Alex Rodriguez is your scapegoat, Paul Byrd is an “outstanding” pitcher and Eric Wedge is a genius. It’s time for my ALCS breakdown:

Catcher:
Jason Varitek had a 2.000 OPS in 1997; that’s pretty cool. The captain of the Red Sox is a .267 career hitter and has recovered nicely in 2007 to his awful ‘06. His numbers are still down from his career averages, but even his best years don’t compare to Victor Martinez. V-Mart is second in baseball in slugging percentage and OPS, behind only Jorge Posada. His catching is suspect at times, but the Boston guys who will run on him would run on anybody.
EDGE: INDIANS.

First Base:
Ok, let’s play who’s who:

2007 Player A: .288 /.390 /.453
2007 Player B: .289 /.359 /.483

Hard to know who to like here, isn’t it? If you’re familiar with Kevin Youkilis‘ nickname, you’d correctly identify him as Player A. By process of elimination, Player B is Ryan Garko. What separates these players? Youk didn’t commit an error this year.
EDGE: RED SOX, slightly.

Second Base:
The AL Rookie of the Year is likely the Sox’ Dustin Pedroia. Good with the bad and good with the glove. The Indians benched Josh Barfield in favor of Asdrubal Cabrera, who likes like the real deal.
EDGE: RED SOX, slightly.

Third Base:
The Indians were hoping to have a star in Andy Marte and that didn’t pan out for them, either. Casey Blake stepped in and put together an adequate season at the corner of the infield. Mike Lowell did not look like he was going to do anything after his big 2003 season, but has been getting better since joining the Sox.
EDGE: RED SOX.

Short Stop:
Julio Lugo’s season has been doted on all year, and I don’t want to continue that discussion. He’t not that good at hitting and his career stats indicate that. Jhonny Peralta had one of the biggest letdown years in 2006 and came out of it somewhat this season. This is probably right around where he’ll stay for his career.
EDGE: INDIANS.

Left Field:
Kenny Lofton might just be the MVP of the ALDS for the Indians. I expect that a lot of people wrote about how he’s game-smart and his experience allowed him to get three hits in the opening game. He’s facing Manny Ramirez in this breakdown and that’s hard to top.
EDGE: RED SOX.

Center Field:
Grady Sizemore may be the best offensive weapon on the Indians. A leadoff hitter that has a high OBP isn’t as common as I’d like to think it is. He had a letdown second half, but that’s not his historical norm, which in any case is significantly better than Coco Crisp.

Quick intermission to quote Joe Posnanski’s blog:

The announcer during Monday’s game actually called Grady Sizemore, “The best player you’ve never heard of,” which made me think about 11 different things all at once.

1. Are there really baseball fans who have never heard of Grady Sizemore?
2. Really?
3. Wasn’t he, like, on the cover of Sports Illustrated?
4. Have people heard of Sports Illustrated?
5. If Chip Caray’s name happened to be Chip Babblerock, would he be announcing playoff games on national televeision?
6. I thought Curtis Granderson was the best player you’ve never heard of.
7. Oh, you’ve heard of him too.
8. If Grady Sizemore was playing for the Yankees would he already have a statue in Monument Park or would they wait until he turned 30?
9. How many different Frank TV commercials are there anyway? There have to be like 40 of them. You know, he might want to save some bits for the actual show. Thing is, I like Frank Calliendo — I think his John Madden is freakishly good — but I will say this: My wife Margo was watching the game with me (you mothers and fathers out there can check out her Mom’s blog HERE), and whenever one of those commercials would come on she would say, “Was he supposed to be Dr. Phil? … Was that supposed to be George Bush? … Who is that? (It was supposed to be Robert DeNiro). My wife is usually a better judge of the American psyche than I am, and that show seems doomed.
10. Are there really baseball fans who have never heard of Grady Sizemore.
11. Really?

God Posnanski’s good. Or is Posnanski God? Chicken and the egg, I guess.
EDGE: INDIANS.

Right Field:
If Franklin Gutierrez walked a bit more he’d be the clear favorite over J.D. Drew, but Drew’s .390 OBP is very nice looking on paper.
EDGE: RED SOX, slightly.

Designated Hitter:
This is probably the most interesting “position” battle, even though David Ortiz is far and away the winner. Travis Hafner had an extremely down 2007 season, so it’s hard to give him any kind of edge. Even in his better years, it’s definitely a Red Sox advantage.
EDGE: RED SOX.

Starting Pitching:
If there’s one thing this series has, it’s good starting pitching. That is, until the Indians work past C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. The fact is the Indians can go toe-to-toe with any other rotation when only using three pitchers, which I hope is something Eric Wedge reconsiders doing. Vegas Watch did a pretty solid analysis of the rotations yesterday,and I agree with most of it. I think the matchups are even a little closer than he makes them out to be, mainly because my confidence in Paul Byrd and Jake Westbrook is essentially zero. The biggest strategy will come into play in this series with how the managers work their starters. I’m going to give a cop out answer on this one.
EDGE: PUSH.

Relief Pitching:
Wedge has the tool to throw out one of the best bullpens in the league. The problem is his mismanagement of it. We’re due any day now for a Joe Borowski meltdown of such grand proportion that the mere thought of the Indians’ World Series hopes resting on his shoulders makes me cringe. Assuming the closers get used like closers tend to be used, it’s definitely a Boston advantage. Eric Gagne’s postseason role should be interesting. I assume he’s on a pretty short leash with very, very little room for error.
EDGE: RED SOX.

All things considered, this is the World Series. The Red Sox accumulated the best run differential during the regular season, and the Indians were third — behind only the Yankees, who they just eliminated from the playoffs.

I’m going to stick with my Indians preseason World Series pick because I still think they’re a dominating team and in many places where the Red Sox have an edge it is only slight.

Indians in seven.

Enjoy the ALCS!

Just, out.