It's September! Huzzah! I don't know why, but people seemed to really, really hate August. Did you get that impression, too? HOW WILD. So hey do you know why September is so cool? It's not just because August is now over, and it's not just because this is my birthday month (it's probably like 15% that), but also because MLB rosters expand and teams call up some pretty chill bros to fill the new space. Pretty chill bros whose names you may be familiar with because some of them are hotshot prospects that are sure to launch their team to the playoffs and beyond. What more could you want, right? So let's examine some of the notable names on the list. If I had rubber gloves, I'd definitely snap one on right now. But then I'd just take it right back off 'cause that's weird and I'd probably get that powdery junk all over my keyboard. I'm not so good at dramatic effect, is what I'm saying. Ahem.

Brian Bogusevic, OF, Astros

You've probably never heard of this guy. He's not exactly a stud prospect, after all. So why is he the first gentleman on the list? Well, he's kind of an interesting story - he was drafted in the first round as a pitcher, but switched to the outfield after two years, and is finally getting to the bigs at the ripe old age of 26. But more importantly, he is a (presumably) proud alum of THE Tulane University, which makes the Astros (who also employ former Green Waver Tommy Manzella) the nation's leading importer of ex-Tulane athletes. I still don't like them, but hey: baby steps.

Jenrry Mejia, SP, Mets

Mejia had a sterling spring, showing off the filthy stuff with which he tore through the minor leagues. He started the year in the big leagues as a reliever, which seems to my humble eyes rather ill-advised being as how he's 20 years old* and has a bright future as a starter. But that's a discussion for a different day, particularly seeing as how Mejia will be the starting pitcher for the Mets on Saturday. Which is kind of exciting, except unless it's a national TBS game most of us probably won't be able to see it. I love blackout rules.

*Yet another pro athlete who's younger than me. I don't appreciate this turn of events.

Aroldis Chapman, RP, Reds

Chapman wasn't actually a September call up; the team added him right before roster expansion so that he can pitch for the Reds in the playoffs. He debuted last night to much fanfare and wasted no time showing off a 103 mph fastball while working a perfect inning in relief against the Brewers. Chapman, (presumably) 22, will be a starter in the long term but should be a good strikeout arm out of the pen down the stretch.

Desmond Jennings, OF, Rays

Jennings is a stud outfielder who will certainly draw comparisons to Carl Crawford when broadcasters are discussing him because he has elite speed and makes tons of hard contact at the plate. He's handy with the leather, too, and if the Rays are unable to resign Crawford, don't be surprised to see Jennings slide into left field full time. You would like to see someone with a little more power over in that corner, but I'd say the Rays have gotten by alright with Crawford there, so, why not?

Yonder Alonso, 1B, Reds

You may recall how I called Brad Hawpe 'The Brad Hawpe Hitting Machine.' It was and is a name that made little sense in that context. In speaking of Yonder Alonso, though...well, it's a bit more apt. Alonso has an elite batting eye and has tremendous gap power that could develop further into big time pop. He's a first baseman by trade, but since Joey Votto is doing his emmveepee thing there right now, Alonso will have to compete for time in left field. Not exactly fleet of foot, he's the sort of guy you'd like to keep at first, so I wouldn't be surprised if this call up is as much to showcase him as to evaluate his talents.

Rocco Baldelli, OF, Rays

Yep, he's back! The Rhode Island Italian-American Hall of Famer* has earned himself a call up despite spending the beginning of the season as a minor league instructor for the Rays; apparently his health is allowing him to actually go out and play baseball now. Hopefully that remains the case for the last month of the season.

*As in, there is a Rhode Island Italian-American Hall of Fame. Of course there is.

Carlos Carrasco, SP, Indians

The former Phillies prospect can hit 95 with his fastball, and tosses a pretty decent changeup and curveball in there as well. However, he lacks a true out pitch, and projects to be something like a good third starter.

Because there was actual scouting analysis in those sentences, you know that they're written by someone else - in this case, Baseball Prospectus' prospect guru Kevin Goldstein. Hat tip, KG!

J.P. Arencibia, C, Blue Jays

Catchers who bat .275/.319/.507 in four minor league seasons are usually kind of a big deal, but the Jays don't seem all that enamored of Arencibia's future. Probably because he's not as hot a prospect as another former Phillies guy, Travis D'Arnaud. But, hey, if you've gotta have a bridge to your catcher of the future, a guy like Arencibia is a really nice piece to have. And he'll fit in nicely with the Blue Jays' free-swinging, tater-totting ways. It's really the perfect fit.

Tyler Flowers, C, White Sox

Back when Flowers was with the Braves - i.e. prior to the Javy Vazquez trade - I remember reading some of the most glowing Spring Training stores I'd ever seen in re Mr. Flowers. There were plenty of puns about how Flowers was blossoming into an enormous (literally; the dude clocks in at 6'4'', 250) power prospect. He's been underwhelming in the minors this season, but posted OPSs above .900 in each of the previous two seasons. Maybe Charlotte just doesn't agree with him and he'll find the Cell more appealing.

Freddie Freeman, 1B, Braves

Freeman, the Braves' top hitting prospect, joined the Braves as an 18-year old and is going to be 23 in less than two weeks. In his time with the organization, he has posted two seasons that are almost identical: .316/.378/.521 in 2008, and .319/.378.521 this year. So that's cool. Anyway, the dude's got a decent batting eye, but his calling card is putting the bat on the ball, which he does with the frequency and the ferocity. I could see him developing into one of the three biggest bats on the team, which isn't saying much given (a) my fandom and (b) the fact that the Braves' bats are shall we say underwhelming. But, hey: Freeman's pretty good.

Mat Gamel, 3B, Brewers

Gamel was part of the reason why the Brewers moved Ryan Braun to left field (the bigger part of the reason being that Braun played the hot corner like he forgot his glove at home), so when he got a chance to show us all his talents last year he fell flat on his face to the tune of a .242/.338/.422 line. Well, that's not how that's supposed to go. But he's only 24, and has hit very well in the minors this season (.304/.388/.496), so he's still a guy to get excited about.

Nolan Reimold, OF, Orioles

Reimold was pretty good as a rookie for the O's in 2009, hitting .279/.365/.466 before tearing his left Achilles tendon. He probably came back a little too early in rejoining the club at the beginning of this season, since he hit a whopping .202/.305/.337, though one can still look at the .305 OBP as a positive given that it's over 100 points higher than that abysmal batting average. He hasn't been much better in the minors this season (.738 OPS), but since it's no fun to think that a promising young hitter is wrecked at 25 by a torn tendon, I choose to believe that he'll be underwhelming in this month but good again next year. Lord knows the Orioles could use him.

Pretty good who's who of prospects, no? Of course, the big story is Bogusevic, but I'll forgive you if you find guys like Mejia and Jennings a bit more enticing. At any rate, even if most of the divisional races aren't close, these prospects will give us something interesting to watch in the last month of the season.

Hey, so, do you guys remember Mark Kotsay? He went to Cal State Fullerton awhile ago, and kinda bombed around with the Marlins, Padres, A's, et al for a few years. He had a good season here and there; in 2002 he hit .292/.359/.492 and earned nearly a win above replacement on defense, so that was neat. But ever since, it's been kind of a downward spiral; with the exception of 2008, his wRC+ has declined every season since that 2002 high water mark. This season, we're at a new low (excluding his injury-shortened 2007 campaign); he's hitting a measly .233/.307/.382 for the Chicago White Sox. And ohbytheway he's part of their platoon at DH. Which is a position that's sort of predicated on being good at, um, hitting.

But what of the other half of the DH platoon? Well, that spot belongs to Andruw Jones, whose .215/.322./478 line doesn't look all that great on the surface but is actually pretty alright - see e.g. a .352 wOBA and 117 wRC+. Unfortunately, he's also the right-handed part of the platoon, which means he gets fewer PAs than the woeful Kotsay. But even playing him full-time would only be a minor upgrade; Jones has been almost perfectly league average against righties this year (102 wRC+), and that in limited duty. As a full-timer, we could likely expect those numbers to go down, particularly as the season wears on and Jones' aging body declines.

So there's the depressing part. But, hey, White Sox fans, there's good news a-comin! See, as was oft-rumored in days previous, the South Siders are acquiring future HoFer Manny Ramirez for naught but the burden of his salary for the remainder of this season. Which I guess it's a bit odd to say 'naught but' when talking about $3.8MM, but such is life in the emm ell bee. Anyway, Chicago's most recent title-winners will be paying nearly $4MM for the rights to the services of The Manny. Is it worth it?

In a word: yes. Now, I should mention that this isn't because they're in the thick of a division title chase, or anything. They're 4.5 games back, and have about a 13% chance of making the playoffs, according to CoolStandings.com. They've been hamstrung, in part, by poor production from the DH spot, and are now faced with the prospect of climbing out of a big hole to compete. Is it possible? Sure. Certainly, crazier things have happened - and this is a division where we've had consecutive one-game playoffs to decide which team would take home the divisional crown. And I'm not saying it's worth the move because Manny comes cheap; $4MM ain't exactly chump change to any team, let alone for a mid-market squad who's having to commit that salary for about a month's worth of playing time. Why I do think it's worth it is because (a) the White Sox still have a chance at competing, and Manny betters their prospects for the remainder of the season, and (b) the Dodgers had clearly had enough of Manny and wanted him out of town.

