The Bruins got a huge 4-3 OT victory vs. a solid New Jersey Devils team at the garden last night. David Krejci has three of the four Bruins goals last night after only two goals in his previous thirteen games. The sudden spark might have been a result of a Julien lineup switch that returned Krejci back to his center position and paired with Tyler Seguin. I’d say that worked out well. Krejci comes up with a hat trick on five shots and Seguin buried the other goal with a snipe and also added an assist. If this new pairing can generate some much-needed offense for the Bruins it will be huge as the team gets ready for the stretch run.
Krejci has had an up and down, boom or bust type of year. He has been working hard, but sometimes he just doesn’t play with the confidence that should play with and it affects his performance on the ice. When plays with swag, he makes dazzling passes and his linemates always benefit from that. Krejci does seem to come up big in important moments (like the playoffs) so maybe now that we are starting to approach the end of season he will improve his consistency, which is going to help Seguin’s production (assuming they stay together) and help the Bruin’s skill players put more crooked numbers on the scoreboard.
In case you didn’t already hear, this weekend is going to be huge for college basketball. It is coming down to the wire, with only 9 days left until selection Sunday. Some teams need a nice boost while others look to hold on to their number 1 seeds while playing other ranked teams.
*Click on any blue links below to see a small preview about their team!
#18 Louisville vs. #2 SyracusePick: Syracuse
#6 North Carolina vs. #3 DukePick: UNC (I hope they both lose) #12 Georgetown vs. #7 Marquette Pick: Georgetown #4 Kansasvs. Texas Pick: Kansas #10 Baylor vs. Iowa State Pick: Baylor (gonna be close)
Sunday
#1 Kentuckyvs. #13 Florida Pick: Kentucky #11 Ohio State vs. #5 Michigan StatePick: Michigan St
Now I usually don’t believe that the number 1 seed is always the best team, but in this case it’s hard to against Kentucky. Especially with the way they went off against Georgia during their senior night on Thursday. I really feel like they are the toughest team in the league and should run right over Florida.
UNC and Duke is going to be the game of the year. After their last game, which was like an NBA game, you can expect the very best from both teams.
Today, I will conclude my rankings of all the players in each teams’ starting batting lineups. This will be the easiest ranking for me to do in terms of evaluations, considering it will be solely based from an offensive production standpoint, rather than offense and defensive skills like the other positions. The Red Sox DH position was one of the question marks over the offseason. After David Ortiz’s contract was up at the end of the 2011 season, Big Papi made several remarks about how he’d like to join the Yankees to leave all the drama in Boston. During the offseason, he was constantly working with the Red Sox for a new contract and finally settled on a 1-year contract for $14.58 million to avoid arbitration. I’ll be the first to say the Sox paid too much for the greedy Ortiz here, who wanted $16.5 million, a significant bump up from the $12.5 he received in 2011. Despite paying too much, the Red Sox were basically forced into needing the 36 year old Ortiz in their lineup because they wouldn’t have been able to find anything close to a replacement in the free agent market this year.
Just as a quick update on Spring Training, Varitek is set to retire at 5:30 today and the Sox are getting prepared for their first “game” vs Northeastern at 2:35 in Fort Myers on Saturday. This game will be the first leg of a double header, with Boston College playing the night cap.
Anyways, here are the rankings:
(Once again, for previous positional rankings click here: C–1B–2B–3B–SS–LF–CF–RF)
1. David Ortiz, Red Sox
2. Raul Ibanez, Yankees
3. Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays
4. Luke Scott, Rays
5. Wilson Betemit, Orioles
Ortiz has surprised many fans in Red Sox Nation that were ready to kick him out of town in 2009. After struggling the two years after the Sox second championship in four years, Big Papi has revitalized his career. He has hit 61 Home Runs with 198 RBI’s in the last two years combined. The biggest turnaround was his .309 AVG last year. It looked like Papi had no idea how to hit against the shift, but last year was a great sign for him. Adrian Gonzalez was said to give Ortiz a lot of confidence in hitting the ball with power to the opposite field, instead of trying to pull it to the right field or finnessing it against the shift, as Ortiz had tried in years prior. I’m predicting another solid year from Papi, but a little bit of dropoff considering his age. I’m thinking a .285/27 HR/ 95 RBI line from Ortiz in possibly his last year in a Red Sox uniform.
