The Second Half Begins - A Few Random Thoughts

-Oakland pitcher and Dunne Deal favorite Brett Anderson has apparently undergone Tommy John surgery, ending his season. Anderson has one of the highest percentages of sliders thrown in baseball, so the Francisco Liriano comparisons are inevitable. Provided he can make a full recovery, it will be interesting to see if he lowers his sliders to closer to 20-25% of the time, and, if so, if he can continue to be successful.

-I was posed this question on another site - with money not a concern, who would you prefer: Mark Teixeira or Kevin Youkilis?

	Tm	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+	PA/HR	PA/BB	PA/K
Youkilis	BOS	1381	.301	.409	.544	149	23.4	7.5	5.3
Teixeira	NYY	1802	.268	.370	.522	133	18.6	8.1	6.2

Youkilis has been a much better hitter since the start of 2009 (when Teixeira joined the Yankees), but Teixeira has been the much more durable player. It's not just the last two months of last season, Youkilis always seems to have some sort of injury bothering him. Even so, Youkilis has a much better WAR (14.9 to 11.7), which is a cumulative stat, and can play 3B acceptably.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

-Albert Pujols, since May 30th (106 PA): .333/.425/.744. Right now he is 10th in the NL with a .500 slugging percentage, only 9 points out of the top 10. Anyone want to bet that he won't be in the top 10 a week from now?

-Too much ink is being spilled on how to improve the Home Run Derby. It's a Home Run Derby! The only idea I've liked is a bracketing system, but that certainly won't make the thing any shorter.

-The Matt Moore hype train is picking up. Keith Law has him at #2 on his mid-season prospect list. (Insider access only) It's depth like this that allowed the Rays to trade Matt Garza. Mike Trout (who was his preseason #1) is not included on the list by virtue of his promotion to the majors last week.

-Manny Delcarmen was released yesterday. After an excellent 2007 season, his performance has declined every year. His next stop may be the independents.

-Quick second half predictions. I think the Red Sox win the East, provided two of the Lester/Buchholz/Beckett trio are healthy. The Rangers take the west, based on their depth. Detroit holds off the Indians. The Yankees take the wild card, as they try to rest their stars enough in the second half to make sure they are 100% for October. In the NL, the Phillies make a run at 100 wins and win the East. The Rockies make a run, but the Giants hold them off to repeat in the West. The Brewers are in first place with awful performances from the left side of the infield. They'll adjust there and win based on talent. Like the AL, the Eastern division produces the wild card, in this case, the Braves.