Let's start with (a) because it's simpler. Manny is hitting .311/.405/.510 this season, and is projected to go .297/.404/.527 the rest of the way. That, friends, is a very valuable hitter in any lineup. When you consider that he'll be replacing the production - if we're going to call it that - that the White Sox have had, that sort of hitting prowess becomes even more valuable. Now, I'm not mathematically inclined enough to crunch the numbers and tell you how much better they could be, but suffice it to say that Manny's .392 wOBA will look fantastic in a lineup where the second best hitter (Carlos Quentin) is putting up a .356 mark - and the fact that they're giving up only cash to get the deal done is icing on the cake. With Gordon Beckham finding his stroke, the Sox are suddenly looking quite potent in the middle of their lineup, with some combination of Beckham-Ramirez-Konerko-Quentin bringing home the tater tots. Plus, hey, remembcoler when Manny got traded to the Dodgers and batted, like, .833/.922/1.918* and had people gushing about how he could just see and hit the ball with the sort of precocious talent previously unseen in the mere mortals populating the diamonds? Maybe he'll capture lightning in a bottle again and go nutso for the Sox and help propel them to the playoffs - or at least a playoff. Baseball's a weird game; it could happeremimndern.

*.396/.489/.743. Close enough.

And as for (b)....In brief, what I want to say is: shame on the Dodgers. Manny was hurt during trade deadline time, and the team still believed they were in contention (see e.g. Messrs. Lilly, Theriot, and Dotel), so I can forgive Ned Colletti for not selling valuable parts of his team. But Manny comes off the DL, and then goes through the farce of sitting out day games following night games* before finally just being benched for games on end for no particular reason. In fact, before yesterday's game, he'd sat out four straight contests because...well, because Joe Torre, I guess. And, of course, Manny made headlines by getting tossed from the game yesterday for arguing balls and strikes. During an at-bat. After one pitch. Sounds like that bro needs to chill out, eh? Eh?

*There needs to be a name for this. Joe Posnanski quoted Brian Bannister doing an interview where he said that he fared better in day games than night games because the hitters were still hungover; I propose that we call the afternoon games that come the day after those late-night affairs something having to do with the general malaise of a nasty hangover. Day-zed games? Back-to-bedders? Flu-like festivities? I don't know. Help me out in the comments.

In any event, it seems apparent that this is a classic case of buyer's remorse out in La-La Land. The Dodgers bid against themselves in an effort to maintain Manny's services for the near future, and ended up paying him an AAV of $22,500,000 for 2009-10. Then they had to deal with the positive PED test last year, during which not only was Manny's bat absent, but the team removed basically any reminder that Manny even existed, let alone played for the team. Gone was the Mannywood sign; absent from the gift shops were the faux-dreadlocks that remain to this day fairly inexplicable, because, come on. Gone was the team's sentimental attachment to a guy who was viewed as a demi-god during the last half-season because of his otherworldly performance; once he settled into his natural routine (which is, of course, still superb), Dodgers fans became less enamored of their enigmatic slugger, and the PED test only exacerbated the situation. When he came back, he wasn't persona non grata, but he certainly didn't have the same appeal; his at-bats were no longer an event. I'm not here to comment on PED use - or whether Manny was even actually using - because that's frankly out of most anyone's relative expertise, but I am here to observe that between that affair last season and the injury-plagued campaign that has been 2010, Manny has shall we say fallen out of favor with the Dodgers organization.

Incisive, right? I know. I do think that part of the problem is that Manny sat out for what seemed like eons with an injured calf; how many of us have (1) injured a calf and/or (2) know what it feels like? It seems so insignificant; the idea that a ballplayer would miss significant time for an injury to such a seemingly minor part is kind of offensive to passionate fans - and stereotypes aside, don't let anyone tell you Dodgers fans aren't true blue. But such is life, I suppose, and particularly so with aging baseballers like The Manny. Which brings us back to perhaps the most salient point of all: can we actually expect positive performance from Manny in September given his injury issues and advancing age? I think we certainly can; I trust in ZiPS at least enough to say that he'll be a significant upgrade from whatever Mark Kotsay was offering. It is too bad that Andruw Jones will likely get reduced playing time as a result of this move, and that will be a drag on the overall upgrade here, but you've gotta figure that if Manny even approaches that ~3/4/5 line, then the White Sox will have improved their team for practically nothing. Will it be enough to push them into the playoffs? Probably not...but White Sox fans have got to be happy with Kenny Williams' move to upgrade the team even now, and without gambling any kind of future. Good on the White Sox for bringing in a quality player and good on the Dodgers for getting rid of someone they didn't want, but I've got to reaffirm my sabermetric credentials by saying bad on Ned Colletti for mishandling the situation....and also getting nothing in return. I don't want to make this article about calling for his firing, but Dodgers fans should be incensed that their GM first demonstrated a lack of knowledge of advanced metrics in dealing for a pitcher bound to regress (Lilly) while at the same time making a lateral-at-best move on a middle infielder (Theriot) and overpaying for an aging reliever (Dotel) and then failed to get any kind of value for a hitter who is still raking the ball. It's been a rough year for Dodgers fans; I submit that Colletti is as good a target as any for your various and sundry frustrations. But, hey: at least Vin Scully is coming back!

Let's pretend something for a minute. It'll be kind of fun, I promise*. Let's pretend that you're in charge of a team that's considered one of the best in baseball, competing in a hotly-contested division with a team that would feel slighted if you were to call them a heavyweight, while operating on a budget that's not far from 'shoestring.' Let's further pretend that one of your lineup spots is producing a .310 wOBA. "Well, Paddy," you might say, "is it a middle infield spot?" No, dear reader, it is not. Nor, for that matter, is it a catcher, or even a center fielder. No, this lineup spot that is producing a .310 wOBA is none other than your DH. At which point I imagine you'd gasp, and depending on your hardiness, faint. There, you're limited only by your imagination.

*I don't really promise. But then, you knew that's what I was going to say when I asterisked 'I promise.'

So what do you do in that situation - i.e. having a small amount of funds available, and needing to upgrade a real problem spot? Well, if you're the Rays, you apparently scour the waiver wire and you spy with your little eye a player with a career batting line of .280/.374/.492 who's averaged a .382 wOBA over the past four seasons and is in his age-31 season. Put another way, you make a smart little move and pick up the Brad Hawpe Hitting Machine, so-named by I hope nobody prior, on a minor league contract. Now, allow me to don a couple hats and tell you what I do and don't like about this deal.

I'm a fan of this deal, despite Hawpe's underwhelming .255/.343/.432 line to this point. I think there's a bit of upside here, and ZiPS agrees with me, projecting him for a scalding .283/.380/.511 line the rest of the way. See, Hawpe's not hit this poorly since his sophomore campaign in 2005, and he was still a part-time player back then*. So as you might say about a shady character in a seedy bar: the guy's got a history. Except this time you'd mean that in a good way. Unless you happen to be Mark Prior*, in which case...hi! Glad you're capable of using a computer!

*You may remember that Brad Hawpe fractured Mark Prior's elbow with a comebacker. You may not remember that while playing for LSU, Hawpe also slathered some deep sauce all over a Mark Prior pitch in the 2000 College World Series that eliminated Prior's USC squad. I like to imagine that Hawpe reads news of Prior's various attempted comebacks and taps his bat menacingly - the Brad Hawpe Hitting Machine always carries a bat, even when reading news - taps his bat menacingly and says calmly 'I'll be waiting, Prior.'

That got out of hand. Sorry. ANYWAY, Hawpe is walking and striking out right around his career rate (12 vs 13% and 26.3 vs 26.6%, respectively) and has continued to lace line drives at a 20% clip. All of which is good times. Plus, TBHHM* may actually be due for some positive regression elsewhere; he's hitting .314 on balls in play now, which is above average, but has a .338 career BABIP and hasn't posted one below .341 since, yep, 2005. Further, he's hitting 9% of his fly balls out of the yard, which is far below his career average of 16% and would be easily the lowest mark of his career. So if a few more balls in play find grass and a few more fly balls find the bleachers, we could be looking at that aforementioned ZiPS line in the next month - and he wouldn't even be giving back runs with his literally historically awful defense, because I can't imagine the Rays would even give him a glove, let alone put him in the field.

*I don't know why I'm calling him that but I liked it when I first wrote it and I don't like my backspace key so I'm not backing down now.

Howevah.

I'm also not a fan of this deal because of...well, because of many of the same reasons I like the deal. See, just about everything above that gives rise to optimism can easily be turned on its head. His underperforming at the plate - while due in no small part to getting his share of injuries this season - may not be the function of bad luck; he may just be declining. Would you expect a 31-year old (non-Ichiro division) to be significantly outperforming the league average BABIP? I wouldn't. And while he's due for an uptick in power, he may just not have the same pop he once did, and not approach that 16% HR/FB rate. Plus, potentially declining skills aside, he's moving to the AL East, which is less catchily known as the place where hopes and dreams and the Blue Jays go to die.

But even considering all those drawbacks...there's still practically zero risk here. He's making hardly any money, he's signed to a minor league deal, and is all but certain to improve what's essentially been a dead spot in their lineup. I think really the only way the Rays could live to regret this signing is if he ritualistically murders David Price with a fungo and buries the body underneath the stadium, putting a curse on the team for-ev-er. Which if nothing else would certainly make for a fun news cycle. See? Everyone wins!

Except potentially David Price. Good luck to you, sir.

...and this time, it's personal. Because he went after Cliff Lee, which, who does that? What's not to like about the fella?

But perhaps you're wondering to yourself just how Cowherd managed to make himself look the fool yet again. I know, he does it on a daily basis with SportsNation, but no one actually watches that, so when he gets stuff quoted in print, it's important that we take advantage of it. Here, then, is the noble scribe's comment:

"He doesn't care about Baltimore. He doesn't care about Texas. When he pitches against elite teams, he is showcasing his talent. 'Here I am. I still got it'. [Saturday] against the Orioles, he mails it in. That is a dude that gets out of town the second the season ends. He'll get out of town, go to the Yankees and jettison the Rangers.

