Why interleague play in MLB is actually pretty cool, and how it could learn a thing or two from the NFL.

Apparently this week is “Everybody hate on interleague play” week in MLB. There has always been a little bit of hate for interleague, but this year it is out in full force. ESPN has wrote articles on why it sucks, Yahoo! Sports has talked about why it sucks, and even managers are now speaking out about how they don’t like it.

Well I’m here to disagree!!! I love interleague play. Being a Yankees fan, outside of the Red Sox you would have trouble finding a more exciting opponent that generates more buzz than the Mets. One of the biggest arguments against interleague play is the unbalanced schedules. Some teams play terrible opponents in the opposite league. This year the Dodgers and Red Sox have scored two of the best draws for facing mediocre opponents. And on the other hand, some playoff hopefuls face incredibly tough teams that perhaps their in-house division rival will not face once that year unless it is in the World Series. This year, playoff contending Cincinnati and Cleveland both have tough interleague schedules.

To that argument I say this: Uhhh…have you ever watched the NFL? The media and fans always make a huge deal out of strength-of-schedule. How much does it ever have an impact? Almost zero. The Patriots had one of the hardest schedules last year. Their record: 14-2. The easiest strength-of-schedule last year in the NFL was the Arizona Cardinals. Coming off two straight playoff appearances and the fact that they were in the very weak NFC West, the Cardinals odds were looking decent based on strength-of-schedule even without Kurt Warner. The end result was a 5-11 season, last in the worst division in the NFL. Why? Because schedules hardly matter, injuries and other unforeseeable events happen. And the ultimate reality is that the good teams find ways to win games, and the bad teams will manage to lose. Bringing it back to baseball, if the Cincinnati Reds are complaining about their schedule and struggling against their interleague opponents, then who cares? If you can’t beat the Yankees, Rays, and Indians now, you definitely won’t beat them come October, and so you are irrelevant anyway. If the Reds really are a talented team, they will find ways to win two of three games in each series. (It should be noted the Reds have lost their first two games to the Indians this year.) By the way, I’ve been watching a lot of the Yankees lately, they are definitely beatable, so I don’t know why teams like the Rockies are complaining.

With interleague play, you get matchups that you just can’t find within your own league. Anybody who loves baseball history like I do should be salivating at the thought of seeing the Cubs play at Fenway Park vs Boston for the first time since the 1918 World Series. It was also awesome to see the teams playing in 1918 styled jerseys as well. Also for once it was really cool to see the Florida state rivalry with both the Rays and Marlins well above .500. Interleague play also presents great opportunities for big-time free agents to face their favorite team. Cliff Lee faced the Rangers, whom he took to the World Series last year and absolutely dominated them last night. Later on in the season, we will get to see great matchups like the Yankees vs. the  Cubs, Milwaukee at Boston (actually pretty cool), and K-Rod facing his old team as the Angels play at the Mets.

Admittedly, yes there are some flaws to the system. Some teams get awful draws and boring matchups. Some teams have no true rival, so during rival week you will see the Detroit Tigers inexplicably facing the Pittsburgh Pirate. However, for the true baseball fan and casual alike, the novelty of seeing an opponent that you would never normally face should be intriguing enough. That said, I think there are solutions for this and baseball can take a lesson from the NFL. Pit divisions against each other and rotate by year. In the NFL, the four divisions in each conference will only face a division from the opposing conference once every four years. This way no one can complain about how one team faces tougher opponents than another within their division, and the match-ups don’t get stale and repetitive. Given the option of scrapping interleague play altogether, I’d much rather take the alternative. It’s great for fans, it’s great for the teams, and it’s great for the media. On the whole, interleague play will always manage to drum up exciting storylines no matter what teams are playing and I think and hope it’s here to stay.

You can kiss that one goodbye! How the long ball is making and reviving careers in a pitcher's era.

I'm not willing to officially declare this a pitcher's era yet, BUT its no secret that league ERA's have consistently declined over the past five years. Going back to 2006, just look at the facts:

• 2011 MLB ERA: 3.85
• 2010: 4.08
• 2009: 4.32
• 2008: 4.32
• 2007: 4.47
• 2006: 4.53

Now, say what you will as to WHY these numbers are in decline, but we won't get into that here. I'd like to look at the other side of the ball. In a new era where ERA's are down, Strikeouts per game are also up, and hits and HRs are down. But not for everybody. A few players have managed to continue the style of play we saw from the late 90's into the early 2000's: Mash everything and hit it as hard and as far as you can. Even better for these guys, the power hitters stand out that much more in the past two years than they would have if they hit 40 HR in 2002. Guys like Jose Bautista and Lance Berkman are defining and saving their careers respectively by going against the grain of what the league has become.

