problems are all relative. As fans, it is easy to get insulated and see only the problems your own team faces and be oblivious to those faced by potential rivals. We know the Red Sox’ concerns. If John Smoltz can’t pitch well, every fifth day is going to be an adventure. If Mike Lowell can’t stay healthy consistently, there’s no way to expect Mark Kotsay (who would presumably play first while Youkilis moved to third) to match his power production. Even if Lowell can stay healthy, can he get his on-base percentage up from its woeful .319 and start to run better? Is the recent surge of David Ortiz here to stay? Playing in a division where there’s so little margin for error, every problem gets magnified.

But in baseball, as in life, everybody’s got problems. Here’s a brief rundown of what some of our rivals face--

New York—The Yankees have far fewer problems then you might think by reading the always apocalyptic news reports out of the spoiled Big Apple, whose fans apparently not only expect a World Series title, but to get it without even sweating it out. They have the same problems with their fifth starter the Sox do—Chien Ming-Wang’s been worse than anyone Boston’s tried, but also offers a higher upside if he finds his form. The bullpen depth is not as good as ours (the reason I think the Red Sox prevail in the division race), but with the emergence of Phil Coke, the return of Brian Bruney, and the potential of Phil Hughes they have enough to give support to a superior rotation and offense, and make the playoffs. And that’s more than enough to win a short series in October. The biggest problem the Yanks really face is dealing with the pressures of New York noted above and whether Joe Girardi is the right man to handle it.

Tampa—In one respect the loss of Troy Percival from the closer’s spot hasn’t been a serious crimp, simply because Percival wasn’t that dominant. But it did rob the pen of an extra arm. J.P. Howell’s doing a great job as the new closer, but now the setup crew is weakened. You have to question whether Jason Bartlett can keep hitting for the kind of power he’s shown thus far (.570 slugging), but Tampa can reasonably hope for Pat Burrell to pick it up a notch and compensate. In any other division, Tampa’s problems would be barely noticeable, but the potential shortfall of arms in the bullpen can be deadly in the AL East.

Toronto—Will Vernon Wells and Alex Rios ever find their form again? They are each into their second year of struggling, so a resurgence is no longer a given. And how long can Ricky Romero and Scott Richmond can pitching well for Cito Gaston? Can the Jays hang in with only one reliable setup man? Will they really get arms like Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan back in July or August, and can they even be effective if they get the chance? Toronto’s problems would be serious in any division, and in this one they look to be insurmountable.

If you look outside the confines of the AL East, the grass isn’t greener. Detroit’s offense looks nothing like that of a pennant winner and Minnesota’s starting pitching is equally without depth. As the season progresses, I think the White Sox have the look of a team ready to make a major run in the Central, but any team sub-.500 at the end of June isn’t exactly without its problems. And out West, it looks like the Angels aren’t going to get the effective return of Ervin Santana or Kelvim Escobar anytime soon. The Rangers’ have some good frontline talent and a much-improved bullpen, but lack the depth in both the lineup and the rotation that any of the top teams have.

As far as the National League goes, only the Dodgers have been able to separate themselves within the the senior circuit. The second-best record in the NL is Philadelphia’s pedestrian 39-34. And the Phils were swept by both the Blue Jays and Orioles, giving an indication how differently their haphazard rotation would fare in the AL East. Even Torre’s Dodgers did not distinguish themselves in interleague play, going .500. The American League again asserted its dominance, winning 54 percent of the games. That’s a big margin in a fairly large sample size. Put in perspective, it’s the same percentage that Barack Obama won over John McCain, and I’ve yet to hear anyone call the 2008 election a barnburner.

This contender inventory makes clear how little the landscape has changed from the start of the season. Boston is without question one of the best five teams in baseball. The only thing that can stop us is that two of the other top five are in the same division. Somebody’s going to be left without a chair when the music stops. But as we wrap up interleague play, we can say this—Boston’s strengths are uniquely suited to surviving the long haul and our weaknesses are no more debilitating than anything the Rays and Yanks face. That’s no guarantee, but if you bet percentages, you would never bet against Boston’s return to October baseball.

