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We found a clip with the Discover Card commercial we reference in our most recent post.

Thanks to Brandweek, for the link.

As many of the regular readers of this space know, we're better with photos than videos.  Let's hope this works and looks good.

It's late in the season, and it's a shame that it looks and feels like a good number of teams really have no chance at the postseason.  According to coolstandings, Eighteen teams have less than a 5% chance at the postseason, and the Rockies have only a 6.6% chance.

Boston is 7 games back of New York and Tampa Bay.  They need to go on a winning streak, but it looks like this season is just not going their way.  The Red Sox would compete in other divisions; they have an identical record with Texas, and the Rangers are running away with the West.

The White Sox are 4 games behind the Twins.  It'll be interesting to see if Manny can hit over .500 the next few weeks.  He's still a strong and gifted hitter.  I'm not sure of the AL Central finish, wouldn't be surprised to see it go either way, but I'm siding with Gardy.

In the National League, the Braves lead the Phillies in the East by 3 games, the Reds lead the Cardinals by 6 (!), and the Padres are 5 games ahead of the Giants, 7 games ahead of the Rockies, and 9 games ahead of the sinking Dodgers.  The Phillies are two games ahead of the Cardinals and Giants in the loss column, for the Wild Card.  The NL Wild Card race may be the most exciting of them all.

Before we get to the predictions, have you guys seen the Discover Card commercial with Peggy the customer service agent?  It's pretty funny.  Here is a write up from Lewis Lazara.


I liked the ad so much that I just asked to become facebook friends with the actor who played Peggy in the commercial, Tudor Petrut.

On to the predictions:

NL MVP: Joey Votto
NL Manager: Charlie Manuel

NLDS
Reds over Braves
Phillies over Padres

NLCS
Reds over Phillies

Since this past weekend, I started a post that is currently approaching 8,000 words.  I'm not quite sure what to do about it because it takes a rare breed to want to read that much about what I was thinking on Friday night.

In the meantime, per friendly reader Osh's request, let's take a moment to look forward to the Major League debut of Aroldis Chapman.

As most of you probably know by now, the Reds are calling him up today so that he is eligible for their postseason roster.  You probably also know that he was clocked at 105 MPH on Friday night.  I think that's the new record, if whomever keeps those records would verify it.

What can we expect out of Chapman?  Well, I hope all of you are running, not walking, to your roto team's free agent wire.  Pick up Chapman.  He will be pitching in relief, while he's eligible as an SP.  So, you get a free reliever.  He will help in ERA, WHIP, and K's, while potentially vulturing some wins or saves.

If you remember, Chapman had a very good Spring Training but didn't make the big club for Opening Day.  They decided to place Mike Leake in the major league starting rotation, and Reds fans can't really complain about anything this year - except maybe trading for Jim Edmonds.

Once in Triple-A, Chapman showed fantastic stuff but struggled a little bit as a starter.  He was moved to the bullpen about nine weeks ago, and the results have been fantastic.

Keep in mind there is a bit of a small sample size warning, while we look at the stats:

Fielding Independent Pitching
as Starter: 4.01
as Reliever: 1.92

Batting Average Against
as Starter: .244
as Reliever: .159

Walks + Hits / IP

It is understandable, since fantasy football is more popular that fantasy baseball, most readers of this space have fantasy drafts coming up soon.

For what it's worth, here are a few players we feel are currently being drafted too late, therefore providing excellent value on draft day.

Flacco should lead QB Tier 2

Vince in his prime? Okay!

A few years later than expected, the 49ers got their act together, and Smith is well equipped at the helm.

Pass on Joseph Addai

Take it from someone who had Tim Hightower on his team the last two years, Beanie is gonna get the rock.

Thomas Jones had 1,400 yards last season, and has a lot left from underuse early in his career.

We think DBowe's ready to be a bonafide #1

TJ Housh was hurt the first 6 weeks last year, and he still got 900+ yards.

Team Spirit isn't all Jacoby Jones has going for him.

It’s been a few weeks since we handed out any hardware, so we’re excited to present our third edition of Players of the Fortnight. (All stats courtesy of the inestimably valuable Fangraphs.)

AL Hitter of the Fortnight
Miguel Cabrera, Tigers

The award for this past fortnight goes to the player we think is leading the four horse race for AL MVP. Are there any other players in the conversation besides MiggyCab, Josh Hamilton, Robinson Cano, and Joe Mauer? Cabrera’s fortnight stands out because of his 5 HR’s, .479 wOBA, 14.0 wRC, 2.4 BB/K, and a triple slash line of .364/.500/.750.

Honorable mention goes to Josh Hamilton (6 HR’s), Hideki Matsui (.590 OBP and .879 SLG!), Paul Konerko (14.1 wRC), and Alberto Callaspo (.500 OBP)

AL Pitcher of the Fortnight
C.J. Wilson, Rangers

Short-term pitching awards like these can often be overly affected by timing. Clay Buchholz had a great couple of starts the past couple of weeks, going 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA. In 13 innings pitched, Buchholz gave up 10 hits, 5 walks, with 10 strikeouts.

Wilson, known to his Twitter followers as Str8edgeracer, was fortunate to capitalize on his three most recent starts. He went 3-0 with a 1.21 ERA, 22.3 innings, 14 hits, 4 walks, and 26 strikeouts. Looking at the advanced stats, we see that Wilson led the league with a 1.31 FIP and 2.23 xFIP (Buchholz 2.72 and 3.46, respectively). Others receiving consideration include Matt Garza, King Felix, Max Sherzer, Zack Greinke, and C.C. Sabathia.

