The question: If a baseball season kicks off a week early with two games played in Japan, does it make a sound?

The answer: Yes. Kinda. Sorta.

The baseball season is upon us, but because we had to wake up super early to watch the games and because we couldn’t watch any of it first hand, it seems like maybe the A’s-Red Sox series was all a dream. It’s like when a restaurant or a casino opens with a “soft opening” serving only friends, family and VIP customers for the first week. Technically, they’re open. But not really.

While we’re waiting for the 2008 season to officially start, we here at Umpbump thought we’d make a few predictions about how things will unfold. Feel free to use these predictions as ammo to discredit us in the future.

Coley’s Picks:

NL East: Braves
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Diamondbacks

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Tigers
AL West: A’s
AL Wild Card: Yankees

NL Rookie of the Year: Hiroki Kuroda
AL Rookie of the Year: Evan Longoria

NL CY Young: Aaron Harang
AL CY Young: Rich Harden

NL MVP: David Wright
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez

Sarah’s Picks:

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Phillies

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Tigers
AL West: Mariners
AL Wild Card: Yankees

NL Rookie of the Year: Johnny Cueto
AL Rookie of the Year: Jacoby Ellsbury

NL CY Young: Johan Santana
AL CY Young: Josh Beckett

NL MVP: David Wright
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez

Alejandro’s Picks:

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Braves

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: White Sox
AL West: Mariners
AL Wild Card: Tigers

NL Rookie of the Year: Kosuke Fukudome
AL Rookie of the Year: Alexei Ramirez

NL CY Young: Johan Santana
AL CY Young: Rich Harden

NL MVP:David Wright
AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera

Nick’s Picks:

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Cubs

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Tigers
AL West: A’s
AL Wild Card: Red Sox

NL Rookie of the Year: Kosuke Fukudome
AL Rookie of the Year: Daric Barton

NL CY Young: Dan Haren
AL CY Young: Justin Verlander

NL MVP: Ryan Braun
AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera

Paul’s Picks:

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Brewers

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: Indians
AL West: Angels
AL Wild Card: Red Sox

NL Rookie of the Year: Kosuke Fukudome
AL Rookie of the Year: Daric Barton

NL CY Young: Johan Santana
AL CY Young: C.C. Sabathia

NL MVP: Ryan Braun
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez

This isn’t a list of who I think will be the best teams in 2008. It’s a list of the teams I think will be the most fun to watch, from as objective a standpoint as possible. The teams at the top of this list have something that the French call…I don’t know what. The teams at the bottom? Not so much.

1. Yankees — They’re playing their final season in Yankees Stadium. They’re trying to win with a ton of young pitching. They’ve got A-Rod gunning for a fourth MVP award, while dodging steroid accusations. Giambi is trying to prove that he can be useful, even without the drugs. Abreu is in a contract year and, by all accounts, is taking the game seriously for the first time in his life. And the new Steinbrenners have thus far been wonderful, magical chips off the old block.

2. Nationals — Dukes. Dmitri. Milledge. Lo Duca. All on the same team. Washington will be many things, but not boring.

3. Cubs — The Red Sox and White Sox have both broken their curses. This could be the Cubs’ year. I saw the Cubs play the White Sox in Tucson this spring and I have to say, Cubs fans are the best. They’re super loyal and they walk around wearing t-shirts that say things like, “1989 NL East Champions,” like anybody cares that they were the second best team in the NL 20 years ago. One girl, who couldn’t have been any older than 19, came up to my friend, who was wearing a Yankees jersey, and started berating him and the Bombers, cursing up a blue streak and accusing New York of buying all their championships (as if current Cubs ownership isn’t trying to do the same). Then she asked him — nay, ordered him — to buy her a beer.

4. Tigers — It’s going to be fun to watch these guys hit. But can they pitch? It’s a safe bet that Verlander is going to get his wins. How well Bonderman pitches (particularly in the first inning of games, where he’s been atrocious) will probably determine whether this team goes the distance.

5. Indians — The Tribe had a big year in 2007, buoyed by strong seasons from C.C. Sabbathia and Fausto Carmona. Can C.C. keep carrying the load? Will Hafner rebound from a so-so year?

6. Diamondbacks — This team confounded experts last year, winning the division despite the fact that they gave up more runs than they scored. This year, Arizona’s young guns are a year older and ready to show that last year wasn’t a fluke. Plus, they added Dan Haren.

7. Dodgers — Will Torre play the young guys (Ethier, Kemp, Loney)? Or will he stick with the veterans (Nomar, Pierre)? The answer to that question could decide whether the Dodgers make the postseason — and whether Jeff Kent’s head explodes.

8. Mets — They’re trying to rebound from an epic collapse. Running Johan Santana out to the mound every five games should help. Also, will David Wright finally get his MVP Award this season? He should have won last year.

9. Phillies — The Phils won the NL East last year. They have not one, not two, but THREE MVP candidates, as well as one of the most exciting young pitchers in the game (Cole Hamels). And they’re still not the favorites to win the division. But don’t tell them that. Jimmy Rollins thinks this year’s team could win 100 games and manager Charlie Manuel thinks they could break a team record for most runs scored.

