NFL Strength of Schedule

To know the diff's in the conferences, check out strength of schedule. Every team except for the top two (SD and Balt) in the AFC have .500 plus strengths of schedule. The only team in the top 13 in the NFC that has a schedule strength of more than .500 is the Giants, who have the fourth toughest schedule in the entire NFL. The only other three teams in the NFC with plus .500 strengths of schedule are the bottom three (Skins, Tampa and Detroit, which makes you think, are those teams really bad, or did they just have really difficult schedules? It's funny isn't it, how the Chargers and Ravens are the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the AFC, and THE ONLY ONES with schedule strength of less than .500?)

The Giants Control Their Destiny!! (Well, Practically)
Still? you ask. Yep, that's right. The New York Giants, the once 6-2 but now 7-8 bumbly, fumbly, blustery, cold New York Football Giants, lose in every way on the football field, but win in every way on the NFC tiebreaker flow chart. Let me make this really simple for you. Let's say the Giants win at Washington on New Year's Eve Eve (Dec. 30). Let's just say that for a second, even though it totally sounds crazy that could ever possibly happen, since the Giants are are in the habit of losing every game (remember, though, that they do have a winning record on the road, and every single Giant loss has been to a team that currently has a winning record.). That win we're giving them over Washington puts them at 8-8, with a 7-5 conference record.

The Giants WILL ALMOST DEFINITELY have the tiebreaker over all other teams in the conference, because they have head-to-head wins over the Panthers and Falcons, a better conference record than everyone except Green Bay, and a higher "strength of victory" winning percentage than Green Bay (Green Bay, mind you, would have to win at Chicago to finish in a tie with the Giants).

Here's where the Giants COULD get screwed:

If the Giants and Packers are tied with one or more teams for the final Wild Card spot, all the other teams would be eliminated because of poor conference records, and it would come down to "record in common games" between the Giants and Packers. Well, somehow, it's tied again, at 1-4, because we're assuming the Packers have beaten the Bears (and the Giants have a win over the Eagles, who beat the Packers.) So, if the Giants and Packers are both 8-8, the final NFC Wild Card spot comes down to "strength of victory" between the two teams. I got out my calculator, and figured out the strength of victory possibilities.

If the Packers beat the Bears, their strength of victory gets boosted WAAAAAAAAAY up, because, hey, they've beaten a Bears team that's 13-3. Still, factoring that win in, the only way the Packers can overtake the Giants in strength of victory is if ALL 8 of the following things happen:

1. Detroit wins at Dallas
2. the Dolphins win at Indianapolis
3. the Cardinals win at San Diego
4. the Vikings win at St. Louis
5. the 49'ers win at Denver
6. Seattle beats Tampa Bay
7. Cleveland wins vs. Houston
8. New Orleans beats Carolina

In other words, if ONE of those things DOES NOT HAPPEN, the Giants are in the playoffs with a win over Washington. I really crunched these numbers hard. I'm not wrong.

Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry for ever writing anything about the NFC not being that bad, because it is. I'm writing about how the crappy Giants, at 7-8, control their own playoff destiny. That's the definition of a bad conference. My bad.

Liners, Sliders and Spirals???

Okay, I can’t take this anymore. I need to write something on this blog, and I’ve got to say at least something about football. Liners, Sliders and Scoops is now a member of the NFL Bloggers community, so I'm going to add a little bit of football stuff every now and then. You got a problem with that?

Plus, coming off my sterling prediction that the Cardinals would beat the Tigers in the World Series (that was my LAST post), I feel like I’m on some kind of hot streak (Didn’t I predict Oliver Perez’s postseason success, too?).

Seven NFL thoughts, just real fast, and just so you know, I am digesting some warm stove baseball and will weigh in on that stuff at some point:

1. The NFC is NOT as frickin’ weak as everyone says it is. The reason all these teams are jumbled up at 7-6 and 8-6 is because they’re so damn even. The Bears, Saints, Cowboys and Seahawks are all tough outs in the playoffs, albeit with holes. Plus, the Giants and perhaps the Eagles or Falcons all have the capability of a few upsets in the postseason, although the Eagles without Donovan McNabb, uh, not so much. The Vikings have an amazingly solid run defense that’s giving up like 50 yards a game or something, so if they sneak in, they might even be able to turn an upset or two. Okay, okay, I know, NONE of these teams scare the hell out of you, and actually the more I type this, the less I’m believing my own argument.

I guess my basic point is this: You can’t judge a conference champion by its conference. The team that comes out of the NFC will have just as good a chance of winning the Super Bowl as the team that wins the AFC. Seriously, if you win the two (or three) playoff games necessary to get into the Super Bowl, you're on a serious hot streak. You've beaten two of the six best teams in your conference, and you probably feel like you can beat anybody (um, Joe Namath?) Let’s not make the same mistake we made with the Cardinals in baseball, people. Well, I guess I didn’t make that mistake, but most of YOU did. Plus, according to Bill Simmons’s latest mailbag, underdogs are an astonishing 116-86-6 this year against the point spread, and they’ve actually WON THE GAME OUTRIGHT 85 times. Are you kidding me? Okay, this is a really long first “quick thought,” but hey, this is Liners, Sliders and Scoops’s first dive onto a football field, we need to drag this thing out.

2. While he’s been amazing and so have his Chargers, Philip Rivers is still a young quarterback, and still susceptible to all the things young quarterbacks whose names don’t rhyme with Schomm Schmady are susceptible to. Plus, let’s not forget that Marty Schottenheimer, the playoff choke artist himself, is Rivers’s coach. Of course, Marty’s biggest playoff problem is usually that he gets ultra conservative and runs the ball too much, and I’m trying to figure out how bad it is to run the ball too much when your running back has already scored 29 touchdowns in 13 games.

Still, Rivers has gone against these defenses, and I’ll put their NFL total defense rankings in parentheses: Oak (6), Ten (32), Bal (1), Pit (9), SF (22), KC (13), StL (23), Cle (30), Cin (26), Den (14), Oak (6), Buf (19), Den (14). While he has played well, please realize that he was a combined 22-for-42 with 1 TD and 1 INT in two games against the No. 6 Raiders, he put up just 13 points against No. 1 Baltimore (though he did play well and was composed in that game), and had a bad start to one of the Denver games.

Okay, again, I’m getting away from my point, which is not that Philip Rivers is crappy and that I want to dissect every one of his games to find the crappy passes. I’m just saying that he has feasted on poor defenses, hands off to a guy that is having maybe the best season for a running back in the history of the NFL and, most importantly, is still not immune to the poor games that young quarterbacks ALWAYS have early in their career. Still, you have to think the Chargers are probably going to the Super Bowl. Maybe it’s in the Super Bowl where Rivers will first show signs he’s a first-year starter. Who knows?

3. Eric Mangini is a genius in so many ways for making the Jets anything this year, although it’s going to be tough choosing between him and Sean Payton for Coach of the Year. I pick Payton, because that onside kick against Bill Parcells when his team already had a 135-21 lead was something people only do in Madden '07.

4. The Colts are getting to the point where people think they’re so overrated, and they have such little pressure on them because of that crap-the-bed run defense, that this could actually be the year where they get there. Just think about it for a second. Okay, probably not, but still, it’s a real possibility! By the way, they would be 1-12 without Peyton Manning.

5. Of all the quarterbacks drafted during the early rounds the past 10 years, Drew Brees is the one that scouts were MOST WRONG on. Nobody realized that he’d be good. No scout said he had enough arm strength. Every scout thought he only did well at Purdue because of their quick-hitting passes out of 19-wide receiver sets. They thought it was just the system. Ha ha scouts. You’re stupid.

