In order to keep you up to date on the goings on of all the divisions around the league, we will be providing a bi-weekly update on each division.

It’s my goddamn pleasure to update your asses on the NL West this week as my least favorite team in the NL is falling like a gay rock thrown by Johnny Damon in a wind storm (the kind of wind storm that makes you gay).  Well, sorta.  They’ve been playing below .500 since the All-Star break and lost 2 of 3 at Chase Field this weekend including a come from behind extra-inning loss on Saturday in which their big, fat, steroid using closer gave up back to back homers in the bottom of the ninth to blow a save.  That made me happy enough to drink a lot of beer.*

Since then the Rockies have pulled to within 5 games and the Giants have crept to within 6.5.  Those that thought the Dodgers would run away with this division are slowly regretting their predictions.

On to the awards!

The Hef Award (Best Hitter of the Past Two Weeks):   Congratulations, Mark Reynolds.  In the last 14 days you have hit 7 HRs, a double, stolen 2 bases and have mastered the ability of looking like you either don’t give a shit or are so used to hitting HRs that they don’t even phase you anymore.  That’s a valuable skill to learn, sir.  Pretty soon you’ll be able to fix a juke box by hitting it with your elbow.  Next up, making people intimidated by you in 1950s Milwaukee even though you’re only a short Jewish guy posing as Italian simply by wearing a cheap leather jacket.

Runner up: Adrian Gonzalez who broke out of his slump when he resigned himself that he had to finish out the season with the Padres.  We can’t all get traded to the Red Sox, Adrian, no matter how much we want to. Read the rest of this entry »

Because we are first and foremost a baseball site, we are bringing you weekly bi-weekly monthly occasional division updates. Today’s victim is the AL West.

The AL West is a very boring division, and I’m really at a loss as for what to write. So I’ve decided to rank the teams in order of my hate for them and offer a witty barb* or two about each team.

1. Angels: This is one of the luckiest teams in the league. In the past, they somehow managed to outplay their pythagorean record nearly every year, using Mike Scioscia’s good ol’ fashioned small-ball © approach to hitting, great pitching, and solid defense. This year, their pitchers have missed a lot of games due to injury, a solid (not great) reliever left them in free agency, and a promising youngster tragically died. On top of that, their best hitter, Vlad Guerrero, has hit a grand total of 4 homers so far this season. Recipe for disaster, right? Wrong. The Angels have somehow been blessed with career years from Kendry Morales, Juan Rivera, and Mike Napoli. Not to be outdone, veterans Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter are showing they still have a lot of life in their bats, too. Put it all together, and the Angels lead the league in scoring (!). I call fluke-fraud!

2. Mariners: This team is suddenly very well managed with the hiring of Jack Z, and they also have one of the highest payrolls in baseball. This means the days of giving out multi-year extensions to the likes of Miguel Batista and Carlos Silva are long gone. Seattle will now be a force in the AL West for the foreseeable future, and this pisses me off for two reasons: 1) This could easily be the Reds if they had made a better GM hiring. 2) The Mariners have the smuggest blogosphere in the history of the internets. Serially…they make MLJ look like [ot, stolen joke from Happy]. It was much more fun to watch the train wreck that was the Bill Bavasi Era. [He now works for the Reds. /shoots self] Read the rest of this entry »

I'm stealing my team's money

In order to keep you ourselves up-to-date on the goings-on of all the divisions around the league, we will be providing a bi-weekly update on each division and using a lot of hyphenated words for no reason.

Let’s face it, the AL Central is not very good. It’s by far the worst division in the American League. In the future, when people talk about one thing that is bad within a group of things that are good, they’ll compare the thing that’s bad to the AL Central. That’s right, the AL Central is the Ross from Friends, the Ted from How I Met Your Mother, the [redacted] from Major League Jerk. So really, what can I tell you about this piece of shit division that you haven’t already heard? I suppose I can get all listy on you; lists are a great crutch for times like these. Yeah that’s what I’ll do.

After the jump, my top 5 best teams in the AL Central (by winning percentage): Read the rest of this entry »

Every 2-5 weeks I write some shit about the NL East. It’s erratic and posted at random times on random days. It is sort of like an HBO series that has a “season” that is never the same as the year before and frankly is never even the same amount of shows. Hell, they change the night and times on a whim. Not that it matters, they show their shows on repeat non-stop on any one of their 55 channels. With that said in italics, here is the NL East update.

