Anthony Castrovince thinks he has discovered the problem with the Indians this season

The Indians futility this year has been very unexpected and especially with Cliff Lee at 18-2. It shouldn't be a mystery, but for some, it is. Anthony Castrovince thinks he has figured it out:

Tribe has need for speed on basepath

If speed kills, consider the Indians harmless.

It doesn't. I don't. This is going to be good.

The Tribe is a team in need of speed, and one look at the stat sheet proves it.

Grady Sizemore, who homered twice and joined the 30/30 club in the first game of a series with the Tigers that continues Tuesday night at Comerica Park, leads the club with 34 steals. Second place goes to utilityman Jamey Carroll, who has ... six.

Yes and stolen bases are important why?

"We have one guy who's a true basestealer, and a couple other guys who have the ability to steal a base," manager Eric Wedge said. "Other than that, we're slow. There's no other way to put it."

And having such little speed at your disposal is no way to generate late-game scoring opportunities. The Indians have an offense very reliant on the home run. Manufacturing runs is not exactly a club specialty.

Reasons the Indians are not leading the central:
1. Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner have missed most of the season and were playing injured badly prior to that.
2. Jake Westbrook, Fausto Carmona, and CC Sabathia will make less than 50 combined starts for the Indians this year compared with 89 last year and Carmona especially was not as good.
3. Jhonny Peralta, Asdrubal Cabrera, Franklin Gutierrez, Dave Dellucci, and Andy Marte were aful for a good portion of the season.
4. The bullpen, led by Joe Borowski and Rafael Betancourt has by abysmal.

Not a reason for the Indians not leading the central:
Lack of stolen bases and manufactued runs.

When Franklin Gutierrez was caught stealing to end the top of the seventh inning on Monday night, it wasn't exactly a rare sight. Take away Sizemore's contributions, and the Indians this season have been caught stealing (20) nearly as many times as they've been successful (32).

I'd stop trying.

Gutierrez (five steals in eight attempts) is one of several young players the Indians would like to see utilize his speed better. Asdrubal Cabrera (three steals in five attempts) and Ben Francisco (three steals in six attempts) can also be considered part of that group.

None of these guys were expected to be big basestealers and they can all stop trying as far as I'm concerned.

Of course, speed is not just measured in stolen bases.

"When I look at that, I look at [whether or not a player can score] from first on a double," Wedge said. "And can you score from second on that routine single -- not the one that's smoked, just that regular groundball through the hole? Those are the indicators for me."

This would not be an issue if Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez was combining for 60-70 home runs.

All indications are that the Indians could use some help in the speed department. Consider that one of many potential areas for improvement this offseason.

Hopefully a low, low priority.

Ned Colletti: assembling a team to take on the world... if it was 2000

Our friend Ned recently added the ageless Greg Maddux to his collection of fomer superstars. While the addition of Mad dog was not a bad move, it looks more like a desperate move to save his team's division hopes. But I've got it all figured out.

Colletti has somehow been hypnotized to think that it's the turn of the century again. Because if it was 8 years or so ago, the Dodgers would clean up. It was a simpler time when Maddux was still one of the best pitchers in baseball, Nomar and Andruw were budding superstars, Kent was tearing in up in San Fran, Lowe was a stud closer, Saito was still cleaning up in Japan, Furcal was rookie of the year, Penny, Pierre, and Berroa were hotshot prospects, and Manny was the best hitter in baseball who has not to date been implicated in the steroid scandal. Of course, most of the other players were in little league or high school, but I'm sure Ned has a plan for that.

KRod MVP? Uhh... No

The media loves to talk about awards prematurely, and with the Cy Young and rookie of the year awards all but locked up in both leagues. MVP debate has started.

If you haven't figured it out, the Cy Youngs should be won by Brandon Webb and Cliff Lee respectively, and it likely won't be close although Lincecum and Halladay could make things interesting in either falters down the stretch.

Similarly the ROYs should be Geovany Soto and Evan Longoria and both should be unanimous.

This leaves managers of the year and MVP. The skippers should be Maddon in the AL, and Gonzalez in the NL although I'm sure Scioscia and Pinella will get votes, and Bruce Bouchy should as well.

