http://espn.go.com/mlb/preview13/sto...aseball-season
Good to see Joey getting a lot of hype going in to the season. I am a little surprised at Bryce Harper being mentioned as much as he is but then again the media loves him!
http://espn.go.com/mlb/preview13/sto...aseball-season
Good to see Joey getting a lot of hype going in to the season. I am a little surprised at Bryce Harper being mentioned as much as he is but then again the media loves him!
There's no crying in baseball!!!! Tom Hanks
Seems like most of the experts went with familiar/expected names, but I did think tapping Yoenis Cespedes and Allen Craig for AL and NL MVP were bold (if unlikely) picks.
Giancarolo Stanton for NL MVP was also an interesting choice. I can't imagine he'll get much love playing on a last place team, but I suppose a last place MVP has happened before, and it would be great to see the Marlins fans have something to cheer about.
I literally said, "what" out loud when I saw Howard's name show up... twice.
I seem to remember last winter a bunch of experts throwing Votto's name out there as an MVP front-runner, and up until his DL stint he seemed to be running away with it. I think it makes sense to see him as the favorite.
The Allen Craig pick was a real head scratcher and I went "are you kidding me". I guess that is what makes it all in fun anyway as no one knows how the season will play out. The CY Young everyone seems to be on the Kernshaw bandwagon this year too. I think he is a great pitcher but I just don't rate hime as elite.
There's no crying in baseball!!!! Tom Hanks
Craig could very well hit 40 homers in full-time play.
If you pay no attention to defense and running, Craig could very well be MVP.
He doesn't even have 40 in his career (37) despite having 783 AB. He hits a HR once every 21.16 AB in his career and was once ever 21.01 in the minors. He got the most PT in his MLB career this year and his rate was once every 21.32.
Jeter lead the majors in AB last year with 683 so even if he got that many AB which he is a 100% lock not to reach since that total was for a leadoff man and the 30th most in a season in MLB history he would need to jump to a HR once every 17.075 AB. The most AB from a Cardinals non-leadoff hitter since the 1990's is 599 from Holliday last year, so if he matched that total which should be hard since Matt hit 3rd and Craig looks to be hitting 4th he would need one every 14.975 AB or a massive spike over his career levels.
So even if he got that many AB which is unlikely unless he went all 162 he would need a Top-500 all-time AB per HR rate to get to 40 HR which should be rather difficult for a player who has never topped 5 HR in a month in his career yet.
ESPN the magazine predicted the Cards to win the central...predicted the to win total to be at least 83 but cap out at 90.....the Reds on the other hand picked to be 2nd with a possible 97 wins and a low of at least 86. Makes no sense to me....if the Cards cap out(according to their own predictions) at 90 wins and the Reds win as few as the possibly think they can then they'll get 86. I guess they're expecting/hoping everything goes right for the cards and wrong for the Reds
I wondered if anyone else noticed that. An even better one was Sports Illustrated's MVP prediction of Harper (.285 .366 .508 26 82) Votto (.323 .443 .576 29 102). If they were going to predict Harper shouldn't they have picked him to beat Joey in at least one statistical category??
GADawg (03-31-2013)
I'm not gonna open the link because c'mon it's ESPN, but my guess is that the projections are provided by somebody else and the writers are making their own predictions, independent of the projections (which are simply provided for context)?
Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
All the dishes rattle in the cupboards when the elephants arrive
Ryan Howard posted a -1.1 WAR last year, and two analysts picked him to win the MVP this year.
#Analysis.
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