MLB: 2013 Picks; Colorado Rockies & Changing the Paradigm // NBA: Teams Playoff Qualified; Denver Nuggets, Still Up.   

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.  .  .   SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner.

MLB, 2013   ---   Let’s begin with last year’s worst, the American League’s Houston Astros and the National League’s Chicago Cubs, the two ball clubs that in 2012 lost more than 100 games each. If we are to believe in last year’s stats and scouting reports, not even the aphorism about no direction to take except up will apply to either team during 2013 except in very small advances. Of course, the half-glass-full enthusiasts will point to the 1962 through 1965 New York Mets, the last team to recover from consecutive-year 100 games lost and move toward a top tier position. What good would baseball be within a nation where hope always floats, always prevails? Ask Cub fans who will win next year’s NL-LC?

If indeed there’s some hope for the Astros, it isn’t with the fact that this franchise went from the proverbial frying pan into the fire having switched from the NL to the AL. Instead, the Astros went from the pan into an ultra-scalding vat---the AL division that the Astros joined includes three teams of higher caliber than most: the Oakland A’s, Los Angeles Angels, the Texas Rangers, which last year registered 94, 93 and 89 wins respectively. While the Astros had two decent home run hitters in 2012, they hadn’t a single hitter batting close to .300, and none with total RBI’s exceeding 55. Among the Astros starting pitchers, none finished 2012 with more wins than losses, and only one had an ERA better than 4.6.

The Cubs? This team hasn’t any hitters with BA’s near .300, though three had double-digit HR’s in 2012 and three had RBI’s above 85, outfielder Alfonso Soriano having hit 32 HR’s and forcing up 108 RBI’s; therefore, the Cubs line-up is just barely of leverage for a modest climb, accompanied by a starter rotation that includes three pitchers with more victories in 2012 than losses, two with double-digit wins, plus two relievers able to brag of 24 and 14 saves respectively. We could see the Cubs rising, but only within the bottom 15.

Best among the best   ----  Our picks are conservative, in that this year’s more obvious positive attributes for competition among the 30 MLB teams has remained a lot like those of 2012. The recent trades and new-player acquisitions hasn’t been over the top. In other words, most MLB franchises are more like last year’s than being entirely new, in spite of each having acquired one or more conveyors of hope, i.e., "that .300+ batter and/or double-digit winning starter with an ERA under 2.0, he from another franchise or up from the minors."

So, it shouldn’t surprise if by mid-May the AL Central isn’t led by the Detroit Tigers, the AL East by the New York Yankees, the AL West by the Angels (at L.A.’s heels, the A’s). Or, that by mid-May the NL Central is being led by the Cincinnati Reds, the NL East by the Washington Nationals, and the NL West by the San Francisco Giants.

Colorado Rockies   ---   This MLB team could be the more interesting to watch, for its attributes in 2012 kept contradicting the team’s final outcome of 64 wins, 98 losses, placing the Rockies inside the bottom 10, both leagues. At an early glance, blame can go to the Rockies starting rotation, for no Rockies hurler had a winning record in 2012, LH Jeff Francis closest, 6-7. A nagging question surfaced well before the 2012 season closed, “Were the Rockies pitchers badly coached, poorly managed?” Today, the answer that is leaned toward most is, “Experimentation became the culprit,” a strategy and not just the lack of individual or combined pitching staff skills, in effect, “the starting rotation having been subjected to being laboratory-specimens for a limited number of pitches (70-75, at most) within a designated number of early innings (four, maybe five) when relievers would follow.’’

Also, the experiment quickly became a process diminished by injuries that disallowed a sufficient selection of pitchers for proper match-ups, that is, for having the right relievers piggybacking onto the starters being relieved. With first-tier throwers like LH Jorge DeLaRosa and RH Juan Nicasio unable to be afield from their injuries, the second-tier starting pitchers that substituted for them couldn’t economize effectively under the limited number of strikeout opportunities afforded to each.

But---the equation, “Fewer number of pitches = fewer strikeout opportunities” hadn’t evaded the tacticians that thought up the Rockies experiment, it’s that the tacticians chose to believe that “keeping starting pitchers to fewer numbers of throws would discipline them for hurling more and not fewer strikeouts.” It turned out, however, that the former equation would dominate the experiment over many weeks.

