Crack of the Bat
by Patrick Ebert

MLB Review
Another Major League Baseball season has come and gone, with the Boston Red Sox sweeping the surprising Colorado Rockies in four games to take the World Series title.

Upon reviewing my preseason predictions I realized how many surprise teams there were overall. I correctly predicted that the Cleveland Indians and the Arizona Diamondbacks would take the American League Central and National League West divisions respectively, but other than that my predictions were for the most part off.

I had a big swing and a miss picking the Yankees to win the AL East with the Minnesota Twins taking the Wild Card, missing the boat completely on the Boston Red Sox. Not that I didn’t think the Red Sox would have a good team, I just thought that both the Yankees and Twins would be better than what they were, even if the Yankees did indeed reach the postseason.

I suppose that is another reason why my focus should be, and usually is, on amateur baseball with a specific interest on prospects in relationship to the draft.

While I’m not going to review all of my division-by-division predictions, I am going to take a look at my preseason award winners while handing out some postseason hardware.

AL MVP
Preseason pick: Travis Hafner, Cleveland Indians
Postseason award: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees
I expected Travis Hafner to pick up where he left off after the 2006 season, in which he had an MVP type season. Hafner’s numbers slipped significantly in 2007, although he did still hit 24 home runs and 100 RBI for the American League Central champion Cleveland Indians. Arod’s season was nothing short of phenomenal, leading all of baseball in home runs (54) RBI (156) and slugging (.645) while hitting .314. While most of the attention on Arod these days focuses on how he opted out of his contract to become a free agent, he is still the most dynamic player in the game.

AL Cy Young
Preseason pick: Johan Santana, Minnesota Twins
Postseason award: Josh Beckett, Boston Red Sox
As I stated in my preseason predictions, I decided to keep picking Johan Santana as the preseason favorite to win the Cy Young until his numbers significantly dropped off. He still had a good year (15 wins, 3.33 ERA, 235 strikeouts), but not a triple-crown leader type of season he had been enjoying in recent years. Beckett’s 20 wins (in 30 starts) paced the league while finishing sixth in ERA (3.27) and seventh in strikeouts (194). These awards do not consider postseason success which would only solidify Beckett’s position to win this award.

AL Rookie of the Year
Preseason pick: Kei Igawa, New York Yankees
Postseason award: Dustin Pedroia
I openly admit that I was trying to be too fancy selecting Igawa, although I did genuinely expect him to have a better season than what he did. While the best rookies played in the National League, Pedroia’s emergence for the Boston Red Sox was a big part of their season-long success, which of course included a World Series victory. Pedroia led all AL rookies in batting (.317), doubles (39) and showed a keen eye at the plate, walking more times than he struck out (47 to 42).

NL MVP
Preseason pick: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
Postseason award: Matt Holliday, Colorado Rockies
I noted in my preseason predictions that Albert Pujols would remain the favorite to win the NL MVP similar to Johan Santana remaining the favorite to win the AL Cy Young. You can’t blame Pujols for the Cardinals significant drop in the standings after he hit .327 with 32 home runs and 103 RBI, but Matt Holliday, among several others, had better seasons. Holliday gets the nod by carrying the Rockies into the postseason with an impressive late season run. He led the National League in batting (.340), hits (216), doubles (50) and RBI (137), finished second in slugging (.607), third in runs (120) and fourth in home runs (36).

NL Cy Young
Preseason pick: Chris Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals
Postseason award: Jake Peavy, San Diego Padres
Losing Chris Carpenter to injury was a big blow to the St. Louis Cardinals, who suffered a big drop in the standings the year after they claimed the World Series title. Jake Peavy is a player that I have picked in the past as my preseason selection for the Cy Young, and this year he finally put up the numbers necessary to win the award by claiming the National League’s triple crown for pitchers (19 wins, 2.54 ERA, 240 strikeouts).

NL Rookie of the Year
Preseason pick: Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies
Postseason award: Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers
It turns out that Troy Tulowitzki didn’t require much time adjusting to life in the big-leagues, and many consider him the favorite to win the NL Rookie of the Year award. However as I pointed out in a previous Crack of the Bat column, Braun is my pick for this award given his historical offensive production during his first year in the Major Leagues.