6. The New York Giants can still get a first-round bye. They could totally finish 10-6 and still get a first-round bye. I swear to God. And this isn't some kind of Northern New Jersey, "We know a guy who can get us a week off in the playoffs" thing either. Here’s how (and don’t think I wasn’t up all night after Seattle's loss to San Francisco Thursday figuring this out):

The Giants beat the Eagles this weekend, then the Saints next weekend, both at Giants Stadium, and then they beat the Redskins in Washington on New Year’s Eve Eve. That gives the Giants a 10-6 record.

The Dallas Cowboys lose at least one of their remaining 3 games (at Atlanta, home to Philly, home to Detroit), giving them a record of either 10-6 or 9-7. Because the Giants would have a better division record than Dallas, the Giants would thus be NFC East champions for the second straight year.

The Seahawks split their final two games (home to San Diego and at Tampa Bay), giving them a 9-7 record and the NFC West Division Title, and the No. 4 seed. The Seahawks beat the Giants in Week 3, so if they finish tied with the Giants, they would have the tiebreaker.

The Saints, in addition to losing to the Giants, split their other two remaining games (home games vs. Carolina and Washington). They finish 10-6, but because they lost to the Giants head-to-head in the Week 16 game that I've already given to the Giants for the purpose of this scenario, they get the No. 3 seed rather than the No. 2 seed.

7. Figuring out NFL playoff scenarios during Week 15 is lunacy, but fun too.

Myth: The Cardinals Have No Chance
Well, we know Fox is hoping more than four people read this posting. Ha ha, like Liners, Sliders and Scoops ever gets more than four hits in a MONTH, let alone one day. PUHLEASE!

The Tigers appear set up to win the World Series quite easily, what with the way they won more than 90 regular season games in the superior American League, and beat the Yankees and Athletics badly, and even found out a way to make Kenny Rogers the pitcher seem more talented than Kenny Rogers the singer. And seriously, every single expert ever has picked the Tigers to win this thing.

And that's why I'm weary of this. It's too easy. Did you know that on ESPN.com, EVERY SINGLE expert - and they had a roundtable of like 64 people - picked the Yankees to beat the Tigers during the first round. It was the ONLY series with a unanimous selection, and every single one of those puny poopy pundits predicted poorly. That's why this whole thing smells fishy. This whole, "We all thought the Tigers sucked three weeks ago and now we think that they could beat the '72 Dolphins in a football game and the United States colonial army during the Revolutionary War" is just so ridiculous. God, analysts and experts are so stupid. See, at least I know I'm stupid, and if you don't agree, look at the capital letters I've typed two grafs below this one.

It smells man, and not only that, this Kenny Rogers thing HAS to end soon. The guy - who according to an ESPN Magazine a few years back used to not even care about baseball - now foams at the mouth if his catcher makes a good throw after his eighth warmup toss. Psychiatrists around the country could diagnose his myriad mental conditions from their living rooms, and I'm not even talking about living rooms with that high definition television stuff. I'm talking about even a 9'inch TV/VCR combination platter. Wait, i just saw a highlight of Kenny, and I think I CAN diagnose him. This is fun. By the way, my favorite text message of the postseason came from my cousin Matthew Atwan after Rogers's performance against the Yankees: "When did Kenny Rogers become Sandy F&ckin* Koufax?"

So really, just because it's fun, I'm going to make my prediction now:

THE CARDINALS WILL WIN THIS SERIES IN SEVEN GAMES. ALBERT PUJOLS WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES MVP. HE'S GOING TO HIT AT LEAST FOUR HOMERS DURING THIS SERIES.

Perhaps it would help if I at least offered a few reasons for my prediction other than, "It smells fishy." So I'm going to say that the Tigers are actually going to be negatively affected by the long layoff. They could not lose against the Yankees and the Athletics, and now they've had seven days to read about how manly and barbaric they are. Forget it. They're losing Game one, by the way. Mark that one down. I'm actually going to put a bet on that right after I'm done with this post. The Cardinals are tired, they had to travel, stay up late, they're pitching Anthony Reyes.

It has all the earmarkings of the whole, "We're tired so we're running on just fumes, and we're going to win our next game but the tiredness is going to catch up with us in Game 2," kind of thing. In other words, they'll win like 7-4 or something tonight - oh and the Tigers hitters are going to be terrifically impatient tonight after that long layoff. In Game 2, the Cardinals will probably lose pretty badly to Rogers. Unless of course that happens to be the day Rogers comes back down to purgatory, or wherever he's from. Seriously though, count on Rogers having his first 2006 postseason implosion during Game 6. He's not going to pitch any better than he pitched against the Yankees and the A's. Verlander, by the way, I love. He's awesome. 7-4 tonight sounds like a lot considering it's Verlander on the mound. Change that to 5-2.

But overall, the reason for this crazy Cardinals prediction is, I'm telling you, it just smells fishy. The Cardinals are taking this thing. Oh, and you know what else is fishy? The four teams that were left standing after the American League and National League Division Series' all had a very eery similarity: They had all last won the World Series during the 1980s (Cardinals in '82, Tigers in '84, Mets in '86 and Athletics in '89). Maybe that's not eery. I guess it's just a similiarity. Enjoy the series. I'm hoping to try and do a Bill Simmons-like live diary during one of the games, but I'm not half as funny or talented as him, so it might work out as well as an Israel/Palestine leadership handshake. We'll see.

By the way, just so you know I'm not lying, here's my betting slip: I only put $10 on it, but that's more of a case of lack of money that I'm willing to risk on online gambling amid law changes, not a lack of confidence:

1) BET ID=180967975
Straight Wager 10/21/06 11:02 ET
10.00/17.80 Result: Pending
Cardinals(StLouis) (Reyes)
Tigers(Detroit) (Verlander) 10/21/06 (20:10 ET)
Cardinals(StLouis) +178

Myth: Oliver Perez Is a Big Joke
I know, I know, my predictions are about as accurate as, well, an Oliver Perez pitch. But guess what? Perez is going to pitch the game of his life tonight, and the New York Mets are going to beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

Hear me out. He might not ACTUALLY pitch the game of his life, he might get smashed. But the point is this: There has to be a reason the Mets are pitching Perez over, say, Darren Oliver (who saved their bullpen with an effective six-inning outing last night) or Dave Williams, or anyone else they might have as a 7th or 8th starter. And I know the reason. They know that out of all their options, Perez is the only one capable of shocking the hell out of the entire world with an 8-inning, 10-strikeout, 3-hit performance. And they think that hey, St. Louis is pitching some guy named Reyes, and we'll just outmash the Cards anyway.

So before you make fun of the reasoning behind the "Oliver Perez Experiment," watch it tonight. You'll understand soon enough.

Myth: Every Team Needs An Ace if It Wants to Win

It doesn’t hurt to have a Johan Santana or Carlos Zambrano in the playoffs, but the truth is, it’s not a necessity either. Of the four teams remaining, the only team with an unquestionable “stopper” is St. Louis, with Chris Carpenter.

What people have to realize – and what people should realize when evaluating the New York Mets – is that baseball is played a lot differently than it was when the phrase, “Good pitching always beats good hitting,” was first uttered. People, of course, meant good starting pitching beats good hitting.

