Phil Watch: Halfway Through, Half-Ass Analysis

You know what I love?

Midseason awards columns.  You know why?

Cuz they always try to carry with them a feeling of Sisyphean relevance.  Writers try to 'Big Picture" it by placing the season into some sort of mythological context...up the hill, down the hill, up the hill...

It's the cautions they give that serve to show just how pointless and merely cute the whole exercise is in the first place.

Phil's no different.  He does it...because everybody else does it.

Let's get started.   

FAST FOOD FOR THOUGHT, HALF-MILE POST EDITION

Why is Phil the only one who capitalizes his Hardball posts?  It's positively Larry King-ish.

1. Time to roll out some mid-season awards.  If only all the categories were as clear as the National League MVP …

NL MVP: Albert Pujols – His run at the Triple Crown is making a flawed St. Louis team dangerous.  Also in the picture: Prince Fielder, Raul Ibanez, Chase Utley and Hanley Ramirez.

No problem wit dat, y'all.

AL MVP: Torii Hunter, Angels – You could put eight or 10 names in a hat and pull one out, as it’s clear the second half will do much to define the eventual voting. Lots of American Leaguers are having good seasons but none truly great seasons. Hunter gets the call because of his Gold Glove fielding as well as run production (.307-17-65) on an Angels team that has been struggling to score runs with Vlad Guerrero no longer an impact guy.  

Struggling to score runs?  Struggling to score...runs?

They 3rd in runs per game in ALL OF BASEBALL!  First in both June and July!

And the fifth-best OPS in the game for the entire year (3rd in June, 1st in July). 

Phil get paid to do this.

Torii Hunter gets real consideration.  Heck, this year he's even making the catches he didn't make last year, stuff that didn't show up in his fielding statistics.

But the Angels' relative success after the abomination that was the early bullpen (something that was well on it's way to being one of the historical worst in the history of baseball) has been the development of Juan Rivera and Kendry Morales.  Rivera is the most productive #5 hitter in the majors (1.111 OPS) and Morales has a .902 OPS in the six slot. 

Also in the picture: Joe Mauer, 

Remember to mop up after yourself, Phil.  Tissues are in the bottom drawer.  Mauer has a spectacular average and a ridiculous on-base percentage.  No question.  

But here's one for you.  Since June 3, a date that breaks Mauer's season roughly in half, he has a total of seven extra-base hits (5 doubles, 2 homers) with 10 RsBI from (mostly) the three spot in the Twins' lineup (133 PAs).  Compare that with before June 3 and you see a guy who was probably out of his gourd, is still seeing the ball well but is back to being an incredibly effective singles hitter who should be batting #2 (and that's where Gardenhire is now putting him).  

So...Placido Polanco.  And he's not really an MVP.  Good player.  Not MVP.

Justin Morneau,

Maybe.  Having a great season.  Team's still a .500 club.

Ichiro Suzuki, 

As an Angels' fan, Ichiro's in consideration because I'm beginning to fear the Mariners more than the Rangers.  They're showing that 2007 Mariners Magic again.  Ichiro's been a big part.

Miguel Cabrera, Evan Longoria, Mark Teixeira,

Sure, sure, sure.  Why not?

Johnny Damon,

Meh.  Plays in a Nintendo lineup in a Nintendo ballpark.

even (no kidding) Ben Zobrist.

Let's put this one in the crockpot for a little longer.  Zobrist has never had double-digit home runs at any level before last year.  He currently projects to have 32 home runs in 2009.  Ben Zobrist will not have 32 home runs and lead the league in OPS in 2009.

...AL CY YOUNG: Zack Greinke, Royals – This is the easiest pick other than Pujols, although you do wonder about his second-half staying power. Those who could catch him: Felix Hernandez, Edwin Jackson, Roy Halladay, Mark Buehrle, Joe Nathan.

Or Phil could look at his gamelogs.  Screw this "second-half staying power" stuff. 

In his last seven starts - since May 31 - he has a 3.88 ERA and, even more disturbingly, a 1.34 WHIP for a 2-3 record, averaging 6 1/2 innings a start and a .785 OPS against. 

In his first ten starts, he had a 0.84 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 8-1 record, 7 1/2 innings a start and a ridiculous and unsustainable .506 OPS against.

There.  Trend found.  Took about five minutes.

...3. The Cubs are going to win the NL Central, despite all their stumbling in the first half.  Their starting pitching is too good for them not to win.  

Phil says so.

But let’s stop and compare the figures of Chicago’s two rotations:

Cubs: 28-26, 3.83, ranked 5th in ERA in the NL.

Sox: 30-29, 4.07, ranked 2nd in ERA in the AL.

