MLB Power Rankings for May 8- 2007

To me, the biggest news in baseball is the announcement that the amateur draft will be televised for the first time. I’ve been saying for a while now that it’s time the MLB did some extra work to hype the draft. The NBA draft gets televised, the NFL draft gets televised; it only seems appropriate that the national pastime’s draft should be televised. The added hype of the draft will create a more knowledgeable fan base and it will help add some hype to the College World Series.

Some people say that the baseball draft isn’t as relevant as the NFL and NBA counterpart, because it takes too long to develop the talent in the minor leagues, that the players don’t make an instant impact. To those people, I would simply point at the players who were selected in the first rounds of the past three drafts: Justin Verlander, Jeremy Sowers, Jered Weaver, Stephen Drew, Phil Hughes, Huston Street, Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Travis Buck, Brandon Morrow, and Tim Lincecum.

Next up is a revision to the draft-pick trading rules…

Rank (Pv)	Team	Record	Comments
1 (1)		21-10	The Red Sox could be even better when Jon Lester returns to the big club. He threw five shutout innings in a rehab start, but experienced a minor setback due to tightness in his forearm. Lester, who went 7-2 last year, would likely replace Julian Tavarez, who has the highest ERA on the team (6.48).
2 (2)		20-12	The relief pitching has really been a key for the Metropolitans. They have three guys in the `pen with an ERA under 1.00: Pedro Feliciano (0.00), Joe Smith (0.00), and Billy Wagner (0.69).
3 (3)		20-12	Chipper Jones is red-hot. Jones, who has never lead the league in a major offensive category, leads the National League with 10 homeruns (tied with Bonds).
4 (5)		23-10	Francisco Cordero seems to be back to his 2004-05 form, when he saved 86 games in 99 chances. So far this season, he’s been successful on all 13 chances and is yet to allow a run.
5 (6)		20-10	It’s interesting to see Fausto Carmona throw so well this year (3-1, 2.97 ERA), after his struggles last season when he became the 2nd reliever in history to lose four games in seven days.
6 (7)		20-11	I hate seeing the injury to the Tigers’ young fireballer Joel Zumaya, because he’s one of my favorite players to watch, and it’s hard to say whether he’ll be the same when he returns.
7 (4)		19-14	Damn Gina! Russell Martin is hitting .321 and leads all NL catchers in on-base percentage (.395), RBI (20), hits (34), runs (22), and stolen bases (5 in 5 attempts). As for the bad Martin tv show reference… I apologize. It was terrible. I know. I just couldn’t help myself.
8 (10)		19-16	Randy Johnson is scheduled to face off against Jaime Moyer on Wednesday, which will be a record for the combined age of two lefties starting a game (88 years, 48 days).
9 (8)		17-15	Torii Hunter, of Gold Glove and champagne fame, is riding a 21-game hitting streak, the longest in the Majors this season. Interestingly, he’s only two games away from eclipsing the longest hitting streak of Ted Williams’ career.
10 (9)		17-16	The Angels pitching staff doesn’t seem to mind the departure of their pitching coach, Bud Black, who was there for the entire Scioscia era. Their team era is almost half an earned run better this year than last.
11 (12)		18-15	David Wells says the added clauses in Clemens contract are disrespectful to the team. This seems slightly hypocritical, coming from a 350-pound lefty who has admitted to pitching drunk on occasion.
12 (11)		15-16	The Yankees will get Clemens back in about a month, but until then they’ll have to keep afloat with Matt DeSalvo, Darrell Rasner, and the health issues of Phil Hughes, Jeff Karstens, and Carl Pavano.
13 (14)		16-15	If what they say is true about pitching and defense winning championships, then Oakland should be in good shape. They have the best team ERA in the AL (3.14) and a team fielding percentage of .984.
14 (19)		17-15	If Fox Sports ever needs Little League footage of Tim Lincecum (who recently made his Major League debut) for a Beyond the Glory segment, they should come talk to me. My dad coached Lincecum when he was about 11 years old, 4’6” and 80 pounds, and somewhere we have a video of a city championship game with Lincecum pitching and my brother catching.
15 (15)		14-15	Since no-hitting the Rangers, Mark Buerhle has given up 21 hits in three starts, with an ERA around 4.50.
16 (16)		14-19	Ryan Howard is killing the team with his struggles against left-handed pitching. He’s hitting just .125 against southpaws, and might have to force Philly to take desperate measure when a lefty is on the mound. Last year he hit 16 of his 58 homers off left-handed pitching, with an average of .279.
17 (17)		15-15	Number of R’s in Chicago 1B Lee’s first name: 2. Number of times this writer has spelt it incorrectly: 7. Derrek Lee is leading the planet with a .414 average.
18 (18)		14-14	Last year, one of the big faults of the Mariners was lack of patience at the plate, having the second-lowest walk total in the league. This year they last in the league in walks, with almost 100 walks less than the leader, Philadelphia. Obviously they’ve made no adjustment in philosophy, and I have to lay the blame on both Bill Bavasi (for personnel decisions) and Mike Hargrove (for failing to enforce a stricter mindset of patience).
19 (20)		15-17	Roy Oswalt is due for a Cy Young. He’s 5-2 with a 3.00 ERA this season, but he’s been the most consistently good pitcher in the National League since he made his debut in 2001.
20 (13)		13-19	The Jays are certainly happy to have Troy Glaus back from injury. In the past week he’s hit .400 with four homeruns. Nonetheless, they haven’t won a game in over a week, losing seven in a row.
21 (22)		14-19	I finally heard that Griffey changed his number to 3, to symbolize his three children. I’m sure it was common knowledge, but I was wondering.
22 (23)		15-17	The Marlins starting pitching has been dismal. Their team ERA of 4.75 is last in the National League. Even with the D-Train winning five games, his numbers aren’t pretty (5.44 ERA, .298 opponent average against).
23 (21)		13-18	It’s hard to win games when your All-Star 3B goes into an 0-for-31 slump, and your All-Star CF simultaneously goes 0-for-19.
24 (24)		14-17	Just when the Bucs look like they’ve taken major strides toward a winning season they start sliding back toward the basement. Check out their NL ranks: average (14th), on-base percentage (16th), slugging (13th), runs (14th), ERA (12th), batting average against (14th), and quality starts (13th).
25 (26)		14-18	BJ Upton leads the league in both hitting and strikeouts, the first time in 42 years that a player has done so.
26 (27)		15-18	If Daniel Cabrera could ever get his control under… uh, control… he could be an ace type of pitcher. He has an ERA of 4.00, largely affected by 22 walks, 2nd worst in the league.
27 (25)		13-19	Michael Young has started off the season in a slump, hitting just .234. Young has hit over .300 for each of the last four seasons, and lead the league in hitting with runners in scoring position last year (.412).
28 (28)		14-19	After a down year last year, Todd Helton seems to have returned to his old form, hitting .387 and knocking in 22 runs. His .324 career average ranks 23rd all-time.
29 (30)		10-23	Surprising as it might be, Gil Meche is living up to his end of the bargain, notching an impressive 2.23 ERA and 35 strikeouts.
30 (29)		9-24	While Francisco Cordero is banging the door shut in Milwaukee, Chad Cordero is doing quite the opposite in the nation’s capitol. Cordero has blown as many saves as he’s converted (4) and his ERA is 4.70. Cordero was a first round draft pick by the Expos in 2003 and an All-Star in 2005 when he saved 47 games with an ERA of 1.82.