First of all, Willie Randolph’s team wins with its offense and its bullpen. He actually figures out a way to get to his bullpen, not stay away from it. It’s a novel concept. Pedro Feliciano, Aaron Heilman, Chad Bradford and Billy Wagner are his top four guys, and he figures that if his starter can get into the fifth inning with the game close, he’ll take his chances during October with those four guys, and the occasional sprinkle of Darren Oliver or dare I say Roberto Hernandez. And that totally works for the Mets. Baseball is ultra-specialized now, and Randolph has adapted. He knows what he’s got, and he plays a certain style. It’s kind of like basketball: If you have Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis and Jamal Crawford and Channing Frye, then dabnabbit you should run up and down the court and try to win 132-128, not play defensive stalemates.

Last year’s White Sox got great starting pitching, but nobody was a no-doubt, No. 1 ace. In 2004, the Red Sox had Curt Schilling, and in 2003 the Marlins had Josh Beckett, who really wasn’t an ace but pitched like one at the end. In 2002, the Angels had no ace, and in 2001, well, the Diamondbacks had Schilling and Randy Johnson, and that basically won them the title, so, like I said, it doesn’t hurt. But understand the point here. Different teams have different strengths, and especially in post-2000 baseball, it’s the hottest team that’s dictating style that wins, not the team with the ace pitcher.

So I suck at baseball playoff predictions, but I’ll try and do my best right here. Although the Tigers reek of last year’s Chicago White Sox, I’m going to select the Oakland Athletics as the American League champions. Jay Payton will be the unsung hero. The Mets should really pulverize the Cardinals, and that will set up a rematch of 1973. The Mets and the A’s will go 7 games, I think, and the Mets are going to win it. But once it gets to Game 7, there’s really no way to know. All I know is this: Tom Glavine will be the World Series MVP. Just a hunch.

But if the A’s win, which is a distinct possibility, the Series MVP will be Nick Swisher.

So in neat format, here’s the LSS (Liners, Sliders and Scoops) prediction on the LCS and the WS:

ALCS
Oakland wins 4 games to 2, series MVP Jay Payton

NLCS
Mets win 4 games to 1, series MVP David Wright

WORLD SERIES
Mets win 4 games to 3, series MVP Tom Glavine

Myth: Liners, Sliders and Scoops Chokes During the Playoffs

This blog does not approve of all these extra rounds of playoffs. Therefore, we come to you on the eve of the American League Championship Series, after the clearing of the dust of the LDS big-screen round.

A quick word on the Yankees, who I saw in person during their only postseason victory and, I must admit, whose demise I never saw coming.

Watching Game 3 from a bar in Chicago, I saw Kenny Rogers pitch the best game he will ever pitch. I don’t care that he once pitched a perfect game, what he did to the Yankees Friday night was pure Picasso. It didn’t hurt that the patient Yankee bats suddenly became as antsy as teenagers in line for fake IDs, and that they continued their impatience in Game 4.

But seriously, Alex Rodriguez has to go. It’s not that he’s a bad player: The guy is seriously one of the most talented all-around players in history. But he just doesn’t have the spleen or the tonsils or the testicular fortitude for New York. And Joe Torre, as great as he is, doesn’t need this crap anymore. He should leave. He should quit, not be fired. Firing a guy who in 11 seasons with the team has made 11 postseasons, won four World Series titles and six pennants would be crazy talk, even for the Boss. But Joe should read the scroll across the Yes Network: Get out while you can.

As far as the rest of the team, it’s time to downsize. They won championships with Mariano Duncans and Joe Girardis and Charlie Hayes’s and Shane Spencers and Luis Sojos and Miguel Cairos for a reason: Teams need interchangeable parts. They need spots that can be tinkered with, without a venti-sized ego bitching and moaning about the splinters in his ass from sitting down once in a while. And a younger rotation wouldn’t hurt, either. It starts with not picking up the option on Mike Mussina’s contract, even though I love the Moose, and also making sure they don’t trade pitching prospect Phil Hughes. Oh, and isn’t it about time they start looking for Mariano Rivera’s replacement, just in case his ERA ever bloats above 2.50 or something.

The truth is, the rest of the country doesn’t care about the Yankees. The rest of the country loves that the Yankees right now make the Titanic look like the Love Boat. I was in South Bend, Indiana Saturday while the Yankees were being eliminated, watching Notre Dame beat Stanford. The loudest cheer did not come on a Brady Quinn-to-Jeff Samardzija touchdown, but rather when the public address announcer said, “Fourth inning. Tigers 4….Yankees 0.”

Myth: It's Impossible to Know How Far Last Night's HR's Traveled
Wrong! Go to hittrackeronline and you can find the distance to EVERY SINGLE HOMER this year, except for the grand slam that Jose Reyes hit against the Phillies on Sunday Night Baseball that still hasn't landed. Oh, quick told ya so: I said early in the year Reyes would hit 12-16 homers. He's already hit MORE THAN THAT. Ha ha! I know EVERYTHING. By the way, sorry for saying the White Sox would lose to the Red Sox in last year's playoffs. I know NOTHING.

Myth: Guys Who Strike Out a Lot Don’t Hit For Avg.
This has never been true, especially for certain guys, and it’s dramatically not true in the case of Ryan Howard, he of the 56 homers, 139 RBI and .314 batting average. Howard has struck out 161 times in 143 games this year. So take your little idea about how high strikeout totals correspond with low batting averages and shove them into your freezer with Ted Williams.

Myth: You Can't Predict Someone's Health
A prediction on the future injury history of Francisco Liriano, from guest blogger Matthew Atwan:
My prediction is that an MRI later this evening detects a serious bout of flesh-eating bacteria. His life will be saved but his limb will be lost. Eventually, he will make a miraculous comeback after figuring how to attach and use a glove on his right foot. He will pitch for seven years while compiling a record of 163-21 with an ERA of 1.45. Tragedy will strike Liriano once again when he is struck by a moped after a start at Ameriquest Field in Arlington. He indeed will battle, eventually succumbing to severe head trauma a week later. A national day of mourning will be declared and we will all wear blue ribbons in his honor. From that day forward, every May 19 will be celebrated with fireworks, dancing, and a pig roast as Francisco Liriano Day.

Myth: Baseball Teams Should Be Measured By Postseason Success

Listen, this might be a really difficult one to convince you on. But it's so true. Ever since 1969 - when the four-division system was introduced - and 1995 - the first year of six divisions and two Wild Card teams - what a baseball team does in the regular season has no relationship with what they're going to do in the postseason.

Therefore, I'm here to say that the postseason is practically a crapshoot. It doesn't mean it's not fun, it doesn't mean we should stop watching, but let's stop kidding ourselves people. If a team makes the postseason, it's a good team. Period. It doesn't need to succeed in the playoffs to be considered a good team.

It takes 162 games to accumulate all the statistics that we base all our postseason predictions on, and then we're taking the teams that accumulate those statistics and thinking that over the next 13-19 games, they're going to perfectly transfer to the postseason? That's not how it works, and it's not how it has worked for the last 36 years (throw out 1994, there wasn't a postseason that year).

Hear me out: The difference between a .300 batting average and a .275 batting average is 15 hits over a 600-AB span. The difference between a 3.00 ERA and a 4.03 ERA is 23 runs - only 23 runs!! - over 201 innings.

My point? If there's only a tiny difference between the stats in the REGULAR SEASON, how the heck are those stats going to perfectly predict the postseason, which has a much smaller sample size? A guy who pitches 201 innings in the regular season is only going to pitch 50 innings (tops!) in the postseason, and probably not that many. If he gives up 20 runs in 39 postseason innings, his ERA was over 4.50. If he gives up 13 runs in those 39 innings, his ERA was 3.00.

