At this point, we have to begin to discuss the possibility of an official curse – for the third time in four years one of the American League’s elite homerun hitters has suffered a season ending injury in September, and for the second year in a row it may cost the American League a 40-homerun hitter. On Monday, Carlos Pena broke two fingers after being hit by a C.C. Sabathia pitch against the Yankees. Pena currently leads the AL in homerun with 39, ahead of current AL RBI leader Mark Teixeira’s 35 and several players at 31, but is now done for the season.

Last season, Carlos Quentin led the AL in homeruns with 36 and had essentially locked up the AL Most Valuable Player Award going into September when he broke his wrist after slamming his bat in frustration on September 5th. He ended up second in the league with 36 homeruns behind Miguel Cabreras’ 37.

In 2006, Travis Hafner – who came up through the Rangers farm system with Pena, and who with Pena was made expendable by the emergence of Teixeira – was dominating the American League with 42 homeruns, 117 RBI, 100 walks, and a league leading 1.097 OPS and 179 OPS+ when his season was ended on September 1st when he was plunked by C.J. Wilson of the Rangers.

One is also reminded of Sammy Sosa’s first elite-power season, in 1996, when he had 40 homeruns and 100 RBI through August 20th, but had his wrist broken when he was hit by a pitch against the Marlins. He finished fifth in the NL in homeruns behind Andres Galarraga’s 47, and almost certainly would have led the league if not for the injury; Galarraga hit 13 homeruns from the date of Sosa’s injury through the end of the season. Interestingly, both the Sosa and Hafner HBP’s came with the bases loaded and drove in a run.

Sadly, unlike Hafner, Quentin and Sosa, this injury will likely cost Pena three different crowns. Not only does he currently lead the American League in homeruns, but he also leads the league in walks (87) and strikeouts (163). The AL bases on balls race is very tight, with Chone Figgans tied with Pena and Nick Swisher one walk behind him, while Jack Cust (152) and Russ Branyan (149) are more than capable of catching Pena in the strikeouts department.

Looking at the careers of Sosa, Hafner, and Quenton, one wonders what’s next for Carlos Pena. For Sosa, Hafner, and Quentin, these injuries radically changed their careers, and one must wonder whether the same will be said for Pena.

Sosa, of course, would go on to struggle through the 1997 season, and the narrative of that year is that the wrist injury lingered, plaguing his season. Of course, 1998 would be the year that Sosa and Mark McGwire would change baseball forever, and it is possible that Sosa’s 1997 troubles led to his alleged usage of performance enhancing drugs before the 1998 season; it has often been alleged that players begin using performance enhancers in response to injuries, so it makes sense. If so, then one HBP in 1996 changed the course of baseball history.

Hafner and Quentin, meanwhile, have not been the same players since their season-ending injuries. Quentin has been terrible in 2009 (16 homeruns, .235 average, .769 OPS) after what looked to be a breakout 2008 season, and Travis Hafner went from being one of the best hitters in baseball to enduring a solid, but comparatively lousy, 2007 and injury-plagued 2008 and 2009 seasons.

The good news for Pena is that his injury is to his fingers and not his wrist – the number of players to rebound slowly from broken wrists is too many to count, but includes Sosa, Quentin, Hafner, Vernon Wells, Derrek Lee, Hideki Matsui, Ken Griffey, Jr., among others – and comes at the end of the year, so he should have plenty of time to recover before Spring Training 2010.

On the other hand, Pena, like Hafner, has never been the model of consistency and durability, and has given the impression of someone playing on borrowed time during his big-power-low-average stint with the Rays. Whether this marks the end of Pena’s brief period as a full time major league contributor, like Hafner, remains to be seen.

