Lucky Number Three

So it was the weirdest thing... It was the third day of March, and I was halfway through a six-pack of my Ommegang Three Philosophers. I had just returned home via the 3 train from my job at the rope factory, and was well into the George Clooney - Mark Wahlberg - Spike Jonze classic "Three Kings" when I heard the distinct clanging of a cowbell from my backyard.

I sprung to attention and lept to the backyard, only to hear three more clangings of the cowbell, and a strange, hobbit/witch hybrid creature appear in a puff of smoke.

In a gravelly, creaky and downright unsettling tone, this peculiar creature croaked, "You have 3's in your future. It has happened twice before, and your opportunity for the thrice shall appear within the fortnight..." I was about to quibble with this woman/hobbit abomination, but before I could get a word out, another three clangs on the cowbell and a puff of smoke. She was gone.

In her stead, a crow. Three caws and he too was gone.

I chalked this up to having had 3 large, heavily alcohol laden beers, but even under my most blotto conditions, never had I hallucinated crows and hobbit witches...

I spent the next several days at the ready, searching for any possible meanings for "the thrice" and coming up blank time after time. Soon thereafter, though, on the creepiest Friday the 13th I was ever to know, a flash of light blinded me as I walked the lonely streets of Brooklyn.

Across the street, in the distance, I noticed a bewildered man in strange dress. The strange was not the source of my interest, for in his hand, the man clutched a large starfish. All my life, for no apparent reason, I have harbored unnatural aversions to the most peculiar of sea-faring creatures, but have felt strangely compelled to them.

Drawn as though possessed by magnetism, I approached the frightened and bewildered man... I know that man... that is a Coxian visage if ever I saw him... He held in his other hand... THE WAGER!!!!

It was then that I knew my quest - I must summon forth from the depths of my being my list. My wager. That was the thrice. I had mustered the forethought and prognosticatory ability to master the Cox before, and as the hobbit-witch lady predicted, my chance for a third time now presented itself.

"Behold, Future Man! Your challenge is accepted. I shall prove to the Cox line, once and for all, the Jostian superiority over all things prognosticating. Shake in your futuristic boots, bionic boy!"

The Predictions

AL East:
1. Boston
2. New York
3. Tampa
4. Toronto
5. Baltimore

AL Central:
1. Cleveland
2. Minnesota
3. Detroit
4. Kansas City
5. Chicago

AL West:
1. Los Angeles
2. Oakland
3. Seattle
4. Texas

NL East:
1. New York
2. Philadelphia
3. Florida
4. Atlanta
5. Washington

NL Central:
1. Chicago
2. Milwaukee
3. Cincinnati
4. St. Louis
5. Houston
6. Pittsburgh

NL West:
1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco
3. Arizona
4. Colorado
5. Padres


Wild Card Teams:
AL: New York
NL: Milwaukee

Division Playoffs:
Yankees over Indians
Red Sox over Angels
Cubs over Dodgers
Mets over Brewers

AL Champions: Red Sox
NL Champions: Mets
World Series: Red Sox in 6

Batting Champ:
AL: Ichiro
NL: Chipper Jones

Home Run Champ:
AL: Mark Teixeira
NL: Ryan Howard

ERA Champ:
AL: Roy Halladay
NL: Johan Santana

Strikeout Champ:
AL: Tim Lincecum
NL: C.C. Sabathia

MVP:
AL: Grady Sizemore
NL: David Wright

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

Contest Rules

In order to reduce to writing the new, improved rules of the challenge before us, they are as follows:

The wager: One bottle of mid-grade spirits, to be chosen by the victor. No plastic jugs from the bottom shelf, no dusty bottles from the top shelf... somewhere in the 30-60 dollar range.

The rules: Each participant - Zaaq and BS - must choose the correct final standings of all divisions in the American League and National League, the Wild Card teams, the Division Series winners, the League Championship winners, and the World Series champ. Additionally, each participant must choose each league's MVP, Cy Young Winner, HR champ, Batting Average Champ, Strikeouts Champ and ERA champ (for starting pitching).

The point structure:

• One point for each correct slot picked - 30 total possible points
• 2 additional points for each division winner correctly picked - 12 points
• 5 additional points for each division completely correctly picked - 30 total points
• 2 points for picking the correct wild card teams - 4 total points
• 4 points for picking each correct divisional championship winner - 16 possible points
• 6 points for picking the correct league champion - 12 possible points
• 10 points for picking the world series winner - 10 possible points
• 1 point each for MVP, Cy Young, HR leader, Average leader, ERA leader and Ks leader - 12 possible points

Perfect season = 126 points

The Wager II - 2009 MLB Predictions

I work in a world you can't see. A world of nanotechnology surveillance. Robots, as small as skin cells and as numerous as gnats, fly around and feed visuals back to my head-set. I can direct each individual bot. In times of urgency, I can unleash an J.W.B. ( assassin bot) the size of a bumble bee to deliver a fatal dose of Ricin. It's not the most efficient poison, but we can always blame it on the Russians.

