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The MVP’s – The American League Edition By Jake Simon

Increased revenue sharing, more expansive scouting and creative general managing have made Major League Baseball competitive again. The Yankees and Red Sox are no longer shoe-ins for the pennant and half of the divisions in baseball are separated by less than five games between the first and second place teams. Baseball is more competitive than ever and three out of the six division titles will most likely be decided in the last week or two of the season; and will be decided by players who recognize their importance to the team and carry their teams over the line.

The Red Sox of 2004 are an example that it takes an entire team to win a championship. However, a championship team must have stars than can carry the load and set the tone for the rest of the players. Those stars are the MVP’s and each first place team in the American and National Leagues have one. And of course, for fantasy purposes, each team has two.

The American League West:

For the better part of April, May and June, the first place Anaheim Angels must have been secretly be wondering to themselves, “how were we in first place the whole time?” Let’s fast-forward to present day; the starting pitching has been spotty, they lost their best player to a shoulder injury and their off-season acquisitions are disasters. Virtually the entire roster started the season on a sluggish note but first baseman Darin Erstad has recently found his stroke as has Chone Figgins. Figgins is on pace for a 50 SB season and despite an improved July, his OBS% is at a horrendous .329. The emergence of Dallas McPherson is a huge breath of fresh air for the Halos and this teams buzz-saw bullpen contributed greatly to recent sweeps of the Rangers, Royals and Dodgers. The Angels aren’t getting the HR ball this season but now sit eight games ahead of the second place Rangers. One of the big reasons for that is their team MVP…Garret Anderson.

Team MVP/Garret Anderson – In ten games this year, Anderson’s RBI’s have been the difference between a win and a loss. Take those clutch hits away, and the Angels’ thick lead in the AL West goes from Al Roker-circa 2000, to Al Roker-present day. He’s stayed healthy and provided excellent glove work in an outfield that consists of (besides Vlad) oft-injured 40-year old Steve Finley and a platoon of Juan Rivera and Jeff DaVanon. Another 120+ RBI season is a strong possibility and now that Vladimir Guerrero has returned, the pitches Anderson sees will only get fatter. For those of you ripping you clothes off in disgust that I didn’t recognize Vlad as the teams MVP, take into account that now that Vladimir is back, the Angels are running away with the division, but in my opinion, it’s been Anderson who got them though the hard times.

Fantasy MVP/Scot Shields – Take an average starting staff, an injured closer, add a sluggish lineup and mix together. What do you get? A first place team? Wow, I didn’t see that coming. One of the biggest individual performances in the American League this year has been the consistency and bulldog approach of setup man Scot Shields. He is averaging 11K/9 and walks one batter every two innings. No one has had much success against him this year, but eliminates the pinch hitter by holding lefthanders to a .178 average. One of the more interesting aspects of Shields’s game is that he doesn’t have an outright dominant pitch. He uses four pitches to do the job but throws all four for strikes. The health of F-Rod, or lack thereof, has skyrocketed Shields’s fantasy value. With Tom Gordon, Akinori Otsuka and Juan Rincon struggling this year, Shields has emerged as the “must have” for any complete fantasy bullpen. This season, Shields has more strikeouts than fantasy staples Jason Marquis, Jon Garland and Brad Lidge. His ERA is sitting at 2.60 and his WHIP is around 1.00. Of course you can make a case for Shields being the team MVP and Anderson being the fantasy MVP, and that’s the great thing about Democracy right?

The American League Central:

The Chicago White Sox are one of major league baseball’s biggest surprises. A team with a reputation as being old, selfish and having non-committal management, the Sox are pulling away in the American League Central. These aren’t the Sox of old as they aren’t winning by mashing the ball out of the stadium. They are winning with pitching, defense and smart base running. However, the most important aspect to the White Sox success is they are doing it as a team. Gone are the days when clubhouse cancers like Frank Thomas and Jack McDowell reigned. Now is the era of energy and optimism coming in the form of speedster Scott Podsednik, manager Ozzie Gullien, bulldog starter Mark Buerhle and Cy Young candidate Jon Garland. The White Sox are easily holding off the efforts of the reigning AL Central champion Twins and all of the naysayers who pegged 2005 as the year of the Indians and Tigers. Although they win as a team, there are two players who standout above the rest.

Team MVP/Mark Buerhle – No bells and whistles, Mark Buerhle just throws the baseball, hard. He doesn’t lead his team in wins and sometimes he has to win ugly, but he wins. This season he well on his way to surpassing 240 innings pitched for the second time in two years. Jon Garland has gotten most of the press, but if the North-Siders are still in this thing in September/October, it’s going to be Buerhle who gets the call in Game One. Buerhle’s stuff has never been described as “electric” and he’s not a power strikeout guy. However, he loves to pitch inside and loves to pitch at home. He is holding opposing hitters to a .222 average at home and because he has a good pickoff move, he is extremely difficult to steal off. This year he has turned himself from a solid #2 starter, into the Ace that White Sox always knew he was. He has ten wins already this year, a WHIP at 1.11 and an ERA around 2.50. With the inconsistencies of El Duque and Jose Contreras and the questions about the depth of the bullpen; it will be up to Buerhle in the end to shoulder the load late in the season.

