Gazing into the Crystal Ball

 

By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports

 

If I believed in fortune-telling, I would give most of the credit to the crystal ball.  After all, it’s supposedly the thing that’s seeing into the future, not the fortune teller.  All that the fortune teller is responsible for is interpreting, conveying, and justifying the information that the crystal ball provides.

 

Mr. Jeff Passan’s crystal ball appears to be nothing more than conventional wisdom.  Probably the most daring prediction he makes is that the Braves will perform well in the playoffs (which is actually still in line with conventional thinking, as no one seems to notice that all of Atlanta’s “playoff experience” does nothing for them each and every year).  That’s fine.  If you want to spew forth predictable and conservative picks, Jeff, you’re not alone.  But at least be able to justify them!  Shoot, if they’re such obvious picks they should be easy to justify, right?

 

Let’s take a look:

 

Yearly Awards 

 

Passan’s NL MVP: Albert Pujols - “Pujols is the steadiest hitter since Joe DiMaggio, who won three MVPs”

 

Passan’s NL Cy Young: Roy Oswalt – “If he books his third consecutive 20-win season, it might be tough to deny Oswalt the top spot.”

 

Earth to Passan: these awards are given out every year, not every three years.  If Oswalt wins exactly 20 games for the third consecutive year, no one’s going to take that into account in their Cy Young voting. They’ll be busy giving the award to whomever wins 24-26 games in 2006, not whomever tallied the most wins from 2004-2006.

 

Same thing with Pujols.  Yes, he is very steady. But the same basic level of performance that he’s delivered for the past five years has earned him one MVP.  If he’s truly consistent, then he’ll perform closely in line with the past five years, and have a very low chance of winning the MVP.

 

And DiMaggio didn’t win three MVPs because he was consistent, he won three MVPs because he played for the Yankees and banged Marilyn Monroe.  Pujols (I hope) will never do either, so it’s really not a useful comparison.

 

Passan’s AL MVP: David Ortiz – “Without him, the Red Sox wouldn't be playoff contenders.”

 

Okay, but they also wouldn’t be playoff contenders without Manny Ramirez, Josh Beckett, and Cap Varitek.  What you need to do, Jeff, is explain why you consider Ortiz to be more valuable than these guys.

 

Oh, and then do the same thing for every other playoff contending team in the AL.  Yeah.  A bit more work to be done here.

 

Passan’s AL Cy Young: Johan Santana – “He should have won his second consecutive Cy Young last season after going 9-2 with a 1.59 ERA after the All-Star break.”

 

Ah, so now we’re only looking at second half numbers when handing out awards.  First it was the past 3-5 seasons, now it’s the past couple of months.  Is the “yearly” silent in “yearly awards?”

 

Passan’s AL Home Run Leader: David Ortiz – “Between the short porch in right field and the Green Monster in left, Fenway Park accommodates Ortiz's propensity to hit towering fly balls that would be outs in most parks.  He's a good bet to reach 50 for the first time in his career.”

 

You know, Ortiz has actually played in Fenway for the past three seasons.  Any park-altering coefficients for Ortiz have probably shown up in his stats by now.  Yet, he’s never hit 50 home runs. 

 

I’ve been saying since 2000 that he’d hit 50 eventually, based on the notion that all of his doubles would turn into homers as he got stronger, matured as a hitter, and perhaps moved to a more homer-conducive ballpark.  You see how that works, Jeff?  Predicting a change in results due to a change in circumstances, rather than predicting a change in results due to constant circumstances.

 

Passan’s NL Home Run Leader: Adam Dunn – “Over the last two seasons, no one in the National League hit more home runs than Dunn, who hammered 86. Another advantage: Dunn plays in Great American Ball Park, which needs to add For Hitting Home Runs to the end of its name.” 

 

Goodness, now we’re combining your two favorite misguided thought processes into one player’s analysis.  I’m sick of repeating myself.  How about the fact that Adam Dunn’s just 26 years old?  Do you think that that might be an advantage?  A reason he might improve?

 

The fortune-teller analogy I made at the beginning of this article was imperfect.   Jeff Passan is more like the kid from high school who copies everyone else’s homework and then fails the essay test because he doesn’t understand the material.  These are very intelligent picks that he’s making, but it’s hard to believe that he’s making them based on the silly tenets that he presents in this article.  What’s even more amazing is that he’s making such bad arguments for these guys that I’m starting to reconsider whether Santana really is a viable Cy Young candidate, or whether Albert Pujols really is a favorite for MVP.  Maybe all this is just really clever satire on Passan’s part to get us all to think outside the box and doubt conventional wisdom.

 

But more likely, Jeff Passan is our Boneheaded Sportswriter for March.