Finally it brings me to MVP the award that is the single stupidest, most subjective, most arbitrarily awarded accolade in all of sports. Jeff Miller thinks and apparently Peter Gammons think that Francisco Rodriguez is the man for this award. Jeff Miller is also an idiot, and apparently so is Gammons although a lot of people have thought so for a very long time.

Against all odds the Angels, and their anemic offense have dominated baseball this year and are tied for baseball's best record despite having a run differential worse than the Toronto Blue Jays. Many will say Rodriguez has a lot to due with this. I'll point to the three best pitchers on the team: Ervin Santana, John Lackey, and Joe Saunders, to go along with a well rounded bullpen, a weak division, and old fashioned good luck. The notion that a closer who averages less than 3 innings per week can be the most valuable player is downright the kind of person who would run with the bulls brainless and even that is not strong enough to describe it. The argument for the case is based on two things that just piss me off: the notion that the MVP must come from the a playoff team, and the save statistic. KRod as they call him should be the first man to reach 60 saves this year. Good for him. Doesn't change the fact that the save is the single stupidest statistic in all of baseball as Jim Capel agrees.

It's true that it's Most Valuable Player, not best player which is stupid to begin with, but lets break that name down shall we? Most Valuable Player. Thankfully the sports writers are smart enough to understand the Most, and they have yet to award it to a fan or a manager so I'm going to assume that they understand the player as well. What they seem to have a problem with the is the valuable.

Webster defines valuable as:

1 a: having monetary value b: worth a good price
2 a: having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities <valuable friendships> b: of great use or service <valuable advice>
MVP awards in any sport have never been award to the guy who was highest paid or was the best bargain, although that could be a fun award, so we'll stick to definition number to. Most valuable advice, to me would mean the advice that helped me the most therefore MVP should be the player who helps his team the most. Basically who adds the most wins to his team's win/loss record. Nowhere does it say that this player must be on a team in contention. The fact that sports writers seem to think that a player needs to be on a winning team to be valuable, or that he can't be the best player on a team full of very good players is downright idiotic and has led to some terrible, god awful MVPs over the years.

Here are my thoughts on how MVP should be decided:
1. The position in the standings of players team should have no bearing on the award.
2. The players park, position, and other surrounding should be factored in.

In short the MVP should be awarded to the best player in the league for that particular season. In the NL, this is easy as it is once again Albert Pujols despite fantastic years from Lance Berkman, Hanley Ramirez, Matt Holliday, and Chipper Jones. Pujols crushes all with an incredible .356/.462/.630 line, almost twice as many walks as strikeouts, and incredible 75.2 VORP with a month to go, and good defense at first. His WARP3 is a very solid 12.9, a career high, meaning that he has added an estimated 13 wins to St. Louis' total which helps explain their unexpected success.

Things are less clear in the AL where surprisingly the two best players are on a team that is below .500. Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore have been the two best players in the league all season. Lee leads the AL in most pitching categories and leads all pitchers in baseball as well as all players in the AL in VORP with 61.3, Sizemore is right behind at 58.3. Lee is an incredible 18-2 with 141 strikeouts and just 26 walks, he also has a WARP3 of 11.2 also best in the AL. Sizemore should be 30-30 with good defense in center, great baserunning, and being really the only threat for much of the season in a weak lineup. If he finishes with a flurry he could become the first center fielder to hit the 40-40 mark. Even without that, his WARP3 is 9.9 which leads AL hitters by half a win.

Cliff Lee is the AL MVP this season. Thanks to his stellar season, the Indians would be running away with the division if they hadn't lost Martinez, Hafner, Westbrook, and Carmona for most of the season, and might still be in the hunt if they had held on to Sabathia. None of these things are Lee's fault. Plain and simple: the Indians are 19-6 when Lee starts and 42-61 when anyone else starts. If that's not valuable I don't know what is.

If you have to pick a player on a contending team, that player has to be Carlos Quentin who is the best player on a team that could make the playoffs. But as I have said earlier, that's stupid.

Mike Mussina: Hall of Famer?

Now that the disasterous and largely unwatchable Beijing Olympics are over, I can once again devote all my sports attention to baseball - which is what I should have done during the olympics.

