Week 17 - July 15, 2007

Ready For the Fourth?

Well, we're almost into the home stretch as we'll officially enter the fourth quarter of the season this week. Meanwhile, the July 15th trade deadline has come and gone and with it the deadline to pick up any players who can be protected for next season. Later this week, be sure to check out Trade Talk for a wrap-up of the last-minute deals!

The Newark Sugar Bears ended their 12-game winning streak with back-to-back losses on Sunday, but then rolled on with four more straight wins to go 4-2. With 43 games remaining, the Sugar Bears have a magic number of 32 to clinch the league's best record; 24 for the Hanover Division title; and 17 to clinch a playoff berth. And they need to win just 13 out of those remaining 43 games to guarantee their third straight 100-win season; they've already clinched their 12th consecutive winning season, which ranks second all-time... Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Endzone Animals continue to pick up ground in the hotly contested Morris Division. After a perfect 8-0 week, the Animals picked up two more games on the third-place D.C. Bushslappers, who went 4-3. In fact, the Slappers are now just a half-game ahead of the fourth-place Marietta Mighty Men, who who went 6-2 this week... The Hillsborough Hired Hitmen continue to be one of the league's hottest teams, going 6-2 to jump from 7th place to 5th place, though their winning streak was snapped at 11 games. Since the All-Star Break, the Hitmen have gone 28-12 (.700 W%) and have leaped four spots in the standings... Hanging onto 6th place, 2 games behind the Hitmen, sit the Honolulu Sharks, who went 2-5. The Sharks have won just 6 out of their last 17 games.

The Hoboken Cutters also have been ice-cold recently, going 2-5 this week to drop from 5th to 7th,  a game behind the Sharks. The Cutters have lost three straight...  and need to 6-2) posted the league's second-best record this week, winning 7 out of 8 to jump from an 8th place tie into 7th place, and just a game behind Honolulu for the final playoff spot... The Vancouver Iron Fist are heading in reverse again, going 3-5 to fall 3 games behind the Sharks for that final playoff berth... The Carolina Mudcats split their eight games this week to move up one spot in the standings to 9th place... The Arkansas Golden Falcons went 1-6 this week and are now 6 games behind the Sharks... New Jersey Team Buddah split their eight games this week to remain in 11th place... The South Boston Gang is showing signs of life after going 5-3, but it's likely too little too late as they're 13 games behind Honolulu... Three quarters of the way through the season and we have had our first mathematical elimination: No matter what happens from here on out, neither the Sardine City Straphangers (2-6) nor the Las Vegas Rat Pack (1-5) can win the Hanover Division. What about a wildcard? Those hopes, though flickering, aren't out yet. Sardine City's "tragic number" to be eliminated from playoff contention is 22, while Vegas is looking at 17. Any combination of that many losses and/or wins by the 6th place team and their playoff hopes are officially over.

Saint Francisco

So we mentioned Sunday night was the trading deadline. One trade that happened well before that deadline was the Dec. 18 deal between Marietta and Las Vegas. The Rat Pack got a 1st round pick in '08 and two 4th round picks (one in '07 and one in '08), plus reliever Chris Ray. What did the Mighty Men get? Just the guy who might win the Pat Listach Rookie of the Year Award -- if not the Ben McDonald Award as the league's top pitcher. Francisco Liriano had another dominant week, picking up two wins without allowing a single run on just 9 hits and 4 walks, while striking out 14 (0.00 ERA, 9.0 R/9), to win the Star Wars Deleted Scene Pitcher of the Week Award. In fact, the 0 ER in 13.0 IP dropped Liriano's season ERA all the way down to 2.24; if the season ended today, that would be the second-lowest ERA in the Modern Era, behind only Tim Hudson's 2.08 in 2004. He would also set the all-time DMBL record in winning percentage (.923) and rank 3rd all-time in quality start percentage (.800). In addition to ERA, W% and QS%, he also leads the league in R/9 (10.1), H/9 (7.4), OPS allowed (.600), SLG allowed (.320), K/9 (11.4) and Component ERA (2.62). It looks like it will be an exciting race over the fourth quarter between Liriano and Philly's Johan Santana to see who will take home Big Ben; Santana had a solid but not great week (1-0, 4.63 ERA, 11.6 R/9, 11 K in 11.2 IP) but still leads the league in shutouts (3), complete games (6) and OBP allowed (.278), and is 2nd in ERA (3.49), R/9 (10.2), Ks (182), W% (.857), H/9 (7.8) and OPS (.683). It could come down to which pitcher has the hotter September. Liriano says he doesn't care about personal accolades. "The only thing I want at the end of this season is a ring, and a new elbow," the 23-year-old said.