You had to know Jose Bautista would be discussed in this article. In a year when no one else in the AL hit so many as 40 home runs, Bautista slammed 54! That is incredible. It's not quite Babe Ruth-like incredible (When Ruth hit 54 in 1920, only one other entire team hit more than that), but its still extremely impressive. Albert Pujols had the second most home runs last year with 42, twelve less than Bautista. Even when Bonds led the league with 73 long balls, Sammy Sosa was just 9 behind. No, to find a comparable performance, you have to go all the way back to 1965 when the legendary Willie Mays hit 52 home runs, and second in the league was fellow teammate and hall-of-famer Willie McCovey with 39 home runs, a difference of 13. Bautista is in pretty good company.

We all wanted to jump up and say "Surely this won't last!", but of course it has. Through the first 33 games of 2011, Bautista has hit 16 HR and is on pace for 63. The scary part? A year ago today he was hitting .236 with 11 HR, and that was in 41 games! However, before 2010, Bautista was a journeyman player. In the five seasons prior, Bautista played 575 games and managed to hit 59 balls over the fence. And absolutely no team wanted him. In a span of one year Bautista was claimed in the Rule 5 draft by Baltimore from the Pittsburgh Pirates, then designated for assingment and claimed by Tampa Bay, then sold to the Kansas City Royals, then traded to the Mets, who traded him that same day BACK to the Pittsburgh Pirates, making Bautista's trip full circle. In 2008 the Pirates gave up on a guy who hit a career .241 for them and never hit more than 16 HR. The rest is history. Bautista is a true force to be reckoned with, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I guarantee he will hit 50 home runs this year, and I would love to see him make a run at Bonds record, although that is still unlikely at this point.

Bautista isn't the only player to reinvent himself. Lance Berkman, 35, is second in the National League in batting average and home runs, and leads the league in RBIs. Berkman was once a power hitting force for the Astros. Just five years ago he hit 45 homers and finished 3rd in the MVP voting. His power numbers have decreased every year since, culminating in a 14 HR total last year at age 35, causing many to declare the end for Berkman. However in the offseason, Berkman worked his tail off, and now he is back, on pace for 40 HR and an all-star appearance. Now one of my mantras is this: Age is the one opponent an athlete can't beat. I said it with Colon yesterday and I'll say it with Berkman today. He probably can't keep this up, but I won't rule out a .300/30 HR performance, which would still be a fantastic rebound. Consider that a career saved by overpowering the rest of the league in the new era.

Those are the two premier turn-arounds in the game today, but there are plenty of other guys to look at as well. Ryan Braun's power had declined each of the past two years, this year he is once again reaffirming his position as a slugger for years to come. Many expected Curtis Granderson to benefit from the generously short outfield corners at Yankee Stadium last year, and he disappointed with 24 home runs, this year he is hitting them everywhere, and is second in the majors with 14. Paul Konerko looked to be on his way out in Chicago, a fading star who once hit 40 over the walls in back-to-back seasons. Believe it or not, only Bautista has hit more home runs than the 35-year-old Konerko since the start of the 2010 season (49). Troy Tulowitzki was on pace for a career-high in homers last year before breaking his wrist and settling for 27 in 122 games. This year he has 11 already and has definitively become the premier power-hitting middle infielder. Lastly Alfonso Soriano has crushed the ball this year and may be looking at a renaissance from his days before the Cubs. Soriano is one of my favorite players from his Yankees days and has been largely disappointing for the Cubs. This year he is on pace for 45 home runs and even if he hit 30 it would be a nice rebound.

All of these guys have improved their home run totals in a year where fans are seeing just 0.88 home runs a game; the lowest total since 1992. That year Juan Gonzalez led the majors with 43 HR, the Pittsburgh Pirates had the 2nd best record in baseball at 96-66 (coincidentally, they have not had a winning season since), and the Toronto Blue Jays won their first of two back-to-back world series. The Blue Jays aren't world series contenders, but they do own the one truly dominant slugger in the game right now and arguably the best hitter in baseball with Bautista. While the other guys mentioned might not quite stack up, they are definitely showing improved strength over the rest of the guys in the league. I guess my only question is: If total home run rates are way down, and the numbers of these guys are up, who are the guys that are missing from the tops of the HR leaderboards and will they come back? Maybe I'll look into that another time!

To contact me, shoot me an e-mail z.wilkens@yahoo.com for questions, comments, or whatever!