I'm shadow drafting the Royals. I wanted Green badly. The issue is that he looks like he is a bit more expensive than Crow, although Crow himself isn't cheap. The spirit of the shadow draft is that you keep signability and overall budget in mind and you don't do things that the team you're drafting for couldn't do.

I was significantly cheaper last year than the real Royals. The only guy round I spent more than the R's on was Tim Fedroff in the 7th round and most rounds I was well below the R's.

So should I go ahead and take Green? Should I wait until I see if they're taking signability risks in the third and fourth round and use that as an educational point to tell me what their budget is and then go with guys who would take slot after this? Or should I take the cue and pick from among my favorites that were available and will likely be similar to or cheaper than Crow (Crow himself, White, James, Borchering, all of whom I liked)?

I'm really stumped on this one.

How would you rate a farm system that has the following prospects? Top half? Bottom half? Middle of the pack? Strengths? Weaknesses?

1. Justin Smoak 1B Tex

2. Brett Anderson LHP Oak

3. Josh Vitters 3B ChC

4. Michael Taylor OF Phi

5. Michael Montgomery LHP KC

6. Josh Bell 3B LAD

7. Jeff Manship RHP Minn

8. Tim Fedroff OF Cle

9. Stephen King 3B Wash

10. Shane Peterson OF StL

11. Nevin Griffith RHP CWS

12. Jason Christian SS Oak

13. Mark Hallberg SS Az

14. Brad Lincoln RHP Pitt

15. Marco Estrada RHP Wash

16. Jacob Thompson RHP Atl

17. David Duncan LHP Hou

18. Danny Valencia 3B Minn

19. TJ Steele CF Hou

20. Graham Godfrey RHP Oak

21. Damon Sublett 2B NYY

22. Tyler Kuhn SS CWS

23. Brian Dinkelman 2B/UT Minn

24. Mitch Maier CF KC

25. Andy Dirks CF Det

26. Steve Tolleson UT Minn

27. Kevin Dubler C CWS

28. Jericho Jones OF ChC

29. Anthony Varvaro RHP Sea

30. Brandon Braboy RHP NYY

Something you never really notice until you do half a decade of shadow drafts is how very hard it is to produce a home grown shortstop without a latin american program.

I've officially graduated Dustin Pedroia, Alex Gordon, Josh Fields, Casey Kotchman, Kurt Suzuki, JR Towles, Scott Moore, Jon Sanchez, Kevin Slowey, and Billy Buckner to the majors.

This week saw the announcement of the Rookie of the Year awards. And I don't have a quarrel with
either league's winner. In fact, the writers selected the same two players that I did in my own 2007 wrap piece.

Some would gripe about the election of Ryan Braun, whose value with the bat is mitigated by the horror show he put on at third base. I'm not discounting that argument as it clearly has merit. But that's not what this column is about. This column is about the down-ballot choices made by some voters. The vote tally shows that sabermetric writers and analysts still have a lot of work to do.

The first egregious example is the less serious one. Kyle Kendrick came in 5th in the NL tally. That's not so objectionable, but he got a single second place vote, ahead of Braun, which is an inexcusably silly error. Nobody in their right minds would say that Kendrick had a better season with his 121 innings of work and reasonable, but not world-beating 3.87 ERA/3.94 RA than Braun had with his astounding .324/.370/.634 season. Braun destroyed Kendrick in VORP 57.2 to 27.1. It's one thing to give a courtesy vote to the hometown rook or to the pitcher who played well down the stretch and played a big part in a remarkable comeback. I don't agree with either of those uses of a vote, but they're forgivable if they're at the very bottom of the ballot. To put that guy ahead of a historic year, much less so. In the end, the plurality got this thing more or less right as Braun-Tulowitzki-Hunter Pense is a reasonable 1-2-3.

In the AL, the problem was much more widespread, due in no small part to the much weaker field. Dustin Pedroia was a runaway winner as he should have been. In fact he should have been a unanimous selection. The thing that sticks out in the AL vote tally is the presence of my 2007 Rey Sanchez Award winner, Delmon Young in second place. You can easily find the reason why voters were drawn to him. He hit .280 with 93 RBI. The problem is that he didn't walk or hit for power, dragging his value. .288/.316/.408 doesn't cut it for an everyday right fielder. Young will have a nice career. He's too talented to hang out in the land of below average corner outfielders for more than a year or two. But he's going to drag down his talented Rays teammates if he continues to fail at developing secondary skills.

There were even 3 writers who thought that Young was BETTER than Pedroia, giving him their first place votes. Given that Pedroia hit .317/.380/.442 as a second baseman, there really is no comparison. Pedroia lapped Young in value and even a little thought could have revealed this to the BBWAA. Kudos to the 8 writers who got it right and left Young off their ballots.

For the record, a short, incomplete list of players who would have been much better selections for a down-ballot ROY candidate than Young: Brian Bannister (who had one undeserved 1st place vote himself), Hideki Okajima, Joakim Soria, Jeremy Guthrie, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Young's teammate Akinori Iwamura, Reggie Willits, and Joba Chamberlain.

Next week we get to see what cringe-inducing choices the voters made for MVP.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

Derek Lowe held the red hot Rox to two runs over seven innings, allowing only five hits and no walks. He got the loss because Josh Fogg and the Colorado pen shut out LA.

This Season's Worst Luck: Gil Meche had a very nice season, with a 3.67 ERA and 23 quality starts in 34. But the KC offense didn't give him much help as he went 9-13.

Others of note:

Ian Snell was much the same story as Meche, going 9-12 despite a 3.76 ERA and 22 QS in 32 tries.

Matt Cain went 7-16 with a 3.65 ERA and 22 QS in 32.

Good Luck Division

Andy Pettitte on Saturday threw 5 innings, allowing 9 runs to the Orioles, striking nobody out. He got the win because Daniel Cabrera got lit up for 7 by the Yankee offense and his bullpen tacked on another 4 for good measure.

This Season's Lucky Dog: It's certainly Horacio Ramirez, who was awful this season, to the tune of a 7.16 ERA and a -22.8 VORP. He walked more than he struck out. He allowed 1.85 baserunners per inning. He only gave the Mariners 9 quality starts in 23 attempts. Yet still, fortuitous run support made him look like a perfectly average starting pitcher at 8-7.

Others of note:

Noah Lowry, who wasn't bad as measured by ERA at 3.92, but he went 14-8 despite only giving the Giants a quality start in half of his 26 times out. The Giants should probably look to sell high on his ERA and wins given that he too posted extremely pedestrian peripherals, striking out 87 and walking 87 in 156 innings.

I talked about Claudio Vargas's talent for this kind of luck earlier this summer. He has a 43 and 38 record despite having a higher than average ERA (92 ERA+) and batters have hit .272/.342/.481 against him. Well, overall this season Vargas went 11-6 with a 5.09 ERA but some of that came in relief. As a starter, he went 10-4 with a 5.04 ERA and 9 quality starts in 23.

Vulture Division

Sunday night Huston Street blew a 1 run lead but Kurt Suzuki had his back and gave him his 5th win of the year.

The Wes Littleton They Call that a Save? Award

Thursday Jamie Walker logged a save throwing a perfect ninth. He was protecting a three run lead with the feared Ray Olmedo, John McDonald, and Matt Stairs lineup core batting.

Season Leader:

With the way that bullpens are used these days, I really don't have much of an issue with the "closer" being the third or fourth best pitcher in a bullpen. They're rarely used in situations where they have to get somebody out of a jam. The setup men usually get that job. But it merits mention that Ryan Dempster and Joe Borowski are both significantly outclassed by the less famous members of their bullpen. With Borowski, he posted an AL leading 45 saves while Rafael Betancourt and Rafael Perez did his heavy lifting for the most part and when arbitration time comes, they should be paid like the guys with the flashy save totals. With Dempster it was Carlos Marmol with the quality work. While ERA is a lousy way of judging relievers, closers who have ERA's of 5.07 (Borowski) and 4.73 (Dempster) usually lose their jobs in short order.

Also of note is the guy who this award is named after. Bask in the glory of the most ridiculous save ever recorded.

The Rico Brogna Award

Troy Tulowitzki racked up 7 RBI in the season's final week, featuring 2 home runs. But he only hit .185/.214/.481.

Season Winner: Jeff Francoeur, who drove in 105 runs despite only producing a .782 OPS as a right fielder. That breaks down to a .293/.338/.444 line. In 642 at bats, he hit 19 home runs and only drew 42 walks. The walk total is an improvement on the 34 he had collected in his previous 908 career at bats. And his 40 doubles are a good sign, but that's only good for future projection. He still needs to improve his power and selectivity as he was just simply an average right fielder this season.

Runners up:

Francoeur's teammate Andruw Jones hit .222/.311/.413 with 94 RBI. It's good to hit behind Chipper Jones, Edgar Renteria, and Kelly Johnson.

Delmon Young collected 93 RBI with a .288/.316/.408 line.

Sammy Sosa had 92 RBI with a .252/.311/.468 line.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Kevin Fransden of the Giants only hit .261 on the week, but with 5 walks and a homer in 23 at bats for a .261/.393/.391 week.

Season Winner:  

I'm giving it to Jack Cust over Pat Burrell in a photo finish. Cust hit .256/.408/.504 with 105 walks and 26 home runs in 395 at bats while Burrell hit .256/.400/.502 with 114 walks and 30 round trippers in 472 at bats. They're similar numbers and I'm more certain that Burrell will be able to sustain that kind of production. But that's projection for next season and Cust's numbers came in a park that is much more hostile to hitters than Citizens Bank Park.

Other Deserving Candidates:

Ryan Howard at .268/.392/.584. More on him later.

Paul Konerko at .259/.351/.490

Jason Varitek isn't posting flashy power hitting numbers, but .255/.367/.421 from a catcher is still very nice.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Melvin Mora hit .276, but provided little else with a .290 OBP and a .310 SLG.

Season Winner:

Delmon Young was a runaway winner at .288/.316/.408. All of the things I said about Jeff Francoeur apply here. With 13 home runs and 26 walks in 645, he has to develop more secondary skills. I think the power is on the way, but I'm not as positive about the selectivity. Regardless, a .723 OPS from a right fielder is not pushing the Rays towards contention.

Others:

Nomar Garciaparra with a .283/..328/.371 line and 7 HR, 31 BB in 431 AB

Jeff Francoeur at .293/.338/.444

Aaron Miles .290/.328/.348

Pudge Rodriguez at .281/.294/.420 had power, but was an OBP sink.

The Steve Balboni Award

Jonny Gomes struck out 8 times in 13 AB on his way to a .154/.333/.462 week. There was a lot of good happening there with a home run, a pair of doubles, and 4 walks. But it was drug down by the K's.

Season:

This is another close one as Gomes edged out Josh Fields. Gomes hit .244/.322/.460 with 126 K in 348 AB. The good he did was limited by his batting average being drug down by his bloated K rate. 20 doubles, 17 homers, and 35 walks made for a good isolated slugging percentage and laid the foundation for an acceptable OBP. But it just didn't happen.

Others Matching the Criteria:

I mentioned Josh Fields, who is the official runner up. He had a similar season to Gomes with 373 at bats and 125 whiffs, but a healthy amount of power with 17 doubles and 23 bombs with 35 walks for a .244/.308/.480 line. Needless to say, the rookie needs to work on making more consistent contact.

Brandon Inge K'ed 150 times in 508 AB for a .236/.312/.376 line.

Andruw Jones struggled to the tune of 138 K in 572 AB and .222/.311/.413

Alex Gordon stumbled badly out of the gate but picked it up later. His numbers still paint a picture with 543 AB, 137 K, .247/.314/.411

Sammy Sosa was mentioned earlier, but his main problem was making contact, especially against RHP. 412 AB, 112 K, .252/.311/.468

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Rickie Weeks collected 4 homers, 5 walks, 9 strikeouts in 28 at bats.

Season:

Jack Cust was truly impressive, posting 26 homers, 105 walks, and 164 K in a measly 507 plate appearances for a 58.2% TTO figure. And while I like Cust and I'm extremely happy to see him succeed, I sincerely think that he's one of the leading candidates for next year's Balboni unless he cuts down on the strikeouts at least a little bit. He struck out in 32.3 percent of his plate appearances while Ryan Howard, who set the all time single season record, struck out in 30.7%.

Others worth mentioning:

As my mother would say, speaking of the devil, Ryan Howard had 199K, 107 BB, 47 HR in 648 PA for a 54.5 percentage.

Old TTO standby Adam Dunn did not disappoint with 165 K, 101 BB, 40 HR in 632 PA, 48.4%.

Carlos Pena had 142 K, 103 BB, 46 HR, 612 PA, 47.5%.

And newcomer BJ Upton fell short on the walks (65) and wasn't quite up with the others guys in the power category (24), but still managed 154 K in 548 PA for a very respectable 44.3%.

Say Hi To Parity

I haven't noticed anybody else mention this, but that could be because I'm still catching up on my reading after being out of action late last week and early this week while on vacation and in preparing for the above categories, but this season we had a very small difference in records between the best team and the worst team in baseball. The Indians and Red Sox each won 96 games and lost 66 while the Rays went the inverse 66 and 96, a mere 30 game gap. That's a .185 spread covering all 30 teams.

I was curious about this, so I did a very unscientific little survey of these spreads since the 1995 season and this year had both the "worst" wins leader and the "best" last place club for that period. It behooves me to mention that last year was close in that the win figures were 97 and 61 respectively for a 36 game spread, still not bad and down significantly from the 58 game spread we saw in '03 and the 54 in '04. The highest spread in that period was the 60 game gap between the 114 win 1998 Yankees and the 54 win Marlins of that same campaign.

Out of curiosity, I looked at how baseball stacked up with the NFL and NBA in this respect. I took a look at the least 13 full seasons in each league. The answer is an education in the power of sample size as the average spread between the worst and best records in baseball was a .277 gap. The most was .370.

The NFL had an average spread was a staggering .716, an 11.45 game gap. The biggest single season gap was 13 games (twice) for a .813. And the smallest was 10 games for a .625.

The NBA wasn't quite as bad as they have an 82 game season. The average gap was 47.2 games for a .576 differential. The most extreme was 57 games, .695. The least was 40 games, .488.

Clearly the 162 game schedule pulls teams much, much, much closer to .500 than the 16 game season in the NFL and significantly closer than the 82 game NBA calendar. This probably doesn't tell us anything about what league has the most parity and it's likely that I made a number of stupid errors that could be sniffed out immediately by somebody more savvy with an Excel spreadsheet than I. This was literally done in 15 minutes with a couple of scrap pieces of paper and a pocket calculator. But it is a fun piece of information.

Here are some more notes on the close standings of 2007. Every team in baseball was within 15 games of .500. Percentage-wise, this is like every team in football finishing between 9-7 and 7-9.

This Week's MVP

AL: David Ortiz had a smoking final week with 4 doubles, 3 HR, and 5 BB in 17 AB for a .647/.727/1.412 line.

Season:

Alex Rodriguez has owned this award for several months now. Any writer who doesn't vote for him is either letting personal grudges get in the way, isn't voting at all because he/she is trapped at the bottom of a ravine just out of sight of the passing highway traffic above, or is too dumb to actually fill the thing out. He posted the highest OPS of his career at 1.067 and his best OBP. The statistics speak for themselves .314/.422/.645, 96.6 VORP. He was clearly the best player in the game, the best hitter in the game. He still won't win some people over no matter what he does in the postseason, but it doesn't really matter much anymore. He is who he is and people will love him or hate him because of it.

Others on my ballot, though not necessarily in this order, but in the general ballpark:

Magglio Ordonez had a career year, driven mostly by the unrepeatable .363 batting average he posted. But it's nice to see him do this kind of work after being a very good player for a long time. Even as a Royals fan I've always liked him, both because he was the epitome of steady production for my fantasy team and because it's a pleasure to watch him work at the plate.

Jorge Posada was another player having a late career peak season when we expected a small, incremental decline. .338/.426/.543 isn't going to happen next year, but it's a nice crowning achievement in a wonderful career.

David Ortiz has spoiled us. We're now used to seeing excellence from him, so .332/.445/.621 doesn't really show up on our radar for most of the season.

Curtis Granderson hit .302/.361/.552, was a gold glove caliber fielder in center, and was 26 for 27 stealing bases.

Ichiro Suzuki .351/.396/.431. He's had either 48 or 49 in 4 consecutive seasons. That's weird. Anyways, he made for a good center fielder.

Carlos Pena was a scapegoat in Detroit, where he was always a passable offensive first baseman. His huge power spike is what we expected when he was a big time prospect in the Rangers organization. If there's a theme to this list, it's that almost everybody here outside of Ichiro will have a hard time duplicating their batting averages, but as long as Pena keeps mashing home runs and drawing walks, he'll be fine, even hitting .260ish.

Victor Martinez isn't a particularly good defensive catcher, but he's still passable most nights and he hit .301/.374/.505.

Grady Sizemore was another key member of the Indians, with a .277/.390/.462 season

Vlad Guerrero is another who has spoiled us with steady production year in and year out, posting a .324/.403/.547 line in 2007.

NL: Prince Fielder didn't quite match Big Papi's rate stats in the 26th week, but he had 2 doubles, 3 HR, and a staggering 9 BB in 17 AB and amazingly went 2 for 2 stealing bases in the season finale.

Season: I'm firmly a David Wright guy and from what I've read, my opinion is stronger in his favor than most of the others I've seen. Jimmy Rollins seems to be the golden boy at this point and I'd be mildly surprised if he didn't win it given the attention that was showed on him in the season's last weekend. There also seems to be a groundswell of support for Matt Holliday, which I think is more grounded in reality than the Rollins fixation, but I still believe in giving the award to the best player in the league and that was Wright.

The reason for this is simple. I think that a guy who hits .325/.416/.546 with half of his games being played in Shea Stadium, 34 steals in 39 tries, and gold glove level defense at third base is preferable to a good (but not great) defensive left fielder who hit .340/.405/.607 for a team based in Denver or a good, but not great defensive shortstop who hit .296/.344/.531 with 41 steals in 47 tries with half of his games in Citizens Bank Park. It's as simple as that. In a way, it's a shame that Chase Utley missed the time he did because he would make for a more compelling candidate than Rollins, hitting .332/.410/.566 as one of the best defensive second basemen in the NL. But the gap in playing time due to his broken hand makes him merely a notable down-ballot entry rather than a challenger to Wright and Holliday.

Don't get me wrong here. Holliday had a wonderful season. And if they do give it to him, it won't be anywhere near as poor a decision as Justin Morneau last year. But I believe that either Holliday or Rollins would be a wrong choice. The collapse of his team shouldn't be held against David Wright.

Others:

I mentioned Holliday, Rollins, and Utley. They're all top 10's.

Albert Pujols is actually my #2 in the NL ahead of Holliday. Hitting .327/.429/.568 in a neutral park while doubling as the best defensive first baseman in the game is huge.

Miguel Cabrera and Price Fielder are grouped together in my mind, with Cabrera, who should be a first baseman soon, hitting .320/.401/.565 in an extreme pitcher's park and Fielder, who is a first baseman and will at some point be a DH, hit .288/.395/.618 while playing in a hitter's park.

Hanley Ramirez had an incredible year at the plate, but he's outgrown the shortstop position and he cost his team a lot of runs there. It still doesn't make him any less than a remarkable player.

Lastly we have Jake Peavy, who was certainly one of the ten most valuable players in the NL this season. More on him in a minute.

Other Season Awards

Cy Young

AL: I like Fausto Carmona, groundball machine. I would accept his teammate CC Sabathia or Angel John Lackey as correct answers as well.

NL: I've mentioned it in the past here, but my favorite number for Jake Peavy is his BA/OBP/SLG allowed. .208/.272/.312 is ridiculous.

Runner up:

Brandon Webb posted a 3.01 ERA\ with 194 K, 72 BB, 209 H in 236 IP.

Rookie of the Year

AL: Dustin Pedroia hit .317/.380/.442

Runners up:

Brian Bannister and Jeremy Guthrie

NL: Ryan Braun was a butcher at third base, but he was remarkable with the lumber.

The Field:

Troy Tulowitzki was the best defensive SS in the NL and not a half bad bat.

Hunter Pense hit .322/.360/.539 and would win this thing in a lot of years.

Thank you for reading this season. I really do appreciate the feedback I recieved through the year and I hope to preach to you guys next year.

Program Note  

Next week's Awards will be late, probably Wednesday due to my having a 4 day weekend in Michigan, coming back late on Monday. It will be the year-end extravaganza with official season awards being handed out.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

This one comes courtesy of Peter Sherwood, who points out that Adam Wainwright did everything in his power to win on Wednesday, giving the Cards 8 innings of one run ball. He even drove in one of the two St Louis runs on the day but he walked away with a no decision because of the comically bad lineup they threw out there with Scott Spiezio batting cleanup and Miguel Cairo and Skip Schumaker following him. There was no Albert Pujols to be found and Wainwright was doomed from the start.

Good Luck Division

On Saturday, Radhames Liz and Edison Volquez combined for 11 runs in 8 and a third and both came away with no decisions because neither team could get anybody out. The loss ended up going to Wes Littleton, who allowed 4 in an inning and a third of relief.

Vulture Division

Here's another one courtesy of Mr Sherwood. Brad Lidge (also on Wednesday) blew a two run lead in the ninth, but Matt Wise of the Brewers gifted him a W by allowing a run in the bottom of the 10th.

Holds Suck Too

Friday night, Leo Nunez got both a blown save and a hold in the same game.

The Wes Littleton They Call that a Save? Award

It demonstrates the ridiculousness of the save rule as it is currently constructed, but I also have something to compliment here. On Sunday night, Raphael Betancourt came into the game for the Indians in the 8th inning with two on and two out and got Nick Swisher to strike out before pitching a perfect 9th for a 4 run save. Now I don't think that should be counted as a save, but I do appreciate the fact that the Indians didn't use their regular "closer" Joe Borowski in the situation. I put closer in quotes because Betancourt is three times the pitcher that Borowski could ever think about being. Borowski, with 43 saves, a 1.41 WHIP, and a 4.96, is living proof that you don't really have to be special to post special save totals. The Indians have done a good job this season of assigning higher leverage situations to Betancourt, who has been dominating

The Rico Brogna Award

Melky Cabrera drove in 8 runs in 21 at bats despite hitting a limp .238/.292/.238

Season to Date: Jeff Francoeur is now over the Joe Carter line at 101 RBI on the year. Nevertheless, he's only hitting .290/.335/.432 as a starting right fielder.

PS, I feel bad about not saying this earlier, but thank you Mike. The world needs to hear the truth.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Jack Cust is just going to alternate weeks where he wins this award and the Balboni and I think he'll be alright with that. He posted a pedestrian .238, but 7 walks and 3 home runs in 21 at bats gets you to 1.143 OPS.

Season as a whole: Adam Dunn is hitting .264, but with 101 walks and 40 home runs for a 940 OPS.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Michael Young hit .300 on the week, but went without an extra base hit for a .300/.323/.300 line. His slugging is down to .413 on the season, his worst since his pre-breakout .262/.308/.382 in '02.

Season: Delmon Young is going to win this thing with his .294/.322/.418 line. He's coming close to giving Francoeur some competition with his 93 RBI.

The Steve Balboni Award

Jayson Werth smoked a pair of triples, a home run, he drew 5 walks, and was 2 for 2 stealing bases, but his 13 strikeouts led the Majors, bringing him down to .179/.303/.429.

Leader: Jonny Gomes only has 335 AB this season, but he has 118 K's, contributing to his .248/.322/.460 season. 19 doubles, 16 homers, and 31 walks are nice, but the strikeouts erode the batting average enough to make him a marginal value this season.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Ryan Howard outdid himself. 36 plate appearances, 4 home runs, 12 walks, 11 K.

Leader: Howard has put some distance between himself and the pack. 42 HR, 103 BB, and 195 K in 623 PA.

This Week's Completely Made Up Award

The Fugly Award goes to these awful, ugly uniforms. Please look at these uniforms before you okay them for "throwback" specials.

This Week's MVP

AL: Josh Fields was out of his mind this week, hitting .524/.615/1.190. He collected 3 doubles, a triple, three home runs, and five walks in 21 at bats.

Season: ARod update: .310/.416/.637, 52 HR, 90 BB

NL: I mentioned Ryan Howard before. The Burly One Pwned the week with a .348/.583/.913 line.

Season: David Wright remains the choice at .321/.414/.551. He now has 71 extra base hits and 91 walks.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

It's week 24 already?

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

Curt Schilling has had a tough time of things recently. He hasn't pitched as well as we're used to. On Monday night he allowed 1 run in 6 innings, but got the loss because Scott Kazmir and a pair of relievers shut out the powerful BoSox offense.

Good Luck Division

Kelvim Escobar had none of Schill's bad luck as he allowed 6 runs in 5 and a third against the Orioles. He got bailed out by Daniel Cabrera, who allowed 10 and 3 O's relievers, who allowed 2+ runs each. As long as he reached 5 innings, there was pretty much no way that Escobar could blow that lead.