Next up is the massive upgrade from the Yankees. Jorge Posada was a great catcher throughout his career for the Yankees, but they were hurting from the DH spot last year. When the Yankees dumped AJ Burnett’s salary a month ago, they were able to sign Raul Ibanez to be their Designated Hitter and backup outfielder. Although Ibanez at 39 years old is nearing the end of his career, he is a very big upgrade from Eduardo Nunez, the Yankees other apparent option for the DH spot. Assuming Ibanez can get his AVG back up to career norms (.270-.280) from last year’s .245 average, he should be able to provide consistent pop (20 HR, 84 RBI last year) in the back end of the Yankees lineup.
Edwin Encarnacion of the Blue Jays is the third ranked DH. Last year, Encarnacion made big strides at the plate, showing much more consistency with a .272 BA (.244 in 2010, .225 in 2009). Edwin will most likely hit around his usual 20 HR, but his main issue since 2007 has been his ability to hit with runners on base. Every year since 2007, he AVG has dropped significantly with runners on base, hovering around the Mendoza line (.200) each year. This has been the main reason for his low RBI totals and he needs to improve this AVG to contribute more to the Blue Jay lineup.
Luke Scott is known by many Sox fans for being an outfielder/DH for the Orioles, but he upgraded this year and switched over to the Rays. Scott had his season cut short last year and underwent shoulder surgery to fix a torn labrum. If Scott can return successfully to his numbers of 2010 (.284/27/72), he could end up ahead of Encarnacion and Ibanez in these rankings, but I don’t see that happening. That year was a career year for Scott and I see him returning to a .250 BA with around 15 HR and 60-70 RBI’s.
Last in the rankings is Wilson Betemit of the Orioles. Wilson’s now joining his 7th Major League team and is mostly remembered by Red Sox Nation for his forgettable years with the Yanks. Not much needs to be said about Betemit, although he was fairly successful in limited AB’s in the past two years. At 30 years old, Betemit has never had a season with more than 412 AB’s. If he can provide numbers similar to his .297 AVG of 2010 and .285 AVG of 2011, he should be able to get a full time shot for the Orioles this year.
Stay tuned for pitching analysis throughout the next two weeks.
For previous positional rankings click here: C–1B–2B–3B–SS–LF–CF–RF
Now that I have concluded all offensive output for the AL East teams, I want to leave the readers with this question:
As questionable as Chiarelli’s “depth” (rather than scoring) moves were I was glad to see Brian Rolston come back to Beantown. Back in the late 90s, early 00s Rolston was one of my favorite Bruins players. He was a great two-way forward, a leader, and was able to stay injury-free. However, my favorite part of his game was his short-handed skills. When he saw significant time on the penalty kill he had a knack for coming up with some shorties. From 2000-2004 (with the B’s) he had 16 short-handed goals, a pretty impressive number which included 9 SHG in the 2000-2001 season. (Enjoy the throwback pic: Rolston with former Bruin Eric Weinrich)
Rolston, 39, began his career with the New Jersey Devils during the 94-95 season where he was a member of that Stanley Cup team. He has also been a part of three U.S. Olympic teams which sort of explains why he was the captain of the Minnesota Wild after he left the Bruins. No doubt Rolston brings hardened veteran experience to the team. Hopefully he is a positive influence in the locker room during these inconsistent times for the Bruins. Given that he was just on the Islanders one of the cellar dwellers of the NHL, he can provide some perspective for these guys.
Just as I did the past few months, I am going to ask the tough question. Who should be crowned College Basketball Player of the Year? A few of the big preseason names have fallen off in the past few months. Therefore, the race is basically down to two people: Anthony Davis (See team preview here) and Thomas Robinson (See team preview here). Head to head, this pick is going to be a tough one. In fact, some ballots will be conducted next week on this subject, but we still won’t find out for a while. Here are some stats for ya:
Anthony Davis Freshman Kentucky Wildcats Team Rank: 1/1 PPG: 14.3 SPG: 1.5 FG%: .658
APG: 0.9 BPG: 4.8 FT%: .717
RPG: 9.8 TPG: 0.9 MPG: 31.4
They average the same exact minutes per game and their stats are very close. Even in the ballots conducted every week, they are within 3 points of each other (Davis is ahead). I feel like Anthony Davis has a better team around him but at the same time, that should make it even tougher to put up numbers like he has since they have more than one or two stars on their team. What do you guys think?
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