On another note, it is impossible not to notice the convenient way in which this injury occurred. Pena, teammate Evan Longoria, and Mark Teixiera are currently locked in battles for the homerun and RBI titles; Pena currently leads Teixeira in homeruns by four, and Teixeira leads the RBI race with 106 ahead of Longoria (102) and Pena (100). Obviously, Pena won’t be garnering any more RBI, and with Pena done for the year the RBI opportunities for Longoria likely decrease as well. So, Sabathia’s sniping of the American League homerun leader essentially paves the way for Mark Teixeira to lead the league in both homeruns and RBI, which make Teixeira the front-runner for the AL Most Valuable Player Award. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that Award could go to anyone other than a player who leads the AL in homeruns and RBI in his first season with the New York Yankees in the year that the team led the AL in wins after missing the playoffs the previous year. Sorry, Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter.

It is all just a little too convenient.

As to Pena’s recovery, I won’t make any predictions. I am, after all, the one who said we’d seen the last of Derrek Lee, who currently has 32 homeruns, a .298 average, and a .954 OPS.

And as to the AL MVP, well, let’s just hand it to Mr. Teixeira now. Unless, of course, he has some frustration-related bat-slamming in his future.

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1. Book Review: Burying the Curse, By Terry Pluto
2. 2009/2010 Free Agents at SS
3. The History of Advertising in Major League Baseball

AL Rookie of the Year

We at Baseball Reflections were right on with selecting Rays 3B Evan Longoria as the hands down choice. But in all fairness, this wasn’t difficult to predict. No one else even came close to Longoria in 2008.

NL Rookie of the Year

The award went to Cubs catcher Geovany Soto, but we picked Braves SP Jair Jurrjens. Soto was actually our third choice. I can hear the comments coming now on this one.

AL Cy Young Award

We at Baseball Reflections were right on with selecting the Indians Cliff Lee as the hands down choice. But in all fairness, like with the AL Rookie of the Year, this wasn’t difficult to predict. No one else even came close to Lee in 2008 either.

NL Cy Young Award

We at Baseball Reflections were right on with selecting the Giants Tim Lincecum even though he did not reach 20 wins in 2008. His overall numbers were just superior to Webb’s.

AL MVP

The award went to Red Sox 2B and last year’s (2007) AL Rookie of the Year, Dustin Pedroia, but we picked Twins 1B Justin Mourneau. We, and by we I mean Bill, didn’t even have Pedroia in the top 5 (Bill had him 9th). Personally, and this is where Bill and I disagree, I would have had Pedroia at least third behind Mourneau and possibly Boston 1B/3B KevinYoukilis.

NL MVP

We at Baseball Reflections were right on with selecting Cardinals 1B Albert Pujols over Phillies 1B Ryan Howard. Howard’s K’s and low average hurt him in the voting in my opinion.

Overall we were correct 4 out of the 6 awards listed here and we didn’t do too bad with the AL and NL Gold Glove Awards either. Check it out here! AL Gold Glove Awards and the NL Gold Glove Awards

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1. AL Gold Glove Awards: How Did We Do?
2. NL Gold Glove Awards: How Did We Do?
3. American League Gold Glove Winners

The Philadelphia Phillies have won the 2008 World Series 4 games to 1 over the Tampa Bay Rays, ending their (the Rays’) Cinderella season. 48 hours after the start of Game 5, they resumed it from the bottom of the 6th tied at 2. They won the series 4 games to 1, but it was a much more exciting series than those numbers evoke. There was only 1 blowout and all of the remaining games were decided.

Game 1 in Tampa Bay: Phillies 3 Rays 2
Game 2 in Tampa Bay: Rays 4 Phillies 2

Game 3 in Philly: Phillies 5 Rays 4
Game 4 in Philly: Phillies 10 Rays 2
Game 5 in Philly: Phillies 4 Rays 3

Game 5

In the bottom of the 6th, the Phillies went ahead 3-2 on a Werth (RF) single, scoring Jenkins (PH) who had doubled to lead off the inning only to have a Rocco Baldelli (RF) HR tie it back up again in the top of the 7th. Then in the bottom of the 7th, Feliz (3B) singled home Bruntlett (LF) to go ahead 4-3 and that’s how the game ended with closer Brad Lidge closing the door in the 9th to seal the Championship and end the series.

JC Romero got the win, JP Howell the loss and Lidge got the save with more detail of the importance of that last stat a little later in this post.

