A Season in Review, NL East

This is a little early, as there's still a week left in the season, but I figure to have more time now than in a week, so I'm taking this opportunity to start looking back over my preseason picks. First up is my preseason picks, along with Keith Law's, BP's Pecota, and approximate predicted standings.

PB KLaw BP

NL East W L GB NL East W L GB NL East W L GB

Mets 91 71 --- Mets 89 73 --- Mets 92 70 ---

Phillies 89 73 1 Braves 85 77 4 Braves 87 75 5

Braves 81 81 9 Phillies 83 79 6 Phillies 87 75 5

Marlins 79 83 11 Marlins 78 84 11 Nationals 77 85 15

Nationals 69 93 22 Nationals 75 87 14 Marlins 71 91 21

Real

NL East (Current) W L (Projected) W L

Phillies 90 65 94 68

Braves 85 70 89 73

Marlins 83 73 86 76

Mets 67 89 69 93

Nationals 52 103 54 108

Obviously, everyone was well off on the Mets, due in large part to their injuries; I wrote of their weaknesses before the season started:

"SP overall could easily underperform; will be over the hill at C, 1B, 2B - if Delgado in particular regresses back to his first half stats from last year, the offense may not be able to score enough to overcome mediocre pitching. How would they overcome an injury to one of their big 4?"

I never saw them being as bad as this, but I think that pretty accurately sums up the Mets' season- lots of injuries to the stars, bad starting pitching after Johann, too old (besides their stars) around the diamond, and not much depth (which I didn't mention).

While I was still a bit low on the Phillies, I was the most optimistic of the three, though I can't say I saw the way they'd get there (ok, I was right on Utley, but that's hardly a tough one). Big seasons from Werth and Ibanez, as well as pleasant surprises in Happ and Blanton and the additions of Cliff Lee and Pedro, have all played their role.

I was clearly off on the Braves - I was apparently not terribly enamored with their pitching staff in March, but that appears foolish now. I do think I was absolutely right about the outfield being the major weakness of the team (though they improved it markedly by trading for McLouth reasonably early in the season), and if they can't catch Colorado, that's clearly to blame.

Everyone was a bit low on the Marlins; foolishly enough, I downgraded them 3 wins from my initial predictions after reading an article about how all the statistical analyses were killing them, pegging them in the low 70s. 82 wins would still have been low, but would at least have been a bit more respectable margin of error (and given me a bit more bragging rights on that pick versus the experts and the formulas).

Everyone's got the Nationals in the right spot, if more than a dozen wins too high - it's hard to pick a team to lose that many games. Obviously their pitching was just dreadful this year, both rotation and bullpen.

AL East

Previous picks: AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, NL West, NL Summary

A couple of days late, but I suspect watching the first couple of games will do nothing but cloud my judgment.  This is clearly baseball's best division, with the 3 best teams in the game and two more half-decent teams that have hope for the future.

Red Sox

Strengths: Deep lineup with Youkilis, Pedroia, Ortiz, Bay, Lowell, and Drew, plus some upside in Lowrie and Ellsbury.  Deep pitching staff with two #1 starters in Beckett and Lester.  Deep bullpen with more arms in the farm system.  Strong defensively.

Weaknesses: Getting old at some positions - there is some risk Lowell and Ortiz will fade this year; Pedroia is a regression candidate; Drew is injury prone, and unsure how much production they'll get from SS and CF.  In a worst case scenario, lineup becomes pretty mediocre.  Beckett, Lester (given workload increase last year), and Penny all have some injury risk, and Matsuzaka and Wakefield are both regression candidates.

Record: It's not hard to come up with scenarios where this team wins 86-89 games and misses the playoffs, but I can't say I see those scenarios as being particularly likely.  96-66.

Rays

Strengths: Deep, young, talented lineup, with dangerous bats in Crawford, Upton, Pena, Longoria, and Burrell.  Deep pitching staff headlined by Kazmir and Shields; should get boost from adding David Price to the rotation mid-season.  Very good defensively; some good bullpen arms.

Weaknesses: Bullpen could be deeper/more consistent; no true closer.  Back end of rotation is still a bit of a question mark with Sonnanstine and Niemann - both should be ok, but may be no more than a 4th or 5th starter (mainly a weakness in comparison to Red Sox and Yankees).

Record: 94-68.

Yankees

Strengths: ARod and Teixeira are the two best hitters in the division; Jeter and Posada are both still well above average, and Cano, Damon, Matsui, Nady and Swisher are all capable of good seasons.  Starting pitching should be both deep and strong, with Sabathia, Burnett, Chamberlain at the top and Wang and Pettite both capable of good seasons; Hughes and Kennedy are good options in reserve.  Rivera is still the best in the business as closer.

Weaknesses: Is Brett Gardner really the answer in CF?  How long will ARod be out, and how effective will he be when he returns from surgery?  Bullpen behind Rivera seems a bit questionable.  How much regression will we see from the older players?

Record: I feel like this is the team of these three that has the most upside and downside.  In the end, missing ARod for a month is going to make just enough of a difference, as they trail the Rays by one game - 93-69.