10. Red Sox — They didn’t do much this offseason. But, then again, they didn’t have to. Will Manny have a big contract year? Will Beckett stay healthy? Will Jacoby win the Rookie of the Year? Will Schilling’s diet work? If the Sox win the World Series this season, they will officially achieve dynasty status. But with injuries to J.D. Drew, Beckett and Schilling there are already a lot of question marks.

11. Reds — They’ve got a shot at the postseason, provided they get big contributions from rookies Bruce and Votto. Only problem is, one half of that duo is currently toiling in AAA. Will the Reds stay afloat long enough for Bruce’s midseason call-up to matter?

12. Rockies — They went to the World Series last season on the strength of an otherworldly hot streak. Nobody’s picking them to get there again in 2008. Will they prove the skeptics wrong? Will Tulo suffer a sophomore slump (He’s hit six homers so far this spring)? Will Halladay win the MVP?

13. Braves — Do Chipper and the gang have one last playoff run in them? We’ll find out. As a Phillies fan, I’m legitimately scared of this Braves team. But Atlanta fans will have to learn how to eat with their feet, considering they’re going to have all their fingers crossed hoping Hampton, Smoltz and Chipper stay healthy.

14. Brewers — They’re bound to make the playoffs one of these years, right? Now that Prince is a vegetarian, I say they’re a lock. Also, it’s going to be awesome watching Ryan Braun play defense for an entire season in the bigs.

15. Cardinals — They’ve got Rick Ankiel and (for the moment) Juan Gonzalez, plus Pujols’ elbow is going to tear any day now. This team is full of intrigue — though more than a little light on talent.

16. Rays — They have this year’s leading AL Rookie of the Year candidate. Problem is, they just sent him to the minors. The Rays are probably a year or two away from winning the East, but they can make things interesting.

17. Giants — The Giants will be bad. But will they be historically bad? When Bengie Molina is your cleanup hitter, you know it’s going to be a long year. I think this team can lose 110 games.

18. A’s — The experts have picked the A’s to tank. The computers have picked them to finish first. Who will be proven right? If the A’s win the AL West, Billy Beane can start writing his Hall of Fame induction speech.

19. Mariners — They traded future star Adam Jones for strikeout machine Erik Bedard. And they signed groundball pitcher Carlos Silva. But the real question is how long will they leave Jose Vidro at DH? He sucks!

20. Angels — They said they needed to get some protection for Vlad in the lineup, so they went out and signed Torri Hunter. As protection goes, that’s right up there with jumping up and down after sex.

21. Rangers — The ONLY reason they’re this high on the list is I’m super psyched to see if Josh Hamilton will carry his hot spring into the regular season. I saw this guy play in spring training. He tagged-up and went from first to second on a flyball to center and I swear I’ve never seen anybody move so fast. Plus he has tattoos.

22. Padres — At some point this season, they could have a rotation featuring Peavy, Young, Maddux, Prior and Wolf. That would be fun.

23. Astros — Ed Wade is out to prove his critics wrong. Unfortunately, there is virtually no chance that Houston will win the Central, but Hunter Pence is an exciting player. And I’m really curious to see if Jose Valverde can repeat last year’s dominance.

24. Marlins — Another year, another rebuild. But the Fish still have some exciting young players. They probably won’t win the East, but they’ll make it interesting. Look for a breakout year from Scott Olsen (followed by an SI story where he expresses his disdain for all the Jews, Cubans and gays in Miami).

25. Twins — Delmon Young finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting and then got traded. Will he finally learn to be a more patient hitter? Will Francisco Liriano return to form? Will Morneau put together an MVP season? Will Mauer stay healthy? So many questions.

26. Royals — They hired a manager straight out of Japan. Plus, they’re bringing back the powder blue unis!

27. White Sox — Kenny Williams thinks his team can win the AL Central. He’s pretty much the only one. Chicago’s other team should have started rebuilding two years ago.

28. Pirates — Jason Bay will have a big year. He knows he’s only going to get traded if he builds up his trade value. And he wants to get traded. Wouldn’t you?

29. Blue Jays — They’re also bringing back the powder blue unis. And they’ve got David Eckstein.

30. Orioles — They are going to finish in last place. It’s going to be ugly.

With the regular season starting just one week from today—when the Red Sox play the A’s in Tokyo—it’s time to take a look at what milestones players could achieve this year and how probable they are.

Probable:

Ken Griffey Jr.’s 600th home run. Junior has 593 jacks and is a lock for notching No. 600 this year. Plus, he needs 116 more bases to hit 5,000 total bases. He had more than 200 in each of the past three seasons, so unless he suffers a truly hideous injury, he should also surpass this mark easily.

Manny Ramirez’s 500th home run. Manny has 490 regular season dingers heading into this year. It’s not a question of whether he’ll hit that 500th round tripper, but when. I’m predicting late May, possibly early June if he has a slow start.

Gary Sheffield’s 500th home run. He’s got 480 right now. He’ll knock in No. 500 sometime in August.

Chipper Jones’ 400th home run. He needs just 14 more to hit the mark, and he has never had a season in the bigs with fewer than 20.

Juan Pierre’s 400th stolen base. The man steals an average of 54 per season, and swiped 64 last year. Plus, he’s played 162 games for the last five seasons running. Think he’ll be able to get the 11 more he needs to reach 400? Yeah, so do I.

Francisco Cordero’s 200th save. I think saves are sort of a stupid stat, but it’s still a benchmark. Of something. He needs 23 to get there. (Note: So does Eric Gagne. See below.)