The off-hours were the best and I looked forward to them. Despair reached new heights on the street. Every seedy hell-hole was full of first-timers.

I had a place: below the grid and hidden astride the tight winding side-streets of Downtown. I liked it because it lacked identity. Never the same people. Never the same Gangs.

Slipping in the bar, I immediately spied my corner seat open. It had a view of the front door, a back to the wall, and a clear path to the kitchen and the rear exit. I was always a man who needed options.

Ordering a double Pappy Van Winkle and a tall-boy Chimay, I scanned the place. It was something I picked up after they shipped me overseas. When you do what I do for a living, you're always behind enemy lines. And when you're behind the lines, there's always a sniper.

The place looked clean. I knew all the employees. There were a group of kids wasting credits reenacting the Altamont concert on the Virtual Replicator towards the back. They were no worry. The Display Wall had the game on.

The New York Yankees versus the Oklahoma City Mariners. Great match-up. My family had made their fortune betting Baseball games against an obscure family of rope-binders from Seattle. Strangely the family of Jost was always willing to bet obscene amounts of money against their rope-binding business ( the entire Pacific Northwest live in Tree-Huts ). After an initial feint of betting weakness; we drew the truffle to our ravenous pig-snout. Baseball was in my blood, and in my credit card.

I was on my second Van Winkle, and the game was about to start, when a large man dressed in the dense wool and hemp of a Puget Sound sailor bellied up to the bar beside me. There were bits of sardines in his beard.

" Be you buying me a drink," he said. " A Laphroaig will do."

I have a full defense skin job. They sent millions of bots into my epidermis. A mother-fucker touches me and he's Tased. I get a nice tingling sensation. So I wasn't worried about the man.

The bartender brought the scotch. "Drink up", I said, and got up to leave.

"Now don't be hasty, my name's Jost". He stopped me dead in my tracks. "I've come a long way to bring you this". He had a Giant Starfish.

"What do you want"? I cloistered back beside him ready to pounce if his salty villainy would surface. "The bet has been made this year. I could kill you for trespassing on The Wager."

"But being I wasn't from this year?" He took his scotch and downed it like vodka. "Then what might you say? Your Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather sent me here with this beast. It has the ability to send one through time...if you feed it only turnips. Don't ask, your ancestors were fucked".

I ordered another round and the disheveled Mariner rapped on.

"Back in the year of 2009 your besotted ancestors forgot to include their baseball predictions in their letter to me family. By accident they had instead inserted detailed instructions for bizarre vegetable sex rituals. Grim stuff it be. And me thinks on purpose it might be."

At this point I fingered the bot injector in my pocket. I could inject this madman with a bot the size of a flea and once in contact with heat it would expand to the size of a grapefruit rupturing any vital arteries or organs around it. But there was a ring of truth to his backward speech. And I also had a turnip in my pocket.

"Me and mine were ready to declare victory once again until your damnable ancestors found in our original agreement a caveat at the bottom, in fine print, written backwards, in coded Sanskrit, upside down, scribed in stealthy ink only visible by firelight. Funny how that a seems to happen more than you'd think."

"So let me guess Stinky," I said. "My rocking ancestors who mastered time-travel sent you here to get me to pick the 2009 season. But couldn't I cheat and just check out the results? Why did you go forward in time instead of back"?

"Like I said, your ancestors were fucked. But they bred these giant crustaceans to have power over the minds of men, and once grasped even a lying scallywag like yourself must be true to their word. Now take your burden!" He shoved the Giant Starfish into my hands and instantly disappeared.

Looking down at the exposed underbelly of this strange beast, my mind swam. It's large beak, exposed and slowly clicking, hypnotized me. I felt myself falling, falling...falling.

I awoke in a daze. I was lying on the street as people strangely dressed stepped by without a second look. After gaining my bearings, I stood and took in my surroundings. I was aghast.

The cars, the buildings, everything around me was like the Holo-History in school. I would have believed I had been bushwhacked and thrown into a Sim-Player, but for the Giant Starfish still gripping my hand and my ability to touch the people passing by.