The last we left the NL East, all the teams except Washington were bunched together with a shot at first. Now the Phillies have taken off down the highway towards the playoffs with the top down, the breeze blowing through their hair and a Tranny blowing them as they drive since guys from Philly fuck Trannies. The Mets, Braves, Marlins and Nationals are the 4 turds floating in the toilet that is the NL East. Much has changed besides the standings. The Phillies raped Cleveland (and hopefully contracted AIDS) by sending 4 shitty prospects for Reigning Cy Young Winner Cliff Lee and useful righty OF Ben Francisco. I know Lee is going to be good, but I feel the underrated portion of that trade is Francisco. That team has been crying for a Righty bat. Now they have one and he can play the OF while Shane Victorino’s Yeast Infection clears up. The Marlins added Nick Johnson and moved MLJ hero Emilio Bonifacio to a Utility role. Which is a great spot for a man of his talents. More on him in a bit. The Braves traded Casey Kotchman for Adam LaRoche in a trade that made the Francoeur/Church swap look inspired. The Mets fired Tony Bernazard and started a media flame war that overshadowed their pathetic play and the Nats fondled their sister. Read the rest of this entry »

In order to keep you up to date on the goings on of all the divisions around the league, we will be providing a bi-weekly update on each division.

When we last left the worst division in all of baseball (despite having the best hitter in baseball) the Cardinals had a 2.5 game lead and everything was coming up Milhouse.  Since then?  The Cubs have crept to within a .5 game (after taking the lead briefly) and the Brewers have fallen back to below .500.  This division has the worst overall run differential in all of baseball at -114.  There are two winning teams, the Cardinals and the Cubs, and they are both seriously flawed.  The Phillies might want to help the Marlins win the Wild Card just so that they can face the NL Central winner rather than someone else (because if the WC comes from the NL West, the Dodgers would automatically face the team from the NL Central because they have the worst record).

This division stinks.  But here are some good things (and bad things) to say about a few individuals.

The Albert Pujols Award (Best Hitter over the past two weeks): Since returning from the DL on July 7th, Aramis Ramriez has been downright filthy.  In the past two weeks alone (before getting injured on Saturday) Ramirez was hitting .422 with 19 hits and 4 HRs for a line of .519/.822/1.341.  That’s beast mode no matter what they say.  Sure he’s not very durable and he’s getting paid $16.5MM this year so he better goddamn produce right, (Right?) but he deserves a little credit from time to time and this is one of those times.  [Editor's note--I didn't realize it but this fucker has only played in 38 games this year...Christ, I'm glad I'm not a Cubs fan] Read the rest of this entry »

In order to keep you up to date on the goings on of all the divisions around the league, we will (probably) be providing a bi-weekly update on each division.

This week feels weird in Clown’s life. It’s hot as fuck here in the ATX with no rain in sight, I’ve been working out but I’m still fat as hell with no abbage in sight, and the Red Sox are in total freefall mode with no turnaround in sight. Basically, you have your good with your bad.

As a Yankees fan, I’ve had to suffer with them not winning a championship since last century. Sure, I could hop on a bandwagon train like Hef and tyduffy (from Arizona and Michigan, respectively), but that’s not my style. I’m gonna stick with my team through thick and thin.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it feels weird for this hapless franchise to finally be playing well, and I’m thinking that they actually have a shot to win the whole goddamn thing. Wish us luck!

Anyway, let’s talk about the best division in all of baseball, and we’ll start with the best team in all of baseball: Read the rest of this entry »

In order to keep you up to date on the goings on of all the divisions around the league, we will be providing a bi-weekly update on each division.

And…we’re back.  We haven’t been keeping up with these updates since the All-Star Break so we have a lot of divisions to update since I assume you only get your baseball information from us.  Since we last updated you on the NL West, they have become one of the best divisions in the NL.  They’ve got a W/L differential of +8 and a run differential of +18 both of which are the best in the League.  The Giants and Rockies are leading the Wild Card race and the Snakes have played .500 ball since early June.  Oh, and the Dodgers are the best team in the NL.  This division is no longer the laughing stock of the league.  Except the Padres.  Can’t defend the Padres.

