Kuzul

At this point of the season, we can safely say that the 24-36 Indians are not going to have a myriad of talent making the American League All-Star team. Luckily for them though, MLB rules require that at least one representative from each team be part of the roster.

In the case of some teams, the choice is easy. The Pirates will have Andrew McCutchen, and the Royals will have Jose Guillen. For the Indians and others, however, the choice is more difficult. There are a handful of different players that could be All-Stars, though, based on how they’re playing.

There are some borderline cases who, if they have a great June, could make a case for themselves, such as Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona. Asdrubal Cabrera would be a decent choice, but his injury takes him out of the discussion, although given how most of the team has played his stats aren’t that bad.

In reality though, there are two to four possibilities right now. First, we have Shin-Soo Choo. He could have made the team last year rather than Victor Martinez, and now that Martinez is with Boston, the path is clear for Choo, the Indians’ top player this year. He’s hitting nearly .300 with 8 home runs and 29 RBI, and leads the team with 10 stolen bases and 37 walks.

Choo’s fielding isn’t very good, but his hitting stats easily give him the nod. While Choo would be my pick, there are a couple other players who one could make an argument for.

One of them is the man who came out of nowhere, Austin Kearns.

He has revived his career in Cleveland, hitting .307 with 7 home runs and a team-leading 31 RBI. Granted, it tells you something about the Tribe when 31 RBI is team-leading.

One thing that would greatly help Cleveland if Kearns makes the All-Star team, is that his trade value will jump, and Cleveland could potentially get some good pieces for him.

After all, while Choo is ideally going to be a future piece of the club for years, Kearns won’t be in a Cleveland uniform in 2011. With a trade, at least his stay would be worth it for both sides.

Let’s say that the hitting side fills up with talent and Cleveland has to send a pitcher to the game though. I doubt they will, since none of the pitchers have been great, but there are two possibilities.

First is Mitch Talbot, yet another Indian who has come out of nowhere with seven wins. His ERA isn’t great, but 3.59’s not bad either.

Talbot’s stats aren’t that impressive, but Fausto Carmona’s sub-.500 record would keep him out of consideration, and there are better relievers than Chris Perez, though he’s been pitching well.

Perez would be a decent option at number four, seeing as how his 2.59 ERA leads the team and his ERA+ and WHIP lead as well.

Who would you give the All-Star nod to? Is Choo the easy choice or is Kearns going in a smart move? Will Chris Perez somehow squeeze into the mix?

Or should we just put Frank Herrmann in the All-Star game for fun?

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We are now two months into the season. While we are still a long way from the end of the season, those players who are in the MVP and Cy Young races are beginning to fall into place.

In the Cy Young races in particular, there are many candidates who are certainly worthy of the title with how they have been pitching so far. In the National League, there are 16 or so people that should be in the top ten. This is, unfortunately, not possible, and some surprising names are left off this list.

Stats used to rank them are as of May 31.

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We are now two months into the season. While we are still a long way from the end of the season, those players who are in the MVP and Cy Young races are beginning to fall into place.

Unlike the AL race, where the top 10 was relatively simple, there are many in the National League that just miss the cut. Furthermore, injuries to early season frontrunners and lackluster performances from the usual top players have made this race one to watch, as while there are familiar names, it could be anyone’s race to win.

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We are now two months into the season. While we are still a long way from the end of the season, those players who are in the MVP and Cy Young races are beginning to fall into place.

In the case of the AL MVP award race, the top ten to choose was actually quite easy. These ten are in a class above the others, and although there are several who could work their way into the race, it seems that these ten will have the inside track for the rest of the season.

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As we have now heard, Grady Sizemore is expected to miss a good deal of the year, if not the whole season due to his knee, which needs surgery. This raises several questions for the Indians, the most important of which is what to do in center field.

Michael Brantley was kept in AAA with the Columbus Clippers not because he was playing bad, but because the Indians wanted him to play every day. Well, with Sizemore gone, he can be brought up and can play every day. We can see how good the young prospect can be under pressure, and it works well for the Tribe.