This week's other top pitchers: Arkansas's Roger Clemens (1-0, 1.29 ERA, 9.6 R/9, 8 BB, 15 K in 14.0 IP); D.C.'s Jonathan Papelbon (2-0, 0 R, 3 H, 1 BB, 4 K in 4.0 IP); Hillsborough's Felix Hernandez (2-0, 1.84 ERA, 8.0 R/9, 3 BB, 16 K in 14.2 IP); New Jersey's Jake Westbrook (2-0, 0.53 ERA, 8.5 R/9, 4 BB, 5 K in 17.0 IP); Philly's Erik Bedard (2-0, 3.00 ERA, 14.3 R/9, 7 BB, 12 K in 12.0 IP); and Vancouver's Wes Littleton (2-0, 1.69 ERA, 15.2 R/9, 3 BB, 3 K in 5.1 IP).

Mudcat Attack

Carolina is on the march! The question is, are they marching too late? The Mudcats are 5½ games back with about 40 games left to play and three teams to jump over in the standings to reach 6th place. But then consider that at the All-Star Break, they had the league's third-worst record at 34-46. Since then, they've gone 23-16, moving up from 12th to 9th. Leading the Charge of the Fish Brigade has been Travis Hafner, who has been piling up awesome numbers all season long. Hafner had a huge week, hitting .419 (1.623 OPS) with 7 HR, 9 R and 15 RBI to win the JRCigars.com Smokin' Batter of the Week Award. He led the league in OPS, runs, RBIs, home runs, runs created (18.4), total bases (34) and secondary average (.903). Hafner very nearly won it last week as well, hitting .444 (1.571 OPS) with 5 HR, 11 R and 10 RBI. Even if he can't carry the Mudcats all the way to the post-season, Pronk will certainly be in the running for the Kevin Mitchell Award as the league's most valuable batter. Hafner leads the league in OPS (1.196), runs created (150.2), OBP (.468), SLG (.728), walks (109), intentional walks (25), total average (1.461), secondary average (.663), isolated power (.401) and AB/HR (9.2), but is just outside the top 10 in batting average (.327) and RBIs (94). He will likely have to have a big fourth quarter to separate himself from sluggers like Newark's Manny Ramirez (.307, 1.003 OPS, 36 HR, 101 R, 113 RBI), Hillsborough's Ryan Howard (.309, 1.020 OPS, 48 HR, 116 RBI) and Marietta's Jim Thome (.309, 1.158 OPS, 32 HR, 87 RBI), who also are having solid years but don't get any extra credit for defense or baserunning. Newark's Jim Edmonds, for example, ranks right behind Hafner in almost every category -- while hitting a league-best.394 and playing highlight-reel defense in center field. Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera (.373, 1.029 OPS, 23 HR, 91 RBI), Newark's Chipper Jones (.350, 1.069 OPS, 30 HR, 93 RBI), Hillsborough's Robinson Cano (.362, .938 OPS, 30 2B, 51 RBI) and Las Vegas's Joe Mauer (.351, .974 OPS, 21 HR, 78 RBI) all play demanding defensive positions will having solid years at the plate.

