WHAT IF?

THE ‘WHAT-IF’ GAME

Office of the League Commissioner—What if? It’s the quintessential baseball question, really. What if this, or what if that, had happened or hadn’t happened? Would it affect your teams fortunes, or not? Presented, for your consideration, a few such examples:

WHAT IF:

The defending Central Division champs in Pottsylvania hadn’t been wracked by massive injuries to starters, losing 3B Aramis Ramirez, C Ramon Martinez, 1B Lyle Overbay, IF Melvin Mora, CF Jim Edmonds...not to mention $40 million worth of pitching in Pedro Martinez, Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson, along with less-expensive hurlers? It could be argued that Pottsylvania’s reliance on old starting pitching came back and bit them, but they weren’t just guilty of relying on fossils. Clearly, they were really, really unlucky where injuries were concerned.

Yuma hadn’t retooled their ballclub so they could’ve signed RHP Roger Clemens? Would the three-time Western champs be in the position they’re in right now, or would they be better, or worse? Certainly, the Firebirds have to be disappointed in the effort they are getting from the expensive (but aging) ‘Rocket’, arguably no better than what they were getting from youngster Matt Cain. More importantly, the Firebirds would’ve been better off using that coin to bolster their club’s bench strength and bullpen. Last year’s club won 91 games and was not seriously pushed by division rival Arizona. There’s a sense of parity now in the division, and (frankly) it’s more of a case of Yuma declining than the D-Backs rising.

Brooklyn’s setup corps had stayed healthy the whole season? The Moabs had absolutely no problem in the run-scoring department, leading all of BARB with 813 runs scored, nearly seventy more than the runner-up. But the bullpen has been a wreck: free agents Mike Gonzalez and Duaner Sanchez were lost for the season, flame-throwing setup man Joel Zumaya missed most of the year and the club no doubt wishes Bob Wickman and Kyle Davies could’ve done the same. The result has been a heavy workload (81 IP and counting. . .) for closer Francisco Rodriguez, and 18 losses and 20 blown saves for the bullpen as a whole.

Worcester’s starting rotation had been able to stay on the mound? The Elims started strong, with Jeremy Sowers winning his first five decisions, but since then their success has been driven by their strong hitting lineup (.276 team batting average, tops in BARB) and an underrated, no-superstars, but effective bullpen. Rich Harden and Chris Young were non-factors during the dog days of summer, and now Eric Bedard is out for the year, a loss of at least three starts by the club’s best pitcher. If the Eliminators had been able to put just three good starters out there every five days, they would probably have 8-10 more wins and have buried their Eastern Division foes.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Almost every club has had tough injuries to overcome: Frostbite Falls (Chris Carpenter, Rocco Baldelli, Tom Gordon, Ben Sheets), Darwin (Josh Johnson, Chipper Jones, Eric Chavez, Jesse Crain), S-Mart (Jason Schmidt, Freddy Garcia, Jake Westbrook, Kenny Rogers). About the only contending club that hasn’t been much bitten by the injury bug is Las Vegas. . .