The knock on Major League Baseball for the past few years has been that only a handful of teams have a chance to win the World Series. That argument really doesn’t really make much sense considering that two of the last three champs (Anaheim and Florida) had losing records the previous year and the other (Arizona) was an expansion team playing only its fourth season. (Compare that to the NBA where six teams have combined to win the last 20 titles).
Baseball brings that criticism upon themselves by supporting an uneven salary structure that allows the Yankees to have a payroll that is seven-times larger than that of the Brewers.
But just because the Yankees and Red Sox can afford to outspend everybody, doesn’t mean that fans in the other 28 major league cities had no hope at the beginning of the month.
The Oakland A’s have made the playoffs in each of the past four seasons, despite a payroll that is nearly half as small as the Mets. And the Twins have played into October in each of the last two years after Bud Selig openly discussed contracting the team.
Last year the Kansas City Royals made a run at the American League Central before fading in August, the Expos were fighting for a wild card spot until the final weeks of the season and the Marlins recovered from a sub-.500 April to win the World Series.
This year, similar Cinderella stories are brewing in San Diego, Detroit and Arlington, Texas.
It just goes to show that no matter what the payroll is of your favorite team is, everybody has a chance to win on Opening Day… except the Brewers.

Biggest Surprise (Team): Texas Rangers
2001: A. Rod leaves Seattle for Texas. The Mariners go on to win 116 games. The Rangers have a worse summer than Gary Condit.
2004: A. Rod leaves Texas for New York. The Rangers jump out to the best record in baseball through Sunday. The Yankees need a late-month win-streak to push their record above .500.
Kind of weird, isn’t it? A team loses its best player and does better, while another team gets said player and can’t get a win. If this phenomenon happened in music, the rest of the guys from N’ Sync would have hits hit albums and would be dating the Cameron Diazs of the world, while Justin Timberlake would be touring malls with Corey Haim.

Biggest Disappointment (Team): Philadelphia Phillies
A new ballpark and huge expectations brought on by a record payroll greeted the Phillies at the beginning of the season. They responded by starting out 11-12, despite an N.L. best ERA. Six straight losses to the Marlins didn’t help, nor did a team .245 batting average.
Oh, and having Larry Bowa as a manager is like hiring Enron accountants to do your taxes. Seriously, that guy could coach the Globetrotters and he’d still find a way to mess up.
It’s still early in the season, but it looks like Phillies fans might have to wait another year to finally get past the NFC Championship Game.

Biggest Surprise (Player) : Lew Ford, Twins
Lewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Ford was the last player cut from the Twins during spring training this year, despite some good numbers he had in a cup of coffee with the team last fall and this March. But when Torii Hunter went down, the Twins called up Ford from Rochester and all he’s done is bat .391 with 17 RBI’s and a 1.101 OPS and also filled in nicely for Hunter, a Gold Glover, in centerfield.
Hunter has since returned to center, but Twins manager Ron Gardenhire simply moved Ford to left and is batting him cleanup.
And kudos to all four of you who got the “Lewwwwwwwwwwwwww!” thing.

Biggest Disappointment (Player) : Derek Jeter, Yankees
Q: What do Rob Mackowiak, Wes Helms, Ryan Freel and Craig Monroe all have in common?
A: Their batting averages are all 20 points higher than Derek Jeter’s.
Let’s look at it this way. Derek Jeter has less hits than Richie Sexson has RBI’s. Miguel Cairo has one more double than Jeter and Ricky Ledee has two more RBI’s. Roger Clemens has a higher OBP.
The Yankees captain’s VORP (Value Over Replacement Player, a contrived and complicated statistic that measures how valuable a player is, when compared to an imaginary replacement player that hits below average and has mediocre fielding abilities) is last in the majors. By far.
And for all this, Jeter is receiving $18 million this season. Nobody has earned that much by doing so little since Julia Roberts pocketed a similar paycheck for Mona Lisa Smile.

Amazing Statistics: Expos Style

- Scott Rolen and Vinny Castilla have driven in as many runs (55) as the entire Expos team has scored.

- Barry Bonds has 11 less walks and four less homeruns than the Expos.

- The Texas Rangers team batting average is higher than the Expos team slugging percentage.

- The Expos have 45 extra-base hits this season. The St. Louis Cardinals have hit 40 homeruns.

Potent Potables

- Barry has twice as many intentional walks than every team in the league (except for the Braves, who have 12 to Bonds’ 22).

- The Yankees 2010 payroll is already higher than four teams payroll this year.

- The top four batting average leaders are in the A.L. are Ron Belliard, Lew Ford, Juan Uribe and Ken Harvey. The bottom three are Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Aubrey Huff.

- The Red Sox Mark Bellhorn is batting .214 but has a .424 on-base percentage.

- Ron Belliard is slugging .522 with zero homeruns, while Eric Chavez has a .442 average and six homeruns.

- Ruben Sierra is actually 83-years old.

- Dontrelle Willis is 3-0 with a 2.73 ERA and is batting .583 with a 1.000 slugging percentage.