What Do the Cardinals Do Now?

Social media, gchat, and the city of St. Louis are all currently on fire at the moment. 10 years and $250 million later, Albert Pujols has signed with the Los Angeles Angels. While most of our first reactions were to take small shots at fellow Start Wedman writer Cooly, now is the time to dig deeper into the deal and predict what happens because of it. The way I see it, the Cardinals have a few options out there.

1) Stay Put: In Cooly's current stage of denial, he maintains that the lineup is fine the way it is right now. Just beef up the pitching staff, sign Magglio, and head into the season with what the Cardinals have right now. It's just like it was last season. . .right? Oh yeah, Albert is gone.

2) Go International: Sign Yu Darvish and the amazing, ever so great, most terrific baseball player in the universe Yoenis Cespedes. That way they make a splash and become an international phenomenon.

However, then came an amazing idea that not only could work, but could become revolutionary and change Major League Baseball forever. . .

3) Go Inter-league/sport: Instead of signing a couple of veteran players to fill the roster holes, why not reach out to a couple of teams that are currently trying to unload their superstars?

TRADE #1: Lance Lynn, Tony Cruz, 2012 MLB First Round Pick, 2013 MLB First Round Pick, and Cash to the Orlando Magic for 2013 NBA First Round Pick, Dwight Howard, and Hedo Turkoglu

In this trade, the Orlando get a capable big man in Lance Lynn (6' 5" - 250lbs), a back up point guard for Nelson in Tony Cruz, a couple of first round picks, and salary relief for the monster contract of Hedo Turkoglu. The Cardinals nab big man Dwight Howard with an amazing range to snag any ball or throw that might come near him. Turkoglu then comes out of the pen to fill the MLB's 1-Turkish Player-per-team quota. The Cardinals also get a valuable NBA draft pick in order to complete. . .

TRADE #2: Ryan Theriot, PTBNL, 2013 NBA First Round Pick, and Cash to the New Orleans Hornets for Chris Paul

While the city of New Orleans kind of gets the short end of the stick on this deal, Paul was going to leave the Hornets in the end anyways, so they at least obtained a poor man's Steve Nash in Ryan Theriot and a draft pick out of the deal. The Cardinals end up coming away the victor as they immediately pick up a new center fielder that has enough range to cover all three outfield positions who can also lead off and get on base 89% of the time. St. Louis then moves Jon Jay to the bench because he isn't really as good as people think.

So now after the two trades, the Cardinals line-up looks like this:

1. Chris Paul (CF)

2. Furcal (Who they resign and play SS)

3. Berkman (RF)

4. Holliday (LF)

5. Freese (3B)

6. Molina (C)

7. Punto (2B)

8. Pitcher

9. Dwight Howard (1B to provide protection for the pitcher's spot)

While this team has a very different look and feel as the Cardinals that won the 2011 MLB World Series, the 2012 squad has a lot more speed and athleticism. Pujols was great, but who needs him when you have Superman at first and the speedy Paul covering the outfield.

So do not fret St. Louis Cardinals fans, there is still hope for your team. Winter meetings are not over yet and the NBA season still hasn't started. I cannot wait to see how transpires in the upcoming weeks.

As always, I wrote this as fast as humanly possible. If there are mistakes, errors, or simply a lack of mental coherence, just stop reading.

Yoenis Cespedes: The Showcase

I have paused the showcase video of Yoenis Cespesdes at 5:17 right now because I realized how amazing it is. I am also not sure how I have lived this long in my life without ever seeing a video of this magnitude. Anyways, since it has been a rather slow and boring MLB off-season so far, I have been searching near and far for anything relevant to baseball. Then I found what might be the greatest showcase video ever created. A showcase video so amazing that only a running diary can truly capture what is going through my mind as I write it. Here we go.

0:49 - I honestly had to stop the video to tweet about the sweet inspiring music that is going on right now. While I haven't actually seen his picture or any type of baseball being played, listening to some dude speak Spanish while being accompanied by inspirational music really has me wanting to go dunk a basketball, punch a random individual, or go spend $13 at Taco Bell.

2:09 - UPDATE! The inspirational music, Spanish speaking gentleman, and Star Wars credit words have finally stopped. I have enough adrenaline pumping to punt an elephant.

3:34 - Shortly after the credits stopped rolling, we get a glimpse into the baseball player that is Yoenis Cespedes. Using a rather slow song (no clue what song it is) and extreme slow motion, the viewers get strange little video clips of Yoenis hitting home runs. While I am excited to see him swing the bat and hit the ball as far as he can, the music has me feeling sad and confused. Did Yoenis just get dumped by his girlfriend? This mark in the video is also of a clip where he hits a long home run, stands to watch how far the ball goes for 8 seconds (not lying), all while someone in the stands plays some sort of trumpet.

4:53 - This mark shows a clip of Yoenis hitting home run #32 of the year which also ties the Cuban single season home run record. While that is nice, this is America. With all of this hype and a 20 minute Youtube showcase video, I thought he would be tying the Cuban home run record at 86, not 32. Disappointed.