The same goes for teams themselves. How many 5- and 6-game winning and losing streaks do teams go on during the regular season? A lot! And guess what? That can happen in the postseason too! The only difference is, if you go on a four-game losing streak in the postseason, you're OUT of the postseason, and we’re all talking about how that team wasn’t “built for the postseason.” Shut up!

Not that they read my blog, but this should make the Oakland Athletics, Atlanta Braves, and post-2001 New York Yankees feel much better about themselves. Of course, Billy Beane already thinks that the postseason is a crapshoot, and he's totally right. Here are the numbers, as compiled by yours truly with some help from really big books and really deep Web sites:

Since 1969, there have been 36 World Series contests. The team with the best record in all of baseball has won EIGHT of those World Series.

I’m not even going to get into the number of postseason series that were won by the “inferior” team, but believe me, it’s about dead-even. What a shocker, a team that wins 94 games in the regular season has a reasonable chance to beat a team that won 98 games in the regular season. This isn’t rocket science.

It all comes down to one thing: The difference between a 95-win team and a 102-win team is so minute that it makes me sick. I mean 7 games? What if those were the seven games that your ace reliever was pitching with a sore elbow? What if those seven games all happened to be one-run games in which a blind umpire made a terrible call?

Get my point? It all comes down to who’s hitting well, who’s pitching well, and who’s getting a little bit lucky, for a 13-19 game period at the END OF THE SEASON. That’s the postseason. And yes, the games mean more, there’s a different atmosphere, it’s good to have experience under pressure, and all that stuff. But really, the regular season does not accurately predict the postseason in baseball. You might actually know that.

What I’m really saying here is this: The best team in baseball does not always win the World Series. The hottest team in baseball wins the World Series.

So I introduce a new way to measure a baseball team. We measure a team based on whether it was able to win 91-plus games, give or take a few wins. That means the team was at least 20 games over .500, and in good position to win or fight for a playoff spot. That’s a good team. If you think about it, only eight teams make the playoffs. Eight out of 30. In the NBA, 16 out of 30 make the playoffs. In the NHL, 16 out of 30 make the playoffs. Even in the NFL, 12 out of 32 make the playoffs.

Now, please do not get me wrong. if a team is able to win a few World Series, that DOES matter, and experience PROBABLY had something to do with it. The goal in baseball is to win the World Series, and it takes a lot - usually some combination of a good bullpen, patient hitting, powerful hitting and a dominant starter or two - to win the World Series. But, just because one team won the World Series, does NOT mean the other teams choked.

Let’s get that straight.

Myth: Most of the Numbers We Care About Matter

A long time ago, I wrote on this blog that so many statistics are meaningless, but I was only really scratching the surface of the real problem. I was talking about the "win" statistic. Well, it ends up that most most baseball statistics we care about really mean nothing, because they're based on too small a sample size to point to anything but pure luck.

I had always mildly suspected this, reading Bill James baseball books before I was 10 years old, but never really pursued it. For some reason, I had never read Moneyball by Michael Lewis until this week, and so I never really pursued my belief about the bullshitidness of statistics until now. Call me a Billy Beane convert, call me whatever you want, but let me tell you, the arguments in Lewis's books aren't just arguments: They're the truth.

I'll do this slowly, but I'm going to try and start taking a different kind of look at baseball, a look that puts a low Earned Run Average on par with a winning lottery ticket. My last blog entry, which talks about aces going against other aces, is still typical of something I'll write about. You know why? Because most of the crap we've learned about baseball, we've learned from uninformed, babbling sportscasters. Think about that for a second.

Think about that for a while, actually, because I'm done here.

Myth: It’s Tough To Be an Ace Because You Always Throw Against Other Teams’ Aces

I’m sorry, but this is an easy one. I actually have heard announcers say this in 2006: “Well, he doesn’t have as many wins this year because he’s the ace, and as the ace, he has to go against the ace of all the other teams.” This is ludicrous thinking.

All Major League teams have vastly different schedules, not to mention rainouts and injuries. But still, people believe this, so I’m going to really quickly dispel it.

I’m going to take five aces who pitched on Opening Day this year – bona fide aces – and tell you who they’ve pitched against this year. And I’m so confident that I’m going to dispel this myth that I haven’t even looked at the numbers yet. I’m actually going to go into MLB.com right now, and check the numbers for the FIRST time, and there's NO DOUBT in my mind that I'm 100 PERCENT correct. That’s how stinkin’ confident I am.

Let’s pick our five pitchers right now. Okay, I’m thinking: Chris Carpenter, Carlos Zambrano, Johan Santana, Jake Peavy and Jason Schmidt. They’re all aces, right? It’s kind of funny that I picked Carpenter and Zambrano, considering they’re pitching against each other today for the second time this year, but anyway, you get the point.

Needless to say, I’m scrapping Opening Day, because obviously, they pitched against the other team’s ace on Opening Day. Also, a word of caution: a team’s “ace” on opening day might be different than the guy who’s considered their ace a few months into the season, because of poor/great performances, so I’ll just put “ace” in quotes if it’s a former ace, or the ace of a really average pitching staff (like, say, Aaron Harang of the Reds or something).

Here we go. I’m looking the numbers up now. You’re about to win some knowledge…

Zambrano: April, after Opening Day – Chris Carpenter (ace of Cardinals), Eric Milton (not the ace of the Reds), Derek Lowe (yes, he was at the time the “ace” of the Dodgers), Jason Vargas (not the ace of the Marlins), Chris Capuano (only the ace of the Brewers because of Ben Sheets’s injuries).

May – Chan Ho Park (not the ace of the Padres), Matt Cain (not the ace of the Giants), Livan Hernandez (I guess he’s the ace of the Nationals), Jose Contreras (maybe now he’s the ace of the White Sox, but not then), Tim Hudson (not the ace of the Braves), Eric Milton (still not the ace of the Reds).

June – Taylor Buchholz (probably wasn’t the ace of his little league team, let alone the Houston Astros), Brandon Claussen (our latest winning entry in the 'WHO’S NOT THE ACE OF THE REDS?' sweepstakes), Fernando Nieve (he pitches for the Astros, and he might be an ace pool player, but not an ace pitcher), CC Sabathia (clearly the ace of the Indians), Zach Jackson (another Milwaukee non-ace),

July (I’m getting tired of looking this stuff up, my point is being proven, but I WILL give you July for Zambrano, and then tie this little article together, and link to the Game Logs of the other 4 aces so you can waste your own time looking this stuff up) – Mark Buehrle (kind of the ace of the White Sox), Zach Jackson (as I said, NOT the ace of the Brewers), Tom Glavine (sorry, it’s Pedro that's the ace of the Metropolitans), Andy Pettitte (maybe would’ve been the ace of the Astros eight years ago), and Tom Glavine again.

Okay, time to tally it up: 22 starts: 3 games against pretty clear aces (Carpenter, Hernandez and Sabathia), 4 games against “kinda” aces (Lowe, Capuano, Contreras and Buehrle), and 15 games against non-aces.

What does that tell you? It tells you that Major League Baseball teams’ schedules are so uncorrelated to each other that any time two aces face each other, it’s because of luck and happenstance and not because the pitching rotations were organized in a certain way as to create an ace-against-ace matchup.

Okay, here are the links to those other pitchers’ game logs. If you actually go through the work, you’re as much of a loser as I am, and there are group therapy sessions for people like us.

Carpenter's Game Log

Santana's Game Log

Peavy's Game Log

Schmidt's Game Log

Myth: Rookie of the Year candidates are Always ‘Rookies’

This is not about Ichiro Suzuki or Hideki Matsui coming from Japan and being classified as “rookies” just because it’s their first year in the United States. That’s like, so last year.

