How much is this guy worth?

You may not have heard, but Derek Jeter’s contract is up, and he’s negotiating with the Yankees for a new one. He’d like to make between $22 and $25 million a year for at least the next four years (Who among us wouldn’t?). Those stereotypically tight-fisted Yankees, however, only want to give Jeter $15 million a year for three years.

Both sides make good arguments. Jeter’s camp argues that as the face of the Yankees, which he’s been since 1998, he makes the team millions of dollars a year that they wouldn’t otherwise see, and he’s entitled to a cut of that. The Yankees, however, contend that they are giving him a cut of that money. It’s just that he’s not worth anywhere near $25 million a year, especially now that he’s 36.

It’s an interesting question. How do you determine how much a player is worth?

A player’s worth is a little nebulous, but we do have some tools that help us figure it out. The most common one is WAR (Wins Above Replacement), which essentially tells us how many more games a team would win with Player X instead of a generic, AAA-level player. A solid starter ought to have a WAR between 2-3, an All-Star around 5, and an MVP around 7-8. WAR is calculated differently by Baseball Reference and Fangraphs, so we’ll include both here as we take a look at how Jeter has performed over the course of his career.

Looks like he’s had three MVP-level seasons, but on average, he’s wavered between All-Star and solid starter status. It’s worth pointing out that every time Jeter has had an MVP season, the Yankees have won the World Series (1998, 1999, 2009). Not too shabby. But how does that translate into salary?

That, of course, is a little trickier. We can look at free agent salaries and compare them to WAR to get an idea of how much each win above replacement is worth, but it’s not an exact science. (It doesn’t help that we have to adjust for inflation.) The table to the right shows how much, roughly, owners have been willing to pay for each win above replacement over the course of Jeter’s career.

It’s not perfect, but this gives us a good idea of how much a player ought to make based on WAR. A player with a WAR of 5 in 2004, for instance, should have earned about $15 million. Of course, that’s not always how it turns out, if only because we have no way of knowing how many wins a player will be responsible for at the beginning of the season. Everything’s guesswork, and it’s easy to second-guess bad contracts in hindsight.

The other thing that makes estimating Jeter’s value tricky is that contracts aren’t generally decided year-to-year. Jeter wants a six year contract. The Yankees would like to sign him for three. Either way, they have to decide now what he’s going to be worth several years in the future. That makes things difficult when his value is dramatically higher (or lower!) than his actual salary. Players on rookie deals are usually making six figures, and in cases like Jeter’s, that can mean they’re being dramatically underpaid. Meanwhile, established veterans can make upwards of $20 million a year, even though their best years are clearly behind them. Take a look at this graph and see what I mean.

While Jeter has more seasons that he was “overpaid” (his actual salary was higher than WAR would predict it should have been), a quick look at the graph shows that over the course of his career, Derek Jeter has actually been underpaid. According to Fangraphs, Jeter has made nearly $5.5 million less than he should have, and if you ask Baseball Reference, it’s over $12 million. Pretty interesting, considering the conventional wisdom is that Jeter is overrated and making too much as is. Maybe the reason Jeter’s camp is asking for so much is because he was dramatically underpaid for his first five years.

But even if you assume that’s the case, the contract Jeter is asking for would still tilt him toward being overpaid, because his ability is going to decline as he gets older. Remember, he’s 36 right now. He’s not as bad as his 2.5 WAR in 2010 would suggest, but he’s not as good as the 7.1 WAR he had in 2009, either. A simple regression tells us that while he’s likely to bounce back a bit next year, we can expect him to be performing at about replacement level in 2014 (when he’ll turn 40). Nobody, not even the Yankees, wants to be paying a replacement-level player $25 million.

Assuming the price of a win continues to rise as it has in the past, and further assuming that he declines like we think he will, Jeter should be worth about $33 million over the next three years. The Yankees are offering him $45 million for that same time period. Even if you use Baseball Reference’s higher numbers, that should put Jeter’s career earnings exactly at what he was worth. Jeter’s proposed contract, however, would make him overpaid to the tune of $32 million for those three years – and that doesn’t even take into account his age 41, 42, and 43 seasons, when he would almost certainly be putting up a negative WAR.

For once, it looks like the Yankees are actually proposing a reasonable deal.

Will Carlos Delgado have reason to smile come April?

Remember Carlos Delgado? He sure hopes you do. Delgado, the former Mets, Marlins, and Blue Jays slugger who has 473 home runs to his name, signed a minor league contract with the Red Sox in August of 2010, but quickly injured his left hip after only five games and had to have surgery. After rehabbing, Delgado feels he can play in 2011 and joins a crowded field of first base/DH free agents this winter.

Unlike last Sunday’s free agent profilee, Carlos Delgado is the anti-Nick Johnson. At 38 on Opening Day, Delgado’s only upside is the power in his bat. After arthroscopic surgery on his right hip that ended a promising 2009 season with the Mets, Delgado rehabbed in his native Puerto Rico and played winter ball to try and show teams he was able to play. Although scouting reports weren’t kind to his defense, he showed enough offense that the Red Sox took a chance on him when Kevin Youkilis went down with designs on making him a platoon with the right-handed Mike Lowell. It wasn’t to be.