After multiple attempts to get someone to tell me the date, finally a young Mother told me my doom: Friday the 13th March 2009. I turned my face to the sky and let out a violent,"No!"

fin
( for now)

American League:

East
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Rays
4. Orioles
5. Jays

Central
1. Twins
2. Racist Logos
3. White Sox
4. Tigers
5. Royals

West
1. Angels
2.A's
3. Rangers
4. Mariners

National League:

East
1. Mets
2. Phillies
3. Braves
4. Marlins
5. Nationals

Central
1. Cubs
2. Cardinals
3. Brewers
4. Reds
5. Astros
6. Pirates

West
1. Dodgers
2. Diamondbacks
3. Giants
4. Rockies
5. Padres

Batting Champ

AL: Dustin Pedroia, Sox
NL: Albert Pujols, Cardinals

Home Run Champ

AL: Miguel Cabrera, Tigers
NL: Ryan Howard, Philles

ERA Champ

AL: Roy Halladay, Blue Jays
NL: Johan Santana, Mets

Strikeout Champ

AL: A.J. Burnett
NL: Tim Lincecum

MVP's

AL: Mark Teixeira, Yankees-1B
NL: Manny Ramirez, Dodgers-LF

Cy Young

AL: Jon Lester- Red Sox
NL: Johan Santana- Mets

Divisional Series:
AL: Yanks over Angels in 5 games
Red Sox over in Twins 3 games

NL: Mets over Dodgers in 3 games
Cubs over Phillies in 5 games

Championship Series:
AL: Yanks over Red Sox in 7 games
NL: Cubs over Mets in 6 games

World Series:

Yankees over Cubs in 5 games

All-Time Sox team (cause Bad Sunglasses ain't gonna do it...)

So I'm gettin mentally ready for the baseball season, and as such, I've decided to re-start the best all time teams. Knowing that Bad Sunglasses would rather be ritually disemboweled with a combination of a blunt rusty nail, a yard of razor wire and a giant slingshot (use your imagination) than to write up a Red Sox post, I'll take it upon myself..

So here we go:

C: Carlton Fisk - 7 time All Star with Sox of the Red variety, went on to cement his HOF career with a reinvention as more of a power hitter with the Sox of the White variety. In Boston, he had 6 seasons of 17 plus hrs, was an all-around solid player, and has the most famous hit in Red Sox history.
Best Season: 1977, .315/.402/.521, 26 HRs, 102 RBI.

1B: Jimmie Foxx - He of the double x. This guy might be one of the most underrated ball players in the history of the game. In his six full seasons with the Sox, he never had less than 100 rbi, never had a SLG of less than .500, and averaged 36 HRs.
Best Season: 1938, .349/.462/.704, 50 hrs, 175 rbi, 119 walks. Throw in another 41 extra base hits. WOW. A well deserved MVP, and has to rank among the best seasons all time. Sadly enough, doesn't even merit Foxx's best season, which was in 1932 with Philly.

2B: Bobby Doerr - 14 year Hall of Fame career, all with Boston produced a .288/.362/.461 line, as well as 8 consecutive seasons in the top 25 MVP standings. 6 seasons with 100+ RBI, OPS+ of over 100 for 12 straight seasons (finishing off his career.
Best Season: 1944, .325/.399/.528, OPS+ of 165, 10 triples, 15 hrs. Not shabby for a 2B, eh?

3B: Wade Boggs - THE hitting machine of the 80s, only one season below .302 in his 11 years in Boston, as well as only one season sub-400 OBP. Seems to have used the alleys in Fenway to his advantage, racking up 8 seasons of 40+ doubles. Yet another Hall of Famer.
Best Season: 1987, put up a .363/.461/.588, with 24 homers (a full 20% of his career homers) in only 147 games. Won the batting crown, had the highest OBP and OPS.

SS: Joe Cronin - This one was real tight - I'm going with Cronin in a bid to avoid starting the obvious roid monster Nomar Garciaparra. He put up some solid numbers in his time in Boston, but I'm going with the throwback guy. Cronin was the player/manager for the Sox for the duration of his 10 years on the field (managing for another 2 after that). His career line is a respectable .301/.390/.468, not bad for a SS. Oh yeah, and he's a Hall of Famer.
Best Season: 1938, where he put up .325/.428/.536, 18 HRs, and topping it off with at 135 OPS+.

OF: Ted Williams - Not much needs to be said here. Whole career spent in Boston, winning 2 MVPs, coming in second 4 times. Well known as last guy to hit .400 in a season - though he actually hit .400 in 2 other seasons (albeit very very short seasons). Check out this list of his OPS+ numbers, starting in his rookie season of 1939: 160, 162, 235, 217, 215, 205, 189, 192, 168, 165, 272(!!!), 267 (!!!), 201, 209, 172, 233, 179, 114, and 190. Seriously, his worst season ever he was still outslugging the league average.
Best Season: Gotta go with 1941, .406/.553/.735. Wow. Also, not only did he hit 400, but he clubbed 37 HRs and drove in 120.