Vulture Division

On Tuesday night, Matt Lindstrom of the Marlins allowed Ryan Zimmerman to score on a Dmitri Young double in the 7th, tying the game. The Fish promptly tallied 3 runs in the next frame and Lindstrom got the W.

The Wes Littleton They Call that a Save? Award

Takashi Saito had 3 run saves on two consecutive nights. On Thursday, he faced the Padres with Marcus Giles, Mike Cameron, and Adrian Gonzalez scheduled up and on Friday it was Jeff Salazar, Emiliano Bonifacio, and Justin Upton. One inning, 3 run saves are a horrific waste of a pitcher as good as Saito, especially when you're facing batters like Salazar and Bonifacio.

The Rico Brogna Award

Pudge Rodriguez drove in 6 runs in 19 at bats on the week, but hit a meager .263/.286/.368.

Season to Date:

Raul Ibanez has 95 RBI in his 524 at bats, but is at best an average left fielder at .282/.343/.462.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Mark Reynolds of the Snakes hit .211, but secondary skills were at play and his line ended up being .211/.400/.526.

Season as a whole: Jim Thome deserves some credit in this lost season for the White Sox. He's hitting .268, but with 87 walks and 28 home runs he's sporting a .402 OBP and a .520 SLG.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Delmon Young hit .300/.323/.367. Drawing walks has been a problem all season and he hasn't hit for nearly the kind of power anybody expected of him. Things will improve next year, but you have to hope that he learns that he doesn't have to swing at everything white that floats by him.

Season: Pudge Rodriguez with his .282/.296/.427 line. He has 468 at bats and 9 walks.

The Steve Balboni Award

Ryan Howard demonstrated some secondary skills with his two doubles, one home run, and four walks in 28 at bats, but his 11 K's killed his week at .179/.281/.357.

Leader: Josh Fields has the classic Balboni skill set with 19 home runs in 332 at bats, a fair 25 walks, and an ugly 114 whiffs. All of that combines for a .232/.285/.446 line.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

I mentioned Mark Reynolds in the `Brew Award. He hit a pair of home runs, drew six free passes, and struck out 6 times in 25 plate appearances.

Leader: Ryan Howard leads baseball with 184 K's, is 5th in homers with 38, and is 11th in walks with 91.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

I remember seeing the Kansas City Chiefs getting flagged for 2 illegal blocks in the back and a hold on the same kickoff return and still not manage to get the ball across their own 20 yard line this Sunday.

But really there was no contest. This kind of ineptitude is really one in a million.

This Week's Completely Made Up Award

I've been asked to talk about the Mariners abrupt fall from contention. The thing is, it's a truly remarkable thing to behold, but I don't have an awful lot to say about it. They were dramatically overachieving. When you look at their batting and pitching numbers, it's hard to believe that they were relevant in the race for the playoffs. When you give the roster the eyeball test, it's hard to believe that they were relevant in the race for the playoffs. They really didn't belong in the first place and they're about where I thought they'd be when the season started. Count me in as a believer in the theory that a premium relief ace like JJ Putz can help a team with unremarkable runs scored/runs allowed figures to overachieve, but it doesn't make a 75ish win team into an 88ish win team.

I find it also remarkable that the Cardinals have followed them on the spiral staircase out of the playoff race and they too had no business ever entertaining the notion of being a playoff team. There are too many gaping holes in that roster with the old guard of Rolen and Edmonds decaying, a rotation that is currently anchored by two guys I figured would be decent middle relievers.

This Week's MVP

AL: David Ortiz hit .450/.577/1.000 with 5 extra base hits and 6 walks in 26 plate appearances.

Season: Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez

NL: Matt Holliday hit .407/.500/1.148 with 6 homers on the week. I really didn't buy into the purported Holliday dark horse MVP candidacy until recently because of the Coors Field effect. However, with a .334/.396/.594 line and a lack of any candidates running away from the pack the way that ARod is doing in the AL, he might just be a valid option for voters. He's certainly in the pack.

Season: Speaking of the pack, I still think that David Wright leads that pack with his .313/.411/.547 line and excellent third base glove. But it's a shame that Chase Utley missed that month with a broken hand because he likely would have run away with this thing. Utley is hitting .333/.414/.565, but in 476 at bats against Wright's 543 at bats. With his above average glove at a premium defensive position AND a bat like that, he's an insanely valuable player. His VORP of 62.9 is right there in that pack behind Wright (69.7)  with Pujols, Holliday, Fielder (63.4, 64.0, 63.1) and a few others.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

Pardon me if this is a bit short and poorly written this week. I feel like crap after I tweaked a hamstring working out this weekend and had an unfortunate dentist appointment this afternoon.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

Gavin Floyd and Kenny Rogers combined for 11 innings of work where they allowed 2 earned runs, 8 hits, 4 walks, and struck out 12. No decision for either of them.

Also, John Lackey on Friday spun a marvelous 7 innings of work against the Indians, with 1 run, 6 hits, a walk, and 6 K's. He walked away with a no decision because Francisco Rodriguez blew the lead.

Good Luck Division

Don't tell Matt Cain about this because he may go and stab Ray Durham, but Daisuke Matsuzaka allowed 7 runs in 5 and a third on Monday against the Blue Jays but he still got the W.

Similarly Felix Hernandez got the golden W despite allowing 7 runs of his own in 5 innings on Sunday because Jeremy Bombedagain got lit up. It must be nice to get that kind of run support.

Vulture Division

After Brad Hennessey let a 1 run lead vanish with a James Loney solo shot, Dan Ortmeier went yard off of Jonathan Broxton to give Hennessey a completely undeserved W. When that happens, does the pitcher buy the rookie first baseman a steak dinner or something?

Reader Peter Sherwood mentions that on Thursday, Kelvin Jimenez threw all of 7 pitches...in the second inning of a 2-2 game and walked away with a win. Granted it was kind of a tight spot with the bases loaded and Jason Bay at the plate, but it was 7 pitches in the second inning for chrissake.

The Wes Littleton They Call that a Save? Award

Thank you to Jeremiah M for the submission on the new name. It's a winner since I poked fun at Littleton's cheapest of all cheap saves in the Rangers 30-3 win a few weeks ago.

On Sunday, we had four 3 run, 3 out saves. Chad Cordero, Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera, and Billy Wagner all got the glory for something that an inferior pitcher should have been doing.

The Rico Brogna Award

Mike Lowell collected 6 RBI but hit a meager .222/.323/.333 on the week.

Season to Date: Jeff Francoeur with 91 RBI, but he's a right fielder hitting .294/.337/.443.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Rick Ankiel hit .261, but with a pair of doubles, 3 home runs, and 4 walks. This led to a .370 OBP and .739 SLG. And no, I'm not going to mention the HGH.

Season as a whole: Adam LaRoche had an extremely rough start in 2007, but he fought his way through it. His BA is still a little pedestrian at .269, but he has 56 walks and 21 home runs, which gives him a line of .269/.342/.460, which isn't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not too bad.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Casey Blake isn't a usual suspect for this award as his biggest asset rather than batting average, but hitting .292 with a pair of doubles and one walk in 24 at bats gets you to .292/.320/.375 and that gets you a Sanchez Award.

Season: We're still going with Delmon Young, who is hitting .293/.322/.416 as a starting right fielder. But let's give an honorable mention to Jose Vidro, who is hitting .313 and drawing walks with his .379 OBP, but he has 6 home runs all year and is the primary DH for the Mariners. He's slugging .393. That's an isolated slugging percentage of .080.

The Steve Balboni Award

Ryan Howard and Jonny Gomes share the award this week. Howard went .105/.261/.263 weighted down by 8 K's in 19 AB while Gomes went .188/.316/.375 with 7 K in 16 AB. They both did other things right. They both hit a home run and Howard drew 4 walks, Gomes 3. But you have to make at least some contact.

Leader: Josh Fields might be running away with this thing, hitting .234/.288/.446. He has power to spare with 18 homers in 316 at bats, but he's struck out 108 times.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Rickie Weeks had 16 at bats and a pair of home runs, 9 walks, and 8 homers.

Leader: Ryan Howard with 38 HR, 87 BB, 175 K in 560 plate appearances.

This Week's Completely Made Up Award

I talked about Clay Buchholz's no hitter last week. But the thing that has to terrify the rest of baseball is the idea that the Red Sox and Yankees are trying out youth movements right now. For years they've been justifiably painted (especially the Yanks) as a collection of mercenaries. The organizations have epitomized big dumb money, once again especially the Yankees. But after producing some valuable commodities like Jon Papelbon, Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Kevin Youkilis, Chien-Ming Wang, they've brought up Dustin Pedroia, Phillip Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, and Buchholz. It was one thing for the Yanks and BoSox to have more money than God when they blew a lot of it on flukes like Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano and the decline phases of Jason Giambi. But brains and money is an infinitely more dangerous combination. It's a completely different thing if they use that money more wisely by dumping a significant amount into the farm system and work the best talents from that system into the team.

This all being said, caveats about here. Even smart teams with good farm systems have uneven results, often going through droughts and deluges. And even those good organizations run into traps where they are prone to falling in love with particular players that they've produced, overlooking weaknesses. The Yanks have been masters at overlooking weaknesses, especially defensively where they stuck with Bernie Williams in center well past his expiration date.

It also bears mentioning that recently found wisdom didn't prevent the guys from the Bronx from paying way too much for Johnny Damon declining bat and glove or for Kei Igawa's overrated stuff or the Red Sox from making mistakes with Julio Lugo and JD Drew. And for all of the compliments I'm paying here to the Red Sox and Yankees farm systems, I still hated the idea of Andrew Brackman. It's certainly possible that this isn't a recognition of how to prevent errors of the past (A.K.A. throw money at it) but rather an extension of the big, dumb money strategy into the farm system coupled with an arrogance that will undermine these efforts in the long run. But if it is a genuine change in strategy towards actually listening to their scouts and trusting younger players instead of reflexively trading them and trying to build squads of 25 mercenaries, then they will go a long way towards accomplishing that state of perpetual competition for the top spot and prevent the kind of organizational collapses that led to the Yankee and Red Sox teams of the early 90's.

This Week's MVP

AL: ARod hit .565/.630/1.478 with 7 bombs, 3 walks, and 4 K in 23 AB. That's amazing

Season: ARod's MVP week has his season stats up to .318/.424/.672. It put him up over 50 home runs and up to 82 walks. He's even 22 for 25 stealing bases, which has made at least one of my fantasy league teams very happy.

NL: Where did this come from? Jack Wilson hit .615/.621/.077 with 6 doubles, 2 home runs, 2 walks, and 2 K. Unbelievably he's hitting .349/.401/.534 since the All Star break.

Season: ARod's crosstown rival at third base, David Wright is having an MVP caliber season of his own with a .315/.410/.539 line. He's doing this in Shea Stadium which is no mean feat and he has a pretty good glove. He's carrying 34 doubles, 27 homers, 84 walks, and he's stolen 30 bases, only getting caught 4 times.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

Greg Maddux and Micah Owings had a nice duel going on Wednesday. They combined for 14 innings of 11 hit ball, allowing only 2 runs and only one walk. They got matching no decisions for their trouble.

Good Luck Division

Scott Kazmir had run support that Owings and Maddux could only dream about on Thursday. He let 5 Orioles score (remember that this is the same squad that got no-hit this week...more on that in a moment) in 5 innings, but he got the W because Jeremy Guthrie got absolutely blitzed for 6 runs in 6 frames.

Vulture Division

Huston Street blew a 2 run lead on Friday night against the Tigers, but Joel Zumaya bailed him out by allowing a run of his own.

They Call that a Save?

Brad Hennessey of the Giants got the 3 run, 1 inning save against the Rox on Monday. Even with Todd Helton and Garrett Atkins coming up at the top of the 9th, there still wasn't much of a danger to "save" the boys by the bay from. He only contributed 3.8% to the Giants win probability that night, but he still gets the big S next to his name.

As an aside, what was Yorvit Torrealba doing batting 6th, ahead of Brad Hawpe? What kind of insanity is that anyways?

Oh, also I'm looking for a better name for this award. If you have a suggestion, contact me.

The Rico Brogna Award

Tori Hunter drove in 5 despite hitting a measly .148/.172/.296.

Season to Date: Garrett Atkins has 95 RBI on the season, good for 15th in the Majors. He's hitting .281/.348/.466, which isn't bad, but for a third baseman playing in Coors (which has returned to being a friendly place for hitters), it isn't great either. It's about average. This is what happens when you spend all season batting behind Matt Holiday's .397 OBP and Todd Helton's .424.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Kevin Youkilis had this great line: .235/.500/.588 this week. That's what a couple of home runs and seven walks will do for you.

Season as a whole: Pat Burrell is up to .262/.401/.504.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Juan Pierre is one of my favorite targets. His tendency to hit the way he did this week, with a .308/.308/.346 line is the primary reason why.

Season: Delmon Young won last week and at .296/.326/.412, he still has a nice little margin built up. But let's take a moment to appreciate the brilliance of Sean Casey's .283/.339/.378 and Shannon Stewart's .283/.345/.385.

The Steve Balboni Award

Akinori Iwamura hit a pair of doubles, a triple, a home run, and he drew 4 walks in 27 at bats, but his 10 K's doomed his batting average, leading to a .185/.281/.444 week.

Leader: Brandon Inge is another repeat winner with his 137K and .234/.314/.376 season. But also worth mentioning is Bill Hall, who has always been a serious free swinger, but his 107 whiffs in 403 at bats has dragged him down to .258/.320/.432, which would be disappointing but not a killer if he was still playing primarily second and short. But when he's taking up an outfield spot, which just isn't acceptable.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Carlos Pena homered 4 times, walked 8 times, and struck out 7 times in 36 plate appearances.

Leader: Ryan Howard hasn't run away with it, but he's been on top of the charts for quite some time now as he's tied for second in the NL in HR with 36, tied for 5th in walks with 83, and leading the Senior Circuit in K with 165.

This Week's Completely Made Up Award

In lieu of an actual award, I'm taking the opportunity for some commentary on Clay Buchholz's no hitter. It was a very well pitched game, but there were some things in here to keep in mind. First, while this game ranks very high among the best pitched games of the season, it only ranks 5th best in game score at 93. It is tied with Scott Baker's 1 hitter from the day before. As an aside, the best game score of the year doesn't actually belong to any of the three no-no's that we've seen or Johan Santana's brilliant 17 K gem against the Rangers. It's Erik Bedard's 15K shutout of the Rangers on July 7th, which garnered a 98.

The other thing to think about is that this was a lineup that was vulnerable to this kind of thing. Let's run down the order.

2B Brian Roberts, who is a good hitter, hitting .304/.392/.453 on the season, but he bat .257/.351/.398 in August.

CF Corey Patterson has no business as a starting outfielder, hitting an anemic .272/.308/.387 on the season. Could somebody tell me what he was doing batting second? It will be interesting to see where he latches on in the off season. With speed and defense, he could be very interesting for some teams, but they need to minimize the damage he does with his weak bat.

SS Nick Markakis is hitting .294/.360/.467 in 523 at bats in 2007. No argument here, but he's solid, not spectacular and not my idea of a #3 hitter.

SS Miguel Tejada is hitting .306/.363/.471. He was the most likely one to get a hit, but everybody has some oh-fers.

DH Kevin Millar: .261/.373/.430. He's drawn some walks this season, but at this point in his career that's just about all he has and that's not a ringing endorsement for a DH.

1B Aubrey Huff: If you hadn't noticed by now, this piece could alternately be named "Why the Orioles Are Where They Are". Huff was one of the Orioles key acquisitions and he's hitting .271/.320/.435.

3B Scott Moore was playing his first ML game this season after hitting .265/.373/.526 in Des Moines. Now I like the trade that the Orioles made to get him, giving up Steve Trachsel for Moore and another player. He'll be an asset to the club with his lefty pop. I think he could be one of the better "4 corners" supersubs in the game. But his weaknesses, mostly contact and the associated batting average issues, perfectly align with being no-hit.

C JR House only had 15 ML at bats on the season for Baltimore and he had hit .200/.250/.400, but that's not statistically significant. He hit .298/.365/.463 for Norfolk in a much more robust 419 at bats. Actually, I like him too as a pinch hitter, backup catcher, and backup first baseman/DH. But this is another backup level bat.

LF Jay Payton: I'm kind of stunned that he can still buy his way onto a ML roster, let alone have a team voluntarily pay him to play. At least the Orioles had the smarts to bat a guy who is sporting a .259/.298/.368 line 9th in the order.

To review, that's a lineup that isn't really going to threaten many good pitchers. You're immediately forfeiting two spots in the lineup by playing Patterson and Payton. Huff and Millar are well past their sell by date. Markakis is a good young player that I like and he makes for a solid start to a lineup with Tejada and Roberts, but three guys does not a lineup make. I like Moore and House going forward, but more in the way that I'm looking forward to seeing how a good, smart manager can put them to good use rather than waiting to see what they can do with 500 at bats in a season.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

There were no shortages of candidates in this race. The world abounds with people and events that qualify. Adam Dunn missed third base on his way home, costing his team in a situation where they would have been assured to have scored at least two runs, and maybe would have scored more as it would have been 2 on, 2 out. Joey Gathright attempted to bunt in the first inning of a game against the Tigers even though Andrew Miller had allowed the first 7 hitters in the game to reach base, and managed to strike out after he was unsuccessful with the bunt. But having watched my friend Jeff Sullivan's descent into madness during the Mariners recent losing streak, I thought it might be an appropriate occasion to give him the floor and let him get some things off his chest. So I asked him if he would like to have the floor for a minute. In the first ever guest spot on the Weekly Awards, here's Jeff's nomination of John McLaren for Dumbest Thing Ever.

A lot of new managers are given a little grace period during which they're free from criticism while they familiarize themselves with their job and their players. For John McLaren, though, a dugout veteran of more than 20 years, there is no excusing the mess he's made of the Mariners' recent losing streak.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and blame McLaren for the skid. More than anything else, it's the players who have to perform up to their abilities. But John McLaren did not handle the whole thing very well, and it all kind of boiled over in last Thursday's latest Cleveland makeup game. Let's recap:

-Started Jose Vidro - arguably the worst defensive infielder in baseball - instead of Jose Lopez or Willie Bloomquist at second base with groundballer Horacio Ramirez on the mound

-Batted Raul Ibanez cleanup against a left-handed starter

-With men on first and second with none out in the ninth inning of a one-run game against Joe Borowski, had Adam Jones bunt on a 3-1 count

-Relieved Eric O'Flaherty with two on and one out in the bottom of the ninth with Rick White, even though JJ Putz hadn't pitched since the 24th

Put all these things together and you've got yourself a 6-5 loss and a six-game losing streak. During those six games, Putz made zero appearances, while White made four - in a tie game against Texas, in a one-run game against Los Angeles, in a tie game against Cleveland, and in a blowout. Three high-leverage appearances given to a 38 year old nobody who couldn't even get hitters out in Houston before getting released. White was predictably terrible, and it cost the team severely. That's what happens when you make far and away the worst pitcher in your bullpen throw important pitches.

It's like the team didn't learn at all from the failed John Parrish experiment before. For whatever reason McLaren falls in love with crappy veterans who've "been through wars", and for whatever reason Bill Bavasi allows him to indulge in his weird little fantasies rather than build the idiot-proof bullpen we thought we had before. It's a dangerous combination, and God only knows how much it's already cost us.

John McLaren doesn't know anything about groundball/flyball profiles, he doesn't know anything about platoon splits, he doesn't know anything about when to yank certain pitchers, and he doesn't know anything about how to run a Major League bullpen. The sabermetric principle that field managers have little impact on a team's final record falls short here, because McLaren occupies his own little world of stupid, and with more than 20 years' dugout experience under his belt, it's hard to see him evolving in the role. John McLaren: major tool. That the Mariners are somehow still in playoff contention is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

This Week's MVP

AL: It's a tough choice between Carlos Pena, who smacked 4 long balls and drew 8 walks in his .296/.444/.852 week and Curtis Granderson, who hit a pair of bombs to go with 4 doubles and a steal in going .531/.519/.923. I think I'll go with Pena because he had an extra 9 plate appearances for his rate stats.

Season: Alex Alowishus Devadander Abercrombie Rodriguez.

NL: Jimmy Rollins had the best week in baseball, going .515/.556/.909. He was the ultimate stat sheet stuffer with a pair of doubles, a triple, three homers, three steals (caught once), and three walks. It bears mentioning that I never saw this mid-career power spike coming. There was no warning. He had hit 14 home runs in 2001 and 2004, but he hit 25 last season and he has 25 right now. He went from having a career high in isolated slugging of .166 to going for .201 last season and .237 this season. He's hitting .299/.350/.536 and he's become quite a valuable little player, more than making his 5 year, $40 million contract a bargain. There were some doubts about giving that much money over that amount of time to him.

Season: Jake Peavy spun a pair of spectacular starts this week, combining for 14 innings of 1 run baseball, allowing only 5 HITS, striking out 19, walking 4. That brought his ERA down to its current 2.10. It's certainly aided by his home park, but an ERA+ of 196 is hard to mitigate through park effects alone. Batters are now hitting an impotent .202/.268/.282 against him. That's simply insane.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

Welcome to the only corner of the American sports landscape where you won't hear about a certain guy who used to wear shoulder pads on Sunday and just admitted to doing something very, very bad. That's right, no coverage of that one guy, what's his name? Something like Hans Laos, or Jim Nigeria, maybe it was Eddie Chile. Whatever his name is, we here at the weekly awards love dogs, except for that one that lives one block west and one block north of the Weekly Awards headquarters, the one we've nicknamed Snarls Barkley. We just wish he'd shut up. But all of the other dogs are cool. Good doggy. That's right, goooood doggy.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

On Thursday, Jake Westbrook and Nate Robinson combined for 16 2/3 innings of shutout ball, allowing only 9 hits and 2 walks in that time. They got matching no decisions and the win went to Rafael Perez, who threw a grand total of 6 pitches.

If you're looking for an actual loss, the go to Westbrook's teammate Fausto Carmona, who took the L on Tuesday despite giving the Indians a complete game, allowing only 2 runs on 3 hits and no walks. A pair of solo home runs were hit undoing and rookie Jair Jurrjens got the win.

Good Luck Division

On Friday, Andrew Miller and Roger Clemens both got bombed, Miller allowing 6 runs in 4 and a third and Clemens getting shelled for 6 runs in 5 frames. Both escaped with no decisions, spared the indignity of being the pitcher who killed their team in a very important game.

Special Recognition for Good Luck

I hadn't planned on recognizing season pitching awards this week, as I usually leave those for every few weeks. But I got an email from an anonymous reader pointing me to Claudio Vargas, who has a ridiculous 10-4 record despite a 1.56 WHIP and 5.13 ERA. But do you know what? I think it goes beyond this year. Digging into the numbers, he hasn't had a sub-.500 season he was a rookie in 2003, and even then it was a comparatively tame 6-8. He has a career 42-36 record in 657 innings. This despite a career whip of 1.46 and an ERA of 4.96. Batters this season are hitting a combined .287/.352/.482 against him. Career, it's .273/.343/.483. For context, the average NL hitter is batting .264/.332/.418. Yet here he is, standing among baseball's leaders in win percentage.

Vulture Division

In Thursday night's Padres/Mets matchup, Billy Wagner entered the game with his Mets up 7-6. He gave up 2 runs, handing Trevor Hoffman a 8-7 9th inning lead. HE coughs up a run, making it a tie ballgame. Aaron Heilman then gives Hoffman a helping hand by hanging one to Adrian Gonzalez. Heath Bell finally ends the madness by throwing a scoreless bottom 10th and Hoffman walks away with the golden W.

The Rico Brogna Award

Marlon Byrd drove in 7 runs in 21 at bats, but only managed to hit .190/.286/.333.

Season to Date: Andruw Jones has made a hash of the season, hitting .223/.315/.429, but he gets a big pat on the back for being tied for 26th in the Majors with 83 RBI. He's a "PROVEN RUN PRODUCER", whatever that means.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Nate McLouth had a nice week despite hitting .258. 2 doubles, 3 home runs, and 5 walks in 31 at bats will do that for you. His .974 OPS is pretty nice.

I hadn't noticed, but McLouth is up to a very respectable .251/.331/.455 this season. I had seen him play here in Indy and had viewed him as strictly a kind of 4th outfielder virtuoso in the making. I'll also mention that I may be alone here, but I've always thought that the name Nate McLouth just sounds like the name of a player from 1924.

Season as a whole: Ryan Howard's .264/.386/.564 gets it done. He may not hit many singles, but he has 20 doubles, 34 bombs, and 81 walks. Nifty.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

We have a tie for the top spot with two very similar performances. Nook Logan hit .308/.308/.346 and Jose Lopez .308/.308/.385. That's 52 AB, 3 doubles, no homers or walks.

