March Magic Eight Ball: 2010 MLB Award Predictions

By Chris Jacobson

Major League Baseball is still twenty six days away and people are beginning to chomp at the bit for anything baseball related. As with my playoff predictions, I feel this an optimal time to make my 2010 award picks; a pick made in March is hard to remember in September.

National League MVP
This is the easiest of all award categories. Albert Pujols, Albert Pujols, Albert Pujols. There are plenty of guys that can take a run at “The Machine”, but he now has Matt Holliday behind him for a full season and may have his best season yet. Next in line for the award could be Hanley Ramirez. Playing for the fish last year Hanley quietly had an MVP caliber season and may have enough tools to win it in 2010. Ramirez hit .342 in 2009 while hitting 24 home runs and will not fly under the radar anymore. Prince Fielder puts up fantastic numbers with 46 homers and over 140 RBIs. A dark horse for the MVP is the Rockies Troy Tulowitzki. Tulo is primed to have a breakout season and if he can produce at the same level as he did in the second half of 2010 he has to be considered a top five candidate for the MVP.
Prediction: Pujols

American League MVP
The AL won’t quite be as easy to predict in 2010. Joe Mauer ran away with the MVP in 2009 and is probably the front runner in 2010. As a catcher Mauer hit .365 last season, no typo. Alex Rodriguez can never be counted out for this category. He has won three of the last seven MVPs and looks to make it four out of eight. Teammate Mark Teixeira finished second in voting in ’09 and may feel more comfortable this year after winning the series and getting used to the New York media. There are plenty of longer shots for the AL MVP but one to look at is Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays. The 2008 Rookie of the Year may be ready to take the next step into superstardom and may only be halted if the Yankees have the division won in June.
Prediction: Rodriguez

National League Cy Young
On paper this is a two horse race, Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay. Lincecum seems the obvious choice as he has won the award for the last two years. He has been as dominant as any pitcher in baseball during that time. He boasts a career ERA under three and has won forty games in his first three seasons. Unfortunately for Lincecum, while he was winning his Cy Youngs in the NL, Halladay was in the AL. Over the last seven years Roy has finished in the top five in Cy Young voting five times winning the award in ’03 and finishing second in ’08. Halladay also has something that Lincecum doesn’t have; a dominating offense to back him up. He will get a few “cheap” wins this year simply because of the power of the team’s offense. Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright have a chance at the award but might split votes with each other as they did last year. Someone to watch as the season progresses is Matt Cain, San Francisco’s number two pitcher had moments in ’09 that he looked every bit as good as Lincecum.
Prediction: Halladay

American League Cy Young
There are at least seven or eight starting pitchers who have a legitimate chance at winning this award. Zack Greinke won the award in ’09 for the hapless Kansas City Royals and should be better this year, however, "better" probably wont be good enough. Cliff Lee has moved back to the American League one year removed from winning the Cy Young and 22 games in ’08 for the Cleveland Indians. He is paired with Felix Hernandez in Seattle, forming the best one-two combination in the majors. King Felix finished second in voting in ’09. CC Sabathia has won the award before and looks to earn another with the powerful Yankees’ lineup behind him. Justin Verlander, Jon Lester and Josh Beckett all look to have great seasons and round off a partial list of possible winners. This one is anyone’s guess.
Prediction: Sabathia

In addition to the major awards there are a few interesting categories that should be mentioned. Coach of the year is category that usually measures a team that far exceeds expectations and this year won’t be any different. In the AL it will be a battle of “Rons” with Texas’ Ron Washington surprising Ron Gardenhire for the award. In the NL it is Bruce Bochy’s award to lose. His Giants are on the cusp of being a contender but give Lou Piniella a chance if he can keep his Cubs in contention.

The last awards are for the Rookie of the Year. This is a particularly tough category to choose as we haven’t seen these guys and so much of their potential is speculation. Now, with the disclaimer out of the way the National League Rookie of the Year will be Jason Heyward of the Atlanta Braves. Get used to hearing his name. Heyward is a five tool player and can hit for average, power and can run. Second in voting will be Madison Bumgarner who is already projected as high as the third pitcher in the Giants rotation. Sensation Steve Strasburg has a shot but is probably a year away as is hard throwing Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman. The AL has two front runners for the ROY award, Wade Davis of the Rays and Neftali Feliz of the Texas Rangers. Both are pitchers but look for Feliz to win the award as he will have the most opportunity to play for a fairly pedestrian Rangers pitching staff. Neftali can lazily crack 100mph and look for him to be a staff ace in just a couple of years. Desmond Jennings of the Rays flies around the base paths and may have a real chance at the award if he can stick in the majors.