Beckett's Charge

Interleague play has been good the Red Sox, as we’ve opened up some breathing room in the AL East. The starting pitching has finally started to round into form and nowhere has it been more noticeable than Josh Beckett’s re-emergence as a Cy Young candidate.

Beckett’s season hit its nadir on April 30 in Tampa. He gave up seven runs and failed to get out of the fifth inning in a humiliating 13-0 loss. He departed the mound to a Tropicana Stadium rendition of “You Had A Bad Day”, and his ERA stood at 7.22. It had been a long time since Beckett had looked anything like the ace who held off the Yankee charge in the fall of 2007, went on to win MVP of the ALCS that year and dominated the Rockies in his World Series start. Minor injuries hampered him last year and one wondered when he was going to find his top form again.

The climb began slowly, but in big games. He threw six workable innings in his ensuing two starts, both wins, against New York and Tampa. And then he took off. Six of his last seven starts have been outstanding. This includes his no-hit bid in Detroit on June 3, his six shutout innings against the Yanks on June 9 and his recent 94-pitch complete game shutout against Atlanta. Beckett’s ERA is now down to 3.74, a number that would be more than acceptable as a season-ending one in the rigorous American League East.

Beckett’s charge has been the most noticeable in the rotation, but far from the only one. Jon Lester has also been rounding into form. The young lefty hit his bottom on May 9 when the Rays shelled him for eight runs (funny how these rock-bottom outings all seem to come against Tampa), and he struggled on next start in Seattle. Lester’s ERA climbed to a peak of 6.51. He’s had six starts since then and five of them have been the old Lester. This includes two gems against Toronto, as we’ve overtaken them for first place and another one in Philadelphia last Friday night. He’s had tough luck on the decision the last two games. The bullpen, with a tired Papelbon on the sideline, coughed up his 2-1 lead in the ninth before winning in extra frames. He then took a rain-shortened loss against Florida despite giving up only two runs in five innings. His ERA is now down to 4.69 and trending back to respectability.

The two aces aren’t the only ones. Brad Penny has been a steady rock since the end of April. His ERA at that time was a sky-high 8.66 and it looked like the low-cost flier Theo Epstein had taken on him was going to end as a bust. But Penny has delivered steady outings in nine of his ten starts since the beginning of May. Most have been along the lines of his performance last night in Washington, where he worked 5.2 innings and gave up three runs, giving the offense a chance to open the game up late. For a team with a bullpen as strong as Boston’s, the kind of games Penny typically gives are invaluable. And he’s come up aces in important spots—six shutout innings against the Yankees on June 11, while seeing his ERA come to 4.93.

Starters’ ERAs still need to come down, but it’s no longer painful to look at them. And the team ERA has risen from seventh in the American League to a strong fourth place and first in the division. The bullpen has always been there. The finest tasting prime-time six-pack is in the Fenway bullpen, with Paps, Delcarmen, Masterson, Ramirez, Saito and Bard. Now the starting pitching has started to come into form. Dice-K’s going to get healthy on the DL. John Smoltz is coming back tomorrow night. Tim Wakefield is sure and steady. And three other pitchers are kicking into high gear, none more so than Josh Beckett.

REDSKIN RUMBLINGS

As I was vacationing on the beach at Ocean City, I meandered into a newsstand with all the football preview magazines and picked one up to check out the Redskins and the rest of the league. It’s not that there was anything new, but I have to ask—at what point are we going to conduct a serious overhaul of the offensive line? Our starters stay mostly stable every year. Casey Rabach is still there at center. Chris Samuels is at tackle. One of the changes involved replacing the oft-injured Jon Jansen at the other tackle, which was unfortunate, because Jansen was the one of the few linemen who was actually good, at least those times he was healthy.

Our idea of a change this year was to go out and bring back Derrick Dockery at guard, after he’d spent two years in Buffalo. Look, nothing against Dockery, but he didn’t make anyone forget Mark May when he was here and it seems a waste of time or a sign of poor scouting that our best option for improvement is to re-sign the same mediocrities over and over.

This is an offense with a lot of problems, namely that we are too dependent on Clinton Portis and Santana Moss. Fixing that won’t start unless we finally get real power run-blocking up front to set the tone, and that won’t happen until we start getting new pieces for the offensive line puzzle.

