Baseball thoughts

Now that baseball's regular season is over, it's time for some observations:

Triple Crown vs MVP
Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers led the American League in batting average, home runs, and RBIs.  This Triple Crown had not been accomplished since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967.Even though it's really a statistical fluke, it's a great event that I didn't think I would see in my lifetime.

The big debate in baseball circles is whether Cabrera will win the Most Valuable Player award.  The other main candidate is Mike Trout of the Angels.  Trout is a rookie who was still in the minor leagues for the first month of the season, but nevertheless managed to put up impressive numbers.  In addition to strong batting numbers, Trout is a dominant base stealer and plays excellent defense in center field (Cabrera is a below average third baseman).

Another factor that voters will consider is the teams' performance.  Personally, I think that the MVP should go to the best player, regardless of how his team did, but many voters disagree.  The Tigers are in the playoffs, due to winning the relatively weak Central division.  The Angels had a better record than the Tigers, but missed the playoffs.  For some reason, many will give Cabrera credit for this.  (Not to mention that one of the reasons that the Angels missed the playoffs was their poor start, while they kept Trout in the minors).

Although both are fine candidates, I would vote for Cabrera.  To me, the feat of winning the Triple Crown puts him over the top.  I also predict that Cabrera will win the award.

Playoffs
This is the first year that MLB had  "Wild Card Pay-In Games" in each league, pitting the top two non-division winners in a one game playoff to advance to the Division Series.  As I've stated before, I really like this idea - it puts more importance on winning your division.

The Play-In games were yesterday, with the Orioles beating the Rangers and the Cardinals topping the Braves.  The Cardinals-Braves game had some controversy due to an umpire's questionable calling of the Infield Fly Rule in the 8th inning.  I guess MLB saw all the publicity that the NFL got from the Packers-Seahawks Hail Mary ruling, and wanted in on that action.

Preseason Prediction Review
Back in April, I posted my predictions, which you can see on the blog.  I got four out of the six division winners right (Yankees, Tigers, Nationals and Giants).  The two others that I predicted to win divisons (Rangers and Cardinals) ended up as wild card teams.  Overall, not too bad.  My origianl World Series prediction was for the Yankees to beat the Giants.  I am now revising that prediction, as you will see below.

Playoff Predictions
Finally, it's time for my often inaccurate predictions!

Remaining teams in order of my preference for them winning the World Series:
1. Yankees
2. Nationals (have never even been to the World Series, even going back to their days as the Montreal Expos)
3. Orioles
4. Tigers
5. Reds
6. Athletics
7. Giants
8. Cardinals (they just won it last year)

Predictions:
Yankees over Orioles in 5
Athletics over Tigers in 5
Nationals over Cardinals in 4
Giants over Reds in 5

Athletics over Yankees in 6
Nationals over Giants in 7

World Series: Nationals over Athletics in 6

Enjoy the games!