Season: Delmon Young has a .288 BA, but he's not hitting for power or drawing walks. .317/.403 OBP/SLG is anemic, even for a player as young as he is. In 511 at bats, he's hit only 9 home runs and drawn only 22 walks.

The Steve Balboni Award

There are two really good candidates here too. Rookie Josh Fields popped 2 homers, a double, and drew a pair of walks. But his 11 K's pulled him down to a .179/.233/.429 line. Meanwhile, Brad Hawpe likewise tallied a double, a couple bombs, and a pair of walks while striking out 10 times for a .167/.231/.458 week.

Leader: Brandon Inge: 408 AB, 130 K, .246/.319/.380

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Carlos Pena had a very solid TTO week, with 3 HR, 8 BB, 4 K in 20 AB.

Leader: Ryan Howard is tied for 7th in the Majors in walks with 81, leads in K's with 152, and is 4th in HR with 36.

This Week's Completely Made Up Award

I was talking with my friend Dan Wesley and a couple other people about various hitters and we went about comparing the virtues and weaknesses of a pair of Devil Rays. When looking at the careers of Jonny Gomes and Carlos Pena, it's very strange to see just how similar they are statistically. Gomes has had about half the ML career that Pena has had, due in no small part to his being two and a half years Pena's junior. The two of them get the "Separated At Birth" Award.

Pena
2383 career PA
102 2B: 3.6% of PA
114 HR: 4.78%
279 BB: 11.71%
608 K: 25.51%
Career line: .248/.341/.478

Gomes
1183 career PA
48 2B: 4.06%
55 HR: 4.65%
121 BB: 10.23%
322 K: 27.22%
Career Line: .246/.338/.473

Pena gets some bonus points for playing his home games in Comerica Park for most of his career. He also gets bonus points for being a Gold Glove darkhorse. Gomes theoretically has more career ahead of him, though he might get hurt in the future by his questionable glove and that's part of the famed "Old Player Skills" that portends sudden performance drop-offs and early ending careers. It'll be interesting to watch their lines going forward.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

A save in a 30-3 game? When the pitcher in question entered the game with an 11 run lead? The situation was actually presented to me by Lone Star Ball founder and proprietor, and friend of BTB and the Awards Adam Morris. And indeed, it's worthy, perhaps overqualified.

In the original concept for this weekly column, I intended to hand out an award based on cheap saves and the silliness that tends to follow that particular stat around. For one reason or another, I really never got around to it. Two things happened this week to prompt me to mention it. First, the Littleton save, which points a spotlight at the dumbest provision in a dumb set of rules for a dumb stat. The second is that Dave Pinto laid out a new set of procedures for the save, or if you prefer a stat that better accomplishes what the save was originally set out to measure.

This Week's MVP

AL: David Ortiz hit .478/.600/1.043 with 2 doubles, a triple, 3 homers, 7 walks, and only 1 K.

Season: ARod

NL: Having Mark Teixeira in the NL is going to take some getting used to for me. He's done well there though, going .414/.514/.793 this week for the politically incorrect team from Georgia.

Season: Hanley Ramirez is still hitting .332/.389/.561, but David Wright is gaining on him, as the Mets third baseman is up to .319/.413/.535 himself. He's even stolen 28 bases this year with an 87.5 percent success rate. He drew 10 walks this week. But even being the best player on a playoff contender isn't likely to be enough as he's trailing in RBI, which BBWAA voters love, and for all of his popularity, the national media has seemed to have been hyping Prince Fielder  and Ryan Howard more than Wright.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

The press attention deservedly went to Johan Santana after the Rangers/Twins pitcher's duel on Sunday, but it bears mentioning that Kevin Millwood, who has struggled this season, threw 7 innings of nearly scoreless baseball, allowing only 1 runner to touch home. He got the loss because he had the bad luck of throwing his best start of the year on the same night that the best pitcher in baseball had one of his best games ever.

Season Leader: As sad as Millwood's misfortune on Sunday, Matt Cain sheds no tears for the big sinkerballer. He's had an entire season of heartache, posting a 3.78 ERA with 124 K in 157 innings. His 16 quality starts in 25 attempts puts him in a tie for 8th in the NL. Nevertheless, he's 5 and 13. That's 5 wins, 13 losses.

Good Luck Division

On Thursday, San Diego starter Clay Hensley gave up 6 runs in 5 innings to the R0x0rs at Petco. He gave allowed 10 baserunners and still got the W because the Padres dropped 10 runs on Elmer Dessens and Jeremy Affeldt.

Season Leader: Horatio Ramirez of the Mariners has a 7.38 ERA and is 7 and 4 in only 14 starts. He's only struck out 3.88 batters per nine and is allowing almost 2 baserunners an inning. Do you think he buys Ichiro a steak dinner for every underserved win?

Vulture Division

This really is endemic. Bill Bray came in and threw one pitch on Sunday and got the win versus the Brewers. This was pointed out by reader Ethan Stanislawski. I will say in Bray's cause, his one pitch was a pretty critical one for the Reds as he got Price Fielder, who is a very tough out and he stranded a runner on second in the process.

The Rico Brogna Award

Magglio Ordonez collected 8 RBI on the week and while his outstanding work with the lumber all year makes any criticism of him mere nitpicking, this column is here both for large statements and indeed for nitpicking. The Venezuelan hit a modest .250/.300/.357 on the week, which doesn't help the team's cause very much.

Season to Date: Jason Bay is tied for 10th in the NL with 79 RBI and is "on pace" to end the year with 106. However, he's hitting a meager .253/.328/.424.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Russ Martin Hit .240 this week, but 2 of his 6 hits were home runs and he walked 4 times, to give him a .240/.367/.480 line.

Season as a whole: A .400/.500/.800 week has Lance Berkman's line up to .268/.378/.474. It isn't the elite Berkman that we're used to, but he still has 24 dingers and 72 walks, which makes him a pretty valuable player.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Tad Iguchi hit .296 on the week, but his .321 OBP and .370 SLG only nets him a .691 OPS. Pass.

Season: Delmon Young has a .290 BA, but only 21 walks and 9 home runs in 486 at bats for a .290/.320/.407 line.

The Steve Balboni Award

Jeff Francoeur's 9 whiffs in 21 at bats negated his otherwise worthy work by holding down his average. 2 homers, 2 walks, and a steal are nice, but a .190/.261/.476 line is subpar for a right fielder.

Leader: Brandon Inge has a very good glove at third and he has 37 walks in 393 at bats, but his 130 strikeouts have been a drag on his numbers and by extension, the Tigers numbers. .242/.317/.389 isn't helping them hold off the Indians.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Adam Dunn reigns with 4 HR, 8 BB, and 5 K in 20 at bats.

Leader: Ryan Howard retains last week's title. He's up to 33 HR, 79 BB, 149 K in 474 plate appearances.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever/Some Brief Draft Signing Deadline Notes

I really, really dislike the Andrew Brackman contract from the Yankees. I don't so much dislike the pick itself or the money involved. Money is just money, and Brackman is probably worth the last pick in the first round. He has talent. He's just much, much, much too raw to get a Major League contract. He's a project at best. He has very little real domination in his track record. He has very little experience, messy mechanics, and a possible major surgery in his immediate future. Exactly how many warning lights need to go off here? And he's now on the 40 man roster. If he struggles or recovers slowly from his anticipated trek to Dr James Andrews, then he'll be pushed to the Bronx before he's ready. For players like David Price and Matt Weiters, a Major League contract is a reasonable demand. They're almost certain to be in the Majors in 3 or 4 years and if they aren't, then something very, very, very bad has happened and running out of option years is the least of everybody's concerns. With a project like Brackman or a high schooler like Rick Porcello, it's tempting fate.

On the positive side, my favorite PICK in this draft is the Braves taking Jason Heyward at number 14. Heyward is one of my favorite players in this class, combining advanced skills with a very high ceiling. He has athleticism and raw power with contact ability and a good idea of what he's doing at the plate. I would have rather had him than 5 of the guys taken in the top 10.

This Week's MVP

AL: Jack Cust hit .409/.533/.864 in 22 at bats.

Season: ARod hit .360/.467/.400 on the week to bring him up to .304/.411/.623 in 451 AB on the year.

NL: Chris B. Young has had a couple of huge weeks interspersed in a season full of very challenging weeks. .393/.433/1.036 with great defense is one hell of a week. He smacked 11 hits, 3 of which were doubles and complimented by 5 homers. He drew a pair of walks and stole a base.

Season: The Fish have what I think are the two most valuable players in the National League this season. Hanley Ramirez is hitting .339/.392/.574, leading the league in batting and generally wrecking havoc, collecting stats in every category. Doubles, triples, homers, steals. Meanwhile, a few feet to his right, Miguel Cabrera is hitting .330/.409/.606. But even with these two, the Fish are currently 14 ½ games out in the NL East. Why is that? Well, there are 3 main reasons behind it.

1. The pitching, which was a strength last season, allowing the 12th fewest runs in the Majors, has become a liability as injury and regression have taken their toll. They current rank 28th in runs allowed and have walked more batters than any team in baseball.
2. The defense behind the pitchers has been a weakness as well. According to Baseball Prospectus's Defensive Efficiency rates, they rank 29th in turning batted balls into outs. This might be seen as 1A since much of their difficulty with pitching is exacerbated by their porous defense. Ramirez and Cabrera here are partially culpable here as they're among the worst defenders at their positions this season, as are secondbaseman Dan Uggla and left fielder Josh Willingham. By and large, this team isn't going to make the kind of mistakes that lead to embarrassing SportsCenter highlights, but rather they are loaded with defenders who just don't cover a lot of ground relative to league norms.
3. They've had a certain number of massive liabilities in the lineup, chief among them catcher Miguel Olivo, who is hitting a putrid .237/.254/.379. Among other issues have been Marlin catchers, hitting a combined .266/.345/.413, center fielders (.268/.326/.374), and right fielders (.236/.329/.405).

Ramirez and Cabrera have virtually no chance to win the hardware and would have to go to Bondsian lengths to get the attention required to be considered legitimate candidates in the eyes of most voters. That's a shame. We'll probably end up with a player who was clearly inferior but benefited from having better teammates.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The Helping His Own Cause Award goes to rookie pitcher Micah Owings of the Diamondbacks, who single-handedly beat the Braves despite throwing less than 80 pitches on the night. By now you already know that on Saturday night, he smacked 2 home runs, a double, and a single, driving in half of the Diamondbacks 12 runs on the night. I confess that I had to work at 4 AM on Sunday, so I didn't watch the game. The first time I heard about his feat was at 3:15AM when I was watching ESPNews. They expressed shock that Owings was able to hit for power, not realizing that he was a very good two-way player at Georgia Tech and Tulane before becoming a full time pitcher after being drafted by the Snakes in the third round in 2005. He plowed his way to a .719 SLG as a junior at Tulane as a first baseman. I was going to blast away on the anchors for not doing basic research before they went on with the story, but I watched the morning SportsCenter a few hours later and the oversight was at least partially corrected with the highlights of the game mentioning that he was a very good hitter in high school. No mention of his college career, but I can forgive that since the basic premise being that he was a good amateur hitter remaining intact.

On the subject of good hitting pitchers, Owings has the talent to be one of the better ones out there. Among those who are cited as being historically proficient hitters, I'm surprised to learn that Greg Maddux, who was widely hailed for his stick, is a modest .173/.193/.208 hitter in his career. In truth, Mike Hampton is probably a much better example as the prototype pitcher with a good bat, as he is/was a .242/.292/.354 career hitter. The other players who are noted as being proficient hitters right now are Dontrelle Willis, at .214/.262/.319 (he's even having a down year at the plate; .159/.245/.273), Carlos Zambrano at .219/.228/.356 (obviously power, but no patience), and Livan Hernandez at .233/242/.317. For sense of perspective, the average Major League pitcher is hitting .145/.177/.181.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

 I'll be honest, I have no idea who John Lannan is, but I do know he got screwed last week. The Nats lefty spun two gems on the road and came away empty handed. On Monday, he tossed 7 innings, allowing 1 run in PacBell/AT&T/Ma Bell Park, but he came away with a no decision because the DC lineup couldn't figure out Tim Lincecum and his friends. Then on Saturday, he was victimized by Brandon Webb's reign of terror, coming away with a loss despite another 7 innings with only one run allowed. For those of you who haven't done the math yet, that's 14 innings thrown with a 1.29 ERA and a 0-1 record for his troubles.

Good Luck Division

Contrast Lannan's luck with Horatio Ramirez, who "knows how to win" and gave his team a decrepit 5 inning effort, allowing 10 baserunners and 7 runs to the sub-par Orioles offense. He got the win because Daniel Cabrera isn't a good pitcher either. Furthermore in Ramirez's favor, the M's bullpen is a strength, while the Baltimore management team used free agency as their chosen method of building a bullpen, resulting in "proven veterans" Danys Baez and Jamie Walker giving the Ho a much easier victory than he ever should have expected.

Vulture Division

Our vulture this week comes from reader Rich Poupard, who put it about as well as I could expect to do when he says:

Last night [Monday] in the game between the Tigers and the Devil Rays, Justin Verlander battled for 6 innings, Macay McBride got two batters out, and Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones each got through an inning.  Zach Miner threw one pitch in the game - a strike in the 6th inning.

Miner got the win.

The Rico Brogna Award

Rockies utility infielder Jamey Carroll has 7 RBI in 14 at bats despite hitting .143/.250/.357. It was almost half of his season total in RBI (18) in one poor week.

Season to Date: Jeff Francoeur and Andruw Jones share the award. Both are among the NL leaders in RBI, Francoeur with 76, Jones with 74, but they owe much of that to batting behind Kelly Johnson (.395 OBP), Edgar Renteria (.392), and Chipper Jones (.403). Francoeur's batting a respectable, but hardly elite .309/.351/.466 and Jones is batting .214/.309/.414.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Ryan Howard only hit .250 this week, but 3 of his 5 hits were home runs and he walked 4 times in 20 at bats for a .250/.385/.700 line.

Season as a whole: Pat Burrell has a run of the mill .266 batting average, largely because of the 80 times he's whiffed in 319 at bats, but he also has 83 walks. .266/.418/.486 isn't bad.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Jose Lopez singled 7 times in 22 at bats, but didn't collect an extra-base hit or a walk for a punchless .318/.318/.318.

Season: Memo to the Dodgers; RE: Nomar Garciaparra; When you have a corner infielder hitting .281/.327/.365, that's a problem. Down in Vegas, Adam LaRoche's little brother hit .411/.486/.922 in July. I'm just saying...

The Steve Balboni Award

Nelson Cruz had a double and 3 walks in 19 at bats, but he struck out 9 times, contributing to his .158/.273/.211 week.

Leader: I'm getting concerned about Jason Bay. The guy has 110 K's in 427 AB and is only hitting .255/.328/.431.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Brad Hawpe smacked 3 bombs, drew 6 walks, and struck out 8 times in 19 at bats.

Leader: Josh Fields has 12 HR, 17 BB, and a staggering 75 K in 219 AB since getting called up. He's hitting .247/.304/.457, which sounds a lot like the guy he replaced, Joe Crede's career .259/.305/.446 line.

But just so you know, this isn't a fluke for Fields. Before coming up, he had 19 HR, 39 BB, 60 K in 205 AB with Charlotte for a .283/.394/.498 effort. And in 2006, also for Charlotte, he had 19 HR, 54 BB, 136 K in 462 AB for a .305/.379/.515 line. We know what he will do at this point. He will strike out a lot. He will draw some walks, and he will punish a hanging curve.

This Week's MVP

AL: Raul Ibanez had an inexplicably huge week, going off for a .481/.533/1.111 line in 27 at bats. He homered 5 times and added a pair of doubles and walks.

Season: ARod again. He's really, really good and he's having a really, really good year, even for him. I've heard some people call it a career year, but it's hard for me to really get behind that notion with full force provided that he has a number of similar seasons, such as his .358/.414/.631 in 1996 as a 20 year old, his .316/.420/.606 in 2000, .318/.399/.622 in 2001, .300/.392/.622 in 2002, .298/.396/.600 in 2003, and his .321/.421/.610 in 2005.

NL: Troy Tulowitzki posted a .483/.531/.931 line with 4 doubles, 3 home runs, and 3 walks in 29 at bats.

Season: I'm going with Jake Peavy. Batters are hitting .216/.277/.292 against him. That means that an average hitter becomes the equivalent of the worst regular in the Majors. Wrap your head around that for a second. Peavy has a 2.23 ERA, 164 K's, 44 BB, and 124 H in 157 and 2/3 innings.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

Edwin Bellorin and Rick Ankiel get the Welcome to the Show Award. As reader Steve Sheehan points out, Bellorin had what has to be one of the most unfortunate Major League debuts in history. The poor guy spends years in the minors, collecting 1823 at bats down there. He gets the call to replace the disappointing Chris Iannetta, and in his first ML plate appearance, he grounds into a double play and adding injury to insult, he strains his hammy trying to leg it out, landing on the 15 day DL. If there's a bright spot here, he at least is guaranteed a ML salary while he's on the shelf. I hope the guy sticks around for at least a little while once he's healed. For one, you don't want to go out like that. Secondly, he has an outstanding name that just rolls off the tongue.

We all know the Ankiel story. I include it here as a counter to the Shakespearean tragedy of Bellorin. He hits 3 homers (one in his debut) in his first week back in the show after years of exile learning how to be an everyday player. One word of caution thought, he won't hit for much average or draw many walks in the long run. His career line in the minor leagues is .266/.328/.546. He was hitting .267/.314/.568 in Memphis. On the plus side, he didn't have much of a platoon split this season.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Bad Luck Division

On Friday, the Dodgers Chad Billingsley went 7 and 2/3, allowing 7 baserunners and only one run, but still got the L because the Fightin' Nomars got shut out by Doug Davis and the Snakes pen.

Good Luck Division

Compare Billingsley's fate with that of Odalis Perez, who lucked into a win on Wednesday, giving up 5 runs in 6 frames to the Brew Crew. He should send Claudio Vargas a thank you gift. Maybe he has an Amazon wish list.

Vulture Division

Today's vulture was a submission by reader Tom Endicott, who points out that Javier Lopez threw a grand total of 2 pitches on Wednesday and came away with the pitcher's version of a gold star. He came into the game with 2 out in the 7th and induced a grounder to end the inning. After that the BoSox offense tallied 4 runs and he was well on his way to getting a vulture win.

The Rico Brogna Award

Jason Lane racked up 8 RBI despite hitting only .174/.259/.435. You'll hear his name again.

Season to Date: Garrett Atkins is tied for 13th in the Majors with 75 RBI. He's hitting .270/.335/.463 (79th in MLB) while playing half of his games on Planet Coors.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Mark Teixeira had a nice beginning to his career as a Brave with a .261/.370/.739 week. That's only 6 hits, but 2 of them were doubles and 3 were bombs. He also contributed 3 walks.

Season as a whole: Lance Berkman is hitting a very mediocre .260, but he's retained his walk rate and boasts a .373 OBP and a .451 SLG.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Alfonso Soriano posted a .286 batting average, but that was 7 singles and a double to go with one walk for a .286/.310/.321 week.

Season: Yuniesky Bettancourt's line is .290/.313/.402 in 373 at bats on the season. He has a little pop for a shortstop, but 13 walks dooms him to be far less than what his batting average would have you believe.

The Steve Balboni Award

Here's Jason Lane again. The Astros outfielder hit a pair of home runs and drew a couple of walks in 23 at bats, but his 8 K's drug down his batting average and took his OBP with it for his previously mentioned .174/.259/.435.

Leader: Craig Monroe is really turning into Balboni personified. His .222/.265/.378 is plagued by 92 whiffs in 333 at bats. Last season was more of the same with his .255/.301/.486 and 126 K in 541 AB. He has a good amount of power and has a decent glove, but he just doesn't do enough to overcome striking out once every 4 times to the plate.

One thing that may help things is if the Tigers find the courage to platoon him. Monroe just can't hit right handed pitchers, striking out in 30% of his at bats against them in '07. This year he's really beating up lefties to the tune of .308/.323/.560. For his career he's .278/.322/.504 against southpaws.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Adrian Gonzalez had 28 plate appearances last week with 1 home run, 7 walks, and 8 strikeouts.

Leader: Ryan Howard has passed Adam Dunn as the God of TTO this season. He passed Dunn in K's, and is now leading baseball with 131 of them, is 7th in walks with 73, and is 3rd in homers with 30. That's 234 TTO events in 422 plate appearances or 55%.

Please Stop Running

Willie Harris has done a commendable job in the Braves left field platoon, hitting .328/.397/.447. But he's stolen 16 bases this season while being caught 9 times for a 64% rate. That just isn't good enough. If you can't be successful 75% of the time, you really shouldn't try.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

I really have no idea what Dave Littlefield accomplishes by trading for Matt Morris and his abysmal contract. Morris isn't much (if any) better than the pitchers he replaces. He's much more expensive. And he's old enough that he will be nowhere around the next time the Pirates are fighting for something more meaningful than 5th in the NL Central. It's a huge waste of organizational resources, especially when the team has been playing it cheap in the draft recently. This is one of the worst trades in recent memory.

This Week's MVP

AL: Robinson Cano was amazing all week, hitting .478/.556/1.087. He smoked 3 doubles, a triple, and 3 home runs to go with 3 walks in 23 at bats.

Season: Here's your ARod update. He's on pace for about 50 home runs and if the season ended today, he'd have a career high in OPS+ with 174.

In the grand scheme of things, it's small, but it's the kind of thing that the mainstream media would love to talk about if they didn't by and large loathe the guy, but the fact is ARod is a good baserunner. He steals bases at a high percentage, going 13 for 15 this season and 254 for 316 in his career for an 80% success rate.

NL: Kelly Johnson makes the week's MVP's a pair of second basemen. Johnson hit .522/.577/.826 in 23 at bats.

Season: Hanley Ramirez is having an amazing season, hitting .341/.394/.573  with 33 2B, 5 3B, 19 HR, 32 SB, 9 CS, and 34 BB in 431 AB as a SHORTSTOP.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Mike Piazza hit .167/.231/.167. That was 4 singles and 2 walks in 24 at bats.

Season: Can we officially call Nick Punto's .352 OBP last year a fluke? Have we done that yet? Have we made it official? If not, let's do that now. Punto is hitting an anemic .208/.297/.271.

I have a question here. Why do pitchers continue to walk Punto? It's nominally the only real skill he has at the plate. If you just fire some fastballs right down the pike, the worst thing that is likely to happen is a sharply hit single. He has 9 career home runs in 1383 at bats. Pitchers really should just throw it up there and dare him to hit it because there's no excuse for walking the guy.

NL: Gritty, gutsy, scrappy David Eckstein "hustled" his way to a .091/.192/.136 line this week.

Season:  Miguel Olivo plays a defensive position in a pitcher's park, but that really only goes so far in explaining his .231/.250/.380.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The You're Better Than This Award is Buster Olney's property this week. In the process of analyzing Tom Glavine's 300th win, Olney said on ESPN News "Tom Glavine may well be baseball's last 300 game winner." He should have added in a "for a while" in there at the end because there will be another 300 game winner. Olney gives several relevant reasons for why 300 wins continues to get harder and harder to achieve, such as teams protecting their investments by limiting their pitchers innings and not being shy about the DL, and the fact that pitchers get fewer decisions because of bullpens and 5 man rotations. But at some point, somebody out there will be a freak of nature who is really good for a really long time and he will collect his 300th win. That somebody is probably in pro baseball right now. We just don't know who it is yet. That person isn't going to do it for another decade or decade and a half, but it almost certainly will happen. Wording that the way he did makes Olney just plain wrong. He really is better than that. We've seen people declare the 300 game winner extinct as a species before. They were always wrong.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

Wow. Week 17 already? This season is flying by.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

On Friday, Jered Weaver got lucky, getting knocked around by the Tigers for 6 runs in 5 and a third innings. He gave up 11 hits but still got the golden W. The Halos offense picked him up, scoring 8 runs on Detroit starter Nate Robertson.

Bad Luck Division

Josh Beckett is this week's tough luck loser as on Wednesday he threw an 8 inning complete game, allowing only 4 baserunners and he still got the loss as Franklin Gutierrez's solo homer provided the only run in the entire game.

Vulture Division

On the same night that Beckett got screwed over by an anemic performance by his offense, there were 3 relievers who blew leads and still collected wins.

Francisco Rodriguez gave up 3 runs to give the A's new life in what was a Halos victory. Joe Kennedy ruined it for the East Bay fans.

Chad Qualls gave up a Jeff Kent dinger to tie the ballgame. Dodgers reliever D.J. Houlton gave Qualls an underserved vulture win though with Carlos Lee providing the muscle.

Finally, Joaquin Benoit was the beneficiary of a unique circumstance this season. J.J. Putz blew his first save of the season, which bailed Benoit out when Benoit had allowed a pair of runs to tie the game. Putz wooooooo

More Reliever Weirdness

It happened earlier this season and I'm too lazy to look up when it was and what I said about it, but here we are again. Another pitcher got a hold and a loss in the same game. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This time it was Joe Table on Thursday.