John Smoltz’s 3,000th strikeout. He needs 25. For Smoltz, that’s, like, four mediocre starts.

Greg Maddux’s 5,000th inning. He needs 185 and two-thirds to get there. The man’s a horse. He’ll get ‘er done (and log his 20,000th batter faced in the process).

Tim Wakefield’s 100th wild pitch. He’s just 8 away, he throws a knuckleball, and his personal catcher just got released. Enough said.

Tom Glavine’s 200th loss. He’s at 199 right now. This is as close to a lock as preseason predictions get.

Possible:

Randy Johnson’s 300th win. Last year, when Tom Glavine notched his 300th victory, certain sportswriters wondered whether we’d ever see such a feat again. But it could happen as soon as this year, as the Big Unit needs just 16 more victories to get there. Yeah, he only had 4 last year. But in the three previous seasons, when he was 40, 41, and 42, he had 16, 17, and 17, respectively. Wonder why he keeps having back surgery? This milestone is why. He’ll keep coming back until he hits that nice, round number—if not this year, next year. The D-Backs are a good, young team, and they’ll help him get there.

Andruw Jones’ 400th home run. He needs 32 to get there, and has had five seasons with more than that number. On the other hand, he’s also logged five seasons with fewer. Toss-up.

Vladimir Guerrero’s 400th home run. Vlad needs 35 to get it done, which would be a very good year for him. However, it’s entirely possible—especially in a lineup strengthened by Torii Hunter.

Omar Vizquel’s 400th stolen base. Yes, he’s lost a step with age. But the odds are even on him snagging the 20 he needs to reach the milestone.

Eric Gagne’s 200th save. Can he get 23? The man he’s replacing in Milwaukee will do it (see above) but the French Canadian hurler hasn’t saved even 20 games since 2004. On the other hand, ‘04 marked a three-year period in which he logged 152 saves. Anything could happen.

Tom Glavine’s 700th start. He needs 31, and the last time he had fewer was in 1995. On the other hand, he’ll be 42 this season and could run utterly out of gas.

Randy Johnson’s 100th complete game. He only needs two more, but he did snag two in 2006, four in 2005, and four in 2004. It’s surprisingly possible.

Improbable:

Barry Bonds’ 3000th hit. It seems unlikely, at this point, that the indicted Barry will find employment this season, forcing him to retire just 65 hits shy of this storied benchmark (he had 94 last year in 126 games). He’ll also retire just 14 games short of 3,000 and 4 RBI short of 2,000. (Crazy side note: Barry Bonds is the active leader with 688 intentional walks. Who is number two? Ken Griffey Jr….with 230. Wow.)

Roger Clemens’ 5,000th inning. It seems that the Rocket has retired for good this time. He’s forever going to be 83 and a third from 5,000.

Johnny Damon’s 100th triple. Okay, this is a bit silly. There’s no “100 triples” club. But Damon, 33, is third on the active list of leaders in triples (after fortysomethings Steve Finley and Kenny Lofton) and needs just 13 three-baggers to break the century mark. The odds of him doing it this year are extremely slim—his legs just aren’t what they were when he was in his 20s—but he could definitely do it next year.

Jeff Kent’s 400th home run. Like Guerrero, he needs 35. However, Kent has only hit that many once his his career. If Kent wants to reach 400, the 40-year old will have to hang around another year. That shouldn’t be a problem for the man whose watchword has long been durability.

Jason Giambi’s 400th home run. Once, Giambi seemed a lock for reaching this milestone. But once, he was on the juice. He needs 36 homers, which isn’t out of the realm of possibility. I just don’t think he’s healthy enough to get there this year.

You can put your over-unders in the comments section. If you’re right on the money, and we remember to check back in October, you might get an UmpBump sticker! Oooh, swag!

It’s Hall of Fame Week at Umpbump. We’ll be taking a look at the guys on the ballot and giving you our take on who does and doesn’t belong in Cooperstown. Making his 14th appearance on the HOF ballot: Jim Rice, one of the most dominant hitters of any 10-year period. But did his career have the longevity to get him the brass plaque?

I know that Jim Rice’s career numbers make him a borderline candidate for the Hall of Fame. I know that, if selected, those numbers would put him in the bottom quartile. But you know what? Someone has to be. We can’t all be valedictorians. We can’t all win gold medals. We can’t all date Angelina Jolie. Some of us have to be in the bottom half of the class. Someone has to win the bronze. Someone has to end up with Jennifer Aniston. Why not Jim Rice?

Because although Jim Rice’s 16 years in the majors are on the short side for the Hall, Jim Ed’s fast rise, complete dominance during his prime, and durability for most of those years should be enough to make up for that. No, he did not manage to hang on through his late 30s, and thus could not pad his career offensive numbers like so many other HOFers. And yet, if I may be forgiven for quoting my own article from last week’s Boston Metro:

In 1975, he was one of many glorious Red Sox rookies and finished third in MVP voting and second in the Rookie of the Year tally. In ’77, ’78 and ’79, he was in his prime. He hit more than 35 homers in each of those three years, while also collecting over 200 hits — the only major-league player to ever accomplish that feat.