Blue Jays

Strengths: Very good defense; some potentially dangerous hitters in Wells, Rios, Snider, Lind, and Rolen; Roy Halladay; should be a pretty good bullpen.

Weaknesses: Injuries have destroyed the depth of the starting rotation - relying on multiple rookies.  If Wells and/or the young hitters like Snider and Lind struggle, they will have a tough time scoring runs.

Record: If this team were in the AL Central, I would give them nearly as good a shot as the Indians to win the division; in this division, though, I'll go with 78-84.

Orioles

Strengths: Also very good defense - plus at all three outfield positions, SS, and 2B (I think - not positive on Roberts).  Should have a solid lineup, especially if young players like Jones and Pie hit (Markakis almost certainly will); eventual call-up of Matt Wieters could give them an All-Star caliber catcher.  Bullpen should have some decent arms.

Weaknesses: Starting pitching is probably, at best, two #3 starters, a #6, and two #7s.

Record: Given their starting pitching and their division, I may be overly optimistic on this team, but I think their defense and offense will be strong enough to get them near .500 - 77-85.

Looking back on the NL predictions

In the interests of time, a slightly shorter post looking back on my NL picks before we move on to the AL East ones.  Full picks themselves: East, Central, West.  I also found it interesting to compare these to Keith Law's picks and the BP Pecota picks (both Insider only, I think).  Oh, and here are Rob Neyer's (no win totals).

To summarize, my own on the left, Keith's in the middle, BP on the right:

PB KLaw BP

NL East W L GB NL East W L GB NL East W L GB

Mets 91 71 --- Mets 89 73 --- Mets 92 70 ---

Phillies 89 73 1 Braves 85 77 4 Braves 87 75 5

Braves 81 81 9 Phillies 83 79 6 Phillies 87 75 5

Marlins 79 83 11 Marlins 78 84 11 Nationals 77 85 15

Nationals 69 93 22 Nationals 75 87 14 Marlins 71 91 21

NL Central W L GB NL Central W L GB NL Central W L GB

Cubs 95 67 --- Cubs 94 68 --- Cubs 95 67 ---

Brewers 84 78 11 Cardinals 87 75 7 Brewers 83 79 12

Cardinals 82 80 13 Brewers 84 78 10 Cardinals 82 80 13

Reds 81 81 14 Reds 80 82 14 Reds 79 83 16

Astros 71 91 24 Pittsburgh 68 94 26 Astros 70 92 25

Pirates 68 94 27 Houston 66 96 28 Pirates 64 98 31

NL West W L GB NL West W L GB NL West W L GB

Dodgers 90 72 --- Dodgers 88 74 --- Dodgers 93 69 ---

Dbacks 88 74 2 Dbacks 85 77 3 Dbacks 88 74 5

Rockies 80 82 9 Giants 78 84 10 Giants 76 86 17

Giants 76 86 13 Rockies 78 84 10 Rockies 71 91 22

Padres 64 98 26 Padres 65 97 23 Padres 71 91 22

A couple reactions - I appear to be a little on the optimistic side on the Phillies and definitely pessimistic on the Braves.  It wouldn't surprise me if the Phillies end up a bit lower - they certainly have a lot of potential areas for regression - but in the end I think they and the Mets are the class of the division.  I'm holding firm on the Braves - that rotation just doesn't impress me all that much, and I don't think they're going to get production from their impressive farm system until next year.  Their best outfielder might be league average, and while Escobar, Johnson, and Kotchman are nice players, they're not the 3rd, 4th, and 5th best hitters on a real contender.

For the NL Central, I was amazed to see how much my picks mirror the BP projections.  The only semi-outlier of interest in this group is Keith on the Cardinals; if players like Ludwick, Ankiel, and Rasmus produce and Carpenter comes back healthy, I could certainly see that happening, but I'd call it the 75/80th percentile of their performance.

Not too much difference in the NL West - I'm a bit optimistic on the Rockies, and in retrospect I think I'm probably overestimating them, and they should be at least a couple wins lower; I think at that point I was looking to make some interesting picks, and they're a team that has been under the radar.

AL East and a wrap-up of the AL teams coming soon - I'm putting off looking at the AL BP projections until I've made those picks.

UPDATE: Added one win to the Mets, Nationals, Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Padres in order to make my overall wins and losses (including AL) add up to be equal.

AL Central

Previous picks: AL West, NL East, NL Central, NL West

More mediocrity here - really, the AL is three great teams and a bunch of middling ones.

Cleveland Indians

Strengths: Grady Sizemore.  Solid lineup with very good upside if Peralta, Martinez, and Hafner hit like they have in the past and a few of the kids step up (such as Choo and Cabrera).  Cliff Lee and Fausto Carmona could make a very good 1-2 in the rotation, and the bullpen could be excellent.

Weaknesses: Huge questions in the rotation after Carmona, and even he and Lee are no sure things, given inconsistencies over the past couple years.  Some downside in the lineup, especially if Hafner continues to decline.