Now Delgado wants to play again in 2011 to make a run at what would be a first World Series appearance, and also to try and reach the 500 homer plateau. There’s reason to be optimistic. Delgado’s 2008 was a bounceback year after a subpar (for him) 2007, posting a .271/.353/.518 line (.364 wOBA) with 38 home runs, 14 more than the 24 he hit in 2007. In 2009, Delgado played only 26 games, hitting a promising-but-largely-meaningless-in-a-small-sample .293/.393/.521 (.390 wOBA) with 4 home runs. At least for 26 games, Delgado still had the power he showed in 2008, which is better than not having it (I guess). With elite power becoming a rarer and rarer commodity, Delgado has shown the ability to keep smashing longballs even in his late 30s.

Unfortunately for Delgado, his three hip surgeries, two on his right hip and one on his left, aren’t helping things. Of course, he’s already had surgery on both hips, so it’s not like he’s got a third one to hurt. It is doubtful Delgado would have been able to keep the power he flashed two years ago in 2011 even without the surgeries, but with them, it seems even less likely. And after the recent hip surgeries on Mike Lowell and Alex Rodriguez that noticeably sapped both of their power, it’s not a welcoming environment for aging sluggers with bad hips. The one thing Delgado has going for him in that department, though, is his willingness to prove himself and play for much less than A-Rod or Lowell.

Delgado’s deal with the Red Sox was for a prorated portion of a $3 million contract, something that, after injuring yet another hip, he probably won’t be able to duplicate in 2011. Really, Delgado is in a similar boat as Nick Johnson. The return on Delgado is even more unsure and the price for getting that return will likely be in the form of a guaranteed contract rather than a simple spring-training invite as it might be with Johnson, though. It only takes one GM to think Delgado can still hit home runs, and I’m willing to bet (less than $3 million) that there’s more than one that wouldn’t mind taking a cheap chance on Delgado next season with an incentive-laden contract beginning in the $1-2 million range. And that may be all Delgado can hope for.

At best, Delgado should probably be used mostly at DH, but the Red Sox’s willingness to use him at first base with Lowell and his experience in the NL shows that there’s at least a chance he can handle the field. He can’t be worse than Adam Dunn, right? In fact, the losers of the Big Donkey Sweepstakes might do well to take a look at what Delgado has to offer. Terry Francona thought there was nothing wrong with Delgado’s bat, and the Sox were ready to bring him up by September 1^st, until his injury. Like Dunn, though of course to a lesser degree, Delgado represents the kind of coveted power bat that could put some pop in the middle of the lineup, even at age 38. While Delgado surely won’t put up the same numbers as Dunn, he will come at a much, much lower price. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think Delgado could still park 20 to 25 balls in the seats in 2011 and manage something in the range of a .340-360 wOBA, more than a team is likely to get out of Johnson, Lance Berkman, or most of the free agent first basemen in the second tier like Jorge Cantu, Troy Glaus, and Adam LaRoche. Add that to his patience at the plate and veteran demeanor and he could be a valuable bat for a team on a tight budget.

The same cautionary methods that applied to Nick Johnson apply to Delgado as well: he’ll probably need the DH, but could log some innings at 1B if necessary. That lends itself to an AL team, although if a budget-conscious team in the NL, like the Diamondbacks, wanted to take a chance on Delgado’s health, they could hand him a first base job and have themselves a bargain. Or a fourth hip surgery. In the AL, a team like the Rangers could be a good fit for Delgado, providing a safety net for Mitch Moreland and giving Texas the chance to catch Vladimir Guerrero’s lightning in a bottle for the second year in a row, but at an even lower price. Like Guerrero last year, Delgado’s drive to succeed and veteran pride should not be underestimated here. A 38-year-old doesn’t have two hip surgeries in a year and rehab twice just to play mediocre baseball. If the White Sox strike out on Dunn and Paul Konerko late in the game, Delgado could be a possibility. In their eternal search for bargains, the Rays could be a landing spot for Delgado to replace Carlos Peña’s bat in the middle of that order as well.

Come February, teams looking for 1B/DH types could have a few bargains on their hands to choose from. Delgado, if healthy, will likely provide more power than all the others without a job late in the game and could prove to be a more effective option than players who will get substantially more money than he will. Once the bigger dominoes begin to fall, Carlos Delgado will be a legitimate option for any team looking for power in the middle of their lineup. His desire to play next season and the positive reviews on his swing from his short time with the Red Sox bode well for his chances, but he’s 38 and coming off yet another hip surgery. Delgado’s upside and price tag go together so well, though, that he’ll have a job come April.

Nick Johnson being careful not to aggravate any injuries on the basepaths.

An offseason like this one for first basemen means some team is likely to get a real bargain. Although the Paul Konerkos, Carlos Penas, and Adam Dunns will dominate the headlines and teams’ wishlists, other players, like Lance Berkman and Derrek Lee, could be had for far less than they are used to earning. Perhaps on the bottom of the list, and for good reason, is the perpetually injured Nick Johnson.

Johnson’s career started as a highly-touted hitting prospect for the New York Yankees, a team he returned to on a $5.5 million-guaranteed contract last season, making his debut in 2001 but being traded after 2003 as part of a package for Javy Vazquez. After an-injury plagued first year with the Expos, Johnson strung together a couple full seasons (for him), hitting the 15-day DL just three times in ’04-’06.

