MLB 2011 Preview: The Start of Something New?

As every baseball fan knows, the favorites to win the World Series as usual, are the Phillies, the Red Sox and the Yankees, as it's been for essentially the past decade. But, all I really get from that is that the dominance of those teams must be coming to an end soon. I mean no one's young forever right? So if they do falter soon, who's going to take the power from them? You may want to look to a couple of teams from the NL Central and West for the answer.

Opening Day 2011 is tomorrow and even though the Phillies are the clear favorites to win it all with their All Star rotation, and the Red Sox and Yanks will most likely come out of the AL, these teams may quickly have their runs come to an end, sooner than their respective spoiled fans may like to think. In case you've forgotten, just 15 years ago, none of the aforementioned three teams could buy a championship. The Yanks were about to end a 15 year skid that had been going on since the early 80s, the Red Sox were still in the midst of the Curse of the Bambino and the Phillies were the Lovable Losers. So, what's to say that the same thing won't happen in the near future after these teams have had their times in the spotlight.

The Phillies, Red Sox and Yanks are all home to aging superstars. Three of the four All-Star pitchers on the Phils staff are at least 32 years old, while hitters like Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley are quickly starting to show their age through injuries; even Ryan Howard is 31. Their core is a bunch of old guys. They have some younger players like Hamels and a nice young prospect in Domonic Brown, but that's about it. It makes me wonder if this team can contend for a championship for more than the next two or three years.

Then you have the Red Sox. The Sox's pitching staff is actually relatively young with rising stars like Lester and Buccholz, but their offense is filled with 30+ year olds that have already peaked. Their only young guys are Ellsbury and Pedroia. In order to succeed in a constantly ruthless AL East they'll need more than just a few pitchers.

Finally, you of course have the Yanks. There's Jeter, A-Rod, Jorge, and Teixeira, all possibly past their primes. Then pitching-wise, there's C.C. and Burnett, the team's top two starters after the loss of Pettitte to retirement. Sure there is young talent in Cano, Hughes, possibly even Ivan Nova and Yankee fans hope still some in Joba Chamberlain, but what's to come of the Yanks when all the of the superstars retire? I guess you can just go out and sign some more if you're the Yanks (or the Phillies or Red Sox), but there's going to have to be a gap in success once the core of at least Jeter and A-Rod go, and as we've seen over and over, free agent stars don't win championships, well-developed farm systems and the ability to rebuild do.

Think about it. The Yankee dynasty in the 1990s was filled with farm system players, and then they started buying aging free agents and fell apart. The Marlins won twice alone in seven years, due to their farm system and ability to rebuild the past decade and a half. The Giants last year are another testament to the importance of young talent. The teams with the largest payrolls may make the playoffs every year, but they're not the ones winning every year; very rarely do we see dynasties anymore, as the only twice since the 1960s have two teams won in a span of ten years: the 1990s Yankees and 1970s A's.

And who's to say superstars are going to want to come to NY? I had a wake-up call from my New York state of mind this summer, as many others did when LeBron, Wade and Bosh all chose to go to Miami instead of NYC. Who knows? Maybe New York isn't the center of the world like all New Yorkers think it is. Also, in a sports culture in which individual athletes are being judged more and more primarily on the number of championships they've won, more athletes are sacrificing money (at least a little bit) for championships.

The biggest up-and-comer in baseball right now is easily the Cincinnati Reds. Their team is full of young rising stars ready to form the next Big Red Machine (the nickname of the Reds teams of the 70s). On offense, there's not only Joey Votto, but guys like Jay Bruce, Drew Stubbs, and Brandon Phillips. Then you have the list of pitchers, including Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake, Aroldis Chapman and even Travis Wood, all highly touted as the stars of the future. As the Phillies begin their decline, it's easy to see that the Reds will be the next big team to take over the NL.

