Captain Confidence

This is just about everywhere, but if you haven't seen it yet you will be amused...

What the hell do I know? 2009 edition

I think I've conclusively proven that the answer is "not much." In 2007 I had three of the four A.L. playoff teams, but just one out of the four teams in the N.L. Last year I had the A.L. wild card right (Red Sox) but like everyone else blew it on the Rays. I got the Central wrong and the West right. In the N.L. I had two of the four, with the Cubs and Dodgers (although admittedly I thought the Dodgers were getting in as a wild card, not the West champs).

So two years in a row, I got half the playoff teams right. It's never good to have the same winning percentage as a coin flip.

Let's try a little harder this year, shall we? Yeah, whatever.

AMERICAN LEAGUE
A.L. East: As usual, give me the Yankees. Yes, lots of things could go wrong -- the Brewers treated C.C. Sabathia like a rented mule last year, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte are always an elbow twinge away from the D.L., Joba Chamberlain is on a strict innings count and Chien-Ming Wang, foot issues aside, has always been an injury risk. If they get 150 starts those those five pitchers, the Yankees have the best rotation in baseball. I realize that's a big "if." And even without their third baseman for the first six weeks of the season, the Yankees will have the best offense. As I do every year, I will pick the Red Sox for the wild card, followed by the Tampa Bay Rays returning to reality. The Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles have a lot of rebuilding to do.

A.L. Central: I'm finally going to not pick the Cleveland Indians, so bet the house on them. But their pitching staff is atrocious. The Detroit Tigers are a mess and the Chicago White Sox have too many holes in their lineup. The Kansas City Royals will be a fun team this year. I love Trey Hillman, they have a nice one-two punch at the top of the rotation with Gil Meche and Zack Greinke, and assuming the ugly finish to his spring wasn't a harbinger of things to come, an exciting closer in Joakim Soria. If I had any guts I'd pick them. I'll be a wuss and take the Minnesota Twins behind a resurgent Francisco Liriano.

A.L. West: Even with Kelvim Escobar, John Lackey and Ervin Santana out for the beginning of the year, even without Mark Teixeira and Francisco Rodriguez and Garret Anderson, I still think the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will continue to annoy people by winning the West. The Oakland A's and Texas Rangers just don't have the pitching, while the Seattle Mariners don't have anything.

A.L. Awards: I might as well be a total homer and predict Mark Teixeira will be the A.L. MVP. For those who do not live in the New York area and care about such things, John Sterling's ridiculous home run call for Teixeira is "There's a 'Tex' message in the upper deck (or wherever the ball landed). You've made your mark, Teixeira!" Yes, two puns in one home run call. It is only slightly less annoying than "an A-BOMB... from A-ROD!" Do you know Sterling has been calling Yankee games for 21 years? That means anybody under the age of 25 or so knows no other radio voice for the Yankees. That is just appalling. As for the A.L. Cy Young, I guess I have to go all-in on the Twins and give it to Francisco Liriano.

NATIONAL LEAGUE
N.L. East: Am I the only one sensing disaster with the New York Mets? It's hard to realistically gauge this team as I am constantly exposed to WFAN, where every host except for Mike Francesa is a huge Mets fan. I will concede Johan Santana is likely the best pitcher in the N.L., but let's not forget it was just a year ago everyone was whispering about how he might be hiding an injury. He wasn't exactly dominant last year -- his K/9 went from 9.7 in '07 to 7.9 last year, and that's with the pitcher hitting. Ut-oh. If Santana goes down, it's going to be a very ugly inaugural season at CitiField. And even if he stays healthy, he'll have to win 25 games. I just don't see it. I'll take the Philadelphia Phillies -- Cole Hamels is just missing one start, right? Gulp -- followed by the Atlanta Braves, and then the Mets, followed by the Florida Marlins and the Washington Nationals.

N.L. Central: I really can't imagine anyone catching the Chicago Cubs. I know the Cincinnati Reds are everybody's dark-horse favorite at the moment thanks to all the promising young guns in the rotation, but it's never a good idea to entrust an up-and-coming pitching staff to Dusty Baker. I think the St. Louis Cardinals will make it a race, but in the end they'll settle for the wild card. The Milwaukee Brewers just lost too much, the Houston Astros are heading in reverse and the Pittsburgh Pirates are still trying to get out of park.

N.L. West: The Wild West should be a fun division again. The Los Angeles Dodgers have a terrific lineup but no pitching. The San Francisco Giants have a nice rotation but no offense. The Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks have a little of each. (The San Diego Padres will challenge the Pirates and Nats for the worst record in baseball, and just might catch them if they trade Jake Peavy before the deadline.) If the Giants had just a couple more hitters, I'd pick them to win it, but come on -- can a team with Bengie Molina as its clean-up hitter win a division title? I'm guessing, just like last year, the Dodgers will win it with a winning percentage just north of .500.

N.L. Awards: Oh why not, let's give the MVP to Manny Ramirez just to piss off Red Sox Nation. And I will continue to pretend that his elbow is sound and give the Cy Young to Cole Hamels.

POST-SEASON
A.L. Playoffs: Yankees over Angels, finally; Twins over Red Sox. Yankees over Twins.

N.L. Playoffs: Cubs over Dodgers; Cardinals over Phillies. Cubs over Cardinals.

World Series: In a rematch of the first-ever games at the new Yankee Stadium -- not to mention the '38 and '32 World Series -- the Yankees finally pick up No. 27 and sweep the Cubs. Hey, I've predicted the Yankees will win the World Series every year since birth; so far I'm 6-31!

Are You Prepared For the Milano Effect?

D.Isaac pointed me to this and I just had to be the millionth guy on the Internet to write about.

Forget about performance enhancing drugs. MLB might have to ban Alyssa Milano.

The little girl from Who's the Boss is now all grown up. (Man, is she ever.) And apparently she has a thing for baseball players, particularly pitchers: Carl Pavano (2003), Barry Zito (2004-2005), Brad Penny (2005) and Tom Glavine (2006-2007). (The Who's Dated Who website claims she also dated Greg Vaughn -- but he was an actor, not the baseball player.)

And, as Beanster on The Hardball Times noted, Zito, Pavano and Penny all were mediocre while dating Alyssa, then pitched much better immediately after the break-up (the "Milano Bounce") but then later crashed (the "Milano Meltdown").

Beanster doesn't include Glavine in his study, probably because Glavine doesn't follow the same neat path of mediocre while dating, good soon after, and then awful. He was good while dating her (2006), mediocre after the break-up (2007), and then awful (2008). Maybe it was true love. But, c'mon. Glavine? You're like a hundred years old, dude. Stay away from my sweet Alyssa. It's bad enough Pavano spilled his ragu on her.

Milano is supposedly swearing off baseball players and is now engaged to agent David Bugliari, so maybe we've seen the last of the Milano Effect. Or will it be distributed to all the people David represents?

Paging Richard Simmons...

Until they start playing Spring Training games later this week, there's really not much for reporters to do in Florida and Arizona. After you've filed your daily quota of A-Roid stories, what else is there to write about? There's the occasional elbow twinge and shoulder tightness story, and maybe if you're lucky you'll find a pitcher who tells you he's developing a new pitch or found a new grip for his change-up or what-have-you.

But if all else fails, write about weight.

Homer Bailey, Travis Hafner and Chase Headley each lost about 10 pounds. Bill Hall lost about 15. Jose Guillen lost 15 to 20 pounds. Oddly enough, Met infielders Luis Castillo and Marlon Anderson each lost exactly 17 pounds. Ryan Howard lost 20 pounds, while Aaron Harang lost 25. Brett Myers beat them out by losing 30, as did Jose Contreras -- even though he won't pitch for at least a few more months with a ruptured Achilles. It's so bad that one reporter noted that Lou Whitaker had lost about 20 pounds over the last two years. Great news for those looking at Whitaker as a deep, deep sleeper in your 50-and-over league.

But if you're serious about writing a weight story, there's just one man to talk to. Prince Fielder is "trimmer" this spring but won't say how much weight he lost.

"I don't like scales," Fielder said, chuckling. "Scales are not cool."

No advice from Prince as to how he lost the weight, except he says he's a vegetarian. But he also said he was a vegetarian last year, and he admitted he "got huge" last season. The man can scarf down broccoli like no one's business.

If you're looking for weight loss tips, just talk to Heath Bell. The newly annointed Padres closer says he lost 25 pounds thanks to his Nintendo Wii.

"It said I was obese," Bell said. "If you're obese, it makes [your character on screen] obese. I was disappointed that I was that big. I literally took the game to heart. I did the work but I kind of credit the Wii Fit."

The "biggest loser" I've found so far this spring is Carlos Silva, who reportedly lost 35 pounds. His secret?

Now, after painful yoga training and a nutritionist fine tuning his diet — cutting meals from two steaks to one; prohibiting meals after 7 p.m.; encouraging him to go to sleep by 9:30 instead of midnight—Silva has lost 35 pounds.

Dude, just one steak per meal? That is harsh!

What is quality?

You don't have to listen to a lot of sports talk radio to hear someone disparaging the quality start as a useless stat. "Three runs in six innings is a 4.50 ERA! If you have a 4.50 ERA that's quality? Sandy Koufax blah blah blah."

Well, if you consider the average ERA in the A.L. last year was 4.78, yeah, 4.50 isn't too bad.

But I think the problem is the word "quality." People want quality to mean "good" or even "great," not average or even slightly above average.

Yet if you argue with the very same guy ridiculing quality starts, ask him: What's a "winnable" start? I believe most baseball fans, even the ones who find the quality start a laughable statistic, would believe that if your starting pitcher gives up 3 runs or less in the first six innings, you have a chance of winning that game. Not a guarantee, but a chance. If your team loses a game 3-0 or 3-1 or 3-2, do you blame the starting pitcher? Or the offense? If a pitcher leaves the game with the score tied at 3-3, and the closer gives up a home run in the 9th, do you blame the starter for the 3 runs, or the closer for the one?

"Winnable" start. You immediately know what I'm talking about. Hey, that was a winnable start, but we didn't score enough runs, or the bullpen blew it.

Semantics, yes. But words matter.

Bill James once argued that fans and sportswriters don't pay enough attention to outfielder assists because of the word "assist." It sounds like he just sort of helped out while someone else did the work. Nick Markakis led the league with 17 assists last year. That's 17 baserunners he took off the bases -- not to mention all the baserunners who held up instead of testing his arm. That's pretty impressive, but how many people know he led the league in assists? He didn't even win a Gold Glove. James argued that people would pay more attention to outfielder arms if the stat had a cool name like "baserunner kills" instead of "assists."

I feel the same way about quality starts. People think it's a misleading term because, well, it is, because "Quality Start" shouldn't be used to describe what is essentially slightly above average. So they don't like the term, and then they don't like the stat, and they ignore it.

"Winnable Start." Try it on your friends.

Don't call it a comeback!

On second thought, yeah, let's call it a comeback.

I understand the hatred of Carl Pavano. Anyone who had been paying attention knew it was a dumb signing -- Pavano had one good year amid lots of injuries. But, four years and $39.95 million later, now the Yankees know it too.

But I don't get the "Pavano sucks" attitude I've been hearing on sports talk radio the last couple days. Pavano hasn't sucked. He hasn't been good, he hasn't earned his $39.95 million, he hasn't been what the Yankees apparently thought they were getting when they stupidly signed him in 2005, but he hasn't sucked. He's been either mediocre or absent.

2005: 4-6, 18 BB, 56 K, 4.77 ERA, 1.47 WHIP
2006: DNP
2007: 1-0, 2 BB, 4 K, 4.76 ERA, 1.24 WHIP
2008: ?
TOTAL: 5-6, 20 BB, 60 K, 4.77 ERA, 1.45 WHIP


Remember Ed Whitson and Steve Trout? Those guys sucked. They get an F. Pavano gets an incomplete. He just hasn't been here. I'm not sure which one is worse, the guy who shows up but can't get it done, or the guy who is borderline competent on the rare occasion he feels like playing.

Well, apparently he feels like playing now. We need a starter, so it's Pavano or Phil Hughes, who has been having a tough time in Triple-A (8.47 ERA, 1.65 WHIP). And personally, if you're going to rush a guy back, I'd rather it be Pavano. Or maybe you'd rather see Kei Igawa?

(Heck, if he was still with Alyssa Milano, I'd actually be looking forward to today's start. He also was dumped by Gia Allemand after he cheated on her. Apparently this wasn't good enough for Carl. He may have problems using his arm, but apparently not his penis.)

The knock on Glass Carl was that he pitched terribly -- or not at all -- until his contract year in '04, and suddenly he was good (18-8, 3.00 ERA, 1.17 WHIP). That's not exactly fair as he wasn't terrible in '03 (12-13, 4.30 ERA, 1.26 WHIP), but Pavano hasn't done anything in his Yankee career to convince us that he is willing to play through even the slightest discomfort. (Stiff neck, tight back... Bruised buttocks, anyone?)

Now at the end of this season his contract is up. The conspiracy theorists should be expecting a good September, right? Suddenly he feels good enough to pitch again. If Carl wants another contract this off-season, he should be in line for five or six quality starts.

I'll take it.

Oh, and as I pointed out to D. Isaac yesterday -- of the five catchers Pavano has thrown to most often in his career, who has the lowest OPS allowed?

Of course -- Ivan Rodriguez. When pitching to Pudge, Pavano has allowed a .257/.307/.408 (.715 OPS) line, compared to .276/.330/.427 (.757) overall. Yes, Rodriguez caught him during his only good run ('03-'04), and yes, that was in the N.L. Still, it's something to keep in mind.

I'm not busting out the Carl Pavano jersey for today's start. I'm just saying let's wring whatever we can get out of this waste of a contract and move on.

That's just Favrevolous

As someone who roots for both the Packers and the Jets, this is a strange time for me. My favorite player has been traded from my favorite team... to my second-favorite team.

Sportswriters keep throwing around the divorce analogy when discussing the Packer situation. To carry it out a bit further, it's like your parents get divorced and you're going to keep living with your mom and her new boyfriend, Aaron Rodgers. Your mom seems to be genuinely in love with Aaron but he gives you a weird vibe. It's probably the porn 'stache. Or maybe that time he told you to "get on board now or keep your mouth shut." Awkward!

Meanwhile, on weekends, you'll be staying with dad and his hot new girlfriend, Brett Favre, who wakes up early to make you blueberry pancakes and lets you pick the radio stations and almost never wears a bra.

OK, this analogy is getting a little creepy.

But this trade does leave me with a funny feeling inside.

Objectively, I think it's a good trade for both sides. I thought before the trade the Jets would be a playoff team, probably winning 10 games, thanks to their play fairly easy schedule and revamped offensive line. I think Favre gives them one or maybe two more wins -- and they can't catch New England, but they're a dangerous team in the playoffs. Maybe they lose the AFC Championship game to the Patriots -- undoubtedly on a Favre interception in the final minute. But hey, you live by the Favre, you die by the Favre.

That would mean the Packers get a 2nd Round pick for Favre, which is a great value for a guy you had to trade. And the fact that you got him out of the NFC is a bonus.

I'm not crazy about Rodgers. As I said when this all started, I'd rather trade Rodgers and have one or two more years of Favre, then switch to Brian Brohm. Favre made that impossible, of course, so we have to move on with Rodgers. But that doesn't mean I'm rushing out to buy a No. 12 jersey.

Everyone keeps talking about that great half against the Dallas Cowboys, but remember, that was a Cowboy team with a big lead that had prepared to face Favre, not Rodger the Dodger. Aaron has happy feet in the pocket. The Packers offense is all about timing and routes; that's not going to work if Rodgers is scrambling at the first sign of pressure. I could see the Packers going 9-7, but given the strength of their conference, that might be enough to be a wild card, or even the NFC North title.

Wouldn't it be neat if the Packers played the Jets in the Super Bowl? That'd be the real test for me, wouldn't it? A week ago, no question, I'm rooting for the Packers in that scenario. Now, well... still the Packers, but the devil on my shoulder is hoping Favre sticks it to Ted Thompson one last time.

Yeah, so, in the end, I'm still living with mom and putting up with Aaron. But I'm really looking forward to the weekends.