One Man's All-Star Ballot

I'm on vacation through Sunday, so this will be my only column for the week. It's about that time to go log on to the MLB.com site and vote for the All-Star Game, and below is who I plan to vote for. Please note that this is distinct from my previous columns on the race for All-Star spots. I think of the All-Star race in two distinct categories. The first is the customary one of who's having the best year. But as far as I'm concerned, that race is not settled until the regular season is complete. When it comes to voting for the mid-summer Classic, I am more inclined to look at a player's career body of work. This is a showcase for players who are the best in the game, not those who've had the hottest ten weeks.

This voting philosophy is more akin to how the Heisman Trophy voting plays out--I want candidates who've had a little bit of a run coming into the year, not half-season wonders. For example, last year I did not vote for Dustin Pedroia, believing he needed to build that body of work before I elevated him over Brian Roberts. His MVP season in the bank, Pedroia now has the resume I'm looking for, and I would evaluate him on equal footing with Roberts, and going with whomever's doing best in 2009.

Two final caveats are that my voting approach is not the same as the "Career Achievement" theory used to argue that obviously declining stars (Cal Ripken back at the end of his career being a prominent example) should get an honorary spot. I'm not against the idea, but it's not how I vote. Even if the players I vote for are not having the best 2009 campaign, they have a legitimate case to make as the best in the league at their position. In voting for the outfield, I pick the top three regardless of position, unlike my year-long tracking, which specifically takes someone from left, center and, right.

With all that out of the way, here's the ballot:

American League
C--Joe Mauer
1B--Kevin Youkilis
2B--Brian Roberts (*a tough choice here. But Roberts is substantially better on power, helping to negate a narrow Pedroia edge on defense and a reasonable edge with on-base percentage. Roberts also has more runs scored and RBIs despite being in a less potent lineup. Remains a close race that Dustin could still take by the time the polls close)
3B--Evan Longoria
SS--Derek Jeter
OF--Jason Bay
OF--Ichiro Suzuki
OF--Nick Markakis

National League
C--Brian McCann
1B--Albert Pujols
2B--Chase Utley
3B--David Wright
SS--Hanley Ramirez
OF--Ryan Braun
OF--Carlos Beltran
OF--Adam Dunn

The starting pitchers should be Roy Halladay and Johan Santana. My NL infield is a pretty clear default ballot. The four players chosen are clearly the best at their positions, at least within the National League, and would have to play their way out of the spot. All four are having good years again in 2009.

A common theme surrounding how I separate my All-Star ballot from the regular season tracking of the All-Star race here at this site is this--the game itself is a showcase and meant for the fans, and I try to keep my voting consistent with that. In that same spirit, can Bud Selig and the powers-that-be, please, at long last, get some sanity and drop this ridiculous idea that the All-Star game should determine homefield advantage in the World Series? If this game is for the fans, let it be for the fans, and just showcase the game's top stars. Stop giving it significance well beyond what it should really have.

Signing off now, to get on a plane back to Baltimore and from there to the beach in Ocean City. See you back here next Wednesday.

Head-To-Head: What's It All Mean?

Week 10 was the best week the Red Sox have had all year long. With the Yankees and Phillies on the docket, it promised a stiff challenge, and Boston responded with excellent baseball, sweeping all three at Fenway from the Pinstripes to start the week, and taking two of three from the defending champs on the road to end it. The Red Sox’ continued dominance of the Yanks in head-to-head competition remains a big story throughout baseball. Boston is an astonishing 8-0 head-to-head. It’s time to ask what it all means.

Last week, this space broached the subject that Boston and New York both going to the postseason was the likeliest scenario, and that was only advanced this week. Toronto played poorly in interleague games, and is now five games off the pace. All the details league wide can be read by scrolling two posts down, but the smart money continues to say the Red Sox and Yanks are playing for pride and homefield advantage in the regular season, not survival.

If both teams are playing baseball in October, and both are fortunate enough to win their first round matchups, does the Sox’ dominance of the head-to-head bear any positive signs for a potential League Championship Series showdown? I went back through the playoff results dating back to 2002 (as far back as ESPN.com maintains its archive), and unfortunately the answer is no.

