World Series Preview

Since the ALCS and NLCS are starting to wrap up, we here at the Weekly Lineup are going to give the first in-depth look into the prospect of the World Series. The Royals have already locked up the ALCS and are heading to the World Series after a 29 year playoff drought. The Giants are now up 3 – 1 and are only one win away from the World Series. Here's how the potential matchup looks on paper:

Royals:

Hitting:

The Royals lineup is nothing to write home about. As it turns out, the Royals may be benefiting from the right people getting hot at the right time. During the regular season, their team leader in average, Lorenzo Cain, hit .301.  Norichika Aoki was second in BA and hit .285. The Royals were 4^th in batting average but in the bottom half in every other offensive category during the regular season. Alex Gordon lead the team in Home Runs, RBI's and OBP (19/74/.351). Some of you baseball fans may be saying “Dear Lord Baby Jesus, how did the Royals get this far, let alone get into the post season???” Two words: Small. Ball. The Royals offense is based solely on getting a guy on base any way possible and then doing anything to move him into scoring position. It is extremely effective if done correctly and that Royals have been experts thus far. Turn to the postseason and the Royals have been getting on base and hitting the ball well late in the game. Eric Hosmer is batting .448 with two Home Runs and 8 RBI's. Lorenzo Cain has continued his success batting .353 on his way to becoming the ALCS MVP.

Pitching:

The regular season strength of the Royals was their pitching. On a team that didn't score a bunch of runs, having a solid rotation was key. James Shields and Yordano Ventura tied with a team high 14 wins. Jeremy Guthrie was no slouch with 13 wins and Jason Vargas chipped in 11 wins of his own. The bullpen was a strength as well with closer Greg Holland who saved 46 games and was setup by Wade Davis would had 33 holds. Fast forward to the postseason and the starting pitching was turned on its head as Shields and Ventura have been rocked thus far and have combined for a total of one win this postseason. The real key piece of this team is their bullpen who a combined ERA below 2.00.

Giants:

Hitting:

The Giants' offense is lead by some big name players like Buster Posey, Hunter Pence, and Pablo Sandoval. They are seasoned veterans of the postseason having gone deep in the playoffs much in the past 5 years including two World Series titles. Posey lead the team in major offensive categories, posting a .311/22/89 slash line. Sandoval and Pence pitched in with high .270 batting averages. The Giants offense was by no means a juggernaut though. They were in the Top 10 of only one offensive category (batting average) in which they ranked 10^th. The name of the game for the Giants is consistency. They aren't a streaky team, they get the job done regularly. Looking into the postseason, the Giants are an anomaly. They have only hit a total of 2 home runs but have racked up a total of 31 RBIs. They have also been bone dry at the plate with a team BA of .245. They have benefitted from getting runs in heaps and never looking back.

Pitching:

The Giants' pitching was inconsistent during the regular season except for Madison Bumgarner who racked up 20 wins. Big Time Timmy Jim Lincecum got 11 wins (second most on team), Tim Hudson added 9 wins and Ryan Vogelsong managed only 8. The Giants starting rotation was not getting many wins and was a giant question mark going into the postseason. Closer Sergio Romo was lifted from his role towards the end of the season because he was blowing saves like it was going out of style. Santiago Casilla stepped in seamlessly to close out 19 games. Giants pitching has made a complete 180 since the start of the postseason, posting a phenominal era of 2.10. Madison Bumgarner has lead the way with a 0.76 ERA and two wins.

Analysis

This has a chance to be one of the lowest rated World Series ever. There is the “feel good” story of the Royals not being in the postseason since 1985 and winning 8 straight games this postseason but I don't think this will be enough to draw the common fan. The downfall of the series will be a lack of household names and two smaller market teams. Besides the ratings, I'm picking the Royals to win in 6. The Royals will probably score runs after they outlast the Giants' starters and score some runs on the Giants' bullpen. Look for Lorenzo Cain to build off of his postseason success and become the World Series MVP.

An NFL Star Lives A Normal Life Today

For those of you who read my last article will know that I did my best to capture the current state of the NFL and it's domestic abuse problem.  Since that article, we have learned that Adrian Peterson abused his son with a switch, Jonathan Dwyer physically assaulted his wife and son, and the Carolina Panthers deactivated Greg Hardy hours before their Week 2 game.  The NFL hit an all-time low over the last two weeks and it's really hard to watch.  I feel bad for the NFL because they are a victim of their own doing.  Long have the days gone where the NFL would be able to brush issues like these under the proverbial rug.

