To Sum Up

The 2012 regular season is over. Special congratulations should be handed out to Miguel Cabrera for winning the Triple Crown, and to the Orioles who made the playoffs winning 93 games a year after they lost — 93 games. To celebrate the end of the regular season I thought I would list some of my favorite tweets of the last 24 hours. You are all following the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account, right? If you are this will seem a bit redundant, but it’s still nice to have all the tweets in one spot. Don’t make me come looking for you in the offseason. Sign up. It’s free, hopefully entertaining, an always informative.

@BaseballGuys Will Miguel Cabrera win AL MVP? 5 times a player has won TC and not been MVP: Williams (’42, ’47), Gehrig (’34), Klein (’33) & Hornsby (’22)

@MLBStatoftheDay Since the start of play on June 4, the @Athletics own a 70-37 record – the best in @MLB.

@MLBStatoftheDay Craig Kimbrel’s 0.654 WHIP is 3rd lowest in history for a pitcher with at least 50 IP, behind Dennis Eckersley’s 0.607 in ’89 & 0.614 in ’90

@MLBStatoftheDay Chase Headley is first @Padres player since Dave Winfield in 1979 to finish the season as the NL leader in RBI.

@ESPNStatsInfo Adam Dunn struck out 222 times this yr, the most in AL history and 2nd-most in MLB history (Mark Reynolds, 223 in 2009).

@ESPNStatsInfo Fernando Rodney posted an 0.60 ERA this season, the lowest in MLB history among pitchers with at least 50 IP.

@ESPNStatsInfo Cliff Lee is the 1st pitcher in the Modern Era (since 1900) to strikeout 200 batters and have 6 or fewer wins in a season.

@Jonathan_Gantt Best pitching staff ever to not make playoffs? 2012 Rays led @MLB in ERA (3.19) and opp. avg. (.228) and led AL with 1,383 Ks.

@MikeDiGiovanna Torii Hunter pulled after two ABs, closes year with .313 average, oldest player since 1957 to hit .300 first the first time.

@STATS_MLB Curtis Granderson is the fifth Yankees outfielder to hit at least 42 home runs, joining Maris, Ruth, Mantle and DiMaggio.

@beckjason In 5 seasons of AL ball, Miguel Cabrera now owns back-to-back batting titles, 2 home run crowns and 2 RBI titles.

@Haudricourt Aramis Ramirez finishes with .300 average, 50 doubles, 27 HRs 105 RBI. Not to bad as Prince Fielder’s replacement.

@richardjustice The Athletics used 16 players in clinching the AL West. GM Billy Beane acquired 9 of the 16 in the last 10 months.

@SBerthiaumeESPN Athletics join ’06 Twins, ’51 Giants as only teams whose only day alone in 1st place was the last day of the season.

@susanslusser Athletics 1st in history to win a division or pennant when trailing by 5 games or more w/ no more than 10 games left.

@PeteAbe $103 million later, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched 668.1 innings in 6 years for the RedSox with a 4.52 ERA.

@ESPNStatsInfo Orioles are now 29-9 in one-run games. According to Elias, that’s the best win pct since 1890 Brooklyn Bridegrooms (14-4)

In the coming days I will start to break down players as we start the inevitable process of looking toward the 2013 season. I will also review how my teams did this year, and let’s just say I gave better advice this year to others than myself. With that I hope that everyone had a successful fantasy season in 2012. Enjoy it. Soon enough it will be time to start focusing on what lies ahead in 2013.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: August28, 2012

(1) Erik Bedard released by Pirates. Kevin Correia to take over.

(2) Mark Teixeira out 1-2 weeks with calf strain.

(3) Felix Hernandez tosses 5th shutout. Amazing in second half.

(4) Tyler Colvin hot again.

(5) Brett Jackson driving ball into seats. Still striking out.

(6) Luke Gregerson Padres new closer?

(7) Dice-K on waivers. Roy Oswalt passes through waivers.

By Ray Flowers

Talk About Struggles

I’m sitting here watching the Rays and the Red Sox go at it, so I thought, what the heck, I would sprinkle in a little Bo Sox news in today’s piece. For those of you who dislike the Red Sox since the seem to dominate everything baseball in the national media, that is when they aren’t talking about the Yankees, I’ll also touch on a handful of guys that have been or could be relied upon in league specific scenarios the rest of the season.

Anyone see that Clint Barmes is 2-for-40 of late? I’ve been one of the lucky ones who took a chance on him when there was likely no one else left to fill a middle infield role late on draft day, but this most recent run of ineffectiveness is what happens when you own a career BB/K mark of 0.27 (it’s 0.25 this year).

Truly shocking news of the day: Erik Bedard’s season my be over. He will have an MRI on his shoulder on Friday to attempt to discern what is causing him trouble when he tries to throw. Seattle Times beat writer Geoff Baker offered his view – “if I was a betting man, which I’m not, I’d say the odds are better than even that he’s thrown his final pitch of 2009. We’ll see.” Like I said, I’m just shocked (notice the panic on my face. OK, you can’t see my face, but if you could all you would see would be a look of reservation as I would expect nothing less from Bedard).

Chad Gaudin continues to define the “boom-or-bust” attitude that many of us are forced to rely on in the fantasy game. With 105 Ks in 105.1 innings everyone can see the potential, and if often seduces us like the power of the Dark Side pulled in Darth Vader. Over the past two outings we have seen the depths of what can happen with this hurler as he has allowed 13 runs in five innings on the hill, though don’t worry, his ERA has only gone up only 0.56 runs to 5.13 as four of those runs were unearned. Still, who does this guy think he is, Oliver Perez?

Esteban German was recalled by the Rangers on Wednesday, and that should excite those of you in AL-only leagues. It’s unclear how much playing time he will pick up, but with Ian Kinsler on the DL, German might get a chance to post a few at-bats, at least in the short-term. German, who owns a .277 career batting average in major league action (nearly 950 ABs), was hitting .322 with 62 runs, 58 RBI and 33 steals in 101 games at Triple-A. In fact, look at how great he has been in his last two stops in Triple-A (this year and 2005): .317-9-126-165-76 in 862 ABs. He might be one of those AAAA players, but his speed and ability to produce in the average category should net him a shot to contribute in AL-only leagues.

Daisuke Matsuzaka blasted the Red Sox in an interview with a Japanese writer in which he basically blamed the Red Sox for all his struggles, and world hunger I believe (OK, maybe not). Given the rash of negative press he received for basically blaming the Red Sox for his struggles (his basic contention was that the club didn’t allow him to train as he had in Japan which resulted in injury and ineffectiveness), he backpedaled on Wednesday saying amongst other things that “It was not my intention to make the meeting public or to criticize the Red Sox.” So what are we to make of this statement? “If I’m forced to continue to train in this environment, I may no longer be able to pitch like I did in Japan,” Matsuzaka said. “”The only reason why I managed to win games during the first and second years (in the U.S.) was because I used the savings of the shoulder I built up in Japan.” Was he misquoted? I got no problem at all with someone calling anyone out be it a coach, player or organization, but be h-o-n-e-s-t about what you said. This comes off as extremely week Dice-K, and I hardly think it will help to mollify those who felt offended at his comments from July 28th.

B.J. Ryan suffered the same fate as he did when he was a Blue Jay. He failed to perform and was released, this time by the Cubs. Apparently his injuries have robbed him of about five mph off his fastball, he usually works in the 86 mph range at this point, and he just doesn’t possess the type of stuff/control that would allow him to be successful at that level. I wish him luck, but unless some rest makes the difference, we may never see him in the big leagues again.

By Ray Flowers