5:36 - Shows the record breaking grand slam that Yoenis hits. How did I know it was record breaking? Because a rather loud "glass shattering" sound effect plays and scares me into choking on my cookie cake. This is followed by the Spanish speaking announcers going on for 30 seconds and I have no clue what they are saying.

6:13 - AIRPLANE SOUND EFFECT!!!! "I've done all I can in Cuba, now I must move on." Apparently this is the transition from baseball player to work out guru. Suddenly, I have no clue what is going on.

6:41 - Now we all get to see Yoenis work out without a shirt on. Classy move. It's a well known fact that baseball players work out better without a shirt on. Also, if I'm not mistaken, that is Chris Brown blaring out of my computer speakers. Final note, whoever is filming this video on the track is either running along with him, riding a bicycle, or is purposely shaking the camera as hard as he/she can. I may get sick.

8:23 - Still rocking the Chris Brown music, we all get to see Yeonis do some leg press. Not only is he leg pressing a lot of weight, he is leg pressing two of his friends who are most certainly "too excited" that they are helping him out. Seriously, look at their faces, that is pure arousal. It also just came up on the screen that he is currently benching 1300 lbs. Not sure if that is true or not, but I'm pretty sure that isn't that much.

10:29 - We get to see Yoenis shagging fly balls in right field. Apparently they don't teach catching the ball with two hands in Cuba.

10:47 - I was going to talk more about his poor fielding skills when the video transitioned into an extremely erotic workout between Yoenis and his workout partner. While this part of the video made me uncomfortable, it got worse when they used slow motion to show off his "CORE POWER!"

11:24 - They are still working out in slow motion. . .

11:27 - Now we see how Yoenis handles the center field position as he shags fly balls once again. More importantly, this clip shows how focused he is on catching fly balls. It doesn't even phase Yoenis when a random four wheeler drives behind him. That is an important skill that will transfer into the MLB. He also catches a ball behind his back. Well done Yoenis. I could do that when I was 9.

12:53 - I didn't update for the last minute and a half because I was enamored by how amazing his "CORE STRENGTH" was. At this point the viewer gets another look at some fielding practice that Yoenis is taking with the kids from the Cuban movie El Sandlote.

15:39 - DOING WHATEVER IT TAKES TO BE THE BEST!!!!!!!! AIRPLANE SOUND EFFECTS!!!!!! I am totally thrown by the fact that his little airplane graphic lands in ?, USA. What does this even mean? Does he not know the cities that certain teams play in? Would he really play for the Astros if they signed him?

16:22 - Now a map of the United States with each of the MLB teams logos on their respective cities. The ? logo is right in the middle but is right about the Twins logo. Is that subliminal messaging by Yoenis? Does he want to play for the twins? Has he ever seen snow?

16:38 - Here comes a slow scrolling stat sheet on various aspects of his career. Mind you, we have had complete silence in this video for the last two minutes or so. Not sure if this is done on purpose or not. Either way, it is making me want to see him leg press more and more weight! It also just scrolled through 3 paragraphs of text. No human can read that fast.

18:02 - A "Thank you" message is being posted on the screen. Strange because there are still over 2 minutes remaining in the video. Also, still in complete radio silence.

18:22 - Some words just flashed on the screen for a mili-second as a strange woman softball player is shown. I like the applause sound effects. We now find out that it is his mom. Strange children are cheering.

18:48 - Did he really just thank Ahman Green? Is this where Green went after his days with the Texans? Also, right after the "Thank you" went away, why was there a cow mooing sound effect?

18:55 - Yoenis also has a nice thank you tribute to his family and friends at this point. It shows three of his "friends" dancing to some sweet music while being shirtless and bad at dancing. This goes on for more than 30 seconds.

19:27 - No more thank yous, but just in case any of the MLB teams were wondering, yes, Yoenis can cook a pig.

19:58 - I almost thought that the pig part was an accident and wasn't meant to be apart of the showcase video, however, then Yoenis tells everyone The End with a red letter H and a pink letter N. Extremely confused.

If this video took me over an hour to watch and critique, how long did MLB execs take to watch the video. I am still currently sitting in silence because I am not sure what to do next. I do know though, that I need to work on my abs, pig cooking, and behind the back fly ball catching. After I have mastered all of the above, I will be ready to sign with the Twins.

FINAL NOTE: I am in shock right now and cannot proof read. This is raw, uncut, work out watching emotion right here. If you care that much, you shouldn't be reading it anyways.

2011 Free Agent Predictions

Yes I know, I am a little late to the party, but it's not my fault that the prediction emails were still coming in as of Wednesday. Not to mention, some of them weren't even filled all of the way out (Mr. Anonymous). If you go back and look at the predictions from StartWedman's 2011 Free Agent prediction piece, the results were not good. Somehow, Mr. Anonymous won with only 5 correct free agent picks. Terrible. However, this is the year that we all come out on top and correctly predict each and every free agent. Or at least the most important ones to us.