In his time with the current Nationals franchise, Johnson established himself as a guy who might hit 20 home runs in a full season and walk over 100 times. In his two full seasons with the Nationals in 2005 and 2006, Johnson put up a .290/390/.501 triple slash line. After missing the end of 2006 and all of 2007 after fracturing his femur in a collision, Johnson has been a man of glass and never quite the same hitter.

In 2008, Johnson had his first wrist surgery, shortening his season after only 38 games, and seemed to be sapped of his power in 2009, although he did limit his DL time to only a 15-day stint due to a strained hamstring. His strong ’09, in which he batted .291/.426/.405 split between the Nationals and Marlins and was third in the majors in OBP, resulted in a $5.5 million guarantee from the New York Yankees and the hope that, being a year removed from wrist surgery and occupying the DH slot, he would regain some power and stay healthy. Instead, Johnson got in to only 24 games, the fewest since his rookie year, and batted .167/.388/.306, failing to allay worries about his fading power and re-injuring the same wrist he had surgery on in 2008.

This leads to extreme uncertainty for the 10-year vet going into the 2011 season, especially with a stacked 1B/DH free agent class. Without particularly strong defense and questionable power that has showed no signs of coming back, Johnson’s only real value to teams is his impressive ability to get on base. That ability showed no signs of slowing down in 2010, in which Johnson posted the highest isolated patience (on-base percentage minus batting average) of his career at .221 and walked 24 times in as many games. Johnson did what the Yankees signed him to do: set the table for the big hitters in the lineup. If he had hit even a little bit, he would have lived up to those expectations pretty easily. But he would have had to stay healthy.

Indeed, that’s the only real knock on Nick Johnson, and always has been.

At age 32 in 2011, Johnson’s not getting any younger or healthier, but his eye may even have improved this year. Of course, he may also just have swung less. According to Fangraphs, the latter is probably the case. Johnson swung at just 44.7% of pitches in the strike zone in 2010, by far the lowest percentage of his career, which has steadily declined since 2005. Of course, that’s just a 24 game sample which really means nothing…but it does tell you what he did for 24 games. It just doesn’t tell you what he’ll do for 120, or whatever constitutes a “full season” for Nick Johnson.

The most often-mentioned suitor for the veteran first baseman, if you want to call anyone oft-mentioned, is the Chicago Cubs. With a guy like Johnson in your lineup, you probably want to surround him with guys that can compensate for his lack of power, and so he probably doesn’t profile very well to be a good addition to the Cubs’ aging lineup. If Adam Dunn doesn’t come cheaply enough, though, they may be forced to move on to the likes of Johnson, as MLBTR suggests.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, among the biggest problems for Johnson is the other guys on the market that he’ll have to go up against. With Dunn, Konerko, Pena, Aubrey Huff, former Cub Derrek Lee, Russell Branyan and perhaps most importantly Lance Berkman in the pecking order before him, Johnson may have to sit around a while before he gets an offer, and once he does, it’ll be for far less than the $5.5 million he “earned” last season. And that’s if a team takes a risk on Johnson’s upside instead of the versatility of Ty Wigginton or the track records of Jorge Cantu, Troy Glaus, and Adam LaRoche, doesn’t have the pieces to trade for Prince Fielder, and hasn’t forgotten that Carlos Delgado is out there and has shown he’s willing to try out on a minor-league deal.

In fact, Johnson may be on the real short end of the stick here. Although there are a lot of teams looking for first baseman/DH types this winter, most of them are just going to swap starters from last year, quite possibly leaving Johnson looking for an invitation to spring training. While I don’t think that will necessarily happen, it could very easily end up that all the first base openings are filled without Nick Johnson getting a guaranteed contract. It all depends on whether a team wants to take a risk on his health, and right now, as ever, that’s not looking too good.

The only teams that could really afford to have a light-hitter like Johnson in a traditionally power-position is a team that’s getting big production from other areas. That doesn’t really scream “Cubs” to me, but I’m not Jim Hendry (and I thank the good Lord every day for that). Teams that could use a guy like Johnson need to have power threats already.

The problem is, there’s already a light-hitting first baseman who plays better defense, has a good eye, and has a better injury history: Lance Berkman. Teams that may consider Johnson would probably consider Berkman first since he’s essentially a more reliable Nick Johnson who swings the bat more. Helping Johnson, though, is that he actually has a reverse platoon split that has held pretty true throughout his career including 2009, hitting .289/.422./.435 against lefties and .263/.394/.446 against righties. Berkman, of course, has a well-documented proclivity for hitting only righties at this stage in his career with the same diminished power that has plagued Johnson. As silly as it sounds, Johnson’s advantage over Berkman may be his ability to play every day.

If the Red Sox eventually miss out on the Adrian Beltre bidding, they may be forced to scramble for a corner infielder and give Johnson a look with the idea of moving Kevin Youkilis back to third, although they’re probably reluctant to do so. If the Red Sox have an interest in Johnson, though, it’ll be for the same reason their AL East archrivals gave it a try in 2010: to get runners on base in front of their big hitters. Adding another grinder to that lineup in front of Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, and David Ortiz could be a tantalizing opportunity for the Sox.