Record: 85-77

Detroit Tigers

Strengths: Cabrera, Ordonez, Granderson, and Guillen make for a dangerous top of the lineup, and Polanco and Laird provide a bit of depth to that.  Rotation has upside, with a potential Cy Young candidate in Verlander, and decent young arms in Jackson, Galarraga, Miner, and Porcello, plus Ryan Perry in the pen.

Weaknesses: Rotation is relying on largely unproven arms; bullpen is suspect at best.  Cabrera and Guillen are potentially defensive disasters.

Record: I didn't expect to be optimistic about this team, but I think their young arms may actually make them into a contender.  With that said, I can't really go higher than 82-80, but that's a big step up from last year.

Chicago White Sox

Strengths: Solid rotation depth; potential to score some runs with Carlos Quentin, Thome, Konerko, Alexei Ramirez, and Dye.  Some hard-throwing arms in the pen behind Jenks.

Weaknesses: Rotation doesn't have a #1... or really a #2.  Heart of lineup is aging and could begin to collapse (Thome, Konerko, Dye, and Pierzynski).  How much will they get from Dewayne Wise, Josh Fields, and Chris Getz at CF, 3B, and 2B?

Record: I like the depth of their rotation enough that I don't think they'll collapse, but I think we're more likely to see the downside of the lineup than the upside. 78-84

Minnesota Twins

Strengths: Joe Mauer, Morneau (to a lesser extent), depth in the starting rotation, Joe Nathan.

Weaknesses: When will Mauer be healthy? Injuries also at the top of the rotation; where does the offense come from after Mauer and Morneau?

Record: I wanted to be more optimistic on this team, but without Mauer they just look anemic on offense and I don't see the pitching staff making up for it.  77-85.

Kansas City Royals

Strengths: Some good young talent in Gordon and Butler.  Nice top of the rotation with Greinke and Meche; Soria is nasty closing.

Weaknesses: Most of the rest of the team.  Sidney Ponson is supposedly the #4 starter.

Record: There are reasons to be optimistic, but far more reasons to be pessimistic.  Apologies to Joe Posnanski, but 73-89 (UPDATE: bumped up one win to make the numbers work better).

AL West

Other picks: AL Central, NL East, NL Central, NL West

The common consensus seems to be that the NL West is the weakest division in baseball, but I think it's going to be better than the AL West, and depending on how one measures division strength, it could rival both the AL and NL Central.  In any case, the AL West projects to be a mosh pit of mediocrity this year, as the Angels got awfully lucky with their win total last year (relative to their run differential) and have taken steps backward over the offseason between losing out on Teixeira and the injuries to their pitching staff.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Strengths: When healthy, their starting pitching has top-flight talent and depth; their bullpen is always effective (doubtless a reflection of manager Mike Scioscia), and promises to be so even with Brian Fuentes replacing KRod.  Their lineup could be strong and deep - as long as the veterans can stay healthy and the kids realize their full potential.

Weaknesses: Their top 2 starters are starting on the DL, and could be missing significant time; without them, the rotation is pedestrian at best.  The whole outfield is aging quickly, and it's not too hard to envision the lineup falling into mediocrity with their decline and ho-hum performances from Kendrick and Morales.

Record: 85-77.  As long as this team makes the playoffs, they could be dangerous if Ervin Santana and Lackey are healthy and effective by the end of the year.  I doubt they'll come in as favorites, but they're capable of pulling off an upset.

Texas Rangers

Strengths: Lineup - they have young talent all over the field, anchored by Josh Hamilton in CF, Ian Kinsler at 2B, and to a lesser extent Michael Young at 3B.  They'll score runs in bunches.

Weaknesses: Pitching - when your #1 (Millwood) had an ERA over 5 last year, and your #3 hasn't pitched in the majors since 2006, you know you're in trouble.  The question is whether they can keep it low enough for the hitters to win it.

Record: 80-82; I think this team surprises and keeps it interesting until near the end of the season. UPDATE: Bumped up one win to make the numbers work out.

Oakland Athletics

Strengths: Made some nice offseason additions to improve a moribund lineup from last year, adding Matt Holliday, Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera, and Nomar as a backup - they should score enough runs now, if not tons.

Weaknesses: Injuries are derailing the starting pitching, so that they have to rely on young guns with very little major league experience - they have about 400 major league innings in their 5 starters combined.  A couple of them may have strong years, but it's pretty unlikely all, or even most, will.

Record: I just don't trust the pitching, and the hitting will be no better than solid. 76-86.

Seattle Mariners

Strengths: A new front office.  Felix Hernandez and Eric Bedard; some good young talent, including Clement, Balentien, and Morrow.

Weaknesses: Pretty much everywhere else on the diamond, with the possible exception of Beltre at 3B and Gutierrez in RF.

Record: Poor Seattle fans will have to endure another miserable season, yet one not quite bad enough to end up with the top pick in the draft.  68-94.

NL West

Other picks: AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central

Onwards to the NL West, home of my favorite team, the Dodgers (not that I'm being biased in my predictions, of course...)

Dodgers:  I've covered their strengths and weaknesses in more detail here.

Record: 89-73

Diamondbacks

Strengths: Brad Webb and Dan Haren at the top of the rotation; a lot of young talent on the field - the Justin Upton in particular is a star in the making.