OF: Carl Yaztremski - Had the unenviable task of starting in LF after Williams, but did alright for himself, putting together a HoF career. 23 seasons with the Sox, hit 40 plus HRs 3 times, had 22 double digit HR seasons.
Best Season: Monster year in 1967, walked away with the MVP for hitting .326, clubbing 44 HRs, SLG was over 600. Also stole 10 bases that year. Pretty well rounded player, this guy.

OF: Manny Ramirez - World class ego on this guy, but boy if he isn't one of the best pure hitters this generation has seen. The man has done nothing but munch on pitching his whole career. After a remarkable start in Cleveland, he came to Boston, averaged 36.5 HRs a year, never batted below .292, had only one season of less than 102 RBI. Crappy fielder, and seems to be a crappy negotiator, but he held court at the Monster there for a number of years.
Best Season: 2006, which is slightly lower in raw numbers than 2004, but actually is a better season, i think. .321/.439/.619, 165 OPS+, fewer SO than 06, More BB. I'd take him for my team...

DH: David Ortiz - Big Papi, famously a Rule 5 acquisition from the Twins... boy did he blossom. Always a little skeptical of him and the probability of the Roids, but he did seem to come up with the clutch hits when they were needed. Top 5 in the MVP voting for 5 years straight, ending with last year's injury riddled team. Has what appears to be a SLG line in Boston hovering right at .600. (Sad footnote... guess which NW seafaring team brought this guy up through the minors before trading him... blerg)
Best Season: I think it'd have to be 2006, where he hit .287/.413/.636, 54 HRs, 137 RBI.

SP:
Cy Young: Well, they did name the award after him. He really was that good.
Best Season: 1901, where he went 33-10, pitching 371 innings, with a 1.62 ERA, which was good for an ERA+ of 216.

Roger Clemens: Wow this kid was skinny back in the day, eh? What a power pitcher though. No-brainer here. This was before the roids got hold of him and he was just a firecracker (translation: asshole) from Texas.
Best Season: 1990, where he was 21-6, 209 K's, a 1.93 ERA, a 213 ERA+ and didn't win the CY YOUNG???? Miscarriage of justice... Bob Welch, you got away with robbery. Yeah, your 27 wins is impressive, but ain't got anything on Roger.

Pedro Martinez - put up 2 amazing seasons back to back in 99 and 2000. Finished in the top 4 in Cy Young voting 5 out of the 6 years he was in boston, and the one year he didn't, he was injured half the year. Such a power pitcher, so much finesse. Dude had 1 season with an ERA over 3.00 in his time in Boston.
Best Season: I give up - either 99 or 2000. 99 had him going 23-4, 313 K's, and a 2.07 ERA. 2000 he was only 18-6, but put up 285 Ks and had a 1.74 ERA. 291 ERA+. Unreal.

Babe Ruth - won 89 games in a little over 5 seasons as a pitcher in Boston.hovered around 2.00 ERA, while putting up as many as 325 innings. Mind you, in these same 6 seasons, he hit about 50 HRs, batted .300 or so... well rounded athlete, this guy.
Best Season: 1917, where he was 23-12 in 323 innings, amassing 170 Ks and a 1.75 ERA.

Joe Wood - Kind of an unknown quantity, this one. I liked his nickname - Smokey Joe. He also put up one helluva season in 1912 that pushed him over the top of an otherwise unremarkable second tier of pitchers.
Best Season - 1912, 34-5, 344 innings, 258 Ks, 1.91 ERA. Good numbers in any era.

RP: Jonathan Papelbon (closer), Dennis Eckersley, Tim Wakefield, Bruce Hurst, Luis Tiant
I loaded this with mostly starters, cause wow this is a pretty terrible bullpen. Eck was a starter at this point, so it was well before his glory days in the pen.

Bench: Jason Varitek, Mo Vaughn, Dwight Evans, Jim Rice, Nomar Garciaparra

Oh, such a long time...

Hi all reader(s) out there...

It's been a while. Yet again. Even though I promised I would write more frequently. I lied. Deal with it, Cate Blanchett.

I don't really have any thematic posts in mind, but I thought I'd throw out some things I've been thinking:

- It's really effing cold in New York and I'm ready for spring, not just for the start of baseball.