The Rico Brogna Award

Gary Matthews Jr collected 7 RBI, but hit a meager .174/.259/.304

Season to Date: Sammy Sosa has 70 RBI's on the season and is on pace to get about 115. The problem is that despite that particular stat, he's not helping his moribund team very much, hitting .242/.302/.456. He just can't hit right handed pitchers anymore, with a .215/.258/.411 against them. He's hitting a robust .321/.423/.593 against lefties. Primarily because of him, Ranger cleanup hitters are limping to a .249/.322/.424 line.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Derek Lee hit .238 on the week, but 3 of his 5 hits went over the fence and he drew 4 walks for a 1.037 OPS.

Season: It's probably a controversial notion in Philly, but I think Pat Burrell's been a lot better than people give him credit for this season. His batting average isn't anything to look at (.255), but his secondary skills pick him up as he has 74 walks in 274 at bats for a .416 OBP to go with his .456 SLG.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Bill Hall's .292/.346/.375 week gets this award.

Season: Nomar is the anti-Burrell. Batting average with no secondary skills. .285/.330/.360 isn't getting the job done. He has 4 homers and 26 walks in 358 at bats. Ick.

The Steve Balboni Award

Raul Ibanez had a very good secondary skills week, with 4 doubles and 4 walks. He also struck out 10 times on his way to a .222/.323/.370 line.

Leader: Jason Bay's numbers have eroded across the board this season. The decline in his walk rate and isolated slugging makes him more vulnerable to batting average fluctuations, especially since he's striking out in a quarter of his at bats. .253/.328/.433 isn't bad, but it's not indicative of the "Most Underrated Player in Baseball", which seems to have been his nickname since the dawn of time.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Nick Swisher slugged 3 home runs, walked 7 times, and struck out 5 times for 15 TTO events in 34 plate appearances.

Leader:  Ryan Howard has passed Adam Dunn as the master of the TTO's. In 388 plate appearances he has 29 bombs, 69 walks, and 115 K's. That's 55% of his PA's.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

I'm unclear as to exactly what the Cubs expected when they traded for Jason Kendall, but he certainly is who we thought he was. They've downgraded from Michael Barrett to Rob Bowen and then from Bowen to Jason Kendall's putrid corpse. He can't hit anymore. He can't field. The idea that they would give up anything for him is bizarre.

What makes this the dumbest thing ever is the fact that Geovany Soto is hitting .335/.408/.608 in Iowa right now wondering what he did to deserve this fate. I don't know how much of that would translate to Wrigley, but I'm pretty certain that it would be a fair sight better than the composite .226/.265/.280 Kendall has hit between Oakland and Chicago. It would also likely far outpace the .163/.233/.288 backup Koyie Hill is hitting. And it's not like Soto is some clueless dolt behind the plate, ready to cost the Cubbies a critical game with his defense. In fact he's probably better at that phase of the game than Kendall.

This Week's MVP

AL: .462/.545/.962. It was just Manny being Manny.

Season: Yawn. Still ARod.

NL: With 4 doubles, 3 home runs, 6 walks, and a .393/.500/.786 week, it's nice to see Chris B. Young out there reminding everybody why he was such a widely anticipated rookie.

Season: This is likely to be the last week that Chase Utley holds the crown. His hand injury is a killer for the Phillies, but it also robs us of a guy who was having a really remarkable season. He already has 41 doubles on the season. That's pretty extraordinary in itself. His line heading into this involuntary hiatus is .336/.414/.581.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Craig Monroe was pathetic this week at .167/.192/.167. That's 4 singles and walk in 24 at bats. Ugh.

Season: There are a number of guys with uglier raw numbers than Aubrey Huff, but they all play up the middle positions. Huff has 150 at bats this season as a first baseman and 181 as a DH. He's hitting .248/.292/.371. That's a killer.

NL: Juan Pierre wasn't much better than Monroe with a .136/.208/.136 week of his own.

Season: Exactly why do the Pirates think anybody else actually wants Jack Wilson? The guy may have a slick glove, but he's also hitting .249/.301/.340.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

In lieu of a made-up award this week, here is my analysis of the big Teixeira/Saltalamacchia deal.

I don't hate this deal for the Braves. I think they overpaid a bit, but this is a big help. It's probably true that Salty could provide 85% of the production that you'll get from Teixeira over the next year and a half, but that other 15% is a pretty big deal when you have a chance to chase down the limping Mets and the thin Phillies. The Braves are within 4 and a half games of the playoffs as I write this at 12:30AM Tuesday morning. They're pushing their chips to the middle of the table and that's something I applaud today.

One thing this reinforces is the fact that Jon Schuerholz has guts. Along with Bobby Cox, they had the guts to use Matt Diaz and Willie Harris as their left field platoon. They had the guts to sell high on Adam LaRoche and go with Scott Thorman at first base, then the guts to cut their losses on Thorman and take Salty from AA and make him their starting first baseman, and then the guts to use organizational resources to upgrade on that when it could mean the difference between sitting at home again in October and playing for something meaningful.

On the Rangers side, this is the first big win for Jon Daniels. I like this trade for the boys from Arlington even if they plug NaCL in as a direct replacement for Tex. If they use him as a catcher and take up the opportunity to upgrade on Gerald Laird and use Laird as bait in the quest to plug other holes, then I absolutely love the deal. I really see no valid reason why Saltalamacchia can't be more than adequate at catcher for a team that uses Michael Young and Ian Kinsler up the middle. In my mind, making him a permanent first baseman would be a tragic misuse of organizational resources.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

I've been doing my own shadow draft for a while now. I started in 2001 with just the first round and then up to 3 rounds in 2002, and since 2003, I've been doing full drafts. I draft for my Royals.

I've produced Casey Kotchman, Alex Gordon, Dustin Pedroia, Kurt Suzuki, Jonathan Sanchez, Josh Fields, Kevin Slowey, Scott Moore, Travis Metcalf, Tom Mastny, and Dennis Dove.

My best current prospects are Jeff Manship, Brett Anderson, JR Towles, Josh Vitters (provided he signs), Josh Bell, Billy Buckner, Brad Lincoln, Brian Dinkelman, Nevin Griffin, Kenny Maiques, Mark Hallberg, Mitch Maier, Danny Valencia, Stephen King, Nick Papasan, and Ryan Goleski.

Mike Aubrey has been my biggest bust followed by Matt Campbell, though others such as Thomas Pauly haven't turned out well.

So how does my farm system stack up in the minds of impartial observers? How about my current prospects, since I have graduated a few of my top guys this season?

I seem to have a guft in finding third basemen with power and minor league relievers. I haven't had the same skill in finding outfielders.

R.I.P. Mike Coolbaugh. I was already going to mention that this was the year of the scrap heap slugger, meaning that this year we've seen a lot of players who people had left for dead have come up to the Majors and played well. Coolbaugh strikes me as somebody who might have been able to have a more extended stay in the show. As it is, he only had a couple of cameos. I remember watching him when he played here in Indy.

This week the thoughts of all of us at BTB go out to Coolbaugh's family, the Rockies organization, and to all of the friends that he no doubt made in a long, winding career in professional baseball.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

John Danks let 5 Cleveland runners cross the plate in 5 and 2/3 on Monday, but got the win anyways because Cliff Lee got pummeled worse, allowing 7 runs in 5 1/3.

Bad Luck Division

Cole Hamels and Shane Youman share the awards this week. Youman allowed 1 run on Sunday to the Astros in 8 frames, but got out-dueled by Woody Williams.

Hamels tossed 7 innings with only a single run to the Padres Thursday (who are a better offensive club than Houston), but Chris Young did him one better, combining with a pair of relievers for the shutout.

Vulture Division

Scott Linebrink blew the save for San Diego on Wednesday by allowing 3 runs to the Mets, but he got bailed out by the Padre offense, who scored on Joe Smith to give Linebrink the W.

The Rico Brogna Award

Marlon Byrd collected 7 RBI, but hit .267/.267/.467.

Season to Date: Carlos Lee is 6th in the Majors in RBI with 80, but his .862 OPS is 46th in the bigs.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Paul Konerko hit only .185 this week, but all of his 5 hits were for extra bases (2 doubles, 3 homers), and he walked 5 times for a reasonable .313/.593 OBP/SLG.

Season: Konerko wins the season as well with a .265/.361/.515 line. He has 23 doubles, 21 home runs, 53 walks, and 64 strikeouts in 344 at bats.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

James Loney turned in a Nomar week after he got a starting gig by way of Nomar getting moved to third base. 8 hits on the week and only one of them was for extra bases. .286/.300/.321.

Season: Juan Pierre is pretty much always a candidate here. .287/.318/.342. He's leading the National League in outs with 326.

The Steve Balboni Award

Tad Iguchi struck out 11 times on the week in 25 at bats, dooming his week to a .160/.267/.240.

Leader: Andruw Jones has been in better form recently, but his 97 strikeouts in 363 at bats on the season are dragging his rate stats down a bit. .215/.320/.427.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Carlos Pena struck out 10 times, slugged a home run, and walked 6 times in 28 at bats.

Leader: Here's your Adam Dunn update. He has 26 home runs, 54 walks, and 120 whiffs in 407 plate appearances this season.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

No dumbest thing ever this week for a number of reasons. For one, this week's column is already going to be pretty lengthily. Secondly, the thing that continues to bug me is the continued contempt the Worldwide Leader has for its viewers. I've taken my fair share of swings at that particular deceased equine. And to be honest, others have done it far more effectively than I ever could.

This Week's MVP

AL: Robinson Cano

Season: ARod still reigns. He's hitting .313/.412/.665. His 186 OPS+ represents what would be a career high if the season ended today. And he has 240 total bases right now after collecting 299 in all of 2006.

NL: Ryan Howard

Season: Chase Utley is still the pick here. But right now I'm going to point out that Chipper Jones is flying below the radar with what is a great season of his own. A .444/.559/.630 week takes him up to .345/.438/.599. He's leading the NL batting race. He's second in the NL in OPS and OBP. He's 4th in slugging. Even if he keeps this up, he probably won't win the crown because of the games he's missed (he only has 287 at bats this year) and because he hasn't been collecting RBI as quickly as the beat writers who vote on the MVP award would like to see. He's actually 5th on his team in the stat.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Pudge Rodriguez hit .059/.059/.059. That's one single in 17 at bats with no walks.

NL: Kaz Matsui had nearly as bad a week, hitting .056/.105/.056.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

As I mentioned at the top of the article, I'm officially declaring this the Year of the Scrap Heap Slugger*. A number of teams have been led by players that were well off the radar at the start of the season or who were picked up for little or nothing by their teams. Here's an incomplete list of these successful reclamation projects.

First and foremost is Josh Hamilton. Nobody knew what to expect from the troubled former elite prospect. He hadn't played in years. He had very little in the way of a track record. And nobody knew exactly how reliable he was personally given his history of drug abuse. He's hitting .279/.371/.543 and the Reds only spent a Rule 5 pick to get him.

The Braves deserve a ton of respect for having the guts to use a Matt Diaz/Willie Harris platoon in left. Thanks to the contributions of these two, both of whom were free talent swags, Braves left fielders are hitting a combined .298/.351/.417.

It's a little later than what we thought, but Kaz Matsui has been a passable second baseman for the Rockies, or at least better than what they've grown used to getting from the position at .282/.322/.418.

Jack Cust is hitting a very Adam Dunn-like .259/.391/.556 for the A's years after being a favored son of prospect watchers like myself.

The Nationals pair of Dmitri Young (.340/.395/.520) and Ron Belliard (.305/.352/.429) have been much better than ever could have been expected and cost nothing to acquire outside of their salaries.

I don't know that Coolbaugh could have done anything like this, but I would have liked to have seen if it was possible. Unfortunately one of the side effects of the modern 12 or 13 man pitching staff is that benches have become short and there really isn't much room for pinch hitters and utility subs. There are fewer spots available for these guys.

*Note that I reserve the right to declare next year as the official year of the scrap heap slugger.

Off Topic Discussion of MLS and the Formula One Grand Prix of Europe

In the friendies that the MLS had scheduled against various European powers, most of the focus was on the LA Galaxy/Chelsea matchup that featured a certain midfielder that only played a limited amount due to an ankle injury. To me the more interesting game was Chicago Fire vs Celtic FC on Sunday. Chelsea against anybody from the US isn't a fair fight. Celtic is better than the MLS team it drew this weekend, but the thing that strikes me is that the chances are good that any MLS team could be transported to the Scottish Premier League and they'd be at least an even match with the non-Celtic clubs on hand. Meanwhile, the best teams in MLS would be hard pressed to avoid relegation in the vastly superior EPL.

Here's where I'm going with this. American soccer has two camps of observers. The fanboys tend to be far too enthusiastic and make ridiculous claims about MLS and the US National Team, indicating that they think American soccer is just as good and that it will become a dominant sport here in the states as soon as the results catch up to the talent on hand. That's ridiculous. Similarly ridiculous are the pessimist claims that US soccer is worthless and that it will fade into the night just like it has a number of times in the past. Here's the truth. The MLS is something the US has never had, a soccer league that has a high level of play and is financially and structurally stable. The same things can be said of USA Soccer and the national team(s). Soccer isn't going anywhere and it isn't a joke. It isn't as good as you'll find in the traditional power countries Spain, England, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, and Germany. But both the pro league and the national teams are a good match for second tier countries such as Poland, Greece, Denmark, Mexico, and Russia. There's no shame to being the 10th or 15th best national team in the world.

On the Grand Prix of Europe, I have to say that was an amazing race. I really have always liked that Formula 1 races in adverse conditions. In some respects, they're the most exciting and memorable races of all. It scrambles the field, equalizes some of the aero and horsepower differences between the cars and generally makes for a chaotic, thrilling, interesting set of events. That being said, it was a good decisions to red flag the race. Anytime somebody almost tags the safety car, it's time to park the cars for a while and wait out the conditions.

I had fun watching the race, as messy as it was. From the late pass for the lead to the oddity of a Spyker leading the race, to the pre-podium argument during weigh-in, to the impromptu parking lot at the end of the front straight. Anybody who was watching their first Grand Prix race has to be wondering where this has been all his/her life. I did have one complaint though. I think that the rule governing cars being extricated from the gravel traps needs to be revisited. I can see the reasonability of the marshals pushing a car back onto the tarmac if it's a few feet into the kitty litter. But the idea that you can be re-introduced into the field after being 100 feet or more away from the track, far enough that they need heavy equipment to drag your ass out strikes me as ridiculous.

Lastly with F1, it looks like just a week after the US lost its only race, it will soon lose its only native born driver. That's too bad. Scott Speed is an average F1 driver, as is his teammate `Tonio Luizzi. Scuderia Torro Rosso is a fundamentally dysfunctional organization and their drivers are the least of their worries. They won't improve with Sebastian Bourdais. I hope both STR drivers catch on with another squad is short order, be it with a weekly drive or as a tester. They deserve better than the cars they've been saddled with the last couple of years and they deserve better than the way they're being run out of town. My personal preference is for Speed to catch on as the second driver for Williams next season, alongside Nico Rosberg.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

With the amount of scorn I've heaped on ESPN, you might expect me to fire away at the exhibition in decadent, self-reverential celebration that is the ESPY's. You won't find it here though. Far be it for me to throw somebody else under the bus for inventing "awards" to hand out in an effort to make yourself look important. So I guess I'll have to sit this one out.

This week is a challenge. With the abbreviated schedule, many of the "competitors" for the awards kind of run together. Sample sizes in the 25 at bat range are bad enough, when teams only play 3 games in a week, samples go down to the 10-15 range and things start getting really dicey. It's hard to differentiate some of these things on a normal week. So with that disclaimer being said, let's get into things.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

Shaun Marcum allowed 5 runs (3 earned) against the Red Sox but still walked away with the W.

Tim Wakefield has won 4 games where he allowed 4 or more runs.

One odd thing about Wakefield, he has 18 starts and he has yet to record a no decision.

Bad Luck Division

Mark Buehrle threw a complete game on Friday, allowing 2 runs on a pair of solo home runs. The White Sox got shut out by the Orioles. The Sox lineup only had 3 real threats in the lineup with Thome, Konerko, and Dye.

Season: Matt Cain is 3-10 with a 3.53 ERA. Seriously, 3 wins. Just let that digest for a few seconds before moving on to the next item.

Vulture Division

They're just screwing with me now. A couple weeks after Ryan Bukvich got a win in relief after throwing exactly one pitch, it's happened again on Sunday. This time it was Luis Vizcaino with the same "achievement". 1 pitch, 1 win. It's insane.

The Rico Brogna Award

Dmitri Young provided the Nats with 6 RBI on the week in only 12 at bats, but only managed to hit .250/.286/.417 on the week.

Season to Date: It's been a couple of weeks since I took Sammy Sosa to task and then got an earful from angry Ranger fans. I'll still fire away though. On the RBI leaderboard, he's surrounded by Miguel Cabrera (.326/.398/.598 in a pitcher's park), Gary Sheffield (.311/.418/.568), and Russ Martin (.317/.387/.498 as a good defensive catcher). At .244/.294/.451, he's not in that league.

That being said, he does have his uses and a contending team in the AL would be well served to look up the Rangers and see if they could get a good price on him. He's smoking lefty pitchers to a tune of .284/.321/.535 while struggling against righties, .216/.250/.411. He's a platoon DH at this point in his career. There's value there if you can match him up with a lefty bat that is useless against southpaws, but it's not the kind of value that his most ardent proponents will credit him with.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

How do you bat .214 and still be a positive contributor to your team? You do what Jim Thome did this week and draw 4 walks and give the fans a souvenir (in 14 at bats).

Season as a whole: Nick Swisher has been competent with a .256/.391/.435 batting performance. His batting average isn't wonderful, but his 64 walks in 301 at bats is a major plus. I also expect his batting average to rise a bit with his K rate being within reasonable bounds (64 of `em).

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Marlon Byrd hit .308 on the week, but managed only one double and no walks in his 13 at bats, giving him a .308/.308/.385 line.

Season: Delmon Young is a wonderfully talented young player and I'm confident that he has many productive years as a major leaguer ahead of him. But his largely empty .289 batting average isn't getting it done. In 360 at bats, he has only 15 walks, 21 doubles, and 9 home runs for a pedestrian .289/.318/.422 line.

The Steve Balboni Award

Jack Cust is going to have weeks like this. He hit .100/.308/.100 with 7 K's in 10 at bats.

Leader: With a .261/.380/.563 line, Ryan Howard is having what would be a very good season by anybody's standards. But he's striking in 31 percent of his plate appearances (102 times in 268 AB). It's hard to get into a coulda, woulda, shoulda debate, but the difference between last year's MVP caliber season and this year's very good one is just batting average on balls in play. He was very lucky with balls finding gaps between outfielders last season and that luck has evened out a bit this year. Hitters who strike out 180 plus times a season don't hit .300. Regression should have been predictable, especially since all of his rate stats look remarkably like 2005.

This all being said, I'm officially retiring Howard from this category. At a certain point this award is about hitters who have a hard time being acceptable ML players because of their K rates. Some players like Howard and Dunn just are what they are plugging the holes in their games might just screw with their strengths just as much, if not more. There's nothing inherently wrong with 3 true outcomes players, even if batting average routinely makes them vulnerable to criticism by some fans and writers. They are what they are, and that's pretty damned good. I'm fine with that.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Ryan Braun launched 2 long balls, walked 4 times, and struck out 4 times in 13 plate appearances.

Leader: Adam Dunn is the winner and still champion. If this column still exists in 15 years, it will probably be named the Adam Dunn Award. I'm half tempted to call it that right now. He has 25 home runs, 49 walks, and 109 strikeouts. That's 183 TTO's in 372 plate appearances, or 57.7%.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

Screw you, Bernie.

This Week's MVP

AL: Nick Markakis: 17 AB, .471/.526/.882, 2 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 2 BB, 1 K

Season: ARod still takes the honor with his .310/.407/.654 for the Yanks. But I'm out of things to say about him for now. So I just want to mention that Carlos Pena now qualifies for the batting title with 245 at bats. He's now hitting an insane .294/.399/.624 in his age-29 season, having come into the year with a .243/.331/.459 career line in 1685 at bats. We thought we knew him. With apologies to Denny Green, maybe he isn't who we thought he was. I don't see anything in his current line that streams huge regression coming. On the other hand, there were no big tip-offs indicating that this was coming. I don't know how much of this is for real and how much of it is sheer fluke. I'm just sitting back and enjoying a breakout season by a player who was written off by 4 different organizations and taken off the scrap heap by a team that saw him as a gift to the Durham Bulls rather than a potential keeper.

NL: Aaron Rowand: 13 AB, .615/.666/1.154, 4 2B, 1 HR

Season: It's still Chase Utley here, though the writer's choice at this point seems to be Prince Fielder, who is a more defensible choice than Justin Morneau was last year. I'm still going with Utley because even with the gap in RBI and HR, a second baseman who hits .333/.405/.583 is more standard deviations above what a normal second baseman can do than a .283/.372/.616 hitting first baseman is above a normal first baseman. I'm sorry for butchering that sentence, but you get the point.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Michael Young had one single all week and that's it. 14 AB, .071/.071/.071, 5K

Season: Julio Lugo isn't this bad. Really, he's not. That probably isn't of any solace to Red Sox fans, but neither is the fact that his walk rate (31 in 315 AB) is pretty decent, or the fact that his strikeout rate (43 of those) are within his career norms, nor the fact that he's already stolen 24 bases in 26 attempts. A .210/.278/.305 line is really, really ugly and fluke or not, it qualifies him for this dubious distinction.

NL: David Ross had a similar week to what Young went through, only with fewer at bats. 12 AB, .083/.083/.083, 7 K

Season: Nomar Garciaparra is hitting .270/.315/.327, first as the Dodgers starting first baseman, and now as their everyday third baseman. Say what you want about Wilson Betemit, (.223/.351/.489) but he's at least drawing walks and smacking a home run every now and then. Rarely do so many branches of faulty logic converge into one position battles. Nomar is more famous, better paid, and his batting average is better. Betemit is better is nearly every respect but he's riding the pine for Nomar because Nomar was an all star 5 years ago and is cruising by on his reputation and an empty batting average.

Most Valuable Pitcher

AL: Dan Haren has consistently been the best pitcher in the AL this season. Johan Santana is quickly closing in, but he hasn't caught Haren yet. Haren has thrown 135 innings and the average batter is hitting .209/.262/.329 against him.

NL: This is a tough choice as Chris Young is leading the Majors in ERA, and legitimately so at 1.97. But you know what? I'm still giving it to his teammate Jake Peavy. It's hair-splitting, but Peavy has allowed one more run (total, not just earned) in 10 more innings and he's striking out more batters per inning.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The Are They Registered Somewhere? Award goes to the Phillies. What do you get a team for its 10,000's loss? I think an autographed photo of Joe Carter would just be mean spirited. And I can't afford to give them a third baseman or a couple of middle relievers.

Snide comments aside, the Phillies have had a decent run of late. They haven't been anything special as a franchise over the course of the last 30 years, some good seasons, some bad ones, a couple of World Series appearances. It's been pointed out by a lot of people who are better writers than I that they lost a huge number of games 60 plus years ago. They lost somewhere 2856 games in the 20's, 30's, and 40's combined. That 3 decade span resulted in twenty two 90 plus loss seasons and a dozen 100 loss seasons, including 5 in a row from 1938 to 1942.

Incidentally, I don't remember there being much of a fuss when the Giants WON their 10,000th game. Is this just a new thing that we're going to start watching for? Or is this a one-time story? If this is a trend and we are going to start watching for franchise milestones of this sort, here are some upcoming ones.

Sometime this year the Red Sox will lose their 8000th game (currently 7996) and my Royals should climb up over 3000 wins (2973).

Next year could be a busy one as the Cubs pass 10,000 wins (9948), the Dodgers pass 9,000 losses (8932), the Twins pass 3,000 wins (7933), Milwaukee and the Nats pass 3,000 wins (2888 and 2945), the Rangers pass 4,000 losses (3941), and the Rays blow by 1,000 losses (931).

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

What a remarkable week in baseball that was. On consecutive days the Twins scored 32 runs in a double-header and then the Mets/Astros, Angels/Yanks, and Red Sox/Tigers combined to play 3 games totaling 43 innings. Not to get all Jason Stark on you, but one of the beautiful things about baseball is that you really never do know what to expect. Every so often, something will happen that you've never seen before.

Sorry about being late this week with the awards. I took some liberty given that there were no games on Monday. I also got called into work early on Tuesday, which pushed me back by about 12 hours. So with that in mind, let's dig in.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

In Friday's wild 20-14 game, Scott Baker allowed 7 runs in 5 innings and still got the win. Easiest award of the week.

Bad Luck Division

John Lackey and Roger Clemens combined for 16 innings of work with 14 strikeouts, 10 hits allowed, 1 walk, and 1 run each on Saturday. They had the misfortune of facing each other and they both got no decisions. The fact that Scott Baker gets a win while Lackey and Clemens got nothing makes one question the existence of a just God. Well maybe not question God, but at least it should make you want to chuck this archaic statistic in the lake.