This week's other top batters: D.C.'s Carlos Beltran (.370, 1.124 OPS, 2 HR, 7 R, 2 SB);  Las Vegas's Shane Victorino (.591, 1.503 OPS, 3 2B, 5 RBI); Marietta's Derek Jeter (.417, 1.033 OPS, 4 2B, 7 R, 3 SB); New Jersey's Adam Kennedy (.500, 1.212 OPS, 2 3B, 4 RBI); Newark's Carlos Guillen (.440, 1.237 OPS, 2 HR, 7 R); Philly's Scott Rolen (.375, 1.192 OPS, 6 2B, 7 RBI); South Boston's Ramon Hernandez (.375, 1.548 OPS, 6 HR, 11 RBI).

Feeling Better

Well, the league's trainers are finally getting a break after a two-week spate of injuries sent a dozen players to the Disabled List. This week just two guys got banged up -- Philly infielder Jose Lopez and Las Vegas outfielder Shane Victorino. Lopez apparently is suffering from exhaustion. The 23-year-old rookie has only played in about half of his team's games this year, but that was after an off-season in which he played in the Arizona Fall League, the Cape Cod League, the Mexican League and the Taiwan League. He even tried out for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but was deemed to be neither extraordinary nor a gentleman.

Victorino says he needs a few days off after waking up with strange little red marks all over his body. Doctors thought it was bed bugs, but it turns out it was something else in his bed.  Vegas, in a cost-cutting move during this rough season, has not only returned to the practice of putting two players in each hotel room on road trips -- now they put two players in each bed. Victorino's bed mate is back-up catcher John Buck, who apparently has a rare psychological disorder in which he dreams he is a vampire, and acts out his dream by drinking Victorino's blood through the night. Making the situation worse is that Victorino's nickname is the "Flyin' Hawaiian" and Buck says his blood does in fact taste like Hawaiian Punch. "There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about this," a front office executive said. "It turns out that it's really true... Buck sucks."

The Dealin's Done

Well, the trade deadline has come and gone. As we noted earlier, there will be a Trade Talk to discuss the most recent trades. (You can also check out the June 30th edition for a review of this year's off-season deals.) We'll just do a quick recap of this year's final four trades and leave the analysis to Chris Nabholz.

First, Hoboken swapped rookie pitcher Adam Wainwright to South Boston for batter Greg Norton and reliever Brandon League. A couple days later, Sardine City finally pulled off the long-anticipated trade of B.J. Ryan, sending the southpaw reliever to Marietta for a 5th Round pick in '08. Ryan had long been the subject of trade rumors since April, when it was announced the 31-year-old would have Tommy John surgery and be ineligible for next season. And finally, Vancouver closed out the week by making two deals on Sunday. The first sent J.D. Drew to Philly in exchange for a 5th Round pick in '08 and another 5th Round pick in '09. And then, just before the deadline, the Iron Fist shipped reliever Wes Littleton to Hoboken for an 8th Round pick in '08.

With all those trades, a lot of teams had some roster maintenance to take care of. And the trade deadline also means this is the last chance for teams to sign a free agent that they can protect in the off-season, so it was a busy day for comings and goings. Here's a team-by-team review:

D.C.: Activated Luis Castillo and dropped Luis Gonzalez.

Hoboken: Released Chris Shelton, Pat Burrell and Aaron Cook; signed Jose Bautista and Brandon Lyon.

Las Vegas: Signed Cory Sullivan and released Cliff Floyd.

Marietta: Released Chad Qualls.

Newark: Activated Rafael Soriano and released Casey Blake.

Philadelphia: Added Hank Blalock and Juan Cruz; dropped Aaron Hill, Gavin Floyd and Jeff DaVanon; and later released Cruz.

Sardine City: Put Freddy Sanchez on the D.L.; signed Khalil Greene.

Vancouver: Signed Manny Corpas, Scott Hatteberg, Jose Guillen, Scott Spiezio, Oscar Villarreal, Paul Maholm and Joel Peralta; dropped Will Ohman, Jason Marquis, Ramon Ramirez and Maicer Izturis.

TWIB may have Ozzie Smith, but we have the better Smith! Zane Smith, former pitcher for the San Antonio Slingers and Sacramento Seahawks, now writes this column exclusively for the Diamond Mind Baseball League. Click Here for past articles.