However, if Brantley is brought up, what do we do with Trevor Crowe? He’s played fine as the replacement for Sizemore up to this point, and it would be a shame to demote him, since I would like to see both him and Brantley get some daily playing time. Unfortunately for Crowe, the other two outfield positions are our two solid positions right now in Austin Kearns and Shin-Soo Choo.

Crowe hasn’t played second base professionally since 2006, so that’s not an option to get him playing time, and he’ll probably end up being demoted. Speaking of second base play, I just can’t stand keeping Luis Valbuena on the roster anymore.

I know we’re trying to develop our young talent and we are not going anywhere this year, but when’s the last time a semi-regular player on the roster has hit .134? You would have to go back to the pitching season of 1968, when Detroit Tigers shortstop Ray Oyler hit .135 in 215 at-bats (29 hits). Valbuena’s nearly halfway there, with 97 at-bats and 13 hits.

The problem is, with how terrible Valbuena is, who do we bring up? Brian Bixler and Anderson Hernandez are not on the 40-man roster, and are not in the Indians’ future plans, but they’e played in the majors, why not see how they can do for a little while? I’d be fine with playing Mark Grudzielanek every day, but we’re trying to develop talent, so handing a spot to a 40-year old does not fit.

With Valbuena, the Indians are in a no-win situation, figuratively and literally. If we get desperate we can promote Cord Phelps to AAA and see if that lights a fire under Valbuena, though honestly if the fires already lit under him haven’t helped, then I say we have to demote him. If nothing else, he can find his hitting confidence again down in Columbus.

At least the Tribe finally promoted Jensen Lewis back up, if nothing else.

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It has been reported that Major League Baseball has fined Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, pitcher Mark Buehrle, and umpire Joe West an undisclosed amount for the actions during Wednesday’s game against Cleveland, leading to the ejections of Guillen and later Buehrle after they disputed two balk calls.

After the game, Guillen went on a tirade against West, done in classic Ozzie Guillen fashion. Major League Baseball said it would begin investigating Thursday night, and quickly came to a decision Friday afternoon.

Buehrle said of the fine, “I figured there was going to be a fine because no matter what, you get tossed from a game no matter what it is, there’s always a fine.”

Whether the balks occurred or not, I’m not seeing much of a rationale for Buehrle’s fine. Guillen’s fine was naturally going to happen, and even a suspension I could have seen happening after his comments against West.

Granted, Guillen later said of West after his tirade, “I think Joe is one of the best umpires in the game, there’s no doubt. I’m the type of guy, no matter what happened yesterday, to me it’s another day. I’m not going to hold any grudges against him.” Cleaning up the mess made by the tirade was his best bet in avoiding a suspension, and it seems to have worked.

Joe West being fined for a combination of the balk and his recent antics this season, including calling Yankees-Red Sox match-ups “pathetic and embarrassing” due to long game times, baseball really did not have a choice other than to fine or suspend him.

It’s interesting that West’s fine is lumped into Guillen’s and Buehrle’s, as West’s problems with criticizing teams is far more serious. As ESPN’s Rob Neyer said in his blog two days ago, “An umpire isn’t really viable if there’s a belief that his integrity is compromised. And when an umpire uses words like “pathetic” and “embarrassing” to refer to one team (or two teams), isn’t it reasonable to wonder if he’ll treat that team fairly the next time around?”

Hopefully West’s fine is meant to send a message that his conduct this season will not be tolerated, rather than sweeping the larger issue under the rug of the smaller balk issue. For now, the case for these three is closed

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The NL East is easily the most competitive division this season, and can either be the most dominant or most overrated depending on your take (I believe the former). With every team right now playing .500 baseball or better, it is easily anybody’s division to take.

Yet, in spite of this, there are teams that, on the inside, need help quickly if they’re going to stay competitive. Likewise, there are others that are going to be fine. This slideshow looks at all five teams and determines who can manage where they are as a team for the long haul.

The panic meter I use has three settings: Calm, which is the team will be fine; Cautious, which means the team has some issues and could go either way; and Panic, which is exactly what it says, they need to make a move to stay in the hunt.

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A few days ago, an MLB.com report noted that the Washington Nationals have expressed interest in the Astros ace, Roy Oswalt.

