Jeff Fletcher | September 29, 2011

Ever hear those stories about a guy who misses his flight, and then the plane crashes? He’ll say: “If I hadn’t missed my flight, I’d be dead.” But you don’t ever hear him add: “That’s why I should always be late for flights.”

Obviously, that logic would be silly. The guy knows his absence from the plane didn’t cause it crash. He just got lucky. He could just as easily have missed his flight, and then have his later flight crash.

Anyway, people don’t seem to understand that logic when it comes to debating the proposed extra wild card format in light of what we saw on Wednesday night.

“If we had an extra wild card this year, we wouldn’t have had the greatest night of baseball ever.”

Strictly speaking, that’s true. But let’s not start to think that the current playoff format made Wednesday night’s events happen, or even made them more likely. We just got lucky.

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Jeff Fletcher | September 28, 2011

We seem to be headed to a very exciting end to the regular season, with ties atop the wild card in both leagues heading to game 162. It’s tempting to think this is a reason to believe that adding a second wild card would have made for less drama.

But that’s wrong.

What’s the real result we’re all hoping to see this week? Two one-game playoffs, of course. Winner-take-all games are the most dramatic thing in the sport.

If a second wild card was added, and the two were forced to play each other in a one-game playoff (as opposed to a best-of-three, which I’m against), we’d have that every year!

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Jeff Fletcher | September 26, 2011

I don’t think enough publicity has gone to the AL Rookie of the Year race, which is a real barn burner. I’ve got that vote this year, and I can honestly see a case for four guys … and there are only three spots on the ballot.

Jeremy Hellickson has the best ERA among starting pitchers (2.90) and he’s pitched in the tough AL East, doing well against the Red Sox and Yankees, and he’s gotten better as the year has gone on, in a pennant race.

Ivan Nova is 16-4 with a 3.70 ERA for a division champ, and there’s been a fair amount of pressure on him with the issues to the rest of the Yankees rotation. He also pitches in a tough ballpark.

Mark Trumbo has huge counting stats (29 homers and 87 RBIs) and his OPS is .768, which is not bad. He’s been a key offensive contributor on a contender.

Eric Hosmer has the best rate stats (.814 OPS), and his counting stats (19 HRs, 77 RBIs) are pretty good, too. He’s also got an .872 OPS in the second half. He’s certainly got a higher ceiling, prospect-wise, than Trubmo, but that’s not necessarily a part of this award. The only thing that counts against him, albeit not that much, is that his team stinks so he theoretically hasn’t faced the pressure of the other three guys.

Honestly, of all four of these guys, the only thing I feel certain of is that I’d rank Hellickson ahead of Nova. However, I could put the two position players in any order, and I could put the pitchers and position players in any order relative to each other, because it’s sort of apples and oranges when trying to compare them, which is one of the reasons ROY is always a tough vote.

If I wanted to throw Jordan Walden, a closer, in there, then it’s apples, oranges and bananas.

And I haven’t even mentioned Jemile Weeks, Guillermo Moscoso, Michael Pineda or Dustin Ackley, who are all having very good rookie seasons. (Just noticed, nice year for rookies in the AL West.) So has Desmond Jennings, in half a season.

Three more days to think about it.

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Jeff Fletcher | September 2, 2011

Through all the talk about why the Giants’ offense has fared so much worse this year than in their championship season, I think one name has been conspicuously absent: Pat Burrell.

It seems like most Giants fans understand the obvious impact of the loss of Buster Posey and Freddy Sanchez and the struggles of Aubrey Huff and Andres Torres, but it doesn’t seem like anyone ever mentions how much the Giants miss what Burrell did last year.

You know what position produced the highest OPS on the team last year? Left field. Burrell may have spent only four months with the Giants, but he had 18 homers — including seven that gave the Giants a lead — and a .872 OPS. (In almost the same playing time, the deified Posey hit 18 HRs with an .862 OPS.)

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