Boston need only go back one year to find this answer. The Angels destroyed the Red Sox in the 2008 regular season, winning eight of nine games, including a sweep at Fenway. It did the Halos no good in the playoffs, as the Sox won the best-of-five Division Series in four games. If we go back one year further, into 2007, we see New York learning the hard lesson of how little regular season dominance means. The Yanks beat the Indians all six times they played in ’07. Cleveland won the LDS in four games and ended Joe Torre’s career in the Bronx.

These are not just series selectively picked to make a point. The trend holds throughout the seven-year period under examination. Of the 42 matchups held in the Division and League Championship Series, there were six where the regular season had been truly lopsided. In four of them, the playoff results were reversed.

If you step back and look over every playoff series, the ultimate winners ended up an average of one game below .500 in regular season meetings against the teams they beat. The only area of this study that’s at all positive for the team winning the regular season is if we focus exclusively on the handful of LCS matchups involving teams from the same division. In this case, the team that won the playoff series, also won the regular season, by total of 49-43 spread out over five matchups. Three of these have involved the Red Sox (2003, 2004 & 2008).

So what should we make of all this? Is winning the regular season really a negative indicator, as it portends a pendulum shift in the other direction? This theory is regularly used in the NFL, when division teams meet for a third time in the playoffs. But it hasn’t really added up there, as the Steelers vanquishing of the Ravens en route to last year’s AFC title (and ultimately Super Bowl victory) was the latest demonstration. And correlation does not necessarily mean causation. I simply refuse to believe that a team winning a game is ever a negative indicator.

What the data does suggest is that as Sox fans, we ought not overreach. There’s plenty that this win streak against the Yankees does mean. It means instead of being six out, as would be the case if the rivals had split, we’re two games up. It means we’re getting a good grasp on the playoff picture, instead of fighting to stay above the wild-card threshold. It means Mike Lupica in New York can handle all the media overreaction, instead of having to listen to Dan Shaughnessy do it in Boston. And best of all, it means we’ve watched players in Yankee jerseys suffer, something that’s of incomparable benefit whether it’s the regular season, postseason or a pickup game of basketball. All of that is reason to celebrate. Let’s just not make more of it than it really is.

THE PEAVY LESSON

San Diego starting pitcher Jake Peavy went on the disabled list this weekend. The 2007 Cy Young Award winner is having a mediocre (for him) season thus far, sitting at 6-6 with a 3.97 ERA. To put that latter stat in perspective, figure that if he pitched in the American League, you can jump it up to around 4.20 just based on the DH, and then you have to further factor in he works in pitcher’s friendly Petco Park. And if he pitched in the AL East specifically, you can probably ratchet it up a few more points. I’m not saying Peavy would be bad if he pitched in an AL East rotation, but he wouldn’t be Cy Young material.

The point to all this, is that a lot of trade rumors have surrounded Peavy this year. While the Red Sox haven’t gotten heavily involved, there’s at least been whiffs of the Peavy-to-Boston rumors, enough to make me nervous. In the six weeks between now and the trade deadline, every playoff contender is going to want more pitching, and more organizations screw themselves up at this time of year than any other, by grabbing big-names to fill a perceived hole, at the expense of the younger talent that’s coming up.

More then any other team, Boston should be acutely aware of this. Has there ever been a more disastrous trade deadline acquisition than Eric Gagne in 2007? He almost singlehandedly cost the team the AL East race that year. On the flip side, the Red Sox have had made two trades that have spurred the team to a strong closing kick. One was in 2004, when they traded Nomar Garciaparra in a three-team deal that brought them Orlando Cabrera, Dave Roberts and Doug Mienkiewitcz. The other was 2008, when Manny’s antics brought Jason Bay to town. Presumably thanks to a more relaxed clubhouse, the Sox took off and pulled away into the playoffs.