Despite all of these gut-wrenching stories, the NFL will continue to play games and the players will continue to live normal lives.  The average NFL player does not commit domestic violence but, rather unfairly, a new persona has been cast upon these players because of a few misguided individuals.  I continually analogize this situation to priests and Muslims.  Not every priest is a pedophile (in fact most of them are perfectly normal human beings) and not every Muslim is a terrorist (in fact many Muslims are very humble, down to earth people).  But because of the public's perception of a few individuals, the rest of the group is stereotyped unjustly.

NFL players past and present have gone on to be great humanitarians.  Troy Polamalu is widely regarded throughout the NFL as a socially conscious individual who is a human being first and a football player second.  In Pittsburgh, he is seen as the NFL-version of Roberto Clemente.  Troy is always one of the first people to be interviewed when events like this occur.  He was quoted as saying in regards to Ray Rice "I have my own struggles. And, obviously, he's got his own struggles. And we all have our own struggles. So, I can't look past my own struggles to judge him."  Most people, myself included, were thinking "What issues does Polamalu have that can even come close to Ray Rice?"  But the more I thought about it, the more I started to understand what he meant.  Who are we to judge Ray Rice for what happened that night?  Who are we to label him as a villain or a terrible person or even a criminal?  We should really focus on who were as people and not worry so much about what other people do.  That's why we have judges and juries.  I guess more colloquially, Troy is saying "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

If I leave you with nothing else from this article, I want you take away that for every name you hear in the coming days, weeks, and months that will be arrested for various crimes, just remember that there are hundreds of players in the NFL who will live very normal lives that we will never hear about.

Ray Rice, Roger Goodell, and the Fault in Our Sports Stars

It has been sometime since the Weekly Lineup was had any sort of activity.  In fact it has been almost two years to the date.  But that doesn't mean that we can't take a few moments to acknowledge all that has happened in the last few days, weeks and months.  There is a lot to cover but here is our opinion of all that has happened.

The NFL has long had an image of strong, sometimes even brutal men whose on-the-field feats are largely praised and off-the-field antics are largely ignored because of who they are and how much money they bring to the sport.  So it shouldn't be any surprise that guys like Aaron Hernandez, Ray Rice, Ray McDonald, and Greg Hardy are where they are.  But what's more surprising is how much the teams and the NFL have mismanaged and covered up these players wrong-doings.

Ray Rice is the easiest and most tangible of all of these stories because of the video evidence that we have all seen.  He was once believed to be one of the best, if not the best, running backs in the game but now finds himself without a job because an impulsive decision to hit his now-wife.  The evidence was there, Ray reportedly said in several statements to his team and the NFL that he hit his wife and he was slapped on the wrist because of who he was and what he meant to his team and the game.

As we have all seen in the last 48 hours, this mismanagement and cover up of the truth is coming to bite the NFL is the ass... and hard.  Roger Goodell seems to grasping at straws and trying to find just one more lie to cover his tracks so that he can keep his job.  I have no doubt in my mind that he knew exactly what happened and, more importantly, saw what happened and chose to ignore it.

The more I think about this situation, I can't help but be reminded of the Penn State Scandal that every Central PA resident loves to forget: Penn State, Joe Paterno and his staff that had every chance to bring justice to those who deserved it and failed.  They failed to take appropriate actions that would have kept Jerry Sandusky away from innocent kids that he defiled.  And by no means am I trying to say Ray Rice hitting is wife is in anyway as heinous as molesting children but the situation seems way too similar for me to not at least draw some parallels.  Just like Penn State, the NFL only chose to take appropriate action when they were named as a responsible and knowledgable party to a horrible incident.  Goodell should be fired for his role in this whole scandal.  Keep in mind that Goodell is by no means responsible for the actions of NFL players but he is responsible for taking proper actions against players who violate both league rules and state or federal laws.  The owners have every responsibility to make sure that Goodell can't fail at his job anymore.  Don't let another guilty person go free so that they can hurt any other innocent person.  Goodell has failed again and again and again to fairly and justly reprimand criminals in his game.  But the sad truth is that the NFL doesn't really care about about the character of the players, coaches and owners in their organization as long as they aren't losing money because of it.

I'll be the first person to say that I am getting fed up with the NFL because of all of the drama and changes that have come to the game since Goodell took over.  My interested in the game has dropped dramatically because the rules during the game and surrounding the game are in place to allow for the maximum profit.  I know the NFL has always been a business but never has it seemed like only a business and not about the sport itself.  Find me the same level pandering in baseball or hockey that you see in the NFL.  Find me the same amount of players in the MLB or NHL that have a criminal record.  Find me a sport that cares less about the character of its players.  If you do, please let me know.

-Mike