The Hef Award (Best Hitter of the Month): Since bumping into him a few weeks ago in Sedona, Miguel Montero has been on a tear.  He’s hitting .378/.410/.689 in the month of July with 5 HRs and 8 doubles.  He’s also somehow learned how to not completely suck behind the plate which is almost certainly temporary.  But in the meantime, congratulations on finally living up to the offensive hype. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a June to dismember for the heroes of the National League’s Eastern Division. The Phillies remain in first even thought they can’t win a game at home to save their lives, their bullpen guys are nursing boo boos, and Raul Ibanez went into hiding because the internet accused him of cheating. The reason they are in first is because the Mets best players are all on the Disabled List with hamAIDS, the hitters they have are “gritty”*, their starters are inconsistent, and they can’t do little things like run the bases or field. The Marlins have made a half-hearted run at third place and .500. The Braves have not. And the Nationals are the dregs of the Baseball, except when they play lesser teams like those that reside in the Bronx, NY. So let us look a bit deeper at June’s best and worst in the NL East. Read the rest of this entry »

Well…it’s been awhile since one of these has found it’s way to our part of the blogosphere, and in that time, a lot has changed.  Actually, not much has changed, but it just sounds so much more dramatic when you say it like I did in the first sentence.  So…shall we commence?

The Hef Award for most dicks in the butt: The Cleveland Indians.

Fuck them.

Fuck their bullpen.  Fuck injuries.  Fuck Jhonny Peralta.  Fuck em all.

Read the rest of this entry »

We here at MLJ know you’re sometimes too busy following your own team and division to keep track of what’s going on around the league so we provide you with biweekly updates on what’s happening in the divisions you couldn’t care less about.

The AL East is in temporary renovation mode. Since our last update, the Yankees have fallen out of first, the Blue Jays have fallen back to earth, and the Rays are creepin. The O’s still suck, though, so there’s that.

Boston Red Sox: No Blacks Allowed started off not so well, losing two of three to the Rangers, but then sweeping the Yankees (due to the strikezone for the Burnett, Wang and Sabathia being the size of a pop tart) and winning two of three against the World Fuckin’ Flukes. Continuing the interleague thang, they have a 3 gamer with the Marlins, followed by 3 with the Bravos, 3 at Washington, 3 at Hotlanta, and 3 in Baltimore. After that weak-ass slate of games, there’s not a doubt in my mind they will still probably be in first.

New York Yankees (37-27): To Yankees fans, it seems like they’ve hit the skids, but the good guys haven’t really done that bad. They took 2 of 3 from Tampa before that unfortunate sweep in Fagway Park, and then took 2 of 3 from their crosstown “rivals”. They opened up in Washington with a win and are hoping to continuing their decent pace with a strong showing tonight from the Ghost of Wang. Then they’ll travel to Florida (where they are sure to draw crowds that will reach quintuple digits, for a change) and then go to Atlanta and then Shitty Field, before coming back home to face the Mariners.

Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Devil Rays(35-31): After losing a series to the formidable Yankees, Tampa took two of three from Anaheim and then swept the Natinals. They opened up with a win against the Cockies at Whores Field, and then will grace Shitty Field with their American League presence. Toronto is still in a bit of free fall mode, and I would give you their results and future schedules, but I have to go to a meeting right now and I’m up against the deadline. See what they’ve been doing and who they have coming up here.

If these two third place teams played in the AL Central, they would be tied for first with Detroit.

Baltimore Orioles (27-37): I have nothing positive or negative to say about this team, except that they should immediately be traded to the AL Central for a bag of baseballs and a bucket of sunflower seeds. So I’m just gonna scrape some of what our resident Baltiwhore homer, CBH of CBH Sports, says about his favorite team:

The Orioles have been struggling for about a week offensively, which has coincided with their poor play. Adam Jones has cooled a bit, Brian Roberts has been mired in a slump, and Aubrey Huff is only hitting .258 for the season. Matt Wieters is starting to get his stroke, but still is hitting just .208 since being called up a few weeks ago. It seems like Luke Scott hits a home run just about every night, he leads the team with 15. Also worth mentioning is the play of call up Nolan Reimold, who is hitting .271, with 7 HRs and 16 RBIs.*

Thanks, CBH!

*used without permission