Am the only one noticing that the major successes Boston has had are when they are the team trading away the player with the most notoriety in the deal? 95 percent of the deadline deals that most contenders will make won’t be worth the price, in terms of lost talent. The only way any such deal should really be considered by Theo Epstein is if it’s a salary dump by a low-market team that involves only giving up low-grade prospects. Hopefully observing what a disaster any deal for Peavy would have been will inspire the front office to think long-term rather than short-term as the July 31 deadline nears.

The AL MVP Race

Last year, Dustin Pedroia became the first Red Sox player since Mo Vaughn in 1995 to win the MVP award. This year’s Boston team has two players who have put a nine-week resume together that would merit serious consideration for the honor if the vote had to be held today. While Pedroia’s having an excellent year, he wouldn’t be one of them this time around—the power hasn’t been there to the same extent as in 2008. But Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay could keep the award in the Hub. Let’s take a look at how they stack up against the competition.

To preface this, let me reveal my own biases when it comes to MVP voting. For one, I *don’t* have any bias against voting for a starting pitcher. While they make take the field only once every fifth day, the impact they have on games they do play is immeasurable. I also *don’t* have a bias toward players who are on playoff teams. I will look at whether a team has exceeded expectations, but surely it has to be considered just as impressive if a candidate from the Orioles lifts his team to their first winning season in twelve years, as opposed to a candidate from the Yankees getting a $240 million payroll into the playoffs. Furthermore, the players from lesser teams are often more valuable, because they have less support.

With that on the table, let’s dive into the numbers, using our usual favorites of on-base percentage and slugging percentage to create the framework. OBP is listed first, with slugging second.

*Youkilis leads the American League with a .474 OBP, and has an elite .627 slugging.
*Bay is on .404/.605.

Youkilis also ranks higher in relative defense. Zone rating is my stat of choice here, in that it measures the ability of a fielder to get to more balls, not simply the avoidance of errors, as is the case with fielding percentage. Youk is the top first baseman in the American League in this stat and what we see with the eyes backs up what the sabermetricians find with their research. Bay is a respectable fifth among left fielders.

Those numbers would mark Youk is the clear leader of the Red Sox, although they have to be weighed against all of Bay’s clutch hits, and also that Youkilis’ injury meant he has 52 fewer at-bats than his teammate. Based on this, if I truly had to vote today, I’d at least declare Bay the winner of the Boston primary in the MVP election. But presuming the at-bat differential continues to level off, Youkilis would be the choice in this same conversation at the All-Star break. So for now, we’ll assume that if a Red Sox is going to bring home the bacon again in November, it will be the first baseman.

Several other first baseman are in the mix. Minnesota’s Justin Morneau won the award in 2006 and has numbers of .415/.634, the latter being tops in the AL. Two others who would not win if we voted now, but are close enough to change that in a week’s time are New York’s Mark Teixeria (.391/.615) and Seattle’s Russell Branyan (.421/.613). The knock on Teixeria is that his production skyrocketed when A-Rod returned the lineup and he benefits from the new Yankee Stadium. In his favor is that he’s still the top producer on a team whose offense has carried them into contention. Branyan plays on the worst offense on the American League. Either that’s a mark for him, in that you respect his contribution on a team where there’s no support. Or it’s a mark against him, because the area where he’s strongest is not what’s carrying the team. I’d opt for a middle ground in giving him his respect, but for the level of performance required of an MVP, we should still strive to seek a player who was the clear top producer in his team’s most vital area.

The final candidate among position players that I’d have to consider would be Cleveland’s Victor Martinez. I have a bias towards strong offensive players at catcher, second base or shortstop, but particularly catcher. Most teams don’t get much offense from behind the plate and that only heightens the value of the ones that do provide it. It was for this reason that I voted for the Twins’ Joe Mauer a year ago rather than my sentimental favorite of Pedroia. Having said that, I’d still have to pass on Martinez and his .414/.552 numbers, simply because Cleveland has been such a monumental disappointment. If they could push to .500, with Martinez as the key, that could change the equation.

