Yankees and Angels ALCS Preview

While pitching is supposed to determine championships, the American League representative to the World Series figures to be what team outscores the other. These are the two best offenses in baseball, at least in terms of runs scored. Each team has a number of offensive strengths, yet both have weaknesses the other team can exploit.

New York is a power-laden veteran club that is patient as the dish and makes opposing pitchers feel they have to be perfect batter after batter. The additions of Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher not only added power, but keep opposing teams from trying to stack pitching in their favor, since they are switch hitters. Alex Rodriguez is looking more comfortable for change in October and his presence in the lineup makes others see better pitches.

Rumors are circulating C.C. Sabathia is being kicked around to pitch three times if this series goes the limit. Though Sabathia’s concentration will wonder against lesser teams, he proven time and again to be “big time” on the various teams he’s played for in important games. Phil Hughes seems to have found his perfect role and is probably being groomed for when the best closer ever, Mariano Rivera retires. There has never been closer that pitches as well and even at age 39, he still breaks more bats than any reliever.

A strong case can be made A.J. Burnett is the Yankees best pitcher, based on “stuff”, yet it always doesn’t come with him to the mound. Of Burnett’s 34 starts this season, on eight separate occasions he was touched for five or more runs, proving command and over-anxiousness can overtake him. Andy Pettitte will start Game 3, with the Angles 38-17 against left-handers. Joba Chamberlain has fallen off the second half of the season and could be hero or goat for Yankee team trying to make Fall Classic for the first time since 2003. This is also new territory for manager Joe Girardi.

This is a different Angels’ team than the last few years, when they last played in ALCS in 2005. The “hack at everything” team has found a semblance of patience, thanks to the addition of Bobby Abreu, who showed even veteran hitters like Vladimir Guerrero, they can wait for a better pitch to swing at. This approach has made Chone Figgins more valuable as leadoff hitter. Kendry Morales has added much needed pop in the middle of the order. Howie Kendrick and Torri Hunter have been smokin’ the baseball for an extended period of time. No team puts more pressure on defenses with runners on base, with merry-go-round style.

It appears the Angels have the starting pitchers to match wits with New York. Game 1 starter John Lackey finally shook postseason blahs against Boston and Jered Weaver was the one dependable starter the Halos had early in the year when they were throwing out journeymen night after night due to injury. Game 2 starter Joe Saunders hasn’t lost since returning from DL on Aug.26 (7-0) and has not allowed more than three earned runs in those outings. Scott Kazmir will have a chance to prove why Los Angeles acquired.

When searching for weakness, the bullpen stands out Shaquille O’Neal among ordinary citizens. Brian Fuentes is the centerpiece of frustration, but it’s too late to turn back now. The setup men are a coin flip, with Kevin Jepsen and Darren Oliver the most trustworthy of leaky bunch. The biggest issue with the starting pitching is they have a contingent that would make four really good pitchers if they were No.3’s on most teams. That’s been a cause for postseason failures; a quality start might not be good enough in October. Vlad Guerrero deserves respect, nevertheless should he bat that high in the lineup with two RBI’s in last 19 postseason games? While Mike Scioscia is well regarded in baseball as a manager, he’s won as many titles as Charley Manuel and Bob Brenly, who won’t be going into the Hall of Fame as skippers.

Offensive – American League
Runs scored Angels 2nd New York 1st
Home Runs Angels 8th New York 1st
Slugging Ptc. Angels 4th New York 1st
Walks Angels 7th New York 1st
On base Ptc. Angels 3rd New York 1st

Pitching & Defense
ERA Angels 9th New York 4th
Strikeouts Angels 9th New York 1st
Walks Angels 5th New York 11th
On base Ptc. Angels 10th New York 4th
Putouts Angels 5th New York 3rd
Errors Angels 4th New York 5th


Key Numbers- The Yankees and Angels split 10 games this season, with New York 3-1 at their new ball yard. Over the last three seasons the teams are 7-7 in the Bronx. On the season, the Yanks are frankly awesome. New York is domineering 59-24 at home and impressive 47-35 on the road. They dominated lefties with 37-18 record, whom they will face at least twice in this series. In games determined by two or more runs, New York is fantastic 83-43. With five scheduled night games, the Yankees are 70-36 under the lights. Don’t undersell the Angels, with 51-32 home record and 49-33 road mark. They too have crushed lefthanders with aforementioned record. The Halos are potent 34-22 as underdogs and as evidenced in three game sweep over Boston, no clubhouse is tighter, for a team that refuses to lose. Even after losing series to New York in late September, L.A. is still 11-4 in Anaheim vs the Yanks in last 15 contests.

