AL Four Are Best of the Group

First thoughts on postseason play and final thoughts on the regular season....

The Junior Circuit?

Not this year.

Of the eight playoff teams, the opinion here is that the American League features the four best.

Consider:

* No National League team can match the quantity and quality of the Seattle Mariner bullpen.

* No National League team can match the quantity and quality of the four-deep Mariner and New York Yankee rotations.

* No National League team can match the offensive consistency of the Mariners, Cleveland Indians and Oakland Athletics.

* No National League team can match the swagger, confidence and allure of the Animal House A’s or the all-around consistency of the methodical Mariners.

How will it play out?

The four division series are the most competitive yet, with the Yankees and A’s providing the bell ringer.

The Yankees are October tested, of course. They added Mike Mussina to a rotation of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Orlando Hernandez and won 95 games, despite lapses on offense and the long absence of the injured Hernandez.

They get the first two games of the five-game series at Yankee Stadium, where emotions will be at fever pitch given the pain of Sept. 11 and the current military retaliation.

However, the young and maturing A’s fear no team or environment. They took the Yankees to five games last October in their first playoff experience and have since added Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye.

De facto captain Jason Giambi and the Tim Hudson-, Mark Mulder-, Barry Zito-led rotation are at the top of their games.

The A’s played at a .691 pace (94-42) after an 8-18 start, won six of nine games against the Yankees, and start the playoffs on the wings of the second-best half season in baseball history. They were .773 (58-17) after the All-Star break, but as Giambi said in Anaheim on Sunday, “I don’t think we’ve even taken time to sit down and appreciate the things we’ve done because we still have a goal.”

The belief here is that they will sustain their momentum and end the Yankees’ playoff dominance. In fact, it would not be a surprise if the A’s then went the distance. The difference generally over the possibility of 19 rotation-and emotion-sapping playoff games is found in the bullpen, however, and no one has the mix-and-match potential of Seattle Manager Lou Piniella. You don’t tie the major league record for wins in a season, 116, by accident, and the Mariners will have the home-field advantage through the first two rounds.

Nevertheless, beating the Indians to get at the West rival A’s won’t be easy.

Four of seven games between the teams were decided by one run, and the Indians rallied from a 14-2, seventh-inning deficit against the vaunted Seattle bullpen to win, 15-14, on Aug. 2. The Indians also got under Seattle’s skin in May--literally--by complaining about the flapping of reliever Arthur Rhodes’ earring as he pitched, prompting a bench-clearing dance that led to Rhodes’ ejection.

If veteran Chuck Finley can hold up in Game 2, Bartolo Colon and rookie C.C. Sabathia have the ability to win Games 1 and 3, but this has been the Mariners’ year.

With Ichiro Suzuki literally kick-starting the offense, they have gotten the job done against everyone everywhere, and the opinion here is that they will survive the Indians and A’s and defeat the Houston Astros in the World Series.

The enigmatic Astros should hang another October disappointment on the attack-thin Atlanta Braves and then defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks for the NL title after Arizona’s Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling double-team the St. Louis Cardinals in the five-game division series.

St. Louis would have escaped that Diamondback snake pit but lost the Central Division title on the final weekend by losing two of three at home to the Astros, who came in reeling, having lost six in succession and been booed out of their own ballpark because of their inept play and unwillingness to pitch to Barry Bonds. The recovery in St. Louis, Manager Larry Dierker said, was validation.

“We came in and proved that we are what we thought we were, not what we were afraid we’d become,” said Dierker, his job on the line again.

“I was having serious misgivings about myself, our team, our fans, the city,” he said. “What we were able to do [in St. Louis] means a lot to me and, I’m sure, the whole ballclub.”

Now the Astros have to prove they can get past the first round, which they failed to do after winning division titles in 1997, ’98 and ’99. If rookie Roy Oswalt (14-3) has recovered from a groin strain and is ready to pitch late in the opening series with Atlanta, that will provide a significant lift.

The almost-forgotten Braves won their 10th consecutive division title, outlasting the surprising Philadelphia Phillies, despite outscoring only three National League teams, and as Tom Glavine said, “It will be nice to go in as an underdog or a discarded team. I haven’t heard too much about us or what we can do. For the most part, everybody’s talking about everybody else.”

For the most part, everybody’s talking about those four American League teams.

The Awards

No player ended the season under a more penetrating microscope than Barry Bonds, and no player began it under a more penetrating microscope than Suzuki.

Each held up under the glare, producing historic seasons in the process, and should be rewarded with the most-valuable-player awards.

Bonds should get the NL honor over a challenging group of Albert Pujols, Sammy Sosa and Luis Gonzalez on the basis of his 73 homers and a portfolio of records and statistics among the most impressive ever.

Suzuki, even better in some ways, should get the AL honor over Giambi, teammate Bret Boone and Cleveland’s Roberto Alomar on the basis of his catalytic influence on the 116-win Mariners, his rookie record for hits, the batting title that is a sweet complement to the seven he won in Japan and his Gold Glove play in right field.

Other awards:

Cy Young--Johnson in the NL and Clemens in the AL.

Rookie--Suzuki in the AL and Pujols in the NL.

Manager--Larry Bowa of Philadelphia in the NL and Jimy Williams, unattached but late of the Boston Red Sox, in the AL.

Executive--Ed Wade of Philadelphia in the NL and Pat Gillick of Seattle in the AL

Yes, Williams was fired by the Red Sox before the season ended, but his ability to keep a dissension-and injury-riddled club in the race and the extent to which it disintegrated after he was fired justifies the award, although Piniella and Oakland’s Art Howe are also deserving.

Executive Search

It is doubtful that any general manager has ever inherited more complex roster and payroll decisions than Dan Evans. But under the gun even more than the new Dodger GM is Chairman Bob Daly.

His decision to hire a man who has been a 19-year assistant--without even interviewing Cleveland’s retiring John Hart or investigating the availability of Oakland’s Billy Beane--could come back to haunt him and only underscores the belief that the former studio czar wants no one with a higher profile in the front office.

Hart’s Indians are headed back to the playoffs as division champions, and Beane has built a home-grown winner in a small-market environment.

Six of the A’s starting nine were produced in the system, as were the big three starting pitchers: Hudson, Mulder and Zito. In addition, Beane’s scouting and developmental staff produced enough depth that the A’s were in position to trade for Damon and Dye, among others.

In the meantime, as Evans began a series of staff reassignments Monday and contemplated the hiring of one or two senior advisors, Doug Melvin was moving out of his office as GM of the Texas Rangers, having been fired by owner Tom Hicks. Hicks emptied the cash register in signing Alex Rodriguez, leaving Melvin without the resources to improve the AL’s worst pitching of last year.

The result: Although Rodriguez performed brilliantly, the Rangers had an even worse pitching staff this year and Melvin joined former Manager Johnny Oates, who resigned under pressure in May, as the second victim of the Rodriguez signing.

Next? Well, since the Dodgers weren’t interested in Hart, he may replace Melvin, and Melvin, a native of Chatham, Ontario, may replace the recently fired Gord Ash as GM of the Toronto Blue Jays.