That’s the field of position players based on current stats. We can certainly expect strong pushes to be made by Tampa’s Evan Longoria (.392/.596), particularly given that the Rays are first in runs scored. I would like to see Longoria break at least the .400 OBP or the .600 slugging benchmarks before moving him up though. Another dark horse candidate is Detroit first baseman Miguel Cabrera (.406/.551). He’s hindered by terrible defense and the fact the Tigers’ are pitching-oriented, but helped by the fact he’s the key offensive force on a team exceeding expectations. And if you’re in the mood for a longshot, in this summer of Mine That Bird (50-1 to win the Kentucky Derby) and Summer Bird (11-1 winner of the Belmont Stakes) take a look at another Bird--Oriole centerfielder Adam Jones. His numbers are .392/.584. He’s only a hot couple weeks from having the stats of an MVP, but his defensive ratings are surprisingly poor, given how athletic he is. And looking at it realistically, even acknowledging his vast potential that’s being tapped, those numbers remain much more likely to go down than up.

Stronger candidates are available on the mound and they start with Kansas City’s Zack Greinke and Toronto’s Roy Halladay. Greinke has been the toast of baseball, as his ERA stayed under 1.00 through May and is still on a dazzling 1.55 (8-2 record). Halladay has won ten games, his ERA is at 2.52 and he remains a workhorse. Based on pure numbers, Greinke deserves the nod, but the extraneous factors move things the other direction. The Royals, after an impressive start, have fallen to last place. While Toronto has slumped, they remain squarely in the playoff race, are in fact the fourth-best team in the American League and would be in first in the AL Central. Halladay has carried a rotation ravaged by injuries to Shawn Marcum and Dustin McGowan.

Based on all this, I would vote Halladay and Greinke at 1-2 in my current ballot. I see Youkilis sitting in a very strong position and jousting with Morneau to be the top position player candidate. The big wild-cards in the race right now are the recent returns of both Mauer and A-Rod. The Minnesota catcher is sitting on a stunning on-base percentage of .500 and a slugging of .777. While his at-bats are not yet enough to qualify for the batting title, he’s not so far off that we can attribute this big percentage numbers to a low sample size. And Rodriguez is on .389/.505. He needs to step it up, but if he does carry the Yanks to a division title, he will be able to indisputably point to the fact that his team’s season turned when he got back in the lineup.

It all adds up to a wide-open race for the award, unlike the runaway of 2007 or the relative mediocrity of the ’08 field. Several players have a shot, all are MVP material in any season, and two of them ply their craft in Fenway. 

Will The AL East Race Matter?

• In this space last Sunday, The Bos-Wash Corridor took a look at how the Red Sox stood up vis-à-vis the Yankees after the Pinstripes nudged into first place. And the answer was that things looked pretty good. Seven days later, with Week 9 in the books, nothing’s changed. Boston closed a nine-game road trip early in the week in grand style by sweeping the first-place Tigers. We then turned around and suffered a disappointing series loss to the first-place Rangers at home. And the standings held firm, with the Sox a bare half-game behind New York. Perhaps the more relevant question though, is whether the drama of another Red Sox-Yankees duel for the AL East title will matter, or if it will just be a sideshow, as both teams cruise into the playoffs.

If one sizes up the American League, it would appear that this is the case. Who is going to stop both Boston and New York from being on center stage in October? Let’s start with a look at our own division. We can safely eliminate Baltimore right now. The Orioles have some nice young talent and if the core of pitching currently in the minors is as good as advertised, the Birds are not far from October. But that year won’t be in 2009. The AL East is, at best, a four-team race. Can either the Jays or Rays nestle in between their more traditional rivals and upset the applecart. I don’t think so—

*Toronto’s pitching rotation is built around Roy Halladay. Not a bad building block, but there’s got to be something more behind him. The Jays may get help here by the end of this month or early in July when arms like Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum come back, but there’s a lot of risk here. While they are projected back in that timeframe, it’s no guarantee and it’s also no guarantee of performance. And offensively, the Jays have some issues. David Ortiz isn’t the only established star who’s tanking at the plate. Alex Rios and Vernon Wells have been subpar offensively, not just this year, but all of last year as well.

*Tampa Bay is struggling with injuries. Akinori Iwamura is out for the year. Troy Percival likely is too. Steve Kazmir is on the disabled list. And free-agent pickup Pat Burrell is doing nothing, joining a long list of players who fall off the pace after a career year when they’re playing for their contract. And how much longer will Jason Bartlett play at an MVP-caliber pace?