Remember that deal with the Mariners and Yankees -- they almost had the deal done. Cliff Lee was going to be a Yankee. Cliff Lee, according to my source, was on the phone with CC Sabathia trying to figure out housing arrangements

"He wanted to be a Yankee. He doesn't like Texas. He doesn't pitch well in the heat. I'm told he will not re-sign with Texas. He wants to be with an elite team."

See? See? I think disgrace is the right word here. This whole rant came, by the way, as a result of what was Lee's worst start of the season: 5.2 IP (season low), 10 H (season high) 8 ER (season high), 4 HR (season high), 1 BB (shocking, by Lee's standards), 4 K. That in mind, let's go bit by naughty little bit and see if we can't work some of this out.

He doesn't care about Baltimore. He doesn't care about Texas. When he pitches against elite teams, he is showcasing his talent...against the Orioles, he mails it in.

To be fair, most people don't really care about Baltimore. But what I'm curious about is, what makes Lee pitching better against better teams - which I assume is what Cowherd is trying to say - what makes him doing that a worse player/human being than Jack Morris? Morris, you'll recall, is lauded by an unfortunately high number of writers for like raising his game and pitching better in big moments (see e.g. Game 7, 1991 World Series). When Cliff Lee has a bad start against the Orioles, it speaks poorly of his character?

And does anyone here think that elite teams - whichever those may be - are going to sign a guy who doesn't pitch well against bad teams and ruins his season stats because he had a few good appearances against good teams? Wouldn't that smack of a lack of focus and/or talent?

That is a dude that gets out of town the second the season ends. He'll get out of town, go to the Yankees, and jettison the Rangers.

So? Perhaps Cowherd supports reinstating the Reserve Clause, so that teams wouldn't have to let these pesky players just jettison them all willy-nilly. Poor Rangers!

Remember that deal with the Mariners and Indians - they almost had the deal done. Cliff Lee was going to be a Yankee. Cliff Lee, according to my source, was on the phone with CC Sabathia trying to figure out housing arrangements.

Two teams had nearly worked out a trade for Cliff Lee that didn't involve him except in the sense that he was one of the people being traded. Cliff Lee then did what, oh, any of us would do and called up CC Sabathia inquiring about living arrangements in the new city to which he was supposedly about to move. The take-away from this is....Cliff Lee is a rational dude with famous friends?

He doesn't like Texas. He doesn't pitch well in the heat.

Batters are hitting .214/.214/.340 in 159 PA against him in Texas. He has not issued a walk.

I'm told he will not re-sign with Texas. He wants to be with an elite team.

Texas is 70-54. They're a top-5 team in the AL. They have an embarrassment of young talent on the farm. Why aren't they elite?

Lee, to his credit, has denounced Cowherd's report (to use the word generously), saying "It's a lie." Now, I'm not here to say that it is a lie. It's entirely likely that Lee leaves the team after this season. But everyone knew that. He's a free agent, Texas may not be competitive in their offer, and he could go elsewhere. This is not new information, and, in fact, the same refrain about going to the Yankees is spouted almost literally every single time a top-notch free agent hits the market. So, yeah, maybe Cowherd does have a source who is sure that Lee's going to be a Yankee, and Lee is denying it merely to keep his bargaining power*. But I don't understand why he feels compelled to go on the air and denounce a player who's having a dominant season because he made one bad start against a bad team and then connect it to this report so that people like me get mad and take to the keyboard and oh my god I got trolled by Colin Cowherd.

*Could you imagine if the Yankees played the Cowherd's Source Card during negotiations? I think it'd be hilarious. "Here's the thing, Cliff: Colin Cowherd has it on good authority that you're dead-set on being a Yankee. So here's fifty bucks for a sandwich down the street and cab fare, plus a key to CC's garage. He says he's got an air mattress in there, but you'll have to blow it up."

In general, I tend to think that baseball managers don't mean a great deal to the success of their team. As my friend pointed out yesterday, they're not even called 'coaches;' all they do is 'manage' the team. In spite of - or perhaps because of - that, I'm always impressed by guys who manage to hang around long enough to end up in the top 15 for career wins. Which, as luck would have it, is a mark barely bested by recent retiree Lou Piniella, whose 1,835 wins over 23 seasons is good for 14th all-time. Now, I'm not going to suggest that this is the result of some sort of magic that Lou had, that he was responsible for any more than a few handfuls* of those wins. And of course baseball, like most professional sports, has this fetish for recycling coaches and managers that is beyond me but keeps former managers, no matter how poorly their teams may have fared, in a job for as long as they can convince an owner that they were responsible for that one playoff run like thirteen years ago.

*This is probably a poor phrase, because how many wins are even in a handful? Like, 8? And does it depend on the hand size? I think it probably does. And but being vague means I don't have to guess how many wins a manager is actually responsible for, so, great!

But I'm still impressed by the career Piniella put together, not the least reason for which is that the best thing a manager can do is get wildly, disproportionately enraged by a call and scream their head off like their lives depended on it and then throw bases and kick dirt and hats and cats oh my. Ahem. Which, I think we all agree, is more or less Sweet Lou's specialty, and for that we can thank him. He made a good run of it, got a Classic Cubs Sendoff in the form of an embarrassing 16-5 defeat, and hopefully will be happy with his family going forward.

Now let's shove aside the brief pleasantries and get down to the topic that's been speculated on since Piniella announced that he'd be leaving the team at the end of the season: who will take over for one of the worst best jobs in sports*? Let's baselessly guess at who may be donning the other blue pinstripes.

*I.e. Cubs manager and baseball manager, respectively. So termed because managing a baseball team seems like a phenomenal job, but the Cubs' spot (a) means you're not going to be winning for the next few years and (b) is one where you're presiding over a team that's on the verge of having like eight generations of fans die without seeing a title. When - if? - they do eventually load up a good team, the expectations and pressure are going to be massive.

Ryne Sandberg

The fans' likely choice, Sandberg was one of the best players to not win a World Series in Chicago, and the best Cubs player whose picture adorned my wall (runner up: Mark Grace). He's been managing throughout the Cubs farm teams for the last four years, to results that I will call 'mixed' because I neither know nor think it particularly matters how the minor league teams have fared under his watch. Harsh? Maybe. But if Sandberg gets the job, it's not because the Dayton Cubs trounced the PCL competition - it's because he's a viable face of the franchise and has the MLB bona fides - i.e. a Hall of Fame plaque - to feel comfortable laying into Aramis Ramirez the next time he goes bullfighter on a hot shot down the line. Ole!

Bob Brenly

Brenly was the head dude when the Diamondbacks won the World Series in 2001, so he's got that treasured championship experience. He also has a treasured mustache, and apparently has since he was six. As the linked article also points out, each coach who led Chicago's other sports teams to championships sported the stache - Ditka, Phil Jackson, and, most recently, Joel Quenneville have rocked the universal symbol for 'manly,' Oh, and he's broadcasting the team's games, which may actually hinder his candidacy, because having watched all the games this team played, I can't imagine he wants to stick around and actually be in charge of them.

Joe Girardi

This one seems a bit pie-in-the-sky to me, because Girardi, y'know, just won the World Series with the most famous franchise in American sports. Hard to imagine walking away from that job. But he did come up with the Cubs, and all indications are that he enjoyed his time in the Chi. I mean, why wouldn't he? Nice place to play....Wrigley's kinda neat....dig that ivy...oh, and he's actually from Peoria. Though I don't know if braces look good with the royal blue and red. Maybe he could get those colored bands.

Alan Trammell

Trammell is currently serving as the Cubs' bench coach, and has managerial experience. That experience, however, began with being head dude in charge for the 119-loss Detroit Tigers. He then lost 181 more games in the next two seasons. Is it too easy to say 'he'll fit right in, then?' Yeah, probably. But he'll fit right in! Though he was passed over for the chance to be interim manager in favor of Mike "Dennis" "Randy" Quade, so perhaps the organization isn't so enamored of him. Fine, then. He doesn't need you, either.

Mike Quade

As you certainly beyond any shadow of a doubt already knew, Quade has been handling the third base coaching duties for the Cubs since 2006. But the story doesn't end there! See, Quade (KWAH-dee, presumably to avoid association with the aforementioned Quaids) is actually a pretty decorated minor league manager. He's won over 1,000 games in his career, has twice earned Manager of the Year honors, and has two championships to his name. So when people talk about Sandberg having paid his minor league dues, well, Quade is an easy counterpoint to that. A strong showing in his interim appearance could very well propel him to the full-time job.

Pat Listach

Listach was apparently a finalist for the job in 2006 before losing out to Piniella. I don't know how that affects his chances this time around, but he spent some time in the Cubs' minor league system as well, winning a Manager of the Year award in 2008. Which, I guess, was grounds for a "promotion" to third base coach with the Nationals. Congrats, guy! Plus, he was a mediocre Major Leaguer, which always bodes well for managerial chances. Gotta love that "gamer" mentality!

If I had to guess - and I don't, so you're welcome* - I'd bet on Brenly, with Quade as the dark horse. Brenly has said he wants to get back in the uniform, and his track record is probably good enough for the Cubs to be interested, and Cubs fans are familiar with his name. But then, Quade getting the interim job suggests to me that (a) the Cubs like the cut of his jib, plus (b) that Trammell isn't a highly regarded candidate, and (c) Trammell might could be a bit miffed at the hiring and not want to take the job anyway. I'd like to see Sandberg get his shot, and I think he could if the Cubs think that not hiring him might get him all in a tizzy and leave the organization, but the obvious knock on him is that he doesn't have the experience - and if he doesn't, then Listach certainly comes up short.