- I think the Yankees are spoiled brats, but I think they've mounted a pretty solid ballclub this year. Now let's see if they can get, oh I don't know, ANYONE who knows ANYTHING about physical training down there in Florida to get these guys' muscles to stretch out. I mean seriously, as a team, the Yankees make Ken Griffey look like a Ironman participant.

- My beloved Mariners have a crack new GM and he looks like he's assembling a very different ballclub than we've seen in the past. They seem to be defense first, which works for Safeco Field, and it also makes their potentially woeful pitching staff better. Looks like we may be able to get 4 months of Bedard before they trade him, and it's in his best interest to give us some quality innings. I'd really like to see them pick up another bat (Abreu or possibly Griffey, provided they're short contracts for under say 6 or 8 mil) and love to see them get rid of Washburn/Silva/Batista. All in all, though, i'm pleasantly surprised. Let's go Mariners!

- Michael Phelps must have taken a giant rip off that thing, what with the lung capacity those swimmers must have.

- I love that my cable now works and I'll have MLB network during hte season. That being said, I can't be bothered to watch things like the Caribbean World Series. Though, when I did watch, I learned that the Mexico squad had 3 gentlemen named Gonzalez in the infield (1B, 2B, and P), only 2 of which were related.

- Free tickets to the new Yankee Stadium, accepted right here!

- Holmes' right foot wasn't down, folks. Not enough evidence to overturn, mind you, but that shit was off the ground.

- Stay tuned for the new and improved rules for this season's baseball bet. Zaaq will make it 3 in a row, bitches!!!

That's all for now, folks...

til the next time,

Zaaq

C.C. Sabathia and The Red Sox

Much has been made of C.C.'s record against the Red Sox. The numbers, regular and post-season, seem brutal:2-7, 5.75 ERA, 57 innings, 63 hits, 15 walks, 1.36 WHIP, and 44 strikeouts. But those horrible numbers were posted against a line-up sporting the greatest right-handed hitter since Jimmie Foxx.

That Righty,Manny Ramirez, no longer plays for the Red Sox. C.C. is a lefty. Their career numbers against each other: regular season-AB 21 H 12 2B 3 3B 0 HR 4 RBI 7 BB 1 SO 2 BA .571 OBP .609 SLG 1.286 OPS 1.895, and postseason-AB 4 H 4 2B 4 0 B HR 0 RBI 3 BB 2 SO 0 BA 1.000 OBP 1.000 SLG 1.250 OPS 2.250.

The Sox still have guys with great numbers against C.C.; particularly Youkillis. He did bat behind Manny. Ortiz and Pedroia both have great post-season numbers.

These Sox may still pound C.C., but maybe not. Past numbers are skewed. The Yankees and The Red Sox; these are different teams now.

Back At Long Last... Baseball edition

Hi there all (well, all one of you :) ),

After such a long absence, it may take a bit to get back into the swing of things (what with crawling back from the underworld, I'll need to dust myself off and re-animate my flesh), but here's the bullet point version of my final thoughts on the baseball season:

• Loved the outcome of the season - I mean, I probably would have been happier to see the Rays take it, but props to the Phillies. Gillick put together a solid all around team there, and they could be in contention to challenge for the next couple years (provided they pick up an arm and can replace Burrell).


• The Rays are going to be monsters. They'll be in contention for at least the next few years, provided they can pick up a smart DH and don't have any major regressions in their young position players.


• Bad Sunglasses, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Upton as the future star of this team. I would pick Longoria as the guy who will have the best career. Very well rounded power hitter, solid third baseman... Upton will be good, but I just don't get the feel of a dominant player there - a solid 5 tools player, sure, and surely a valuable piece of his team for a number of years. I think, though, that his power burst in the playoffs won't be repeatable, and he'll be good but not great.


• Yankees will be an interesting experiment to watch this offseason - we're seeing that low payroll teams with speed, defense, and effective pitching are picking up more and more wins (Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Florida, etc), and teams with massive payrolls and aging superstars are sinking in teh standings (Seattle, NYY, NYM, Detroit, etc.). With a lot of money to spend and a lot of clout, I'll be interested to see what kind of team Cashman puts together this year.


• Same goes for the Mariners, though we're probably still 2 years out. I agree with some of hte blogosphere that it's possible for us to have a moderately successful 2009 if the right moves are made. Their new GM, Zduriencik, has his work cut out for him, but I have the faith that only the support of an ailing, frustrating but potentially good team can bring.


• Finally, my prediction for Free Agent bust of 2009 - Derek Lowe. I just don't see him pitching well anywhere. He'll get around 10MM, which is ridiculous.

Football thoughts to come soon...