Roberto Ruiz-Maki
I would like to personally apologize now to the other thirty teams in Major League Baseball. The 2011 World Series has already been decided, and it will be the Boston Red Sox vs the Philadelphia Phillies. With the acquisition of Cliff Lee, the Phillies now have what very well could be the best rotation ever seen in baseball. Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels are all part of the 2011 rotation for the Phillies; with Halladay, Lee, and Oswalt, you have three of the top ten pitchers in baseball, and Hamels is debatably in the top fifteen. The Red Sox acquired Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, two of the best players at their respective positions.
The Red Sox and the Phillies contend for the World Series every year even without the three best players on the market, so how is any team going to beat either of these teams? After one National League general manager was told about the Phillies signing Lee, he responded with three words: “Oh...my...God.” Oh my God indeed. How in the world did these two teams pull this off? I never once thought that I would type these words, but the New York Yankees are actually jealous of the rosters of these two teams. No other team in the world matches up to the rosters that the Red Sox and Phillies run onto the field on any given night.
The San Francisco Giants, the reigning World Series champions, won last year because they had the best pitching in the postseason with Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Johnathan Sanchez, and Madison Bumgarner. Compare those four pitchers to the Phillies' top four, and the numbers aren't even close. There could be an argument made for Lincecum and Cain matching up with Halladay and Lee, but Oswalt and Hamels are far better than Sanchez and Bumgarner.
The Texas Rangers, the representatives of the American League in last season's World Series, got there partly because of the outstanding pitching of Lee, C.J. Wilson, Colby Lewis, and Tommy Hunter. The biggest reason for their success, though, was their offensive firepower in Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Vladamir Guerrero, and Josh Hamilton. The Red Sox's lineup now consists of Dustin Pedroia, Carl Crawford, Kevin Youkilis, Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz, and Jacoby Ellsbury. This lineup is packed with speed, power, veterans, and youth. The Red Sox will consistently score more than ten runs in a game if everybody stays healthy.
MLB may be better off forgoing the 2011 season and creating a 162 game schedule of just these two teams playing each other; do not tell me that you wouldn't love watching this game every night. It would be comparable to watching an all-star game every night. Yes, this is unreasonable, but it would also be awesome. And besides, we are going to finish the season watching these two teams duke it out anyways, so why not stretch it out a bit?
Making a World Series prediction on December 14th may seem absurd, but the Boston Red Sox will be your World Champions after beating the Phillies in six games.
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