Posts belonging to Category Daniel “Dee” Clark

As I mentioned a couple of pieces ago, my 1B in the Denslow Cup this season is Billy Butler.  I currently am using the Towel’s account to watch MLB TV during afternoon and evening lab, so I have been watching a little bit of the middle of the Royals’ order, since Butler is hitting cleanup for KC currently with sparkling results.  The Royals have been hitting Alex Gordon third, and he too has been crushing, starting the season with a 1.000+ OPS in his first 30 or so AB’s of 2011 after a torrential spring in which he slashed .343/.459/.729 in around 90 PA’s.  I am a huge supporter of statistical analysis and its role within player evaluation in baseball, so obviously this month of success does little to help us forget the last few years of Gordon’s career.  Still, something tells me that Gordon might be getting close to reminding us what it was about him, before he was drafted second overall in the 2005 MLB Draft, that made us believe that he was the messiah for which Kansas City had prayed for 20 years.

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Recently we received a comment from a reader regarding our predictions, and I think the topic he brought up is probably worth its own piece.  The reader felt like I unfairly predicted that the Yankees would finish the year third in the AL East behind Boston and Tampa, who I predicted would both finish 2011 in the playoffs.  Before I continue, I would like to mention that I think the AL East will be a very tight division, particularly in the battle for second place.  The Yankees are one of the best offensive teams in baseball, and they certainly deserve a great deal of respect for that, but everything else they do is far from representative of a playoff-caliber team.

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AL East

1.     Boston Red Sox

2.     Tampa Bay Rays (Wildcard)

3.     New York Yankees

4.     Toronto Blue Jays

5.     Baltimore Orioles

AL Central

1.   Minnesota Twins

2.   Detroit Tigers

3.   Chicago White Sox

4.   Kansas City Royals

5.   Cleveland Indians

AL West

1.   Texas Rangers

2.   Los Angeles Angels

3.   Oakland Athletics

4.   Seattle Mariners

ALDS 1: Red Sox over Twins (4 games)

ALDS 2: Rays over Rangers (5 games)

ALCS: Red Sox over Rays (6 games)

MVP: Dustin Pedroia

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Last Tuesday evening was the annual Denslow Cup draft.  Luckily I was back home in Farmington so that Griff and I could get together and drink some beers and eat some BBQ courtesy of my mom and buddy/Sombrero enthusiast, Benji.  The Cup’s draft day is one of my favorite days of the year, and this was absolutely no exception.  I was totally amped all day and could barely hold my hand still to click the mouse to select my first pick.  As usual, we played in a 7 X 7 league with R, RBI, BA, Slug %, OBP, SB, and HR as our offensive categories and W, SV, WHIP, ERA, K’s, K/BB, and IP as our pitching categories.  We have tried to incorporate stats we view as essential to Big League success such as K/BB and OBP in an effort to discourage profiting from players who don’t contribute proportionately to their actual teams.  Anyway, I wanted to present my team, the Milk Steak Knives (named after both the Cup’s founder, Robert Vincent Unsell, and Charlie Kelly’s favorite dish), to our readers and offer some justification for my picks.

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#1 Bryce Harper – Washington Nationals

OF

DOB: 10-16-1992

ETA: 2013

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