This is about Mike Jacobs and Bobby Jenks, two strong contenders for the Rookie of the Year awards in the National and American Leagues, respectively, in 2006. “Wait,” you say, “Bobby Jenks? Wasn’t he the closer for the White Sox at the end of last season, and in the postseason?” Good question, loyal reader of Liners, Sliders and Scoops.

But because of some stupid rule, Jenks actually still qualifies for Rookie of the Year this year, because he threw LESS THAN 50 INNINGS and spent LESS THAN 45 DAYS ON A MAJOR LEAGUE ROSTER in previous Major League seasons. He pitched 39.1 innings in 32 games last year, saving six games in eight chances, and obviously threw in the postseason, too. But he’s eligible for Rookie of the Year. Are you serious, Major League Baseball? Are you really serious? By these standards, a reliever could theoretically be called up in September, save 26 games in 29 days or something, and still be considered A ROOKIE the NEXT YEAR.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you the dish on Jacobs, who plays first base for the Marlins after hitting 11 frickin’ homers in 100 at bats last year for the Mets. He hit 11 homers in 30 games, and this guy is STILL A ROOKIE. You want to know why? Jacobs, like Jenks, did not spend 45 days on the Mets’ roster last year, and he had less than 130 at bats. So if a guy is called up, hits 60 homers in 30 days to win the home-run title, he’s STILL A ROOKIE NEXT YEAR? I’m sorry, but this rule is ridiculous.

How do we change this rule? How about this: a batter is still a rookie if he has less than 75 ABs in his career, and a relief pitcher has to appear in less than 10 games to keep his rookie status (maybe 5 starts for a starting pitcher, or 25 innings for a guy who starts a few games and relieves in a few others). There’s the new rule. Oh, and the 75 ABs or 10 games have to be IN JUST ONE SEASON. If you’ve appeared in Major League games for two or more seasons, you are NOT A ROOKIE.

Okay, I’ll petition Bud Selig now. Thank you for listening.

By the way, vote for Francisco Liriano in the American League and Jacobs's teammate Danny Uggla in the National League, okay? That’ll make everything a lot easier.

I Totally Jinxed Joe Mauer
Who knew that Liners, Sliders and Scoops has the power to jinx people? In case you don't look at the box scores from every single Major League Baseball game every single day like I do, Joe Mauer took the weekend off, at least from the base-hit club. He took oh-fers on Saturday and Sunday, meaning he experienced his first two-straight-game period of hitlessness this season.

Let's see, with this newfound key to life, I have to figure out what door to unlock. Okay, I've got it: I'm going to make a prediction that Joseph Checkler, the publisher of Liners, Sliders and Scoops, WILL NOT win $1 million at any time this year.

By the way, this whole jinxing ordeal reminds ME to remind YOU that CAPITAL LETTERS are FUN to use, and also that there IS ONE MYTH that's REALLY NOT A MYTH: the announcer's jinx. If a kicker has made 493 straight kicks, and Jim Nantz says so on the air, Nantz might as well be eight-feet tall, standing on the field, BLOCKING the kick. Because with his words, that's EXACTLY what he's done.

Liners, Sliders and Scoops is happy to have the same power as the New Jersey native Nantz, and even happier to know that we have NOT - like Nantz - gone on the record about our friendship with/financial support for the Bush family. (If you're scoring from home, the "friendship with" and "financial support for" links are separate links.)

Quick Joe Mauer Stat That Will Blow Your Mind
Joe Mauer of the Twins, who's batting .391 this year, HAS NOT HAD TWO STRAIGHT HITLESS GAMES THE ENTIRE SEASON. Did you swallow your tongue digesting that statistic? If not, you should have. Actually, I just read in the book "Why Do Men Have Nipples: Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini" that it's physically impossible to swallow your tongue.

Myth: It’s Okay to Celebrate a Little After a Homer

When Paul Lo Duca got all pissy with Alex Rodriguez for the way A-Rod flipped his bat and looked for a friend in the dugout after a grand slam Sunday, I found myself immediately thinking that what A-Rod had done was totally benign, and that Lo Duca should understand that he wasn’t trying to “show the pitcher up,” whatever the hell that means.

But after I read Lo Duca’s post game quote about the incident – “He’s a great player…you hit it, you watch it. That’s fine…You don’t toss your bat and look in your dugout and do that. I thought that was disrespectful.” – I decided that I was wrong and Lo Duca was right.

We’ve become conditioned to think that Major League players are within their limits to admire their own work - to be Rickey Henderson and hot dog it a little – because it’s entertaining and it shows us a little of their personalities. It’s not dissimilar to the way managers are conditioned to bring in their closer with two outs in the ninth with the tying run ON DECK, just because the closer will earn a “save” statistic if he gets the final out.

Well BOTH are wrong. Back in the day, managers didn’t manage with an eye on the statistics. And players who stood at home plate watching their ball fly or performed a little stutter-step dance move before touching each base during a home run-trot would get an earful of stitched leather during their next AB. Now, Carlos Zambrano doing his stupid little celebrations after each strikeout is just “Zamby being Zamby,” and Alex Rodriguez’s tossing of his bat is practically a non-issue.

I’m here to say it’s NOT a non-issue. (That's a double-negative: It IS an issue is clearer.) Hit the ball, put your head down, run around the bases, do a closed-fist greeting to the guy who’s batting after you, go into the dugout, get some pats on the hiney, get out of the dugout if you want to wave to the fans, go back in the dugout and get a drink of water, sit down, talk to the hitting coach about what type of pitch it was, get your glove, go back into the field, and stop thinking about yourself.

(Note: I think it’s okay to pump your fist, clap your hands, make the “safe” sign while you’re crossing first base, point with your glove to a teammate that just made a nice play, or throw down the rosin bag after you give up a 523-foot home run. And if you want to point to Jesus after every inning because you think that he cares how many strikeouts you get, do it discretely, do it quickly, but hey, you’re religious, I’ll allow it.)

Other than that, play baseball, and leave the celebrations for after you win the World Series.

Stat of the Year So Far
Most Major League hitters SUCK when the count gets to 0-2. Want a case in point? Albert Pujols, who's hitting .308 overall and is generally regarded as the best all-around hitter in baseball, bats .226 in ABs that start out 0-2. When he puts the ball in play (or strikes out) ON 0-2 PITCHES THEMSELVES, his average is .167. And that's totally normal...

Unless your name is David Wright. Wright's average after the count goes to 0-2? It's .324! "Okay," you say, "So what's HIS average when he puts the ball in play (or strikes out) ON 0-2 PITCHES?" In other words, if David Wright's AB ends while the count is still 0-2, what is his batting average? The answer: .556. He's 5-for-11 (with a homer) in those situations. If you need any more indication that he's the best 2-strike hitter in baseball, you need to have an alcoholic beverage filled with stiffness and rigidity.

Okay, okay, Joe Mauer and Ichiro are good after the count gets to 0-2 as well. So is Scott Rolen. All these guys have ridiculously high averages, just like Wright. But seriously, click on those situational stats the next time you're browsing Yahoo Sports or ESPN.com. It's really a good one to look at.

Look away now if you're squeamish about anti-Alex Rodriguez numbers and stories. His average after the count gets to 0-2? .158.

But A-Rod CAN take solace in the fact that he's hitting over .300 this year with runners in scoring position and two outs.

MYTH: 500 homers Means NOTHING anymore

This is a really low down dirty big myth. Especially in the steroid era, everyone thinks that 500 homers means nothing anymore. Take out your calculator right now, because we're going to compunct some calculations.
Do 500/15. You know what that equals? 33.3. Hit the clear button.