*Viz, you're welcome for my fairly uninformed guessing about a process that is necessarily a shadow game. Aren't I kind?

So! Whom will they hire? What crazy stunt will they pull at the presser? Where will he take the team in the near future? When will Cubs fans turn on him after they don't win the World Series in the next like decade? Why am I asking the questions in bold? Classic attention-getter, my friends. Do feel free to play us out in the comments with your thoughts on this whole sordid affair.

Hey you guys, remember when Ken Griffey, Jr retired? It was kind of a big deal. Not as big a deal as Armando Galarraga, apparently, but such is life sometimes. In any event, there were plenty of retrospectives looking back on a magnificent career cut short by injury and how we got robbed of what could have been in an all-time career...the whole affair was really kind of depressing. So but sometimes it's nice to remember moments like this one:

Now that, my friends, is some joy. That, of course, is the scene after Griffey scored from first on The Double, a rope down the left field line from the criminally underrated Edgar Martinez* that clinched the 1995 AL Division Series against the Yankees. The play has its own Wikipedia article, so you know it's a big deal, but it's worth remembering just how important it was.

*F'reals, bruh. He loses credit in a lot of peoples' minds because he was mostly a DH, but you tell me what's wrong with a guy in your lineup who hits .312/.488/.515 for a .405 wOBA and 151 wRC+. And while we're at it, it's worth mentioning that he used to be a mighty fine third baseman, being 16 fielding runs above average in his career. The man's a Hall of Famer in my book, and I like to think that I'm not the most inclusionary-minded fella.

The Mariners came into being in 1977, after the Pilots were essentially stolen and moved to Milwaukee (Sound familiar, NBA fans? What is it about that city?). They were, essentially, court-ordered restitution to the city of Seattle. Which isn't very romantic....but then neither was the team's shall we say inauspicious debt. See, hopes were high, promise abounded*...and they immediately fell flat on their face to the tune of 14 consecutive losing seasons. Pirates fans have no sympathy, I know, but that run is arguably even worse than the Pirates' stretch of futility; while Pirates fans have illustrious history, super sweet jerseys, and 3 World Series titles to reminisce on, the Mariners had only losing. That, and the crumbling Kingdome. Plus, even when the M's did record a > .500 season, they still finished 5th in their division - the highest finish they'd ever had, and a mark they wouldn't top until two years later, when they went all the way to 3rd place. Huzzah! And then there was the strike year in 1994, so all that Seattle fans knew was a bad baseball team and, to bow to the narrative, a bunch of greedy players. These were not heady times in Seattle.

*Probably. I do not know this to be a fact. Let's hear it for full disclosure!

But then! Lo and behold 1995, when a crew of baseballers headlined by Junior Griffey, Martinez, Jay Buhner and Randy Johnson stormed onto the Seattle scene, winning 79 games (the season was only 145 games that season, remember) and the AL West. They met the Yankees* in the ALDS, and while the Mariners were probably the lesser team (the Yankee pitching staff had four pitchers with an ERA+ over 100 and a middle of the order that matched the M's'), they had...well, they had whatever benefit a team gets from being a first-time playoff team.

*I used to have this whole series listed out on a napkin, but I've of course lost that napkin. So I can't say for sure, but I'd say that a fairly sizable number of these Shining Moments involve the Yankees. There are obvious reasons for this that I needn't list out, but I would like to say that it is remarkable how teams establish themselves as the like measuring stick of their respective sports. It may not be as prevalent nowadays, but I think it's kind of neat that there are teams it just feels better to beat. See e.g. the Cowboys/Packers/Steelers triumverate in the NFL, the Lakers/Celtics in the NBA (and, I guess, the Heat, but that team defies the point of this exercise), and the Original Six teams in hockey. Yes, that's a cop out. Sorry.

Well, that benefit seemed to go by the wayside when the Yankees took the first two games of the series. Which, in a five-game series, is practically a death blow. The first game was uneventful; only a pair of runs in the 9th made the score a respectable 9-6. The second game was fairly classic as these things go; it went 15 innings, with both teams scoring in the 12th, and ended - as so many games have - with a Jim Leyritz walkoff job. So, yeah. It was bleak. But the series was going back to the Kingdome for the remainder of the affair, and the M's were 46-27 at home that year. So now, perhaps, after nearly 30 years, hopes could be high and promise could abound. You know, relative to Seattle.

And indeed, the Mariners won Game 3 in about as handy a fashion a 7-4 game can be won; the Yankees scored 2 in the 8th to draw close, but this was the Mariners' game all along. Game 4 was a classic Hollywood sequel: same result, but with more action. The Mariners were down 5-4 after three innings, but stormed back to take it 11-8. DRAMA! INTRIGUE! GAME 5! Well, except for the fact that you already know what happened. Should've posted a spoiler alert before that picture, eh?

But the game was still really great, even if you do know how it ends. The Mariners went into the 8th inning in a 4-2 hole, and there was that Yankee bullpen where Mariano Rivera was setting up the dominant John Wetteland (there's a phrase I never thought I'd type), and...oh, David Cone came back out to pitch the 8th. Sure, he got Joey Cora on a flyball to open things, but sometimes there's just Too Much Ken Griffey. Griffey hit an astounding .391/.444/1.043 in the series, and launched a game-changing home run immediately after that to bring the score to 4-3.

And David Cone stayed in the game.

He got a groundball out of Edgar Martinez (.571/.667/1.000) (yes, really), but then walked Tino Martinez and gave up a single to Jay Buhner. So...you take him out of the game, right?

Nope! You let him stay in to walk Alex Diaz (who?) and Doug Strange (lol). And if you're keeping track, three walks sandwiched around a single is a surefire way to score a run. Cone stayed in the game to throw 147 pitches and walk in the tying run. And then Mariano Rivera entered the game and did exactly what you'd bet on him to do, which is strike out Mike Blowers.

Fast forward to the 11th inning, where Randy Johnson was working his 3rd inning. The Yankees managed to make every small-ball enthusiast in the world cry tears of sweet, sweet joy when Mike Stanley worked a walk and was replaced on the basepaths by Pat Kelly. They bunted him over, and he scored on a groundball to left. Johnson K'd two more batters to end the inning, but the damage was done; the dagger had been inserted.

And then, much like Michael Myers, the Mariners rose again (cut the head off!). "The stretch and the 0–1 pitch on the way to Edgar Martinez; swung on and lined down the left field line for a base hit! Here comes Joey! Here is Junior to third base, they're going to wave him in! The throw to the plate will be...LATE! The Mariners are going to play for the American League Championship! I don't believe it! It just continues! My oh my! Edgar Martinez with a double ripped down the left field line and they are going crazy at the Kingdome!"

So what separates this from any other series-winning hit? I mean, it was just the ALDS (and indeed, the Mariners would lose the CS to the 100-win Indians). And yeah, it was their first playoff appearance, and yeah, it's neat that they finally had a moment, but it's not like we'd be celebrating a play the Pirates made to win the NLDS next year so long after it happened. There wouldn't be a mural called The Defining Moment hanging in PNC Park.

But this was more than a team rising over the hump. This was a team playing in a city embittered to their sport by past capriciousness from ownership, by decades of bad baseball, by a stadium that was falling apart and a team that couldn't stay together. This was a team that very well could have followed the Pilots out of town; fans were staying home in droves, enthusiasm was low, and there was no desire to pay for the team to have a nice, new stadium. But then this likable bunch of homegrown talent came along, made a late-season run to take the division crown, and then toppled baseball's most storied franchise in almost literally as dramatic a fashion as possible. 3 Must-Win Games against the Yankees to stay alive? And they won them all? And took the last on a game-winning double involving their two biggest stars in the 11th inning? I'll spare you the Hollywood analogy; in baseball terms, it's about all a fan could ever want from their team. And that it shoved aside all that poor play from so many years previous is the most delicious kind of icing on that cake (buttercream). It was so impactful that the Washington State Legislature approved a financial package to pay for what would eventually become Safeco Field, affectionately known by probably nobody as The Whole Reason The Mariners Stayed In Town. The Double is The Double because of the high drama, sure, but also because it defined the career of an underappreciated superstar, because it saved a city from losing its second baseball team, and because Ken Griffey Jr was the perfect ballplayer to put the exclamation mark on the euphoric pandemonium that is so rare in life.

Yeah, that headline's not a misprint. I was walking through the Hall of Fame the other day (/smug) and I came across an article hanging in one of the wings about how a computer projection system had played out the 1993 season. It was an article in the Atlanta paper, and most of the article surrounded the reporter telling Bobby Cox that the Braves were supposedly going to win 116 games - which, you may remember, would tie the all-time record set by the Cubs in 1906 (and, for you Back to the Future types, the 2001 Mariners). Cox, of course, laughed it off, saying "No, I don't believe the computer, or any publication's preseason predictions." This is not unexpected*; I don't think any manager would go on the record as saying "Yeah, y'know, 116 wins sounds about right." What is unexpected is that at no point in the article is the idea of a computer projection system predicting how the season would unfold treated with derision or scorn - a far cry from what we see in more recent times.

*It should be noted that the Braves did win 104 games in one of the most exciting divisional races you ever did see. And one of the most bizarre, since this is when the Atlanta Braves were in the N.L. West, competing with the San Francisco Giants. Say what you will about realignment, but...there are some benefits.

