Out of It

Dave Paisley

With the mid-season break almost upon us there are three things I'm interested in right now. They are first, which teams are out of it already, second, what they are going to do about it by way of dumping players, and thirdly, who the fans think should be starting in the all-star game. The last item is particularly interesting this year given the Mariner onslaught in the American League, but I'll leave that till last.

Dealing with the first question first, who's in and who's out? So far the National league has been very even, with nobody too far back and nobody too far in front. Still, it's getting dangerously close to crunch time for a few teams. In the days before the wild card a decent rule of thumb was that, to have a chance at the post-season, a team needed to be around the .500 mark and within 5 games of the division lead. That's not actually too tough to do, and the wild card makes life a little easier, but I still find it a useful benchmark.

In the East, the Braves finally kicked out the blahs in June and caught the Phillies. Tied for first place, one team would get the division, while the other leads the wild card pack. Meanwhile the Marlins continue to vindicate the youth program by keeping close. All satisfy both criteria. The Mets, on the other hand, are 12 games under .500 and 11 games out of the division lead. It only remains to see who they will unload, and whether the first unloading will be of Bobby Valentine. It's not his fault they allowed their pitching to get decimated, though. Montreal was out of it after about week 3, despite that relatively hot start.

In the weak NL Central, the Cubs, Astros and Cards are all within the guidelines only four back of the wild card, and the Brewers aren’t too much further behind, but it’s much harder to pass three teams ahead of you than one, so I consider them to be a real fringe candidate. Kiss Cincy and the Pirates goodbye already.

In the NL West, the Diamondbacks currently rule the roost, with the Giants and Dodgers just outside my guidelines at better than .500, bur six games back in the division, but only three off the wild card pace. It looks like the Rockies and Padres are about done, though, as the further back and the more teams ahead of them there are, the bleaker the picture gets.

So in the NL, the Mets, Expos, Reds, Pirates and Padres are pretty much gone, with the Rockies and Brewers one bad week from being toast. Lots of handy players on those rosters that the other teams might like to have.

Over in the AL, the East is a two horse race between the yanks and Red Sox, while the Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays are pretty much out of it. Of course, the Rays were out of it just about as spring training started, but never mind.

In the Central, the Twins manage to hang in a virtual tie with the Indians, with one of them leading the wild card race. Which means that the White Sox, Tigers and Royals are all about as done as one of my wife's steaks. Which means very, very, very well done, by the way.

In the West, the Mariner romp has left the division winning ambitions of the A's, Angels and Rangers in ashes, and even the wild card is looking like a stretch for the A's or Angels, with the former nine games back and latter eight back, and not just Minnesota or Cleveland to beat out, but also the lesser of the Yanks or Red Sox. Pretty tall order. With the second worst record in the league, Texas' hopes have been well incinerated in that direction already, of course.

So in the AL, those looking at lovely parting gifts already are the Blue Jays, Orioles (bad year for birds, apparently) Devil Rays, White Sox, Tigers, Royals, Angels, A's and Rangers. Which leaves only five team in contention for four playoff spots. Right now, the odd team out would be the Yanks, but they're only 2.5 games away from the second best record in the league, which is, of course, not even worth worrying about yet. And now they've got Gerald Williams, well, they have two (count 'em!) Williams' in the outfield. I'm thinking their strategy is to hope that other teams don't notice and pitch to Gerald as if he's Bernie. And the Yankees are also cunningly trying to unload Chuck Knoblauch, another great addition by subtraction move if they can pull it off.

So in the great All-Star race, nothing much changed in the NL, except that the leaders extended their leads handsomely except for Larry Walker riding a Rocky vote surge to the third outfield spot, displacing Luis Gonzalez.

The big story/scandal in the AL has been the surge of even more Mariners into starting spots, particularly the latest addition of David Bell, taking over the 3B slot by passing Cal Ripken and Troy Glaus. I must admit to being shocked that Ripken hasn't surged on news of his retirement, but it seems as if voting has lagged about two weeks behind news, so maybe there'll be a bump in the final numbers. With just a tiny surge in the last go-around, Mike Cameron could possibly take the third outfield slot from Juan Gonzalez. He closed the gap from 180,000 on the June 11 to 150,000 on June 18 to 30,000 on June 25, so it's eminently possible.

If that happened there would be six Mariners out of nine starting slots, the exceptions being the Texas Rodriguez boys, Pudge and A-Rod, and Manny Ramirez in the outfield. While it looks outrageous on the surface, the Mariner leaders are either genuinely good picks (Edgar Martinez), are quality guys who stack up well with their competition this year (Olerud, Ichiro, Boone) or are in weak categories (Bell). There have been rumblings that the plethora of Seattle position players will hurt the pitching staff in selections, and I believe that's true. I still expect Kazuhiro Sasaki to make it and possibly Aaron Sele, but that still leaves 22 slots for the other 11 teams not likely to be represented (or 23 for 10 teams if Gonzo beats out Cameron).

And how many of those All-Stars will be on the move shortly after the game is one item worth keeping an eye on.

about the author

While he loves to prognosticate, Dave Paisley worries a lot about all that irate hate mail from Pirate fans who just know the team could turn it around if only they could get Al Martin back. Tell them to write Pat Gillick (all offers higher than a tub of red liquorice will be considered), care of Dave at drdjp@strikethree.com.