Okay, now type in 25+15. That equals 40.

What do these calculations mean? I would say the average baseball player starts playing at around 25 years old. He would have to average 33.3 homers PER YEAR until he's 40 years old to get to 500. How many players do YOU know that can do THAT? Answer: NOT MANY.

So, the moral of the story is this: STOP THINKING 500 homers means nothing anymore, okay?

State of this Blog Address

Debunking Baseball Myths and Misconceptions

So I’m trying to figure out a way to get more people to read this stinkin’ blog, and the better half of my brain (her name is Beth) came up with a great idea. Last season, I decided for a short while to debunk some baseball myths (catchers slow down after the second half of the year, the “Win” statistic is important for pitchers, etc.). “Why don’t you just make your blog about debunking baseball myths,” Beth asked. I paused. I liked.

Now I’m not Stats Inc., or the Society for American Baseball Research, or Baseball Prospectus or Retrosheet.org (if you don’t know what these organizations are, find their Web sites by using Google – just kidding, I linked to them - and learn about them). You’re missing a lot of knowledge. The truth is, I have a tough enough time doing investigative journalism about hedge fund managers at my real job, so doing investigative journalism about every last nuance of the game and then coming up with a new mathematical formula to knock old theories down is going to be impossible. Usually, that is.

Sometimes, I’ll have a few extra moments, and I’ll be able to look into the books and try out some of my theories. (I plan on telling you if pitchers who throw a lot of pitches really get more arm injuries, or whether one-run games… wait, I don’t want to give anyone any ideas.) I’ll get around to researching that stuff. It’s fun. I’m a veracious reader when it comes to baseball, and besides debunking baseball myths, maybe I’ll chuck a couple titles of great baseball books onto my blog.

And, I’m going to still do a few little pieces about other baseball topics, such as why I - and my cousin Matt Atwan for that matter - are so nauseatingly obsessed with no-hitters.

DUMB PEOPLE SAY: If a pitcher makes an error and a run eventually scores, it should be an earned run.

I SAY: Dude, no friggin’ way. It’s called an EARNED run for a reason Johnny Applecakes. The phrase EARNED RUN means that the offensive team EARNED the run by getting hits, stealing bases, laying down sacrifice bunts or hitting sacrifice flies, etc. I’ve heard a lot of people say that if a pitcher kicks the ball around or throws it up the first-base line, and the offensive team scores, it should be an earned run because you EARNED the run off of the pitcher: He’s the one that made the mistake, the flawed arguer argues.

This makes no sense. Just because it was the pitcher that made the error, doesn’t mean you EARNED anything. It means someone on the other team made an error allowing your team to score a run, and it just happened to be the pitcher. It’s still an UNEARNED run. Get it?

Some Baseball Fun Facts
Well hello. Nice to see you again. How's about I throw a couple of fun facts from the beginning of the 2006 season right at your mouth:

- the Mets have the biggest Divisional lead (5 games) in baseball, and the biggest divisional lead after 12 team games in the HISTORY of baseball.

- On Sunday and Monday, Albert Pujols became the 35th player in Major League history to homer in four straight at-bats. The last had been Carlos Delgado.

- Some kid had so much time on his hands, that he recreated the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series (the Buckner game) on that old Nintendo game, RBI Baseball. Mind you it's impossible to have wild pitches or to have balls go between players' legs in that game, but this recreation - along with Vin Scully's and Joe Garagiola's announcing - is pretty fantastic, unless you're a Red Sox fan. Read the article if you want, and then play the video. If you don't want to read the article, stop reading here, because I'm going to give you the punchline: He didn't win the contest he entered, but his creativity did land him a job.

When These Guys Are Batting, Go to the Bathroom
"You don't want to grab a hot dog or soda when this guy's batting. You may miss a 477-foot home run, or an inside-the-park homer." - cliche-happy baseball fan

That's the kind of thing you used to hear about Darryl Strawberry, and currently hear about Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez. But what about the guys who, when they're up at the plate, give you the best opportunity to grab a refreshment or take a WC break? To help make you a more efficient baseball game-spectator, I've compiled the following list of players who give you the best opportunity of grabbing a snack without having to ask "What was that roar?" when you get back to your seat.

5. Jason Kendall, C, Oakland Athletics - Kendall hasn't hit a home run since 2004, and isn't even fast anymore (one triple in the last two years). He hasn't really been the same since that disgusting "If you're squeamish look away from your TV" leg injury during a 1999 home plate collision. You might miss something fundamentally sound like a Kendall ground ball to the right side to move a runner over to third with less than two outs, but situational out-making is not what you came to the game for, is it? Well, maybe it is, but still, get a 16-ounce plastic beer for $7 and make sure you get back to your seat in time for Eric Chavez.

4. Nomar Garciaparra, DL, Los Angeles Dodgers - Nomar's not a terrible hitter when he's healthy, at least not yet. He's getting old fast, and he'll never get within .085 points of his 2000 batting average of .372. But like I said, he's not Rey Ordonez at the plate. The problem is that Nomar takes 3 hours adjusting his batting gloves and fondling his helmet and adjusting his cup and regripping his bat. Wait, did I just say that's a problem? Dude, it's totally not a problem for you Mr. or Mrs. BaseballGameSpectator. It's an opporTUNITY! If you hear Nomar's name announced, you'll have time to run to the bathroom, smoke a half a cigarette illegally in the stall, wait on line for 10 minutes, order a jumbo hot dog and a souvenir cup soda, tell the food service employee that you asked for a JUMBO hot dog rather than a regular-sized one, walk to the next refreshment stand to find the extra stash of ketchup, get back to your seat, and probably see the end of Nomar's plate appearance. That is, of course, unless he got injured during the AB and someone else is batting in place of him. In that case, please be advised that Liners, Sliders and Scoops is not responsible for flying bats, batted balls, or injury-induced substitutions.

3. Anderson Hernandez, 2B, New York Mets - The other night, this guy made an insane diving catch in short right field (just click on "Hernandez's grab"), but he hits like your grandmother's grandmother's dead grandmother. When the bat boy gives him his bat, he looks at it like, "What am I supposed to do with this?" The Mets game ended about a half hour ago, and he still hasn't finished his swing at a 2-strike, 91 MPH fastball in the seventh inning (if you're drunk and/or stoned while reading this, that's hyperbole for "this guy can't get around on an average Major League fastball"). The added advantage of getting out of your seat while Hernandez is up? He bats eighth, meaning the pitcher's on deck. Extra time to get done what you need to get done. Still, you better get back for Jose Reyes, or you're going to miss something exciting. (lightning quick prediction: Reyes hits between 12 and 16 homers this year.)

2. Every Florida Marlin (except Miguel Cabrera) - This is how sad the situation is in South Florida: When Dontrelle Willis is pitching, he's the one guy besides Cabrera that you shouldn't leave your seat for. So basically, if you find yourself with tickets to a Marlins game, you have very little to worry about. Of course, the line for the bathroom and beer probably won't be that long anyway.

1. Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis Cardinals - No, I'm not drunk. There's a reasonable explanation for why the No. 1 guy on this list is one of the best righty hitters in baseball over the last 25 years. Pujols basically hits a 450-foot home run or a 375-foot double during every at bat. It's always the same result. There's no drama, there's no suspense. He smashes every pitch. The only thing you have to worry about is this: If your seats are in fair territory, make sure that your peanuts or Crackerjacks don't get knocked over by a flying Pujols-struck ball.

