POP THE CHAMPAGNE! The Guardians Are The AL Central Champions

27th cheapest payroll in the sport, by far the lowest in the division. The youngest team in baseball by a million years. A preseason win total of 76.5. Making the playoffs was +350, and winning the division was +1000. Blah blah blah blah blah. Let me be the first to congratulate your Cleveland Guardians on being crowned the AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL CHAMPIONS. 

Give Tito the Manager of the Year award right now. Is there any point in having a vote? What he's done with this group has to be up there with the most impressive managerial performances of all time. He's turned a group of kids that no one believed in into champions simply by making them play hard and letting them have fun. He took down a more talented, more experienced team that has the payroll to pay its players 3x more than we do. And we not only beat them, we sent them on vacation with two weeks left in the season. Demoralized them.

But let's make one thing clear: I'm not here to talk shit about the White Sox. Everyone knows their social media team, and actual team (Elvis Andrus), ran their mouth and followed up with the most pathetic choke job of the season. Regardless, they are not a playoff team, and from here on out, I am only concerned with playoff teams. 

With the division officially locked up, I am now laser focused on three teams: the Blue Jays, Tampa Bay, and the Mariners.

Oh no, you HATE to hear that stat. You'd think that teams fighting for their playoff lives would be playing their best baseball right now, not the other way around. This is like that Southpark episode when they all try and lose so they get to go home. Fortunately for MY team, we are hotter than the sun these days. 18 wins in our last 21 games. If you'd have told me back in the beginning of the year that with 2 weeks to go we'd be in the hunt, I'd have been surprised. If you'd have told me with two weeks to go that we'd be lining up our rotation for a postseason run, I would've called bullshit. But alas, here we are:

I love it. Now, personally I would rather not play the Mariners since we're 1-6 against them this year, but I'll take anyone that has to come to Cleveland and lose to Beiber in Game 1 of a three game series. We're 2-1 against Tampa with a meaningless (for us) three game series coming up, so that's neither here nor there for me. But if it's the Blue Jays, in which we're already 5-2 against this year, you might as well punch our ticket into the ALDS right now. And folks, if we get a chance to play the Yankees in the ALDS, let me say this: you can call me Bart Scott, cause I CAN'T WAIT.

That's enough looking ahead for now though. It's time to kick back, relax, and enjoy Fall for the next two weeks. Our Browns are in 1st place, our Guardians won the division, and our Buckeyes are the best team in the nation. I don't have a worry in the world, except for the rest vs. rust debate that is sure to ensue on Cleveland sports talk radio tomorrow. My two cents is let's play ball. This team knows one speed: fast. They relentlessly beat teams down all year, and I don't want to change that now. But if our lord and savior Tito Francona decides differently, then you can chalk me down as deciding differently as well. 

**PS - Steven Kwan not winning Rookie of the Year because the national media was enamored by someone in the Home Run Derby is truly a travesty. Look at his stats, look at the "front runners", and look at the past winners. He should easily win, but he's not even being brought up in the discussion?

Cowards.