The Nationals are currently 24-23 in the extremely competitive NL East, and with all five teams having a shot, the addition of Oswalt to any of the five would push them to the top of the division.

In Washington’s particular case, though, Oswalt would make a perfect addition.

To start with, the Nationals’ pitching has not been very effective. Livan Hernandez is holding his own, but John Lannan and Craig Stammen are struggling badly. Scott Olsen is hurt, and Jason Marquis is going to be out for awhile. As a result, it’s likely the Nationals could slip down the standings, so they will want Oswalt sooner rather than at the deadline.

If they’re still competitive at the trade deadline, though, then a combination of Oswalt, Hernandez, Stephen Strasburg, and Marquis would suddenly make for a very effective rotation.

Speaking of Strasburg, he does not seem like he would need a mentor with how well he’s been pitching. If he should need one, though, who better than Oswalt? Plus, Oswalt and Strasburg would make for a great one-two punch, which you need if you want to reach the playoffs.

There are a couple roadblocks to this working though. If the Nationals do fall due to injuries or other issues, and end up near the bottom of the division, Oswalt is not going to want to go there. He wants to win now, justifiably so since the Astros are going nowhere.

Also, where would you put Oswalt? As banged up as the Nationals are now with pitching, in August Marquis, Chien-Ming Wang, and Jordan Zimmermann will all be back. That’s at least six able starters in the rotation, so someone will have to head to the bullpen. (By then, going to the minors wouldn’t accomplish much of anything.)

That’s not saying the Nationals can still pull it off, but they’ll likely have to send one of the veterans over in a trade, and I couldn’t see the Astros wanting people who are just coming off the 60-day DL, though you never know.

I could bash the lack of run support that the Nationals have as well, but many NL East teams are in the lower half of the league when it comes to that. That just shows how valuable great pitching is in that division.

If the Nationals can go into the next two months with a game plan that handles what they will do with every pitcher who is on the DL and every pitcher who’s struggling, if they can figure out what they’re willing to give up to grab a playoff spot this year, along with any other caveats, and if they feel Oswalt is worth it, then they should go for it.

It’s a shame that they probably could not get him now; they need Oswalt in June, and July more than they need him in August and September. All we can do now is wait and see, especially with Washington’s pitching situation.

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This is getting to be the same story repeated over and over. On May 26 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Jimenez went eight scoreless innings in a 7-3 win. He probably could have pitched through the ninth inning, but he had thrown 101 pitches already so better safe than sorry. Still, with Rafael Betancourt messing up the shutout maybe Jimenez should have stayed in.

After 10 starts, Jimenez has a sub-0.90 ERA, a 9-1 record, a WHIP below 1.000, and while it’s not a league leading stat, his 61 strikeouts are nothing to sneeze at.

So how good has he become? If anyone was going to get an earned run off him it’d be the home runs of Arizona, for starters. To answer the question though, who was the last person to earn nine wins in his first ten starts? Even Fernando Valenzuela couldn’t pull that off in his famed 1981 season (he was 8-1 in the first 10).

Bob Gibson never came close to nine quick wins either. Even in his great 1968 season he started 3-5, though with a sub-2.00 ERA. Is there anyone to compare him to?

The answer is yes, one person: Pedro Martinez. In 1999, he started 9-1 as well. The only difference was Jimenez had both half the ERA and half the strikeouts. Some will argue that Pedro got those stats in the premier offensive era of our time, but you can’t forget that Coors Field is the hitters park in Major League Baseball.

To show how dominant a pitcher is, one has to look at the little things, the pitch-by-pitch ticks, alongside the stats and the like. Looking at tonight’s game, he pitched to 29 batters and threw 61 of 101 pitches for strikes. But again, let’s look at some case studies.

In the top of the 8th, Jimenez walked Kelly Johnson with one out and brought up Gerardo Parra. After throwing all but one fastball that inning, he caught Parra swinging with a changeup. Sensing weakness, he again threw a changeup, and Parra grounded into an inning-ending double play.

