Double down on #15 or 36 in this game of Blackjack
Near the beginning of the season, Black Jack McDowell, former ace for the White Sox in the early 90′s, wrote an article on what it takes to be a championship team for some website called “Chicago Now.” http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/black-jack-white-sox/2009/05/white-sox-vs-royals-on-paper.html
In short, Black Jack believes for a team to be considered a legitimate championship contender, a team must have the following three things:
- A Cy Young candidate or two;
- An MVP candidate in the batting order (he also recommends two or three other guys who would place in the top 15 of voting); and
- A Rookie of the Year candidate (he adds that this requirement may be filled by a young player having a breakout year).
While at first glance this criteria seem to be a little too demanding, I’d argue that having one of the first two categories will definitely make your team competitive come playoff time, and having a young player playing well is just gravy.
The recent performances of the South Side’s Gordon Beckham and the North Side’s’ Randy Wells got me thinking how we could assess either team’s potential in the postseason this year given the fact that both teams have players who should legitimately be in the ROY conversation.
Before we look at both teams this year, it may be interesting to see how the last four World Series winners fared in this framework.
Team: Categories (places in voting for each award)
2008 Philadelphia Phillies:
- Brad Lidge (4th);
- Ryan Howard (2nd), Brad Lidge (8th), Chase Utley (14th)[Jimmy Rollins had been MVP in 2007 too]; and
- Could argue that Cole Hamels had breakout in sustaining success from 2007.
2007 Boston Red Sox:
- Josh Beckett (2nd);
- David Ortiz (4th), Mike Lowell (5th), Beckett (22nd); and
- Pedroia (AL ROY), Daisuke Matsuzaka (4th) and Hideki Okajima (6th).
2006 St. Louis Cardinals
- Chris Carpenter (3rd);
- Albert Pujols (2nd), Chris Carpenter (19th); and
- Adam Wainwright, wasn’t in the running but definitely shone brightly on the biggest stage coming out of the bullpen.
2005 Chicago White Sox (The Astros, who were swept, fit even better into this theory, although it was a weak year for the NL)
- Mark Buehrle (5th), and Jon Garland (6th);
- Paul Konerko (6th), Scott Podsednik (12th) and Jose Contreras (T-27th); and
- Tadahito Iguchi (4th), could also argue for Bobby Jenks here.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at the ROY candidacies of both Randy Wells and Gordon Beckham, along with which teams might also fit this criteria for post season success.
In the meantime, I’d like to hear who you think would be good candidates to fill categories #1 and #2 for both the White Sox and the Cubs this year.
Loading ...