Both teams have enough in place that they can’t be casually dismissed, particularly given that neither the Red Sox or Yankees are as powerful as they were in the days of 2003-04, but surely no manager would alive would choose to deal with the problems in Toronto and Tampa if he could instead deal with the problems in New York or Boston.

The odds of the wild-card coming from outside the East are not high. The history alone is imposing. Since baseball adopted the three-divisional format, the AL East has sent two teams to the playoffs 10 times in 14 tries (excluding the 1994 strike year, when the modern format debuted). And there’s little to suggest this year will be different. Detroit is the only team with a winning record in the AL Central. Cleveland is terrible, a long way removed from the team that was one win from the World Series in 2007, with no more C.C. Sabbathia, Fausto Carmona and Travis Hafner having fallen apart and Grady Sizemore injured.

Kansas City and Minnesota are potentially nice teams, but they are more possibilities to steal the division if no one else really jumps up and has a big year. The White Sox are lagging along at 26-30 right now; although they are one team I could see getting their act together. They have the pitching, both in the rotation and in the bullpen to sustain a hot streak, although it does not look like the offense is ever going to generate enough to get them on a major tear. Among all of these teams, Detroit or Chicago are the only ones potentially balanced enough to win 93-95 games. And that’s still a huge stretch. And it’s still a bigger stretch to think they’ll both hit that plateau and make the wild-card come out of the Central.

In the West, Texas, LAA and Seattle are realistic contenders. But the only way for the West to hit the exacta is if the Angels really juice it up. That part is likely, now that most of their pitching staff is back and Kelvim Escobar is not far behind. However, even allowing Texas’ strong showing this weekend, what are the odds the either of the other two teams can sustain it for the long haul. Similar to the AL Central, any hopes for the Rangers and Mariners are predicated on the Angels’ not getting it together, rather than stealing a playoff berth from the AL East.

Every team has problems that can sink them and the Red Sox and Yankees are no exception. But if you dig deep and play the percentages, the odds are a lot better with the two superpowers of the East. I’m not saying this renders the division race meaningless—there’s still the considerable question of pride at stake. But like 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005 & 2007, it’s not going to be life-or-death.

IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE

If the Red Sox or Yankees win the AL pennant, Fox-TV has to smell a juicy World Series opportunity. Los Angeles and Philadelphia have emerged as the class of the National League. The two teams who played in last year’s NLCS are squaring off this weekend in L.A., a series being overshadowed in town by the presence of the NBA Finals at the same time. The Dodgers have won the first two games, with the finale going on ESPN tonight (again opposite the Lakers-Magic across town). Joe Torre’s team has no weaknesses. The pitching is right there, with Chad Billingsley at the top and Hiroki Kuroda back from the DL. The bullpen is competent, and the offense has depth. And that’s even before Manny comes back from suspension on the Fourth of July. What are the odds that your World Series storyline is either Torre’s return to the Bronx or Manny’s return to the Fens? Pretty good.

CORRECTION

In Wednesday’s column discussing catchers, I dismissed Atlanta’s Brian McCann. I’m not sure what I was thinking, as McCann’s on-baser percentage is over .400. All I can think is that I saw his .301 batting average and mistook it for OBP, which would indeed by worthy of dismissal. But McCann remains among the elite of the National League and is a legit candidate for the All-Star team again.

Inside Varitek's Revival

While much media attention on the Red Sox offense has understandably surrounded the collapse of David Ortiz, not enough has been focused on a more positive development—the resurgence of Jason Varitek. It’s been touched on here in different posts, but today let’s go a little deeper into the production of the catcher who’d been written off for dead after his 2008 offensive campaign made the campaign of John McCain look astoundingly successful by comparison.

The batting average isn’t going to catch anyone’s eye, sitting at a substandard .248. But Varitek draws walks and gets on base. His OBP is .337. In light of last week’s post regarding Jacoby Ellsbury, we can point out that ‘Tek’s on-base average is only five points lower than Jacoby’s, in spite of hitting 56 points lower at this writing.

