In baseball, the major postseason awards came out this week. Not a lot of surprises and not a lot of arguments to be made. No apologies to Angels fans since Cabrera deserved that MVP and deserved it by the landslide he won it with. For much of the season the Tigers floundered on offense and in the bullpen and needed a strong September to seal up a division crown that should have been won at the beginning of August Cabrera was really the torch bearer on that offense. Besides it's a triple crown. I mean come on, we can debate for eternity whether the MVP is a traditional statistical award (it is) or whether it's more nebulous than that with sabermetrics or just a subjective opinion that in ballgames one player was more "valuable" to his team than the other. Despite all the amazing plays Trout made this year and the ridiculous ceiling he has as a major leaguer going forward, once Cabrera won the triple crown and the Tigers won their division while the Angels shuffled to a third place finish there should not have been a debate. Congrats Cabrera, I hope you split whatever MVP bonus you have in your contract with Prince Fielder who has now protected two straight MVP winners. Makes a great case for Prince as the true most valuable player going forward if, you know, it wasn't a true traditional statistical award (of course it is).
Buster Posey won an uninteresting NL MVP race. He had a great season on a division champ but .336 24 HR and 104 RBI would've landed him somewhere around 6th in the AL race. It's been pretty frustrating watching a much better league lose in the World Series every year, which continues to support my argument that the NL has an inherent advantage in any World Series due to the DH rule switch for home teams. NL teams are built to support hitting pitchers and AL teams slump bad with hitting pitchers. There are a number of reasons but a lot of it has to do with big bats poor gloves playing DH in the AL. Those bats are crucial for the AL's success and usually they involve questionable talent on defense. Recall Delmon Young this year or Vladimir Guerrero in 2010. So when an AL team has to go to an NL home park their team gets worse. A pitcher who never hits has to bat and a DH who never fields has to field. Meanwhile the NL team plays as it always has. Conversely when the NL team travels to an AL home park, the AL team gets to finally play as it was constructed according to its rules, but now the NL gets a boon by adding a bat to its lineup it ordinarily wouldn't have otherwise. So if you are keeping score at home, the NL gains an advantage no matter where the games are played. Two ways to solve this: Unify the DH rule, either abolish it or apply it consistently to both leagues (my choice) OR let the teams play as they have all year. The AL team uses a DH and the NL team bats its pitcher. This one is intriguing but in a certain way logical. The DH really impacts how teams are teams are assembled. Simple example is without the DH the Tigers absolutely do not go after Prince Fielder this year completely altering that roster. Without Prince the Tigers may not have made the playoffs this year, instead they go to the World Series. It just seems inherently stupid to have teams assembled two different ways and then in the championship series alter them contrary to how they were assembled. Baseball needs to fix this. Maybe I'll start a petition on change.org.
Trout was ROY, duh. Harper was ROY, also duh but again a much weaker slate. I'll bet if you shifted Cespedes and Darvish to the NL they would have beat Harper.
In a season with impressive award winners, Bob Melvin's manager of the year award may be the most impressive manager of the year award since it started. The team that Melvin took to the playoffs, including winning a division over two other prohibitive favorites was really a masterful job. It can't be easy cobbling together a rotation and lineup of rookies, but he finally found success in that second half. Buck Showalter did a great job maneuvering his own squad but there was major league experience on that roster. The A's had very little. I will say though Coco Crisp probably does deserve an assist on this once. He was basically the manager on the field and you could tell he was the one likely galvanized that clubhouse and showed them that just because they were rookies they didn't have to lose. I hate you guys but hats off for one of the more shocking seasons in recent memory. The Nationals' Davey Johnson won the NL award as the manager of the "most surprising" division winner. Whatever, the Nationals were much better than most people were willing to give them credit for at the beginning of the season. I think with all the injuries to the Reds that Dusty Baker did a better job but he came out with only 5 first place votes to Johnson's 23. Still with such a young roster and the uneviable task of managing Strasburg's innings limit Johnson did earn it.
With that done 2012 is in the books. The clock is ticking on the Giants' title defense and the first step to unseating them happens in the Hot Stove League this off-season. Where will Josh Hamilton go? How much more will the Dodgers spend? Can the A's repeat the magic? Are the Nationals early season favorites with an unlimited Strasburg? Its going to be a great offseason, can't wait for April.