Bookmaker.com Series Odds: Yankees -180, Angels +150

Trying to build on 3-0 conquest

If you look at the first post of the day, that was 1,000th made since I started this blog, kinda cool. What was also cool was 3-0 Wednesday and maybe we can start a hot streak. In baseball, found a system that rocks at 86.4 percent. The Top Trend is in the matchup of the teams from the Keystone State and the Free Pick has arrived. Good Luck

What I learned today – Vladimir Guerrero recorded his 1000th hit for the Angels Wednesday, making him the second player in major-league history to have at least 1000 hits for a team in both the American and National Leagues. Dave Winfield was the first to do that, with the Padres and Yankees. The only other active player with 1000 or more hits for two teams is Manny Ramirez (Indians and Red Sox).Thanks Elias

Now on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/3Dailywinners

Free Baseball System-1) PLAY AGAINST all underdogs like Houston with a money line of +175 to +250, with an on-base percentage of .310 or worse over their last 20 games against opponent with a blistering hot starting pitcher who has WHIP 1.000 or less over his last five starts. This money-making system is 70-11, 86.4 percent since 2005.

Free Baseball Trend -2) The Pittsburgh Pirates are 3-19 as a home underdog of +150 to +200 over the last three seasons, losing by massive 3.7 runs per game.

Free Baseball Pick -3) Slick Rick is backing the Angels with Ervin Santana who has dominated the A's.

New Guaranteed NFL Picks – Are cleaning up check out our packages.

StatFox Top Tips – The Platinum Sheet – Yours truly a writer.

Note- If you prefer to have this sent to you daily instead of having to visit the site, sign up for our FREE mailing list on the right.

These Angels make Heavenly Profits

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim quietly moved ahead of more well-known teams like Boston and the New York Yankees, to be the best team in the American League with 63-40 record and would be ahead for the best overall record with their city brethren, the Dodgers, if they had played two more games and won both. The Angels may not have made a lot of noise in climbing to be the best team in the AL, but they have excruciatingly loud with how they swing the bat.

The Angels lead the Major Leagues in hitting with a .290 average. With the high batting average, they are also the No.1 scoring offense at 5.7 runs per game, helped dramatically by hitting .308 with runners in scoring position. Just how good is the Los Angeles offense, start considering these numbers.

Manager Mike Scioscia’s team plays its own version of merry-go-round, with 94 more total hits than the average AL team to this point of the season. The Halos are second in baseball in all important on-base percentage to the Yankees and are third in slugging percentage, despite hitting 40 less home runs than the Bronx Bombers (154 homers) and 45 less than second place Texas (159 homers).

To understand just how good Los Angeles has been playing, consider on June 12, they were 29-29 on the season. Since then, L.A. is 34-11, having picked up +21.65 units of profit in just over seven weeks. Over what is a quarter of the season during this stretch, the Angels are AVERAGING over seven runs per game. That includes not having two of their biggest sluggers, Torii Hunter and Vladimir Guerrero in the lineup since before the All-Star break when they swept the Yankees at the Big A.

Just this part weekend, L.A. traveled to Minnesota, who was just off a sweep of the Chicago White Sox and feeling pretty spry. All the Angels did was outscore the Twins 35-15, collecting at least 15 hits in each game, becoming just the second American League team since the 1938 Red Sox (Sept. 4-5) to score more than ten runs with at least 15 base hits in each of three straight games. The Cleveland Indians did so in the interim with 15-4, 13-5 and 17-9 victories over the Brewers at County Stadium (Sept. 4-6 1986) according to Elias Sports Bureau.

The Angels remarkable offense plays in the Windy City starting Tuesday against the White Sox. The domination of this newer Big Red Machine shows up in several other key areas. A test of a team’s strength is how they preside over other opponents. Scioscia’s squad leads the major’s in running from first to third and this dizzying pace has them at 27-12 in games decided by four or more runs. They are 14-7 (+14.6) as underdogs and one game behind Philadelphia for the best road record (31-20) in baseball, having won 15 of last 18 as visitors.

Are the Angels than true World Series contenders? Probably not, unless the offense can continue at near the same pace, this is unlikely to occur in the postseason. The Los Angeles pitching staff does not strike fear into opposing hitters with ERA of almost five. John Lackey’s pitching has improved as the season has won on, but he is no longer the hard thrower he was when the Halos won the World Series in 2002. Jered Weaver has started to pitch like a No. 4 starter again, after throwing like an ace early in the season. Joe Saunders is hitting a lot of bats and Ervin Santana is a shell of former self since coming back from injury.

The bullpen has gotten better after carrying ERA of 5.5 or worse into June, but could hardly be described as reliable. The Angels front office acted like a salesperson working without leads in this recession and did nothing to help out current team, despite many working parts in the minor leagues.

That is something to concern with later; right now the Angels are stuffing bankrolls. Parlay wagers on them with the OVER mean serious return on investment, with Los Angeles 61-37-5 OVER (No.1). Totals players can’t believe their great fortune with L.A. on 13-0 OVER run. Since July 1, the Angels and OVER has won on parlays 18 times.

It’s not always fun to follow the crowd and do what everyone else is doing, nevertheless, when money is ripe to be taken, playing these Angels and the total is heavenly.

Fantasy Baseball: Hall of Fame style

As the NBA and NCAA basketball seasons draw closer to conclusions, I caught myself musing over pitchers and catchers, spring training and the boys of summer.