1. Albert Pujols - Three out of the four writers that contributed to the predictions think that Prince Albert will be staying at home with the St. Louis Cardinals. Only Peck, who will now start out 0 for 1, believes that he will land with the Yankees.

2. Prince Fielder - Now this one is a little more split up. We all threw out different teams in a hope that one of us nails the correct option. However, you can be sure that Fielder will end up playing for the Rangers, Angels, Giants, or Nationals by the end of the off-season.

3. Michael Cuddyer - Two votes for the Twins, one for the Red Sox, and one for the Royals puts Cuddyer in the category of "who really cares?".

4. Craig Counsell - While he may be approaching the ripe age of 50, Counsell is still an integral part of any playoff baseball team. He provides a sub .200 batting average with below average. . .well below average power. Still, he will be taking his talents to the Brewers (2 votes), Royals, or Cardinals.

5. Jose Reyes - Even with the latest reports that he may be signing with the Marlins, here at StartWedman, we know all. Even though Mr. Anonymous refused to vote for this one, the majority of the writers believe that he will end up signing with the Red Sox, while I think the Giants will pay for his talents.

6. Jimmy Rollins - Phillies for all four votes. We are probably going to be wrong on that one.

7. Nick Punto - He was an interesting variety of choices from the StartWedman staff. Realistically, he will sign with either the Giants or Cardinals. However, other options included playing for the Italian national team or passing away this off-season.

8. Omar Vizquel - Between retirement, becoming a player/coach for the Marlins, or signing with the Indians or Giants, young Omar Vizquel seems to have an amazing break out season planned for 2012. On a side note, where does he find such tight baseball pants?

9. Josh Willingham - A power bat with a decent average is always a hot commodity on the free agent market. The Cubs, White Sox, Nationals, and Brewers are all contending for his services.

10. Coco Crisp - Whether it is stealing 50+ bases or providing you with a delicious breakfast, Coco should find a new home pretty quickly. Cooly believes the White Sox will swap out weak hitting lefty speed (Pierre) for weak hitting lefty speed when they sign Crisp. Other votes were for Indians (2) and the Royals.

11. Grady Sizemore - Since the Red Sox just met with Grady, and I chose Grady to go to the Red Sox, I am pretty sure that I am, and always will be, correct. Mets, Rays, and Athletics also received votes.

12. Carlos Beltran - Giants, Tigers, Red Sox, or Rangers. He may have just rally killed this article.

13. Brandon Webb - There isn't much buzz right now on the status of this former Cy Young winner's destination. Mr. Anonymous refused to vote, Cooly thinks he will be playing slow pitch softball with Eric Byrnes, while Peck and I think he could land with the Braves or Nationals.

14. Roy Oswalt - I think most people forget what a dominant pitcher he was with the Astros. Derailed by injury last year, 2012 will be the chance for him to get back on track. Whether it is with the Yankees (2), Astros, or Rockies, Oswalt is still good. Also, please check out the link on his name. Awesome.

15. Yu Darvish - Besides all of the amazing Asian promo videos he is bringing to the United States, Darvish will also bring a solid season for one lucky team. Peck still thinks he will end up back in Japan, but the Blue Jays, Yankees, and Cubs are all favored to win his talents. The logo on his jersey though does look like the new Miami Marlins style. . .

16. Bruce Chen - Or should we call him. . .MVP of the universe. Dominant master of the world. Bruce Chen defines what all is man. However, that didn't mean that Mr. Anonymous would vote for him. The other three writers did though and think he will end up pitching for the Red Sox, Yankees, or Royals in 2012.

Random picks will land Aramis Ramirez with the Newark Bears or the Pirates. So there you have it. While it isn't a complete list of the 2011 MLB Free Agents, it is the only one that matters. If you don't like it, you can get out.

To Bunt or Not to Bunt: The Great Debate

There has been an on-going debate over the past few years between writers here at StartWedman over the effectiveness of the sacrifice bunt. While I am firmly on one side of the fence, I will try to remain objective in my focus and analysis of the sacrifice bunt as a great and beneficial move for any club ever in the history of the game. Get it?

While I am almost positive that I stand alone on the pro-bunting side, we all do have to agree that whether they should bunt or not is extremely relative to the situation, who is batting, who comes up next, and what time of the year games are being played. While we are currently having a bunting argument over the World Series game last night, if this game was played in April, we would be idiots for caring.

For the sake of an even playing field, lets all assume that there is a runner on first with no outs when explaining/defending any of out points.

My pro-bunting argument mostly lands on the fact that runners are more likely to score if they are on second base rather than first. Regardless of the batter's batting average or power, it is easier to hit a single than a double, triple, or homerun. Just ask Craig Counsell.