But I don't want to make a point about how stat-minded folk are portrayed in the media so much as I want to look back at what the All-Knowing Computer said would happen. Not only did they predict the final standings, but the A.L. and N.L. leaders in batting average, homers, RsBI, wins, and ERA. You know, standard statistical fare of the time. I took pictures of the article and am doing my best to reproduce what I see (Enhance...enhance...enhance...) for your viewing pleasure.

National League Leaders

Batting Average

Andy Van Slyke (.335)

John Kruk (.333)

Barry Bonds (.332)

Mark Grace (.331)

Terry Pendleton (.329)

Van Slyke, Pittsburgh's Great White Hope, batted .310. Andres Galarraga, El Gato Grande if we can get a little bilingual on ya here, actually led the league with a .370 average; Bonds and Grace did finish top-5, and Kruk (!) was 8th, so this was a pretty good bit of predicting. Gregg Jefferies, who has one of the more annoyingly-spelled names I've ever seen, and whom I've never heard of but was apparently pretty good, hit .342 to round out the top 5.

Home Runs

Fred McGriff (37)

Barry Bonds (34)

Dave Hollins (32)

Darryl Strawberry (31)

Darren Daulton (31)

So, um...the computers weren't exactly seeing a power-packed year for the Senior Circuit, eh? This is turning out to be quite the self-educational post, by the way; I'd never heard of Dave Hollins, and my dad said he was never any great shakes. But I guess he hit 27 HR in 1992, so, hey, Dave Hollins! But anyway, the computer got 2 of the 5 right; Barry Bonds led the league with 46 tater tots, and Fred McGriff hit...37 HR! Nicely done computer. David Justice launched 40 bombs, and Matt Williams and Ron Gant made top-5 appearances as well.

RBI

Darryl Strawberry (117)

Terry Pendleton (114)

Dave Hollins (114)

Darren Daulton (113)

Barry Bonds (107)

I suppose it makes sense that 4 of the 5 projected HR leaders would make the RBI list as well, but that's not very fun, now is it? Unfortunately, the real story isn't much different; Barry Bonds and David Justice were 1-2 again, Ron Gant and Matt Williams were the other two members of the home run brigade to be top-5. Mike Piazza also made the list.

Wins*

Tom Glavine (22-4)

Greg Swindell (20-9)

Bob Tewksbury (20-8)

Greg Maddux (20-4)

Steve Avery (19-4)

*First off, I should point out that this section was kind of had to read with the pictures I took, so I'm not entirely sure that all those records are correct. Which I guess would explain why Tewksbury's 20-8 record comes in front of Maddux's 20-4.

This was simultaneously the most impressive and least impressive category thusfar. The projections nailed Glavine leading the league with 22 wins, and Maddux coming in 4th with 20, but Swindell, Tewksbury, and Avery were misses. But more importantly: another unknown player! I'd never heard of Greg Swindell. He was coming off a 1992 season in which he posted a 2.70 ERA over 213 innings, so I guess the southpaw was pretty good. He did not, however, do much in '93; his ERA ballooned over 4.00 while he failed to toss 200 frames for the first time in three seasons. Computer jinx! Tom Burkett tied Glavine for the league lead; Bill Swift and Mark Portgual were the others in the top 5.

ERA

Tim Wakefield (1.47)

Greg Maddux (1.70)

Pedro Astacio (1.79)

Andy Benes (1.91)

Doug Drabek (1.97)

The computer really couldn't have done worse at picking these guys if they drew names and numbers out of a hat, which is kind of what it looks like it did. Now, it should be noted that I'm not ENTIRELY sure that the first entry here is Wakefield, but the name definitely starts with a W, and the listed team definitely starts with a P. Wakefield threw for the Pirates at the time; a converted shortstop, Wakefield posted a 2.15 ERA in 1992, so clearly he was going to post the 33rd-best single-season ERA of all-time. Hyphen hyphen hyphen. In fact, Baseball Reference's list of the 500 best single-season ERAs of all-time goes up to 2.216, so perhaps picking at least five pitchers in the NL to post historically great (by ERA standards) seasons was a bit of a reach. Especially considering that Maddux's 2.36 mark led the NL and that none of those other guys made the leaderboard. In fact, the non-Maddux division posted an average of a 98 ERA+. Good stuff, fellas.

American League Leaders

Batting Average

Shane Mack (.336)

Frank Thomas (.335)

Brian Harper (.334)

Kirby Puckett (.334)

Carlos Baerga (.332)

Educational time! Shane Mack was an outfielder for the Twins with a .287 career average heading into 1993. His '91 and '92 seasons were actually excellent, so I suppose he doesn't deserve too much derision....but he also doesn't deserve a projected batting title. Brian Harper was a catcher for the Twins - yes, 3 Twins made this list - who received 500 PAs for the first time in his career in 1992, despite a pretty-good-for-a-catcher .295/.329/.419 batting line. Alas, only the Baerga prediction held any water; he came in 5th, albeit with a .321 average. John Olerud, Paul Molitor, Roberto Alomar, and Kenny Lofton were the 1-4 fellas; instead of three Twins on the leaderboard, we got three Blue Jays. You tell me which is weirder.

Home Runs

Mark McGwire (60)

Juan Gonzalez (49)

Rob Deer (40)

Cecil Fielder (37)

Joe Carter, Tim Salmon (33)

How 'bout Big Mac! Sure, he got hurt and finished the year with 9 HR, but he was hitting 'em at a pace of 1 per 11.89 PA, which had he finished with his career average of 662 PA would've meant 56 tater tots. That's a lot of spuds! Juan Gonzalez led the league with 46, so that's some pretty good prognosticating, but none of the other projected top dogs save for Tim Salmon made the top 10. Yeah, I wouldn't have pegged him as the other guy from this list, either. Big ups to Ken Griffey Jr (45), Frank Thomas (41), Albert Belle (38) and Rafael Palmeiro (37) for finishing up the top 5. Man, there are some characters in that list.

RBI

The RBI section is mostly washed out by my phone's flash, but I can tell you that Mark McGwire was predicted to finish 1st with 140 ribbies. That league-leading 176 OPS+ in 1992 really did wonders for him in the computer's system. Also worth mentioning: his career .263/.394/.588 career line is really, really good. His OPS+ is 12th all-time, and he's top-10 all-time in homers, SLG, and OPS...and he hit a home run once every 10.6 AB, which is the best of all time, ever. I'm just saying...the biggest non-steroidal knock on McGwire's HOF candidacy is that he was a "one-dimensional guy," which is almost certainly driven by his low-ish average. But even if he was a one-dimensional power hitter...what's wrong with that when you're historically good at it?

Plus, he's got to be like one of the most intimidating redheads ever.

Wins

Mike Mussina (27-3)

Kevin Appier (23-6)

Juan Guzman (22-8)

Craig Lefferts (20-8)

Jack McDowell (20-7)

I didn't know Juan Guzman or Craig Lefferts. Guzman placed 2nd in RoY voting in 1991, was an All-Star in 1992...and then finished 7th in the Cy Young voting in '93 despite a 109 ERA+ (3.99 ERA). But, hey, he led the league in win percentage, so clearly he was great. Only won 14 games, though, which keeps him far from this ahem pitcher-friendly list. As for Lefferts, all you really need to know is that he appeared in 696 games in his career...and started 45. So I'm as confused as you as to how he was supposed to win 20 games. Anyway, this is the year Jack McDowell famously won the Cy Young award on the basis of his league-leading 22 wins despite being demonstrably worse than Randy Johnson. 1993 was Johnson's breakout year; he racked up 19 wins and also 308 of those things where batters get three strikes and go back to the dugout. Pat Hentgen tied with Johnson for 2nd on the list; Kevin Appier, Jimmy Key, and Alex Fernandez were tied with one another in some combination for the rest of the top 5.

ERA

Juan Guzman (1.42)

Mike Mussina (1.79)

Kevin Appier (1.80)

Charles Nagy (2.00)

Jack McDowell (2.16)

Never mind 2010...clearly, 1993 was going to be The Year of the Pitcher. Can you imagine the old-time MSMers' joy at having at least 9 guys win 20 or more games and at least 8 break the 2.00 ERA mark? Boy howdy, that would get insufferable in a hurry. Kevin Appier was the actual league leader with a 2.56 ERA; none of the other four guys made the leaderboard, being replaced by Manny Alvarez, Jimmy Key, Alex Fernandez and Frank Viola, who I was reasonably sure was dead by 1993 (note: he was 33). What we take away from this is that the White Sox (McDowell, Alvarez, Fernandez) were pretty good at pitching the ball and that this computer (IF computers had feelings which ha ha surely they don't right? right?) would have been mighty disappointed in the hitting prowess of MLBers relative to its expectations. Poor computer. Don't worry, little buddy, it's only 1993. You'll come a long way!

Division Standings

First parentheses are quoted from the article; second are mine

N.L. East

Pittsburgh Pirates, 90-72 (Leyland wins without Bonds and Drabek) (Aww...the beginning of the end for Pirates fans)

St. Louis Cardinals, 89-73 (Young pitchers who are better in '93) (Pitchers were almost perfectly average. Hello, third place!)

Chicago Cubs, 87-75 (Surprise! Castillo wins 18, Morgan 17) (I don't know (a) either of those fellas or (b) how surprising a 4th-place finish is)

Montreal Expos, 83-79 (Replacing 4 regulars is difficult) (So difficult, in fact, that the Expos won 94 games. AND THE 1994 WORLD SERIES)

Philadelphia Phillies, 81-81 (Starting pitching and better outfield) (I guess they starting pitchinged their way to 97 wins and the division title)

New York Mets, 72-90 (Rotation is no better than in '92) (Correct! The Mets won 59 games. Ha. The Mets.)