2008 World Series MVP

Starting pitcher Cole Hamels who went 1-0 with a 2.77 ERA and 8 K’s in his two starts (he started game 5 Monday night) won the MVP award and a 2010 Camaro on his wife’s birthday (last night, 10/29) and said that the car will be hers.

Cole had 4 victories in this post season and almost had his 5th in game 5 if it were not for Baldelli’s 7th inning HR. 5 wins would have been a single player record for the post season!

Who else would have made a good choice as series MVP?

Philly 2008 Milestones

1. The Phillies were 86-0 after leading through 8 innings this year
2. Closer Brad Lidge was 48-48 in saves this year. 41-41 in the regular season and 7-7 in the playoffs with 2 of those coming in the World Series.

Phillies Franchise Milestones

1. 126 years old
2. over 10,000 losses
3. 2 World Series Victories (1980 & 2008): Priceless!
   

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1. Philadelphia Phillies Off Season Report
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1. Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals

Pujols is probably the best player in baseball and the sky is the limit for his career. One can only wonder what kind of numbers he would be putting up if he didn’t have a chronic elbow problem. He recently became just the 3^rd person ever to start their career with 8 seasons where they hit 30 homeruns and drove in 100 RBIs. He ranks in the top 10 in the National League in 7 offensive categories (1^st in OBP, 1^st in OPS, 1^st in slugging percentage, 2^nd in walks, 2^nd in batting average, 8^th in RBI and 5^th in homeruns). No one else even comes close to doing that. He also plays nearly Gold Glove caliber first base and is on a team that is still in contention for a playoff spot. He carried the Cardinals with his bat in so many clutch situations this season that it can easily be said that without him, they would not even be close to making the playoffs. This will be Pujols’ 2^nd MVP, after winning it in 2005, and this writer would not be surprised to see him win multiple more times.

2. Lance Berkman, Houston Astros

He had a season no one really expected him to have. Many think he should be in the downswing of his career, but ranking 4^th and 3^rd in batting average and on base percentage respectively along with a solid first base has him this high on the ballot.

3. David Wright, New York Mets

The player affectionately known as the “other” baseball heartthrob in New York had another outstanding season. He is projected to have another 30 homerun season to go along with 40 doubles and over 100 RBI. He also has a good chance to win his 2^nd gold glove in a row.

4. Matt Holliday, Colorado Rockies

This Rockie ranks in the top 10 in 6 separate offensive categories. It still seems it’s just a matter of time before he is no longer playing in Denver.

5. Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves

He flirted with .400 for so long that some in the national media thought me might end up with an average as high as .380. Then he got hurt and it all went down hill. One cannot argue with great defense and a .362 average.

6. Carlos Lee, Houston Astros

If he would have been able to play the whole season without being injured, who knows how many homeruns and RBIs he would have ended up with. Even with the injury he tallied 100 RBI and even more impressive is his .314 average.

7. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers

Another player with a good all around performance, offensively, compiling a .295 average, 34 homeruns and a most likely 100 RBI season. He will soon be making far less than he deserves.

8. Aramis Ramirez, Chicago Cubs

Ramirez has played on one of the best teams in the league all year long and even though his average isn’t great, he does have 100 RBI.

9. Adrian Gonzalez, San Diego Padres

There seems to be an amazing number of 30 homer-100 RBI players in the National League and Gonzalez is just one more of them.

10. Carlos Delgado, New York Mets

If the average was higher, his ranking would be, but the 35 homers and 104 RBIs make a strong case for some votes. The fact that he has been playing with the heart’s of the Mets faithful throughout the season makes him even more interesting.

11. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies

The power numbers are amazing as he leads the league in both RBIs and homeruns, but his average is terrible. He ranks 71^st in batting average and 56^th in on base percentage, both stats that are going to turn voters off.

12. Adam Dunn, Cincinnati Reds/Arizona Diamondbacks

If he had been compiling statistics for one team all season, he could have even more consideration.

Related posts:

1. National League Rookie of the Year Prediction
2. Bill & Pete’s AL Cy Young Predictions
3. Bill’s AL MVP Analysis