Anyway Jonah Keri thinks all Mike Mussina needs to become a hall of famer is a 20 win season. The article is actually well written and Keri has written other good articles like this one on KRod and the MVP, but come on. First of all Mussina's career is not over and based on his terrific resurgence in the 2008 season, I doubt it will be after the season. Also, lack of a 20 win season is not going to be what keeps him out of the playoffs - lack of domination will.

In addition to no 20 win seasons, Mike Mussina has zero: Cy Youngs, World Series rings, seasons with an ERA under 3.00, and seasons with a WHIP under 1.00. He has only been a league leader six times in any standard statistical category, and only 3 times in what I consider to be important ones (Innings, Wins, Winning %, WHIP, Ks, K/BB, and ERA).

Keri stresses the importance of comparing Mussina to his peers so we'll do just that. We'll skip Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, and Pedro as they are worlds better and focus on Glavine, Smoltz, Schilling, Rogers, and Wells.

Wells and Rogers have considerably worse numbers despite having individual seasons and playoff successes that would put them in his league. But no one is advocating for either of them to get in, so it was probably not a good comparison.

Smoltz and Schilling, despite not having Moose's career win total have had better careers. They both have better per innings numbers (ERA, ERA+, WHIP, K/9), they both have had incredibly dominant individual seasons that crush anything Mussina has put up, and they have been arguably the two best postseason pitchers of the era, so I really don't think Mussina stacks up to these two who are considered to be fringe Hall of Famers at best by many.

That leaves Glavine who has pitched longer, has a lot more wins, and a lot more postseason success than Mussina, but his per season and per inning numbers are close to Mussina's. Glavine has the edge in ERA, but much of that may be due to playing in the NL for so long as Mussina has the edge in just about every thing else. But Glavine has had the dominating seasons that the Moose hasn't. He has two Cy Youngs to go with 4 more top 3 finishes, 6 seasons with an ERA uner 3.00, 5 20 win seasons, and most importantly: the world series MVP in the 1990s Braves only championship.

Mussina just doesn't stack up to his peers who will be in the Hall. He has been very good for a long time, but he has never been truly dominant, nor does he have the career totals that should put him in. I don't like the hall of arbitrary numbers argument, but I think Mussina needs either a dominating playoff run, or to hold on for 290 or 300 wins in order to cement his candidacy for the hall.

Sick of hearing about Football - and it hasn't started yet

Well, its only August and I'm already tired of football. Sure I like to watch games on Sunday afternoon as much as the next guy and I love the NFL playoffs, but I hate how they have to invent ways to talk about football when its the offseason.

First of all the Brett Favre situation. I think that everyone outside of New York and Green Bay will agree that this was the most overblown story in the history of sports including Barry Bonds. They should just have changed ESPN to BFNN (Brett Favre News Network). There are some of the best division races in baseball history going on this year with 7 of the 8 playoff spots still up for grabs in August, something I don't think has ever happened, and yet all they can talk about is a 39 year old football player whose best years are behind him.

Things I care about less than the Brett Favre story:
1. Pictures of Brangelina's new twins.
2. The Big Summer Movies: Momma Mia, Sex and the City, The Mummy part 27, and the Love Guru.
3. John Edwards' affair.
4. The new Coldplay album/tour/whatever.
thats about all I got.

Another thing they love to talk about is the teams in the NFL forcing season ticket holders to buy tickets Preseason games. Apparently every team does this for at least 2 preseason games at 85 bucks a pop. Here's the analysis I heard on the radio, no joke:

"This is downright criminal. The government should get involved. It's like being forced to spend $10 on a Deniro movie where he does 30% of the scenes and a stand in takes over."

1. This is pretty shitty, but its a good way for them to make money if people are stupid enough to do it.
2. The government can't fix its own problems, why should they waste time trying to fix the NFL's.
3. Simple solution here: don't see the movie: download it.

The easy way for fans to fix this is to stop buying season tickets. If enough people stop paying for season tickets, the teams will have to stop with the preseason garbage. Here's what would happen if the government got involved: The teams would find some other way to nickel and dime you to death. Something like the fee scam Ticketmaster uses, or raising prices on food or parking.