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By Mullet, 6/25/2006 7:42 pm

Hi folks.

Long time, no see. Err, talk. Err …. write? Read?

Regardless, I apologize for my prolonged absense and give Sully all the credit in the world for carrying the load on his own. He’s the best writer of the bunch (with Jeff being the stathead, and me being … the techie?), so if someone’s going to do the bulk, at least you got to read the best.

The short version is that I’ve been working at a new job for about 9 months now and I’ve simply been swamped with work. Making it more interesting is the fact that my new job is actually doing web stuff, so I after spending 10-12 hours at work on the web, the last thing I want to do when I get home is spend more time on the web.

However, things are swinging back into balance, so I figure this is a good time to poke my head back in.

So, the Sox aren’t so bad, eh? I’m not convinced this is a World Series winning team, but as Sully mentioned the other day, at least they’ve finally dispensed with the pleasantries and are playing the best players regardless of age or veteran status. Last year’s front office wouldn’t have jettisoned J.T. Snow. Last year’s front office wouldn’t have tossed aside Clement, Seanez, and Tavarez for Lester, Delcarmen, and Hansen. For better or for worse, this year’s front office is doing that, and that’s making a huge difference in my faith that they’re not going to punt wins to support clubhouse chemistry.

Winning breeds chemistry. It’s that simple.

Now, the Sox are out performing their raw Pythag by 3 games at this point, but they’re dead on BP’s 3rd order wins, so that gives me a little bit of solace. Digging in a bit on a few players …

Kevin Youkilis rules. He ruled last year. He ruled the year before. He’s the poster boy for an organizational philosophy, yet the very same organization kept him down behind Bill Mueller, Kevin Millar, and then potentially a J.T. Snow/Mike Lowell combo. I don’t think it’s possible to doubt any longer that Youks is a major league hitter, and further, a straight up major league player. I don’t think he’ll slug .500+ for the duration of the season, but he has proven that not giving him 500 ABs last season was a mistake, and one that most decidedly cost the Red Sox the AL East title.

Mike Lowell doesn’t suck. At least not yet. The scary thing is that he’s taken his June nosedive, just like he has every year in recent memory, buoyed by a good BA and handful of walks. I’m not ready to declare him done just yet, and I’ll readily admit to being wrong on the Lowell bounceback, but I think he’s probably going to tail off some as the season wears on, which makes me hope that Hee Seop Choi will get a chance to see some major league action.

Coco Crisp is performing exactly as I’d expected, so I’m not let down at all. I didn’t buy into the hype. His track record was that of a guy with speed and spotty plate discipline, and that’s what he’s shown when he hasn’t been hurt. His stats in ’05 were helped by a somewhat high BABIP. He’ll make great trade bait should the Red Sox ever get a real CF.

Josh Beckett. What to say? He’s dominant, then less dominant. I’m firmly in the camp that he’s not worth a huge long-term deal, at least not yet. He’s had obvious trouble adapting to the AL, which isn’t surprising since he’s never been judicious with his pitches. The Red Sox don’t need a young stud pitcher, they just need a stud pitcher. With guys like Jason Schmidt potentially available at the deadline, and potential free agents like Jose Contreras, Greg Maddux, and Andy Pettitte in the off-season, I’m not convinced it would be prudent for the Sox to overspend on a pitcher just because he’s young. Beckett’s been around long enough that it’s not a certainty he’ll get any better. He’s a great pitcher, and one I’d love to lock up, but not for Burnett money. Under $10mm/season, I’m in. Over that, he can find a new home.

Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. The fact that I can turn on EEI and still hear people talking about trading Manny for Alfonso Soriano makes me happy that I can turn my radio off.

Finally, the guy who gives me the most trouble, Jason Varitek. As a former catcher, I’ve been a huge fan of Varitek’s. How can you not love the no nonsense approach he takes. He seemed like a perfect home team type guy. Then he bent the Sox over and they agreed to the worst contract they currently have on the books. He justfied it 2005, and has fallen apart in ’06. He’s now passed the mythical 1000 games caught mark, and he’s taken the normal nose dive that catches take. He still hits well for a catcher, just not a $10mm catcher. The big gotcha, of course, is the intangibles. I, personally, have not been impressed with Varitek’s pitch calling since Joe Kerrigan departed. His “stand-up-for-the-high-strike” move infuriates me. But, his pitchers swear by him. The results just aren’t there. What pitchers has he made better? Pitchers don’t seem to get markedly better coming to the Sox, nor do they seem to get markedly worse leaving the Sox. It’s not a knock on the Captain, it’s just the truth.

At the end of the day, the Sox have a pretty good, but not showstopping rotation (Schilling is back to being a #1, Beckett/Wakefield are #3/4 guys, and Lester/Clement/Wells/Pauley are a crapshoot). The bullpen is similar. Papelbon is lights out, but the rest of the ‘pen is hit or miss. It is, of course, further evidence you shouldn’t spend a whole lot of money on your bullpen unless you’re signing a stud. Middle relievers are a dime a dozen and aren’t worth more than the league minimum.

The offense has been solid, if unspectacular. They’ve got moderate holes at SS, CF, and C (holes only in the sense that the Sox offense is usually studly at all positions). They probably won’t actively seek to upgrade those positions, since these Sox are apparently the defensive Sox, and while Crisp is probably stretched a bit in CF, there’s no one to replace him in the system.

The bench is iffy, but whatever, the Sox never pay attention to the bench and the guys they have their are always pacifiers and blankies to keep the manager or other players happy.