Six times did Rice finished in the top five in the MVP balloting. Eight times was Rice elected an All-Star. And perhaps most impressive to me, twice did Rice break his bat on a checked swing alone. An ash bat. In the pre-steroids era. Yes, Rice had a temper, but so did many other Hall of Famers. In Rice’s defense, it can’t have been easy working for a deeply racist organization—an organization that was the last major league club to integrate and which, for season after season, would only field one African American player at a time. Add the fact that Boston is a tough media town, and you have a recipe for surliness. There’s the famous incident in which he strode into the stands at Yankee stadium to get his hat back from the impertinent fan who had to foolishly swiped it. But he also entered the stands on another, less noted occasion: in Fenway, when a child had been struck by a foul ball. He carried the boy into the clubhouse for treatment.

And for those who say that Rice had no speed? In 1975, his rookie season, he led the team in steals. Sure, he only had 10—but then, the Red Sox organization has never been known for encouraging the stolen base. But to accuse him of no speed? In 1978, he led the majors in triples. During the same annus mirabilis, he also led baseball in homers and RBI—and he’s the only player to ever lead baseball in triples, homers, and RBI. That year also made him one of only a handful of players to collect 400 total bases in a season—putting him in the company of Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron. In fact, though Rice is now remembered as a lead-footed, perennially injured slugger, he was actually possessed of the rare ability to hit for both power and average. Though his lifetime batting average of .298 and 382 total home runs may not look like much on their own, look at them together and the impact is powerful: out of all retired players, Rice ranks tenth in terms of batting average and homers. Needless to say, those players (Hank Aaron, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Mel Ott, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams) are all in the Hall of Fame.

As for his defense, which is either overlooked or derided, Paul White at BaseballLibrary has done a nice job of applying modern defensive stats to Rice’s glove, and showing that his numbers weren’t substantially different from his outfield contemporary, eight-time Gold Glove winner Dwight Evans:

Rice’s career range factor was 2.10, Evans’ was 2.11. Rice’s career total of Fielding Runs, as calculated by Total Baseball, was 71; Evans’ was 76. Rice threw out a baserunner once every 11.3 games he played in the outfield; Evans did so once every 13.7 games.

Sure, Evans made fewer errors and Fenway’s right field is more difficult than its left field. Nonetheless, let this put to rest the unfair accusation that Rice’s “poor defense” should keep him out of Cooperstown.

Many have looked at Rice’s numbers, and seen his name included on the ballot every year for fourteen years, and wondered why he continues to garner enough votes to stay on that ballot—while somehow always falling short of never the support needed to actually be elected. Are the same old codgers who may have gotten the rough side of Rice’s tongue now bearing grudges against the slugger-turned-hitting coach-turned-broadcaster? I hope not. Because no Red Sox has worn Jim Ed’s number 14 since he retired. In a decade that saw few excellent hitters and even fewer excellent power hitters, he was the best. He was the last man any pitcher wanted to see stepping into the batter’s box with the game on the line. And the Red Sox are just waiting for Cooperstown to call. And as soon as they do—if they do—number 14 will hang in right field forever.

Yesterday, the 2007 Rawlings Gold Glove winners were announced. But to us here at UmpBump, they looked more like fools’ gold than the real, 24-karat deal.  The official winners:

AL: 1B Kevin Youkilis; 2B Placido Polanco; SS Orlando Cabrera; 3B Adrian Beltre; OF Grady Sizemore, Torii Hunter, and Ichiro Suzuki; C Ivan Rodriguez; P Johan Santana.

NL: 1B Derrek Lee; 2B Orlando Hudson; SS Jimmy Rollins; 3B David Wright; OF Carlos Beltran, Andruw Jones, and (tied) Aaron Rowand and Jeff Francoeur; C Russell Martin; P Greg Maddux.

After some heated emailing late yesterday and early today, UmpBump staff has agreed that most of this hardware got misdirected (shocking!). Who got overlooked and who deserved it? Let’s go posish-by-posish, league by league, deserving by undeserving.

American League

Deserving: First base has been ably commanded by Kevin Youkilis this year, who did not make a single error in the regular season. In fact, he hasn’t made a regular-season error at first base since July of 2006. That is hot. Now, we know that errors aren’t the most accurate measure of defensive ability—they are a flawed stat that measures what didn’t happen, instead of what did happen—but that’s a remarkable streak and deserves to be recognized. And, as Red Sox manager Terry Francona mentioned, it’s only Youk’s first full year at the position! That makes this award a remarkable upset, since these things are usually so politicized. (Paul adds that a case could be made for Casey Kotchman.) Also deserving, in my view, is shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who finally (finally!) ousts Derek Jeter from his undeserved status as the voters’ perpetual favorite. And though Placido Polanco doesn’t have as much range as some of the other second basemen in the league (namely, as Paul points out, Mark Ellis), he also put up an errorless season, which earns him a tip of the hat (or in this case, glove).