Weaknesses: Starting rotation is underwhelming after Webb and Haren; bullpen looks fairly mediocre.

Record: This looks like a pretty solid team across the board, with the very strong front end of the rotation making up for the questionable back end.  If they get breakout performances from some of their young position players or if the 3-5 starters perform better than expected, this could be an awfully good team.  Perhaps it's blind hope, but I'm banking on small, not large steps forward from the young hitters overall, and an 87-75 record.

Rockies

Strengths: Tulowitzki could be the next great shortstop, especially defensively.  Pitching staff has potential if talented young pitchers like Jimenez and Morales step up.  Corpas and Street in the 8th and 9th innings is a nice combo.

Weaknesses: Outfield is questionable, and whole lineup may struggle to hit, especially if Tulo's not what he was his rookie year and Helton continues to decline.  Despite some talent, pitching staff has plenty of question marks.

Record: 80-82

Giants

Strengths: Starting pitching - Lincecum, Cain, Johnson is a very nice top 3; Sanchez has potential, and we'll see if Zito can be a serviceable #5 for $17 million.

Weaknesses: Hitting - Benjie Molina batted cleanup frequently last year, which is just pathetic.  They've added an over the hill Edgar Renteria and a couple of pretty solid hitting kids on the corner infield spots in Sandoval and Ishikawa, but that still doesn't leave them with much.  Sandoval and Renteria look like they'll be brutal defensively on the left side of the infield.  Jeremy Affeldt was a nice bullpen pickup, but I still wouldn't be too trustworthy of their bullpen as a whole.

Record: The Giants have a lot of young talent between the majors and minors; I don't think this is the year, though.  At earliest, we'll see them start to break through next year, and I think 2011 is more likely.  76-86.

Padres

Strengths: Jake Peavy and Adrian Gonzalez

Weaknesses: Everyone else - ok, maybe not Brian Giles.

Record: Seriously, this team is bad.  When you're putting pitchers the Nationals dumped into your rotation, that's  a bad sign.  And of course, they may end up trading Peavy as well.  We'll go with 63-99.

NL Central

Other predictions: AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL West

Onwards to the NL Central, home of the NL's best team by a good margin:

Cubs

Strengths: Deep and talented rotation; Soto, Aramis Ramirez, Soriano, Bradley, and Lee make for a dangerous middle of the order; back end of the bullpen should be pretty good with Marmol, Gregg, and Heilman (and possibly Samardzija).

Weaknesses: Some concern about starting pitchers underperforming - Harden is injury prone, Dempster had a career year (in a contract year), Zambrano has a lot of miles on his arm.  Center field platoon looks questionable both offensively and defensively.

Record: 95-67

Milwaukee Brewers

Strengths: Lots of talent, most of it young, on the field - Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, Hardy.  Yovani Gallardo

Weaknesses: Not great fielding team; starting pitching after Gallardo is mediocre at best (and that's generous), relief pitching is worse.  As a team, don't get on base particularly well.  Everyone is still waiting for Weeks to "break out."  Gallardo missed most of last year due to injury.

Record: Gallardo can't overcome the loss of Sabbathia and Sheets, and the rest of the pitching staff is just older and worse.  84-78

St. Louis Cardinals

Strengths: Albert Pujols. Albert Pujols. Albert Pujols.  There are whispers that starting pitching could be surprisingly good, led by healthy Carpenter; they always do seem to get a lot out of retreads in the rotation.

Weaknesses: I'll believe it when I see it.  Several candidates for regression to the mean.

Record: Barry Bonds showed how much difference one amazing player makes, and I think Pujols does that for this team.  LaRussa always seems to get the most out of his players, but even with all that, I can't go higher than 82-80.

Cincinnati Reds

Strengths: Pitching depth; some good young talent around the field (especially Jay Bruce).

Weaknesses: Looking at little offensive production from SS, LF, and CF, so their young players will have to step up big time to carry the offense. Dusty Baker.

Record: They're a popular sleeper pick because of their pitching depth, but I don't see it being good enough to carry a weak offense to contention.  81-81

Houston Astros

Strengths: Berkman, Lee, Pence, Oswalt.  Valverde should be a solid closer.

Weaknesses: Everyone after Oswalt in the rotation.  C, 2B, 3B, CF

Record: In line for a major disappointment after last year's deceptively good record - 71-91.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Strengths: They're young, so there are plenty of breakout candidates.

Weaknesses: Most of the team.