Vulture Division

Edwar Ramirez on Friday night blew the save in his second career ML appearance. He allowed an inherited run to score and added another run that he had the decency to have charged to his own bill. Well, the Yanks offense bailed him out with 3 runs and got him his first (undeserved) win.

The Rico Brogna Award

There aren't any really egregious examples for this award this week, so I'll go with an admittedly timid nomination of Alex Rodriguez's .200/.259/.480 performance. The fact that he hit 2 home runs and drove in 7 runs on the week is to his credit, but a .259 OBP hurts the team. He didn't kill his team with his performance, but he gave back as much as he gave.

Season to Date: The fact is Sammy Sosa's been the winner here for most of the year. He's still in the lead with 63 RBI and a meager .245/.296/.451 line. I'm tired of beating up on him right now though. So let's cite Jeff Francoeur of the Braves, who is tied for 19th in baseball with 58 RBI, but hitting .289/.329/.434 while batting 5th or 6th and playing right field everyday.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Ken Griffey Jr had an odd week. He only collected 4 hits, but 2 of them were doubles and a third was a home run. He also walked 8 times for a .200/.429/.450 line.

Season as a whole: Part of the reason why Lance Berkman qualifies for this award is because he started very slowly. He was drawing walks left and right, but not hitting for power or average. He's been on a roll lately, doing all 3 of those things and helping his team, though since they're playing host to Craig Biggio's farewell tour it doesn't seem like they want much help. Anyways, Berkman's batting average is still down at .263, but because of the walks and his late power streak, his OBP/SLG is at .389/.450.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Vlad Guerrero heads a field that is weak in this category as well. He hit .292, but walked only once and his only extra base hit was a double for a .320 OBP and .333 SLG.

Season:  Juan Pierre is hitting .282, but his inability to draw a walk or hit even a few doubles gives him this dubious distinction. A .311 OBP and a .338 SLG helps the other team do its job.

The Steve Balboni Award

Josh Willingham might have had a nice week had he not struck out 10 times in 24 at bats. He smacked 2 bombs and walked 6 times. Hey Josh, I can call you Josh, right? Shorten up the swing a bit with 2 strikes. Good things are happening here, but .125/.300/.375 doesn't help your team as much as you'd probably like.

Leader:  Everything is in place for Dan Uggla to be one of the best second basemen in the National League. But even through 35 walks, 32 doubles, and 17 homers, something is holding his OPS down at .805. That something is the 96 times in 361 at bats he's been rung up on strikes. It's hard to bat for a decent average with that kind of a K rate. And it's hard to post outstanding OBP and SLG figures when your BA is dragging you down. You have to have Bondsian BB and HR rates.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Jim Thome collected 4 homers, 6 walks, and 8 whiffs in 28 at bats. That's over half of his plate appearances.

Leader: Adam Dunn is no surprise here. He has an astounding 105K, 24 HR, and 45BB in his 357 plate appearances. That's a TTO rate just shy of 49%.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

ESPN's "Who's Now" features, which have been polluting SportsCenter recently. This is just unwatchable. It's the kind of content-free programming that has turned SportsCenter into less of a highlight show and more of a news magazine for people who care less about sports than about celebrity culture. As a sports fan, I really just want to know what happened in the games. I don't really care to see some talking heads discussion whether Shaq is more culturally significant than Michael Phelps. I really don't care about that and if I did find myself wondering that, I'd probably find a bridge to jump off. I really, really wish they'd just show me the highlights and shut the hell up about inane, irrelevant debates. And let's not even begin to get into the notion that the debates are staged, with people like John Kruk being shoved by producers into positions they don't really believe in to create an actual debate where there really is none. Sometimes I really hate the MTV of sports.

First Half MVP's

AL: I hope I'm wrong, but Alex Rodriguez may be cruising into a situation where he is denied an MVP award that he deserves because of factors beyond his control. Voters hate to vote for players who don't play for a playoff team and at this point the Yankees have a tough road ahead of them if they do want to get there or even if they want to get close. They're 10 games behind the Red Sox in the division and 8 and a half behind the Indians in the Wild Card. If they don't make a nice comeback in the second half, then ARod may be far enough behind that beat writers who already don't like him will have another reason not to vote for him in the MVP race. Anyways, at this point he does lead the AL in OPS and VORP. He's the best thing the Yanks have going for him. On the plus side for ARod, second place Magglio Ordonez is in for a little regression in the second half as his .367/.446/.604 line is very heavy on batting average.

NL: Chase Utley is a second baseman who hits like a first baseman and I always like that. .325/.401/.571 is amazing for a middle infielder. Utley's only competitor for the title right now in my mind is Hanley Ramirez, who is hitting .331/.388/.538 as a shortstop in a pitcher's park. Barry Bonds would enter the discussion, but the gap in position and playing time is too significant at this point.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Ryan Shealy was a decent player in his brief debut with the Royals. He did some things that made me nervous, such as walking 15 times in 210 at bats and striking out in almost a quarter of his at bats, but I was cautiously optimistic as his Minor League track record was generally quite good. He was a bit old for a rookie, but players like Morgan Ensberg and Josh Willingham have become regulars at similar ages and had more than their share of big league moments. At this point, Shealy has hit .221/.286/.308 as an everyday first baseman. He's now mercifully on the DL and my fellow Royals fans are starting to write him off, wondering if current Omaha Royal Craig Brazell, who is the same age as Shealy and hitting .315/.344/.661 in the PCL is the guy we all thought Shealy was last year, capable of hitting for power and average.

NL: One of the biggest culprits in the decline of the Cardinals this season has been Adam Kennedy, who was signed to be a competent placeholder at second base. Instead, he has collapsed along with his new team's record, hitting an anemic .210/.280/.252.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The Irrational Exuberance Award goes to the ESPN announcers covering the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, who said "This could be the greatest moment in the history of American sports." I just really don't know where to go from there. I'll just say that I don't get "competitive eating".

I should add that I'm not neccessarily against competitive eating as a sports or pseudo-sports activity. I just don't get the appeal of it.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

Dan Haren has pitched well enough this season to earn a lucky win from time to time. He's appeared in the bad luck division more than once. I do not resent his win over the Yankees on Sunday despite his allowing five runs in five and a third. The A's offense owed him one.

Bad Luck Division

Scott Baker doesn't have the same kind of surplus karma as Haren, but I'm not sure he deserved a loss. Haren got the win in the night game, but earlier in the afternoon, the AL saw Baker throw eight innings of one run ball and still get the loss because Jeremy Bonderman was even better. Baker's only run given up was on a Marcus Thames solo shot. He only allowed 3 hits and a walk.

Vulture Division

Just like last week we have two prime examples of the vulture. The first comes from reader Dan Nathanson, who points out that Ryan Bukvich got lucky on Saturday, stealing his first win since 2003. He threw a grand total of one pitch. That's it. John Danks throws 8 wonderful innings, allowing only one run (solo home run to professional lefty-killer Emil Brown) and he gets nothing. Bukvich walks in, throws a single pitch and gets the statistical gold star. It just ain't right.

The second is Akinori Otsuka, who blew a three run lead in the 8th inning on Tuesday night. He still got the W because Marlon Byrd and Ramon Vazquez saved his bacon.

The Rico Brogna Award

You know, I haven't heard much this season from the week's winner of the Brogna. Ben Molina hit .269/.269/.423, but drove in 6 runs.

Season to Date: Sammy Sosa is tied for 5th in baseball with 63 RBI, but he's really overextended as an everyday player, with a meager .255/.308/.476 line. He really should be most valuable as a platoon DH instead. He's been that way for several years (even the ones he did play), as he struggles against RHP, going .225/.277/.431 against normal people and .362/.457/.6938 against southpaws.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Ryan Howard was just bizarre this week. In 24 at bats, he only collected one single, but he walked 7 times and hit 3 bombs for a .167/.355/.542 line.

Season as a whole: Lance Berkman getting his power stroke back as he hit 4 home runs this week, almost half of the ten he had coming into the week. Still, his numbers now stand at .267/.391/.451 on the season. He has 53 walks in 277 at bats.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Derek Jeter hit a respectable .280, but none of his 7 hits went for extra bases and he failed to draw a walk, making his line a paltry .280/.308/.280.

Season:  Fellow shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt has hit .282 on the year, but the number of times he has grounded into a double play (7) almost matches the number of walks he's drawn (9). A .282/.304/.385 line doesn't help his team much.

The Steve Balboni Award

Andruw Jones demonstrated the same kind of form he's been in all season, hitting 2 home runs and drawing 2 walks, but striking out 7 times on his way to a .192/.250/.423 line. He can do a lot better than this.

Leader:  Andruw takes the season's lead as well, thanks to 81K in 297 AB. He's hit 13 home runs and he's drawn 39 walks on the season, but the batting average is dragging everything else down to the tune of .199/.297/.384.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

I mentioned Ryan Howard in the Killebrew Award section, but let's look at his overall TTO ability. 3 HR, 7 BB, 14 K adds up to 24 plays where the defense was involved and 7 where they had a job to do. That's crazy. Somewhere Rob Deer is smiling.

Leader: Alex Rodriguez isn't usually seen as a three true outcomes hitter, but he's currently leading the Major Leagues in home runs with 28, is 30th in strikeouts with 64, and is 17th in walks with 45.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

Christijan Albers. Just a dumb, dumb move that resulted in a dangerous situation.

This Week's MVP's

AL: I really don't know what to make of Shannon Stewart's dream .485/.500/.788 week. Honestly it's kind of freaking me out. So the less said, the better.

Season: Alex Rodriguez is still king of the hill at .322/.420/.671. He's been outstanding this season and I'm running out of ways to say that.

NL: Check out this line from Chase Utley: 25 AB, .400/.480/.880, 1 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 5 BB, 4 K, 2 SB, 0 CS

Season: Which brings us to the fact that he's been the most valuable player in the National League this season and he's more than earned his place in the All Star game. He is the logical successor to Jeff Kent.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Carl Crawford hit a miserable .120/.120/.120. That's 3 singles in 25 at bats with no walks, no extra base hits.

Season: Jason Kendall still trumps everybody, but Julio Lugo actually has the worst OPS in the Majors at .541. I can't put him below Kendall because he remains a passable defensive shortstop and he's 20 of 21 stealing bases on the season. Still, he needs to pick it up or else Jed Lowrie is going to start looking like a tempting solution to Red Sox management.

NL: Adrian Gonzalez and Brian Giles had almost identical weeks, but Gonzalez gets the nod as he's a first baseman who is theoretically supposed to hit better than the second baseman. Gonzalez has a nice glove, but it really doesn't matter much when you hit .087/.222/.174. Ugh.

Season: Omar Vizquel's OPS is significantly worse, but let's face it, Juan Pierre's been brutal. .276/.308/.323 doesn't get it done for an outfielder. Yet still, the Dodgers are suicidally batting him first or second in the lineup. I don't care how fast he is. The guy doesn't get on base and doesn't hit for power. He's an albatross.

This is the Place in the Article Where I Nitpick the All Star Selections

For the most part, the fans, players, and managers did a commendable job. I don't have too much to argue about. I'm not going to argue much about certain selections because of the rules that somebody has to represent every team. That makes Michael Young's selection understandable. There are really only a couple of selections that stand out to me as clearly erroneous. One is that Pudge Rodriguez really isn't one of the three best catchers in the AL anymore. His selection by the fans is a combination of his being one of the more visible symbols of the Tigers, who happen to be one of the 2 or 3 best teams in baseball, and the lifetime achievement award factor. Pudge is hitting a Sanchezeriffic .280/.293/.444. Victor Martinez is clearly much better at this point in his career. If he were healthy for most of the season, I would have made a fuss about Joe Mauer being excluded. As it is, I can't really make that claim.

The other flawed selection is pointed out by Joe Sheehan, who makes the logical case that one of the Pittsburgh pitchers (Ian Snell or Tom Gorzelanny) should be the token Pirate instead of the inescapably flawed Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez is clearly inferior to Hanley Ramirez, who may end up being the best player sitting at home watching the game. Sanchez is the one player that sticks out like a sore thumb.

I could also quibble with a few other selections, but that's getting deep into nitpicking. I'd prefer to see Chris Young on the NL roster over Trevor Hoffman, given the added value of his extra innings. In the same spirit, I probably would have rewarded Jeff Francis's commendable work in a tough environment over his closer teammate Brian Fuentes, who actually lost his job as closer yesterday, but since Matt Holliday was on the squad as a Rox representative, I'm at a bit of a loss why he's there at all.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The Rearranging Deckchairs Award goes to the Reds. I think that Jerry Narron did a pretty lousy job of managing, but firing him is pointless grandstanding done for the sake of blame shifting. It's Wayne Krivsky that is to blame for this ridiculous team, not the manager. And until the Reds fire Krivsky, they can make all of the managerial changes in the world and it won't make a difference. Sparky Anderson isn't walking through that door. Blame the guy who traded a pair of good bats for middle relievers. Managers almost always receive too much of the blame when a team fails and too much of the credit when a team succeeds.

And on the topic of managerial changes, but on a less acerbic note, I think I speak for everybody when I say that I hope Mike Hargrove the best. The thing that makes me nervous is that this "loss of passion" makes me wonder about the unpublicized other things that may be going on in his life that makes this game seem (and rightfully so) trivial. Coaches and managers don't usually leave teams that are playing well due to lack of interest in the middle of the season without something major demanding his attention, be it family or health. I hope neither of those concerns is accurate and that he merely hates the travel schedule and the stress.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

As a Royals fan who loves to micromanage and nitpick my favorite team, I tend to look to other teams for examples of what the Royals should and shouldn't do. In the last week, the Royals have played a pair of teams that lead their respective divisions.

This is a list of things that a team like the Royals can learn from these two organizations. Any underperforming organization can take these things to heart. Heck, some successful teams can do a lot better with some or all of these items.

First we talk about the Milwaukee Brewers, who have recently emerged from two decades of inept management to become relevant in the NL. Here's what the Royals can learn from the Milwaukee Brewers.

1. Pick wisely at the top of the draft. The Brew Crew have first round picks starting at 1B (Fielder, 2002), 2B (Weeks, 2003), 3B (Braun, 2005), SP (Sheets, 1999), and a second rounder at SS (Hardy, 2001) and another second rounder at SP (Gallardo). That's their entire infield and 2/5 of their starting rotation.

2. Dump trades are great, but only if executed properly. The Sexson trade that sent him to the Snakes gave them another member of their rotation in Capuano, who at the time was a talented, but underperforming arm and a decent 1B in Overbay that they then flipped a while later when Fielder was ready. The Overbay dump trade gave them a capable 4th OF (Gabe Gross), ANOTHER member of the rotation (Bush), and a midrange pitching prospect (Z. Jackson). When they flipped Carlos Lee, they got their closer (Cordero) and half of their OF platoon (Mench). These are make-or-break moments in the history of a franchise. The Royals have been remarkably bad at this over the course of the last 10 years. The Dye and Damon trades were franchise killers.

3. Worry about your closer when you get good, not when you're losing 95 games a season. Bad teams don't need expensive relievers. In fact, they can use it as an opportunity to audition players and flip pitchers who overperform. They gave Dan Kolb a chance to close, he did so capably for a season, after which they flipped him to the Braves for more talented players who weren't "proven". Kolb predictably returned to being Dan Kolb and was soon back on the Brewers roster, costing nothing. They probably should have flipped Derrick Turnbow before he turned into a pumpkin, but all things considered, they could do worse for a short reliever in a 7th/8th inning role than him. Now that they're relevant, the closer role is relevant and Cordero is doing fine. The difference between 60 and 70 wins isn't very meaningful, but the difference between 85 and 90 is huge.

4. Get your stopgaps out of the way when somebody is ready to take hold of an opportunity. The Brewers have cleared room for Bill Hall, Corey Hart, and Ryan Braun to become regulars and have profited from it. This isn't something that Royals have been terrible at per se, but their degree of dedication to keeping Mark Grudzielanek around while Esteban German has proven capable of being a regular (if defensively challenged) 2B.

5. Don't be afraid of non-traditional solutions. They have 2 veterans who have always been full time starters platooning in an outfield corner. Their other corner outfielder and leadoff hitter is a 6'6" converted first baseman. Their center fielder is an ex-middle infielder who suddenly started hitting for power a couple years ago. And scouts have been saying that Ryan Braun and Rickie Weeks are outfielders waiting to happen since they were drafted.

The second team we look at is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They don't have the sob story that the Brew Crew has, but they definitely have some lessons to share.

Here's what the Royals can learn from the Angels.

1. Don't be afraid to pay out for premium talent, especially at a discount. Vladimir Guerrero's 5 year, $70M contract that the Angels inked him to back in the winter before the 2004 season could be the best value of recent free agency vintage. There were some concerns about a back injury he struggled with in 2003, an injury that limited him to 112 games. The Yankees passed and sign Gary Sheffield instead. Vlad has been a tremendous player over the past few years and he is the fulcrum upon which the Angels offense rotates. He makes $13.5M this season, a relative pittance for a player of his caliber.

2.  Keep David DeJesus because he's relatively cheap and effective. The Angels gave Gary Matthews Jr an exorbitant, $50M, 5 year contract this off-season in what is the opposite of the Vlad deal. They even gave him a full no trade clause. Matthews isn't a poor player. He's a capable defensive center fielder, and despite my concerns that his 2006 season was a complete fluke, he's been an acceptable .285/.342/.452. So his salary this season is reasonable. But that contract is going to be ugly in 2010 and 2011, when he's making 11M and 12M and his skills will have eroded. DeJesus is also a capable defensive center fielder, and competent bat. He's also signed to a relatively modest 5 year, $13.8M deal.  His power has dipped slightly this season, but his walk rate has increased and his strikeout rate is in line with his previous numbers, telling me that he's a good bet to repeat his performances of the last 2 seasons.

3 and 4. Here are two lessons that are complimentary in nature. Prospects sometimes fail. When they fail, it pays to have a good bench. The Angels had a lot of hope invested in Dallas McPherson and when he failed due to injury and strikeout rate, they were a bit stuck. Luckily for them, they have one of the better selections of infield reserves in baseball, headlined by super-utility archetype Chone Figgins, but supported by corner infield lefty-masher Robb Quinlan, and Maicer Izturis's glove. They've weathered injuries and ineffectiveness at every infield position over the last few years and I think part of the reason for that is their mix of versatility and usefulness on the bench. The way that they use Quinlan and Figgins in particular is something I think could be a model for the Royals in the future, as Esteban German has been an underutilized asset over the last 15 months. As for Quinlan, not enough teams carry around a player who specializes in punishing lefty junk.

5. Once you get good, it is possible to "reload" and not "rebuild" while also not paying $200M per year in salaries. The only significant players remaining from the Angels World Championship season of 2002 are Francisco Rodriguez, who only appeared in 5 regular season games that year, John Lackey, who was a 23 year old rookie himself at the time, and Garret Anderson, who if he comes back this season, will probably be relegated to a bench role. They've turned over every single starting spot in the field and all but one rotation spot. In that time, they've dipped below .500 exactly once, and that one time was in 2003, when they finished with 77 wins. They've been to the playoffs twice in that time and have averaged 88 wins per season, a mark which they are pretty certain to blow by this year with plenty of room to spare. Keep the farm system going even after you start winning and you too can make it a regular habit to compete for division titles.

Before we start today, I have a plea for media outlets everywhere. No more ugly dog show coverage. Please? I don't need to see what Ren would look like after 5 years of serious meth addiction. And since it seems like one of these freak shows washes up about once every couple months, it probably should trigger Chuck Sheppard's "No longer weird" concept. We've seen it before. The dog looks like an elderly rat. We get it. Now get that ugly thing off my television screen.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

Monday was Mike Maroth's lucky day as he allowed the Nats to score 5 runs on him (4 earned) and still walked away with a W.

Season Leader: Jeff Suppan has won 3 games, has lost 4, and has a no decision since mid-May. In the games he WON, he gave up 13 runs in 18 innings. In his no decision, he gave up 9 in 4 and 2/3.

Bad Luck Division

Joe Blanton and El Duque combined for 15 shutout innings on Saturday and got matching no decisions because they had the statistical misfortune of pitching their respective gems in the same game. Blanton is probably a bit more disappointing because the degree of difficulty involved in throwing up 8 doughnuts on the scoreboard against the Mets is a bit higher than blanking the A's for 7.

If you have to have a loss, consider Greg Maddux on Friday collecting his 207th career loss. Anytime you hold Boston to 2 runs in 6 innings, you have something to be proud of.

Season Leader: Johan Santana is a no-brainer at this point. He's 8 and 6 on the season with a 2.91 ERA. Really he should have won it last week when he was 6 and 6 with a 3.19 ERA. If you hear somebody ask what is wrong with Johan Santana this season, what with a "barely over .500" record, you have my permission to punch that person in the neck.

Vulture Division

I have 2 examples today illustrating 2 separate weaknesses of this obsolete statistic. The first one happened on Monday and you probably heard about it as Edwin Jackson somehow injured his finger and had to come out of the game with 2 outs in the 5th, one out away from being in line for the win. He was theoretically 1 pitch away from getting a statistical pat on the bat, but instead Jason Hammel got credit for Jackson's work, or more accurately the good work of Jonny Gomes and Brendan Harris. One pitch is all that stood between one pitcher getting a win and the next guy getting the gold star.

The other example is from Sunday afternoon's Rangers/Astros tilt. Dan Wheeler took the vulture concept to a whole new level. He entered the game with 2 on, nobody out in the 8th protecting a 7-3 lead. He promptly allowed both inherited runners to score, making the score 7-5. He then gave up a 2 run homer to Frank Catalanotto which tied the game at 7. Hunter Pense and Mark Loretta attempted to bail him out by giving the Astros another 2 run lead. Amazingly Phil Garner tempted fate by leaving Wheeler in for the 9th. What does Wheeler do with his new lease on life? That's right, solo home runs for Marlon Byrd and Ian Kinsler. Tie ballgame, 9-9 going into the 10th inning. The Astros score ANOTHER 3 runs putting Wheeler in line for the win AGAIN. This time Garner wakes from his slumber and puts in Chad Qualls, who protects Wheeler's ill-gotten gains with a scoreless 10th. So let's review, Wheeler throws 2 innings, allows 3 home runs, 4 runs, all earned, a couple more inherited runners. And he still gets "credited" with the win. Hell, he only gets one blown save in the whole mess when he in fact blew 2 leads. That is the best (or worst depending on your point of view) example of why this column exists I've found thus far. It's the worst vulture performance of the season.

The Rico Brogna Award

Shane Victorino drove in 6 runs, but managed a meager .217/.280/.304 line in his 23 at bats.

Season to Date: Raul Ibanez is 19th in the Majors with 49 RBI, but he's a corner outfielder hitting .280/.332/.440. That's not a killer. But it's mediocre at best.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Brad Wilkerson posted a .227 batting average on the week, but of his 5 hits, one was a double and two of them were homers. He also added 4 walks for a .346 OBP and a 545 SLG.

Season as a whole: Ryan Howard has hit .257/.386/.550 and stands 17th in MLB in OPS. 30 of his 52 hits have been for extra bases and he's chipped in 44 walks in 202 at bats.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

So Taguchi hit 73 points higher than Wilkerson, but he drew no walks and hit for little power, posting a .300/.300/.367 line for the Cards.

Season: I've beaten up on Nomar Garciaparra this season, but Sean Casey is at least as bad at producing runs from a corner infield position. .284/.347/.373 isn't getting it done. And when your everyday first baseman has 1 home run all season and it's late June, you need to start evaluating other options.

The Steve Balboni Award

Rookie Josh Fields did some good things this week. He smacked a double and a home run, and he drew a walk, but his 8 strikeouts in 22 at bats played a role in keeping his line a subpar .227/.261/.409. This is probably not a fluke. Fields hit .283/.394/.498 for Charlotte, but he also struck out 60 times in his 205 at bats this season. Last season he actually bested that line, but whiffed 136 times in his 462 International League at bats.

Leader:  Adam LaRoche has 8 home runs and 35 walks in 265 at bats, but has struck out a staggering 74 times in 265 at bats for a .211/.306/.366 line.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Here's one I never expected to see here. Joe Mauer hit a pair of bombs, drew 5 walks, and struck out 7 times in his 24 at bats. I don't think of him as a master of the TTO.

Leader: Adam Dunn is THE master of the TTO. 266 at bats, 20 home runs, 37 walks, 97 K. His .271 batting average is bound to come down a bit.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

In the wake of Sammy Sosa's milestone 600th home run, there was widespread praise for how he's come back from retirement. I saw some analysis that he's been good this year because he's hitting the ball to the opposite field, because he's made some mechanical adjustments. But I never once heard the actual truth.

