Short Baseball Predictions

Roger is really into his latest read, Moneyball. The book is about how the Oakland A's consistently have one of the winningest records in baseball despite having one of the smallest budgets in the Major Leagues. It examines the GM skills of Oakland's stats geek extraordinaire Billy Beane. Why is his baseball different, and why is it successful? How does he know which players to pick, to keep, to trade away?

In the flimsiest of segues, I turn now to my list of players to watch for 2005. I know very little about baseball, so I'm going on gut here, and a little on what I've seen in the past nine months.

Danny Haren - This is the player that I really wanted to post about. He has "Billy Beane" written all over him. An under-the-radar kind of guy, he's a young, hard-throwing right-handed pitcher. In this year's World Series, playing for St. Louis, he was one of the Cardinals' best relief pitchers. I just watched him again in Game 4 when he came in to relieve Jason Marquis. He had some good heat. People in Redbird Nation are happy to have Mark Mulder, but most feel they gave up a lot to get him when GM Jocketty traded away pitching tandem Haren and Kiko Calero.

Wade Miller - I enjoyed watching Matt Clement in Chicago, and I hope he does well (better) in Boston, but I really want to see what happens with Wade Miller. I think he could be another great Theo Epstein find. Released from Houston because of his season-ending injury, Miller, if he returns to full form, is said to be one of the best righties out there - with 20-win potential. We have him for one year, with an incentives-laden contract. Let's hope it's a good year.

Javier Vazquez - I just want him to succeed some place outside New York so George Steinbrenner can squirm with regret for trading him away. People think he still has good stuff. Maybe he'll play for the Orioles - although we hate the Orioles, they would be AL East and/or AL Wild Card competition.

Side note: Learning to speak baseball is like learning to speak another language - there are all these shorthand phrases, funky acronyms, and colorful metaphors. There are etiquette and context rules too. To me, it's a more eloquent language than football or basketball (although I do like the phrases "in the paint" and "full-court press"). For a good baseball dictionary, click here.