Florida Marlins, 72-90 (Santiago can make the pitchers better) (True enough. They still only won 64 games...which is 5 more than the Mets)

N.L. West

Atlanta Braves, 116-46 (20 more victories because of Maddux?) (Maddux won 20, but the team *only* improved by 8 games. To 104 Ws.)

Houston Astros, 87-75 (Drabek and Swindell add victories) (They do. And this projection was only 2 games high. Tip of the cap!)

Cincinnati Reds, 80-80 (Too many comeback player attempts) (So many, in fact, that they only play 160 games. Cap tip rescinded!)

San Francisco Giants, 74-88 (Bonds won't offset pitching weakness) (Yes huh. 3.9 RA/game and 103 victories. But otherwise, spot on!)

Los Angeles Dodgers, 73-89 (Strawberry back with 117 RBI) (Strawberry OPS'd .577 in 32 games. Team won 81. WRONG!)

Colorado Rockies, 73-89 (Baylor should have managed sooner) (Managerial success smells like 67 wins)

San Diego Padres, 53-108 (Can't slash payroll and expect victories) (Well, you can expect 61 of them. Or like 140 if you look at the 2010 Pads)

A.L. East

Baltimore Orioles, 92-70 (Baines and Reynolds are solid additions) (Baines is. Reynolds isn't. Maybe if he were better they'd have won more'n 85)

New York Yankees, 87-75 (Adding Appier and Key are keys) (I see what you did there. Only one game low on the prediction, though)

Boston Red Sox, 81-79 (More punch from Dawson and Calderon) (Those two combined for a sub-.700 OPS; WHERE ARE THE MISSING GAMES?)

Cleveland Indians, 81-81 (Nagy leads youngsters on field) (And then to a 76-86 record. At least they played a full schedule, Boston)

Milwaukee Brewers, 81-81 (Loss of Molitor and (unintelligble) hurts) (But there's no salve like 69 whole victories! Bully for you, Brew Crew)

Toronto Blue Jays, 78-84 (Lost Winfield, Gruber, Key, Henke) (...Won World Series. The lesson? Lose your best players, win games, profit)

Detroit Tigers, 75-87 (Same old go-for-broke Tigers) (Go for broke, end up with 85 wins)

A.L. West

Chicago White Sox (huh?) 89-71 (Thomas and Ventura keep getting better) (Even if they'd won those last two missing games, the compter would've sold 'em short. COMPUTERS AND STATS HATE THE WHITE SOX)

Kansas City Royals, 83-79 (Cone, Gagne and Lind tighten defense) (Jose Lind OPS+'d 47. At 3B. And the Royals STILL won 84 games)

Minnesota Twins, 81-81 (Deshaies can't replace Smiley) (Smiley was not worth 10 wins, but that's how far off this prediction was)

Texas Rangers, 81-81 (Lefferts a 20-game winner?) (It's important to read that sentence with an incredulous tone, but 86 wins for the Rangers)

California Angels, 78-84 (Solid comebacks for Langston and Finley) (But not solid enough! 76 wins for the California Angels of soon to be Anaheim and sort of also Los Angeles because you know gerrymandering and baseball go together)

Oakland Athletics, 75-87 (Stewart, Moore and more are gone) (Which is usually a recipe for success, but 68 wins by the bay)

Seattle Mariners, 67-95 (Great under Piniella but) (That's the end of the quote. BUT WHAT? BUT 82 WINS WHAT WHAT)

--------------------

I suppose there's not really a grand point to this whole exercise, other than it being fun to look back on preseason projections and see just how wrong they were. Well...I think that's fun. Of course, when I do it to myself during the offseason, I'm likely to enjoy it somewhat less. Or at least I would if I were ever, y'know, wrong.

Seriously. The Mariners are going to make a massive comeback and win 85 games. Book it. And the Rockies? Locks for the World Series. But, hey, at least I always projected my teams to play 162 games. WHADDYA SAY TO THAT, COMPUTER? Sheesh. No wonder all these nerds with their spreadsheets and numbers can't get anything right.

/1993'd

Note: I used to write about baseball a lot. This season, though, I have but two posts to my name. Thankfully, Paddy McMahon, the best free agent acquisition of the offseason, has carried the site. I want to change that fact. For a while there, life got in the way and I simply had no extra time to write about baseball/sports outside of my day job. My attendance was so poor on one of my weekly radio hits, in fact, that I was essentially designated for assignment from the show. Which was tough to swallow. After attending the FanGraphs Live Event (promise a brief recap of my experience) in Manhattan Saturday, however, it dawned on me how much I miss writing about baseball. So, from here on out, I do not plan on being such a stranger at Around the Majors.

As mentioned in my note above, I made the trip down from Boston to New York City to attend FanGraphs Live. Since I am always looking for an excuse to head down to the city, it was a no-brain decision to purchase a ticket online, make plans with a buddy and head down for a weekend. I am glad that I did so. For some reason, I really felt the need, subconsciously, to prepare like a college student studying for finals before attending. If the situation arose, I wanted to be able to answer any baseball-related question off the top of my head, prompting me to read every FanGraphs article from the past few weeks and study the WAR leader board. Perhaps out of insecurity for not following baseball quite as closely as I have in the past few seasons, I really made an effort to be on the ball in that regard. I even crammed reading Hardball Talk/FanGraphs for an hour on the Metro North train from Fairfield, CT, where I had left my car, Saturday morning.

Interestingly, my obsessive studying of the WAR leader board on the train—somewhere between Stamford and the Harlem stop—provided all the inspiration needed to write again. It was the surprisingly high ranking of one player, really, that triggered a desire to investigate further and get some thoughts down on paper. That player is San Francisco Giants outfielder Andres Torres. Until seeing Torres' name on the WAR leader board, I had not given any thought to him all season. His excellent to-date performance had been completely lost on me up until my last-minute iPhone research. There he was, though, boasting just fewer than five wins above a replacement-level player. His presence was eye-opening, and, hoping to learn more, I of course clicked on his name to see if there were any recent articles written by a FanGraphs author detailing Torres’ surge. Figured there would be, likely from a RotoGraphs writer, given the likely demand for information about his future fantasy value.

Sure enough, the talented Matt Klaassen had delivered with a recent piece, entitled The NL’s Second-Best Outfielder, dated July 26. Klaasen, who was unfortunately not in attendance for the FanGraphs Live event, began his article with a sarcastic first paragraph in which he illustrated how unlikely of a scenario it was that Torres ranked second, behind Matt Holliday, among National League outfielders in WAR.

Klaassen:

I suppose it was predictable. If anyone had asked before the season, “who will be two most valuable outfielders in the National League the week of the trade deadline?” I think most analysts would have agreed on two names: Matt Holliday and Andres Torres. Why even look at the leaderboard?

But seriously: Andres Torres?

Klaassen then went into a full analysis of Torres’ strong 2009 campaign and excellent 2010 performance. As I expected to read, he warned readers about a likely significant regression, concluding that he would rather trust the projection systems than a small sample size of data for a 32-year-old outfielder having a career year.

It was a well-constructed argument, and Klaassen is dead right. Torres, like most players who bust out, is almost certain to regress a great deal. The question, though, is how much we should expect him to fall back going forward, and, after reading the comments, I began to wonder if Torres’ two-year production was being discounted too much. According to several apparent Giants fan commenters, Torres completely modified his approach to hitting prior to the 2009 season. A former track athlete with great speed, he was essentially taught how to be a slap hitter while rising through the ranks of professional baseball. It seems that teams thought it would be best for him to hit the ball on the ground, slap the ball the other way and try to get on base by putting the ball in play and best utilizing his plus speed. He was, for all intensive purposes, an Ichiro-style hitter, except nowhere near as talented at it.

According to some, that was the case until Torres did some online research on how to drive the ball more and, as a result, met hitting instructor Chris O’Leary. Again, it is worth mentioning that I was not aware of any of this until clicking on the numerous links about Torres’ emergence from slap hitter to a player who drives the ball mentioned in the comments below the article.*

*Those who feel that nothing can be learned from reading blog comments are clearly mistaken.

The most interesting link was directed to a post on O’Leary’s personal website, in which he writes about his experience working with Torres in the offseason prior to the 2008 offseason. Please give it a full read, but O’Leary basically lays out—including with images of his old and new swing, in .gif form no less—how Torres changed his approach at the plate entirely. It is obviously impossible to know to what exact extent of credit O’Leary deserves, as Torres is still the one hitting, but he did help his client understand a few crucial elements to improving as a hitter.

O’Leary:

What I did was help Andres understand...

• What a good swing actually looks like.
• How and why what he was taught was wrong.
• How his swing differed from Albert Pujols'.
Andres then made it happen.

[2] Based on how Andres was able to turn his career around after (finally) learning what good hitters actually do, you have to wonder if poor hitting instruction has something to do with the phenomenon of the AAAA player.

[3] I knew that Andres actually was moving his swing in the right direction with the Cubs when he went down with an injury to one of his obliques. That was a conditioning and fitness problem that indicated that he was starting to get more power from his core, but that his core wasn't properly conditioned. It made me aware of the need to make sure that people conditioned their cores as they moved to a rotational hitting based swing.

… [5] You can see some good evidence that he took this lesson to heart on Andres Torres' Fangraphs page. His O-Swing%, which is the percent of the time that he swings at pitches outside of the strike zone, is 24.1%. That is down 5 points, or 20 percent, from the 29.0% number he posted in 2009. Similarly, Andres' Z-Swing% is up and his Swing% is down, two more things that suggest greater selectivity. Andres does indeed seem to be doing a better job of getting a good pitch to hit.

