Tuesday, June 22, 2010

06/22 Quickie: AL East, World Cup, LeBron

It will never happen, but baseball needs a realignment to eliminate divisions and simply let the top 4 (or 6 or 8) teams from each league make the playoffs. That way, we don't end up with ridiculous outcomes like 3 teams over .600 in the AL East, with one guaranteed to miss the playoffs. (If it's the Rays, it is also the team with the most stacked pitching to actually win in the playoffs.)

Today's SN column is a bit of a baseball catch-up after two weeks of NBA Finals, CFB expansion and World Cup. I talk AL East, Strasburg and hand out premature mid-season awards (Ubaldo, Price, Cano, Adrian Gonzo -- with Strasburg and Carlos Santana earning Rookie of the Year awards eventually, because they haven't played enough yet to really qualify.)

There is a bunch more:

*I dissect the CP3-LeBron connection. It's a fair question: Can the Hornets get a package of players that make them better than without those players plus Chris Paul? (I also float the question of CP3 for Derrick Rose, straight up. Seems fair to both sides.)

*I lament the end of the 7:30 a.m. World Cup schedule, but the 10 a.m. games today are great: Mexico-Uruguay in a "win and you win the group; tie and you both make it but one of you has to play Argentina next" match-up, or France imploding, which is just fun.

*I mock Steve Smith (and Brett Favre, naturally), praise Alejandro Falla and rip BP -- that was the easiest rip of the month, to be sure.

See the entire column here. More later.

-- D.S.

No comments: