Trade Machine Fun
May 22, 2008MadLibs, Anyone?
May 23, 2008I came up with this idea for a series of guest blogger spots over a week ago. When it first came to me the Indians were in second place behind the Twins. Then they swept the A’s to take over first. Now, it’s the White Sox turn at the top. With all these teams bunched together the A.L. Central is wide open, with no team out of it. We asked bloggers from each team to tell us why their team WILL WIN the A.L. Central. Most of them replied reluctantly, because the baseball in the Central just hasn’t been that good this year. Up next is the White Sox, with Ricky from Tremendous Upside Potential…
So. Any team can win the American League Central Division. That’s what we’re doing here, right? Well, I suppose it’s true. Sure, any team can win this surprisingly underwhelming division. They are playing baseball, which is, of course, completely crazy. Two years ago Josh Hamilton was probably blowing coke off of strippers, now he has 53 RBI in 48 games. The Diamondbacks allowed more runs than they scored last year and won more games than any team in the National League. The Cardinals haven’t had anyone charged with a DUI in months. Baseball hardly ever makes sense.
While any team can still grab this division, I’m not totally sold yet that it’ll be my White Sox, though I’m positive it won’t be the Royals (suck it KC!). Still, it’d be impossible to classify the White Sox 23-20 as anything but pleasant.
Most of this is because of three guys: Carlos Quentin, Gavin Floyd, and John Danks. While Joe Crede and AJ Pierzynski are bashing like they never have before, they’ve both been solid major leaguers for a long time. Before this season, no one knew how Quentin, Floyd, and Danks would turn out. Since pitching always trumps everything else, the success of Floyd and Danks is probably the main reason why the Sox are atop the division right now. If they can keep it up, so can the Sox.
But Quentin has been the team’s biggest bright spot and is the best reason to watch the games. His transformation into some sort of hard-hitting baseball machine has kept the Sox afloat while his more ballyhooed teammates have surrounded him with horrid starts. Paul Konerko and Nick Swisher both are posting a sub .700 OPS. Jim Thome is hitting a cool .202. Oh yeah, Orlando Cabrera sucks too. So does Mark Buehrle. If these things were recited in the Spring, most would figure the Sox would be at least ten games out. Of course most people also thought the Tigers would win 110 games, so maybe polling the general public isn’t the way to gage baseball teams.
Fortunately for the Sox, most things in baseball find a way to even themselves out after a while. Two weeks ago, our friends to the North wanted no part of Alfonso Soriano. Then he hit, like, 25 homers last week. Now they love the guy. Buehrle, Konerko, Thome, and Swisher won’t continue to be this terrible. If they snap out of it at the right time, the Sox can go a nice little streak. Who knows, maybe they can grab a big lead before the All-Star break.
Of course you can also say that Quentin, Crede, and Pierzynski won’t all finish in the top ten in OPS. And while Danks looks legit, who knows about Floyd. The guy has almost thrown three no hitters, but he doesn’t strike anyone out and routinely get pounded. The Sox just happened to catch all those line drives.
The rest of the division, however, all has real problems as well. I don’t think Cliff Lee is finishing with an ERA under 2.00. And I’m not even sure what to make of the Tigers, though I kind of don’t see them winning 90-plus games anymore. Who knows, it may not take that many to win the division.
With a gun to my head, I’d probably still pick the Indians to win the division, since I did take them to win the World Series and all before the season started. But the Sox are certainly in a good place, and have enough firepower to make the playoffs. This is going to be a fun summer in Chicago, and probably for every team in the AL Central. Except the Royals. They should just quit now.
In all fairness to our Royals guest blogger, I had to fix waaaayyyy more spelling errors in this post than yours…
1 Comment
In regard to Quentin, he was projected to be a masher – just ran into some injuries last year, coupled with the emergece of Byrnes and Young. Like I said in a post yesterday, the Tribe didn’t need to make a move for a big name, someone like Quentin would have been perfect…
And after last night’s game, you guys have a 4.5 game lead… That may be all you need!