Sagarins(MLB) and a little basketball

First off, for anyone who doesn't know who Jeff Sagarin is, he's a writer for USA Today. He does excellent rankings for virtually all sports. Most of the rankings are actually based on the quality of the team, and they're probably the most useful in judging NCAA Basketball teams. However, he also does baseball rankings, of players.

His prime ranking is RPG(Runs Per Game). The stat predicts how many runs a team would score if it was nine Scott Rolens hitting, or nine Carlos Beltrans, or even nine Ronny Cedenos(sorry Cubs fans).

Here's his top 10 hitters in the NL: (only counting players that have enough AB's to qualify for the batting title)

Rank / Player / RPG
1) Albert Pujols 9.79
2) Lance Berkman 8.77
3) Chipper Jones 8.70
4) Carlos Beltran 8.12
5) Nick Johnson 7.97
6) Jason Bay 7.88
7) Ryan Howard 7.77
8) Nomar Garciaparra 7.71
9) Scott Hatteberg 7.69
10) Miguel Cabrera 7.62

Obviously a lot of these aren't shocking. Pujols, Beltran, Berkman, Cabrera, and even Jason Bay are phenomenol hitters. I was a little shocked to see Nick Johnson and Scott Hatteberg make the list. However, both have OPS's of over .900(which is very good).

Now, we come to his pitcher's rankings. His stat is NPERA, which is supposedly what the pitcher's ERA "should be." If you want to know more about his stats, look at the page, although many of his formulas are not published as far as how they specifically are found.

The top 10(NL only, pitchers must have 1 inning pitched for the avg. amount of games each team has played)

Rank Pitcher NPERA
1) Pedro Martinez 2.40
2) Brandon Webb 2.75
3) Jason Schmidt 2.80
4) Chris Carpenter 2.85
5) Jeff Francis 2.96
6) Josh Johnson 2.97
7) Carlos Zambrano 3.04
8) John Smoltz 3.06
9) Derek Lowe 3.13
10) Matt Cain 3.16

Some big names again, and some pitchers having great years. This stat seems to punish some players(Josh Johnson, who actually has a 2.85 ERA, but adjusted jumps to close to 3) and is incredibly kind to others(Most notably Matt Cain, whose actual ERA is 4.62, a point and a half higher than his adjusted one). Without having seen the games, my only guess is that Matt Cain has suffered from poor defense(not errors necessarily, but maybe bad defensive placement or players with a lack of range) and perhaps by unfavorable park conditions.

These stats are obviously not an end-all for MVP and Cy Young, but they certainly could be used as an early indicator of who is in the race. The NL MVP race right now seems to be a 3-man race, with Albert Pujols battling 2 Mets(Beltran and David Wright - 15th on the list)

This could indicate that if the writers do the players justice, it could very well be down to Beltran and Pujols, depending on their teams' late season success and their own end of the season.

Meanwhile, the Cy Young favorites at this point are likely Brandon Webb, who has been fantastic for the D'Backs, Pedro, who has been the best pitcher for the best team(despite not getting many wins, Carlos Zambrano, who has 12 wins despite being a Cub, and probably in last on that list, but still alive and kicking, reigning Cy Young winner Chris Carpenter.

Here's hoping Pujols and Carpenter take off again and can give it a run at back-to-back awards for each.

Some Basketball Talk

The Olympic team so far looks good in exhibition, with impressive wins over Puerto Rico and China. A win over Puerto Rico may not seem like a big deal, but after the last Olympics, we're just looking for signs of dominance.

Kirk Hinrich, my boy on the Bulls, seems to be the favorite for the 2nd string Point Guard, behind Wade, which should mean he gets significant playing time(at least probably 12-15 minutes a game running the show) and as Sam Smith of the Tribune writes, Kirk is excited about two squads, both the Bulls squad where he is the longest-tenured player, and the Olympic squad. So far it seems they've gotten it right with Coach K and their current roster. They still lack depth as far as shooters though, which could be a problem.