Sammy Sosa isn't a very good baseball player at this stage and he's been a contributing factor in the Rangers disaster of a season, not a bright light shining in spite of the dark night. The guy is hitting .246/.305/.467 as a DH for a team that plays its home games in a very friendly ballpark for hitters. That takes a team farther from contention, not closer to it. ESPN.com had an article mentioning him as an all star candidate. But if you're taking a Ranger, you're taking Ian Kinsler, who at .243/.332/.458, is hitting BETTER than Sosa while playing second base. Or maybe you're taking Mark Teixeira, health concerns aside.

Sammy Sosa isn't good and somebody needs to say it. To make the claim that he's an All Star borders on malpractice on the part of sportswriters.

Update [2007-6-26 7:41:49 by JM Barten]:I should mention that the reason he stinks right now is because he's swinging through entirely too many pitches. I've mentioned it many times before, but I normally don't have anything in particular against strikeouts, but when they reach particular levels, it becomes nearly impossible to bat for a decent average and by extension, to get on base at a sufficient rate be an asset to an offense. This is the embodiment of the Balboni award. Sosa is striking out more than once per game and while he's hitting for decent power and drawing an acceptable number of walks, he's not doing these things so well that he can get away with a .243 batting average. So that is the crux of my Sosa argument.

This Week's MVP's

AL: Brian Roberts was a stat sheet stuffer with a .538/.600/.1.00 line. He hit a pair of doubles, a pair of triples, a pair of home runs, stole two bases without getting caught once, and he drew 4 walks.

Season: Alex Rodriguez hit .545/.643/.818, launching him back ahead of Magglio Ordonez and Vlad Guerrero. His season stats are up to .333/.433/.707.

NL: Any time you hit three doubles and four home runs in a week, you know it's probably going to be a good one. Alfonso Soriano did just that and posted a .480/.519/.1.080 week for the Cubs.

Season: Miguel Cabrera leads a relatively weak NL field with a .330/.397/.601 line while playing in a tough park for batters. He gets demerits for being a key "contributor" to a Marlins defense that ranks last in the NL at turning batted balls into outs according to Baseball Prospectus's defensive stats.

Least Valuable Players

AL: Bobby Abreau did his best to counteract ARod's spectacular week with his .125/.160/.208.

Season I've talked a lot about how Jason Kendall is killing the A's. It's all still accurate. He's awful right now in ways that makes Craig Biggio's lurch towards an arbitrary milestone seem downright helpful. But Kurt Suzuki is now up and it seems like between Suzuki and the well publicized requests of the A's for Mike Piazza to get his glove out of storage, things are looking up for East Bay fans. So let's talk about Dioneer Navarro, who has been a crushing disappointment for Rays fans in a season without many really dark points. .180/.247/.264 is a good way to not only forfeit your claim on the future, but to also lose your starting spot by the end of this season. He needs to pick it up and at least rise to the level of merely not good rather than malignant.

NL: Adam LaRoche hit .087/.222/.087. As documented above, he's not having a good season, but at least things were looking better since he left the extended slump that he started the season with. It all came crashing down again this week as he was hopeless.

Season: Adam Kennedy used to be a decent, but unspectacular player. He isn't decent this year. He's been a spectacular liability, hitting .207/.274/.255 in his 184 at bats.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

I'm doing things differently with this today. Here's a brief list of things that I've loved so far this season.

Carlos Pena's emergence. He was all but left for dead by several organizations, but with a huge .293/.393/.633, he's been the best first baseman in the AL this season, filling what had been a gaping hole in the Rays roster.

The Brewers offensive core. JJ Hardy hitting for this much power is a surprise, but we all knew that Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Ryan Braun, and Bill Hall could hit. Promoting Corey Hart to full time duty helps a lot as well. This is a damned good team going forward. Defense isn't exactly a strength, but they have a deep talent pool.

Rick Ankiel showing that you can have a second act in baseball. Being able to knock on the door of the Major Leagues as either a hitter or a pitcher is unimaginable for most of us. Having the talent to do so as both a hitter and a pitcher is unbelievable. He should be very proud of all he's achieved and I'm not even going to pretend like I'm not flat out rooting for him. You never want to see somebody melt down like he did. For him to pick himself back up again is something that makes me into a sentimental schmuck sportswriter mentality the likes of which I usually make fun of.

The Mariners weird offensive profile. Ichiro and Kenji Johjima have carried them. Jose Lopez has carried his weight if you adjust for position. They've been getting killed by their DH, 3B, and 1B while RF has been below league average. This is an offense that is backwards, getting solid performances out of up the middle players and getting mediocre or worse from most of the corner spots.

It's great that we had a first round pick from Punxsutawney, PA. There are a limited number of famous or semi-famous small towns in this country, and I don't mean small towns in the sense of small towns like Peoria or Waco or Wichita or Boise, where you'd only think of it as really small if you're from Chicago or LA or NY. I mean small towns in the sense of only a few thousand people live there. You have places like Sturgis and Tombstone. Having a first round talent from one of these places is one of those weird coincidences. My attention to such a thing is probably a leftover from my own youth spent in a town that numbered less that 5,000.

Player blogs. I don't often read them, but I like the concept and encourage players to talk more directly to the public rather than going through the filter of beat writers and on-camera interviews..

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Small Sample Size Warning

Justin Verlander's no-no constituted a majority of a 14 inning scoreless streak. 14 innings of work dropped his ERA from 3.44 to 2.79. That's 14 innings that transformed him statistically from one of the 10 best starters in the AL into a leading Cy Young candidate.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division

On Sunday, Tim Wakefield beat the Giants even though he allowed 5 runs on 8 hits in 5 and 2/3 innings.

Season Leader: Bartolo Colon has a 6 and 2 record even though he's suffering through a pretty awful season, with a 5.73 ERA.

Bad Luck Division

On Saturday, Carlos Zambrano gave the Cubs a complete game 2 hitter, allowing only a single and a solo home run and he still got the loss in the now infamous brawl game. He still got the loss as Chris Young and the Padres bullpen was brilliant, or the Cubs offense was terrible, either way works when talking about how Zambrano got hosed.

Season Leader: Gil Meche has 15 starts this season. 11 of those have been quality starts. In those 11, he's received the loss twice and has 5 no decisions. In 2 of those, he's allowed NO earned runs.

Vulture Division

I can't denigrate Luis Vizcaino's performance on Saturday, but let's be clear, he got the win based mostly on luck. He relieved the struggling Tyler Clippard after Clippard had given up 5 runs in 3 and a third innings. Vizcaino did good work, getting Clippard out of a jam, stranding 2 runners and pitching a scoreless 5th before being lifted for Scott Proctor. In the meantime, the Yankee offense scored 4 runs off Tom Glavine and Scott Schoeneweis. Let's be clear, Vizcaino did his job, but if Alex Rodriguez and company had decided to wait for a couple of innings to bombard Glavine, it would have been Schoeneweis to get the win. The point here is that it's all arbitrary.

The Rico Brogna Award

Felipe Lopez hit .211/.318/.421, but drove in an impressive 6 runs on the week.

Season to Date:  Sammy Sosa is 11th in the Majors in RBI's with 51 and 97th in OPS and 158th in OBP.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Bobby Abreau did alright with his 21 at bats this week, drawing 5 walks, smacking a triple and a homer, and even going 2 for 2 on the basepaths. Who cares that he hit .237 when his OBP was .407 and his SLG was .476.

Season as a whole: Ryan Howard has been a candidate for both this award and the Balboni all season. The awards overlap a bit. Both probably apply. He's hitting a mere .232, dragged down by 67 whiffs in 177 at bats, but he's walked enough (43) and hit enough homers (14) to be an asset at first base (.377/.514).

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Kevin Youkilis hit .292/.320/.375 as a first baseman. `nuff said. Hand him the trophy (Note: We don't have the budget for real trophies)

Season: Tony Pena Jr. is hitting a respectable .280, but he's only drawn 6 walks in 239 at bats on his way to a meager .280/.302/.372. He truly is the spiritual successor to Rey Sanchez in KC.

The Steve Balboni Award

Ryan Howard wins this week's Balboni with a .200/.286/.480. If he hadn't struck out 11 times in his 25 at bats, his 3 walks and 2 bombs might have led to a pretty nice batting line.

Leader: When did Brandon Inge turn into Troy Glaus lite? .254/.351/.455 looks a lot like what I'd imagine Glaus would do if you bled some of the air out of his tires. Nevertheless, he's smacked 11 homers and drawn 27 walks in his 209 at bats, but his 58 strikeouts have held down his batting average more than a little bit.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Here's another weird one, Ryan Langerhans hit .294/.478/.706 this week with a pair of home runs, 6 walks, and 7 strikeouts in 17 at bats. See also: small sample size warning.

Leader: Pat Burrell has 8 home runs, 53 walks, and 48 strikeouts in 194 at bats this season on his way to a .211/.382/.387 line. See also: Balboni Award.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

On Thursday, I was catching some scores on ESPN News and they showed the highlights of the Padres/ Rays afternoon game. At the end of the package, anchor David Lloyd cited a statistic thusly: "The Padres don't have a .300 hitter in their lineup. I guess offense is overrated. The Padres are first in the NL West."

Normally this kind of thing is a throwaway line for me, but the Fire Joe Morgan in me just cringed at the numerous ways in which this statement is wrong.

-The Padres play in the most extreme pitcher's park in baseball and that will naturally hold down their offense.

-Offense is not batting average. Offense is scoring runs, and a lot more than batting average goes into that. Home runs, walks, doubles, that kind of thing.

-Not having one batter in principle isn't evidence that an offense is a malignancy on a team's chances of competing. There have been some very good offensive teams that merely had 8 guys who didn't suck. Having 8 guys who hit .285/.350/.500 would make for a pretty decent lineup.

-As I write this, the Padres stand in the middle of the pack in the NL in run scoring at 9th out of 16 teams. Not great, not shabby, especially given my first point.

-On the extremely rare cases in which a team overcomes a poor offense to be a real contender, those teams are likely to look a lot like the Padres, who are lapping the field in preventing runs, with 2 stud pitchers in Jake Peavy and Chris Young, and more than half of their lineup could be viewed as plus defenders, anchored by catcher Josh Bard, shortstop Khalil Greene, shortstop Marcus Giles, center fielder Mike Cameron, and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. The fact that it is POSSIBLE to overcome a poor offense in being relevant in no way justifies an overstatement as large as saying that offense itself is unimportant.

Lloyd should give a call to his old co-worker Brian Kenny, who would set him straight on matter such as this. I always liked Kenny because he was one of the most accepting of all mainstream media people to sabermetrics. He always had great discussions with Joe Sheehan and Rob Neyer when they came on. I miss him on the Hot List.

This Week's MVP's

In lieu of  the regular awarding of least valuable players for the AL and NL both for the week and cumulative, here's a random sampling of some players who are absolutely carrying their teams' chances of doing something meaningful this season on their backs. They may or may not be THE most valuable players in baseball, but they're on the ballot.

Chase Utley has turned into an absolute stud. This isn't a news flash. He did hit a robust .309/.379/.572 last season and .291/.376/.540 the year before. Still, with a .320/.397/.572 line, he's highest ranking only up-the-middle player in OPS in baseball (9th overall) and unlike Jorge Posada, who immediately follows him, a major regression doesn't seem imminent.

This might be a breakout for Casey Kotchman, who has always had solid contact hitting skills and an outstanding glove at first base. Still, after making a career out of disappointing in the Show and getting injured faster than anybody this side of the similarly skilled Nick Johnson, seeing a .333/.411/.556 line from this former top prospect is startling.

Justin Morneau shouldn't have been the AL MVP last season, but he was very, very good and he's showing it wasn't a fluke, hitting .280/.355/.568 on the season. With Joe Mauer injured and the rest of the non-Tori Hunter lineup alternating between adequate and awful, if the Twins continue to sink behind the Indians and Tigers this season, one person you won't be able to blame is Morneau, who outside of batting average is putting up a carbon copy of last season.

We're all witnesses for a nice season for Victor Martinez, who is hitting .323/.381/.454. Having a catcher who can hit like that is how you get away with zeroes from third base and both outfield corners and still manage to keep up with the Tigers.

Least Valuable Players

Same thing goes for this category, only these guys are murdering their teams' chances of contending.

Jacque Jones is pathetic this season. In the past, he's at least been a league average corner outfielder (or close to it) with a good glove, but a pronounced platoon split. In 196 at bats this season, he isn't hitting ANYBODY, stumbling his way to a .235/.294/.332 line.

I had high hopes for Stephen Drew. I wasn't the only one either, as a coveted talent out of college with a Major League contract and a 4 million dollar bonus, the Diamondbacks certainly had some expectations. He was rated the number 5 prospect in the game by Baseball America in 2006, the guys at Baseball Prospectus were a little less enthusiastic, but still ranked him number 19. So it's fair to say that just about everybody is at least a little surprised that he's hitting .233/.294/.335.

Failing similar expectations and holding ML bloodlines is Cleveland anchor (and not in a good way) Josh Barfield, who is hitting a mere .258/.287/.346. I've been worried about his discipline for years, and with just 8 walks in 248 at bats and strikeouts in almost a fifth of his plate appearances, that seems to be a big issue. I'm not sure where his power went.

The up-the-middle duo of A.J. Pierzynski and Juan Uribe is hitting .243/.289/.406 and .212/.278/.337 respectively. Tad Iguchi isn't helping things much by not hitting for any kind of power (.354 SLG), but at least he's getting on base at a league average .331 clip. The less said about center field, the better. I have an idle question here. If this continues and the White Sox end up with 73 wins, how many people are going to apologize to Nate Silver after calling him everything short of a pedophile when PECOTA's projections were released?

Most Valuable Pitcher

 You know, I'm having fun with this special recognition day thing. I think I'll continue with the pitchers.

It's really weird how Jeremy Guthrie is pitching like an ace when he has nothing like this anywhere in his statistical record. It's no stretch to say that I'm skeptical. It's possible that he's become a better than league average pitcher by tightening up his command and getting some extra break on something, but I haven't done that much research. Any Orioles fans out there who does have an opinion on the matter? Maybe a manic depressive Indians fan who has been watching from afar? Anyways, raise your hand if you expected a 2.57 ERA with a .210/.252/.321 cumulative line against.

Another one for Agents Mulder and Scully is Oliver Perez, who after 2 season of cleverly disguising himself as a gas can, has rediscovered himself to the tune of a 2.93 ERA, 8.24 K/9, and a .205/.281/.341 line allowed.

John Lackey is leading baseball with 10 wins and he's been outstanding, but Kelvim Escobar is kicking ass as well with a 2.97 ERA, 7.57 K/9, and a .231/.289/.312 line against.

Another pitcher who is doing better than he ever has is Ian Snell, who I watched a couple years ago here in Indy. At the time I liked Zach Duke a lot better as a prospect and said so to all of my friends. For a while that seemed prescient, as Duke hit the ground running while Snell struggled, making small, incremental improvements. Snell finally made the leap forward this year while Duke has deteriorated as HIS command and polish (which were the things I loved about him) deteriorated. I was going to write a full article on this, but it ended up with a wishy-washy conclusion that would have made for an unsatisfying read. The fact is Snell might have been the better prospect all along, but it required improvements in his slider and fastball command and in the game tapes I've watched, it seems like he's almost completely ditched his changeup, which I saw as an issue because I could tell when the change was coming from a side angle 200 feet away with an untrained eye because the arm speed was remarkably different than his slider/fastball arm action. Imagine what professional scouts and hitters though of it. Anyways, Snell is doing great with a 2.63 ERA, 7.34 K/9, and a .226/.292/.347 line. Hats off to him for working hard and developing like he has.

Least Valuable Pitcher

Oh come on, you know the drill by now.

Jeremy Sowers just isn't fooling anybody. 6.93 ERA, 2.74 K/9, .310/.360/.506. He was mercifully given a ticket to Buffalo, which isn't nearly as bad a place to spend a summer as it is a winter.

The rest of this list is entirely comprised of Ranger pitchers.

Robinson Tejeda; 68 IP, 6.49 ERA, 6.62 K/9, .285/.371/.496

Brandon McCarthy; 50 IP, 5.90 ERA, 5.54 K/9, .271/.357/.437

Vicente Padilla; 76 IP, 6.57 ERA, 4.93 K/9, .316/.383/.469

Kam Loe; 70 IP, 6.56 ERA, 5.4 K/9, .310/.361/.477

Kevin Millwood; 54 IP, 7.62 ERA, 7.29 K/9, .332/.401/.555

That's a horror show more terrifying than anything Wes Craven could come up with.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

No made-up award this week because I want to spend a few minutes talking about the USGP, which occupied most of the back half of my week. It was amazingly hot, but not even that could detract from an outstanding weekend. 4 days of events. From the Speed TV interview sessions at the Thursday pit walkabout to Friday's practice to Saturday's dramatic qualifying to the best F1 race of the year thus far. Some notes from my weekend.

-Couldn't have asked for a better race. With the Canadian GP and this weekend, it seems like we've had more passes (and better passes) in the last 2 weeks than the entire season coming into North America. Even when there wasn't a successful pass, you had near passes, such as Alonzo pressuring Hamilton and the various battles that took place along the Hullman straight. Stunning action and a testament to what F1 needs more of.

-The first point feeds into the point that Bernie needs to suck it up and renew with Indy for next year and for the foreseeable future. This track provides big crowds, a presence in the biggest market for things such as Mercedes cars, Red Bull, and Panasonic electronic equipment, and the races here are never dull.

-Nico Rosberg looked like he wanted to beat his car into a bloody pulp with his steering wheel and I can't blame him. That's got to be a kick in the delicate parts.

-Ralf Schumacher is officially awful.

-Adrian Sutil, Sebastian Vettel, and Heikki Kovaleinen are NOT awful. In fact they look pretty good.

-I've loved watching Hamilton and I'm as guilty as anybody for hyping him beyond all reason, but the skeptic in me says that all of the stuff that we're saying about him, we've also said about Alonzo, Kimi, and you could make a case that this kind of hype surrounded the horrifically mediocre Button. He's clearly a special driver and somebody who should contend for championships for the next decade if he chooses his ride wisely, but I'm not prepared yet to say that he's "Once in a generation" just yet. Check back with me in a couple of seasons when he isn't driving the fastest car in the field.

-Also on the subject of Hamilton, I really am neither worried, nor particularly interested in how well Hamilton and Alonzo get along. Unless I hear one of them is so malignant that it rises to the level of Eddie Irvine becoming too much of an asshole for anybody to be able to bear working with him without wanting to throw him into oncoming traffic, I'm not really going to find this compelling in any meaningful way. Alonzo is jealous and snipes about getting inferior equipment? Spare me. Race car drivers all have what my brother in law colorfully refers to as "Lead Vocalist Syndrome". They're divas, egos on wheels. They have to be arrogant to work up the nerve to strap themselves into a fighter jet with the wings turned upside down and roll around at top speed a few feet away from a freaking wall, pushing the thing to the last edge of performance. This kind of thing comes with the territory.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

Update [2007-6-19 10:19:5 by JM Barten]:I'd also like to add that the rumors about Renault possibly dropping Kovaleinen from their team because of underperformance always were ridiculous. If the team actually was considering such a move based on the first handful of races in the kid's career, then I give them too much credit. Still, it wouldn't have been a good idea regardless of what he did in Montreal and Indy. Not everybody hits the ground in a full sprint like Hamilton and Kubica. Some people actually have a learning curve to overcome before becoming an excellent F1 driver.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division, Bad Luck Division, and Vulture Division:

The divisions are merged this week both in tribute to interleague play and because all of the following happened on Saturday night, the perfect storm of ridiculous win/loss accounting.

Frank Francisco entered Saturday's game with his Rangers down a run to the Brew Crew. He gave up 2 more runs in his inning of work and still got a win for his troubles because his former teammate Francisco Cordero gave up 4 runs, handing the Rangers a victory. Brandon McCarthy and Joakim Benoit gave Adam Morris's favorite team 8 good innings and got nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done. Francisco comes in and sucks and he gets the golden W. He's your vulture of the night while McCarthy and Brewers starter Ben Sheets get tough luck no decisions despite their 12IP, 1R, 11K, 2BB, 9H.

Tim Hudson got lucky escaping a no decision despite allowing 5 runs in 2 innings. How he did that with no extra base hits allowed I'll never really figure out.

Jason Jennings and Jon Garland blessed the Astros and White Sox with a  combined 14IP, 2R, 10K, 2BB, 14H, and matching no decisions.

Rodrigo Lopez and Jeremy Guthrie combined for 15IP, 4R, 8K, 2BB, 12H, and matching no decisions.

Jeremy Bonderman got a win despite getting smacked around for 6 runs in 6 innings.

Josh Sowers and Matt Belisle combined for 10IP, 8R, 10K, 4BB, 12H, but neither collected the loss.

Finally, Derek Lowe went the full 9 innings, allowing only 1 run on 4 hits and received the loss because Nomar Garciaparra and company got shut out by Shaun Marcum, Scott Downs, and Casey Janssen.

There is very little justice in wins and losses, which is a big reason why the whole concept needs to be thrown in a lake.

The Rico Brogna Award

Jeremy Hermida drove in 6 runs this week, primarily with a grand slam on Friday night, but he hit a mere .143/.296/.333 on the week and didn't help his team as much as you'd think.

Season to Date:  Carlos Lee has 1 more RBI than Milwaukee's Prince Fielder, but Fielder has a 32 point advantage on Lee in OBP, a 128 point lead in slugging, and a 42 point advantage in OPS+. Lee is hitting pretty well this year and I can't blast him too much. .302/.350/.523 is pretty decent. But he's currently 5th in baseball in RBI.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

There really weren't as many candidates as usual this week. Just about everybody who did well enough to qualify as a positive contributor hit over .300. Therefore it goes to Orlando Hudson by default. Hudson added to his usual stellar defense at second base by hitting .250/.423/.400. He only rapped out 2 singles, but smoked 3 doubles and drew 6 walks. Hudson has developed something of a batting eye this season. He's never been completely clueless about drawing walks, but in 63 games, he's already drawn 34 walks, a pace which would destroy his career high of 61 in a season, a mark he set last year.

Season as a whole: With a .263/.414/.455 line, Travis Hafner isn't hitting for the power we're used to, but his 54 walks in 213 at bats is nice and makes him a huge OBP source in the heart of their lineup.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Miguel Cairo hit .292/.280/.333 on the week.

Season:  Freddy Sanchez isn't related to Rey, but they have one thing in common. Their offensive game is limited to hitting a single 2 and a half or 3 out of every 10 trips to the dish. Sanchez is hitting .296/.328/.365 on the year. He has drawn 10 walks and hit exactly 1 home run in 233 at bats. Secondary skills are important!

The Steve Balboni Award

Victor Diaz struck out 7 times in 12 at bats, but one of his 2 hits was a home run and he drew a walk, which makes his line a .167/.231/.417. That's one hell of an outlier week.

Leader in the Clubhouse: It's spooky how similar Sammy Sosa and Craig Monroe's numbers are. They obviously both quality for the award.

Sosa: 215 AB, .242/.299/.447, 14 2B, 10 HR, 17 BB, 60 K

Monroe: 210 AB, .243/.296/.448, 16 2B, 9 HR, 17 BB, 59 K

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Carlos Pena had 19 at bats on the week, hit 2 home runs, walked 9 times and struck out 7 times. Of the 10 balls he actually presented to the defense, 7 of them found a gap. That is a long, long way from sustainable.

Leader:

Reader "TheJay" from Brew Crew Ball sent me the heads-up that both Joe Borchard and Dave Ross currently have more strikeouts than total bases. Borchard has 53K's and 48 total bases. He also has 4 homers and 20 walks in his 170 plate appearances. Ross has 52 K's with his 47 total bases, 12 walks, and 6 bombs.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

The NCAA

This Week's MVP's

AL: Gary Sheffield was on fire all week, posting a .417/.513/1.000  line with 4 home runs, a triple, and 6 walks in 24 at bats. There are good reasons why the Tigers went 4-2 last week

Season: Sheff's teammate Magglio Ordonez complimented that production by going .421/.478/.526 himself, bringing his season totals to .367/.439/.668.

NL: Alfonso Soriano had an extremely slow start to the season, but he's been on a bit of a roll recently, capped off by a .433/.486/.933 week. He also had 4 homers and a triple, but he also added a double to the party and drew 3 walks in 30 at bats. The Cubs also won 4 games last week, but they had an extra opportunity as they played a 7 game schedule.

Season: Barry Bonds has slumped a little bit and his .276/.484/.551, while still impressive, just isn't as valuable as some other NL players who have been similarly productive over more plate appearances while playing more defensively oriented positions. To be more specific, I'm talking about Hanley Ramirez, who is hitting .320/.389/.496 with 20 steals (to only 4 CS) and 8 home runs in 250 at bats while playing Gold Glove caliber defense at shortstop.

Least Valuable Player

AL:  Season totals only this week for the LVP's. And Jason Kendall is still well out ahead of the field in the category. He's just killing the A's in their efforts to catch up to the Halos.