I also tend to believe that there are most "good" possible outcomes when bunting the runner over than the "bad" outcomes of letting the batter swing away. For example, there are really only two "bad" outcomes of the sacrifice bunt. 1) You are handing the other team a free out (which I do not deny) and 2) you are taking the bat out 1 or more of your batters' hands. However, there are more "good" outcomes of the sacrifice bunt. 1) You move the runner into scoring position, 2) a speedy batter could potentially beat out a throw, or 3) the fielder commits an error.

So if you bunt, there are multiple chances for it to be a successful or unsuccessful move. No argument there. But I still believe that it is still a better option than letting someone swing away. With a runner on first and no outs, a few "good" outcomes can happen. Either the batter can get on base (ie. hit, walk, error etc.) or the batter can subsequently move the runner over in some other form. But remember, baseball is a game where some of the best players tend to fail 70% of the time. A fly ball and the runner stays on first with one out instead of standing on second. A ground ball and you either end up with a runner on first with one out or a double play. A strike out leaves you in the same boat.

Obviously, you aren't going to have Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder lay down a bunt, but putting a runner in scoring position for players of that caliber increases the likelihood of scoring a run. In the case of Elvis Andrus and the at bat that caused this, Andrus laid down a bunt and moved Ian Kinsler over into scoring position for arguably the best two hitters on the Rangers. While it did not pan out, it gave them the best chance to take the lead. The inning would have taken on a different feel had Andrus grounded into a double play.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Never thought this would be happening in mid-August.

Cards in five.

Extreme Hate Edition: Gerardo Parra

I have never tried to hide my true feelings for Gerardo Parra. Just look at him. He looks like someone from a JR Tolkien series that stole a Dbacks jersey and somehow made his way onto the field. Not to mention, since I am your resident Diamondbacks expert, and #1 fan, I will tell you who you can and cannot hate in Arizona.

While my feelings about Gerardo are nothing new, I found myself at an all-time low when I tried to theorize that maybe Juan Pierre would be a better option for the Diamondbacks left field situation. However, let's not forget, Juan Pierre is never a better option. . .than anyone. . .ever. I actually tried to argue with people on the comment section of the Arizona Diamondbacks beat writer's blog about justifying Pierre over Parra. That is when I knew. . . I had just hit a new level of hatred for a baseball player. Did I really just say that I wanted a slap hitting left fielder that can't throw the ball farther than my sister? Do I really want someone who doesn't know how to properly size their clothing or own a mirror or wear their hat correctly?

Maybe it is my resentment against the Diamondbacks for letting Conor Jackson go after his losing battle with Valley Fever. Maybe it's the fact that Adam Dunn never panned out. Maybe I still feel that hate for whoever plays LF ever since Eric Byrnes left the Dbacks to go play softball in Seattle. Couple that with the fact that Parra hasn't done anything offensively in Arizona in his first three years, you get a deep down loathing for someone I have never met.

Ever since arriving in Arizona three years ago, Parra has managed to hit 16 home runs. While that may seem awesome to the average fan, please remember that he is hitting in Phoenix. Chase Field ranks second in the league in altitude and the Diamondbacks have been ranked top five in home runs the past few years. Any one of the writers here at StartWedman, aside from Cooly, could hit more than 16 home runs at Chase Field in a given year, let alone three years combined. His .292 batting average is extremely deceiving as well. It might look nice, but A) he chokes in pressure situations, B) he batted 8th most of the season in front of the pitcher, and C) he looks like a gremlin.

My main argument against these bloggers was how bad Parra's defense was this year. While they all argued that he has a cannon of an arm (and I will agree with that), I wasn't sure if they watched the games I watched all year. With my MLB.tv package, I was easily able to see more than 60 Diamondbacks games this year and during each one, I ended up tweeting to most of the Dbacks personnel trying to get rid of Parra. He has 13 errors over his first three seasons which by itself, is not very good. For comparison sake, Nate McLouth has 13 errors in his 7 year career. What this stat doesn't take into account are the mental errors. At least once a week there was a Diamondbacks highlight of Parra running in circles looking for the ball in the air. Multiple times did he dive for a ball that was well out of reach. TERRIBLE, AWFUL, defense from someone that everyone seems to love but me.

The worst part about it is that fact that he is only 24 years old and there is no end in site. The Diamondbacks top LF prospect is still 2+ years away from the majors and the Dbacks brass seems to love him. Maybe it's because he is marketable to the surrounding community, but it is not for his baseball ability. So please, give me anyone else. . .even Juan Pierre. I can't go through another season with Gizmo for a left fielder.

Coming Soon: Ronny Cedeno

2011 Start Wedman MVP Voting

Time to show our support for the democratic system around here again and decide who ultimately deserves the MVP. Since our opinions are just as dumb as those of the typical BBWAA member, I like to think that last year's winners, Jose Bautista and Joey Votto, were more honored to receive our first inaugural MVP award. And once again, shenanigans are about to be had.