NL Hitter of the Fortnight
Omar Infante, Braves


We don’t know what Chipper Jones may have done with these at bats, but the Braves are certainly fond of their All Star sub now that Chipper is out for the year and perhaps forever. Omar Infante is not known for his power, but he muscled 4 HR’s this past fortnight, with a triple slash line of .429/.458/.732.

Our hitting awards traditionally go to players who walk more than 5% of the time, but Infante led both leagues with a 16.2 wRC. Plus, his timing to step up when the Braves needed him most is not going overlooked.

Overall, there were better hitting performances in the American League the past two weeks, but other NL'ers receiving votes include Albert Pujols (league leading OBP, SLG, wOBA, and tied for HR’s) and Hunter Pence (Tied Albert with 5 HR’s and 3rd in NL with 13.5 wRC).

NL Pitcher of the Fortnight
Mat Latos, Padres

This was the toughest award to give out. When comparing NL pitchers the past two weeks, there is a conflict between traditional stats and advanced metrics. For example, let’s look at Jon Garland and Ted Lilly. Garland went 3-0 with a 0.98 ERA, but he was very lucky with a .232 BABIP, a 1.2 K/BB ratio, and even luckier with a 97.4% strand rate. His xFIP is 9th worst among qualifiers at 4.86. Needless to say, he’s disqualified from our award. Ted Lilly also went 3-0, with a 1.71 ERA, but his 2.96 FIP and xFIP of 3.76 are not good enough.

Mat Latos went only 1-0 in two starts, with a 2.08 ERA, but he wins our award by leading the National League with a 1.41 FIP, 1.88 xFIP, 13.15 K/9, 0.69 BB/9, and of course a 19.0 K/BB ratio.

We’re getting into the homestretch of pennant races and yearly, personal awards. Hopefully, there will be more days like yesterday with remarkable performances by Willie Bloomquist, Carlos Gonzalez, Jason Heyward, Felix Hernandez, not to mention the Rockies comeback and Giants failed comeback. Tonight, we’re looking forward to seeing Jordan Zimmermann making his post Tommy John debut in St. Louis, Frankie Liriano v Cliff Lee, and the Tigers/Blue Jays matchup of Sherzer v Romero. Enjoy the action.

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the news again for drinking and driving almost three and a half years after Tony LaRussa embarrassed himself and his family by falling asleep at a red light after dining on a vegetarian dinner of salad, baked potato, and "several glasses of wine" at a Florida steakhouse.

This time it's one of their broadcasters.  Thank goodness, no-one was hurt, and it's a great picture.  How drunk is this guy?

Below is our image of the best team composed of players who have been eligible for at least one Hall of Fame vote. In other words, guys who retired after 2005, like Kevin Brown and Rafael Palmeiro, are not yet eligible for this team.

"Hi, I'm Bobby Grich"

We'll most likely elaborate on the construction of this pseudo roster one day. In the meantime, here are the bare bones to hopefully spark some thought and keep our minds limber.

1st occasional non-Hall of Famers
C: Joe Torre
1b: Dick Allen
2b: Bobby Grich
SS: Bill Dahlen
3b: Ron Santo
LF: Tim Raines

The Blyleven of Hitters

CF: Reggie Smith
RF: Dwight Evans

SP: Bert Blyleven
SP: Tony Mullane
SP: Jim McCormick
SP: Bob Caruthers
SP: Luis Tiant

RP: David Cone
RP: Tommy Bond
RP: Dwight Gooden
RP: Brett Saberhagen

Quis is our underused Closer

RP: Dan Quisenberry

R-PH: Edgar Martinez
L-PH: Will Clark
Bench: Roberto Alomar
Bench: Lou Whitaker
Bench: Barry Larkin
Bench: Keith Hernandez
Bench: Fleet Walker

Manager: Buck O'Neil

*We call it the 'first occasional...' because it should change occasionally and slightly. There are very few first-ballot entries, so we expect better players in the future to become eligible and get slighted by the voters. Also, some of these guys like Alomar, Larkin, and (hopefully) Blyleven and Raines should get in.

Please keep in mind that Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox are not eligible. Also, Mark McGwire is not welcome in our clubhouse because we don't like him, and we actually enjoy talking about the past.

Because I have an unhealthy fascination with the game of baseball and its history, I dvr’d and watch a program on MLB Network called “Baseball Seasons”. The show dedicates an hour to examining one season from the past.

The reason I chose to watch this episode was because it was about 1995, which is the season after the strike. I thought there would be some interesting developments on how the game bounced back after the strike, with more homeruns, realignment, the wildcard, Braves pitching, the resurgence of the Yankees, the story of the Expos, PED’s, Cal Ripken, and everything in between. Before we get into that, I wanted to share a brief moment in the show that provided some sophomoric, politically incorrect humor.

Tommy Lasorda: “I want you to learn how to say this. Say… I…”
Hideo Nomo: “I”
TL: “Bleed”
HN: “Bleed”
TL: “Dodger”
HN: “Dodger”
TL: “Blue”
HN: “Brue”

It’s probably funnier when you can hear it, and I’m sorry it is offensive, but sometimes life is too short not to laugh at funny accents. If it’s good enough to add comic relief in the best screenplay of all time, then it’s good enough for us.

From Robert Towne’s Chinatown:

"Mulwray's Gardener: [in heavy Japanese accent, referring to the grass] Bad for glass.

Jake Gittes: Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass."

That's a good one, Mr. Towne.