Big Hurt, Pasta Diving, and Strategic Ressentiment

A few baseball notes:

• As a commenter notes, Billy Beane has somehow won another division title, not only with a low payroll but with their ace starter limited to 34 innings, their putative star young shortstop injured most of the year and hitting like Angel Salazar after twelve Ambiens when in the lineup, and their putative start third baseman having a disastrous year. His nicest move, of course, was buying low on Frank Thomas. It was a risk, but as they say it’s better to bet on an injured player getting healthy than a bad one getting good. At least twice early in the year when he was off to a slow start, I heard announcers discuss his Hall of Fame chances, with the implication that he probably fell short. Please–he’s a clear Hall of Famer, and was earlier this year. He’s as good a hitter as Hank Greenberg in a much longer career. He’s a significantly better hitter than Willie McCovey. It’s not close. (I have a particular stake because my favorite marginal candidate–I would name Tim Raines, but his exclusion will be a flat-out injustice–is Edgar Martinez, and you really can’t even talk about Edgar until Thomas is in, since the latter is a similar but clearly better player.) Anyway, I’d like to see the A’s do some damage in the post-season–it would be fitting if by far the worst of their Beane teams to make the playoffs is the one that won something–but I’m obviously not betting on it.
• A correspondent brings up two points. The first: is Carlos Guillen had a better year than Derek Jeter? It’s surprisingly close. On a per-plate-appearance basis, you can argue that Guillen has been better; as hitters, they’re almost even, and of course Guillen is a much better shortstop than Pasta Diving. Jeter has more raw value–about 100 more plate appearances, so more runs–but surprisingly the oft-injured Guillen has played in only 2 fewer games, so much of that is just Jeter batting leadoff second for a better lineup. I can’t exactly argue that Guillen should be ranked higher, but it’s close. Although of course I’m not counting the incredible intangibles that have allowed Jeter to propel a lineup with only a $200 million payroll in it to a miraculous division championship, while everyone knew the Tigers were going to be great.
• So watching the last week involves some complex calculations. Some are easy–I definitely want the Phillies to miss the wildcard by exactly one game as the price for donating Abreu to the Yankees, for example. On the Cardinals, I’m torn; I kind of want to see them blow it, but I don’t like the Astros either and the Mets would mash the Cardinals into a fine paste even if Pedro’s starts continue to resemble Lima Time! The AL is the trickiest one–what’s an intense Yankee despiser to do? There are some problems with the Secret Sauce report of likely post-season success, which confuses traits that are disproportionately important in the post-season with these traits being exclusively important. The fact that the Yankees may be fielding the best offense since the Big Red Machine if not since Joe McCarthy was in the Bronx is, in fact, a point in their favor. Still, I buy it in the sense that the Twins are the most likely team to challenge the Yankees, and the Yankees are most likely to lose a 5-gamer where Santana can start twice. So I hope the Tigers win the division. I don’t see the Yankees losing if they get out of the first round, as long as Rivera is healthy.