09:06 PM CDT on Saturday, October 1, 2005

All statistics through Friday

Center fielder Andruw Jones has frustrated Atlanta at times with his low-key approach. The Braves stayed with Jones because of his staggering talent, which all came together this year. Jones, given little protection in a rookie-laden lineup, is the first NL player since Mark McGwire in 1999 to lead the league in homers and RBIs. He should also win his eighth consecutive gold glove.

Worth noting: It takes a superb season to deny St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols, who will finish among the top five for the fifth consecutive year. ... Houston third baseman Morgan Ensberg grew into a power hitter, his slugging percentage rising from .411 a year ago to .561. ... Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee would fare better if this were a player-of-the-year contest.

Dishonorable mention: Florida third baseman Mike Lowell aged overnight and turned into the league's worst offensive player. He has only eight homers and the NL's second-lowest OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) at .660.

Designated hitter David Ortiz kept Boston in contention with 22 homers and 59 RBIs for the last 55 games going into the weekend. New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is player of the year, but manager Joe Torre made a telling late-season move by batting him second. As Rodriguez told Esquire magazine in his 2001 rip of Derek Jeter: "He hits second, that's totally different from third or fourth."

Worth noting: The anti-DH argument also works against Travis Hafner, but his bat made the Indians a contender. ... Vlad Guerrero did not match his dominating September of last season, but he carries an inordinate load for the Los Angeles Angels.

Dishonorable mention: Boston triggered last winter's shortstop shuffle by signing Edgar Renteria. The Red Sox got the worst end of the deal. Renteria was a marginal offensive player for most of the season and horrible in the field. He leads major league shortstops in errors with 30.

If one game can swing an award, it was Bartolo Colon's start for the Los Angeles Angels at the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 10. Colon's back was in such bad shape the Angels had a replacement ready. Colon went six innings in a win. Colon, a 20-game winner, has met the obligations of being a No. 1 starter.

Worth noting: Minnesota's Johan Santana leads the league in quality starts with 23 and competed for the ERA title. ... Cleveland's Cliff Lee has a pedestrian ERA, but he wins. Lee is 12-2 for his last 21 starts.

Dishonorable mention: Kansas City's Jose Lima was a hitters' delight. Opponents batted .314 against Lima, and his ERA (6.99) was the highest since Jim Deshaies at 7.39 with Minnesota in 1994.

Before four poor but meaningless September starts, St. Louis' Chris Carpenter was "the best I've ever seen," manager Tony La Russa said. In a run of 22 starts through Sept. 8, Carpenter was 17-2 with a 1.66 ERA. He worked at least seven innings in all but two of those starts.

Worth noting: Houston's Roger Clemens would get more support if he had not gone 1-4 with a 4.24 ERA in a span of seven late-season starts. ... Take away three inexplicably bad July starts, and Florida's Dontrelle Willis is 22-7 with a 1.79 ERA. ... A year after elbow surgery, Houston's Andy Pettitte will finish among the NL leaders in wins, ERA and opponents' batting average.

Dishonorable mention: Cincinnati's Eric Milton leads the majors in homers allowed with 40 and has the NL's highest ERA at 6.47. Milton has two more years on his contract, at a total value of $17 million.

To complete the Alex Rodriguez trade, the New York Yankees offered the Rangers their pick of two minor league infielders: Joaquin Arias and Robinson Cano. The Rangers took Arias, who may someday be a player. Cano is a player now. He gave the Yankees a needed offensive lift down the stretch, hitting .381 in September.

Worth noting: Octavio Dotel's elbow injury forced Oakland to use Huston Street as the closer sooner than planned, but he handled the pressure and has 22 saves in 27 chances. ... Tampa Bay's Jonny Gomes has a short and powerful swing that has produced 21 homers.

Dishonorable mention: Dallas McPherson could not replace veteran third baseman Troy Glaus for the Los Angeles Angels. McPherson hit only .244 in 205 at-bats before undergoing hip surgery. Third base is a big problem for the Halos.

