Lance Berkman evidently likes playing in St. Louis. The one-year, $12 million deal he signed with the Cards last week would make Scott Boras's spleen spasm. The 35-year-old outfielder-first baseman is posting a .301/.415/.552 season worth nearly five wins. On the open market, Berkman could command a three-year deal worth something like $45 million. So why didn't he?
Apparently the Rice grad wants to have a life -- the kind that being a professional baseballer does not afford. As Kirk Gibson noted when he retired, he was choosing to be traded to his family. (They flipped him back to Arizona this year for a pennant to be named later.)
This is particularly touching given Berkman's Hall of Fame-vicinity career. His .296/.406/.546 lifetime line with 358 homers and 1190 RBI, most of it in Houston's challenging parks, could use three more years to burnish a Hall of Fame case. After $94 million lifetime earnings, he certainly doesn't need another $45 million, but it couldn't hurt. In any case, Berkman gave the Cards a deal.
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Which brings us to the curious case of Albert Pujols. Prince Albert may have fallen to #2 on the slugging free agent first baseman depth chart this year with his injury and a sub-superhuman performance -- .304/.372/.554 with a league-leading 37 homers. All but the home runs are the lowest of his career.
Now that Pujols appears merely to be a carbon-based life form, his price may have come down sufficiently for the Redbirds to consider re-signing him. With Berkman, Matt Holliday and Chris Carpenter lined up again for 2012, and the possibility of Adam Wainwright's return next season from TJ surgery, Pujols will have loyalty, a contending club, a first-rate organization and the best fans in MLB to consider in addition to the hundreds of millions of greenbacks.
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Was it the injury-enforced rest? The three-day All-Star break? The dis-engagement from Minka Kelly? Whatever it was, Derek Jeter is spry again.
Jeter looked spent in the first half of the season, but has turned it on since mid-July, slashing .329/.383/.420. Today, Jeter blasted a back-breaking three-run homer against Jon Lester after flashing leather in the top of the inning. He charged into the hole, scooped up a ball that was past him and fired on the run to first. They did not look like 37-year-old legs.
This has still not been a stellar year overall for the captain. He'll finish the season with the fewest home runs of any year in his career. His mediocre 71% SB rate is his worst since age 23. His defense continues to lag most shortstops. Last year was the worst of his career, earning about 13 runs of value over a replacement level player. This year, he's at about five. (Both figures according to Baseball Reference, combine offensive and defensive value.)
Nonetheless, great players finish well, and that's what Jeter is doing. If he helps the Yankees win the World Series, his miserable first half won't matter.
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And now it's time for a Doug Fister update. When last we considered Fister's plight, he was languishing in Seattle with a 3-12 record despite a 3.33 ERA and three complete games. Fister left six different games down 1-0, absorbing the loss in five of them.
Since his trade to the hitting-rich Tigers, Fister has coincidentally learned how to win. Funny how that works. He's pitching better too, at 7-1, 2.02 with a lower WHIP and three times the K/BB ratio. Fister has ascended to Detroit's #2 starter behind Cy Young lock Justin Verlander and will have the pleasure of showing off his skills to a national TV audience once the playoffs begin.
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It's been heartening to hear the baseball universe focus on the Red Sox' pitching woes as they limp in the general direction of the playoffs and not on their poor finish or lack of momentum or lost chemistry or some other shibboleth more common in olden days. The Red Sox, if they manage to stumble into the post-season, will not be an easy out because they lack momentum; they will be an easy out because they don't have a single reliable starter. Not one.
And if the Sox, in fact, are not an easy out, it will be because Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and/or Clay Buchholz re-discovered at least a soupcon of their regular season mojo.
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Matt Kemp currently leads the NL in home runs and RBI and is four points behind Jose Reyes for the batting title, yet because he toils for a .500 club -- owned by a laughingstock, he is garnering little support for MVP. Forget that he is a center fielder or that half his games take place in high-gravity Chavez Ravine.
If Kemp adds four points to his batting average, does the Triple Crown guarantee his MVP selection? If so, how does anyone justify that? Going 3-for-3 tomorrow catapults him from also-ran to MVP? If not, how does another everyday player out-poll the Triple Crown winner?
In fact, the triple crown is Kemp's weakest argument. He's actually fourth in the league in the more important OBP, second in SLG, and first in the two combined. Ryan Braun, another legitimate candidate, is fifth in on-base and first in slugging. The two have nearly identical OPS. (Kemp is seven points ahead -- today.) They both steal bases like felons -- Kemp 40 of 51; Braun 36 of 41.
But if you can't see the difference you need Lasik surgery. Braun is a dreadful left fielder playing in Milwaukee with the world's sluggingest vegetarian hitting behind him. Kemp gracefully grazes L.A.'s giant center field and bats in a wasteland of a lineup.
It's just another example of how the argument that the MVP has to play on a good team is just transparent nonsense -- if you understand logic.
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