Record: 68-94

The Dodgers

I'm going to interrupt the quickie analysis/predictions track to look at the Dodgers, my favorite team, in a bit more depth.  Traditionally, the Dodgers are a pitching first team that struggles to score; the common perception is that this team actually may reverse that - certainly there is more concern over the rotation than the lineup.  Here's one possible lineup:

Furcal SS

Martin C

Ramirez LF

Ethier RF

Kemp CF

Loney 1B

Hudson 2B

Blake 3B

Pitcher

It certainly does not have any particular weak spots - each player should be at least an average hitter for his position, with a decent chance of outperforming that, and Ramirez, Martin, and Furcal could all be top 3 at their positions.  There is some depth on the bench - Juan Pierre may be hideously overpaid, but he's not a bad option for a 4th outfielder and is certainly great to have as a pinch runner; Mark Loretta is a solid backup and Blake DeWitt, though he'll start the year in AAA, proved last year that he can at least do a decent job if needed at 3B.  Backup SS is a bit more troublesome, especially given Furcal's injury history, and unfortunately the likely backup 1B, Doug Mientkiewicz, hits like the utility player he may be used as.  The biggest concern here is that there isn't a remotely intimidating bat to use as a PH off the bench.

The pitching provides slightly greater concern - the rotation projects to be Billingsley, Wolf, Kuroda, Kershaw, and McDonald.  Best case scenario, the Dodgers get 200 innings each out of Billingsley, Wolf, and Kuroda, 170-180 out of Kershaw, and 150 out of McDonald, with adequate filler coming from a group including Eric Milton, Jeff Weaver, Eric Stults, and Claudio Vargas.  Billingsley and Kershaw pitch like #1s (they both have the stuff to do so) and Kuroda, Kershaw, and McDonald like #3s (probably the reasonable ceiling for all three).  Worst case scenario sees injuries or ineffectiveness from Billingsley (threw a lot of innings last year and broke his leg in the offseason), Wolf (injury-prone), Kershaw (first full year in the rotation), and/or McDonald (only a handful of major league innings).

The bullpen was a strength last year; it has lost Saito, Beimel, and Chan Ho Park, and Cory Wade has apparently looked bad so far this spring.  With that said, Broxton and Kuo both have great stuff and should be highly effective, and the Dodgers certainly have some strong arms and a number of possibilities to fill out the pen.  It's not as good as last year, and I don't expect it to be one of the top couple in the NL, but I can't say it's something I worry greatly about.

So what's the overall prognosis?  The Dodgers won 84 games last year; even in a worst case scenario, I don't think they'll do much worse than that - at the start of the season, they've improved at 3B, 2B, LF, and CF (given that they won't be giving any at bats to Andruw Jones).  If Furcal stays healthy, they'll improve at SS as well.  So worst case scenario, where they're hit hard by injuries, especially in the pitching staff, I'd go with 82-80.  Best case scenario, where the pitching comes along as advertised and the batting order has no major injuries, I think they could win 95 games.  Realistically, though, I'll peg them at 89 wins, and a narrow NL West title.

Spring Thoughts

An appropriate title, as given prior history it's likely to be the only post all spring.  Ah well, what better way to avoid grading papers that I should have done days ago?

It is, once again, that best of all times, the last few days of spring training before baseball season starts.  It is a time of hope for fans of all teams, when great spring performances are signs of an upcoming breakout season and poor performances are merely players working out the kinks or trying something new.  Every team has the same record, and no one knows what oddities lie ahead over the course of the season.  Personally, my hands itch to be throwing or hitting a baseball most hours of the day.  At the moment, of course, that's not an option, so some preseason thoughts and predictions instead; we'll start with just the NL East for the moment (other picks: AL Central, AL West, NL Central, NL West):

The NL East

Mets

Strengths: Top 3 in MLB at their position at SS, 3B, CF, #1 SP; star bats could carry lineup; rest of rotation has potential (besides Livan Hernandez) and bullpen now headlined by KRod and Putz.

Weaknesses: SP overall could easily underperform; will be over the hill at C, 1B, 2B - if Delgado in particular regresses back to his first half stats from last year, the offense may not be able to score enough to overcome mediocre pitching.  How would they overcome an injury to one of their big 4?

Record: 90-72

Phillies

Strengths: Chase Utley, Chase Utley, Chase Utley (he's that good). Hamels is also a stud, and Rollins and Howard are productive.  Excellent defensively, strong bullpen, deep lineup.

Weaknesses: Howard is likely to begin to decline - he already can't hit lefties.  While it's a decent group, there are no sure things among 2-5 starters.  Ibanez is weak defensively and is at the stage where one might expect offensive decline as well.

Record: 89-73

Braves

Strengths: Solid infield, anchored by McCann.  Reasonably deep pitching staff.

Weaknesses: Miserable outfield, quality of starters is questionable; how many games will Chipper be able to play?

Record: 81-81

Marlins

Strengths: Hanley Ramirez.  Lots of young talent in the pitching staff.

Weaknesses: Several questionable spots in the lineup (Emilio Bonifacio at 3B?!?) - will the young, unproven talent deliver?

Record: 79-83

Edit: Revised down 3 games after reading this.  I'm not going as low as the projections in that article because I think their young pitching will be ok, but it did make me rethink a little.

Washington Nationals

Strengths: Jim Bowden is gone.  Ryan Zimmerman (maybe).  Lots of depth at corner OF and 1B.

Weaknesses: Too much depth at corner OF and 1B, not enough elsewhere.  Pitching, pitching, pitching.

Record: 68-94

And we're back!