The process remains the same as last year with the writers of this great site contributing their votes and Fangraphs offering a WAR buffer vote to counteract any Steve Bartman-esque nominations. The only difference is that there were only four voters instead of five this year. First place votes will be in parentheses next to the player.

We pride ourselves in being gentlemen through and through here at Start Wedman, so we will allow the oldest (and worst) of the two leagues to go first. And the 2011 Start Wedman NL MVP award goes to...

1	Matt Kemp (4)	47
2	Ryan Braun (1)	43
3	Justin Upton	27
4	Roy Halladay	25
5	Albert Pujols	19
6	Joey Votto	17
7	Jose Reyes	15
8	Clayton Kershaw	12
9	Lance Berkman	12
10	Troy Tulowitzki	8
11	Bruce Chen	8
12	Cameron Maybin	6
13	Dan Uggla	5
14	Cliff Lee	5
15	Prince Fielder	5
16	Starlin Castro	5
17	Emilio Bonifacio	3
18	Logan Morrison	3
19	Brandon Phillips	2
20	Michael Morse	2
21	Nyjer Morgan	2
22	Shane Victorino	1
23	Rick Ankiel	1
24	Michael Bourn	1
25	Andrew McCutchen	1

After leading the Dodgers to a season one game above break-even, Matt Kemp has taken the award with his off the charts season. I was the only one who slotted Braun above Kemp, mainly because I believe that his season mattered more since he was on a playoff team not cleaning up against the scrubs of the NL West. Plus, I don't see Kemp as the type of person who would be able to endure this sort of joking around. And that's what I ultimately want in an MVP candidate - a bro with a sense of humor.

Although the biggest item to note is that Bruce Chen received 8 points despite never donning an NL uniform this year. But I allowed the vote to stand, unlike Fangraphs. Democracy rules!

Let's see how Chen fairs in the AL MVP vote. Could he take home the award?

1	Jose Bautista (2)	40
2	Jacoby Ellsbury (1)	39
3	Miguel Cabrera	34
4	Justin Verlander (1)	28
5	Curtis Granderson	25
6	Dustin Pedroia	18
7	Ian Kinsler	16
8	Bruce Chen	11
9	Josh Hamilton (1)	10
10	Michael Young	10
11	CC Sabathia	7
12	Melky Cabrera	7
13	Ben Zobrist	5
14	Adam Jones	5
15	Adrian Gonzalez	5
16	Brandon Allen	4
17	Paul Konerko	4
18	Adam Dunn	3
19	Alex Gordon	2
20	Coco Crisp	1
22	James Shields	1

Well, fiddlesticks. Sorry, Bruce Chen; so close though with your 8th place finish. Instead, Jose Bautista takes home his second straight Start Wedman AL MVP award by another single point, over Jacoby Ellsbury this time.

And once again, the AL voting has been lampooned by our quality writers. First, Josh Hamilton received one single first place vote, which amounted to his only vote; I hope something similar happens in the real MVP voting sometime. Despite all the hype, Start Wedman clearly does not support Justin Verlander's bid to Eckersley the awards this year. Brandon Allen is flattered. Alex Gordon's vote is actually not a joke vote; he was tenth in WAR this year in the American League. And finally, Adam Dunn probably did have the greatest impact of any one player on his team's season, so he receives his deserving points.

Congratulations once again to Jose Bautista as well as newcomer to the MVP posse, Matt Kemp. I would love to get you two awards and send them your way, but this blog kind of fails to create revenues for itself.

Better luck next year, Bruce Chen!

Pointless Analysis, Part 2 of likely 4

Now that the season has fully wrapped up, the time has come to apply some more Pointless Analysis. Luckily, this time, I will refrain from jinxing any remaining teams, sorry Braves and Red Sox.

Today's session is a nice and easy appetizer for the more intense waste of time I will bother with in the next two posts. Two quick comparisons of my previous, early season predictions to the finalized standings, in order of final win/loss record find their way to the menu today. The two main reasons for this are to one, figure out well my process predicting the final standings, and two, add to the pointlessness of this entire endeavor since baseball's unbalanced schedule makes a one through thirty ranking of the teams' records fairly pointless.

When I ultimately compared the final standings to my original predictions, here are the five biggest winners and losers based on the number of rankings spots they jumped or fell, respectively:

WINNERS
1. Arizona Diamondbacks +21
2. Milwaukee Brewers +17
3. Detroit Tigers +14
4. Cleveland Indians +12
5. Toronto Blue Jays +9

LOSERS
1. Minnesota Twins -19
T2. Colorado Rockies -17
T2. Chicago White Sox -17
T4. San Diego Padres -14
T4. Baltimore Orioles -14

In addition, the "worst player" process correctly predicted the final standings of three teams (Astros, Angels, and Rays). When looking at the losers are winners, for the most part, the most surprising teams (Diamondbacks, Indians, Blue Jays) and biggest disappointments (Twins, Rockies, White Sox) overall based on anyone's initial predictions all make an appearance. So the "worst player" ranking system was unable to identify those unexpected results. The system also proves that no matter his best efforts, Mark Kotsay was unable to hold back the Brewers this year.