… [7] On one of the days when the Giants were in town, Andres and I were talking hitting when he called Pablo Sandoval over. The three of us then started talking about Albert Pujols' swing and how it's consistent with what Ted Williams talks about in his book The Science of Hitting.

Now, there are other factors at play, of course, but Torres’ new outlook on hitting seems like a plausible explanation for the drastic performance improvement. Thus, we may not know exactly what the “mean” is for a player like him, one who seriously changed thanks to a legitimate improvement in his swing. Sometimes, players simply rise to a new talent level, a new baseline, and perhaps that is happening here.

As Klaassen discussed in the original article, Torres was a nice surprise for a weak-hitting San Francisco club in ’09. He slashed .270/.343/.533 with six home runs, a 124 OPS+ and .379 wOBA in 170 plate appearances. In addition, Torres played above-average defense in the outfield, posting an 8.2 UZR, while accumulating an impressive 2.0 WAR in just 75 games when factoring in batting, fielding and positional considerations. For a player with his minor league track record, the Giants certainly had to be pleasantly surprised and received great bang for their buck.

Not that there were not concerns, of course. Torres struck out in just under 30 percent of his plate appearances and, even though athletic players generally post higher BABIP totals than their slower-footed counterparts due to the ability to reach base via infield hits more frequently, a .347 mark was a minor red flag.

Whatever the reason(s), though, Torres has continued to mash in a full-time gig in the follow-up act. Going into Monday, he boasts a line of .289/.372/.504 with 11 homers, a 129 OPS+ and .385 wOBA in 416 plate appearances. Encouragingly, his skill set appears to be solid, too. He has improved both his strikeout rate, down to 23.4 percent, and walk rate, up to 11.1%. And, with his BABIP right around its ’09 level (.352), the speed theory could have some validity, though it of course is subject to fluctuate and is indeed likely to fall some.

Better still, Torres has continued to provide excellent value on the other side of the ball. His UZR is up to a stellar 14.1—odds are, of course, that he is not that valuable with the glove—and brings his WAR to 4.8. Four. Point. Eight. Including last season, Torres has impressively accumulated 6.8 WAR in 176 games, which is not too shabby for a player who appeared to be a journeyman, and whose career prospects were dwindling, not too long ago.

Now, age and decline are concerns. As is the luck aspect of it. For the immediate future, however, I would not be quite as pessimistic on Torres as Klaassen, strictly because the forecast systems cannot account for the new-look hitting style at play in this example. Of course, he again will surely decline a bit and is unlikely to rank among WAR leaders at this point next season. San Francisco appears to have a cheap, quality outfielder on its hands, though, and he is unlikely to completely fall off of a cliff.

And Torres' work with O'Leary reminded me of Ben Zobrist's work with Jaimie Cevallos a year ago, which you can read about in part two.

With two months left before the end of the season, we're basically in stretch run territory. Or the dog days, or where Men Prove That They're Men or whatever you want to call it. We're coming pretty close to the end of the season, is what I'm saying, and given that we're through with the trade deadline (non-waiver, of course) most teams are fairly close to having geared up as best they can. So it seems like a good time to look at how the rest of this season could play out; which teams could get hot, which teams could fade, and which teams could, however improbably, disband after what could only be called a wild scandal involving copious amounts of cocaine and Mickey Tettleton. I figured the best way to do this was with power rankings of some sort, except that I don't actually think power rankings are all that useful, so I ended up adopting the old Simmons technique of grouping teams together based on how I expect them to play the rest of the way.

But this isn't all done on gut feel; oh no! See, in the past, I toyed around with creating a way of ranking teams based on their performance during the season with an eye towards how well they'd perform in the playoffs. The article where I explained it is gone now, but in brief, this is how it works: I measured the correlation of each of wOBA, QERA, run differential and Baseball Prospectus' Secret Sauce with wins throughout the decade of the 1990s, squared that number, and weighted each out of 1. Then, for any given season, I'd multiply a team's rank in any of those categories by the respective weights, then add them up and divide by 4. It creates a simple number that is, as far as I can tell, scaled from 0-10 where the closer to 0 a team is, the better.

For example, the 1994 Montreal Expos ranked 9th in wOBA, 1st in QERA, 2nd in Secret Sauce, and 3rd in run differential. The weights for these categories were, respectively 0.15, 0.1, 0.22, and 0.52. Multiply each of those together, then add it up and divide by 4, and you get 0.868, which is fantastic. Is it a mathematically sound way of ranking teams? Almost certainly not! But, hey, it can't be any worse than just picking teams 1-30, and if my system isn't the worst, then I'm happy to use it. The teams as follows aren't ranked exactly 30-1, but the groups are heavily influenced by the rankings, and teams within groups will be ordered from worst to best. E.g. the Orioles do rank 30th and the Pirates 29th, but the White Sox are grouped better than the higher-ranked Blue Jays by virtue of the fact that they can actually win their division. Let's hop to!

Group 1: No Hope

Baltimore Orioles

They simply weren't supposed to be this bad this year. There's talent to be had in Baltimore, but they've repeatedly failed to develop it. Going forward, they do have a solid core to look forward to both on the mound and at the plate; Luke Scott is excellent now, and Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and Nick Markakis should be a fairly competent middle of their lineup in the years to come. Plus, Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton, and Chris Tillman should make for a very good rotation. But, as we've seen in the past, 'should' doesn't mean much in Baltimore.

Pittsburgh Pirates

A solid trade deadline brought in some more useful pieces to a team that's rebuilding slowly but....well, slowly. Good pieces exist (McCutchen, Snyder, Jones, Alvarez, Tabata Lincoln, McDonald, Alderson), but there's not much cohesion, and the starting rotation doesn't look like it'll really be pieced together for some time yet. GM Neal Huntington deserves praise for his embracing of cost-controlled players, but they need to start augmenting with top talent in the years to come. Better drafts will fix that.

Seattle Mariners

We knew they were building around pitching and defense, but I don't know that anyone expected their offense to be the worst in the league - or their pitching to fall as flat on its face as it has. They don't even have viable trade pieces; Russell Branyan could be moved before the waiver deadline, but this team is mostly entrenched for the time being.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Their stadium must be even more hitter-friendly than I thought, because I cannot figure out how this team underperformed (at least my) expectations so spectacularly. Well, I mean, I can say it's because their pitching has been horrendous this season - I just don't know why their pitchers were all so bad. They can hit, though; they're 13th in the league in wOBA, and Adam LaRoche has traditionally been a good second-half hitter. But after two consecutive bad years I think I should refrain from being optimistic about the Dbacks.

Cleveland Indians

They've had a surprisingly good season out of Fausto Carmona, Carlos Santana has arrived, and Shin-Soo Choo has played up to his excellent standards. But even those (however small) bright spots don't change the fact that they're a bottom-five team in MLB. As a group, they neither hit nor pitch well, and they don't have much coming up that could change that in the near future.

Kansas City Royals

They've hit surprisingly well; I'm sure you've heard that they were somewhat recently leading the league in batting average. Think what you will of the stat, but any time a team is hitting .280, it's kind of impressive - especially when it's a squad so recently helpless as the Royals. Alex Gordon was recalled, and Kila Ka'aihue finally, finally got his call to the bigs, so the offense could get even better. Unfortunately, they don't have any pitching beyond Zack Greinke and Joakim Soria - and Greinke's showing that while he's still an ace, last year's superlative performance was almost certainly a fluke.

Houston Astros

They traded Roy Oswalt, so their rotation's top-10 performance (8th in FIP) is going to drop off somewhat. They traded Lance Berkman, so their offense...well, their offense is just going to keep on being awful. Chris Johnson has done a really nice (BABIP-aided) job of providing punch so far, but the fringe prospect isn't likely to keep scalding the ball the way he is now. Carlos Lee only has a year left on his deal, though, and Brett Wallace should be a good hitter sooner rather than later. They didn't get enough in the Oswalt/Berkman trades to be competitive any time soon, but they do have a bit of talent to play with.

Group 2: Deeply Flawed

Washington Nationals

I didn't know if it was like legal to start off this blurb with words other than 'Stephen Strasburg,' so I'm trying it out to see what happens. If I don't write again, well, you know why. But, yeah, Kid Cannon has been all that we hoped for in his first season, though I'm not fond of the way the Nationals are handling him right now. Why DL him now and have him get going again for September, when you're not even going to be competing? But, whatever. He'll be a mainstay atop that rotation for awhile, and they've got a ton of depth behind him, if not many standouts; Jordan Zimmermann, Chien-Ming Wang, Garrett Mock, Jason Marquis and Scott Olsen are scheduled to return from injury during the last two months. They do struggle to hit, though; Ryan Zimmerman is a stud, and Adam Dunn should have a couple good years left, but there's not much beyond them - until Bryce Harper arrives.

Milwaukee Brewers

Now here's a team that can hit, but can't pitch. The 7th-best lineup in MLB hasn't powered the Brewers to many good things this season, but Rickie Weeks has emerged into a legitimate third stick behind (or in front of, based on the lineup) Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. Braun's lack of power this season has been troubling, but he's remained productive; if Fielder sticks around, they could have a good lineup locked up for the near future. But, he probably won't stay, and they probably shouldn't pay him to do so; they have too many pitching needs to commit to a guy like Fielder. Would've been nice to trade him, eh? Yovani Gallardo is the only guy in that rotation that I'd trust every fifth day right now, and the only way they can compete with the Cardinals and Reds (and Cubs?) in the future is to address that issue.