Barack Obama is a prohibitive favorite to become our next President.  He has run an impressive campaign, particularly in his ability to bring in masses of eager volunteers and use them productively.  Given the early returns, it seems that the result is going to be a very high turnout across the board for Obama supporters, which given Obama's lead in the polls may result in an Obama landslide.

The election has had its share of mudslinging, and as someone living in a "battleground state," I feel that I've seen far more ads telling me why not to vote for Candidate X than ones telling me why I should vote for Candidate Y.  This is precisely why I long for a viable third party - it's much more difficult (and more expensive) to go negative against two other candidates; instead, candidates would be forced to run on their own merits much more.  Plus, it might encourage greater independence in platforms as the bases of each party become smaller and less important in winning the election.  Of course, it will take a perfect storm of events and personalities for a third party to overcome the opposition Democrats and Republicans will put up against any rising third party.  Ah well.

To a more practical point, then.  Obama will win an election that has had more than its share of negative campaigning.  He has absolutely inspired a lot of people with his positive campaigning - after all, one cannot create the sort of organization that he has all over the country through negative campaigning - but the relationship between the two parties seems as bitter as it has been through most of the Bush presidency.  Obama's challenge will be do what every candidate always claims he will do - create an atmosphere in Washington in which there is no stigma attached to crossing party lines, an atmosphere in which the first reaction is not to blame the opposition.  The first step he can take is to choose a bipartisan cabinet (which means more than a token Republican as Secretary of Agriculture) - bringing back Colin Powell as Secretary of State would be a good start (and then listen to him!).  Powell is still one of the most popular figures in American politics, and he has endorsed Obama.  To go a step further, I wouldn't mind someone like Mitt Romney in the cabinet as well, and I'd even like to see Obama keep around a neo-con or two (if perhaps not in a cabinet post) - I think they've been a bit too aggressive in their foreign policy under Bush, but they still represent an interesting and valuable point of view that should be taken into consideration by any administration.  Obama's weakness is a lack of experience in foreign policy, but he has a chance to turn this into a positive if he gathers a diverse and intelligent group of advisors around him to provoke greater thought and analysis of each situation.  Isn't this why schools and colleges around the country are embracing diversity - because a diversity of background leads to a diversity of thought that stimulates intellectual growth?  I feel that we have a chance to emerge from 8 years of intellectual stagnation in the highest offices of the country; here's hoping that Obama has the wisdom and courage to end that trend.  And in the very unlikely event that McCain wins, let's hope he's "maverick" enough to break from the party policy of Bush and Rove and do the same.

Dragged back in

Last Saturday and Sunday, I went to the Dodgers-Phillies games.  Saturday, while the Phillies took an early lead, by the top of the 5th it was only 3-2, and anything could happen.  Then, with runners at 1st and 2nd and none out, Matt Kemp lost a routine flyball to center in the sun and missed it by 40 feet.  Ryan Howard then doubled on a 3-0 count and the game was effectively over (it ended 9-2).

Sunday, the Dodgers were outhitting the Phillies around 10-5, but only took a 2-1 lead into the 9th.  Still, they had two outs with a runner on second and Andy Tracy at the plate, a 34 year old journeyman with no MLB at-bats since 2004 and only 263 for his career; he's also got a sterling .153 career average as a pinch hitter.  Four straight balls and a Pedro Feliz single later, and it's a tie game.  Still, the Dodgers had not exhausted their ability to disappoint - in the top of the 10th, they loaded the bases with none out, but an all too predictable 5U-2 double play and strikeout ended that threat.  When the Pedro Feliz cranked a 2 out, 3 run homer in the 11th, I gave up hope for the season.  Teams that lose games like this are not playoff teams.

Monday to Friday only confirmed my conviction - 5 losses, including a sweep by the horrific Washington Nationals and a loss in the opener of their series with the division leading Diamondbacks.  The Dbacks lead was a solid but surprisingly low 4.5 games, due to their own bad week, but my hope was as good as dead.  I was so depressed about the Dodgers that I didn't even bother checking the pitching match-ups for the final two games; a good thing, since they would only have deepened the despair - the Dbacks had Haren and Webb lined up, two of the top five NL Cy Young candidates.

It's two days later, and apparently there was a hidden glimmer of hope all along which has now been fanned up significantly.  The Dodger bats woke up and beat both Haren and Webb, and 2.5 games with a fairly easy closing schedule and three games still to play against the Diamondbacks, in LA, seems a reasonable amount to overcome.  And this, I think, is the greatness of sports, and baseball in particular.  Each game builds your hopes repeatedly, often just to dash them.  But the more they are dashed, the more rewarding it is when that hope is fulfilled.  Likewise, over the course of the season a fan's hopes rise and fall continuously - unlike any other sport, literally with every day.  There are disappointments; for most of us, there are more disappointments than rewarding moments (after all, only 8 of 30 teams make the playoffs, and only one wins it all), but they just make the good moments that much better.

On Democracy

It has become common practice to praise democracy as the best form of government; it's something that Americans don't even think about anymore.  Frankly, this is an excellent example of much of what I don't like democracy - such a large proportion of the population accepts whatever they hear as absolutely true without taking the time to step back, to think about it, to analyze it.  Another example - as a NYTimes article recently pointed out, for the last 25 years, Gallup polls have consistently shown that nearly half of the adult US population believes the world and all creatures were created by God within the last 10,000 years.  This is despite, obviously, huge amounts of evidence to the contrary.