My predictions are coming, but here's one from my cousin, Matt Atwan:
"I predict that the Mets will lose 133 games this year and Pedro will only make one start this season."

The Two Big Issues of the Week

I’m going to comment in order of importance.

Thanks For Not Kirbing Your Enthusiasm, Puckett

What an absolutely horrible and shocking thing it is that happened to Kirby Puckett. Honestly, I don’t really care that after his career, he had some domestic and legal troubles. Well actually I do care, because it always seemed that Puckett was one of those never-gonna-screw-up type guys, and it kind of makes you feel silly when the guys you thought were exceptions wind up proving the rule, but still.

One of my first baseball memories was watching Puckett in the 1987 World Series. He was complete. He even stole bases back then. That’s right. He stole an average of 16+ bases his first four years in the majors. Then he started eating a lot, although he did have one of those token 17-steal seasons late in his career. That was before the "defensive indifference" statistic was introduced. Come to think of it, it's probably WHY the defensive indifference statistic was introduced.

But I really have to give Puckett credit for making sure I stayed into baseball. The first W.S. I remember was ’86 with the Mets and Sox, obviously an exciting 7-game series. The next year, ’87, was an equally thrilling 7-game series between Puckett’s Twins and the Cardinals (the first World Series in history in which the home team won every game). Couple that with Game 1 of the ’88 Series – Gibby’s gimpy, game-winning home run off Denny Eck, and how was I ever going to leave this game? But I was spoiled, and I didn't know it.

Honestly, what I really have to give Puckett credit for is for reaffirming my love for baseball. That happened in 1991. Let me set the scene: After Gibson’s home run in ‘88, we had a couple poopy pants World Series – the A’s killing the Giants in the quake-marred ’89 Series and the Reds sweeping the A’s in 1990.

Then came 1991: the “worst to first” World Series between Minnesota and the Atlanta Braves (the first year of the Braves 14-year division title run). That series had everything. Puckett won game six with an extra-inning, walk-off home run (back when our English language was still in its adolescent stages and they just called it a “game-winning” home run). The Twins won Game 7, also in extra innings, to win the second World Series in history in which the home team won all seven games (the third, if you’re scoring from the Internet, was the Yankees/Diamondbacks series in 2001. This is actually a good bar trivia question).

But seriously, back to Puckett. In that ’91 series, he made one of the most spectacular big-moment catches in baseball history, robbing Ron Gant of a homer in the third inning of Game 6. He hit .318 in his career, although it is true that he really never accumulated the numbers that most Hall of Fame outfielders compiled. But guess what? For some reason, nobody really complained that much when he got into the Hall of Fame on the first try. Some of it probably had to do with him still being an effective player up until the problem that forced him to abruptly end his career before the 1996 season.

But there was just something about Kirby. He seemed to like playing baseball. That’s an odd concept. Most baseball players act like they’re working in an office somewhere installing drivers onto really bad laptop computers.

But not Puckett. He seemed to play with a, “I know all you fans would play this game for free and I would too,” mentality. And I’ve missed that since he retired prematurely 10 years ago because of that unfortunate eye problem. And I’ll miss him every time I think about the Twins, and every time I think about athletes who look a little bit like you and me, and most importantly, when I start wondering why I love baseball so much and why I never lost that love.

I love you baseball, and I loved you Kirby.

- Barry later this week. Let me digest this stuff first, okay?

I'm In The Process of Moving
And I don't have fast Internet yet. It's why I haven't held up my end of the bargain and continued my team previews. Oh, and speaking of those team previews, or assessments of offseason moves, that's really not my job here. As I said, ESPN and those guys that have the resources to send a reporter to every Spring Training camp, they do stuff like that. I'm here to give you my thoughts on what I WANT to talk about. Put it this way: I'm not here to set the table for you, I'm here to help you eat the meal and digest it properly. On that note, my next post won't be dry and won't list like every move that a team made. It will instead be interesting. Or it'll attempt to be interesting.

NL East on Liners Sliders and Scoops

Okay, so here comes the first in my series that I’ll call, for short, “Assessing the Offseason Maneuverization of every single team in Major League Baseball.” Let’s have a contest, actually. If you can think of a snappier title than, “Assessing the Offseason Maneuverization of every single team in Major League Baseball,” I will give you a free one-year subscription to Liners, Sliders and Scoops (including archived content).

What I’m Attempting to Do

I’m not going to sit here, especially on Martin Luther King Day, and create a “players added” and “players dropped” spreadsheet so you can download it, print it, and magnetize it to your dirty refrigerator. If you want to have some sort of all-inclusive, “What did my Oakland Athletics do on their winter vacation?” kind of dropdown menu, ESPN does a decent job of tracking the transactions here.

I’m just going to give you enough information where you can argue a little baseball to the point where you piss off a fellow patron at a local bar, and perhaps piss him off enough that he wants to break your nose with his fist. So there’s my goal. If the knowledge I give you here gets you a broken nose, I’ve done my job. I’m not really going to mention much about rookies that are coming up, or any young players who might finally start becoming stars. I’ll save that for closer to Spring Training, while I’m doing research for the 32 fantasy leagues that I’m going to join.

So here comes a little sumpin’ sumpin’, my assessment of the National League East teams’ offseason moves. And like I’ll do for all the divisions, I’m going to do it in ascending order, from who did bad, to who did well. In other words, here come the Marlins:

Florida Marlins

I don’t know that we can really complain about them too much anymore. I mean they win a World Series in 1997, they dismantle, they come back to respectability, they win a World Series in 2003, they try real hard for two more years, and then they dismantle again. What else is there to be said? They have like one fan in the world, it’s hot as hell in Florida, and the ownership has led the league in sucking for years. It’s hard to believe that this team has won two of the last nine World Series, while the Atlanta Braves have won zero of the last nine, the Oakland Athletics haven’t even been to the World Series, okay you get the point.

The moves this team made are worth listing, just for effect: The Marlins lost two of their top starters, A.J. Burnett (signed with Toronto) and Josh Beckett (traded to Boston). They lost their first baseman Carlos Delgado (traded to the Mets), third baseman, Mike Lowell (traded to Boston: okay, so Miguel Cabrera is going to start playing third base and they’re going to be fine there). They lost their closer Todd Jones (signed with Detroit), their center fielder Juan Pierre (traded to the Cubs), their former closer Guillermo Mota (traded to Boston), their catcher Paul Lo Duca (traded to the Mets), their second baseman Luis Castillo (traded to Minnesota), their franchise spokesman Jeff Conine (signed with Baltimore), and a decent outfielder in Juan Encarnacion (okay, well I think he sucks, but he signed with St. Louis).

So how did they replace that talent? They signed the pride of Bayonne, N.J., Joe Borowski, to be their closer. And honestly, that’s about it. They signed Pokey Reese, and in the Lo Duca trade got Mike Jacobs from the Mets (a guy who hit a bunch of homers after being called up in the second half of 2005), and they got Kerry Ligtenberg (signed to a minor league contract). Almost all the players they got back in those trades – the ones for Beckett, Pierre, Lo Duca and Delgado - are either Minor Leaguers or players with 14 seconds of Major League experience. This team is going to be just a bit young, I’d say.

They still have Dontrelle Willis – he just resigned for like a dollar a year or something - but he’s joined in the rotation by the resigned Brian Moehler, and really, who knows who else. The lineup is going to have Jacobs and Cabrera, but if you can name another player in their starting lineup, I’ll seriously give you a lot of money.

The Marlins – a team that went 83-79 in 2005 – went so much further backward than perhaps any team in baseball that I can’t even fathom how they could lose less than 100 games.