Another team of interest could be the AL-champion Rangers, who aren’t quite sure what they’ve got in rookie Mitch Moreland and could look for an insurance policy. The good thing about that arrangement is that it gives the Rangers the ability to rest both Johnson and Moreland, with the idea being to keep Moreland effective and keep Johnson healthy. The problem is of course carrying two left-handed first basemen, neither of whom is particularly powerful. Depending on how they utilize Johnson, that could hamper the Rangers’ power game, essentially replacing Vlad Guerrero with Nick Johnson. The Rangers, though, I think might be a good fit for Johnson. Slot him behind Elvis Andrus and move Nelson Cruz to cleanup and the Rangers would still have a powerful lineup with an on-base machine after the young speedster and setting up RBIs for Josh Hamilton and Cruz.

Really, the thoughts on Nick Johnson are the same as they were last offseason, except this time there is more competition. He will sign for less and should probably go to an AL team so he can log some at-bats as a DH to keep him healthy (or so the thinking goes). When it’s all said and done, though, Johnson could be left out in the cold, meaning the first team that gives him an invite could end up with a terrific addition sometime in February.

Make no mistake about it, Nick Johnson could be a real force for the right team, like he could have been for the Yankees in 2010, but the risk may be prohibitive for anything but a non-guaranteed invite. The risk is probably worth a couple million, not much more, and for a guy who is all-but-guaranteed to get on base 40% of the time, that’s not a bad deal. It just comes down to how much confidence one team has in Johnson’s ability to stay on the field.

After all, he couldn’t miss two seasons in a row…could he?

In time, the Texas Rangers will come to fear the beard.

With the heroic charge through the playoffs we’ve seen from the Texas Rangers, it’s easy to forget that there’s another plucky underdog here, too. The NL was widely seen as Philadelphia’s to lose, and they managed to do just that, falling to the San Francisco Giants in six games. And now that we’re here, it’s easy to fall back to the old standby that the AL is better, no matter which team is involved.

But picking Texas to win is the easy way out, I think. It means we haven’t learned anything from the playoffs so far. We’ve seen plenty of trends over the first two rounds, so why would we suppose that they’ll stop now that we’re in the World Series? By my count, here’s what we (should) have learned so far:

1. Pitching matters.

Honestly, I can’t stress this enough. In both championship series, the team with the better pitching won the series. And yes, Phillies fans, I mean what I said. The Phillies’ rotation is probably the best in baseball, but when it mattered, the Giants’ rotation was just a little bit better. Take a look at the pitching lines from the four teams in the second round and see if you can guess who won.

In both cases, the team with better pitching (ERA, hits allowed, BB/9, you name it) won the series. What’s especially remarkable to me, though, is how similar the Rangers’ and Phillies’ pitching was. Sure, the Rangers have excellent pitchers (including Cliff Lee, who you may have heard about), but so did the Phillies, and the Giants didn’t seem to have any problems scoring enough runs to win off of them. Which brings us to the second thing we learned.

2. The Giants don’t need to score much to win.

Take a look at that chart again and focus on the runs column. The Giants outscored the Phillies by just two earned runs in the NLCS (and the total is even closer, since there were a few unearned runs). San Francisco doesn’t need to blow you out to win games. Instead, they chip away at you slowly and grind out close win after close win. Even the tremendous pitching of the Phillies wasn’t enough to stop them. After all, even elite pitchers give up a run or two every game. That’s all the Giants need to win, because their pitching keeps them in every game they play.

3. The Rangers, however, do need to score a lot to win.

Let’s take this with a grain of salt, though. The Rangers actually did better in one run games than the Giants did this year. But in the playoffs, the Rangers have needed to score a lot to win their games. They won their seven playoff games so far by scores of 5-1, 6-0, 5-1, 7-2, 8-0, 10-3, and 6-1. Their losses were scores of 6-3, 5-2, 6-5, and 7-2. Looking a bit closer at those scores shows us that when the Rangers score 5 or more runs, they’re 7-1 in the playoffs. When they score 4 or less, they’re 0-3.

That sound you’re hearing is giddy Giants fans jumping up and down and giggling to themselves, because they know that their team has only given up 5 runs three times this postseason, and they even won one of those games.

4. Home field advantage doesn’t matter.

This is another big one to consider. It won’t matter whether games are played at AT&T Park or Rangers Ballpark, the better team will end up winning. The home team is 10-17 so far in the playoffs, so it’s almost as though home field is a disadvantage. So if Texas takes one of the first two games in San Francisco, don’t fool yourself into thinking that the Rangers can just cruise in Arlington. The better team tends to win, no matter where the game is.

I’m already on record as saying that the winner of the NLCS was going to win the World Series as well, mostly because of Lesson #1. I’m not going to go back on that here. I think the Giants are tremendously underrated, and it kills me as a Rockies fan to pick them to win a title. But there’s a reason they’ve come this far. The Rangers are going to give them a run, and I imagine we’ll see a pair of blowouts in the series that shakes everyone’s confidence in the Giants. After wins of 10-1 and 8-2, the doubters will say that they always knew the Rangers were the better team and that the Giants never really had a chance.

Let them doubt.

The pick: Giants in six

What'll it take for Nolan Ryan to hoist a bigger trophy come November?

After euthanizing the geriatric Yankees in the ALCS, the Rangers take their youth movement to another veteran team in the San Francisco Giants tonight. Entering their first World Series in franchise history, it’s not quite fair to call either team the prohibitive favorite to win it all since both teams beat the prohibitive favorites in their championship series. Who’s the favorite when both teams are Cinderellas? The World Series slipper will be fitted for one of the two, whether or not anyone watches it.