Meanwhile, the Rockies line-up suffered the loss of two power hitters mid-season, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and first baseman, Todd Helton, yet included six hitters with BA’s at or above .300, five with double-digit HR’s, three with 70 or more RBI’s each, but this above-the-margin hitting failed to result in enough runs for overcoming the runs given away to opposing teams by the below-the-margin Rockies pitching.

Will 2013 be any different for the Rockies? The team’s front office is betting on new manager, Walt Weiss, a former Rockies shortstop, and on a lineup similar to that of 2012, with Tulowitzki and Helton weaved back in, but also on a pitching staff still dominated by faith in De La Rosa, Nicasio and RH Jhoulys Chacin. These three starters + Francis, and the Rockies relievers that include the still reliable RH Rafael Betancourt (31 saves in 2012), they’ll have to match or exceed that faith if the Rockies are to cause last year’s season finish to fade far back in memory.

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NBA   ---    THE unofficial list of NBA division teams headed for playoff slots is here, and could stick as now shown. Of those teams, only two are in serious competition for a division leading position as March comes to an end, the 44-26 New York Knicks and the 42-29 Brooklyn Nets, though both are already post-season bound. All other divisions are led by playoff-headed teams with four or more games above the respective second place franchises, the biggest NBA lead being the East’s Southeast Division Miami Heat’s 16 game edge over second place, Atlanta Hawks.

In the West, the Pacific Division’s 49-23 L.A. Clippers are atop the Golden State Warriors by eight, though the West’s Southwest Division’s 54-17 San Antonio Spurs have, to date, won the most games within the West, the West’s Northwest Division’s 53-19 Oklahoma City Thunder next.

Leading both East and West in number of games won duirng 2012/13 are the Heat, with 56 victories as of today. Only one second place team has fewer than 40 games won, the East’s Central Division’s 39-31 Chicago Bulls, behind first place Indiana Pacers by five games.

In sum, the 2012/13 NBA regular season will probably end as follows, each team play-off seeded:

EAST:

Atlantic Division: first place Knicks or the Nets, either team at second.

Southeast: first place, the Heat; second, the Hawks

Central: first, Pacers; second, the Bulls

WEST:

Northeast: first, Thunder; second, Denver Nuggets

Southwest: first, Spurs; second, Memphis Grizzlies

Pacific: first, Clippers; second, Warriors.

The informed guesswork has the Spurs and the Heat vying for the NBA 2012/13 championship, their toughest competition coming from the Thunder, the currently 49-24 Denver Nuggets or the now 47-24 Memphis Grizzlies, the Knicks and the Pacers.

Denver Nuggets    ---    This team lost two in a row, but after winning 15 in a row, and the team’s last loss, to the San Antonio Spurs, 100-99, portrayed players refusing to slip and slide, a set of guards, forwards and centers upticking their skills minute-by-minute, refusing to give up, losing in the last 10 seconds of a final period, a loss that actually had the Nuggets playing better than during many of their wins. A final attempt vs the Spurs, that last attempted killshot, it almost came to be, it would have been a second-chance game-winning shot if the Spurs defense hadn’t transitioned so quickly into skyrocketing and intervening wrists and elbows, or if a Nuggets shot had been taken from outside the key and scored, this thwarted by a Spurs in-your-face defense that wasn’t always there in previous quarters.

Though the Nuggets/Spurs game was a loss, it gave warning to the nine teams that the Denver franchise will be facing before the regular season ends, starting tonight versus the Brooklyn Nets and including another game vs. the Spurs, another vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder, a sign that the Nuggets are formidable, they can stun, outshine, ouwit.

Presently, the Nuggets are tied for third place with the Los Angeles Clippers within the Western Conference, and tied with the Clippers for fourth within both East + West. Were the Nuggets in the East today, they’d be second behind the Heat.

Barring injuries and an unlikely inability to win the lion’s share of remaining regular season games, fans can expect the Nuggets to be post-season/second-round dynamos, this intrepid team maybe headed higher.

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