For the second course, I decided to take the ultimate WAR rankings of my "worst players" and compare those to the final rankings as well, just to check and see if the players I chose held some sort of magic theory that could predict the final win/loss standings. Much to my surprise, that also failed.

Here are the biggest winners and losers using that method of comparison:

WINNERS
1. Tampa Bay Rays (Dan Johnson, funny enough) +23
2. St. Louis Cardinals (Miguel Batista) +21
3. Philadelphia Phillies (Pete Orr) +20
4. Arizona Diamondbacks (Melvin Mora) +18
5. Detroit Tigers (Carlos Guillen) +17

LOSERS
1. Houston Astros (Carlos Lee) -29
2. Baltimore Orioles (Derrek Lee) -23
3. Minnesota Twins (Jim Thome) -20
4. New York Mets (Chris Capuano) -17
T5. Colorado Rockies (Jason Giambi) -15
T5. Oakland Athletics (David DeJesus) -15

One team came out spot on with no difference at all, the Atlanta Braves with Brooks Conrad. Again, there is a slight, but unsurprising trend. The good teams with terrible years from their "worst players" jumped into the winners category while bad teams with (relatively) great years from their "worst players" fell into the losers category. I am also constantly amazed at how Carlos Lee and the Astros keep screwing everything up since Lee posted a 3.2 WAR, which actually was the highest on the dead last Astros team. I think that if it wasn't for him and his terrible team, things would be far more stabilized.

Hopefully these two quick bits of analysis wet your pallet for the rest of the Pointless Analysis that will follow in the next week or so. Stay tuned.

Pointless Analysis, Part 1 of ?

Remember those pre-season rankings I concocted back in April in order to figure out my best guess for the eventual World Series winner this year? No? Well, then maybe you should click that link?

So you probably didn't click the link, knowing the overall lack of motivation around here. Here's a quick rundown of how five months ago, I chose the Chicago White Sox (yeah... my bad) to win it all. I went through the highly specialized and scientific process of picking each team's "worst player," and proceeded to rank each MLB team by its "worst player" in order to arrive at the conclusion that the most useful "worst player" would result in the season's eventual champion. Like I said, highly scientific.

Well, now the time to analyze the results of those picks has come because there is nothing better than spending valuable time on a pointless task. This is why I apply all of my free time and energy evaluating minor leaguers for fantasy baseball instead of making money off the stock market. Although, given today's returns from the markets, I may be better off with the hauls from my fantasy winnings.

The season isn't quite over yet, but my ultimate picks weren't too terrible compared to what what actually happened. Two of the picks (Phillies and Rangers) are going to cakewalk into the playoffs (watch the Rangers collapse now, sorry Texas). Two (Red Sox and Braves) are on the verge of making it in; although, I personally think the Braves are likely to choke. My other four picks (White Sox, Rockies, Rays, and Reds) will be playing golf in October for a myriad of reasons ranging from injuries to Adam Dunn. Honestly, that's not too shabby, considering no one outside of Phoenix (apart from a lonely soul in Valparaiso, Indiana) could have seen the Diamondbacks being competitive this year.

But I want to dig a little deeper, mainly to burn some free time, and look more closely at the original "worst players" I picked did and whether they actually had any bearing on the ultimate standings at the end of the season. Like I have titled the post, pointless analysis. And this is just part one, I have more up my sleeve for when the season ultimately finishes. But unlike those smarty pants statisticians at Fangraphs who do multi-part posts, I'm pretty sure the final results won't end in me being right, and I promise I won't chalk things going wrong up to luck (that would please Buster Olney tremendously).

A couple quick facts about the "worst players" I picked at the season's start. The highest WAR put up was 3.0, the lowest was -0.9. Three players never saw any Major League playing time (Kendall, Newhan, and Robertson). Seven players played for more than one team, three of them were traded (Diaz, McDonald, and Thome), while the other four were cut/waived and re-signed with another team (Batista, Bush, Helms, and Wood).

I know that I didn't originally rank the teams in my picks since I basically pooled teams together, but I will ultimately from here on out use the list in order as my rankings. So, I predicted the White Sox to have the best record and the Astros to have the worst, in other words (thanks for helping me out, Houston). This will be another cog that makes everything even more (un)scientific.

The first thing I want to look at is what the ultimate standings would have been with those players I picked. Based on the logic of this scientific process, the team that got the most WAR out of its "worst player" should have done the best on the season. I know the season isn't finished, so WAR isn't a complete stat, but it shouldn't change much over the next week, especially since most of these players spend a majority of their days riding the pine. Also, for players who split their season between two teams, I have only used the WAR they produced when on their original teams, to get that split, I used Baseball Reference WAR, which can be a little more (or less, if the player sucked) generous, instead of Fangraphs.