In order for the Rangers to come out on top, they’ll have to keep performing like the team everybody saw in the ALCS, not the one that skirted by the Rays in the ALDS. Here’s what has to happen:

Josh Hamilton has to keep producing. I would be tempted to say this is the most important thing the Rangers need in the Series if not for the importance of starting pitching. But since they probably won’t win that matchup against the Giants, they’ve got to make sure their offense can put up some crooked numbers on Lincecum, Cain, & Co. The way to do that is to make sure the engine that makes their offensive locomotive go is the biggest offensive threat in the game. Hamilton did a great job harassing the Yankees in every way during the Championship Series through big hits, home runs, and intentional walks. His production sets up the rest of the offense.

Vladimir Guerrero has to recapture his youth. For one week, Vlad needs to be the guy he was during the first half of the season. He made the Yankees regret walking Hamilton one too many times in Game 6 of the ALCS, and he’ll get ample opportunities against the Giants in the World Series. The bottom of the order picked up the slack against the Yankees with significant production from guys like Matt Treanor, Bengie Molina, and Mitch Moreland. Although those guys will probably be Tim McCarver’s favorite players, you can’t continue to count on their abnormal production on a regular basis, especially against a team with pitching like the Giants have. Vlad, and the middle of the order, will have to pick up the slack.

The rotation has to hold up. As recapped yesterday, the Rangers rotation minus Cliff Lee was mediocre against the Yankees. Facing a significantly weaker Giants lineup, C.J. Wilson, Tommy Hunter, and Colby Lewis match up more favorably. On the other hand, Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels matched up even better, so who knows what to think anymore. When Cody Ross is just as much a threat as Josh Hamilton, you just don’t know what to expect. On paper, the Rangers can take solace in the fact that their rotation made it out of New York no worse for the wear, but in reality, the rotation may be just as unpredictable as the Giants offense. If Wilson can pitch like he did in Game 1 at least once in the World Series, the Rangers will have a good shot to take it. Anything else they get from Hunter and Lewis is gravy.

The bullpen has to maintain. They don’t have to maintain the 0.56 ERA that they held after The Meltdown in Game 1, but the bullpen will have to at least keep playing respectably and hold the leads their offense gives them. 24 year-old Derek Holland, a favorite of manager Ron Washington, will probably do some heavy lifting once again in the World Series.

Ultimately, it’s tough to figure out what to expect from the Giants. By all rights, nobody really expected them to be in the playoffs, much less the World Series, but here they are. Against a hot team that’s on a roll like San Francisco is, there may not be much the Rangers can do to stop them if it’s their year. But if Texas can replicate what they did against the Yankees: pressure the starters, feast on the bullpen, and hold down the opposing offense with their bullpen, the Rangers will still walk away with the World Series trophy no matter what.

The Giants clearly have a rotation edge, and have a more reliable closer in Brian Wilson than the Rangers have in their young, uses-more-gas-than-a-Hummer closer Neftali Feliz, who looked shaky at times against the Yankees. Many Giants veterans know this could be the last and only shot they’ll get at a championship. Most importantly, though, while the Rangers have question marks after Cliff Lee, the Giants have Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, and Jonathan Sanchez behind Tim Lincecum. Given a choice between the two rotations, I’d pick the Giants’, but they both performed admirably against the most explosive offenses in their respective leagues.

The Giants have shown no reason for someone to pick against them so far, but will continue to be the underdog against Cliff Lee and the aptly-named Rangers in the World Series. Bottom line: if the Rangers play the way they did against the Yankees and the Giants play the way they did against the Phillies, the Rangers will win. In order to complete their Cinderella run, one of these teams will have to step it up again. I didn’t give the Rangers enough credit the first time around, so when I make a mistake, it won’t be that one again.

But make no mistake: if the Giants fall in the World Series and no one’s there to watch, the Rangers still get the trophy.

The Pick: Rangers in 6.

The Texas Rangers celebrate the franchise's first trip to the World Series.

After edging out the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS, the Texas Rangers came into the ALCS looking like a hobbled gunslinger gearing up for a showdown with the fastest gun in the American League. In the end, the Yankees didn’t even get their gun out of their holster. Let’s take a look at what we learned about the new AL champs in the 2010 ALCS:

-Cliff Lee is a god. Okay, we may have already known this, but in the most over-hyped pitching performance of his career, Lee delivered. The lead-up to Game 3 was so over-the-top that the soft-spoken Arkansan was almost set up for failure. Instead he delivered. Lee only knows what a face-off with Tim Lincecum will be hyped up to.

-Josh Hamilton is just fine. The worries that his ribs weren’t 100% were valid and may have even been true, but the point seems to be moot now: the ALCS MVP had an otherworldly series (.350/.536/1.000 with 4 HR and 7 RBI). The Rays managed to shut him down in the Division Series by feeding him a steady diet of offspeed stuff and breaking pitches, a strategy the Yankees periodically attempted to emulate, but Hamilton proved this time that there’s not a glaring weakness in his game right now. The man even managed to wreak havoc when being intentionally walked. That’s domination.