But even though Kendall is winning, we should note Joe Crede, who struggled through the first couple months of the season in agonizing pain. He didn't help his team by trying to stay out there. He might be done for the year if he opts for surgery to "fix" his back. If this is it for 2007 for him, he exits the season batting just .216/.258/.317, which is brutal for a corner infielder playing his home games in a hitter's park.

NL: I had noticed until recently how bad Felipe Lopez had been this season for the Nationals. He just doesn't have the defensive chops to make up for .231/.277/.329, not that anybody really is that good with the leather.

Most Valuable Pitcher

AL: Dan Haren's VORP: 40.2, his closest AL competition for the title (James Shields): 29.8. That speaks for itself.

NL: Jake Peavy retains the title. We're midway through June and he's only allowed 1 home run all season.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The "How is that Possible?" award goes to Robert Kubica, who not only managed to go through one of the most gruesome looking crashes in recent memory, but actually walked out of the hospital Monday morning with nothing more than a sprained ankle. I would imagine he also got his bell rung.

I hope to see Kubica race here in Indy this coming week.

As an aside, I for one welcome our new Grenadian-English overlord.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1’s column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Small Sample Size Warning

Willie Harris is batting .397/.466/.526 in 78 at bats this season. Yes, THAT Willie Harris, the one with the .251/.319/.312 career line. Sure, he spent a significant amount of time in Richmond. This still counts because it's Willie Freaking Harris and it's freaking June.

Hat tip to Tom Ferguson on that one.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division:

 C.C. Sabathia gave up 5 runs, all earned on 10 Tigers hits and a walk with but two strikeouts in his 7 and a third innings of work on Thursday night. Justin Verlander allowed 7 Indians hitters to cross the plate, handing the biggest pitcher in Ohio the win.

Major League Leader:  How in the hell does Miguel Batista, he of the 5.43 ERA end up tied for 6th in AL in wins with 6 of them, the same as AL ERA leader Dan Haren, who may I add plays for a better team, one more likely to give him run support?

Vulture Alert!

Wednesday night Dustin Moseley of the Halos relieved Jared Weaver with 2 out in the bottom of the 5th, Yunieski Bettancourt on first. Bettancourt was caught stealing to end the inning. Vlad Guerrero launched a 3 run home run shortly after that to put Moseley in line for the win that he eventually got. If the Yuni Bomber had decided to foolishly try and stretch his single into a double or if he had tripped over his shoelaces coming out of the box instead of trying to steal second, then Weaver would have won the game (he didn't deserve it either). It was as much dumb luck for Moseley as it was skill.

Bad Luck Division:

Mark Buehrle threw a very nice game, giving up 2 runs in 8 innings for the complete game loss to Roy Halladay and the Jays. The 2 runs came on solo home runs, the only 2 baserunners he allowed.

ML Leader: Jake Peavy has 7 wins, which one would think would make him ineligible for this category. No. Not this time. Peavy has 4 no decisions and a loss. In those 5 starts, he's given his team 35 innings with 41 K, 9 BB, and 9 R, for a 2.31 ERA.

The Rico Brogna Award

Lance Berkman drove in 6 runs on the week, but only produced a .100/.217/.250 line. I'm officially starting to get concerned whether there's something wrong with him.

Season to Date: Sammy Sosa has driven in 42 runs, good for 13th in baseball. He's only managing to get on base 30.6% of the time.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Sosa's teammate Mark Teixeira hit .263, but with a double, 3 home runs, and 8 walks for a .500 OBP and a .632 SLG.

Season as a whole: Ryan Church is quietly putting up a breakout season that is being disguised by his home ballpark and his batting average. His .259/.366/.449 line isn't bad at all. The BA is clearly lower than what you'd expect from a quality starting outfielder, but his peripheral skills are good enough to carry him. All the more impressive is the fact that RFK Stadium is killing his stats, as it would most hitters. He's hitting .216/.350/.381 at home and .304/.379/.511 on the road. I lobbied hard last season for him to be an everyday player SOMEWHERE. The sabermetric community hasn't had a raison d'etre since the old FREE ERUBIEL DURAZO days. It's not for lack of a solid candidate though. Church has been a solid candidate for such treatment for a couple of years now. The Brewers were edging dangerously close to making Corey Hart a similar candidate until they started actually giving him regular playing time recently.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Kenji Johjima's week is a classic example of the award. .292/.320/.333.

Season: Raul Ibanez .284/.335/.383. He only has 1 home run on the season while being his team's primary left fielder. It's not like he's doing a whole lot else either. 16 walks, 11 doubles, 183 at bats. Bleh.

The Steve Balboni Award

Jeremy Hermida hit .214/.290/.393. In keeping with this award, good things happened here. He hit a pair of doubles and a homer to go with 3 walks in 28 at bats. Those 11 strikeouts sure will limit your opportunities to make that into a better stat line. Get the ball in play once in a while. Find those gaps.

Current Leader: Sammy with another mention. I mentioned his .306 OBP. That's a part of a .245/.306/.468 line. Sosa's maintained his power, but it's come at a big cost. He's struck out 50 times in 188 at bats, which is a primary factor in his mediocre rate stats. His walk rate is sub-optimal, but not alarmingly so with 16 of them on the campaign. His isolated power is still well above average. The problem is that when you bat .245, you have to be a monster in the walks and homer categories and not just pretty good. It's what doomed the man who this award is named after.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Josh Willingham had 27 at bats this week and hit 2 homers, drew 4 walks, and struck out 9 times.

Leader: It's still Adam Dunn, who passed 200 at bats and has 14 homers, 30 walks, and 77 whiffs. But I'll save rehashing old lectures about him for another day and shine a spotlight on somebody I really didn't see as a candidate for this award until recently. Dan Uggla has 229 at bats with 12 homers, 26 free passes, and 56 K's for a .271/.351/.546. Like Sosa, that K rate is going to drag down his batting average and with it the rest of his rate stats. Anyways, you don't see many second basemen with this kind of profile.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

Why do we put up with managers making themselves look like asses? When Lou Pinella goes off and wastes everybody's time ranting and raving about a call that was right in the first place? When a minor league manager hams it up to the extent of lobbing a rosin bag/grenade? It's not something that should be limited to a small fine and a 2 or 3 game suspension. They should at least sit out for a week or two. It makes for great video because it is fun to watch, but it really is ridiculous and shouldn't be tolerated by the sport's governing bodies.

This Week's MVP's

AL: Dustin Pedroia is on fire and I'm ecstatic about it. He hit .609/.640/.870 on the week. No home runs were in his stat line, but any time you are smoking that many line drives between outfielders, good things happen.

NL: Brad Hawpe hit .455/.571/.955. Sure all of his game were in Denver. That's still an eye-opening week.

Overall Leaders:

AL: Magglio Ordonez is still in the lead after passing Vlad last week. He's at .362/.432/.681 and is doing a pretty convincing Stan Musial impression. But it's a tradition for me to not beat a dead horse week after week and focus on somebody who is down the ballot. This week that means David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, and Kevin Youkilis. The Red Sox have been far from perfect on offense. Coco Crisp and Julio Lugo have been awful. JD Drew's been bad. Manny's been alright, but not quite Manny. The 1B/3B/DH trifecta has been the driving force behind the BoSox run scoring.

Papi: 191 AB, .325/.437/.576
Lowell: 195 AB, .333/.393/.590
GGoW: 206 AB, .350/.433/.549

NL: Bonds is still cruising along. But here's what I noticed when I looked at the OPS leaders for the NL; Cecil Fielder's kid is coming into his own. Prince owns a .290/.377/.621 line with 19 homers and 26 walks. He is who we thought he was.

Least Valuable Player

AL:  Carl Crawford had a nightmare week at .125/.125/.167. He even went 0-1 on the basepaths.

NL:  Endy Chavez needs to do better than .167/.200/.208.

Season

AL: Jason Kendall is still on the hook here with a .197/.238/.208 line. But Corey Patterson deserves some jeers with his ruinous .217/.274/.297. 1 home run all year and 11 walks in 175 at bats. He's just hacking away.

NL: Rich Aurilia started off the year well, but he's slumped down to .233/.276/.349 while playing mostly first base.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

 The Cognitive Dissonance Award goes to Mike MacDougal, who managed to be "credited" with a hold and "charged" with a loss in the same game. That's sheer insanity. It doesn't make sense. On Saturday, MacDougal entered the game with runners on first and second and a 2 run lead. He induced a groundout from Lyle Overbay and then walked Frank Thomas before being relieved by Matt Thornton. Thornton decided to fight fire with gasoline and allowed all 3 runners on base to score. MacDougal got the hold because he entered the game in a save situation and was replaced with the game still in a save situation. He got the loss because when Thornton allowed those 3 runs to score, the first two were charged to Jose Contreras (the starter in that game) and the third, which put the Jays ahead to stay, was charged to MacDougal. Thornton got the blown save, but didn't get the loss. Also of note, although he allowed 3 inherited runs to score, he was charged with NO earned runs because the two baserunners he allowed were stranded by Adam Lind, who ended the inning by striking out.

This one inning is a microcosm of why this column exists. The web of different ways in which we track pitcher performance is just bizarre. At its edge, it is incoherent and ineffective.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

I hope everybody had a great Memorial Day weekend with cookouts and great weather. It's a great time of year to be an Indianapolis resident, when for a day we're the center of attention no matter who wins. The rain was an odd development since this was one of the driest Mays on record. At least the race was completed.

I dedicate this column to the auto save feature in Microsoft Word. It saved my bacon.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division:

On Thursday Jae Seo allowed 7 runs (6 earned) on 13 hits and a walk in 5 innings. He only struck out one batter. Yet somehow the Mariners pitching staff managed to be less competent. Seo got the win.

Season Leader: Dontrelle Willis has been a very mediocre pitcher this season, with a 4.80 ERA. He's probably been a bit unlucky with hitters finding gaps in the defense, but he just hasn't been good enough to justify a 6-3 record in a just world.

Vulture Alert!

Friday night Aaron Heilman blew the save for the Mets by allowing a run in the 8th inning vs. the Marlins. Reyniel Pinto allowed 4 runs immediately thereafter, allowing Heilman to vulture the win. Heilman leads baseball with 5 wins out of the pen, despite the fact that he's been charged with 12 runs (9 earned) in 22 innings of work. That's the same number of W's as Dan Haren has on the season and he's been arguably the best pitcher in the AL this season (spoiler alert).

Bad Luck Division

Livan Hernandez probably had the most alarmingly unrewarding start of the week, going 8 innings, allowing a single run and coming out with a no decision in the home loss to Colorado on Tuesday. If you just have to have a loss to look at in this spot, his teammate Doug Davis went 7 innings allowing 2 runs the next day and he got the L as Jeff Francis and a pair of relievers shut out the Snakes.

Current Season Leader: Andy Pettitte has 5 quality starts this season where he either took the loss or came away with a no decision. That's how you end up with a 3-3 record despite a 2.66 ERA. Remind me again why win total pretty much decides at least one CY Young every season.

The Rico Brogna Award

Gerald Laird logged 7 RBI on the week and managed a meager .250 OBP this week. He slugged .474, but when you only get on base 5 times in 20 plate appearances, it's a hollow victory because you aren't helping your team much.

Season to Date:  Andruw Jones has 32 RBI on the season and a .218/.343/.414 line.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Ken Griffey Jr. had a .259 batting average in 27 at bats on the week, which is pretty forgettable. He had 3 home runs and drew 5 walks along the way for a .375 OBP and a .593 SLG.

Season as a whole: Adam Dunn has 23 singles and 23 extra base hits. He also has 29 walks. .261/.369/.563 is not bad at all. It's actually on the high end of his expected batting average with 68 K's in his 176 at bats. Bonus points: he's 7 for 7 stealing bases, already duplicating last season's total in that category. I never thought of Dunn as a base stealer, which is natural based on the fact that he's a freaking giant. Still, he's a better athlete than people probably give him credit for.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Bobby Crosby hit .292/.320/.292 in 24 at bats. 7 singles and a walk were his only offensive contributions.

Season: Nomah has hit .283/.333/.353 in 183 at bats. Congratulations LA, your first baseman has hit exactly 1 home run this season.

The Steve Balboni Award

Craig Monroe has a .233/.295/.421 batting line on the season. He's above the break-even mark on walks (18 in 163 AB). He's hitting for mid-range power (6 2B, 8 HR). But he's struck out 46 times. He isn't Adam Dunn. He doesn't have the power or patience to get away with striking out once per game. He has to make consistent contact and find the gap between the shortstop of the third baseman more often to be a decent player. If he doesn't bat .280, he isn't an asset.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Dunn drew 6 walks, struck out 8 times, and hit 3 homers on the week. This was in 22 at bats. That's 17 TTO plays in 28 plate appearances. All hail the lord of the TTO.

Your Fearless Leader: I've already mentioned Dunn twice above, so let's shine a light on Travis Hafner, who isn't hitting for the power we usually associate with him. But he's drawn 44 walks and struck out 40 times to go with his 9 homers in 165 at bats. That's a pretty good ratio.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

I spent an hour, maybe an hour and a half at the auto dealership on Friday afternoon, reading a book while waiting for my car to get out of the shop. It was just routine service, but I was a captive audience for a while. During my stay there, the waiting area had one of the cable news channels on. There was a 747 that had an engine flame out shortly after takeoff. They decided to return to Dulles and change planes. I won't say which network was on because it really doesn't matter much. They all are equally guilty of hyping these non-emergencies hoping that they end up with some good footage to show for it.

The thing is there was extremely minimal danger involved. A 747 can easily land or even take off with half of its quartet of engines out of commission. It can do the job (it's admittedly tricky) with just one. The biggest effect to the best of my understanding is in its range. You can't fly as high or as fast and you run into more air resistance because of it. You can't go as far on the same amount of fuel. The networks own aviation correspondent repeatedly told the anchor that this was entirely routine and there was virtually no risk to the passengers. But here we were, for over and hour, talking about something that wasn't really even notable. It really was the dumbest thing I ran into during the course of my week. The most common complaint you hear about the news networks and the ancient over-the-air network news outfits is with bias. That isn't my biggest concern. My concern is that they're too dumb to know that nobody needs more than a 2 minute heads-up on this and even those people are mostly constrained to a couple of local markets, the area where the plane took off, and the area where the plane is scheduled to land.

This Week's MVP's

AL: Casey Blake was on fire, hitting .348/.483/1.087. All 8 of his hits were for extra bases (3 2B, 1 3B, 4 HR) and he drew 8 walks. Where did that come from?

Season: Magglio Ordonez has passed ARod and Vlad Guerrero to take the AL lead. He's hitting .356/.430/.689. He has more doubles (24) and walks (25) than strikeouts (20).

NL: Jason Bay hit .500/.571/.950 in his 20 at bats. That is pretty good.

Season: Bonds is still out in front with a .275/.494/.608 season. If the batting average sinks much lower, he'll probably qualify for the Killebrew. He's been a bit unlucky with singles though. But let's not talk about him right now. What is there left to say?

Let's talk about somebody who isn't winning this award, but is on the ballot. Ken Griffey Jr. is now 7th in the NL in OPS. He only drew 39 walks all of last season. He's up to 30 already. His strikeout rate is down. The guy is batting .290/.399/.542. This is a renaissance.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Jason Kubel isn't hitting very well this season, standing at .243/.295/.347, but this week, he struggled to the tune of .136/.240/.182. In the midst of a 4 way fight in the AL Central, the Twins can't afford much more of this from their starting left fielder.

Season: Jason Kendall has nothing left. He's hit .185/.231/.198 on the season. Here's another contender who can't afford to punt this lineup spot. Kurt Suzuki is hitting .276/.351/.376 for Sacramento. It's not great, but coupled with Mike Piazza (when he comes off the DL), it's a much better situation than trying to get by with the husk that is Kendall's remaining skill.

NL:  Derrek Lee is an outstanding hitter who had a rough week. We'll forgive him for batting .154/.185/.231 on the week. Also, it's standard for me to ask for a standard spelling of this first name any time Derrek's name comes up. Derick, Derek, Deryk? Can we just settle on a spelling so I don't have to look up how every individual is spelled? This is ridiculous.

Season: Omar Vizquel might just be the shortstop version of Kendall. He's a player who has had many great years, but his .223/.273/.279 line has to make you wonder whether he's sputtering out like a car that is running out of fuel, leaving the Giants on the side of the road.

Most Valuable Pitcher

AL: I let you in on this right off the top, but here's Dan Haren, pride of the East Bay. He's allowed 68 baserunners (H, BB, HBP) in 74 innings. His peripherals don't quite support a 1.70 ERA (he does have 6 unearned runs), but he's still been practically unhittable.

NL: Jake Peavy plays against inferior competition, what with the NL being subservient these days, but his numbers are breathtaking. He's allowed 1 home run all year. He's allowed 70 baserunners in 73 innings. Opposing hitters are batting an anemic .185/.248/.228 against him. Digest that for a minute. The average hitter going against him is posting an OPS under .500.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

I can't decide on the name of this one. I'm torn between "Better Late than Never" and "The Learning Curve is not Banked." For the first month and a half, Alex Gordon and Kevin Kouzmanoff absolutely tortured KC and SD fans and fantasy owners alike. They just couldn't hit ML pitching. Well, if the last couple weeks are any clue, they've caught up to the competition. Gordon hit .286/.375/.571 this week and his OPS is STILL down at .609. Kouzmanoff was batting .115/.175/.207 as late as May 12. Last week he hit .316/.381/.842 to bring his line "up" to .205/.276/.378. There's a long way to go, but I'd like to think that both of them have made the adjustments needed to succeed long term. Maybe I should just call this "John Ignores his own Sample Size Warnings".

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Small Sample Size Warning

Ramon Ortiz's ERA at 7 PM on Tuesday night was 3.80. By 8:30 it was 4.89. Beware any time of year when that kind of thing can happen that quickly.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division:

Ramon Ortiz and Claudio Vargas faced off on Sunday and the only way to put it would be that they escaped with matching no decisions for their trouble. They each allowed 5 runs and combined for 3 strikeouts, 16 hits allowed, and 6 walks in 8 1/3 total innings.

Season as a whole: Daisuke Matsuzaka is tied for second in baseball with 6 wins and is all alone in 60th with a 4.06 ERA. He hasn't been bad, but he hasn't been 6 and 2 good either.

Vulture Alert!

Adam Eaton doesn't make many good starts these days. So it's a shame when one of those rare occasions is ruined by a bullpen. On Tuesday night he the Phillies his 3rd quality start of the season and Brett Myers defecated all over it, giving up the lead. Carlos Ruiz bailed him out though with a walk-off shot. Myers got the undeserved win.

Bad Luck Division

 On Monday night it happened again. Last week I mentioned that Dan Haren and Gilgameche the Royal had an epic struggle where both pitchers dominated and neither got the scarlet W. Well this week they met up again and once more they dominated. Haren went 8 shutout innings, striking out 8 with 4 hits and 4 walks allowed. Meche went 7 scoreless frames, striking out 5 with 7 hits and 2 walks. Neither got a decision.

Current Season Leader: Bronson Arroyo has a 2.64 ERA in 61 innings pitched. He gets demerits for allowing 6 unearned runs to go with his 18 earned, but that still doesn't make him deserving of a 2 and 4 record.

The Rico Brogna Award

Emil Brown drove in 7 runs on the week, but hit .276/.300/.448 while playing an outfield corner. Pass. You could also go for Jose Guillen, who drove in 6, but has an even worse .217/.280/.435.

Season to Date:  Sammy Sosa has come back and proven he can still do what he could always do, hit home runs. Still, everything else has atrophied as his power has driven in 32 runs, the 14th most in baseball, but he's hitting .259/.314/.497, which isn't very good for an everyday DH playing half of his games in Arlington.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Pat Burrell smoked the ball to the tune of a .400 OBP and a .750 SLG. Never mind his .250 BA. More important is that 4 of his 5 hits went for extra bases and he walked 4 times in his 20 at bats.

Season as a whole: Johnny Peralta has hit .275/.358/.535 this season. .275 isn't bad, but when it's a shortstop who hits 10 home runs and draws 18 walks in 142 at bats, the contribution is much more profound than it would seem looking only at a batting average.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Sean Casey hit .320/.320/.400 while playing first base. Flashy batting average, nothing besides that. Give me Burrell's .250 week for Casey's .320.

Season:  This belongs to Jose Vidro and his .300/.349/.356. DH's have to do better than this.

The Steve Balboni Award

Geoff Jenkins hit .235/.278/.471 on the week. There were good things happening. He walked he hit for some power. But he struck out in half of his plate appearances.

Leader in the Clubhouse: Brandon Inge would be doing really well this season if he cut back on the K's. He has 16 walks and 8 homers in 141 at bats, but he's fanned 40 times, dragging down his numbers to .227/.317/.433, which makes him a modest asset at best for the cats.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Jack Cust was last week's winner, but he outdid himself this week, with 10 BB, 10 K, 2 HR in 20 AB. That's over 2/3 of his plate appearances.

Your Fearless Leader:  Barry Bonds only has 106 at bats this week, but has received 45 free passes and has 11 round trip tickets around the bases.

Also deserving attention is Chris Iannetta, who was brought to my attention by Kyle W. He has 72 at bats this season with 13 walks and 27 K's. He only has a single home run, but at this point in his career he has a clear talent for the walks and K's parts of the 3 true outcomes triangle. He has 149 career at bats with 26 BB, 44 K, and 3 HR for a clunky looking .228/.354/.349 line. This season's line is an ever-rare .194/.337/.306. Something is going to have to give. As I've discussed before, if you don't at least show yourself to be a nominal threat to smack an extra base hit, the pitchers will stop giving you the opportunity to walk.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

No dumbest thing ever for this week due to the fact that after a weekend spent in Illinois with family my levels of cynicism and annoyance are alarmingly low. My heart's just not into heaping scorn on somebody(s).

This Week's MVP's

AL: It figures that the week after I trade Kevin Youkilis in a fantasy league he goes off for .407/.429/.815.

Season: It's still Vlad. But making a prominent spot on the ballot is Jorge Posada, who is having a very nice year, but is as under the radar as a star player on the Yankees can possibly have. He's hitting .382/.441/.618 and I haven't heard anybody mention it. Then again, I haven't been watching much Baseball Tonight lately for reasons of preserving my own sanity. So somebody may have brought it up. And I'm sure somebody on the Yes Network has said something in passing about how good he's been this year.

NL: A couple weeks ago I made mention of several sluggers who were not hitting for power, but were doing everything else right. David Wright was one of them and I said that I wasn't worried about him. He would pick it up. Well, here comes the cavalry. .409/.462/.100 on the week with a double, 4 homers, 3 walks, and he was even 2 for 2 on the basepaths.

Worth mentioning is Jeremy Hermida, who had his best year as a Major Leaguer fresh off the disabled list. Marlin fans have been dreaming of this kind of thing from him for several years now. .417/.500/.750 is tasty. He hit a pair of doubles, a pair of homers, drew a quartet of walks, and struck out four times.

Season: .290/.503/.636, Barry's just ridiculous right now. But I've already talked about him in the 3 true outcomes blurb and he's here every week. What hasn't been said about him at this point? So let's talk about a guy who does win this award, but is on the ballot, Hanley Ramirez. The kid is hitting .335/.411/.541 and if that and his nice glovework at short aren't enough, he's 15 for 19 stealing bases. Not bad at all.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Juan Uribe went 2 for 24 this week with no walks, no extra base hits, and 12 strikeouts for a .083/.115/.083 line.

Season: If Chone Figgins came back too early from his broken fingers, which from comments that he's made telling everybody that his fingers are killing him seems to be the case, then somebody needs to smack him on the back of the head and tell him not to do that. He isn't helping anybody but the A's by hitting .108/.159/.154.

NL: Miguel Olivo had 24 at bats and had 2 doubles to his credit. No singles, no other extra base hits, no walks.

On the season Adam Everett has been as bad at the plate as one could imagine a player being while still holding his job. .190/.250/.263. His career line in .245/.298/.355, which is no great shakes, but thus far in 2007, he's been sub-Rey Ordonez.

Most Valuable Pitcher

AL:  It surprises me to see that I have yet to give this award to Dan Haren. He's been masterful all season. He leads the AL in ERA and is near the top in strikeouts. 1.74 ERA, 54 K, 16 BB. The A's got the blunt end of the Tim Hudson deal, but they made out like bandits with Haren, Kiko Calero, and Daric Barton for Mark Mulder's decline.

NL: Jake Peavy has been arguably better than Haren. I say arguably because the NL is certainly still less difficult that the AL and for all of the pitcher-friendly tendencies that the International House of Software Ballpark on the East Bay may possess, Petco Park is still much more friendly. That's not to say that Peavy hasn't been fantastic though. He's been almost unhittable all season. 60 IP, 71 K, 18 BB, 1.64 ERA. Un-fricking-believeable.