Fantasy MVP/Jon Garland – What a year. Garland’s mound demeanor is exactly the opposite of fellow staff ace Mark Buerhle. Buerhle is a blue-collar tough, bust ‘em in type while Garland projects his laid-back, California state of mind with his sea breeze-easy delivery. Easy or not, Jon Garland has 13 wins and a WHIP at 1.05. When he’s on, his two-seam fastball runs away from hitters and his change-up is buttery smooth. Hitters couldn’t find the ball against him in April and with the exception of one meltdown against the Rangers in late May, he’s been consistently confounding. Garland is (5-0) against American League Central opponents his season and is on pace to walk about half as many hitters as he has in past seasons. Besides his win total and WHIP, his numbers across the boards aren’t going to help him when Cy Young voting comes around, but for a first place team the only votes that count are for who’s picking up the tab at the post-World Series gala.

The American League East:

Early in the season, the Baltimore Orioles ruled this roost with an iron beak. However, their suspect pitching and injuries finally caught up and the Boston Red Sox are back on top. Currently, the Red Sox have a 3 game lead over the Baltimore Orioles, a 3.5 game over the Yankees and a 4.5 game lead over the Blue Jays. With the talent each one of those teams possesses, the American League East could be a barnburner come late August. However, as of now it’s the defending champs that preside over the AL East and are leading the way by simply bashing the opposition’s heads in. With 464 runs scored, no other team besides the Bombers and the Home Run happy Rangers, are even on the same run-scoring planet; and the scary part is, the team didn’t heat up at the plate until the last month of so. This lineup is stuffed to the gills from top to bottom. Johnny Damon sits atop this pantheon of offensive absurdity with an average of .336 and leads the team with over one-hundred hits. Once he gets on base, opposing pitchers to look forward to the meat-swinging ogres that clog up the middle of the Terry Francona’s lineup card. David Ortiz is listed at 230 Ibs…yeah right, and once Manny Ramierz retires he might be considered the most prolific run-producer in major league history. This team doesn’t have stellar starting pitching, but Curt Schilling is on his way back. If he is anything like he was last year down the stretch, the Red Sox may make this division a laugher after all.

Team MVP/Johnny Damon – His twenty-five walks are awfully low and his .380 OBP is nothing special. But let’s face it, when was the last time the Red Sox did anything conventionally. As stated above, the Red Sox and their offensive Blitzkrieg begins with Johnny Damon. He is tied with Michael Young for most hits (112) in the American League and trails only Derek Jeter for most runs (64). However, it’s not just the numbers that make a team MVP. Damon is a leader, and he is the Sox leader. With the recent passing over of Mike Timlin as the teams closer, who was it that spoke up on behalf of his friend and risked the alienation of the teams Ace, Curt Schilling? Yes, Johnny Damon. I know lots of you out there are shaking your heads in disbelief because I’m not getting on my knees and praising Jason Varitek with my remaining article space, but here’s why. Sure, it can be said that Clement is having the year he is because of Varitek’s tutelage and sure they resigned him ($40 million) for more than he is worth because of his leadership abilities; but it’s been the vocal Damon, with his long hair and reckless play in centerfield who sparked the Sox lineup through their early season struggles. The trade rumors? Only rumors. The Sox know how valuable Johnny Damon is too their team, and without him, the American League East would be a whole lot tighter.

Fantasy MVP/David Ortiz – As stated before, at the time of his retirement, Manny Ramirez might be remembered as the most consistent run-producer in the history of baseball. This year Manny has struggled, but still leads the majors in RBI’s and among the leaders in, oddly, outfield assists. *Cue Peter Gammons* “But”, for pure fantasy statistics, the mid-season trophy belongs to David Ortiz. Representing the Dominican Republic, one of the most baseball and prospect rich countries on the planet, in the Home Run Derby, Ortiz has the most pure and natural homerun swing among the group. Initially, in April and June, he helped Boston get through the lean times with nine games of two RBI or more. Now that the pressure of having to chase Baltimore is over, the Sox fun-living cleanup hitter is just having fun. Watching from the cheap seats at Ameriquest Field last week, I saw Ortiz hit a baseball so far, I thought it has transcended time and space and opened up a worm- hole, calmly plopping the baseball somewhere on the beaches of the South African coast. David Ortiz is going to finish the 2005 season with an average of .320, 45 home runs and 150 RBI’s. The fascinating this about Ortiz is that his plate coverage isn’t as good as say a Vlad Guerrero or Juan Gonzalez circa 1994, but his keen batting eye allow him to annihilate left-handed pitches at an even greater frequency (.330) than he does right-handers (.306).

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