-Starting pitching is still a concern. Starters not named Cliff Lee held the anemic Yankee offense to a 4.34 ERA in 29 innings of work, which isn’t bad, especially with the Rangers explosive offense, but that number is the result of a couple bad games and a fantastic one. You don’t get a trophy for averaging a good number, you get a trophy for winning games, and the Rangers starting pitching staff hasn’t shown they can shut down a lineup.

The two C.J. Wilsons that showed up in this series were the ones you saw in the regular season: when he can get the ball over the plate, he’s terrific. When he can’t…he’s A.J. Burnett, and the Rangers know just how beatable that guy is. Tommy Hunter was Tommy Hunter and kept his team in the game when he left it, while Colby Lewis was shut-down in his last start, but not in his first. Working in the Rangers favor? They don’t have to face the Yankee lineup in the World Series, so maybe their rotation can turn in more good performances than bad.

-The bullpen is resilient. In order for the Rangers to win this series, they needed something with the Yankees to go wrong. In Game 1, they got it: CC Sabathia wasn’t pitching like the ace the Yanks needed him to be. It just wasn’t the best series for guys with abbreviated first names. One bullpen meltdown and twenty Ron Washington trips to the mound later, it looked like even when something went wrong the Yankees were still going to win.

After the meltdown, the bullpen was on lockdown, giving the Yankees the Mariano Rivera treatment for the rest of the series, surrendering only 1 run in 16 innings of work for a 0.56 ERA. Wow. Before the series, Ron Washington’s decision to stock the bullpens with more lefties than a Nancy Pelosi lookalike contest was widely panned, but he used them early, often, and effectively to shut down the Yankees, especially leaning on the 24 year-old Derek Holland, who did not give up a run in the series. If that bullpen success can continue into the World Series, the Rangers will have no problems. But that’s tough to sustain unless you are Mariano Rivera, and even his ERA balloons to 0.73.

-The Rangers have a good chance. The road they had to go through was tough: two of the fiercest, best teams in the AL with playoff experience and success, but they came through the other side victorious. Now pitted against the Giants in their franchise’s first playoff run, the Rangers will look to feed off of the energy they’ve tapped into so well so far and continue their improbable run.

The Champs scored a decisive victory in the first round.

Once October starts, teams change. No team came into their ALDS in very good shape, and the team with the best September record, the Twins, was swept for the second straight year. Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned about the defending champs, the New York Yankees:

- Experience makes a difference. Andy Pettitte is living proof of that. Unsure of what they would get from the 38-year-old veteran, Pettitte secured his 19^th career postseason victory, adding to his MLB record, and notching his 25^th quality start, breaking a tie with Tom Glavine for first. Against an explosive Rangers offense, with or without a healthy Josh Hamilton, the Yankees will have to use every ounce of their experience to win.

And they’ve got a lot of it. Obviously most of the team took it the distance last season, and new additions like Curtis Granderson, Kerry Wood, Lance Berkman, and Marcus Thames have seen plenty of postseason action themselves.

- This offense is pretty near unstoppable. So you shut down Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Brett Gardner, the team’s biggest clutch, power, and on-base threats? Prepare to get beat by Lance Berkman, Marcus Thames, and Curtis Granderson. This is the most versatile, relentless, and circular lineup in the majors.

- The bullpen is deep. Joe Girardi didn’t even need to call for Joba Chamberlain, and used his trusted relievers in David Robertson, Kerry Wood, and Boone Logan to get the ball to Mariano Rivera. The Rangers will have to get runs off of the starters, or the Yankees will shorten the game.

- Nobody trusts A.J. Burnett. By acquiring Javier Vazquez, Brian Cashman thought he’d landed his fourth starter for the playoffs, eliminating the need for another run to the World Series on short rest. He was mistaken. In a trade that will now be remembered as the trade that netted the Yanks Boone Logan, Vazquez proved to be a colossal flop, yet again, but for entirely different reasons than his first disappointing trip through the Bronx.

His ineffectiveness meant that he has become an afterthought in Yankee-land, not even included on the club’s playoff roster. This forced Joe Girardi’s hand, and the Yankees, who moved Burnett to the bullpen for the division series, will have to start him in Game 4 of the ALCS, the very game Javy Vazquez was acquired to start. In a rotation that was filled with question marks entering the postseason, A.J. Burnett might as well have an exclamation point too.

- Phil Hughes is good at throwing fastballs. In his first postseason start, the Yankees youngster blew away Twins hitters all night, leading to seven innings of shutout ball from the 18-game-winner. On that particular night, Hughes looked every bit the ace the Yankees have envisioned him becoming for years.

The root of that success came from the effectiveness of Hughes’s four-seamer, resulting in the most impressive outing of the 24-year-old’s career so far. If Hughes can’t replicate the electricity of his fastball in Game 2 against the Rangers, though, the Yankees bullpen could be in for a long night. Encouraging for the Yanks, though, is that Hughes is coming off two straight big starts, the last one against the Twins and his last of the regular season against Boston where the Yankees secured a playoff berth.

It’s hard to imagine the ALCS being a disappointment with these two powerhouses going toe-to-toe.

Once October starts, teams change. No team came into their ALDS in very good shape, and the team with the best September record, the Twins, was swept for the second straight year. Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned about the Texas Rangers, who won their first playoff series in franchise history against the team with the best record in baseball:

- Cliff Lee is going to make a ton of money this offseason. He may be the best postseason pitcher since Greg Maddux.