Undeserving: The most egregious inclusion is third baseman Adrian Beltre: even if you don’t look at his fancier defensive stats (which the managers and coaches who vote on this almost certainly don’t), the man still made 18 errors this season! (Coming the year after Mike Lowell was snubbed, making just 6 errors at third, this is just rubbing salt in the wound. Big grains of salt.) This year, I would have gone with Melvin Mora. Paul didn’t think Beltre was a terrible choice, but adds, “Brandon Inge has a right to be pissed.” Speaking of a right to be pissed, how about the outfielders? One thing that has always annoyed me is the way the outfielders are chosen, at-large instead of position-by-position (same with All-Star balloting). In my view,  right to left, the best defensive outfield in the AL would be composed of Mark Teahen (tons of assists), Coco Crisp (duh), and Carl Crawford (Rays never get any love). Some (Coley and Paul) felt that Curtis Granderson had been snubbed, but I submit that while his range is similar to Coco’s, he also made 5 errors to Coco’s 1. In the at-large system, though, he’d get my nod over Crawford. Sizemore and Hunter aren’t *bad* in the outfield, but they clearly don’t have the defensive ability that Granderson and Crisp do. And finally, the battery: I would have gone with youngun Fausto Carmona, who actually fielded his position quite well this year. Despite a few bobbles, he got to more balls than most other starting pitchers. As for Pudge Rodriguez’s inclusion on the list, that’s just force of habit on the part of the voters—I think Victor Martinez actually deserved it more.

National League

Deserving: There’s nothing wrong with picking Carlos Beltran. Russell Martin caused us some pause, but ultimately fell into the “deserving” camp. Though he had the most errors of any NL catcher this season, he also had the most caught-stealing, double-plays, and assists.

Undeserving: Derek Lee was the clearest outlier on the list. We thought Todd Helton had it locked up. (In fact, despite setting an MLB record for team fielding percentage this season, the Rockies didn’t get a single Gold Glove.) Pujols would have been a respectable choice at first, as well. At second, Orlando Hudson isn’t a terrible choice, but Chase Utley or even Freddie Sanchez would have been better. At shortstop, even Philly Phanatic Coley couldn’t support giving the trophy to Jimmy Rollins over Troy Tulowitzki, who was pretty much our unanimous selection. Continuing around the infield, David Wright’s win at third base gives him more leverage to stay at his position if A-Rod becomes a Met, but did he really deserve it? I think Paul spoke for all of us when he said, “How can you deny Pedro Feliz??” In the outfield, despite naming four winners because of a tie between Rowand and Francoeur, the voters still managed to leave out some key names. In my view, Francoeur has no business being on that list, and Rowand’s presence is debatable. Nick nominates Kearns and Holliday to the list of contending outfielders, and possibly Soriano.  As for the pitchers, well, is anyone surprised when Maddux wins anymore? Certainly not Nick, who agreed with that pick. But Paul wrote, “Any guy who votes for Greg Maddux is just plain lazy.” Let me put it this way: Maddux isn’t a bad pick. But Tim Hudson might have been a better one.

And as you may have heard, there is only one October. There is also only one postseason, and unless we are sorely mistaken, the Fall Classic is equally singular. And folks, it starts today. Thus, in today’s Boston Metro column, I (naturally) pick the Red Sox to win the 2007 World Series.

I had originally set out to do the kind of point-by-point comparison I’d done before: Rox versus Sox in the various categories of pitching, defense, baserunning, and offense. But I was stymied at every turn once I tried to get beyond the barest of bones. The NL and the AL have so diverged, it’s hard to make any meaningful comparisons between them with traditional stats. And when you’re also trying to take into account the park factor with Coors Field and Fenway Park, well, it’s was an exercise in futility.

I guess we’ll just have to let baseball decide. May the best team win!

Comparisons may be odious. But dang it, they make great bar conversations. And few topics fuel debate more than comparing the inherent value/abilities of baseball players.

Since the American League Most Valuable Player in 2007 is ABSOLUTELY NOT UP FOR DEBATE (and if you somehow disagree with this absolute, you deserve a karate chop to the throat), we will move on to the National League MVP. Paul argues in favor of David Wright, while Coley touts the virtues of Matt Holliday.

PAUL SAYS:

Although the regular season has come and gone, it still seems that the general answer to the question “Who’s the NL MVP?” can vary daily. Simply put, there are far too many candidates. There’s Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins in Philadelphia. Chipper Jones had a tragically overlooked season for the Braves. There’s Prince Fielder for Milwaukee, Matt Holliday in Colorado, Hanley Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera for the Fish, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes in New York, and no MVP conversation is complete without mentioning Albert Pujols.

With so many candidates, I’m not going to bother going through each player’s credentials here. But I will explain why I feel that David Wright should be (but won’t be because putting numbers into context is too hard for BBWAA members to understand) your 2007 NL MVP.

The detractors will point to the fact (and perhaps fairly) that David Wright does not lead the league in anything that’s easy to compute. “Homeruns are the best a hitter can do, right? Then Wright can’t be the best because he only hit 30. And scoring runs are good too. He only brought home 103 of those!” But context, people, context!

Let’s begin with Park Factor. David Wright plays in the National League East – home of the pitcher’s park. Four of the five stadiums are disadvantageous to hitters. And looking at two ways to measure these things (at Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN), it appears that Shea may be the toughest of them all. This puts Wright at a severe disadvantage in terms of power numbers when compared to those who play in hitter’s parks such as Wrigley, Coors, Minute Maid, Great American, Chase, and Citizens Bank. Luckily for us, people far smarter than I have created ways to help equalize these numbers.

By now, I think most baseball fans have at least heard of things like Win Shares or VORP, either as respectable tools for evaluation or as the thing that’s destroying the very fiber of everything we’ve ever held dear. But as a quick recap, Win Shares was devised to calculate how much each individual player contributed (both offensively and defensively) to their team’s wins. Wright led the NL in Win Shares this year with 34, with Pujols behind him with 32. Basically, this means that Wright’s contributions to the Mets’ total number of wins outweighs that of any other player in the National League.

