Mark Kotsay ...

Damn, he has been really good lately. So good that some have been starting to mention him as a possible MVP candidate. No doubt he's our MVP to this point. .845 ops, Gold Glove D in center - he's been a stud. But an MVP? Heck, I'll buy it, I know how important he's been to the team. But will the reporters? Not a chance. Lets look back.
Kotsay's Stats

	avg	obp	slg	hr	2b	rbi	r	sb
Current	.325	.384	.461	8	21	43	49	6
Pace	.325	.384	.461	13	34	70	79	10
Optimistic	.340	.410	.500	16	40	80	90	12

Great numbers, all of them, no question. When combined with his D, I'd be fine giving him the MVP. Reporters would see it differently, though. Why? Two reasons, RBIs and Runs.

Since 1970, 8 players have won the MVP (both leagues) without either scoring or driving in 100 runs. 4 of them were pitchers:

Blue '71
Fingers '81
Hernandez '84
Clemens '86

The other 4 were all National Leaguers. Three of them were in injury or strike shortened seasons:

Stargel '79: (tie) 126 games, 60 runs, 82 RBIs
Schmidt '81: 102 games, 78 runs, 91 RBIs - GG at 3b
Larkin '95: 131 games, 98 runs, 66 RBIs - GG at SS

In a full season, they would have all cleared the 100 mark, Schmidt and Larkin by a wide margin.

Pendleton in '91 is a different story, however. In a very close vote, he edged Bonds by 15 points who probably lost votes to teammate Bobby Bonilla, who finished a solid third. It was also a weak season, with only one guy (Bonds) topping .900 in OPS. He was a Gold Glover, even if he didn't win it that year.

So of the last 68 MVPs, only one hasn't been a 100 run or 100 rbi guy. With plenty of quality candidates, I couln't possibly imagine Kotsay winning it unless he played absolutely ridiculously out of his friggin mind in September ... which would get him past 100 runs and make this entire article irrelevent.

Just a quick thought, watching the Rangers-Halos game on ESPN (too bad it's not ESPN8 - the Ocho), I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should be rooting for the Rangers in this series, and assume that the Halos will actually be the team we'll be competing with come September.

Less than 70 hours until the trading deadline and very few rumors on the BB front. Could the Dotel move be the end of it?

What do we need? From most pressing to least:

1. A starting 2b
2. A top lefty reliever
3a. An established closer
or
3b.another power righty setup guy
4a. A top end corner outfielder
or
4b. an improved #4 outfielder
5. The guy who would become the best #4 starter in the game ... at least outside of Chicago

3a, 4a, and 5 just aren't going to happen - the pieces just don't exist. 2 is in pretty much the same position.
4b would have such a small impact it really isn't worth discussing ... or doing, for that matter. Especially if we're assuming Billy Mac will ever get healthy.

So that leaves us the second baseman or the power setup guy.

It seems the options at second are Polanco and Alomar. Word is that BB is not in love with Alomar, so we probably won't pay the cash or prospects to get him. Is Polanco worth Rincon, which is the current rumor? Well we certainly have enough lefties that we can afford to get rid of one. I doubt Polanco is worth it, though. He's better than he has played so far this year - but it's hard to know if he'll revert to his very good form of last year or more of the solid, but not great player he's been before that. I don't think we'll trade for Alomar, but if the Unit trade goes down and the Yankees release Alomar he'd be worth the 400,000 it would cost to claim him. He's been playing great in July - with Scooter spelling him and keeping him fresh, he could be a real asset in this playoff run. He's not great defensively anymore, but he can still be an on base machine, with decent power and speed - an ideal #2 hitter.

There are options out there for the power setup guy deal ... but I don't think we need it. Seriously - Jimbo Mecir is doing pretty well. No, really - I'm actually not joking. He's only given up earned runs in 7 of his 40 games this year. That's pretty damn good. It's true that in 3 of those games he combined to give up 12 runs and get 3 outs ... but, hey, once you've blown the game, who cares how bad it gets? If you're gong to lose it, lose it big, get it out of your system and don't worry about it. In those other 37 games, he has an era of 1.16. Wow! That's not bad. He's also posted a 1.1 whip, not nearly as spectacular, but still very good.

3 Bad games:
1 ip, 108.00 era, 12.00 whip, 0 k/bb
37 Good games:
31 ip, 1.16 era, 1.10 whip, 2.83 k/bb

So 92.5% of the time, he's one of the top handfull of relievers in the league. 7.5% of the team he's probably worse than I'd be, if they trotted me out there. You know what? I'll take that from our #3 righty reliever.

The 100 greatest homeruns of all time was just published at espn.com (http://espn.go.com/page2/s/greatesthomerunslist.html). It's interesting, with all of the great homerun hitters we've seen, here in Oakland - the greatest homerun ever hit by an Oakland player, according to this article at #69, was Scott Hatteberg's 9th inning blast to win game 20, capping 2002's miraculous streak.

Scott Hatteberg, huh? Not Reggie Jackson? Mark McGwire, perhaps? Okay, then, Jose Canseco? What, Giambi? No, I meant the other one ... no? Okay, perhaps a Chavez or a Tejada? So you're serious, Scott Hatteberg, he of the 72 career homeruns, hit the greatest homerun in Oakland A's history?