Apples and oranges.  Different leagues.  Chasing different teams.

Now, let’s break it down a little bit, looking at the two teams since the second game of the White Sox’s June 8 doubleheader against Detroit, when Jose Contreras returned from his self-imposed minor-league stint.

Since then, White Sox starters are 11-6 with a 2.71 ERA; Cubs starters are 8-9, 3.98.

So...one month makes a season?  

The comparison to the Cubs is only being offered to make this point – if the Cubs are destined to win because of their deep starting rotation, couldn’t starting pitching also carry the White Sox?

Logic 101.  If A=B and B=C then A=C.  

Let's start with the very first assumption.  The Cubs starting pitching will eventually win the division.  This is apparently fact because Phil says so (and before the Dempster toe thingy).

Totally different beasts.  Teams aren't numerical, fixed values so the entire exercise is weird. 

I'll take Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright over Zambrano and Harden everyday of the week.  There.  That's the 1-2 comparison.  A healthy Kyle Lohse and a Joel Piniero with his new four-seamer that's getting groundballs at a great rate over Ted Lilly and Randy Wells/Dempster?  Probably not.  But the Cardinals can spend money right now.  The Cubs can't.

In the least, it's a wash.  Realistically, the Cardinals have the edge as the season wears on as they can move guys around for matchups, add at the deadline and are better at the top.  And if they're not, I don't want to see one more column about the awesomeness of Carpenter and Wainwright ever again.     

The foursome of Contreras (this Contreras, anyway), Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd could get the Sox back into the playoffs.  I have more respect for the teams the Sox must beat (Detroit and Minnesota) than the NL Central competition but this kind of starting pitching – and the emergence of Beckham – gives the Sox a real chance.

I give them a chance as well.  Just not because of the Cubs starting pitching comparison.  It's because of real baseball feelings based in fact and thought.

5. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about Chris Young – the last time being when the Arizona Diamondbacks swept the Cubs in the 2007 playoffs.  But White Sox fans have long memories.

They have long memories because Phil mentioned it 486 times since the trade, many times when it was only tenuously connected to the topic at hand.  Keep bringing it up and people tend to remember.  That's how a mind works.

I got a couple e-mails this week chiding me about the .196 batting average being carried by Young, who one reader said was "your boy Chris Young.’’ Young’s career has been in a slide, mostly due to his inability to cut down on strikeouts – a cause for concern that I pointed to when Young was the White Sox’s Double-A center fielder – but it’s hard to see how that’s cause for celebration from anyone.

Bullshit.  Check for yourself.  He might have mentioned it once, way back but curiously never mentioned it again in the subsequent 12,548 times that followed, even as he didn't begin to cut down on his strikeouts.

Nobody's saying Chris Young is a bad person.  Just bad at hitting baseballs. 

He’s a great kid,

Irrelevant.

and he’s played 414 big-league games since Ken Williams sent him to Arizona in the Javier Vazquez trade. 

I have lived some 13,300 days without dying.  

The Diamondbacks thought so much of him that they gave him a five-year, $28-million contract.  

Just because a team throws stupid money at a player doesn't mean he's good.  Bad logic x 2.  See Barry Zito.

And last I looked White Sox fans weren’t thrilled about their three-year association with Vazquez, although I’d say that they undervalued the body of his work because he came up small in big starts.

See.  Phil.  Any snarkiness that comes your way comes from the placement of Young's name in badly-written evaluations of Kenny Williams' general managerness.  You repeatedly propped it up as an example of how short-sighted Kenny was even as all the evidence showed that there hasn't been one prospect Kenny's traded that became anything close to a productive major league baseball player.  In fact, Chris Young is becoming Exhibit A. 

Chris Young = bad at not swinging and missing while also bad at getting on base.  That = bad baseball player.   

Either way, you’ve got to love White Sox fans.  They know that Young is a much better player than Brian Anderson – whom Williams wouldn’t put in the Vazquez trade, leading the Diamondbacks to Young – but at the moment BA is out-hitting Young, even if he’s only batting .237.  So it’s clear that the Sox hoodwinked the D-backs by foisting off Young on them.  Yeah, right.

Much better?  What?  In the last season and a half, Young has an OPS+ of 85...for a guy with a decent amount of power.  That's awful.  It's what Juan Pierre's career OPS+ is.  

And every Sox fan I know can't stand Brian Anderson.

Also, I don't get it.  Phil says Sox fans didn't like Vazquez but Sox fans are also saying the team "hoodwinked" the D-backs?  Which is it?  What are these emails actually saying?

Verdict = made up composite email = Phil covering his own ridiculousness.

Therefore, verdict = Phil covering his own ridiculousness.  

So...par for the course, really.