For VORP, Wright placed second behind Hanley Ramirez (who had an amazing offensive season) which is even more impressive once you consider that VORP does not calculate defensive value – an area that strongly divides Ramirez (arguably the worst defensive shortstop in MLB in 2007) and Wright (one of the best defensive 3rd baseman in the NL).

Then there’s Runs Created, another one of these wacky numbers made popular by Bill James, where we see literally how many runs scored were a direct result of each player’s offensive contributions. Wright leads the NL here too, barely over Miguel Cabrera (136 to 135), but again, when you take defense into account, Wright truly was the better player in 2007.

Lastly, Runs Above Average. This is a metric that figures out how many runs a player either created offensively or prevented defensively when compared to their positional peers. In 2007, David Wright was responsible for 73 Runs Above Average, which by far and away was tops in the NL (Pujols comes in second again with 60 RAA).

In 2007, David Wright did everything anyone could ask of him as an individual player. He hit for a very high average (.325), was one of the best at not making outs (.416 OBP), had 30 HRs and 34SBs (with an excellent stolen base success rate of 87%), hit with runners in scoring position (.310 AVG, .975 OPS), and played a very good 3rd base (he led all MLB 3rd baseman in the number of plays made outside of his zone. By a lot.). By pretty much all sabermetric measurements, David Wright was the best player in the 2007 National League.

COLEY SAYS:

Paul, I notice you’ve listed a lot of really good reasons why David Wright should be the NL MVP.

But I also notice you’ve omitted all the reasons why he shouldn’t. Like, for example, the fact that he played for the New York Mets.

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This year, the Cy Young debate is hardly a debate at all. It seems like a forgone conclusion that Jake Peavy will take home the hardware for the NL, while C.C. Sabathia will be the AL pitcher clearing off his mantel. I suppose I can agree with that. Thus, this post will be dedicated to acknowledging this year’s also-rans.

In the NL, Peavy’s 19-6 record, 223.1 IP, 240 K’s, and 2.54 ERA are hot indeed. But Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks made the same number of starts (34) and pitched more innings (236.1) leading to a few more decisions (18-10). Of course, his ERA is higher (3.01) and his strikeouts were fewer (194). I feel I also ought to mention Brad Penny of the Dodgers and John Smoltz of the Braves. Neither was good enough to be the NL Cy this year, of course, but they still put up good numbers. In fact, their numbers were eerily similar to one another’s. Except, of course, for Smoltz’s better strikeout rate. And we throw a tiny scrap in the direction of Aaron Harang of Cincinnati, for being the Chien-Ming Wang of the NL. Only, because he doesn’t pitch for the Yankees, his name hasn’t been bandied about at all. I’m sure he feels, if not harangued (ha) then at least a bit forlorn.

In the AL, Cleveland’s Sabathia has been a beast. 241 innings pitched! 34 starts! 209 strikeouts! Only 37 walks! And his 3.21 ERA ain’t too shabby either. Plus, I’m sure Cleveland is very happy with the 19-7 record. And he seems determined to single-handedly revive the lost art of the complete game. Of course, he wasn’t exactly masterful against the Yankees in Game 1 of the ALDS, but he was good enough to get by. But our sympathies should really extend to Fausto Carmona. If he hadn’t been so overshadowed by the No. 1 starter on his own team, we might be talking about him for the Cy. His ERA is an even better 3.06, and though he pitched fewer innings (215 in 32 starts) and didn’t strike out nearly as many (137) or walk so few (61), his record is nearly identical at 19-8. Then there’s Josh Beckett of the Red Sox, the only 20-game winner during the regular season. No sign of fatigue, either, as he threw a complete-game shutout against the Angels in Game 1 of the ALDS. His 194 K’s and 40 walks in 200.2 innings (in 30 starts) aren’t anything to sneeze at, and his ERA of 3.27 is perfectly decent. But even the nice, round number of 20 wins isn’t quite enough to dislodge C.C. from his throne. Finally, John Lackey has barely gotten a mention, even though he has the best ERA in the league (3.01) and a comparable record (19-9). His 224 IP in 33 starts are better than the other also-rans, and his 179 K’s and 52 walks are certainly comparable. Yet his candidacy barely got any airtime. No, people wanted to talk about Chien-Ming Wang instead. While Wang’s season was impressive, his numbers definitely put him at the bottom of the pack (see Aaron Harang, above). And we curtly nod in the direction of Scott Kazmir, who was the AL strikeout leader this season, but walked 89 batters and who couldn’t do better than 13-9 because of Tampa Bay’s atrocious bullpen. We also acknowledge Eric Bedard, whose monstrous 10.93 K/9 rate would surely have gotten him better than a 13-5 record were he not toiling away for the Orioles.

Remember, also-rans: there’s always next year.

Now that the 2007 season has come to a close, it’s time to parse the 2007 rookie class and separate the wheat from the chaff, the best from the rest, the cookies…from the crumbs.

