The 2008 season started with the Red Sox as champs. They were beaten by the A's, who were beaten back by Boston, who were then swept by Toronto, who lost to Oakland, who lost to Cleveland, and so on, until we reached our current champion.
The Heavyweight of the Year is the team that wins the most title bouts at the end of the season.
2008 Title Bout Records:
| Mets | 23 | 17 |
| Athletics | 13 | 13 |
| Red Sox | 11 | 7 |
| Cubs | 9 | 1 |
| Padres | 8 | 6 |
| Rockies | 7 | 14 |
| Angels | 6 | 4 |
| Indians | 6 | 11 |
| Brewers | 5 | 0 |
| Cardinals | 5 | 5 |
| Reds | 5 | 5 |
| Dodgers | 5 | 7 |
| Marlins | 4 | 3 |
| Rangers | 4 | 6 |
| Blue Jays | 3 | 3 |
| Nationals | 3 | 5 |
| Mariners | 2 | 1 |
| Yankees | 2 | 3 |
| Phillies | 2 | 5 |
| Tigers | 1 | 2 |
| Giants | 0 | 3 |
| Orioles | 0 | 3 |
2006 Heavyweight of the Year:
Oakland Athletics
2005 Heavyweight of the Year:
Oakland Athletics
Ken: catfish AT zombia d.o.t. com
Ryan: rarmbrust AT gmail d.o.t. com
Philip: kingchimp AT alamedanet d.o.t net
2008 Stats
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For more information, please visit the Fairpole blog, or read the FAQ.
A's win; Angels lose; the AL West is all square.
That's the good news.
The bad news is this quote from Macha in the SF Chronicle about bringing in Huston Street with a four-run lead (emphasis mine):
"He had two days off and I'm not playing a statistical game right now," Macha said. "There's only one statistic and that's to win the game. You've got to go with your best guy, and for me, tonight, that's a save situation."
I wasn't so much bothered by bringing in Street; if a runner gets on, he's gonna have to get up in the pen anyway. What bothers me is that I was right about Macha yesterday when I said this:
Macha is choking. He's changing his managing style, just because it's September. Perhaps we should call him Maucha.The A's are where they are today because they play a statistical game. Now Macha has declared that he's suddenly throwing statistics out the window, and he's going to manage however the hell he feels like, logic be damned. All of a sudden, the A's have Dusty Baker in the dugout.
Worked great in Cleveland, dude. Way to improve our odds of winning.
Are you watching, Pittsburgh? This is the real Ken Macha, giving the middle finger to sabermetrics when it counts the most. Macha must know he's outta here. He must be figuring, this could be my last shot, so if we're gonna lose this time, we're gonna lose my way.
*Shudder...*
The thing I'm worried about is that Macha has been "going by feel" with his pitchers for several days now. I noticed it in Cleveland, where it totally blew up in his face, and now Macha has confirmed this is in fact what he is doing.
The A's primary advantage is that they play smarter than other teams; I'm worried that this is now out the window.
Sure, I may be reading more into this than necessary, but heck, if you have an A's blog, you gotta take advantage of any opening you have to rant about a stupid A's management decision, because those opportunities are usually few and far between. And I'd like it to stay that way.
The Rangers are playing Seattle. Seattle goes on to play Toronto. Toronto has a bunch of games left with Boston and could trade the title back and forth. Toronto finishes up with KC.
I added a new column to the records, showing the maximum number of title bouts they could still have, if everything falls right on the schedule for them.
As for the Heavyweight of the Year crown, only Oakland, Toronto, and Seattle still have a mathematical chance at winning it.
The Twins have four more wins than the Mariners, but the most they can possibly win now is 17 games, while Seattle could theoretically win 30 if they swept the rest of their schedule.
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