jcnickel

Already this season, Grady Sizemore has 27 home runs, and 27 stolen bases, for second and fifth on the American League leaderboard. He is on pace for a 39-39 season, but who says you can't exceed your expectations? Only four people have previously made the cut for this prestigious "club", including Barry Bonds (1996, 42 HR- 40 SB), Jose Canseco (1988, 42-40), Alfonso Soriano (2006, 46-41), and Alex Rodriguez (1998, 42-46).

My question to you is this: can Grady join the greats in the 40-40 club, or will he fall short?

Comments/discussion is appreciated.

Here is how I believe the epic showdown for the best batting average in the National League will result...

2008 NL Batting Title: Winner: Lance Berkman..........Runner Up: Chipper Jones

Lance Berkman seems to be one of the top picks for the MVP award, second in the NL in batting average (behind Chipper), and tied for third in home runs, but his amazing season has been distracted by one of the biggest NL stories of the year: Chipper Jones is chasing .400! An feat that easily blows an MVP Campaign out of the water, no one has hit .400 in a season since Ted Williams in 1941. Someone wins the MVP award every year. With that said, it is clear that Chipper is not going to hit .400 in my mind, and although harsher than most people's beliefs, I think he will be under .350 at the end of the season. Berkman is hitting a consistent .355 right now, and it will either remain stagnant or fall very little within the next half.
Chipper Jones has one main obstacle in his way: injuries. He played only 490 games between 2004 and 2007, a somewhat small number compared to Berkman's 597, and on top of that, Berkman has played 85 to Chipper's 75 games already this year. Chipper has begun to already miss plenty of games with injury, and it seems that every time he does so, his average drops. I would like to put Albert Pujols in the top 2, but with his injuries, and Chipper's very slim odds of dropping below, it is set. Berkman will finish hitting .353, and Jones will end his season (and maybe career) hitting .347. Or I might be wrong...

Thanks for reading...comments are greatly appreciated!

Taking a break from SuperPredictions for now.

What if I had known who would be good this year before my fantasy draft...

After doing all of the math, here is the team I could have had:

Active Batters:

1B, Lance Berkman
2B, Chase Utley
3B, Chipper Jones
SS, Hanley Ramirez
OF, Josh Hamilton
OF, Pat Burrell
OF, Nate McLouth
U, Dan Uggla

Active Pitchers:

SP, Roy Halladay
SP, Edinson Volquez
SP, Cliff Lee
SP, Ben Sheets
SP, Tim Lincecum
CP, George Sherrill
CP, Brad Lidge

My normal team accounted for 3234 fantasy points, the league lead by 160. My fantasy fantasy team would have created 4800+ points, which would be nearly twice as much as the runner up for most points as of now.

Too bad.

If anyone with a fantasy baseball team could create a better one using completely possible resources, I'd like to hear from them.
Thanks for reading my Baseball Obsession.

Let me just put this right out here: I don't feel like waiting for the season to near its end, or to reach the all-star break, so I am going to give you my picks right now. These will cover National and American League Batting Titles, Most Valuable Players, Cy Young Awards, Rookie of the Year, Gold Gloves, and Manager of the Year Award. Also predicted, how teams will place in their divisions, who will play who in the playoffs, and who will win what.

Today I'll start out with the AL Batting Titles:

2008 AL Batting Title: Winner: Joe Mauer.................Runner Up: Magglio Ordonez

Joe Mauer became the only catcher ever to win an AL batting title when he won it in 2006 over Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano. At the rate he is going at, I would expect him to win it again this year, marking himself as one of the best hitting catchers of all time. He is currently batting .324 (second in the AL), and is behind Milton Bradley (.333), who I would not expect to last there. He is a .314 career hitter, so I'm guessing that his average will not be likely lowered by a lot. He reached a [would be league leading] .335 average on June 6th, but went 2-for-13 in the next four games. He will continue to hit well, and is on the way to a another Silver Slugger if he stays healthy.
Magglio Ordonez is a somewhat biased pick, for I am a fan of his Tigers, but putting all of my hometown advantages aside, he still is a contender. Just less than a month ago, Ordonez was holding the third highest batting average in the AL, behind Milton Bradley and Hideki Matsui. Now he is 9th in the AL, with a .309 average. After looking at the list between him, Mauer, and the top, there aren't a lot of players who most people would invest in. Included up there on the "Yeah, Right" list are Johnny Damon, J.D. Drew, Ian Kinsler, and Kasey Kotchman, along with the seems-to-be-the-public-enemy-here Milton Bradley. That leaves Ordonez, Mauer, Matsui, and Josh Hamilton. Hamilton is the real deal, but his average will stay in the sub-.320 area, while Matsui's will eventually fall below .300. Mauer and Ordonez, however, will have their averages up to the .335+ area, and possibly .340 to .350.

What if the Detroit Tigers general manager and execs could look into the future...

In this scenario, many various trades would be made, and players would be picked up. Here are my top changes:

1. Do not come through with the Dontrelle Willis-Miguel Cabrera trade for Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin. Maybin will be a star, and Miller is already better than a few of the Tigers' pitchers. Besides, Dontrelle Willis is a terrible pitcher, and has spent more time on the DL than most others have. Cabrera is either about to reach his best years, or last year was his prime. If the ladder were to be true, the Tigers will most certainly have a hard time getting rid of him.
   