American League

Cookie: Dustin Pedroia

My picking “Pedro” (as the guys on the team have christened him) should come as no surprise to regular readers of UmpBump. Quite simply, no other rookie has grown up as fast or as completely as the little man with the big swing. After a brutal first month in the majors, Dustin was hitting .182 at the end of April, and the ravening hordes of Red Sox Nation were calling for blood. Worse, veteran players on other teams were audibly laughing at him and his body-wringing swing during his at-bats.

They’re not laughing now. Pedroia finished the season with the best batting average of AL rookies (.317), the best OPS (.822), and the most runs scored (88). Though he only has seven stolen bases, he has the best stolen base percentage (0.88). And he’s one of the hardest batters to strike out in the league (just 42 K’s in 581 plate appearances, for a beautiful walk-to-strikeout rate of 1.12) . Such a rate of contact without a lot of power (just 8 homers on the season) must mean he grounds into a lot of double plays, right? Actually, no—Pedroia has done that just 8 times this season.

Defensively, Pedroia has been solid but not spectacular. This is an area where I believe his diminutive stature has hurt him—many a time I’ve seen him dive after a gapper, his 5′7″ frame fully extended, only to watch the ball sail just an inch past his wee arm. Nevertheless, he plays an acrobatic second base, epitomized by the amazing grab he made to save fellow rookie Clay Buchholz’s no-hitter.

In addition to his maturity on the field, Pedroia has also shown maturity off the field: after a brief hubbub early in the season when Alex Rodriguez through a multimilliondollar elbow at him to try and break up a double play, Pedroia’s mild comment (calling it “cheap” but also “no big deal”) got all kinds of airtime. And young Dustin promptly learned a valuable lesson: zip it.

For being the rookie to play the most like a big-leaguer, Dustin Pedroia deserves to be the American League Rookie of the Year.

Crumbs: Delmon Young, Reggie Willits, Josh Fields, Brian Bannister, Jeremy Guthrie.

Not that I think these guys are crummy players—just that it’s the crumbs they’ll get stuck with when Pedroia gets the cookie. Delmon Young has gotten a lot of attention as a potential ROY for knocking in 93 RBI, no mean feat (it doesn’t hurt that his average, which was .288 overall, jumps to .347 with runners in scoring position). However, the Tampa Bay left fielder has a hideous VORP (just 5.7, compared with Pedroia’s 36.0). And while Young gets props for playing in all 162 games this year, he instantly loses those props for failing to run out a grounder and being benched by his manager with just one game left to play. I know it’s hard to run out every ball when it’s the end of September and you play for the Devil Rays, but this is just the kind of immature incident that has gotten Young in trouble in the past. It’s not big-league. It’s bush-league.

Willits, left-fielder for the Angels, gets an honorable mention for having the best eye of the rookie class. Though it’s hard to strike out Pedroia, it’s hard not to walk Willits: a .391 OBP, 69 walks, and 4.44 pitches per plate appearance. Once he gets on, pitchers had better keep their eye on him, too—he had 27 steals this year. But he has absolutely no power—just 20 doubles and no homers.

Josh Fields should be an interesting guy to watch develop. The White Sox third baseman only played 100 games this year, which hurts his ROY status in my mind, but he’s an interesting combination of above-average defensive ability and power hitting. His average was just .244, yet he hit 23 homers and has a .480 slugging percentage. If he can learn some plate discipline (he had 125 strikeouts in those 100 games—yikes) he could be a real threat for Chicago.

As for the pitchers, Guthrie and Bannister, it’s hard to say what these kids would have done if they’d been on better teams (as opposed to the Orioles and the Royals, respectively). Bannister may not strike out a lot of people, but he doesn’t walk a lot of folks either. He was consistently good all year long, but especially effective June through August. Guthrie was a bit more uneven, but finished the year with comparable numbers. I don’t think either of them is the rookie of the year, but I’d sure like to have them on my team.

National League

Cookie: Troy Tulowitzki

The Rockies shortstop has really turned it on in the past week to help his team get to the playoffs, with a grand slam here, a triple there, a couple of doubles over there. But that’s nothing new for the newbie—he’s been playing well all season long. His .287 average, 24 homers, and 98 RBI make him a great offensive shortstop. Lucky for the Rockies, then, that they sacrifice absolutely nothing on defense: Tulowitzki has been the best defensive shortstop in the league this year.

Crumbs: Ryan Braun, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Hunter Pence, James Loney.

Ryan Braun, third baseman for the Brewers, has a drool-worthy amount of offense: .324 average, .634 slugging percentage, 1.004 OPS, and 34 homers. Those homers look even more amazing when you realize he played in just 113 games. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I feel bad about giving awards to guys who don’t play on an everyday basis, or close to it. I also feel bad handing out cookies to guys who are the worst at their positions, defensively. And Braun has been, hands down, the worst third baseman in the league this year. Sorry, Ryan. Even your husky VORP (57.2) isn’t enough to save you.

What about Hunter Pence, you ask? The Astros centerfielder put up some very good numbers—.322 average, 69 RBI, 17 homers, and nine triples in 108 games. He uses his speed well in the outfield, where he’s above average defensively, but I feel obliged to note that he has a harmful .69 stolen base percentage. Nevertheless, If he’d played in more games, he could have given Tulowitzki some real competition.

I also considered Kevin Kouzmanoff, the third baseman for the Padres. Alas, poor Kevin! He loses another heartbreaker to his Colorado foe. His offensive numbers are juuust a touch softer than Troy’s across the board. Plus, he’s right down there with Braun as a craptastic corner glove. Nevertheless, he was the only rookie besides Tulowitzki and Diamondbacks CF Chris “.237″ Young to play in more than 140 games, and that, plus his decent numbers, is enough to earn our consideration.