- The other Rangers pitchers weren’t too shabby either. C.J. Wilson, the Game 1 starter against the Yankees on Friday, threw 6.1 innings of shutout baseball and Colby Lewis went 5 shutout innings. Tommy Hunter didn’t have a great game, but the Rangers have to be pleased with what their starters turned in. That doesn’t necessarily bode well against the Yankees lineup, but at least you know that they’re capable of turning in good performances.

The problem is, with the possible exception of Wilson, starters not named Cliff Lee pitched well enough to keep their team in the game, but they didn’t dominate. In order for the Rangers to win, their offense has to produce, or you’ll get games like the two they played in Texas.

As I said in the ALDS preview, the Rangers bullpen isn’t exactly overpowering, either, so if their starters can’t shut down the opposing lineup, they could be in real trouble. Ron Washington’s go-to Darrens, Oliver and O’Day, are lefty and righty specialists respectively, while rookie closer Neftali Feliz has shown no reason for overwhelming confidence.

- Josh Hamilton is not near 100%. He’ll get a couple days to heal up a little bit, but odds are he still won’t be the Josh Hamilton that the Rangers need to help buoy their young pitching staff. He hit .111/.200/.111 in his first playoff series, managing to knock in only one run on aggressive baserunning by Elvis Andrus.

This certainly has to concern the Rangers, but Texas still managed to put up some runs on the Rays, who are no slouches in the pitching department. The Rangers will face a similarly-skilled pitching staff in the ALCS, but one with much more experience. I know that if I was Ron Washington, I’d feel a lot more comfortable with a healthier Josh Hamilton than the one I got in the division series. Of course, there’s nothing you can do about it, but that’s how I’d feel.

- The offense is formidable. As expected, the Rangers gave the Rays no rest and took advantage of miscues and mistakes to secure a victory. It almost wasn’t enough, though, and proved once again that in the postseason, an offense can’t carry you to a championship. The guys across the field in the ALCS will be the first to tell you that a mediocre pitching staff with an out-of-this-world offense won’t get you anywhere. Lucky for the Rangers that they’ve got Cliff Lee. But when the other pitchers pitch to “keep them in the game,” the offense has to produce against a tough, experienced rotation and a lights-out bullpen.

The combined youth of guys like Andrus, Nelson Cruz, and Ian Kinsler with the experience of Vladimir Guerrero, Bengie Molina, and Michael Young provides an exciting mix for the Rangers offense that was on full display during Game 5. A lineup like this that pushes the limit with speed and power can quickly take over any game. The problem has been consistently harnessing that capability. If the Rangers can manage to do that, the Yankees will have their hands full.

Cliff Lee after being asked if he could start Games 1-7.

The Texas Rangers won a playoff series for the first time in franchise history earlier this week, while the New York Yankees made quick work of the Minnesota Twins in pursuing their 28^th World Series title. The ALCS will feature two of the most powerful offenses in baseball, but the winner will be the one that has the best days on the mound.

Let’s get it out of the way right now: Everything has to go right for the Rangers to win this series, and something would have to go wrong for the Yankees to lose it. New York dominated every phase of the game against the Twins, and the Rangers skirted past their AL East foes by the grace of Cliff Lee.

And, as a baseball fan, it’s unfortunate that, in all likelihood, we won’t get to see a Cliff Lee/CC Sabathia redux from last year’s World Series. Instead, the Rangers will have to play catch-up with the Yanks and rely heavily on their other starters to shut down a powerhouse offense.

Make no mistake: this is the Yankees’ series to lose. They come in off a sweep with a lined-up and primed rotation, the better regular season record, and the expectations of New York behind them. If the defending champs keep their mistakes to a minimum, they should be on their way to a second straight World Series appearance.

The Rangers, on the other hand, have their rotation off-kilter and will start the volatile C.J. Wilson against CC Sabathia tonight. Wilson is a little bit like the A.J. Burnett that pitched for the Yankees in the 2009 playoffs: A guy who led the league in unintentional walks (93), but can completely shut down a lineup on any given night, as he showed in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Rays.

Unfortunately, the last lineup someone with control problems (or any pitcher, for that matter) wants to face is the New York Yankees. Wilson faced the Yankees three times this season, throwing only 14.1 innings, giving up 11 runs (9 earned), for a 5.74 ERA. Wilson walked three batters in every game against the Yanks this year, his longest outing going six innings. Not exactly the kind of numbers that inspire confidence.

Still, in the playoffs those numbers don’t (necessarily) mean anything. If Wilson can keep the Rangers in the game and maybe take advantage of whatever rust the Yanks may have, Texas could steal Game 1. The likelihood of that happening against Sabathia, though, is very small, even in Arlington.

Game 2 will feature Colby Lewis and Phil Hughes, neither of whom allowed a run in their first postseason starts. Expect both streaks to come to an end. This will be one of the most exciting games in the series. Either offense, or perhaps both, could explode off these guys at any moment, and it will come down to bullpens and late innings. The stuff the playoffs are made of.

