Cardinals' potential acquisitions

The St. Louis Cardinals are definately going to be buyers at the much anticipated trade deadline. They have shown interest in players such as Matt Holliday, Jason Bay, George Sherrill, Brian Fuentes, and J.J. Putz. In this post, I am going to try and put together some possible trades for some of these players:

Brian Fuentes:

The Colorado Rockies are looking to deal Brian Fuentes, but their asking price is pretty steep. They want a young starting pitcher in return and a little bullpen relief. Based on their needs, my trade would look like this:

Cardinals get:

Brian Fuentes

Rockies get:

Clayton Mortenson
Mike Parisi
Mark Worrell
Cash Considerations

Matt Holliday:

There is no easy deal that could be made for this all-star player. Any deal with the Cardinals would have to include top prospect Colby Rasmus. If the Cardinals would be interested in trading away Rasmus the trade might look something like this:

Cardinals get:

Matt Holliday

Rockies get:

Colby Rasmus
Bryan Anderson
Chris Duncan
Kyle Mura

George Sherrill:

The Baltimore Orioles are looking to rebuild at the shortstop position. The Cardinals would probably have to throw in a couple of arms as well. I believe the trade would look something like this:

Cardinals get:

George Sherrill

Orioles get:

Donovan Solano
Peter Kozma
Blake Hawksworth
Jason Motte
(possibly Chris Perez minus a couple of the previous named prospects)

Obviously all of these are merely predictions and aren't necessarily going to go through. The George Sherrill trade was the hardest to predict.

We will see what the Cardinals do tomorrow at the deadline.

Mid-Season Awards

These are my mid-season awards. I will also be comparing them to the picks I made before the season started. To start, here are my offseason division and wildcard winners:

AL East: New York Yankees
AL Central: Detroit Tigers
AL West: Seattle Mariners
AL Wildcard: Minnesota Twins

NL East: Atlanta Braves
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Arizona Diamondbacks
NL Wildcard: San Diego Padres

When I look at this list, I see that only a few teams really have a chance at making my predictions come true. Here are my current picks for the division and wildcard winners:

AL East: Boston Red Sox
AL Central: Chicago White Sox
AL West: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
AL Wildcard: Minnesota Twins

NL East: Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central: Chicago Cubs
NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wildcard: St. Louis Cardinals

My offseason awards, much like my division winners, were terribly picked. Here are the players I picked along with the Players I think will win now.

AL MVP: Ichiro Suzuki (Josh Hamilton is easily the MVP)
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander (Im gonna go with Earvin Santana)
AL Rookie of the Year: Jacoby Ellsbury (not a terrible pick but Evan Longoria is a better one)
AL Comeback Player of the Year: Fransisco Liriano (he still hasn't even come back, I'll give it to Mr. Board Game himself, Milton Bradley)
AL Manager of the Year: Rod Gardenhire (Joe Maddon clearly is the better choice)

NL MVP: Albert Pujols (dead on)
NL Cy Young: Johan Santana (More like Tim Lincecum)
NL Rookie of the Year: Chase Headley (I pick Geovanny Soto)
NL Comeback Player of the Year: Kerry Wood (Clearly the best choice)
NL Manager of the Year: Tony LaRussa (Charlie Manuel has to get more credit for winning a division with some very dangerous teams)

Lets see if my picks now are closer as the second half begins.

Josh Hamilton, a Chicago Cub?

I was watching sportscenter this morning and i saw a story on the remarkable comeback of Josh Hamilton. During a part of this story, I found out a little piece of information that is very interesting; Hamilton was once a Chicago Cub rule 5 draft selection. He was then traded to the Cinncinati Reds. How could one major league franchise like the Chicago Cubs make so many front office mistakes over the years. Instead of having a centerfielder like Juan Pierre, they could have Josh Hamilton (as quoted by Justin McClary). Juan Pierre may be a stolen base threat, but come on, he cannot even compare to the numbers that Josh Hamilton has been putting up. Pierre is no longer with the Cubs. They have a new trio of outfielders. Jim Edmonds, Alfonso Soriano, and Kosuke Fukudome. Edmonds is past his prime, Soriano is injury-prone and a streaky hitter, and Kosuke Fukudome is a very inconsistent and poor hitter. It is a shock that he is even starting in the all star game with his numbers. However, with the Cubs fan base being what it is, he was a sinch to get in. To conclude my post, I would like to remind my Cubs Fan readers about their history; it has been 100 years since they have last won the World Series and moves like this do not help your chances for a title any sooner.

Yeah, I totally predicted the Mariners to win the World Series

Well then, let's take a looksie at my post from the beginning of the year and see how close(or how far off mostly) I was from predicting this season based on where we are now.

These were my predictions from the beginning of the year:
AL West: Seattle Mariners
AL Central: Minnesota Twins
AL East: New York Yankees
Wild Card: Texas Rangers

NL West: San Diego Padres
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL East: Atlanta Braves
Wild Card: Los Angeles Dodgers

Wow! Really REALLY bad. I really thought I had the Rays winning the wild card, but I think I had them just barely finishing above 500. Let's retool this a bit!

