In part one of my league roundup, I decided to highlight three teams that deserved mention either for being particularly good (the Nationals) or particularly bad (the Red Sox and Phillies). While I think there are more teams that merit discussion, today I’ll look at a few players that we should be talking about more for one reason or another. Let’s go:
Albert Pujols, LA Angels: Granted, we’ve talked about Albert a lot this season but I just want to take a second to mention why you may not a have heard of him in the last couple weeks. One month ago, on May 12th, Prince Albert and his .195 AVG were the talk of the town. Since that day, Pujols’ batting average has gone up every day but 6. He has 8 of his 9 home runs, three days of 3+ RBIs, and 4 stolen bases. His season average is up to .263 and he looks poised to finish the season among the games top statistical performers. He has morphed into exactly what the Angels thought he would be and quelled the fears of him being ‘done.”
Mike Trout, LA Angels- The second fish-named phenom in Angels history (Tim Salmon) is doing his best to be the obvious choice for AL Rookie of the Year, even as he’s been over shadowed by Bryce Harper. Trout has even been mentioned in MVP conversations and, to be honest, that’s not ridiculous. Since Trout came up, the Angels are 25-16. He’s hitting .345 with 15 stolen bases and 6 homers out of the leadoff spot and has basically rescued the Angels’ season. With Trout at the top, the Angels have been able to juggle the batting order a little and have found a winning combination with Torii Hunter in the 2 slot ahead of Pujols, Trumbo, Morales, and Kendrick. Take notice of Mike Trout, everyone.
Mark Trumbo, LA Angels, I’m not going to write about another Angel so just take a quick look at his .325/.382/1.002 AVG/OBP/OPS slash line to go along with 14 homers.
Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox- So, it turns out the White Sox are not nearly as bad as we thought they were, in fact, they’re pretty good. Their best pitcher, Chris Sale is a former lefty specialist who’s carving up the MLB. In 74.2 innings, Sale has a league leading 2.04 ERA, a league leading 8 wins, and a league leading .924 WHIP. If I was writing my 2012 Dominance Rankings today, Sale would be awfully near the top.
Jake Peavy, Chicago White Sox- Peavy won a Cy Young award a while ago but he’s been hurt and bad since. Over the last 2 years, he was 14-13 with an ERA around 4.5. This year, Jake is 6-1 with a 3.05 ERA. His WHIP is under 1 at .980 and he is dominating. Pay more attention to Jake Peavy, He’s back.
Ike Davis, New York Mets- Davis was supposed to be one of baseball’s best young players. Along with David Wright, he was supposed to anchor the Mets lineup. The Mets have exceeded expectations but Davis hasn’t. Ike is hitting only .176 and is the poster boy for extended slumps this season. By any measure, he has been a huge disappointment this year.
RA Dickey, New York Mets- Suddenly, RA Dicky is in the hunt for the NL Cy Young. Coming into tonight he has an NL leading 9 wins and seemingly strikes out 10 or more in every start. He’s got a fast knuckleball that hitters simply don’t know what to do with. Really you can’t blame them because no one has any pitch like it. Dickey is unique in many ways and its paying off in a big way on the mound. (Oh, he had a 1 hitter tonight and threw 100 knuckleballs)
-Max Frankel
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