In college football we just had a massive shift in the BCS. For the first time in what feels like forever an SEC team is not in the top 2 and in fact at this point no SEC team controls its own destiny. Alabama survived LSU (barely) and then Texas A&M took what it saw in LSU and exposed the Crimson Tide. This is what I simply have not understood all year, why do teams not play press coverage with 8 in the box against Bama? McCarron is so disgustingly overrated as a QB that I think it made teams afraid to actually test him. If you watch a Bama game McCarron is simply not a downfield passer. This drove me nuts on that last possession in the LSU game. LSU played off coverage and McCarron threw 5 yard passes that turned into 13 yards and Bama moved down the field way too easily. Look, you don't even have to get quick pressure on him, just make him throw intermediate and deep. I think Texas A&M finally saw it and made McCarron make throws down the field and the Crimson Tide paid for it. Needless to say all pundits and bloggers (including myself) owe Texas A&M an apology. They fit in right from the start this season and should be very proud of their season.
So where do we go from here now that we likely will not have BCS champion from the SEC for the first time in 213 years? Well the obvious front-runners are Oregon and K-State. Oregon still must beat Stanford, Oregon State, and likely USC again when they beat UCLA this weekend. Stanford isn't built to beat Oregon. Stanford is a prostyle in the trenches team that just really has no hope of stopping Oregon. Oregon State has a more dynamic defense but the rigors of the schedule have worn on them as they've lost two of three and while I think they stack better on both sides of the ball than Stanford, they just probably lack the talent to compete. But never sleep on those rivalry games. If USC could get just one stop they might've won that game. Oregon obviously doesn't want to seem them again and is rooting for UCLA, but Oregon's path is clear. There are a couple pitfalls but it's more likely than not that Oregon runs the table. As for K-State they have one more real "test" at home against Texas and no championship game. Texas has played better of late, but I've really tuned in for K-State games because I like watching Collin Klein at work and they are an impressive team. They score easily but they also aren't a swinging gate on defense. It's really hard to gauge how they would matchup against Oregon, but it sure would be a fun game to watch.
Of course this leaves Notre Dame sitting on the outside hoping Oregon stumbles into one of those traps. I think this is proper too for a couple of reasons. First, on a personal note, join a freaking conference already. If you guys just stepped into the Big 10 years ago you'd have your platform for title game considerations. This holier than thou attitude is stupid and really turns you guys off your program. Maybe you guys are one of the top two teams in the country, but the system in college football revolves around conferences. Get with the program. The second reason is that they really aren't one of the top 2 teams in the country. You've watched Notre Dame play and then compare them to K-St and Oregon and it's no question that everyone would rather have those teams on the field than Notre Dame. I will say that win at Norman was amazing, but then struggling at home to Pitt? Underwhelming win at a 2-7 Boston College? Meh. Oregon and K State haven't underwhelmed at any point. Of course all it takes is one slip up, I can hear the Irish getting out their Duck and Wildcat voodoo dolls.
We could talk about the next 6 teams in the BCS (all SEC - No Mr. Armchair, the SEC is not down) but really I don't think there is any hope there. Looking at the remaining schedules and the fact that K State and Notre Dame don't have conference championship games, it's hard to see Alabama or Georgia leapfrogging two schools down the stretch. As a college football fan I'm just hoping we keep the Oregon K State matchup intact. There is something...unsettling...about the stupid Irish in the BCS championship game.
In basketball, I think we've had kind of a slow start to the season. Of course football always dominates the early part of the season, but here it just feels more related to injuries. Dirk, Love, Rose, Rondo, Wade, Nash have all missed games already. Even B list stars like Danny Granger are down and Anthony Davis has already missed a game. Just kind of a slow start to a weird NBA season. Maybe we wre on to somethign starting the season at Christmas time and running the playoffs through the slow months of June and July.
But we did get our first coaching vacancy and hire and it was done as sloppily as possible. The Lakers fire Mike Brown 5 games in despite a public statement giving him this homestand to correct things. One thing I will say is Mike Brown was set up to fail. It's so hard to gel new parts, especially two alpha parts who ran their former teams like Nash and Howard did. Throw in Nash's injury and Howard's slow recovery and predicting a slow start for the Lakers was like predicting a the sun to rise in the morning. We all forget history so quickly, but when the Heat assembled their super team they finished November 10-8 before winning all but 1 game in December. It just takes some time and it's clear Mike Brown had no chance. That being said, he's no Popovich or Phil Jackson. He's not a good coach and the Lakers have a very small window with this team. You can't waste a season learning how to use these parts which is why if I was a Lakers fan I'm proud of the way the Lakers took charge early even if they were two faced about Mike Brown. Speaking of two-faced the Lakers then dragged Phil Jackson through the mud by alluding he had the job then calling him at midnight to tell him no? It couldnt wait til 6am? Midnight? That's ridiculous. The Lakers front office is rude, but I think they were shrewd in both firing Brown and hiring D'Antoni. Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, and Ron Artest know how to play defense. They needed to get the most out of this offense. Phil Jackson has never had a point guard talent like Nash and I don't know if Jackson's offense would have maximized the potential of this Laker team. Of course new coach, still injured Nash, still recovering Dwight, and still gelling lineup means the Lakers will still be mediocre for some time. But by April this team could be humming.