Los Angeles Angels

The Angels have a history of overshooting run differential and other predictive factors, so the fact that I rank them this low shouldn't be that surprising; like seemingly every season, they don't measure up well by the numbers, but remain in contention. Trading for Dan Haren was a stroke of genius, but after his first start ended abruptly when a line drive struck his pitching forearm, I'm concerned about his performance going forward - at least for the next start or two. The thing is, there's not that many starts left, so even a bad start or two could really hamper their chances. And not only do they not have a great lineup to bolster their staff, but their bullpen has been shaky as well. Hullo Fernando Rodney and your millions!

Los Angeles Dodgers

Trading for Ted Lilly will help, though I don't know that Ryan Theriot is much of an upgrade over Blake DeWitt, if he is at all. And anyway, the Dodgers' hitting issues run too deep for a weak bat like Theriot's (or Scott Podsednik's ) to really fix, although anything that takes away ABs from Garret Anderson is a plus at this point. But even with the promise that Manny Ramirez will get healthy, down years from Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier (terrible since returning from that early-season injury) make it so that adding Lilly to a rotation that ranks 4th in FIP seems like an indulgence that came at the cost of a more pressing need. This team doesn't have the hitting to contend in the suddenly-tough NL West.

Group 3: Spoiler Ball

Detroit Tigers

They've been hitting well all season, but a recent spate of injuries is going to drag down that performance. The question becomes, then, whether or not the pitching staff can handle the responsibility of carrying the team through what will likely be a tough offensive stretch (and has indeed already seen them get no-hit once). I think they can; Justin Verlander's FIP is a nifty 3.23, which is disappointing only in the way that Zack Greinke's similar FIP is disappointing, Max Scherzer and Jeremy Bonderman have both pitched much better than their ERAs show, and Rick Porcello and Armando Galarraga....well, you could do worse to round out a rotation; both, at least, are posting FIPs under 5. I don't see them really contending for the division, but I think they have the potential to put together a nice stretch run.

New York Mets

They've been pitching better than we could've expected given the terrible state of their rotation, and especially considering that John Maine barely pitched this year. The lineup has been underwhelming thusfar, but Carlos Beltran's return is still pretty recent, so they could get hot and start mashing baseballs with the ferociousness. And that's about enough of saying good things about the Mets. Hey, did you see they lost 14-1 to the Diamondbacks? Good stuff.

Oakland Athletics

The only reason I'm so intrigued with their performance is that they've managed to post a positive run differential despite being abused by injuries and having a really, just...just terrible offense. Jack Cust has been a monster, but no one else has impressed at the plate; on the mound, they're somehow stringing up a 4.19 staff FIP despite the fact that their best pitcher, Brett Anderson, has spent most of the season hurt. Ben Sheets was really good before he got hurt; Trevor Cahill, Dallas Braden, Vin Mazzaro and Gio Gonzalez have done yeoman's work in the absence of the injury-prone duo, and should only improve as Anderson returns for the stretch run.

Chicago Cubs

There is literally one reason why the Cubs are here, and it's because they've been so bad this season. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I'm saying that they were supposed to be better than this; they were supposed to be, like, a .500 team. Their run differential is worse than it should be given their performance at the plate and on the mound, so I expect the team to regress to expectations during these next two months. That is, I expect them to play well by default. This already looks like a bad idea.

Florida Marlins

Their rotation has the 3rd-best FIP in baseball...but their lineup has the 6th-worst wOBA. Hanley Ramirez has underwhelmed while Josh Johnson has dazzled; Chris Coghlan has fizzled while Anibal Sanchez has shone. Dan Uggla and Gaby Sanchez are pulling their weight at the plate, but the team's going to need big contributions from other hitters if they're going to be contenders any time soon. Mike Stanton will help eventually; right now, they have to hope that Good Ricky Nolasco shows up, in which case they have three shutdown pitchers at the top of their rotation.

Toronto Blue Jays

It's painful to put them in the spoiler category, because they've been so, so good this year - to say nothing of how entertaining a team they are. They've got a top-10 lineup and rotation, and yet because they're stuck in the AL East, their excellent play is irrelevant. Very annoying. Anyway, they drew a lot of flack for not moving Jose Bautista or Scott Downs, and while it would've been nice to flip Downs for prospects in a market that's overvaluing relief pitchers, Toronto fans still have a good product to watch.

Group 4: Contenders

Philadelphia Phillies

The addition of Roy Oswalt will be really nice, but Scary Brad Lidge is coming back (much to my delight) and they just cannot get healthy. When Victorino gets back, though, they could bench Ibanez and run out a lineup featuring Victorino, Domonic Brown, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Jimmy Rollins and, oh yeah, that Utley guy who's been hurt most of the season. I hear he's kinda good. They'll be dangerous.

Cincinnati Reds

I know that they're only half a game back in the Central, but they simply have not pitched well enough to sustain a performance like that. Edinson Volquez has been hurt all year and is finally back, but he's displaying the lack of control and commad typical of Tommy John returnees; he'll need to be ace-like if they're going to keep up with the Cardinals. This is still a top-5 offense, though, so it's not like the outlook is bleak; if Jay Bruce would get it together, they'd be an offensive juggernaut.

Chicago White Sox

Best pitching in the league? Check. Dominant bullpen? And how. Good hitting? More or less. Gordon Beckham has struggled this year, but is starting to turn his season around; his talent suggests that we can expect big things down the stretch. If they'd added Adam Dunn and if Jake Peavy and his 4.08 FIP were healthy, I'd think they were the favorites to take the division. As is, though, their lack of pitching depth scares me (Danks-Floyd-Buehrle-Jackson-Garcia starts well and then just goes off the cliff), and the Twins have scored more runs than the White Sox while allowing one fewer. Should be a dogfight, but the Twins have the edge.

San Francisco Giants

Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox have been as unlucky with injuries as any other team in baseball, and yet they still have the best wOBA in baseball. Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury (plus Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek, I guess) will be returning from injury, which will make the lineup even more potent - a necessary luxury given the avearge (15th in FIP) pitching staff. Josh Beckett will be a pitcher to watch over the next two months; his 6.33 ERA is more a reflection of his insanely bad luck (.348 BABIP, 58% strand rate) than bad pitching (4.12 FIP).

Group 5: Favorites

Texas Rangers

Classic Rangers: great offense, not much pitching. The addition of Cliff Lee, though, should be huge; they could've won the division without him, but could now be a tough matchup in the playoffs. Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz have been otherworldly, and Vladimir Guerrero is having the comeback year that few could've expected. Adding Jorge Cantu and Cristian Guzman will help a bit; ultimately, though, I don't know if they're good enough to beat the Yankees or Rays.

I'm standing by them as my World Series pick. Troy Tulowitzki and Jorge de la Rosa are back, the entire rotation and six bullpen guys clock in below 4.00 FIP, and their lineup - as evidenced by the outburst against the Cubs the other day - is as potent as any in the league (6th in wOBA). On any given night, they'll only have one below-average hitter in the lineup, and Todd Helton (.392 wOBA last year) is due to rejoin the team as soon as today. I will note that this is my biggest departure from the rankings; I swapped the Rockies with the Giants because too many Giants pitchers are due for regression and the difference between the two lineups is too vast.

St. Louis Cardinals

I'm less excited about this team since they swapped Ryan Ludwick's bat for Jake Westbrook's below-average arm, but they're still the class of the NL Central. Their pitching staff was already their best asset, and even an average performance from Westbrook will be beneficial. But if they run into a cold streak at the plate (like when Jon Jay stops hitting .424 on balls in play) they could collapse hard enough that the Reds catch them. It's unlikely, but it could happen.

Atlanta Braves

With a lineup that's boasting an average wOBA despite a lack of power and a rotation that's 6th in MLB in FIP, the Braves have earned their high ranking. And yet...they don't seem all that trustworthy. Martin Prado's injury could really hurt the squad, and Alex Gonzalez's likely regression already portends bad things for the offense. Ultimately, like last year, the team will go as far as their pitching takes them - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The bullpen has been dominant, and all of the starters have been good...but not great. They're going to need the Phillies to cooperate a bit, I'd say, but they do have a bit of a head start.

Minnesota Twins

The team's weakest link before the trade deadline was their bullpen. They may've overpaid to add Matt Capps to the back of it, but there's no denying that he shores up the one question mark on a team that is 3rd in hitting, 5th in pitching, and boasting the 3rd best run differential in baseball. The Twins are scary good; indeed, they might be one starting pitcher away from being World Series contenders.

San Diego Padres

They're easily the most handicapped team this high in the rankings; their 26th-best wOBA is abysmal. But their pitching, defense, and bullpen have been magnificent, and while I have my doubts that they can maintain their pace given that they're essentially punting 'offense,' they've done well enough thusfar that I sort of have to believe they can keep it up.

Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays have baseball's second best run differential despite an 8th-ranked offense and 13th-ranked pitching staff. Their bullpen is dominant, which certainly helps, and MVP candidate Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria, and Ben Zobrist have powered the offense very well. If Jeremy Hellickson can succeed where Wade Davis (and, to a lesser extent, Matt Garza) have failed, then it'll be an enormous shot in the arm for one of the best teams in baseball.

New York Yankees

The Yankees have baseball's 2nd-best wOBA despite more than a few underwhelming individual performances (Teixeira, Rodriguez, Jeter, Granderson). They also have Lance Berkman coming in to serve as DH. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a solution to a problem - one they'll need if they're going to hit their way to another championship. Don't get me wrong, their pitching staff is good, but Javier Vazquez and A.J. Burnett haven't been all that effective and Andy Pettitte is due to regress towards his near-4.00 FIP.  This is, of course, nitpicking; we're still talking about the team with the best run differential and record in baseball. The Yankees are as dangerous as ever.