I began to speculate about how many more millions of dollars the damn Yankees will spend before (and during) the season to ensure a trip back to the postseason after missing out for the first time in 13 consecutive trips last year. My mind then drifted to my Texas Rangers and if they will ever emerge from the pitching abyss that has plagued the club for so long.

Then fantasy baseball entered the brain and in a cross-pollination (this happens in my head all the time) with offseason baseball events, I fell into a deep trance pondering what kind of fantasy players this year's Hall of Fame inductees Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson would have been and who they most resemble among active players.

I'm sure some of you have even played in fantasy leagues where you drafted Rickey or maybe even Rice. Probably have to go back to the days of the Strat-O-Matic baseball game to find any takers there.

Breaking down Jim Rice as a fantasy player is tougher for me since I was in first grade when he retired in 1989. But luckily statistics, accolades and analyses are available in every Google search and Wikipedia bio so I have a decent sense of what he could do.

It seems he was the consummate player, serviceable in the outfield with the ability to hit for average, power and production at the plate. When I think of someone on a current roster that contains this skill set the first player that comes to mind is Vladimir Guerrero.

Sure Vladdy is aging some and his numbers have dropped off a bit over the last few seasons, but the guy still bangs out a .300 average every year with 25+ bombs and 100+ RBIs. During Rice's prime, he consistently hovered between the .280 and .320 mark in average, and while Guerrero possesses a little more pop in his bat (what hitter doesn't these days), the former BoSock posted 100 or more RBIs in eight of his 16 seasons and had seven campaigns with 25 or more round trippers.

Both of these free-swinging hitters did not like a free ride to first base either. I expected Rice to be more selective that Guerrero (who embides the Dominican hitting philosophy - if it is white and coming at you then hit it), but when I checked out each's base on balls numbers was surprised at my discovery.

Rice's career-high for walks in a season was 62 and Vlad's is 84, and at this point in his career Guerrero has four fewer walks than Rice's total of 670. And with Vladdy being able to hit any pitch from his shoelaces to his helmet, it only makes sense that he's struck out 400 times less than his comparitive.

The two players awards comparison is eerily similar also. Albeit in three less seasons, Guerrero is an eight-time All-Star and was crowned with one AL MVP, the exact same accomplishments Rice attained.

With all that being said, Jim Rice was definitely a second to fourth round must have in any fantasy baseball format. He may have hurt you a little bit with his strikeout numbers but looks to have been a solid fantasy performer.

Ample amuse has surrounded Rickey Henderson throughout his professional career but not for his ball-playing abilities. He was one of the most talented athletes, not just pure players, to ever grace the ballfield. It is very difficult to compare Henderson to a modern day player due to his career longevity (25 seasons) and production so I have attempted to find the next potential Rickey.

This guy could do it all. Henderson racked up stolen bases, walks, run, hits, and was a respected outfielder who could cover ground and keep runners honest with an accurate arm.

A player that comes to mind that possesses most of these qualities now and will improve upon them in the future is Tampa Bay's B.J. Upton. He had 44 base thefts in his second full season last year.

Neither of these guys hit the long bomb consistently. Upton got hot in the 2008 postseason (7 HRs in 16 games) but he had only nine jacks the entire season which was a major drop off (and probably a sign of things to come) from his 24 in '07. I wouldn't expect Upton to ever eclipse Rickey's career-high of 28 dingers which he did twice.

Henderson did draw a lot more walks and struck out significantly less that Upton does so he probably won't ever be as quality of a fantasy phenom as Rickey. The 24-year old also has somewhat of an attitude problem, which Rickey was not completely void of, but his was more of a me, me, me complex. Upton's is almost like a Randy Moss syndrome where he will give maximum effort when and where he feels like it. Something that prompted manager Joe Madden to bench Upton in a few games down the stretch last season to let him know he isn't above the team.

The 130 steals Henderson amassed in 1982 was unworldly. I think the steals leader in my rotisserie league last season didn't have 100 steals from his entire team! So if you took Rickey early in the draft, you would almost undoubtedly wrap up the steals category each and every week.

Upton isn't a first few rounds type of fantasy player, yet. He is still young and much of his immaturity can be attributed to that, but this guy, along with many of the Rays' fresh faces, is a player to build a franchise around.

Before I let you go, I have to rekindle a few of Henderson's antics from his beloved spotlight in the media. He will always be remembered for his candid Rickey references, and I think you might be able to find an over/under prop bet in Vegas on how many times he will refer to himself in the third person during his Hall of Fame speech.

I came across a posting last week that was entitled, "Rickey's Top 25 Moments" and wanted to leave you with a few of my favorites:

- A reporter asked Henderson if Ken Caminiti's estimate that 50 percent of Major League players were taking steroids was accurate, his response was, "Well, Rickey's not one of them, so that's 49 percent right there."

- Rickey was asked if he had the Garth Brooks album with the song Friends in Low Places and Henderson said, "Rickey doesn't have albums. Rickey has CDs."

- When he was on the Yankees in the mid-80's, Henderson told teammates that his condo had such a great view that he could see, "The Entire State Building."

Scott Cooley has Cooley's Contemplations flying around the net and is a contributing writer to Bootleg.com.