Oh wait, hold on, they just signed Wes Helms to a one-year deal. That changes everything.

Washington Nationals

I can’t believe these guys still don’t have an owner. Still, they traded for Alfonso Soriano (Soriano plus Jose Vidro equals a fight for who gets to play second base), and they got the versatile Robert Fick (a skinny guy that catches, plays first and plays the outfield and hits pretty well too). Marlon Anderson, who kicked ass pinch-hitting for the Mets, also signed with them, as did the starting pitcher Ramon Ortiz, who left Cincinnati. In the trade for Fick, they also got Brian Lawrence, the change-up artist, and utility guy Damian Jackson.

Still, they lost Preston Wilson (signed with Houston), Vinny Castilla (traded to the Padres), Esteban Loaiza (signed with Oakland), Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge (gotta give it up to get Soriano), and shortstop Deivi Cruz (signed with St. Louis).

I think they’re best offseason move was resigning Tony Armas, who will have his best year of his career this year.

Overall, it’s so disappointing that eight groups are bidding for this team and the rights to build a new stadium (RFK sucks, even though the man its named after was great – I saw the stadium last year and almost fell asleep during a game) and Major League Baseball still hasn’t made the $450+ million decision.

Atlanta Braves

How the hell are they going to win their 15th straight division title? While I’m still playing the “I’ll believe it when I see it” game, this really should be the year the Mets take over the NL East. And Atlanta’s offseason is probably the main reason that I’m reasonably confident that prediction will come true.

Dude, they lost Leo Mazzone. He’s the guy who made Jaret Wright not suck, Chris Hammond not suck, and a ton of other guys that later went on to get big contracts and bigger ERA’s (usually with the Yankees). Losing Mazzone will smash them in the face.

They lost their shortstop, Rafael Furcal, who signed with the Dodgers, but got a decent replacement in Edgar Renteria. I’m not a huge Edgar fan, but he’ll be more comfortable back in the National League. They also signed Brian Jordan and Eddie Perez to Minor League deals, I guess trying to get back to their glory years or something.

They got rid of Kyle Farnsworth (signed with the Yankees), and Dan Kolb (back to Milwaukee). How man closers can they possibly go through? Oh, wait, they also traded Johnny Estrada so they can make room for catching phenom – I hate that word – Brian McCann. Picking up Perez as his possible backup was a great move, although they also signed Todd Pratt away from the Phillies, so who knows.

Actually, who cares? They lost Mazzone, and 73-year-old Julio Franco, and everything is not okay.

Philadelphia Phillies

I know they lost Billy Wagner (signed with Mets) to a team within their own division, and it really sucks when that happens, but their contingency plans weren’t terrible, and frankly, the teams in the NL East other than the Mets all screwed themselves so badly that the Phillies don’t come out looking like they belong back in Veterans Stadium or anything (sorry for the long sentence, Why don’t you go back and read it again so you can understand it? I’ll put an extra space in between this and the next paragraph so you can do that.


To replace Wagner, the Phillies signed Yankees’ setup man Tom Gordon to be their closer. In Gordon, they’re getting a guy who will be fairly reliable in any month not ending in “ober.” To make room for last year’s N.L. Rookie of the Year award-winning first baseman Ryan Howard, the Phillies traded Jim Thome to the White Sox, getting back Aaron Rowand. By doing that, the Phillies got younger and better in center field (Kenny Lofton, last year’s center fielder, signed with the Dodgers), and they got younger and better at first base without having to deal with Thome’s contract.

The Phillies traded Vicente Padilla to Texas, getting a questionable bullpen arm in Ricardo Rodriguez back. I don’t know about that move, although Padilla gets injured a lot and has problems sometimes with making his little sinker sink. To replace him in the rotation, they signed steroidist Ryan Franklin away from the Mariners.

This bullpen is a little wrecked, and they really didn’t do much to address that. Ugueth Urbina is unsigned, and in jail somewhere I think – I’m not kidding, he really is in jail – and they have a bunch of Rheal Cormier-type guys, including Cormier himself. Ryan Madson is a tough righty, but bullpen success usually comes down to whether three or four guys have lucky good years or not.

They have somewhat solid starting pitching in Brett Myers, Jon Lieber, Cory Lidle, maybe Randy Wolf if he ever comes back, Gavin Floyd if he finds out that it’s within the rules to throw the ball over home plate, and of course Franklin. One of those guys could perhaps help out in the bullpen.

New York Mets

TODAY

The Giants Are Out, So Here's a Little Question for You: Guess Who's Back? Ready For the Answer: Me! And Your Response: Hip Hop Jose! Yay!
So now that the New York Giants that I so desperately root for have been THWACK! BAM! POW!'d out of the NFL Playoffs by the bitch-slapping southerners from one of the Carolinas (doesn't matter which one of the Carolinas. A team from the CarIBBEAN could have beaten the Giants today - no offense to any people from the Caribbean), and my second career as an Eli Manning apologist seems to be about as respectable a position as the President of Iran (dude, the guy says the Holocaust never happened and that Ariel Sharon should die), it's time for me to start blogging about baseball again.

I'm lazy sometimes. That's why during the World Series, I really didn't blog much. It's something about setting and maintaining a regular schedule. Plus, my job in real life is to write, so maybe writing as a hobby is now a lot tougher. It's like an auto mechanic. Do you think a mechanic gets home from work at the Mazda dealership and decides to fix up old cars? Oh, wait.

Okay, better example: construction workers. Do you think they get home from their job laying down dry wall and then decide that it'd be fun to work on their own houses? Oh, someone just whispered to me that construction workers often do that. God I'm bad at this.

Alright, a mailman probably doesn't come home and just for fun start delivering mail to his neighbours' houses. That, I'm pretty sure of.

SO BACK TO BASEBALL! Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start writing about the stuff that's happened in the offseason. I'll do it division by division, one week at a time (Sound like some sort of 12-step program? Well, Freddy McFunnystein, you're close. It's a 6-step program, because that's how many divisions there are in Major League Baseball!) . I'll set a schedule right now, and perhaps you can type it into your Microsoft Outlook 2000 calendar (By 2000, I'm referring to the edition of Microsoft's computer software that your Outlook Express is titled. I know it's 2006. I know that the Yankees are not the defending World Champions). But if you do decide to type it into your pretty little calendar, you'll know when to look for stuff. I'm going to try and - for once - be exhaustive. I'll try to give you the pastry and cookies on like all the stuff that's happened since the Chicago White Sox won the 2006* World Series.

*I'm just testing you, I know it was the 2005 World Series.

Here's the schedule:

By Jan. 15, I'll have the N.L. East done.

By Jan. 22, the N.L. Central.

By Jan. 29, the N.L. West.

By Feb. 5, the A.L. East.

By Feb. 12, the A.L. Central.

By Feb. 19, the A.L. West.

And there are a few other loose ends that I may tie up between now and Feb. 19. I might throw in a couple of my "disspelling baseball myths" tidbits. I have a lot of those. I may also kind of evaluate some of my predictions from the 2005 season. By the way, if you have ever placed any kind of bet based on any of my predictions, you probably have at least one artificial knee earned by not paying off your debt to some New Jersey gangland leader. I'm sorry about that. At least you have your eyes though, right? Dude, don't even TELL me that. So for you, Blind Man, maybe I'll create a podcast, so you can listen to the audio version of Liners, Sliders and Scoops on the Internet somewhere. It will be me and my sultry voice reading this to you in a mesmerizing manner. Okay, I'll shut up now, so I can focus on preparing the N.L. East offseason report.