With the potpourri out of the way lets get to the picks!
Week 10 Recap
Chargers @ Buccaneers (-3)
Money in the bank. This got a little closer than necessary for half the game but Phil Rivers showed up with the worst pick six of the season. Watch at the 1:30 mark. The Buccaneers didnt even get to show off it's potent offense with two defensive touchdowns, but the spread was easily covered. The sick thing is what the line for the Bucs is the week, which we'll get to in a minute.
Lions @ Vikings (+2.5)
I knew it. The was a classic combo of two mediocre teams where one played a very tough schedule the last few weeks and the other played an easy schedule (yes, Seattle on the road is an easy team) and everyone is writing one team's obituary while raising another from its grave. Memo to the masses. The Lions are mediocre AT BEST. Even in 2011 they were mediocre at best. The Lions and Vikings are certainly even from a talent standpoint, there was no reason for the Vikings to be giving points at home.
Falcons (-2.5) @ Saints
This was fucking ridiculous. I guess the Falcons were due to lose, but really they shouldn't have. An 8-0 team scores from a yard and half out with three downs against the second worst defense in the league to win and cover this spread. I hope people keep riding the Saints because they are basically the Patriots of the NFC with a much tougher schedule. If the Pats played the same schedule as the Saints the Pats would be lucky to be 4-5.
Giants (-4) @ Bengals
Should've heeded the Eli Manning tired arm warnings. The Giants look terrible, but also they look terrible every November. Pretty much dropped the ball on this one. My bad.
Chiefs @ Steelers (-12.5)
Stupid double digit spreads. Stupid Roethlisberger life threatening rib injury. Stupid Crennel actually handing the ball to his best player on offense. This is why I predicted a 7-9 record for the Steelers. Maybe they'll be better than 7-9, but they aren't good. Should've just gone with my bonus here.
Bonus
Cowboys (-1.5) @ Eagles
Everything happened as expected, except for the random Cowboys meltdown. The O-Line for Philly hindered all offense and Nick Foles just wasn't ready to bring them back despite a ridiculously wide open throw to Maclin in the 3rd quarter. Stick a fork in the Eagles. They've totally quit on the season.
Week 11 Picks
Packers (-3) @ Lions
What? I don't even know what to say with this line. Packers coming off a bye, Lions are mediocre. Why does the betting public think the Lions can even stay close in this game after getting beat by the Harvin-less Vikings. Why does the public continue liking the Lions? There is no reason for it. Sure its in Detroit, but that turf only makes Green Bay faster. Spread should've been double this.
Buccaneers (-1.5) @ Panthers
So no one really believes in the Buccaneers. There's always that team no one believes in that keeps winning and right now it's clearly the bucks. What have the Panthers shown that shows they should only be 1.5 pt underdogs to any team not named the Chiefs? Another hoem team and this one coming off a bye sure, but you still need talent. The Bucs defense hasn't been good but the Panthers offense has been horrible, and you just know the Bucs are putting up 31 at least this game. Can Carolina do the same?
Bears @ 49ers (-4)
Cutler is out and while the Bears defense has been every bit as good as the 49ers defense, you just know the lack of offensive production by the Bears is going to put too much pressure on that defense. This game reminds me of the Cardinals/49ers game earlier this year. The Cards were game on defense but they were on the field so often and the offense couldn't do anything the 49ers covered easy. This line says a lot though, it came out after Alex Smith passed concussion tests. It means despite facing a backup at home in primetime the gamblers dont believe at all in the 49ers offense and believe very strongly in the Bears defense. If the 49ers are as good as they say they are, they take this game and run away with it.
Colts (+9.5) @ Patriots
This line is stupid. This line appears to have been made by some casual fan that didn't watch any football this year. The Patriots, no matter where they are, simply are incapable of covering any big spread. Meanwhile, Andrew Luck, Reggie Wayne, and the rest of the Colts passing offense is more than capable of throwing on what is easily a bottom 5 defense. This is how teams have been able to stay in these games. Andrew Luck has already thrown off that can't win on the road crap. I just don't know what the Patriots have shown lately to make anyone believe they can cover this spread, especially with the continued growth of Andrew Luck and whatever magic Chuck Pagano is throwing their way.
Jets @ Rams (-3)
These lines crack me up. It's like a Titans/Jags line. No one cares and half the country hasnt seen one down of Rams football this year. This is why this line isn't 4 or higher. Did you see the Jets at Seattle last week? The Rams have gotten healthier and can smell blood in the water here. Its not sexy and it's weird making the Rams as 3 point favorites one of your 5 picks but geez, the betting community still thinks the Jets are ok when they are certainly a bad team.
Last week: 2-3, Season: 25-20 (28-24 with bonus)
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