In the top of the 4th, Stephen Drew led off. After a called strike on a fastball, Jimenez throws a curve and two changeups. Suddenly the count is three and one after Drew does not chase any. As he might expect another low pitch, Jimenez tries to throw the ball by Drew with a fastball quite square in the strike zone, as if he ignored it the count would only be full. Drew swung and the play ended as a ground out

So even when the outcome isn’t ideal, Jimenez is able to get the ball where he wants it to go, and as a result is getting the stats any pitcher would want this season. His fastball hit 99 in the eighth inning as well, so his arm is not getting tired late in games, which is great. That’s always something that is cause for concern, but if he can continue to keep his speed up late, then this dominance is going to continue.

It’s too early to hand the Cy Young over to him of course, but if he keeps playing like this, or even half as good (he’s never allowed over two runs), then he’s going to remain in contention throughout the season, and it will be a year hard to top.

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In an MLB.com article earlier today, Alden Gonzalez wrote that “one thing was evident when the first batch of American League voting results for the 81st All-Star Game were made public Monday: Winning yields votes.”

On the surface that may appear to be true. If we were to look at the American League voting so far, it rewards teams rather than players. More accurately, it rewards the well-known players on these winning teams, showing that in the American League voting, fans are just voting for popularity.

This is to be expected, given that the fans are voting, but shouldn’t the best players be the ones getting the votes? In some cases they are. There is no question that Robinson Cano is deserving of the starting second baseman job, and Joe Mauer is the obvious choice at catcher

Beyond that, Evan Longoria deserves the third base nod, and Ichiro deserves the top outfielder spot, as usual. Vladimir Guerrero is without question the top DH, as well.

My praise for the voting ends there though.

For as many good choices as there are, there are some that I’m scratching my head at. Yes, I get the players are popular, but they’re really doing that well?

Let’s look back at the designated hitter.

Vlad should be first, but the next four make no sense; we have Hideki Matsui, Ken Griffey, Pat Burrell, and David Ortiz rounding out the top five. Matsui is not playing very well, hitting only .227, and we all know how shoddy Griffey is. Including Ortiz in the discussion is fine.

But Pat Burrell? Really?

Yes, the guy who does not even have a team is fourth in voting.

Still, no Jose Guillen in there? I guess he’s on the Royals so he doesn’t count. Well, there are few DH playing well this year so I’ll let it slide.

The shortstop position isn’t as bad, but Elvis Andrus is playing well enough that he may well be worthy of the starting bid rather than Derek Jeter. Also, Alex Gonzalez should be third at worst—he’s playing far better than J.J. Hardy and Jason Bartlett, but again, they’re on good teams and that’s all that matters apparently.

I can’t argue with the current outfield of Ichiro, Carl Crawford, and Nelson Cruz. What puzzles me is how Yankees fan have Curtis Granderson ahead of Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner, who are playing far, far better baseball than he is. Still, how Vernon Wells is 11th and losing to Bobby Abreu and B.J. Upton shows what drives fans to vote.

Favorites.

The only position that truly bothers me right now though, and I hope it will be fixed, is first base. Mark Teixiera is first, then Justin Morneau, then Miguel Cabrera.

Mark “.209 average but it’s just a slow start” Teixiera is beating Justin “.383 average and beating you in HR and RBI” Morneau, and Miguel “also beating Teixiera in everything” Cabrera. Even Youkilis is doing better. But again, it’s a popularity contest. That being said, it will be rather hard to add in four first basemen to the roster.

Now, I’m aware that we are in the early stages of voting, and it’s very possible that the bugs, now that people have seen the first round, will fix themselves. The casual fan knows to vote for Morneau right now, though they’ll still vote for Cano, and possibly Jeter and A-Rod.

My problem with the current numbers may mean nothing. If we are just voting the popular ones to the all-star game no matter how badly they play though, then what’s the point? It’s not an honor any more if we do that.

So go vote, and vote for those players you think are most deserving. Don’t stuff your ballot with everyone from your team (come on Yankees fans, even you know Granderson’s not playing like an all-star).

Just go out there and vote smart. Make an informed decision. For it’s not the color of the uniform, but how well they play the game, that makes an all-star.

One last footnote: Taylor Teagarden is fourth in catcher votes. He’s played 10 games with a .037 average and isn’t even the Rangers’ starter now. The guy is fourth and has one hit!

Think about that.

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