God the year in baseball has been a wacky one. And oh yeah, It's just June! I still got more than 4 months of this stuff, predicting who will win, who will lose. I need Asprin. But many teams and players alike, not all of the stars, have risen beyond expectations and are looking at career years. Some will continue into stardom while the rest will crash and burn like my buddies on my coach the day after the Super Bowl and 10 bowls of nachos. But let's see if I can predict who and what teams will stay above the curve, shall we.

1) Chipper Jones, 3B, Atlanta Braves:  Jones has been on a tear. A tear like one on your underpants after an atomic wedgie. Oh yeah. He's batting .416, highest in the majors and is 6th in the National league in homers and 8th in RBI. Now many of you may think this is going to go away because he's never done thing. Uhh, big wrong! Remember last year? The dude hit a porcelain clean .337 and had 29 big shots. Every year since 2004 his average has gone up at least .18 points. He could easily hit above .350 this year no sweat. But hear is what I give him.  A line of .342, 32 homers, 109 RBIs and 201 hits. Boom.

2) Tampa Bay Rays: God, one of the most suprising and good-story teams, but I can't help but wait for the day the start to burn. But it won't happen suddenly. A game here or there, a small injury, but soon it will seem like they are 2 games, 5 games, then 10 games back and not in first, but in 3rd or maybe 4th, depending on the Jays. So far they are 35-25, a good 10 games over .500 and a game and a half behind the Sox. But remember, they are on a 3 game losing streak and the fire seems to be going out. Unless Joe Maddon can get these guys going, I see a almost predictable season of 85 wins and 77 losses.

3) Brandon Webb. So far, the best pitcher in baseball and almost a lock for the Cy Young. So far, the best record in baseball at 11-2. But many of those wins came from the early part of the season when the D-Backs were on a roll. Now, on a 3 game skid, they are slowing down. Webb is 2-2 in his last 4 starts when he was 9-0 in his previous starts. Yes, I do think he will still get the Cy Young because the NL is still a shallow pool even with Zambrano and Santana. I really think he'll have a 22-9 season with a 2.98 ERA and 207 K's.

4) Chase Utley: Why didn't any of us see this coming? Anyone? The signs have been there for years. His average has raised steadily in the past 4 years and now is his breakout year. The Phillies are in first, they look to go deep into October and he is Moses, taking them to the promised land. He already has 21 homeruns, 2nd in the NL and he has knocked in 53 guys. A season of .329, 42 homers, and 104 RBI's seems to be in order.

Now why are many of these guys in the NL? I think the NL is on the verge of becoming the sronger league, if not already so. The DH's in the AL have become old, (Ortiz, Hafner) and the NL has been biding there time in the draft. Teams like the Cubs and Phillies could easily beat aging teams like the Yankees and the Tigers, though I do think the Red Sox still own the league, either AL or NL. But players start hot every year and every team looks like they could make it to October. BUT TOO BAD! ONLY 2 TEAMS DO! The rest will be sitting home. Like me. Goodnight folks.

Well as we rumble into the final month of the MLB regular season with many a team fighting for a spot in the playoffs, there are alot of busts and alot of suprise helpers. We have over 10 teams that still have October in their sights. But what did it take to get there, and how much did they spend to get it. So today, I'll examine some big-name stars, some that can be called overpaid.

Now let's take Roger Clemens. He was one of the biggest stories this offseason and during the Yankees usual 2 month slump to start the season. There were questions surrounding him, mainly, how much did he deserve to make. The Yankees, who usually spend money blindly, decided he needed 18 million dollars to fit his talent level. Well, now the Rocket it 6-6 and is looking like what he is, a heavy, 45 year old man trying to play a younger man's sport. So if we can determine how good he really is, then we can see the real value of other players by Yankee Standards. Now, if we use a system devised by my boys down at the office, thanks guys, I'll tell you how much Jake Peavy would be worth if he went to the Evil Empire.

Now wins and losses don't hold much, if any weight in this formula. It focuses on K-BB ratio, WHIP, and homeruns per- innings pitced. One of the simplest versions of this formula is the points system, so I'll be using that. For K-BB ratio, pitchers within the 1-2 K range get 10 points, 2-3 get 20, and 3-4 get 30. Clemens has a 2.2 K-BB ratio so he gets 20 points. Peavy, on the other hand, has a 3.7 K-BB ratio so he gets 30 points. For WHIP, pitchers start at 50 points and for every tenth of a point after the starting whole number of 1 lose 10 points. Peavy has a 1.03 WHIP so he comes out with 46 points there while Clemense, who has a 1.34 WHIP comes out with 27 points. As of now Peavy leads Clemens 70 points to 47 points. For homeruns-innings pitches, for every inning pitched without a homerun, the pitcher gets a point. Clemens has a 10.7 innings pitched ratio for 11 points and Peavy has a 26 innings pitched ratio for 26 points. So at the end of it all, Peavy wins 96 to 58.  

Now we divide Clemens salary by his number of points, 58, and we get 310,334 dollars per every points, compared to just 49, 479 for Peavy. Then we multiply the per-point amount for Clemens by Peavy's point total, 96, and we get 29,793,024, the amount of money Peavy would be mathematicly values at if he were signed by the Yankees.

Now this would never happen, but who knows? It's the Yankees.