Atlanta's superb player-development operation produced another standout: outfielder Jeff Francouer. He made his major league debut on July 7 and helped the Braves to their 14th consecutive division title. Through the clinching game, Francouer hit .306 with 14 homers in 248 at-bats and also had 13 assists.

Worth noting: Pittsburgh's Zach Duke, from Clifton, Texas, also reached the majors in July and went 7-2 with a 1.85 ERA for 13 starts. ... Jim Thome's season-ending elbow surgery created a spot for Ryan Howard at first base with Philadelphia. Through 303 at-bats, Howard had 21 homers and 58 RBIs.

Dishonorable mention: Philadelphia needed help from Gavin Floyd, but he could not throw enough strikes to be useful. In seven appearances, including four starts, Floyd had a 10.04 ERA for 26 innings.

Oakland general manager Billy Beane sides with the philosophy that managers are replaceable parts. That theory will be tested if Ken Macha leaves. He held a young team together through a 17-32 start, and the Athletics improved as the season progressed. Macha will be this winter's top free agent.

Worth noting: Joe Torre did a masterful job milking innings from the New York Yankees' broken-down pitching staff. The Yankees used 14 starting pitchers. ... The Los Angeles Angels follow the lead of Mike Scioscia and never panicked when down by two games with 31 to play. ... Cleveland's Eric Wedge is a Bobby Cox in training.

Dishonorable mention: Detroit's Alan Trammell was a great player and is a wonderful person, but that does not make him a good manager. The Tigers were a sloppy, free-swinging team that took several steps backward.

Forget about strategy. A manager's job is to get his players to perform at their best. No one does that as well as Atlanta's Bobby Cox, who should win this award for the fourth time in the last 21 years. The Braves used 17 rookies this season, but Cox nonetheless produced a division winner for the 14th consecutive season.

Worth noting: St. Louis manager Tony La Russa handled the difficult assignment of winning with a club expected to win. The Cardinals took the Central lead on April 16 and never looked back. ... Houston's Phil Garner makes some bizarre moves, but he found a way to bring the Astros back to life. They were 16-31 on May 17.

Dishonorable mention: Florida's Jack McKeon comes across as an avuncular sort, but he can turn dark and gloomy when his team struggles. That happened as the Marlins turned into the game's biggest collection of underachievers.

• Kansas City is the first team to have three 100-loss seasons in a span of four years since Toronto, circa 1977 to '80. Those were the first four seasons of the Jays' existence.

• Cincinnati has five players with 100 strikeouts (Adam Dunn, Wily Mo Pena, Felipe Lopez, Jason LaRue and Austin Kearns) and leads the majors in strikeouts with 1,286. That is the equivalent of playing 47 games without putting a ball in play.

• Houston scored three runs or fewer in 73 games. The Astros were 19-54 in those games.

• Tampa Bay had the first winning second half in history (39-32) but still has never won more than 70 games in its eight-year history.

• Cleveland leadoff hitter (Grady Sizemore) and No. 9 hitter (Casey Blake) each have 20 homers.

• The Los Angeles Dodgers won 12 of the first 14 games. They will finish with the worst record ever for a team that was 10 or more games over .500 after 14 games.

• A four-game winning streak put Pittsburgh at 30-30 on June 11. They lost 65 of the next 100 games, costing manager Lloyd McClendon his job and giving the Pirates their 13th consecutive losing season.

• Baltimore led the AL East for 62 days, the first time they had been atop the division for more than two weeks since 1997. They dropped out of the lead with a loss on June 24, starting a slide during which the Orioles won only 19 of 59 games.

• Washington started Independence Day leading the National League East by 5 ½ games over Atlanta. When the Braves clinched the division title on Tuesday, they led Washington by 10 games.

• Kevin Brown made only 13 starts and was on the disabled list three times with the New York Yankees. Brown has 11 DL stays since opening day 2000.

• Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder J.D. Drew missed 90 games because of injuries. Drew has played in more than 135 games just once in a seven-year career.

• Dodgers second baseman Jeff Kent and outfielder Milton Bradley had a personality clash.

• Outfielder Barry Bonds, who missed San Francisco's first 140 games while recovering from knee surgery, said he would be about 25 pounds lighter next season.