Actually, for all of the lore surrounding the game's great power hitters, only 3 of the top 12 were hit by guys who would be considered great homerun hitters. Including the post season, Bill Mazeroski (#1) only hit 140 career homeruns over 17 seasons - his most prolific season being the 19 he hit in 1958.
Bobby Thomson (#2) managed 264 jacks in his 15 year career, though he did finish in the top 5 in homeruns three times.
Bucky Dent (#10) hit all of 40 round trippers in his 12 year career, with a high of 8, but in 1978 he added another piece of history to the legacy of the Bambino, winning the one game playoff with his fifth homerun of the season.
Kirby Puckett (#11) was always a fan favorite and a great player - but a great power hitter? Nope. 207 career homeruns in 12 seasons, top ten finish only once. But that one magical post season in 1991, he found the slugger's touch. 4 of his 45 ABs resulted in him touching them all - with the final one ending game 6 in the bottom of the 11th.
Scott Brosius (#12) only managed 149 dingers in his 11 year career - but 8 of them were in the postseason, including 4 in 1998, earning him the WS MVP. The greatest, however, was three years later, game 5, 2001 when he took Byung Hyun Kim deep to send the game into extra innings, setting up a dramatic 12 inning Yankee victory - and possibly the most exciting game 7 ever.
That, of course, leaves the greats - Aaron (#3), McGwire (#5) and Bonds (#9) - along with the guys who were certainly accomplished power hitters, but by no means great - Carter (#4), Fisk (#6), and Maris (#7).

Now the big three didn't so much hit great homeruns, as they hit homeruns that represented great accomplishments (715, 62, 71 respectively). Maris' homerun, of course, also belongs in this group.

It's curious to think that of the top 8 homeruns that were great for their own sake - not in terms of capping a significant, long term accomplishment - 3/4 of them were hit by players whose power was average or worse. Now, I wonder, is that because most at bats, hence most opportunities for greatness, are taken by guys who aren't any more than average ... or are these moments so great because they were accomplished by the little guy? Would we have expected a Ruth, a Williams, a Mays, an Aaron, a McGwire, or a Bonds to come through in such a situation, thus diminishing its place in history? McGwire's walk off piece in the 1988 WS, for example, is nowhere to be found on the list. Do expectations diminish great moments?

Also, doesn't it seem a bit odd that the only homerun in the top 24 that occurred before 1945 is more of a legend than fact? We know Ruth hit the homer, but did he call the shot? We definitely have conflicting opinions on that.

Gotta say, great game.

The O has really come together these last few games. It does have a tendency to do that, though, then disappear just as randomly as it showed up. So I'm not going to get too excited. We can definitely use another bat ... maybe Alomar, maybe a solid veteran outfielder. If we could find another power arm for the 'pen, that would be awesome, but with Bradford looking better, and Dotel being the flat out stud that he is, we should be able to mostly reserve Rincon for lefty duties. Once Huddy comes back, Saarloos can take over Duke's rule and let Duke settle into more of a setup role too.

So, basically, I am cautiously optimistic.

Dennis Eckersley defined the modern closer. We all know how great he was and the incredible numbers he posted - 45, 2.35 33, 1.56 48, 0.61 43, 2.96 51, 1.91, MVP, Cy Young.

We also all know that he was a good starter before La Russa rescued him, but I don't think most people realize quite how good.

As a rookie in 1975, he was third in the league in era with a 2.60, second in adj era+ with 146. Of course, he played for a bad Indians team, so he only won 13 games.

He wasn't nearly as good in 1978, but he played for a much better Boston team, that won 99 games (but finished 1 behind NYY), so he won 20 games, thanks to posting an adj era+ of 138. The voters, of course, have always been in love with the W, and he finished fourth in the Cy Young voting.

His best season as a starter was probably 1979. His era was only 2.99, but that was good enough for third in the league, and a league leading adj era+ of 148. His team was 8 games worse, though, and he won 3 fewer games - finishing fifth in the league with 17, despite finishing second in the league with 17 complete games, dropping him to seventh in the Cy voting.

Then, of course, there was 1977, the year in this span that he posted the highest era - 3.53, not too bad ... but also tossed a No-No on May 30 topping the Anaheim, err, I mean, California Angels 1-0.

Over the first five years of his career, he compiled a 3.12 era, averaging 230 innings per year to go along with 15.4 wins and 171 strikeouts.

*********************

Now, the question is, does this mean Smoltz can follow a similar path to the Hall?

Well, first of all, we have to realize, Eck was not even close to borderline. But we also need to realize, he's not only in there because of his performance on the field. His election is just as much a recoginition of his defining the modern closer's role, as his actual performance. So Smoltz has to do more than Eck would have.

I pretty much see it as him equaling Eck's stats. Which isn't going to happen. He would need another 5-6 quality seasons as a closer. But he'd also need 2-3 of them to be great seasons, earning him some Cy and MVP votes. Smoltz has only finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting once, Eck did it four times, winning it once.

Let's just say, he has a chance, but he has a long way to go.