In the world of politics, one of the results of this inability to step back and think critically is a susceptibility to being swayed by charisma and rhetoric rather than by intelligence and the issues.  This is not to say that charisma and rhetoric have no value on the world stage - they certainly do - but they play a far greater role in the election than they should.  Likewise, so many people accept the messages of negative commercials without thinking or investigating.

Since this is a democracy, though, everyone has a vote and an equal say in electing our leaders.  Moreover, time and again we see those leaders acting more to satisfy the electorate rather than in the manner they believe best serves the country - after all, that's what protects their jobs.  They are more concerned with assigning blame than fixing the problem - again, it protects their jobs (or wins them a job).  If something's going poorly, and they can be portrayed as responsible for it, they are more concerned with putting a positive spin on it than figuring out how to turn it around.

I don't mean to say that all politicians are this way, but I do think that it's a significant problem that is endemic to democracy, and it all goes back to the inability of a major portion of the voting population to think critically.  I'm also not going to put forth a solution,* because every form of government has its share of problems.  The ability to change leaders is very important in any form of government because without it there is no check against tyranny.  Unfortunately, those forms of government that are more likely to achieve an aristocracy (using the ancient Greek meaning of rule by the aristoi, the best) - monarchy and oligarchy - are also the most difficult to devise methods of changing the government and thus preventing the descent into tyranny.

* The obvious solution, of course, is better education (and I am absolutely in favor of greatly increased spending on education); I certainly hope that this would improve the problem, but I can't say that I don't have some doubts.

VP choices and more

I never planned for this to be a political blog, especially as I've become pretty bad about paying attention to politics.  And yet, here we are with our third legitimate post, and once again, it's about politics.  In my defense, I'm trying to avoid partisan hackery.

John McCain has just nominated Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his VP candidate.  Like most Americans, I'm sure, I had never heard of her before reading her name on CNN (and even after reading 3 or 4 articles about the choice, I still had to flip back a second ago to check on her first name).  The Democrats are already killing her for a lack of experience and qualification, playing up the fact that she's "a heartbeat away from the Presidency," which is particularly important (they say) because McCain is 72 and has had multiple bouts with cancer.*

* You know, McCain's health was not something I was terribly worried about, and it still doesn't bother me that much, but I just glanced through the stats, and he would be the oldest president at his inauguration by three years.  That's more significant than I'd thought.**

**Oh, I'm picking these "Pozterisks" up from Joe Posnanski, who coined the term for the random but very entertaining tangents in his superb sports blog.  Also a tip of the hat to Terry Pratchett, who has pretty much done the same thing with great comic effect in his Discworld novels for the last 20 or 30 years.

Anyway, I have to say that I don't like this argument; for me, experience is vastly overrated.  To my mind, Palin's lack of it does not make her a worse VP candidate, nor does Obama's lack of it make him a worse Presidential candidate.  I want a President who is intelligent (obviously), can think for him/herself, but also can listen and learn from those around him and is willing to bring diverse viewpoints into that conversation.  If you surround an intelligent, open-minded person with knowledgeable and diverse advisors, I would trust that person to make a good decision, regardless of his or her experience.

This brings me to one of the biggest problems I have with our political system - the primary system.*  All of the viable candidates tend to sell out to please the more radical base of the party, as it turns out in the greatest numbers, and the base generally wants to be rewarded for its support with like-minded advisors, cabinet members, and judges; more significantly, appointments of people with opposing opinions is viewed as a betrayal.  As a result, we tend not to get the well-rounded advisor group presenting many points of view, but instead nuances on one point of view.

* This is problem #2; problem #1 is that most people are, for lack of a better word, stupid.  We'll get back to that problem in a later post, though.

Given my druthers, I would do away with the primaries, which tend to turn into a mockery of democracy,* what with different states having different levels of influence based on the timing of the primary and having different procedures for voting and awarding delegates, not to mention the whole superdelegate issue.  I see a couple of possible replacement systems (granted, these are pretty radical and won't ever happen, but it's fun to theorize).  In both cases, all interested candidates would be free to run (as part of their party) in the general election; that would mean potentially Hillary, John Edwards, Romney, and Huckabee could still be on the ballot this year (and perhaps others).  Option one would give every voter a set number of votes (say, 3, for the purposes of this example) which could be used for any number of voters.  A big Hillary fan could cast 3 votes for Hillary, while someone who liked both Hillary and Obama might vote twice for Obama and once for Hillary.  Option two would allow a voter to check off every name that he or she approved of from the presidential candidate list.  Perhaps we'll go into the pros and cons of such systems later, but it's late and I'm tired, so that will have to do for now.

* Now, I won't say that democracy is necessarily a good thing (again, more coming later), and so I'm not criticizing the primaries solely for being a mockery of democracy.  I criticize them because, for the reasons discussed earlier, I think they often can fail to choose the best candidate, and even when they do, they unduly influence the positions that candidate takes.  In the end, they are both an ineffective method of choosing candidates and are not particularly democratically fair - that qualifies as a failure all around in my book.