• Colorado shortstop Clint Barmes tumbled down a flight of stairs while carrying a package of deer meat to his apartment and missed 78 games because of a fractured left collarbone.

• San Diego right-hander Jake Peavy cut the palm of his left hand when he pushed an empty tin can into a bag of garbage.

• Minnesota infielder Jason Bartlett was unavailable for several days after tearing a fingernail on the left pinky finger while adjusting a television set in the team hotel at Detroit.

• Minnesota reliever Terry Mulholland awoke in the same hotel with blurry vision after a pillow feather scratched his right eyeball.

• Pittsburgh left-hander Oliver Perez broke the left big toe kicking a clubhouse laundry cart after a poor start. He missed 10 weeks.

The New York Mets did not give outfielder Carlos Beltran a seven-year deal worth $119 million to watch him bunt. Beltran's penchant for bunting – he has four sacrifices – puzzled the Mets and suggested he does not want to be a lead player.

Beltran did not handle the pressure brought on by his new contract. He has barely mediocre numbers – 16 homers, 78 RBIs and 17 stolen bases – and was never comfortable as the No. 3 hitter. With Kansas City and Houston last season, Beltran had 38 homers, 104 RBIs and 42 stolen bases.

Washington manager Frank Robinson pulled left-hander John Halama from a September start after only 24 pitches. That was typical of how Robinson handled the Nats' staff. His famous impatience with pitchers put the club in a bad spot.

Robinson ran off several other pitchers: right-hander Tomo Ohka, who has seven wins with Milwaukee; right-hander Claudio Vargas, who has nine wins with Arizona; and right-hander Sunny Kim, who has five wins with Colorado.

The Nats could have used those arms in September, when they scrambled to find pitching. Washington used eight starting pitchers in the first 12 games of the month, when they fell out of playoff contention.

On the day of the expansion draft in 1997, Tampa Bay traded outfielder Bob Abreu to Philadelphia for shortstop Kevin Stocker. Abreu has become an All-Star with the Phillies. Stocker quit years ago.

That deal set a tone for the Devil Rays. Their latest gaffe was the spring-training deal that sent right-hander Jorge Sosa to Atlanta for infielder Nick Green. Sosa is 13-3 for the playoff-bound Braves. Green is hitting .239 with five homers as a bench player for Tampa Bay.

Guillen, the Chicago White Sox manager, made every day interesting. The best and sometimes strangest of his loose-canon observations:

On former White Sox outfielder Magglio Ordonez signing with Detroit: "He's another Venezuelan [expletive]. ... He thinks he's got an enemy? No, he's got a big one. He knows I can [expletive] him over a lot of different ways."

On Frank Thomas returning from the disabled list: "It's good to have him here, because now he can see a winning attitude. Frank was a big part of the bad attitude [of the past]. ... Why? Because he was their leader."

On Los Angeles Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly being nabbed with pine tar in his glove: "He got caught. If you're smart, you don't get caught. You get caught, you're a cheater."

On whether left-hander Mark Buehrle would be a Cy Young winner if he played for the Cubs: "No, but he would be more popular. We got a couple players on the other side [right-handers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood] who are real big in this town who are not doing even close to what Buehrle does."

On his plans for the future: "If we win the World Series, I might retire. Look at Mike Ditka. He's been making a living in this town for 20 years after winning once."

A look at the season performances of the top pending free-agent pitchers:

RHP A.J. Burnett: Winless in final seven starts to keep Florida from playoffs.

RHP Paul Byrd: Stable fifth starter; Los Angeles Angels went 18-13 in his starts.

RHP Kevin Millwood: Possible AL ERA champion despite losing record with Cleveland.

RHP Matt Morris: Less than one year after shoulder surgery had 23 starts of at least six innings for St. Louis.

LHP Kenny Rogers: Dropped to 4-4 with 4.72 ERA for Rangers after All-Star break.

LHP Jarrod Washburn: Had 20 quality starts through 28 starts overall with the Angels.

RHP Jeff Weaver: Had career-high 14 wins with Dodgers and second consecutive season of more than 200 innings.