But before the Reds take over the Phillies, let's not forget about who they'll have to beat first: the reigning World Series champ San Francisco Giants. Maybe this whole transition from old teams to new teams has started already with the Giants taking a title home last year. Although San Francisco is not necessarily a small market like the other teams, it isn't an old school powerhouse. We already know the combination of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain might just be one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball, save for the Phillies, but they also (after you jump over Barry Zito of course) have talent at the end of their rotation too. It seems as if the fourth starter in the rotation, Jonathan Sanchez, is entering his prime, and the new object of praise by scouts for this year is Madison Bumgarner, the 21 year old phenom who many expect to make this the rotation of the future. Lest we forget the Giant offense, led by Buster Posey, who many expect not to be the next Joe Mauer, but to be even better than Mauer himself. Kung Fu Panda Pablo Sandoval is the other prime young talent on this team, settling into his role as one of the top players on the squad.

The final two up-and-comers have to be the Rockies and Athletics, the Rockies with a plethora of both hitting and pitching, and the A's with a ton of great young pitchers. The Rockies are going to be serving as the great nuisance to the Giants in the West this year, as they fight for a wildcard spot most likely against teams like the Brew Crew and Braves. The team formerly known as Todd Helton's has been handed over to the likes of Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez, two players with Top 10 potential. Pitching-wise the Rockies have young potential with Ubaldo Jimenez and Jhouyls Chacin but I'm cautious of giving them too much credit. The A's on the other hand have a pitching staff that deserves all the credit it garners. With the Angels in decline, the A's will contend with the Rangers (who also have a relatively young team) this year for the AL Central title, even though three of their starters are under the age of 25, and a solid second starter, Dallas Braden is only 27, similar to the trio of Zito, Hudson and Mulder they had in the early 2000s. Getting their bats alive could be a problem, but if not this year for the A's, certainly the next few years should bring prosperity and a chance at a title.

While the Phillies, Red Sox and Yanks have been signing stars, other teams have been building and preparing for the future, and I believe that, that future is now (hopefully I'm more successful than the Mets were in predicting that: http://network.yardbarker.com/mlb/article_external/the_future_is_now/14048). Within the next two years, we'll see these young powerful teams, most of them from the NL, challenging the perennial powerhouses. It's not easy to overthrow teams, especially in a sport where there are no salary caps, and the teams you're trying to get rid of play in big markets with big payrolls. But, already last year, the big teams showed that they can be beaten, I think it's just a matter of how easily they'll go down.

Yankees 2011 Preview

The Yankees' 2011 season starts tomorrow against the Detroit Tigers. The Yanks were a wildcard team last year, despite having the third best record in baseball. After sweeping the Twins in the ALDS, they lost in 6 games in the ALCS to the Rangers, even though they were at one point leading the series 2-0. As always they'll be one of the favorites to win the World Series, only behind the Red Sox and the Phillies, but the question still seems to be the same: when are the aging players finally going to have to hand over the team to the crop of rising youngsters?

The first problem the Yankees have is no secret: pitching. After Andy Pettitte decided to retire at the age of 38 this off-season, the Yanks were only left with three proven pitchers in C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes, only one of which (Sabathia), has been consistently good. Sure, some days Burnett can come out and look like a Cy Young candidate, but he has almost as many outings where he looks like he should be playing Single-A ball. Hughes started off looking like a totally new pitcher in April and May last season, but fell off the rest of the way, with a 7-6 record and 4.90 ERA following the All Star Break. It also doesn't help that C.C. looks to be leaving his prime at 31, while Burnett seems way past his at 34.

The likely fourth starter in the rotation will be 24 year old Ivan Nova. Last year, Nova pitched 42 innings for the Yanks and finished with a 4.50 ERA, pitching extremely well down the stretch, and wonderfully during his time in the minor leagues. But there's a difference between being a rookie phenom and being the fourth starter straight out of spring training, especially if you're on the Yankees; we saw it not work out with Joba Chamberlain, and even with Ian Kennedy a few years back.

Then there's Freddy Garcia. After Sergio Mitre was traded to the Brewers, the fifth spot became the 34 year old's to take. Relative to other fifth starters in Major League Baseball, Garcia is not necessarily chopped liver, but he's no standout either; he's had some solid seasons with both the Mariners and the White Sox, but has been injury prone the past three years, and if he can't handle the job this year, it may have to be handed over to Bartolo Colon. Of course, the success of the Yankees depends more on the success of Ivan Nova than it does Freddy Garcia; you know at his best Garcia will be mediocre, while Nova could be spectacular (at least for a young guy) or totally fall apart as too many new pitchers on the Yankees have.