Here are the rankings of "worst players" 2011 WAR:

1	Carlos Lee	HOU	3.0
2	Chris Capuano	NYM	1.8
3	Miguel Cairo	CIN	1.8
4	Derrek Lee	BAL	1.5
5	David DeJesus	OAK	1.4
6	Jason Giambi	COL	1.3
7	John McDonald	TOR	0.9
8	Aaron Miles	LAD	0.9
9	Jim Thome	MIN	0.9
10	Brooks Conrad	ATL	0.7
11	Jason Varitek	BOS	0.5
12	Luis Ayala	NYY	0.4
13	Mark Kotsay	MIL	0.2
14	Will Ohman	CHW	0.1
15	Nate Robertson	SEA	0.0
16	Jason Kendall	KCR	0.0
17	Guillermo Mota	SFG	0.0
18	David Newhan	SDP	0.0
19	Dave Bush	TEX	0.0
20	Brandon Wood	LAA	(0.1)
21	Pete Orr	PHI	(0.1)
22	Carlos Guillen	DET	(0.2)
23	Adam Everett	CLE	(0.4)
24	Melvin Mora	ARI	(0.5)
25	John Grabow	CHC	(0.5)
26	Matt Stairs	WSN	(0.6)
27	Matt Diaz	PIT	(0.7)
28	Wes Helms	FLA	(0.7)
29	Miguel Batista	STL	(0.8)
30	Dan Johnson	TBR	(0.9)

So based on this theory with the "worst players" I originally chose, the Houston Astros would have had the best record because El Caballo came out of nowhere this year.

Another fun comparison, here are the biggest "winners" and "losers" compared to my original rankings of the teams based on how many spots they moved up or down, respectively.

WINNERS:
1. Houston Astros +29 (Yes, that's a worst to first.)
2. New York Mets +20
3. Toronto Blue Jays +16
4. Seattle Mariners +14
5. Oakland Athletics +10

LOSERS:
1. Tampa Bay Rays -23
T2. Philadelphia Phillies -16
T2. Texas Rangers -16
T4. St. Louis Cardinals -13
T4. Chicago White Sox -13

Essentially, the teams I picked to do well and received crappy performances lost while the teams picked to by shitty and received good performances lost, pretty obvious. One team, the San Francisco Giants, had overall zero movement as I picked them to be 17th and Guillermo Mota was 17th in WAR of this collection of "worst players."

So that was a lot of wasted words on some pointless analysis, but what have you come to expect around here? Look forward to the season's end, when more of these posts will be on their way...

2011 YSSW Midseason Awards

It's that time of summer again. Those three days of misery when baseball fans across the world are forced to watch the ever-annoying Home Run Derby (I miss the good ole synthetic days) that proceeds the All Star game that includes a quarter of the MLB population.

Thankfully, just before the final round of the Derby, I have enough blood left to type before the brain aneurysm Chris Berman and Nomar caused takes my life. Although, this is the first year that Boomer hasn't induced the internal bleeding. That honor belongs to the 15-year-old, polo shirt wearing, possibly mentally handicapped Sam Fuld that joined pre-Derby show.

But enough of re-hashing of the shitshow we were forced to sit through tonight (or flipping between watching Michael Jordan win his sixth championship). It's time to get to the good stuff. The always exciting, annual YSSW midseason awards. This year, we have two participants to hand out these highly coveted awards.

Now that Zach has had the chance to see socialism in action during his European vacation, his baseball mind has been skewed. And his picks represent so...

POST-EUROPE ZACH'S PICKS

Since I've barely watched any baseball this year, I'm making all of my selections based on the news stories that have been out about the players and the amount of fantasy yelling these players have produced. On that note, here we go:

NL MVP - Andrew McCutchen. He was an All Star snub (Has he replaced one of the 27 guys who backed out of the ASG yet?), but he has been one of the most valuable players this year. Or so says the Fangraphs WAR numbers.
AL MVP - (Tie) Josh Hamilton and Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter recently hit his 3,000th hit, which surely means he is worthy of an All Star Selection/MVP/Lifetime Achievement Award/Oscar/High Times Man of the Year Award. Josh Hamilton just killed someone. Which means he is creeping up on Ugueth Urbina in the PK (People Killed) category.
AL Cy Young - Justin Verlander. My first pick was going to be Old Hoss Radbourn, but I decided against it. 
NL Cy Young - Is Bronson Arroyo still good? No, crap. I guess I'll go Roy Halladay. 
NL ROY - Danny Espinosa. he's killing it for my fantasy team!
AL ROY - Eric Hosmer. He's good right? 
Worst Player AL - Juan Pierre. Not even a question on this one 
Worst Player NL - Raul Ibanez. A -1.1 WAR is a difficult task. Good work Raul.