Georgia once more

According to the NYTimes, "The United States... has emphasized that Georgia's territorial integrity must be preserved.  Mr. Bush said Saturday, 'There's no room for debate on this matter.'"

This is in response to Russia's claims that Georgia voided its claims on South Ossetia and Abkhazia by invading South Ossetia.  I completely understand the US upholding the Georgia's borders excepting those provinces, given that there are very real worries of Russia annexing Georgia or turning it into a vassal state.  However, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have only been nominally part of Georgia for the past 15 years; effectively they have been independent and under Russian protection (hence the Georgian invasion that started this war).  Are we really willing to draw a line in the sand just to return them to that state?  Georgia will assert no control over these provinces regardless - why is it so important that they remain as part of Georgia's territory?  At best, it seems like an empty political victory; more likely, it will be yet one more embarrassing sign of how little the US can actually do in this conflict.

Follow up

Fittingly enough, I post, and within 10 minutes the evening news comes on, announcing a cease-fire between Georgia and Russia (which had been agreed upon earlier in the day).

Georgia - Russia (A Beginning v. 2.0)

Ok, so I never really got started when I set this up. Let's see if we can do better this time around.

As we're back in Richmond housesitting, I've actually been reading the paper in the morning (or early afternoon - my internal clock is admittedly a little screwed up at the moment), and so I've devoted some thought to the Georgia-Russia conflict over South Ossetia. First of all, Georgia has acted colossally stupid in all of this. For the great majority of Georgia's independence from Russia, it has not controlled South Ossetia, which essentially seceded successfully and has been under Russian protection. The attempt to recover the province reeks of nationalistic pride; from what I understand, it is a poor area that is unlikely to provide much benefit to Georgia even if they were able to recover it. The people of South Ossetia do not wish to be part of Georgia and were likely to cause trouble in the event that they were reconquered. Russia was certainly going to provide significant military opposition, and Iraq and Afghanistan have both shown what happens when a major power with relatively high-tech weaponry opposes a minor power. The cost-benefit analysis of this scenario is not particularly difficult.

The Georgian president has spouted the usual rhetoric about how this is an important test of the western world/US and that it has so far failed to live up to its ideology, etc. The simple fact is that there is little that the US et al. could do. Military assistance is an impossibility - besides the risks of World War III, it would be political suicide to open another military front with Iraq so unpopular. Trade embargos (always unpopular with the countries that do the most trade, especially when the embargoed country is as major a market as Russia) would take time to agree upon, then to set up, and even then to have an effect. As a result, we get exactly what should be expected - repeated firm calls for a cease-fire and international mediation.

Russia, I believe, is on the point of acting foolishly itself. They have demonstrated their military dominance and achieved the primary objective of protecting South Ossetia. They are in a position, in talks, to demand that Georgia permanently relinquish its claims to both South Ossetia and the other secessionist province (something with an A I'm too lazy to look up right now). Their initial actions opposing Georgia's attempt were defensible, given their history in the region and the longstanding preference of South Ossetia for independence or even Russian rule. However, if they do not agree to a cease-fire fairly soon, they risk a significant alienation of the western world, possibly worse than that of the US following the beginning of the Iraq war. The harm to diplomatic and trade relations Russia could suffer might easily outweigh the advantages of toppling the pro-US Georgian government or even annexing Georgia.

A final note - let us assume that Russia does agree to a cease-fire, withdraws its forces into South Ossetia, and that the result of mediation is South Ossetian independence. I would not go so far as to say that democray and the free market are in trouble in Georgia, but the current government is likely to be voted out in disgrace for their miscalculations. Anti-Russian sentiment is likely to continue to be strong (every day Russia waits before agreeing to a cease-fire will only make them more hated in Georgia); on the other hand, the lack of tangible US support (even if it was foolish to expect it) will do significant damage to the Georgian-US alliance. In other words, Russia is nearly as likely to topple a pro-US Georgian government by agreeing to a cease-fire as by continuing to fight.

A Beginning...

Well, 3 AM seems like a fitting time to get the inaugural blog post out of the way so that things don't look quite so empty.  I wouldn't bother reading the rest of this, though - it's pretty much just getting down something to fill the space for the moment.  For the non-Latinists, the title of the blog is from Vergil's first Eclogue (l. 5), and means 'relaxed in the shade' - more or less the way I live my life.  Anyway, future installments will likely bring baseball discussion coupled with discussion of the classical world; I have it in mind to post a running translation of some Latin work with my thoughts below.  I still have to figure out what I want to translate, though - the Aeneid would be the simplest and certainly interesting, but it's been done so many times.  A.J. Woodman has recently published translations of Tacitus and Sallust, which makes me a trifle hesitant to work on them as well.  Livy and Caesar are possibilities, as are selected letters of Cicero; it might perhaps be fitting, though, to begin with the Eclogues.  Stay tuned in the New Year (I'm unlikely to have time before then) to see if I actually follow through...