AL Races
Bubba Crosby!!! What the hell?
And... was I the only one who was afraid that Papi was going to hit a 3 run homer last night with no one on base and two outs in the bottom of the ninth down 2 runs? I know there was no one on, but the kind of season he's having, stuff could be made up, that's all I'm saying.
Anyway, I wanted to say my piece on the MVP race in the AL. I was never an ARod fan though I've become one over the year. I know his ability and numbers seems to shrink in the clutch, but the bottomline is, you need guys to put up consistent numbers as well, and he's one of those guys. All the runs count. The .320, 43 and 100+ RBI's all matter. Just because they never seem to occur at the end of a game, doesn't mean those hits and runs didn't keep the game close for Matsui or Giambi (or Crosby or Escalona) to win it later on. While he may be far behind in clutch hits to Papi, ARod is still this year's AL MVP, and it isn't even close between those two.
While Ortiz may carry his team offensively in some games, lately more often than not, and hit some clutch home runs to tie and win games, he does not play defense. To me, the difference in clutch hits is easily made up by ARod in the field. Forget the fact that he plays the field (which to me just makes it more of an easy pick), he makes game saving plays in the field. He plays a gold glove caliber third base. He is flat out awesome out there.
Ortiz does not even play the field, which to me is a HUGE negative in the MVP race because it takes away half of the game. To make up for that missing half, Ortiz would have to out-offense ARod by a lot (not necessarily two times as much, but significantly). The only argument I've heard for Ortiz is the clutch hits argument, and like I said, ARod has been as clutch in the field as Papi has been swinging. And let's put aside the fun it is to bash ARod, he's had some pretty big hits the last couple of weeks with things getting tight.
Now we all love to concentrate on ARod's lack of being clutch. Let me just so throw numbers out there that maybe we ignore.
He is batting .429 with bases loaded.
Man on 3rd less than two outs, he is hitting .320
Men on, 2 outs, he is hitting .283
RISP, .289
In the interest of fairness, Ortiz has better numbers in a few of those categories. However, those numbers were not being used to make the point of ARod versus Ortiz... No, no, no... that debate has been settled.
How can ARod be the MVP of the league, if he is not MVP of his own team?
Hideki Matsui - plays the field, puts up consistent numbers (.300, 21, 110) and puts himself over the hump with the clutch hitting. How many times has ARod left a man stranded with less than 2 outs only to have Matsui bail him out with one of his 42 doubles.
Matsui - with bases loaded - .471
Man on 3rd, less than 2 out - .462
RISP - .300
Pretty good numbers. ARod is the better player, Matsui may just be more valuable...
And... was I the only one who was afraid that Papi was going to hit a 3 run homer last night with no one on base and two outs in the bottom of the ninth down 2 runs? I know there was no one on, but the kind of season he's having, stuff could be made up, that's all I'm saying.
Anyway, I wanted to say my piece on the MVP race in the AL. I was never an ARod fan though I've become one over the year. I know his ability and numbers seems to shrink in the clutch, but the bottomline is, you need guys to put up consistent numbers as well, and he's one of those guys. All the runs count. The .320, 43 and 100+ RBI's all matter. Just because they never seem to occur at the end of a game, doesn't mean those hits and runs didn't keep the game close for Matsui or Giambi (or Crosby or Escalona) to win it later on. While he may be far behind in clutch hits to Papi, ARod is still this year's AL MVP, and it isn't even close between those two.
While Ortiz may carry his team offensively in some games, lately more often than not, and hit some clutch home runs to tie and win games, he does not play defense. To me, the difference in clutch hits is easily made up by ARod in the field. Forget the fact that he plays the field (which to me just makes it more of an easy pick), he makes game saving plays in the field. He plays a gold glove caliber third base. He is flat out awesome out there.
Ortiz does not even play the field, which to me is a HUGE negative in the MVP race because it takes away half of the game. To make up for that missing half, Ortiz would have to out-offense ARod by a lot (not necessarily two times as much, but significantly). The only argument I've heard for Ortiz is the clutch hits argument, and like I said, ARod has been as clutch in the field as Papi has been swinging. And let's put aside the fun it is to bash ARod, he's had some pretty big hits the last couple of weeks with things getting tight.
Now we all love to concentrate on ARod's lack of being clutch. Let me just so throw numbers out there that maybe we ignore.
He is batting .429 with bases loaded.
Man on 3rd less than two outs, he is hitting .320
Men on, 2 outs, he is hitting .283
RISP, .289
In the interest of fairness, Ortiz has better numbers in a few of those categories. However, those numbers were not being used to make the point of ARod versus Ortiz... No, no, no... that debate has been settled.
How can ARod be the MVP of the league, if he is not MVP of his own team?
Hideki Matsui - plays the field, puts up consistent numbers (.300, 21, 110) and puts himself over the hump with the clutch hitting. How many times has ARod left a man stranded with less than 2 outs only to have Matsui bail him out with one of his 42 doubles.
Matsui - with bases loaded - .471
Man on 3rd, less than 2 out - .462
RISP - .300
Pretty good numbers. ARod is the better player, Matsui may just be more valuable...
posted by EDS | 2:00 PM
1 Comments:
How 'bout if I ninja kick you in the nuts? eh?
Freaking blog-spamming Mother F---ers.
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