POSTSEASON PICKS

AL EAST - Boston
AL WEST - Rangers (The team that kills together, wins together!)
AL CENTRAL - Tampa Bay (I'm giving this one to the Rays because no one in the Central deserves the postseason. If forced to choose I will side with the Tigers though)
AL WILDCARD - Yankees  
AL CHAMPS - Red Sox 
NL EAST - I really wanted to pick the Mets, to show the same amount of faith in them as I had last year, but I'm going to go Phillies
NL WEST - Giants
NL CENTRAL - Pirates! So what if this won't ever happen, its fun to dream
NL WILDCARD - Braves 
NL CHAMPS - Braves 
WS CHAMPS - Red Sox

Pretty crazy, but not completely out of his mind quite yet. When Zach picks Messi for AL MVP, we should all start worrying. Between Zach's lack of awareness and my insanity from last year, I am unfortunately going to be rather boring. I blame corporate America for whitewashing me.

COOLY'S PICKS

AL MVP - Curtis Granderson. Last time I checked, I think he's on pace for 175 runs, no joke. Okay, now that I check things, maybe that pace has slowed down. And Joey Bats is only six behind him. Alright, nevermind, I'm changing my vote to Bautista.
NL MVP - Lance Berkman. So shoot me, I came around on him finally.
AL Cy Young - CC Sabathia. It's rare that the dude with the most wins also happens to lead his league in WAR. CC wants his paper this offseason and is making it happen.
NL Cy Young - Doc Halladay. So boring.
AL Rookie of the Year - Michael Pineda
NL Rookie of the Year - Not Anthony Rizzo and his .166 batting average. So Danny Espinosa works out.

POSTSEASON PICKS

AL EAST - Boston Red Sox. Remember when Bill Simmons and Ken Tremendous were freaked out in April? That was hilarious.
AL CENTRAL - Chicago White Sox
AL WEST - Texas Rangers
AL WILD CARD - New York Yankees
CUTE TROPHY FOR PARTICIPATING - Tampa Bay Rays
AL CHAMP - Boston Red Sox
NL EAST - Philadelphia Phillies
NL CENTRAL - St. Louis Cardinals
NL WEST - San Francisco Giants
NL WILD CARD - Atlanta Braves
NL CHAMP - Philadelphia Phillies

Ugh, so boring. I know that a lot of people, mainly Buster Olney, have been making a huge deal about how 22 teams are within ten games of the playoffs right now. But when you look at the standings, are there really any surprises that anyone can see happening? The only races that will play out until the last week are probably both Central divisions. But in the AL, the winner gets a first round crushing from the Red Sox. And in the NL, the Cardinals/Reds was probably a coin flip before the season anyway.

But in the end, there will probably be a ton of teams over .500 that will help support Bud's ridiculous realignment visions. There will be run fixing involved, and I will be sad.

But whatever, here's the boring World Series winner from me - Philadelphia Phillies

And sneaking in last minute to steal my thunder (and giving me a bitch of a time formatting his picks), Mr. Anonymous is taking over...

MR. ANONYMOUS' PICKS

AL MVP - Adrian Gonzalez; 150 RBI on a great team should be enough to win it.
AL Cy Young - Justin Verlander; Another no hitter during the second half and its locked up.
AL Rookie of the Year - Mark Trumbo; Toss up, Trumbo is a sweet name.
AL East -  Red Sox; Just like AMPM, too much good stuff.
AL Central - Indians; Asdrubal Cabrera is overachieving, and the rest of the central sucks.
AL West - Rangers; Tight race…
AL Wild Card - Yankees; Like usual the AL East must have two representatives.

NL MVP - Matt Kemp; going to have 30, 30, 100. The only problem is that the Dodgers are bad.
NL Cy Young - Cole Hamels; Could be anyone from the Phillies staff.
NL Rookie of the Year -  Darwin Barney; First his numbers are tops amongst rookies, and is gritty.
Second, his name is also sweet.
NL East - Phillies; Too solid of a pitching staff to drop off.
NL Central - Pirates; As a fan of a notorious losing team, you’ve got to have hope!
NL West - Giants; The NL West sucks.
NL Wild Card - Braves; A great combination of youth/experience and pitching/offense, just not enough to beat the Phillies consistently.

POSTSEASON PICKS

ALDS:

Red Sox vs. Indians
Rangers vs. Yankees

ALCS - Red Sox vs. Rangers; Yankees don’t have enough pitching, and the Red Sox have too much of everything.

NLDS:

Phillies vs. Giants
Pirates vs. Braves

NLCS - Phillies vs. Braves; Really wanted to go with the Pirates, but they need another piece or two (unless the trade deadline is good to them). Phillies’ starters are sick.

World Series - Phillies vs. Red Sox; Phillies in 6, a great match-up that would be exciting to see.

And there you have it, two Phillies picks and one Red Sox vote of confidence. Long live annoying sports fans.

Please note that I apologize in advance for the gratuitous errors probably listed within this post. There are not usually my style, but the combination of an evening of "BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK" and recent spurt of Words With Friends has melted all portions of my brain that form letters into words into sentences.