What Better Day to do a Rockies Top-Five Games?

By Alex Patterson

Today is one of the better unofficial holidays of the year. 303 day, a celebration of Colorado heritage. Appropriate ways of celebrating are, but no limited to: wearing jerseys of the Colorado sports teams in as many ways as possible, enjoying some Rocky Mountain Oysters, skiing or hiking (since it was a fantastic day today), and rocking out to some local artists while making the famous 303 hand signal. So, in my own way, I’ll celebrate by reminiscing on some of my favorite Rockies games of all time. Here’s my top five (really it’s six, but its’ my list).

Tie-5. August 22^nd, 2000. Brent Mayne, the catcher, gets his first and only win of his career when he comes in to pitch in the 12^th inning after the Rockies had used up their pitchers in a 7-6 win. This game had everything: a catcher becoming the winning pitcher, a brawl, homers, entertainment, and the game-winning hit was delivered by a rookie for his first ever hit. What a way to end a game. Best Moment: had to be the brawl involving Andres Galarraga. Former Rockie, playing as a Brave, going after the pitcher for really no apparent reason. Awesome. (Side note: this game is extra special because I attended this game, and got put on the scoreboard doing the chicken dance. Bonus for this one. Extra side note: The next five all took place within 4 weeks of each other. Can you guess when?)

Tie-5. October 27^th, 2007. The World Series finally comes to Denver. That alone makes it special and should make it a top five, or at least a top ten game, for any Rockies fan. Even though this game was a loss, many fans would give an appendage to see their team in the World Series. Nothing to be ashamed of to lose to a team that came in hot, and was pretty good to begin with, and the Rockies hadn’t played in 9 days. Nothing wrong with being the second best team in the entire league. Best Moment: Matt Holliday’s home run that cut the game to a one run lead for the Red Sox. The Rockies were never closer, and the crowd was never louder, than that. (Side not: I also attended this game, which might be why I feel strongly about this game.)

4. To be fair, my 1-4 could be in any order, but this is how I chose them. September 30^th, 2007. The Rockies needed a win and a Padres loss to clinch a play-in game. The Brewers helped out our Blake Street Brethren by beating the Padres badly. The Rocks responded with a gritty 4-3 win. Best Moment: several. The crowd reacting to every run the Brewers scored against the Padres, then the final out with Todd Helton jumping around in what looked like excitement he was trying to hold in but failed miserably, and lastly, the victory lap around the stadium by the team. (Side note: I attended this game as well. Maybe I’m just biased with my picks)

3. October 15^th, 2007. The Rockies finished off a sweep of the Diamondbacks with a 6-4 victory. Not much to say about this game, since the best parts happened in the last inning. Best moment: Eric Byrnes, the hated outfielder for the D-Backs, was, fittingly, the final out of the game. As Helton caught the throw from Troy Tulowitzki to record the final out, he raised his fists in triumph and screamed. It’s a picture that will live in the minds of baseball fans for a long time.

2. October 1^st, 2007. The play-in game. What more need be said? A baseball game couldn’t have more to it. The game had controversy with the slide by Matt Holliday and, not many people remember this, Garrett Atkins hitting what looked like a home run only to have the umpires not see the ball go over the fence, giving him a double. He didn’t score in the inning, and if he had, the game might never have gone to extra innings in the first place. This game had the best pitcher in baseball getting beat up by the Rockies, and the best closer ever blowing a two-run lead. The game had passion, the game had drama, and, most importantly, the game had great fans cheering on a great team. What else could this game have had? Best moment: while teammates wanted to celebrate with Holliday after his slide, he wouldn’t let them due to injury. So the team piled up around Jamey Carroll, the guy who hit the game-winning sacrifice fly.