Finally, I feel obliged to give an honorary crumb to James Loney, the young Dodgers first baseman. Like Pence, if he’d played in more games (as opposed to just 96) he could have given Tulowitzki a run for his money. In three important categories, he achieved some impressive numbers: his .331 average, .381 OBP, and 114 runs scored. As two nice peripherals, his walk-to-strikeout rate was the best in the class at 0.58, as was his average with runners in scoring position—a whopping .419. And not that first base is a defensively demanding position, but it’s worth noting that he can hold his own there.

Loney, Pence, and Braun (move him to first base, somebody!) might not be your NL ROYs, but any of them could very well end up being your NL MVPs a few years hence.

Compared to last year, ranking the rookies for this season is pretty boring, since as Coley points out, most of the best rookies were in the NL, but even in the NL the choice is obvious given Ryan Braun’s utter dominance.

But I have been a bit surprised at some of the names that keep getting mentioned, as well as some of the names who haven’t been mentioned much.

So I decided to rank the top 15 rookies together in one group, including players from both leagues. Here is what I came up with:

1. Ryan Braun (NL)
2. Troy Tulowitzki (NL)
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka (AL)
4. Hunter Pence (NL)
5. Dustin Pedroia (AL)
6. Jeremy Guthrie (AL)
7. James Loney (NL)
8. Brian Bannister (AL)
9. Chris Young (NL)
10. Kyle Kendrick (NL)
11. Yovanni Gallardo (NL)
12. Peter Moylan (NL)
13. Reggie Willits (AL)
14. Joakim Soria (AL)
15. Hideki Okajima (AL)

Sure enough, 8 out of my top 12 rookies hail from the National League. Although I’m not sure if this necessarily means good things for inter-league balance, since the Red Sox and the Yankees are probably just going to sign away all these guys as soon as they hit free agency.

Also, as you can see, I agree with Coley’s contention that at least based on pure numbers, Troy Tulowitzki was really unlucky to have his rookie year in the same season as Ryan Braun. But in actuality I don’t really feel too bad for him, given that he benefitted greatly from playing half his games in Coors Field, posting a ridiculous .942/.720 home/road OPS split.

Hunter Pence had a heck of the year, hitting for both average and power and stealing bases as well, and even with his injury woes he still managed to play in 108 games and log 456 at-bats. He’s not the Rookie of the Year, but he has a heck of a future ahead of him.

After Braun, Dodgers first-baseman James Loney was actually the second-best rookie in the National League this season, and did get into 96 games, but couldn’t make as much of a contribution to his team as Pence or Tulowitzki since was pointlessly blocked for the first two months owing to Ned Colletti’s foolish decision to resign Nomar Garciaparra despite the fact that Loney led all of baseball in batting average at AAA in 2006.

Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone is even considering Delmon Young, and as you can see, I’ve left him off my list. In fact, he wouldn’t even make my top 20. Delmon Young led all rookies in at-bats with 654, yet only hit 13 home runs, walked a mere 26 times, and posted a woeful .723 OPS. 10 other rookies hit more home runs, most of them in far fewer at-bats. Out of the eight rookies who qualified for a batting title, five had a higher OBP than Young, including teammate Akinori Iwamura. The bottom line is, if you get 654 at-bats and OPS .723 as a corner outfielder, you are in fact severely hurting your team, even if you are a veteran. You are certainly not anywhere close to being the Rookie of the Year!

I’m also not sure why Hideki Okajima gets mentioned so much. Sure he had a great year, but Peter Moylan was by far the best rookie relief pitcher this year (although he was in the NL), and even in his own league Joakim Soria of the Royals put up nearly identical numbers while posting 17 saves to Okajima’s 5.

A guy who certainly deserves more consideration is D-Backs centerfielder Chris Young. He’s not the Rookie of the Year because his batting average and on-base percentage were atrocious, but he did contribute greatly at a defensive skill position while playing every day, and chipped in 32 home runs along with 27 stolen bases.

I’ve saved perhaps my most controversial call until last: I’m going to have to go with Daisuke Matsuzaka over Dustin Pedroia as my 2007 AL Rookie of the Year. First of all, I don’t buy the whole argument that Japanese players shouldn’t be eligible for ROY consideration given all their experience in Japan. Having watched a lot of Japanese baseball, I can say firsthand that it is nowhere near the level of the Majors. That’s why Matsuzaka’s ERA was 4.40 this year and not 2.35. Also, Matsuzaka was only 26, which isn’t really that old. If an American player gets lots of experience in the minors and then has a breakout season at 27 or 28, we don’t say he should be ineligible for the award.

But more importantly, Matsuzaka had a better year than Pedroia. Sure, he wasn’t *quite* as good as some of the more delierious Boston fans might have expected, but was still one of the better pitchers in the American League, posting 15 wins, pitching over 200 innings, and striking out 201 batters. Sure, Pedroia had a great season, but was he even the most valuable rookie on his own team? Put another way, would the Red Sox rather have played through this past season without Daisuke Matsuzaka, or without Dustin Pedroia? I think it’s clear that Matsuzaka made a greater contribution as a rookie in the AL.