The best seat in the house is the view from the couch

Yes, I know it's Tuesday. I'm bored, and there have been a few developments over the past few days that need to be addressed. Besides, Thursday is going to be reserved for football picks. This column might jump around a little bit, and will certainly hit on more than one topic, so strap yourselves in and hold on.

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Can we just give the Comeback Player of the Year award to Vin Baker right now? Seriously, I know that there are others deserving of consideration (Alonzo Mourning comes to mind), but Vinnie is looking absolutely outstanding through the first 10 games of the season. He's coming off a season in which he had to stop playing halfway through because of a "heart condition" that actually turned out to be chronic alcoholism.

So far this year, he's averaging 15.1 points, 7.3 boards, 1.4 assists and even a half a block (0.4) every game. All of those numbers are stunningly similar to his career averages (16.9pts / 8.2reb / 2.1ast / 1.1blk) This guy is back, and now everyone in Boston can understand where the Antoine Walker trade came from. If Baker keeps playing like this, the Celtics could be serious contenders in the East, with three bonafide 20-point scorers every night (Pierce, Baker, and LaFrentz).

That brings me to my next NBA point. Realignment?!? Wait a minute, didn't the Charlotte Hornets just move to New Orleans two years ago because the fans in Charlotte were so horrible? Then why in hell should an EXPANSION team go there? Does anyone think that the Bobcats are going to play well enough to draw 15,000 fans a night for the first, oh, let's say five years? I suppose that the NBA does need another franchise to make an even 30, but in Charlotte? Why not Vegas? Or maybe a fifth California team?

And when the hell was the last time there was a bobcat in Charlotte? That's almost as bad as the Toronto Raptors, Memphis Grizzlies, or Utah Jazz... almost. Seriously, new teams or teams that change cities really have to change their names accordingly. At least there are actually hornets in New Orleans.

So now we get back to the realignment thing. Under the new proposal, there would be three 5-team divisions in each conference instead of the current two 7-team divisions. Well, there's a few problems here. First, the aforementioned Hornets really got the raw end of this deal, because they have to go from being a perennial 4-6 seed in the East playoffs to being probably no better than 10th in the West, and out of the playoffs.

So the new Eastern Conference divisions will be the Southeast (Charlotte, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, and Washington?), the Central (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indiana, Milwaukee, that's fine), and the Atlantic (Boston New York, New Jersey, Toronto, Philadelphia). And the Western Conference divisions look like this: Southwest (New Orleans?!?, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Memphis?), Northwest (Utah, Denver, Minnesota, Portland, Seattle, only one team actually in the Northwestern US...), and the Pacific, or California division (Golden State, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Phoenix, and Sacramento).

So that puts 15 teams in each conference, in three divisions of 5 teams each. Why not just divide it by conference and that's it? Division winner doesn't mean much anyway; the playoffs are just the eight best teams from each conference, with seedings based on division winner, then record. Now we'll have three division winners and five wild cards, as opposed to two division winners and six wild cards before. Just make it into two conferences and take the top eight. Simple. Damn. Stern needs to retire or hire me as a consultant.

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The awards given out this year by Major League Baseball were a complete and total farce. Angel Berroa over Matsui or Baldelli? ALEX RODRIGUEZ over everyone else eligible? C'mon people. The only awards that were truly no-brainers were Barry Bonds's stunning 6th MVP (3rd straight) and Eric Gagne's 1st Cy Young.

Let's start from the top. AL ROY Angel Berroa. Yeah, he had a great season. And he certainly sparked a Royals team that hadn't even sniffed a third place finish in the last ten years, let alone FIRST for much of the summer. But Hideki Matsui contributed to the Yankees in ways that Berroa did not. Matsui was a clubhouse presence, he was adequate defensively and even filled in at center field for the time that Bernie Williams was hurt. They each batted .287 and had only one point difference in their OPS' (.789 for Berroa to .788 for Matsui). Baldelli batted .289 and has a .742 OPS, but he energized a club that needed a solid leadoff or #2 guy, and needed a solid center fielder to replace Randy Winn even more. But for me, this decision was between Berroa and Matsui, Baldelli faltered after the break, as did his team.

So the final numbers look like this: Matsui had 16 more hits, 14 more doubles, 33 more RBI, and 34 more walks. Berroa had 10 more runs, 6 more triples, 1 more home run, 19 more steals, and a .016 higher slugging percentage. So, when it comes down to it, who contributed more? Matsui, without a doubt. More pressure, more attention, bigger stage, and he stepped up to all of it. Now the bigger issue, why was he left off of ballots?

I understand that some writers felt he shouldn't be considered because of his prior playing experience. Really? Kinda like Hideo Nomo or Ichiro or Kaz Sasaki weren't considered because of prior experience? Oh, that's right. All of them won the ROY. Maybe those writers should consider the name of the ROY trophy: The Jackie Robinson award for the Rookie of the Year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Jackie Robinson have a little experience in another league prior to playing in the majors? Angel Berroa was great, and in any other circumstance, certainly deserved to win the award. But Matsui just deserved it more.

Interesting side note to this award; the two writers who left Matsui off their ballots were both from areas who's home teams were defeated by the Yankees in the playoffs: Bill Ballou of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Yankees beat the Twins and Red Sox on their way to LOSING the World Series. Just wanted to remind everyone that the Yankees LOST.

Now, the AL MVP. Personally, I'm speachless. I think that maybe this is a kind of payback for A-Rod losing the award in any of the past 5 seasons, when his numbers were clearly superior than this year, and yet he still lost. In There are at least three other people who deserved this award, but there was no real clear-cut guy, so A-Rod got it.

I think that either of two Red Sox players, Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz should have gotten much more consideration. Jorge Posada also had an MVP season. And if the Blue Jays had continued their hot streak of mid-summer, Carlos Delgado would have been a no-brainer. Shannon Stewart also should have rated higher, but he moved during the season and that hurt his candidacy. Nomar hasn't been an MVP-type player since he broke his wrist, and this year was no different. But I'm going to take the same perspective on this that Jayson Stark took. Where would the Rangers be without A-Rod? That's right, still in dead last place. I can remember at least five games that David Ortiz won for the Red Sox this year, not counting the playoffs. Same goes for Manny Ramirez and Posada. Five games might not sound like much, but when the Sox only won the wild card by two games and the Yankees only won the division by six...

All things considered, yeah, A-Rod was an MVP CANDIDATE, but shouldn't have been a winner, at least no this year. He was the best player, not the most valuable.

posted by Big D @ 12:00 AM