1. September 18^th, 2007. The day started with a day game against the Dodgers, and the Rockies literally couldn’t lose a game the rest of the season to make the postseason. The first game of the double header started with a solid 3-1 victory. The second game wasn’t looking so good. Down 8-5 going to the bottom of the 8^th inning, the rally started. Ryan Spilborghs hit a two-run bomb, keeping hope alive and cutting the lead to a single run. But in the 9^th, the Rockies would have to face Takashi Saito, the Dodgers closer who had not given up a hit to the Rockies all season. Matt Holliday ended that streak with a two-out single to right, setting the stage for Todd Helton. All Todd did after that was hit a walk-off blast, with two strikes no less! Best moment: Helton (notice a trend) throwing his helmet as he rounded third base and diving into a pile of his teammates at home plate, showing how much getting to the postseason meant to him. The team responded, and the rest is history.

Not a bad top five, eh?

Chicken Bones and Tea Leaves: Predicting the NL West

By Chris Jacobson

Spring training is starting to get into full swing and it seems as good a time as any to get out some predictions for the upcoming season and how it relates to the National League West. The nice thing about making predictions in March is that there is enough time between now and September to forget how far off these predictions have been. Unlike every other division in baseball the NL West seems to be pretty happy with how last year turned out as each of the teams appears to have stood pat with last year’s rosters with exception to a few situational additions.

My NL West guesses are as follows

5. San Diego Padres (74-88)

Let’s get this out of the way; Adrian Gonzalez is a stud. He is the real deal. He led the Padres in every meaningful offensive category. That being said he will most likely be playing east of the Mississippi by late June. Unfortunately the Padres have a lot more Scott Hairstons and David Ecksteins than Adrian Gonzalezes. A reoccurring theme in the NL West is lack of offensive depth and San Diego is the poster child. Gonzalez led the team in batting hitting .277. Sure he had forty home runs to back his average up, but .277 leading a team is a problem. Incidentally, there were two teams (Yankees, Angels) that hit better than Gonzalez as a team. San Diego was dead last in the majors in 2009 with a .242 team average.

The Padres pitching isn’t much better with exception to a few bright spots. Chris Young is a very good pitcher, but was plagued by a series of injuries in 2009 including a hot shot to the face off the bat of Albert Pujols, ouch. Kevin Correia had a solid 09 posting a sub four run ERA and twelve wins for a bad Padres team.
Unfortunately for Young and Correia, tandem would have to win 45 games between them for the Padres to be relevant this year.

4. Arizona Diamondbacks (81-81)

This team is going to live and die on potential. Dan Haren is phenomenal but he is surrounded by questions. Can Brandon Webb return to a form similar to his 2008 eight campaign? Maybe. Is Edwin Jackson more the pitcher he was in Detroit last year than the pitcher he was the six years before that? Maybe not. There are questions concerning Justin Upton’s potential, Chad Qualls ability to close and what version of Adam LaRoche the Diamond backs have. What isn’t really in question is how pedestrian this team is on offense. What may be a breakout year for Upton and a surprisingly good year for LaRoche will most likely be marred by the mediocre performances of Stephen Drew, Connor Jackson and the like. The Diamondbacks are a collection of solid but not spectacular ball players and their near .500 record should reflect that.

3) San Francisco Giants (87-75)

This team is hard to pin down. They have more offense than last year and offense was their problem. The addition of Mark DeRosa doesn’t seem like a big signing, but DeRosa will be out to prove he isn’t a journeyman and that he is deserving of a starting job. Freddy Sanchez and Bengie Molina can also swing the bat a little bit and the lineup is beginning to appear to have some depth. The real stick in the lineup, however, is Pablo Sandoval. Setting Manny Ramirez aside, Pablo may be the best hitter in the NL West. His twenty five home runs look incredible when set next to his .330 batting average, and he may actually be better than those numbers show. In 2009, teams could pitch around him.

The Giants are beginning to be able to hit, but they are built on pitching. Everyone who has turned on Sports Center in the last two years knows about long haired Tim Lincecum. The two time Cy Young winner is as dominant as you get, winning forty games in his first three seasons in the majors. Without hyperbole, he is the best pitcher in the National League right now. Immediately behind him is Matt Cain. His career win/loss record does not reflect the talent Cain has. He has been limited in his career by a soft hitting offense to protect him. He has a legitimate shot of a Cy Young himself in 2010. The problem for the Giants is the pitchers behind these two. The tirfecta of Barry Zito/ Jonathan Sanchez/ Madison Bumgarner rounds off an inexperienced and inconsistent starting line up. In all honesty, the Giants are close, but it is their less than average outfield that will cost them this season.