While I didn’t pick a preseason manager of the year for both leagues, those honors, if I had an official vote, would go to Eric Wedge of the Cleveland Indians and Clint Hurdle of the Colorado Rockies.

World Series Yawner
A four-game sweep never produces much drama or nation-wide interest, as the only people that can claim they were truly happy with the results of the World Series as a whole, and game-by-game, are the members of the Red Sox Nation.

I have heard and read some people claim that the teams are what created the lack of interest and the lack of drama, but I disagree with that notion. It’s not the teams that create the interest, it is the play on the field. Not that the play was generally bad during the series, but again, a four-game sweep doesn’t lead to much drama, and I don’t think that is a reflection that the Rockies were over-matched or that the Red Sox had their number, as you could probably play that series anytime and anywhere and have a significantly different results.

I’m also not one to overplay the importance of the eight-day layoff for the Rockies.

While the games were naturally drawn out given the strategies that were employed as well as the number of endorsements and commercials, I still have a hard time understanding how game two, a game that ended two to one in favor of the Red Sox, could last three hours and 39 minutes. Not that I was in any hurry to see the postseason come to an end, but with Major League Baseball trying to figure out how to shorten the game times in recent years to make the sport more appealing to even the most casual of fans, the need to address this issue in my opinion was never more prevalent.

And then of course there is Alex Rodriguez and the announcement that he would be opting out of his contract with the New York Yankees. The commissioner’s office mandates that team not make any major announcements during the World Series, but that doesn’t stop the players and their respective agents from doing so. Of course Fox, who televised the series, had a say in this as well, but clearly the series drama was completely gone by the seventh inning of game four, so why not provide some new, fabricated stories? Fox of course were the winners in this, being able to trump everyone else by being the first to break this news story with millions of viewers tuned in.

The losers of course were the Boston Red Sox, whose thunder was stolen not only by A-Rod, but the next day by the announcement of Joe Torre leaving his managerial post with the Yankees.

I have had a few readers accuse me of having a national or regional bias, which is a little difficult for me to understand since I am located almost smack dab in the middle of the country, but even I recognize that most major media outlets seem to think that the world revolves around what happens on the East Coast, and more specifically, New York and Boston. I don’t think a broadcast would ever contain breaking news of a player with the St. Louis Cardinals opting out of his contract, or that the manager of the Seattle Mariners had decided to leave his previous employer.

In other words, I think I could have survived one more day to learn whether or not A-Rod was staying with the Yankees.

In regards to player development, a common theme of mine, while the Colorado Rockies boasted a roster filled with quite a few homegrown players, the Boston Red Sox had only six players that were completely procured from within: Manny Delcarmen, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. I don’t count Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima because those two players were signed more as free agents, although this isn’t to take anything away from the Red Sox scouting and player development departments, but I do think it is more interesting to follow successful teams that are built from the bottom up.

The Red Sox have done a very good job compiling talent from within the past several years, and it should be noted that they used some of that talent in recent years to acquire integral cogs of their team such as Josh Beckett, and World Series MVP Mike Lowell. Ellsbury, Lester, Papelbon, Pedroia and Youkilis in particular will be key parts of the Red Sox future success, as well as several other talented young players that continue to advance in the team’s farm system.

Congratulations to both the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies for their success this past year. While the Red Sox will continue to be one of the teams to beat in the American League, the Rockies plethora of young talent should allow them to continue to be very successful in the years to come as well.

Jupiter, the other Fall Classic
Congratulations are also due for the Atlanta Braves Scout Team for taking the crown at the 2007 WWBA World Championship. Allow me to extend more compliments to all of the players, coaches, family members and the people that put the entire tournament together for yet another successful event.

The thoughts and opinions listed here do not necessarily reflect those of Perfect Game USA. Patrick Ebert is affiliated with both Perfect Game USA and Brewerfan.net, and can be contacted via email at pebert@brewerfan.net.