Baseball's Last Few Races

Major league baseball has been very lucky to have Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chasing 61 home runs this year, because it's only mid August and already most of the races are over. In the American League, the only question about the Yankees is will they set all-time records for wins and winning percentage while easily winning the AL East title, while Cleveland seems destined to win the AL Central title by default despite their recent poor play, and the Red Sox have a commanding lead in the wild card race despite the Orioles' recent reawakening following the exile of their disastrous offseason pick-ups. Only Texas and California are locked in a tight AL race with their battle for the AL West crown, and the primary question in that race is whether the Rangers' wilting in the summer Arlington heat (e.g., overworked star Ivan Rodriguez has been just awful at the plate for over a month now) will hurt more than the Angels' long list of disabled and walking wounded.

Over in the senior circuit, all three division races look all but over. The Braves, backed by their usual incredible starting pitching, are going to cruise to the NL East division title, the Astros have looked like automatic winners of the NL Central since the Randy Johnson acquisition, which makes Houston's current eight game lead look even more formidable than it first appears, and San Diego long ago built an insurmountable lead in the AL West thanks to greatly improved pitching and the resurrection of Greg Vaughn. What's left, though, looks to be a truly wild race for the wild card between the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. I'd give the Mets a slight edge in this race thanks to their in-season acquisitions of Mike Piazza and Tony Phillips.

The Most Valuable Player races are unclear, and the vote by the BBWAA should be very interesting. At this point, it's clear that the best everyday players in each league this year have not been on pennant contenders, while Greg Maddux, probably the most valuable anything in baseball in 1998, is unlikely to get much support from the NL voters who, unlike AL voters, have almost never given pitchers MVP votes in any large numbers. As far as I'm concerned, the most valuable player should be judged by how many wins candidates added to their teams' bottom lines, and should not depend on the quality of his teammates; the MVP is an individual award, and if you consider the overall success of each player's team, what you end up with is an award for having the most valuable teammates, and you also even end up discounting players on teams that are too good because it's obvious those teams could have won even if their biggest star had been replaced by minor league talent (see this year's Yankees, who kept pounding their way to victories while the team's best players were on the disabled list). However, many BBWAA voters don't see it that way, and at this point its hard to tell how the voting is likely to turn out in either league. Here on the Internet, fans will be able to fill out their full ballots for the 7th Annual Internet Baseball Awards; look for full details here in mid-to-late September.