Big Papi....ARod....Pronk?

Anyone reading this who is a baseball fan knows who the first two aforementioned nicknames stand for. But does anybody besides myself and Drew Carey know who the last one is?
“Pronk” may not win the AL MVP award this year, but he will likely have the last laugh on either David Ortiz or Alex Rodriguez as the team that loses the Red Sox/Yankees three game head-to-head series and therefore the AL East will likely be sitting at home in October while Travis Hafner’s Cleveland Indians play on as the American League Wild-Card team. Over the second half of the season the Indians have made a push towards the playoffs led by an offensive awakening from players like Casey Blake and Victor Martinez who spent the first half of the season with batting averages hovering around the Mendoza line. As of today, Martinez has the highest BA on the team, hitting at a torrid .307 clip. But the integral piece to the mystifying puzzle that is this year’s Indians has undoubtedly been Hafner, a 6’3, 28 year-old DH from Jamestown, North Dakota.
Throughout the season, the team has lived and died by Hafner’s bat. The Indians struggled out of the gate with a 9-14 record in April while “Pronk” managed only one homerun and only eight runs batted in during that span. Since then, the Indians have gone 84-52, carried by Hafner’s .300 BA, 32 HRs and 100 RBIs. Unlike last year, when the Tribe faltered late in the season after making a run in the second half, the 2005 Indians have shown no signs of letting up in September, going 18-7, led by Hafner’s 11 HRs and 26 RBIs and going into the final three games of the season remain in the lead for the AL wildcard. During one series this month against Chicago, Hafner hit at least one homerun in every game of the series.
Despite all of this, nobody knows who this guy is, and no one is seriously considering him as a legitimate MVP candidate. When stacked up against the homerun and RBI totals of ARod (320, 47, 129) and Ortiz( .298, 47, 146), Hafner’s stats don’t seem to be comparable( .304, 33, 108). But dig a little bit deeper and things become more clear. Hafner has only played in 134 games this year while Ortiz has played in 156 games and ARod has played in every one of the Yankees’ 159 games. This was because he missed two weeks with post-concussion syndrome in July after being hit in the head with a pitch. Furthermore, he was still affected by this for another week after he came back which hurt his performance on the field. When one takes all of this into consideration then other stats are considered. Hafner’s BA, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and on-base percentage plus slugging percentage ( .304, .410, .597, 1.007) are comparable to those of Ortiz (.298, .394, .605, .999) and Rodriguez ( .320, .421, .608, 1.029).
Despite the fact that no player has been done more to improve their team’s fortunes, it is still nearly impossible for “Pronk” to win the American League MVP award because of his anonymity. But Hafner can take solace in knowing that unless the Indians choke against the White Sox, who have nothing left to play for after clinching a playoff spot, he and his band of no-name misfits will be playing in October while either Big Papi or ARod will not.

Welcome!

Hey everyone. I just set up my blog and this is my very first post. I have offically devirginized this blog(metaphorically speaking) and I feel it is all downhill from here. Hopefully I will provide lucid insightful opinions. I do tend to ramble on incoherently sometimes however. Feel free to post comments agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or simply providing your own ideas and insight on whatever random topic I decide to write about. Hope you enjoy hearing what I have to say!!
Look for a real post soon!

~bAsKeTcAsE86 aka Benji