AL West: Texas Rangers
AL Central: Minnesota Twins
AL East: Boston Red Sox
Wild Card: Tampa Bay Rays

NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL East: Philadelphia Phillies
Wild Card: Chicago Cubs

I think this will give us a Bos-Tex Tam-Min Phi-Chi LA-StL playoffs. I will make a bold prediction and say the championship series will be Boston against Tampa and Chicago against St Louis. I really want to predict a St. Louis vs. Boston world series for rematch sake, but it will probably be Boston against Chicago with Chicago winning. That hurts! I REALLY hope I'm wrong.

Let's look at my award predictions:
AL MVP: Adrian Beltre(WHOA! Way off, let's change this to Josh Hamilton)
AL Cy Young: Jered Weaver(Couldn't be wronger, we'll make this..umm..Ervin Santana....did i just say that?)
AL Rookie of the Year: Daric Barton(damn! definitely Evan Longoria)
AL Manager of the Year: Ron Gardenhire(probably has to be Maddon at this point)
AL Comeback Player: Francisco Liriano(could still happen, but right now it will probably be Giambi)

NL MVP: Albert Pujols(I'm sticking with this)
NL Cy Young: Chris Young(Albert ruined this prediction, but I'll change it to Tim Lincecum)
NL Rookie of the Year: Johnny Cueto(could have been true, but it is now definitely Soto)
NL Manager of the Year: Bobby Cox(NOPE! Should be LaRussa)
NL Comeback Player: Kerry Wood(MONEY!)

Josh Hamilton makes hitting homeruns look WAY too easy

So this will be a fun little post. David and I decided to enlighten everyone with mid-season awards and a separate post revisiting out predictions and revising them after half the season is gone.

Best Catcher:
AL- Joe Mauer NL- Brian McCann

Joe Mauer's nod here isn't even close. No other AL catcher is even close to touching him in terms of statistics. McCann's is a little closer with the presence of both Geovany Soto and Russell Martin, but he is leading the Braves, especially with Chipper out so often.

Best 1B:
AL- Kevin Youkilis NL- Lance Berkman

This one is hard for me, because it is scary to imagine Pujols's numbers without the DL stint and if people pitched to him more often. He leads the league in intentional walks by nine. Berkman, however, has been a stud this year. If he keeps this production up, he could be a 20/20 player. Youkilis has shown his normal defensive wizardry but has also been a beast offensively, leading the AL among 1B with a .933 OPS.

Best 2B:
AL- Ian Kinsler NL- Chase Utley

Kinsler is a no-brainer. This needs no discussion. Chase Utley barely edges out Dan Uggla due to better overall stats. Uggla has shown a ridiculous power stroke, but Utley is a true five tool player.

Best 3B:
AL- Alex Rodriguez NL- David Wright

I wish someone was closer to A-Rod because it seemed like he was having a down year, but he is actually leading the AL 3B in almost every statistical category. Evan Longoria gets a mention as a surprise rookie stud. David Wright is the best all around 3B in the national league. Anyone that says Chipper Jones is a gay.

Best SS:
AL- Jhonny Peralta NL- Hanley Ramirez

Hanley is having his usual godly season, but it is shocking to see that Peralta is destroying all other AL shortstops in every category except for stolen bases.

Best OF:
AL- Josh Hamilton, Grady Sizemore, Jermaine Dye NL- Ryan Ludwick, Ryan Braun, Nate McLouth

A lot of youth is stepping up this season. These six guys(aside from Dye) are showing that we could be entering a very exciting era for baseball. Hamilton is obviously the best out of this entire set, but these six lead their fields by a good margin for me.

Best SP:
AL- Justin Duchscherer NL- Edinson Volquez

Duchscherer is quietly having an excellent year. With a higher strikeout total, he would be a certain Cy Young winner. Volquez has the strikeouts and more and is the clear first half Cy winner.

Best RP:
AL- Mariano Rivera NL- Brad Lidge

These two make it on the grounds that neither has had a blown save, which is ridiculous. KRod is obviously an honorable mention

Most disappointing hitter overall:

Andruw Jones has been TERRIBLE this year. After signing a humongous contract, he has given the Dodgers about three dollars worth of performance and has not hit a homerun since May 15. The Dodgers presumable paid him to hit his usual 30+, not.....2.

Most surprising hitter:

I would label Ryan Ludwick as the most surprising hitter. His ZIPS projection had him hitting .262/.330/.476 with 20 homeruns and 64 rbis FOR THE SEASON. His stats at the half? .289/.365/.597 with 21 homeruns and 65 rbis. WOW!

Most disappointing pitcher:

This HAS to go to Barry Zito. He's making 14 million dollars this year. Apparently 14 million dollars gets you a 5.62 ERA and almost two runners per inning. For that much money, you should get more than five and a third innings per game.

Most surprising pitcher:

Cliff Lee was sent down to AAA last year. This year he's starting the All Star Game and had a sub 2 ERA at the end of May.

Most disappointing team:

With a 138+ million dollar payroll, best for second in the mlb, do the Detroit Tigers have the second best record? No, they are barely hanging on to a 500 record and Dontrelle Willis, part of the package they shredded their farm system apart for, is pitching in A ball.

Most surprising team:

Tampa Bay Rays. I shouldn't have to write about this. I think a lot of people, including myself, knew they would be competitive SOON, but not this season.

Funniest moment

Manny Ramirez giving the fan a high five AND throwing out a runner for a double play was easily the best moment of the year.