It’s the power production that has really set the veteran catcher apart though. He’s already hit 10 home runs and is sitting on a spiffy .532 slugging percentage. Lest you think it was the product of one hot streak, his numbers are balanced in both April and May. That’s power numbers that trail only Jason Bay and Kevin Youkilis on his own team.

Varitek’s offensive output looks very good when do you a comparison at his position. The only two catchers in the American League that are indisputably better are Victor Martinez at Cleveland and Joe Mauer in Minnesota. The latter was injured for a part of the year, so his production is still trailing. Martinez would deserve the All-Star nod if the decision had to be made today, but he has also had his problems defensively, and the Indians would ultimately be better served if Martinez could play first base and Kelly Shoppach took over behind the plate. As far as the defensive side of the plate goes, Varitek’s ability to call and manage a game remain legendary among both friend and foe, although his capacity to throw baserunners out is virtually non-existent today. Even given that, his game management skills close the gap on Martinez, even if they can’t eliminate it all together.

Only 12 catchers in all of baseball have enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title, showing how difficult it is to get someone you can rely on game-in, game-out behind the plate. Just being in this group is a compliment enough to ‘Tek. That he ranks as highly as he does makes him even more valuable. Beyond Martinez and Mauer, only Mike Napoli for the Angels can credibly claim to rival the Boston backstop within the American League.

If we jump over to the National League no one shows anything close to the kind of power demonstrated by Varitek, Mauer, Martinez and Napoli and still has enough at-bats to be a qualifier. Among non-qualifiers with a reasonable number of at-bats, Jesus Flores in Washington and Chris Ianetta in hitter-friendly Coors Field come the closest. Russell Martin in Los Angeles has been one of the top OBP guys for a few years now, but the power isn’t there. Atlanta’s Brian McCann looked to be a rising star following the 2007 season, but injuries and bad hitting have removed from the list of the elites.

If we want to trace this back further, perhaps the seeds of Varitek’s resurgence were sown late in last year’s ALCS. His home run in Game 6 of that series was the game-winning shot in pushing the series to the seventh game and nearly making another epic Boston comeback possible. That was followed by a long winter with both team and player deciding if they were still a good match.

I’m surprised the catcher had no other suitors. Even allowing his poor play in ’08 and a general consensus that he had nothing left at the plate, one would have a thought a bad team, or a team looking to nurture young pitchers might have seen his value. As mentioned, true everyday catchers in the big leagues are a minority. What if Detroit had decided that Varitek was more worthy of taking a flier on than Gerald Laird? More ominously, what if Baltimore had made a bid for ‘Tek and used him to develop their fresh arriving class of young pitchers, as well as standout prospect Matt Wieters? The latter scenario in particular, would have left the Sox offense weaker while decisively strengthening a division rival.

The odds are that Varitek’s offense will start to tail off, but that is more due to the demanding nature of his position, meaning the same problem will be faced by every team in the league. The relative advantage Boston enjoys against the rest of the AL East is more likely to be eroded by a healthy Jorge Posada in New York. The Yankee catcher missed time in the DL, but has been an offensive machine when he’s healthy. A .398 OBP and .604 slugging spell big problems for all New York rivals, ourselves included. But the edge remains on everyone else in the division. Toronto has Rod Barajas whose .290 average mask a very poor on-base percentage. Tampa’s Dioner Navarro was one of the best in the game last year, but has collapsed this season. Greg Zaun, the man keeping the seat warm for Wieters in Baltimore is a similar non-factor at the plate (though like Varitek and Posada, he’s very valuable in game management).

What happened in 2008? In all likelihood, Varitek got hit by the proverbial perfect storm. Every player has bad years to begin with and there’s no denying he’s clearly on the downside of his career anyway. Add in to that, he was going through a divorce last summer, and it was the recipe for a horrible year. He was never a factor and never showed even the smallest sign of offensive life. What matters most now is what the Boston front office can learn from this. It was a year not unlike the one David Ortiz is suffering through right now. Don’t pull the trigger too quickly on a change. You might chase off a player who’s not only loved by the fans and an integral part of the team’s greatest moments, but could be the one who rescues you in a day not too far away.