The pitching dilemma is not the only problem that the Yankees have however; there seems to be a huge age gap when it comes to Yankee hitters. The familiar names - Jeter, A-Rod, Jorge - aren't just old, they're really old. Jeter turns 37 in June, Rodriguez turns 36 in July, and Jorge and Jorge turns 40 in August. The only everyday guys that will be younger than 30 by season's end will be Brett Gardner, Robbie Cano, and Russell Martin. Even though the Yankee line-up is still one of the most formidable in baseball, after Jeter and A-Rod retire, this team is going to have an identity crisis on its hands.

Cano will most likely be the successor to Jeter as team leader, but the Yanks will still have to rebuild and try to find a new set of true Yankees like they had during the 90s. Jesus Montero and Ivan Nova are promising, but the Yanks need to finally decide whether it's time to build up their farm system again like they did before the dynasty or just continue to try to live off of big free agent signings of proven, older guys (which they hopefully will still be able to get). The Yanks haven't really needed new talent for 15 years, when Jeter's group of guys came in. Now however, highlighted by Pettitte's departure this off-season, that class is preparing to retire. So maybe this year and the next will be promising for the Yankees, but there are some good young teams ready to threaten their dominance and if they don't figure out how to handle them, they may be on the outside looking in when October rolls around.

Rules Are Rules

Last week, BYU dismissed one of its top basketball players from the team, for violating the school’s honor code. The crime? Having premarital sex with his girlfriend. Brandon Davies, a sophomore power forward for the team, who was a key outlet in the post ranking third on the team in points and first in rebounds before his suspension, is awaiting a decision on not only whether he can remain with the team in the future, but whether he will be able to remain at the school.

Comparing Davies’ act to other violations committed by college athletes, is like comparing shoplifting a pack of gum to murder in the first degree. Today, college sports is filled with athletes with criminal records, and a reputation for prioritizing sports first, partying second and studying third. Of course, that is not to say that all college athletes are troublemakers; most are probably working hard in school, and besides being athletes, try to live like any other college student would. But, compared to what some other college athletes get away with, Davies’ act wouldn’t even come up as a blip on the screen. Then again, BYU is not any other school.

Brigham Young University is famous for its strict rules, being that it is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). The school requires all of its students to refrain from things such as academic dishonesty, extramarital sex, and drug and alcohol use. Students even have to follow a set of dress and grooming rules, and are not allowed to have beards or goatees or wear revealing clothing.

So for BYU, it didn’t matter that the basketball team is currently in the middle of arguably its best season ever, Davies was not going to be let off the hook. No suspension that starts next year after Jimmer Fredette is gone, no stern talking to without suspension, no having to wait for the NCAA to get involved; BYU stood by its standards, no matter how rigorous and strict they are.

Of course, one can say that if a school with such deep religious affiliation did not stand firm by its own guidelines, then there would be no hope for any school to comply with NCAA rules, let alone their own. But, BYU did not need to suspend Davies, there was no NCAA rep hounding them for suspensions and information, they did so on their own accord, and quite frankly that deserves a lot of credit in today’s college athletics climate.

But BYU is not the only one that deserves credit. Brandon Davies also deserves a ton of respect. OK, maybe not respect – he did violate the school’s laws – but still, the fact that a college sophomore decided to come out and admit to what he did, fully knowing the consequences he could face, took a heck of a lot of courage. He could just have easily kept what he did a secret, never admitting what he did to the school or waiting at least until after the tournament. But he decided to admit to his wrongs. That took more principle and courage than most 19 year olds would be able to summon.

Some can say that Davies knew what he was getting into when he went to BYU; he grew up in nearby Provo, Utah, and similar to every other kid and therefore should have been expected not only to follow the school’s rules but also admit to his wrongdoings. It is true that he should not have broken the rules in the first place, and by admitting his wrongs, he’s letting down his team, but being a college kid he’s expected to make some mistakes. What he is not expected to do at such a young age is handle making that mistake in such a mature way.

Most people have laughed off this story, wondering how BYU could even think to suspend him, even dismiss him from the school for something that has essentially become acceptable for a large portion of society. But different people have different beliefs and principles, and in an atmosphere where those beliefs and principles are constantly being compromised and looked over, it is finally nice to see both a college team and athlete put more importance on winning the right way, than just winning.