If the Rangers manage to go to New York with the series tied, they’ll have Cliff Lee ready to put some pressure on the defending champs. Joe Girardi made a good move by swapping Phil Hughes and Andy Pettitte in the ALCS, moving Hughes and his favorable home/road splits to Arlington, and moving the all-time postseason leader in almost every pitching category into a head-to-head with Cliff Lee at the Stadium. Instant classic. Guaranteed.

The winner of that hard-fought contest will have all sorts of momentum going into the all-important Game 4, where momentum could be the difference between a tight game and a blowout. Tommy Hunter, who struggled with the Rays, will make the start against the even-more-unpredictable-than-usual A.J. Burnett. This could get to the bullpens quick, or the momentum from an emotional Game 3 could push the starter to another level and put their team in the driver’s seat. Whichever question mark makes a statement first will set the tone.

Without Cliff Lee, the Rangers would probably be sunk in this series. With him, though, they have the opportunity to pencil in at least one win in Game 3. If they can take a game at home, they can force the set back to Texas and really give the Yankees fits back in The Ballpark.

The key for the Rangers, though, is to maintain their hot-hitting offense and keep pace with the Yankees. A healthier Josh Hamilton could be the difference for the Rangers, but if he continues to feel the effects of his rib injury, the offense won’t be able to get by with just savvy base-running and fluky plays. Nelson Cruz, Vladimir Guerrero, Michael Young, and Ian Kinsler will have to continue to pick up the slack. The Rangers will go as far as their best hitters will take them.

The Yankees, on the other hand, have everything going for them right now, including the schedule. If A.J. Burnett can keep his team in the game in Game 4, the Champs will have the opportunity to close this thing out at home. But if New York underperforms and gives the eager, youthful Rangers club an opportunity, they’ll be spending even more time at home.

Overall, though, the Yankees just match up better. Against the Twins, the Yankees put to bed the worries about both their rotation and their offense, and would need something to go wrong for them to lose (Jeter and A-Rod being shut down like they were in the ALDS again would probably qualify).

Even with Burnett in Game 4, the Yankees will have a good opportunity to win every game, using the Rangers rotation to their advantage. The key will be taking, at the very least, a game from the Rangers in Arlington with the opportunity to close out the series in Yankee Stadium. This could be very quick though, and the Yanks could take the first two and force Cliff Lee to be the stopgap.

I think they’ll do just that.

The Pick: Yankees in 5.

Stare 'em down, Timmy. Stare 'em down.

We learned three things from the 2010 divisional series. Only two of them are true, though. Take a look at the list and see if you can pick out the lie from among the truths.

1. The Philadelphia Phillies are completely invincible and are going to leave a trail of scorched earth behind them as they destroy the world en route to the World Series.
2. The better team tends to win, regardless of where the game is played.
3. Pitching matters.

Had enough time to make your guess? Fans of the Braves and Rays might dispute #2 based on some borderline calls that went against them and potentially cost them some wins, but it’s safe to say that home field advantage is sorely overrated. The home team went just 4-11 in the divisional round, and while 15 games probably isn’t a significant sample size, it’s safe to say that playing at home didn’t particularly matter. (Just ask the Rangers, who won all three of their games at Tropicana Field.)

It’s definitely safe to say that pitching matters. Take a look at the pitching lines each of the four winners put up in the divisional round.

Here, I’ll say it for all of us: holy mackerel. The teams that won didn’t do so with their bats, they did so with completely overpowering pitching. And the two most dominant pitching staffs are set to square off for seven fantastic games over the next week and a half.

And that’s why #1 isn’t quite as true as you’d like to think. Sure, the Phillies have a tremendous pitching staff. Roy Halladay could very well win the World Series by himself, and with Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels backing him up, Philadelphia has a very scary rotation. But it’s not as though the Giants are having a tough time getting through opposing lineups. Tim Lincecum threw nearly as well as Halladay did in Game 1 against the Braves (blasphemy! I know), and Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Madison Bumgardner certainly acquitted themselves well.

I sure hope you aren’t a fan of offense, because you’re not going to see much of it over the next ten days.

Admittedly, the Giants put up their mind-blowing numbers against an anemic Braves offense while the Phillies shut down the dynamic Reds, but I think the point still stands. We probably aren’t going to see a ton of hits and home runs, whether we’re talking about Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey or Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Of course, we’re probably more likely to see the Phillies’ lineup break through with a few more hits and the like, but I expect a lot of 1-0 and 2-1 games in this series.

So who wins? That’s why you’re reading this, aren’t you? I know the popular pick is for the Phillies to blow through the Giants 2001 Lakers-style, but I’m just not feeling it. This Giants team is better than you might think, and I would be surprised if this series doesn’t go at least six games (probably seven). So that said, I’m going to make a few ridiculously bold predictions. Feel free to let me have it when the series is over and none of them come true. Ready? Here we go:

1. This will be the most difficult series of the postseason for whichever team comes out on top. Either the Phillies or the Giants will have a comparatively easier time facing the AL champion, because
2. the winner of this series will also win the World Series. (Cue furious emails from every Yankees fan in the world.)
3. Roy Halladay will not pitch another no-hitter in this series.
4. Roy Halladay will, however, pitch a brilliant game, but lose a heartbreaker because he doesn’t have any run support.
5. We’re going to start hearing about how Tim Lincecum might be the best pitcher in the game after he wins a duel with Halladay.
6. It won’t matter, because the Phillies will end up going to the World Series.

The pick: Phillies in seven