2. Edgar Renteria can stay with the Braves, for he has been having an ugly year so far. I would be more interested in Atlanta's new shortstop, Yunel Escobar. In this trade, the Tigers gave up Jair Jurrjens and Omar Infante for Renteria. Infante is unneeded, the Tigers already have a nice collection of utilitymen, but Jurrjens is different. He is an easy rookie of the year candidate right now as he leads the National League's rookies in ERA (2.86), wins (5), and is second in strikeouts (49). He would be an extreme help to the Tigers rotation, in which the ERA leader is Jeremy Bonderman with 4.34.
   
3. There are also some obvious things that the Tigers would have been better off spending time on: picking up obvious surprise young players who are doing great this year. These guys would include Cliff Lee, Edinson Volquez, Carlos Quentin, and Josh Hamilton. Nate McLouth would be an option but he may be a fluke. Cliff Lee ended his season last year in AAA, and by trading one of our young pitchers, Armando Gallaraga or Andrew Miller, we could get the AL ERA leader. For Volquez we may have to give up Jurrjens, Maybin or Gallaraga, but each of them would be worth getting him. Hamilton would be semi-easy to get, a good trade involving a young pitcher (whoever is left from the Volquez trade), or possibly Carlos Guillen, and if worse comes to worse, Curtis Granderson would be valid trade bait. Carlos Quentin would definitely be a hard acquisition, though. He is young and therefore people are unable to know if he is trade-worthy, so depending on the White Sox' needs, various levels of talent would need to be offered.
   
4. Do not acquire Jacque Jones. He is old, a bad fielder, and a worse hitter. 'Nuff said.

Using the above logic, the Tigers would be on their way to a successful season, but not without positioning chart. Here is what it would look like if the best possible trades worked out:

C: Ivan Rodriguez (Pudge is one of the top defensive and offensive catchers)
1B: Marcus Thames, Ryan Raburn, Ramon Santiago (or whoever is leftover)
2B: Placido Polanco (greatest fielding 2B in baseball)
3B: Brandon Inge (another great fielder)
SS: Yunel Escobar (I don't know how we could get him, but he would be great)
RF: Carlos Quentin (faster, more range than Hamilton)
CF: Curtis Granderson (yet another great fielder)
LF: Josh Hamilton (faster than Ordonez)
DH: Magglio Ordonez (not enough room in the OF)

The Lineup

1. Granderson
2. Escobar
3. Ordonez
4. Hamilton
5. Quentin
6. Polanco
7. Pudge
8. Thames (or Raburn)
9. Inge

The Rotation

1. Justin Verlander
   
2. Edinson Volquez
   
3. Cliff Lee
   
4. Jair Jurrjens
5. Jeremy Bonderman

This rotation and lineup may or may not work, but judging by this years stats, they would be great.

This has been "What if..." Please give me thoughts/comment below.

The Major League Baseball all-star team voting has been open for a month or two now. Click here to cast your vote. By now, I have a pretty good idea on who's good and who's great. Here are my picks:

American League

AL 1B: Kevin Youkilis- Boston Red Sox

AL 2B: Robinson Cano- New York Yankees

AL SS: Michael Young- Texas Rangers

AL 3B: Miguel Cabrera- Detroit Tigers

AL C: Mike Napoli- Los Angeles Angels

AL OF: Josh Hamilton- Texas Rangers

AL OF: Nick Markakis- Baltimore Orioles

AL OF: Carl Crawford- Tampa Bay Rays

AL DH: David Ortiz- Boston Red Sox

National League

NL 1B: Lance Berkman- Houston Astros

NL 2B: Chase Utley- Philadelphia Phillies

NL SS: Hanley Ramirez- Florida Marlins

NL 3B: Garrett Atkins- Colorado Rockies

NL C: Brian McCann- Atlanta Braves

NL OF: Kosuke Fukudome- Chicago Cubs

NL OF: Ryan J. Braun- Milwaukee Brewers

NL OF: Ryan Church- New York Mets

Have you ever wondered: is Chase Utley better than Dan Uggla, or vice versa?

Neither have I. However, with my extreme research powers, I am going to find out. As of now, Uggla is batting .318 with 16 home runs and 37 RBIs. Utley is batting .303 with 15 home runs and 36 RBIs. Uggla is 28 years old and Utley is 29. Over the past few years, these stats have not been so even. In playing less than 33% of the time last year, Uggla has over 50% of the home runs thus far. It seems like an amazing breakout year. Looking at the stats, although it is very vague, it seems that Utley may not have had a breakout. In 2004, Chase Utley hit a home run in about every 21 at bats. The next year, Utley hit one in every 19, and the next, every 21 again. Last year, he hit one in every 24 at bats, and this year one in every 13. Uggla is similar. In 2006, he hit one in every 23 at bats, and last year, one in every 20. This year he hits one every 11` at bats. There seems to be a pattern here. None of this years' great power numbers will stick, though. Neither of these guys hit as well during the second half of the season. Throughout his career, Uggla hit .284 in the first half and .250 in the second half, 44 points lower. In Utley's career, he has hit .306 in the first half and .293 in the second half, only 13 points lower. In the first half, Uggla hits a homer every 18 at bats, and in the second a homer every 21. Utley in the first half hits one out every 20 at bats, but in the second hits one out every 22. If you do the math you'll find that by the end of the year neither will have these great batting averages, (Utley will most likely have the better one), and neither will have the great power, although Uggla will hit more home runs than Utley. If injury occurs, anything can change. My prediction is Utley hits .293 and Uggla hits .289. Also, Utley will hit about 34 home runs, will Uggla will hit 35-39. Both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Florida Marlins lineups have been hot this year, so I would expect similar 115-140 RBI years for both.