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

I'm giving the Roster Apocalypse Award to the Rangers, A's, and Jays. On Wednesday, an injury to Victor Diaz caused the Rangers to move catcher Gerald Laird to left field while sliding Nelson Cruz to right, where Diaz was playing. They ended the game with Laird, Kevin Mahar, and Cruz manning the outfield.

That same night, the A's had an outfield with Shannon Stewart, Hiram Bocachica, and Jack Cust going right to left. Having Jack Cust play right field is about the surest sign of desperation there is.

Lastly, the Jays had second baseman Ryan Roberts making what I have to assume is his first and only appearance in the outfield as a pro. The Jays and A's are notable in that they've been ravaged by injury as badly as any teams I can remember. The Jays have what seems like their entire pitching staff on the DL. Troy Glaus's foot is cranky. They're down Reed Johnson just short of forever. Greg Zaun is out. The A's are out their entire outfield, their starting DH, their 4th outfielder, and the guy they brought in to fill the gap. The A's have less of an excuse since most of the players who are currently out have long histories of getting hurt, save Piazza.

The Rangers shirt was more a symptom of dealing with a short roster, made worse by having a full time DH and the now standard practice of carrying 12 or 13 pitchers at all time. In my prospect reports I tend to give extra points to players who have extra defensive versatility or at least the promise that they might be able to add that versatility if they get caught behind a better player. This kind of nightmare scenario tends to be why I do give some extra love to the Esteban German's of the world.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

Chris Vinyard is a big 21 year old Orioles first baseman who might be one of the last serious prospects to come out of the draft and follow process, which will be eliminated starting in a few weeks. For a relative bargain price of $90k, the Birds got themselves a prospect with a nice power ceiling. They also got him with the 1143rd pick in the 2005 draft. Not a bad value.

Those 26 doubles were an Ironbirds record. He led the New York-Penn League in both doubles and homers. I'm a bit conflicted on what I see him developing into. His stats say that he's a potential three true outcomes slugger, but all of the scouting reports I've ever read say that he has a short, quick stroke. They make him sound more like a Mark Teahen at the plate rather than the Richie Sexson analog he's showing. His strikeout rate and isolated power are significant. I have no problem with three true outcome behemoths, so this isn't an issue for me. One thing that COULD be an issue is if the dip in his walk rate is real rather than a small sample size fluke. Three true outcome approaches only work well if you have walks to go with the whiffs and bombs.

Another thing that is a potential issue is Vinyard's defense. He's even less nimble than you'd expect a 6'4", 230 lb first baseman to be. He may grow up to be a butcher in the field, pushing him to prematurely DH. There are only so many of those jobs to go around. He's also not particularly quick on the basepaths, but you're smart enough to figure that one out all on your own.

Vinyard isn't an elite prospect at this point, but there are plenty of good indicators going on here so he's more than worth the effort of checking back in with him every so often. The Orioles need some thunder in their lineup at the 1B and DH spots and there isn't a whole lot in the system that's going to hold him back. If he keeps on hitting, he'll advance quickly. I'd feel a lot better about him if he made more consistent contact and developed some measure of skill with the glove.

Heath Michael Phillips is a 25 year old lefty who qualifies as a bit of a cliché. "Crafty lefty" may be one of the original baseball archetypes and he fits the bill. Since being drafted by the White Sox out of a Florida JuCo in the 10th round back in 2001, he's slowly climbed the ladder, culminating in a spectacular season in Charlotte last season. He doesn't have great stuff, working mostly with a mid/high 80's fastball with movement and command and a better than average changeup.

Last year was dominating and showed promise for a Major League career. If you would have asked me before the season, I would have told you that he's surely capable of being a lefty specialist in the big leagues. But his struggles this season have me wondering if his 2006 campaign was a career year rather than a breakthrough. His strikeout rate is mediocre and his walk rate is spiking. He's allowing more home runs. He's overall not showing the kind of ability to keep hitters off balance as he showed in 2006.

This is the problem with guys who have subpar stuff. They're always working to keep hitters off balance, get them to roll the hands over and weakly ground out to the second baseman. When their command is off a little bit or the changeup has a little less movement than usual, they don't have another trick up their sleeve to go to. Even the guy Phillips hopes to grow up to be, Sox lefty Mark Buehrle had a terrible stretch at the end of last season where he completely lost his ability to get hitters out.

Phillips is pretty neutral when it comes to ground outs/flyouts, which if he gets to the Cell might be a problem. The International League has a lot of parks that are difficult to hit the ball out of. The south side of Chicago does not have that advantage for him to exploit.

There's still hope here in the future if he develops his curve into an out pitch or if he becomes a real command specialist in the Bob Tewksbury mold. If he doesn't do one of these two things, he'll be a competent AAA pitcher for the foreseeable future, maybe getting a cup of coffee when the big club needs a spot starter or an extra lefty in the pen. If he does make one or both of those improvements, then I think he might be able to pass as a fifth starter or a long reliever.

I apologize for not getting you guys a prospect profile this weekend. I spent Saturday at Indy 500 qualifications and working in the yard. I also have another project that I'm doing research for, watching a lot of video, which is taking up more of my free time than I expected. Sunday morning I was running on fumes. I even took a nap after getting off work at noon instead of working on this column because I'm still a little spent. I hope to get you a double dose later this week.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Small Sample Size Warning

24% of Torii Hunter's season total in RBI and 25% of his HR total came in Sunday night's game.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division:

Daniel Cabrera got shelled for 6 runs (all earned) in 6 innings against the Rays on Thursday. Fortunately for him, Casey Fossum is awful and the Tampa defense made things worse.

Major League Leader: Aaron Harang has won 5 games this season and only lost 1. 3 of his wins have been very shaky: 6 2/3, 5 runs; 8 innings, 5 runs; 5 2/3 5 runs. He also escaped with a no decision in a game where he threw 4 innings, allowing 5 runs. Add to that the fact that these 4 starts have come against the Pirates (twice), the Astros, and the Cubs. None of these teams are offensive dynamos.

Vulture Alert!

On Monday, Brandon Lyon blew the save for the Diamondbacks and got credit for the win thanks to Antonio Alfonseca, Eric "Montgomery" Byrnes, and Carlos Quentin.

Honorable mention goes to Brad Lidge, who threw 5 pitches on Tuesday and got the win because of some guy named Brad Salmon. Getting 1 batter out gives this guy the title of game winner? Bah.

Bad Luck Division:

On Wednesday, Danny Haren and Gil Meche combined for 12 innings, 4 runs allowed, 3 of which were earned, 14 strikeouts, 5 walks, 9 hits, and they had matching no decisions. Normally this would garner an award. But on the same night James Shields of the Rays and Eric Bedard of the Birds threw even more impressive lines, combining for 16 scoreless innings. Both of them had no role outcome as far as the traditional measurement of pitcher worthiness is concerned.

Current Season Leader: Dan Haren has 8 starts, only one of which is of the non-quality variety. Most of them are of the dominant variety, including his 2 most recent, a 6 inning, 2 run, 7 K, 1 BB, 6 H no decision in KC and a 7 inning, 2 R, 9 K, 0 BB, 4 H, no decision in Tampa. Haren has a 1.89 ERA with 40 strikeouts and 10 walks in 52 innings and has a pedestrian 3 and 2 record.

This is madness.

The Rico Brogna Award

Andruw Jones collected 7 RBI while hitting a tepid .231/.310/.423

Season to Date: When did Michael Young turn into a hacker? He only has 3 walks on the season in 148 at bats. More to the point of this category though, he's tied for 37th in baseball with 22 RBI while putting up a .236/.257/.392 line. Bleh.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

I like Curtis Granderson. He walked 4 times this week to go along with 4 extra base hits and a lone, solitary single (is that a double redundancy? A triple redundancy?) for a .250/.375/.600 line. Tasty.

Season as a whole: Granderson sweeps this category! .269/.333/.567 is a nice line for a good center fielder. He has 12 doubles, 5 triples, and 6 homers with 5 stolen bases while failing to get caught even once. He's contributing everywhere other than team batting average.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Derek Lee was the anti-Granderson, hitting .280/.280/.280 for the Cubbies.

Season: Juan Pierre is a favorite whipping boy for the sabermetric crowd for a good reason. The guy has a superficially appealing .290 batting average, but an allergy to walks and a massive inability to pose more of a danger to the opposing team than a sharply stung single results in a .318 OBP and a .321 SLG. To add to the net negative, he's hanging out right at the break-even point on stolen bases, stealing 15 of them and getting nabbed 5 times.

The Steve Balboni Award

I like Travis Hafner almost as much as Curtis Granderson, but a 8 whiffs in 22 at bats gets you to .182/.308/.318. Batting average ain't everything, but it's not nothing. What is it with me and redundant phrases today?

Leader in the Clubhouse: This is what I've expected to see in the event of Joe Borchard getting regular run in a ML lineup. .200/.286/.336 with 44K, 14 BB, 5 2B, and 4 HR in 125 AB.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

I'm really happy for Jack Cust and Billy Beane. It's about time they got together and worked towards the goal of making Cust a homeless man's Adam Dunn. The guy did well this week, slugging 5 longballs, drawing 4 walks, and striking out 10 times in 23 at bats.

Your Fearless Leader: It almost feels like cheating to have Adam Dunn here. It really does. Nevertheless, he's leading baseball in K's with 49, is tied for second in home runs with 11, and is tied for 22nd in walks with 20.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

I just want to announce that we've reached a new low in sports broadcasting. No I'm not talking about the standard crap that the awards above and below are meant to lampoon. Slowly but surely that stuff is correcting itself as more and more fans latch onto the ideas that batting average and RBI's aren't everything for hitters and wins aren't everything for starters. The progress is arduous, but it's pretty steady. I'm talking about the erosion of actual analysis on the radio, in print, and on TV. Less and less words are being dedicated to who is and who is not producing and more and more words are being dedicated to journalism that veers from borderline In Touch Magazine journalism and Dr Phil hack psychology. It's ridiculous and this week was the peak of this kind of mindless, content-free drivel. First we had the pointless drama on sports talk radio and SportsCenter (two of the main culprits in this revolution of the retarded) over what Roger Clemens's new teammates would think of his special arrangement where he could go fishing with his kids on days where he didn't have a scheduled start. Will they be jealous? Will he throw off the fragile team chemistry that has developed? Will Jason Giambi ask permission to go eat hot dogs in the stands between innings? Does it really matter and do we really care? I really, really don't. Then David Wells threw gasoline on that fire with a public comment about it. Why would we care what David Well had to say about the matter? Did anybody go interview Casey Stengel's headstone? How about a séance to conger the Bambino's ghost? It has to have some sort of opinion on this vital issue. Somebody have Helen Thomas get the White House's reaction!

Next we had the equally pointless and equally contrived controversy about whether Curt Schilling `dissed Barry Bonds and whether Barry was going to fight Curt in the parking lot after school.

Lastly we have this gem . We all figured out for ourselves that the "debates" on SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight were more contrived drama for the sake of the camera rather than to inform the audience. Now we have confirmation from somebody who is clearly too dumb to make something like that up. Please producers, I implore you to just let me have the damned highlights. I just want to see how badly my Royals got abused and maybe see if Lance Berkman did anything worth noting. If John Kruk AND Steve Phillips both think the Brewers are going to win the central, then just let them both tell us that instead of assigning somebody to make a ridiculous, nonsensical, devil's advocate defense of the horrid Pirates.

As a minor point, why is it that the people who usually sneer at anybody who knows what EQA means or who knows how to use excel, demanding that they get out of their mother's basement and go watch a game are the ones who are devoting so much time and effort to talking about off-field issues while the ones who are the target for such criticism devote the majority of their time to talking about the actual results of what has happened on the field? Does this strike anybody else as odd? I really just wish we would lose the amateur shrinks and go back to talking about who can actually hit, field, and pitch instead of talking about how great a guy Derek Jeter is.

This Week's MVP's

AL: Cust's teammate Dan Johnson has been a wrecking ball since coming off the DL. This week he threw up a .545/.630/1.091 line with 5 walks, 1 K, 3 2B, and 3 HR.

NL: Chris Young put in a nice week's work for the Diamondbacks, with a .522/.520/.957 week. Coming out of a brilliant defensive player who makes the league minimum, that's a path to a division title.

Overall Leaders:

AL: Vlad, who I talked about last week in ARod's stead, took over for the Yankee thirdbaseman, possessing a .352/.467/.664 batting line on the season with 25 walks against only 13 K's.

NL: Barry still holds court as king of the NL with a .307/.512/.727 performance. 37 walks, 14 K, 11 HR in 88 at bats.

Least Valuable Player

AL: Rocco Baldelli is starting to worry some people. In his 24 at bats this week, he had a single, a walk, and he fanned nine times for a brutal .042/.148/.042.

NL: It wasn't as bad as Rocco's week, but Morgan Ensberg would appreciate it if everybody would forget the week ever happened after having a double, no walks, and seven K's in his 18 at bats. .056/.056/.111.

Most Valuable Pitcher

AL:  It's really fun for everybody who isn't a Yankee fan to see Tim Wakefield having such a successful start to the season. He's currently leading the AL in VORP for starting pitchers with 18.3. He even has a "normal" walk rate (19 in 45 IP) on his way to a dazzling 1.79 ERA. Knucklers are great.

NL: Tim Hudson leads all of ML starters in VORP with 22.7. He's doing it by not walking anybody (12 in 59 IP) and by inducing tons of worm burners (99/44 GB/FB). He's allowed less than an extra base hit per START.

Least Valuable Pitcher

NL: I can already tell that one of the difficulties facing this category is that pitchers who suck enough to get here don't hold onto their jobs for very long. Of last week's "winners", Mike Pelfrey got sent to New Orleans and Jeff Weaver was mercifully put on the DL. This week's NL nominee, Tony Armas Jr. is already in danger as the Pirates have made mention that he's close to losing his rotation spot. He's the not-so-proud owner of a negative 11.2 VORP. Not good.

AL: I know he's on the DL, and I shouldn't kick a man when he's down, but all of the cool kids are doing it!

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

The "I didn't see that coming" award goes to Fred Lewis. In his young ML career, he had never hit a triple OR a homer. He may have hit 11 and 12 of them respectively last season in Fresno, but holy crap. You just don't see that kind of thing every day. On the other hand, Lewis is mildly interesting as somebody who projects as either a good 4th outfielder or a bad starting center fielder. He showed a decent walk rate and some growth in his power hitting last season. The future is now. If Lewis going to make something of himself, it has to happen soon. He's already 26.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch

Let's start off with a couple of random items I have written down in my notebook.

1.    Why would MLB clubhouses serve alcohol in the first place? I'm by no means a prohibitionist, but I've never had a stiff drink at work. After an exhaustive 30 seconds of thought, the only people I've even known who openly drank at work were strippers. Aside from that, my only remaining comment on the subject is that people really should just call a cab.
2.    This weekend I went to one of my alma mater's final home games of the season. Kudos to the Great Lakes Valley Conference for going to wood bats. I really wish the NCAA would make this switch throughout at least division one. If I'm the scouting director of a ML organization, I'm begging my boss to throw the NCAA an annual allowance to help offset the cost. It sure would make scouting a lot easier as scouts wouldn't have to play a guessing game to figure out whether certain college players can make the transition to wood bats.

If you are new to the awards, see Week 1's column to see the award definitions.

This Week's Small Sample Size Warning

J.J. Hardy is slugging 134 points higher than Albert Pujols.

This Week's Proof That Assigning Wins and Losses to a Pitcher is a Silly Practice that Must Stop

Good Luck Division:

Bartolo Colon allowed 5 runs in 6 innings to the Royals but got bailed out by Zach Greinke's struggles (6 runs in 5 IP, 10 H allowed).

Major League Leader:

Dontrelle Willis. In the USA Today Sports Weekly that showed up in my mailbox on Wednesday, they had their own awards for the season to date. The Duke of the High Leg kick came in 5th in their NL top pitcher voting with 5 points in a 5-3-1 system. That is why this column exists. Willis current sports a 5.44 ERA with 3 quality starts out of 7. That hasn't kept him from going 5-1 to start the season.

Vulture Alert!

Before he went on the DL, Joel Zumaya relieved Bobby Seay on Tuesday night vs. Baltimore with 2 baserunners charged to Seay on base in the top of the 7th. He allowed 1 of the 2 to score, blowing the save. Danys Baez bailed him out by giving the Tiggers 2 runs shortly after that and Zumaya got the W. Detroit has 9 wins out of the bullpen this season in 30 games. Their starters only have 9 wins as a crew.

Bad Luck Division:

I don't make it a habit to say good things about Carlos Silva, but it wasn't his fault that the Twinkies lost on Friday. He threw 7 innings, giving up 1 run to the Red Sox, but was outgunned by Tim Wakefield, who fluttered his way to 7 scoreless and got the win. Nevertheless, one player on the Minnesota roster was given a black mark that night. That player wasn't Josh Rabe or Nick Punto.

Your leader: Ian Snell. The indignity of being a Pirates starter is that even when you start the season with 5 quality starts in 6 tries and a well deserved 2.31 ERA, you still have a 2-2 record because of pathetic run support. Somewhere Jack Wilson is whistling, shuffling his feet from side to side, and generally acting innocent.

The Rico Brogna Award

Raul Ibanez drove in 7 runs on the week, but hit .292/.346/.333. That line gets him an honorable mention for the Rey Sanchez Award below.

Season to Date: Craig Monroe is tied for 20th in the ML in RBI's with 22 and 119th in OPS at .726, behind Craig Biggio's corpse and future Hall of Famer Ryan Theriot.

The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average is for Wussies Award

Chipper Jones hit .250/.455/.875. All 4 of his hits on the week were for extra bases (a double and 3 homers) and he walked 6 times.

Season as a whole:

Chipper's longtime partner in crime Andruw Jones has a season line of .229/.376/.457 with 14 of his 24 hits going for extra bases and 23 walks in 105 at bats.

The Rey Sanchez Batting Average is all I've Got Award

Aubrey Huff: .292/.292/.333 with no walks and a solitary double in 24 at bats for the week.

Season: I'm too lazy to check, but I think this is the second time I've given Nomar Garciaparra this title. Then again, it might have been the Brogna. I don't remember. .288/.333/.381, but with 20 RBI's, he qualifies for both of them.

Random Off Topic Notes

As a basketball fan, while it hurts to see my adopted hometown team melt down the way the Pacers did this season, I'm happy to see the team I've rooted for since I was 10 years old make it back to the second round. It makes it even better since I have additional built-in rooting interests in Deron Williams (Go Illini) and Mehmet Okur (a personal favorite even when he was with the Pistons). They still desperately need a shooting guard, but things are going well.

Also, this was a big weekend for off the map sports that used to be huge. Still, don't ask me about the Kentucky Derby or the de la Hoya/Mayweather fight. Not only did I not watch either event, I do not know anything about either sport and refuse to pretend like I do

The Steve Balboni Award

Andruw may be the leader in the Killebrew award, but this season his K rate caught up to him as he whiffed 7 times in 21 at bats, dragging down a week where he hit a homer and drew 5 walks. .143/.308/.286.

Clubhouse:  Dan Uggla remains the leader as he now stands at .231/.326/.438. Check out the isolated walk and slugging. 121 AB, 31 K.

3 True Outcomes Alert!!!

Chipper gets a pair of awards this week as in his 22 plate appearances, 12 of them provided no reason for a fielder to move. 6 walks, 3 punchouts, 3 round trip tickets to home plate.

Leader:  Ryan Howard climbs into the lead thanks to his 29 BB, 39 K, and 5 HR in 95 at bats.

This Week's Dumbest Thing Ever

National Bingo Night

Things I'd rather do with my time than watch "NBN"

Be Paris Hilton's cellmate
Get Russell Crowe drunk before ripping into the concept of aussie rules football and Mark Webber's skill as an F1 driver
Conjugal visit for Ugeth Urbina
Put thumbtacks in my shoes and go for a lap around the neighborhood

This Week's MVP's

AL: Troy Glaus hit .400/.483/.960. The fact that the Jays lost 6 straight was not his fault.

NL: Price Fielder blistered the ball to the tune of .440/.533/.960

Overall Leaders:

ARod and Bonds have big leads in their respective leads. That hasn't changed since last week so I'll just get that out of the way and call attention to another pair of top performers.

We're used to Vlad Guerrero putting up nice batting lines, but now he's walking. He has 19 free passes to only 11 whiffs in 102 at bats. I haven't scouted him out. Does anybody know if they're just pitching around him to get to the weak hitters surrounding him or is this a genuine breakthrough. .363/.468/.686 is tasty.

Miguel Cabrera is the most overlooked star in the game today, at least as far as media attention is concerned. He's hitting .353/.442/.618 and I don't remember many people making a big fuss over him. Then again it could be that I'm just not watching enough TV since USA Today Sports Weekly, which I mentioned earlier, has him at #4 in the NL MVP voting, which sounds about right.

Least Valuable Player

This category replaces the Hacktastic!!! category. I felt like Hacktastic Award veered too close to the Balboni Award. So this category probably does a better job of really encapsulating the "This Guy is Really Sucks Right Now" spirit that the Hacktastic was intended for. I'm only going to give the season leaders. No one week artists here.

AL: To borrow an expression from Bill Simmons, Jason Kendall's back must be hurting, what with that huge fork sticking out from between his shoulder blades. .170/.221/.179 is off the charts awful.

NL: Adam LaRoche isn't finished as a ballplayer, but he's struggled all season. He's better than .167/.271/.284, but that's his line right now.

Most Valuable Pitcher

AL:  Not only does John Lackey have a 2.60 ERA while striking out roughly a batter per inning, he's done so with a .368 BABIP allowed.

NL: Jake Peavy: 46 IP, 56 K, 15 BB, 30 H, 1.75 ERA

Least Valuable Pitcher

NL: Mike Pelfrey: 1 quality start and that one barely squeaked in under the wire at 6 and a third innings, 3 runs. Even then Joe Smith erased 2 baserunners who were Pelfrey's responsibility. He just hasn't been very good.

AL: Jeff Weaver! Here's the rundown of his 5 starts this season:
2 innings, 1 K, 2 walks, 7 hits, 7 runs, all earned
6 innings, 3 K, 1 BB, 10 H, 7 runs, all earned
3 innings, 3 K, 0 BB, 7 H, 3 R, all earned
1/3 of an inning, 0 K, 1 BB, 7 H, 6 R, all earned
5 2/3 IP, 3 K, 3 BB, 9 H, 6 R, all earned

This Week's Completely Made-Up Award

I'm giving the "That's Not Sustainable" award to:

Livan Hernandez, who has a more than respectable 3.20 ERA despite walking 28 and striking out 21 in 45 innings.

Matt Morris, who similarly has walked (18) more batters than he's struck out (15) and carries a mediocre K rate (39 IP), but still has a more than reasonable 3.20 ERA.

BJ Upton, who has a .371 batting average despite 37 strikeouts in 97 at bats.

Finally, ARod, who has been great, but he's on pace to strike out 145 times this season. Nobody bats over .350 when they strike out that often. .300? Sure, that I can see happening. .350? Not so much.

Here's Where You Come In

I need your help. Please drop me a line nominate players for awards maybe entire team for awards. Make up your own award. Point out something stupid that your local color commentator said during a recent game. I can only watch so much baseball in a week, even with the miracle of MLB.TV. I have to use you as a crutch.

You know, I'm surprised that Tim Hulett Jr. doesn't get more attention from scouts. He's got a decent glove, makes consistent contact, and has one of the best batting eyes in the minors. All of that combined with ML bloodlines usually at least gets a guy a token mention here and there in prospect lists. But scouts tend to greet him with nothing more than a yawn. I don't get it.

Okay, okay, I'll admit that he doesn't have much of a ceiling. He isn't going to hit for much power. And he isn't going to bat .315, which makes him a .290/.340/.350 kind of ML hitter. He even has a nominal amount of speed to offer, so that means he may be able to slide into a super utility role by learning how to play center field while backing up all of the infield spots, pinch hitting, and pinch running. There's not much risk involved, which at least makes him a prospect, even if there's no star power to be found. And look at it this way, Baseball America had Jose Vallejo ranked 29th, ahead of Hulett. I don't have a problem with ranking him outside of the top 10. But saying that he's not as good a prospect as a 21 year old second baseman who posted a .573 OPS in the Midwest League last season is insanity.

In terms of diagnostics, he's developing into a groundball/liner hitter, though that's not a bad idea as his 5'10" frame doesn't really work as a flyball hitter. There are worse things than being a slap hitter as long as you're good at it. It also bears mentioning that he's consistently been more effective against RHP than against southpaws.

So let's review, he's a good defensive second baseman who has enough smarts and footspeed that he might turn into a decent supersub kind of like an Esteban German/Chone Figgins. He doesn't have much of any kind of power. He knows the difference between balls and strikes. So how you look at him depends a lot on whether you think that the phrase "A poor man's Dustin Pedroia" is a compliment or not. The ceiling is David Eckstein at second base. The downside is that he doesn't get a chance at all and ends up cruising Durham, Tucson, Portland, and Louisville in a long AAA career.