How many different places will the Expos call home next season? Jose Cruz Jr.–he’s not quite Roberto Clemente yet. The Jays have decisions to make on some single-season temps. All this and more from Montreal, San Francisco, and Toronto in Friday’s Triple Play.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! OK, it doesn’t work as well in UTK as it does for monster truck rallies and mud bog races, but Sunday is the day that many Twins fans have been waiting for. After serious knee surgery, it didn’t look like Eric Milton would be back in 2003, but on Sunday Milton will get the start, right in the heart of the most important stretch of games for the Twins all year. Milton has been mediocre in rehab starts, but has had solid command and velocity. He’ll supplant Carlos Pulido from the rotation, but will be on an innings limit when he faces the Indians.
The Cubs don’t need an injury, and Matt Clement’s came at the worst time–right in the midst of a no-hitter (yes, Lee, I know, I know…). Clement’s strained calf was enough to throw his control off almost completely, so a bullpen session tomorrow will go a long way towards knowing if he’ll be ready for his next start. All indications are that he will be ready to go.
I’ve yet to write much about the award races this season, save for some notes about Barry Bonds a couple of months back and a column about the NL Cy Young. It’s a very interesting season in that all six major awards are under dispute, whether warranted or not, and in some cases there’s considerable doubt about who the front-runner should be, even with less than three weeks to go in the season.
Because I got an e-mail this week dissecting the AL Cy Young situation, I’ll take a stab at that one today.
When it comes to picking the best pitchers in the league. I look at two things: how much did you pitch, and how well did you keep runs off the board? I disregard the accounting categories of “wins,” and “losses” because the statistics are misleading, a relic of a time when complete games accounted for nearly 100% of all starts and it actually made sense to assign whole wins and losses to starting pitchers.
With apologies to Mark Mulder, here are the five candidates for the AL Cy Young Award.
Last week, I laid out a reading list for new and potential GMs. This week, I want to draw attention to another excellent book, one with a slightly different viewpoint, but with a number of important and actionable concepts. Bear with me during this lengthy quote…
“Micromanagement is risk free as long as you have the power to assign blame to the innocent. If your galactic incompetence ends up micromanaging a perfectly good project into swamp, blame the closest employee for not “speaking up” sooner.” –Dogbert, nee Scott Adams, Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook
Which, of course, brings me to Peter Ueberroth.
It never fails to amaze me that people who demonstrate incompetence on a massive, majestic scale actually gain credibility, either within their own organization, or in an entirely new arena, where they’re given approximately the same responsibilities which they bungled so horribly in the first place. In case you missed it, former Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who had positioned himself as a responsible, proven leader running a dignified campaign in the Hunter Thompson-inspired California Gubernatorial Race, dropped out of that race on Tuesday, leaving the field wide open for the remaining “candidates.”