2) Colorado Rockies (91-71)

This team was good last year and healthier this year. They are probably closer to the Dodgers this year than last, but there is still a gap between the two. They are a slick fielding group with a lot of team speed. Troy Tulowitzki is on the threshold of being one of the games elite players and a supporting cast that involves Todd Helton, Carlos Gonzalez, Brad Hawpe and company means the Rockies can score runs. Better still for the Rocks is the teams age. They are young and may still be a year away from being a legitimate contender for the West title.

The pitching for the club is deep but need to have a few things break their way if they intend to eclipse their club record 92 wins they posted on 2009. Jeff Francis and Aaron Cook need to stay healthy and Ubaldo Jimenez needs to live up to the potential of his live arm. Huston Street needs to prove that 2009 was not a fluke and that he is ready to be a major league closer for the duration. It is not impossible to think that the Rockies aren’t already where they want to be, but it is more realistic to think that they will most likely be challenging the Mets, Cubs and Giants for the wildcard spot.

1) Los Angeles Dodgers (96-66)

There is one thing that can bring this team back to Earth, chemistry. Owners Frank and Jamie McCourt‘s messy divorce may become a bit of a distraction as will Manny Ramirez’ statement that 2010 will be his last in Dodger blue.

The Dodger’s offense is loaded. James Loney can hit, as can Rafael Furcal, and Russell Martin. Andre Ethier looks to be on the cusp of another fantastic season. Matt Kemp can crush the ball but his primary detail will be protecting the Dodgers best player, Manny Ramirez. While “Manny being Manny” can be a distraction, he is also one of the best hitter in MLB and should help the Dodgers to the top of the NL West.

If the Dodgers can be beat, it’s on the mound. They, more than most teams, see a fast decline as they go down the depth chart. Clayton Kershaw is a very capable pitcher, but the drop off to Chad Billingsley and his slightly above four ERA is substantial, as is the drop to Hiroki Kuroda, to Vicente Padilla and to James McDonald. McDonald is young and raw but does have potential, unlike Padilla.


Whoever wins this division will have to contend with the Phillies and the Cardinals for the right to play the representative from the American League. The Yankees will most likely win the East, joining the Twins, Angels and a surprising wildcard Mariners team in the playoffs. In the end, the Yankees have finally broken through and Alex Rodriguez will prove that he is the best player in baseball when the Evil Empire wins its second ring in as many years.

Rockies 2010: New Year, No Limits

The Colorado Rockies 2010 baseball season will only be described in one of two ways: met their goals or didn’t meet expectations. Meeting goals means winning their first NL West title in franchise history and a deep run in the playoffs while making the World Series for the second time in four years. There is no reason to believe this team can’t do this, and here is what will happen

• Ubaldo Jimenez becomes the first 20 game winner in franchise history, and finishes with a split of 21-4 with a 3.15 ERA and over 220 innings pitched. In the process, he wins the first Cy Young Award for the Rockies and establishes himself as a dominant force.
• Jeff Francis returns from injury and wins 15 games from the fourth spot in the rotation. Jorge De La Rosa, Aaron Cook and Jason Hammel all equal the success they had last year, keeping this rotation as one of the best in baseball from top to bottom.
• Huston Street lives up to the big contract he signed in the offseason and delivers with 42 saves and an ERA of 2.70. The rest of the bullpen, which is among the best in the National League, equates their success from last season, especially Rafael Betancourt and Matt Daley.
• Troy Tulowitzki continues off his success from last year with 35 home runs, 105 RBI’s and a .310 batting average to lead the lineup, all while winning his first Gold Glove at shortstop. This challenges him for the second MVP trophy in franchise history.
• Carlos Gonzalez, Dexter Fowler and Seth Smith make up the best outfield trio in the National League in terms of hitting and defense combined. Ian Stewart, Clint Barmes and Chris Ianneta find their swings and find the baseball more often, cutting down on strikeouts, and build the lineup into one of the best in the NL.
• Todd Helton stands pat and puts up his regular numbers of .320/15/90, splitting time with Brad Hawpe and Jason Giambi. Hawpe and Giambi lead a strong and clutch bench with Ryan Spilborghs, Melvin Mora and Miguel Olivo as well.
• All of these players and their seasons lead to the first NL West title and another birth in the World Series for the Rockies.

It’s a new year, and there are no limits on how good the 2010 Rockies can be.