There you have it. My almost-first-half-summary. The Sox are in good position to keep plugging along, never getting too far ahead or behind the Yankees or Blue Jays. Things will get mighty interesting over the next month, as the Sox will probably try to find another starter, and possibly another bat. The bat might come out of the farm (Choi, possibly Dustin Pedroia, or the magically rejuvenated David Murphy), but the arm most certainly won’t. So don’t get too attached to the guys in Portland/Greenville/Lowell/etc., as they might not be around in a few months.

I’m noodling around an idea that makes me sad, which is basically a post that the Sox front office has been pretty mediocre since October 2004. But that’s for another time.

Last thing. I’ll try to keep it clean. F%#& Steve Silva and f$%* anyone who subscribes to the Boston Dirt Dog mentality. If you boo Pedro when he takes the mound the first time, you not only have no idea of the scope of what he meant to the Red Sox, you don’t deserve to ever understand it. You deserve to live in the minority of Red Sox nation who think that curses exist and anyone who doesn’t play here is a traitor and that the Yankees suck even though we’re playing the Twins. In other words, you’re a goddamn moron.

Boo him all you want after the first inning. But give the man the ovation he deserves when he takes the mound.

Comments (2)

By Mullet, 5/8/2006 6:16 am

The Sox continued the streak of letting the Orioles get 3 runs while putting a hurting on the O’s pitching, knocking off the Orioles in a 10-3 laugher that was never in doubt.

Lenny DiNardo had a rough first inning, walking the bases loaded and pushing the game’s first run across with a walk to Jeff Conine, but settled down the rest of the way and gave up just 2 runs over 5 innings. DiNardo was nearly unhittable, giving up just 2 hits, but that’s because he was either really on or really off, striking out 5 and walking 5 in his 5 innings (I bet you don’t see that line very often). I had many an off-season discussion pimping DiNardo as a good 5th/6th starter, but his inability to throw strikes is killing him (actually, it’s killing all Sox pitchers this season).

Jason Varitek did the offensive damage early, and ended the game in the 1st, hitting a Grand Slam, giving the Sox a 4-1 lead they would never relinquish. The Sox rocked Kris Benson for 8 hits, 4 walks, and 9 runs in less than 5 innings. Kevin Youkilis continued to do what he does, with 3 more hits and 2 more runs scored, bringing his season line up to .330/.434/.482. Theo and Co. have made their share of mistakes, but allowing Millar and Mueller to play full seasons and keep Youkilis in Rhode Island is a pretty big one, and is a big reason that the Sox didn’t hoist an AL East flag this off-season. Mark Loretta continues his road back to respectabilith with 3 more hits. Finally, Manny Ramirez continues to be the best hitter on the team, with 2 more hits and 2 walks (actually taking the team OPS lead, if that’s worth anything).

Oh, Manny Delcarmen actually got to pitch yesterday. I was worried that Tito had forgot he was on the team.

Night off tonight, before the Sox head to the Bronx to battle the nominally AL East leading New York Yankees.

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By Mullet, 4/28/2006 4:27 pm

There’s not much to this post. Work has been busy and last night’s game wasn’t exactly an incentive to write a thorough and interesting synopsis of the game.

Read the gory details.

If I had to sum it all up? Ben Broussard owns Josh Beckett, small sample size (2 AB) or not.

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By Mullet, 4/17/2006 6:31 am

I’m a bit of a web dork. Hmm, let me rephrase: I’m a huge web dork. I work for a web hosting company, do most of the day-to-day tech stuff that affects our fair site, dig RSS, AJAX, and all of those other fun internet acronyms. So, for a while now, I’ve been using some of the “meme-tracker” websites — the most notable being tech.memeorandum.com.

A meme-tracker is, basically, a quick way of seeing what the big stories are in the internet world that day. The site does some nifty behind the scenes work of tracking a bunch of big sites, looking to see what stories are being linked to, and as more people link to/talk about a story, it shows up on the site. It’s kind of an easy way of looking at the big stories in a particular space (tech.memeorandum.com being technology, the original memeorandum.com being politics).

The man behind memeorandum created a baseball meme-tracker called ballbug.com. Ballbug is a nifty little site, where you can pop in and see a snapshot of what other folks are writing about. In one quick swoop, you can get a nice high level look into baseball for the day, with the ability to drill down a bit further.

There’s just one problem — baseball is already subdivided into 30 separate interest groups. They’re called teams. That fact tends to mean that the baseball blogosphere is already pretty well divided and insulated. There’s going to be just one or two interesting things for each team, each day (generally, a game or an injury). So, you can scan, see the big news, and drill down further … but because there’s not a lot of cross-pollination (we’re not linking to a whole lot of Bronx Banter posts …. yet), there’s not really any “big” stories. Each story is big only to the people in its area of interest.

Striketwo.net is another baseball meme-tracker. I’ve been using it for the past few weeks to help pick out stories for the “News from Around the League” posts I’ve been doing (which will be back, I promise, since I know how much you all *loved* them). It’s a nice tool, but it’s main page has the same problem that Ballbug has: there’s so little cross-pollination that there’s no convergence around big stories; instead, there’s just a big grouping around a game story or injury. Now, that will probably change if there’s a huge baseball story (Bonds being indicted, or a big steroid suspension), but even on a big day like Jackie Robinson Day, there’s just not a lot of commonality in the baseball blogosphere.

But … that’s not the end of striketwo.net’s talents. The greatest feature on the site is unique to striketwo.net, and the reason that it outshine’s Ballbug. It’s the Player Tag Cloud feature, and it’s fantastic. A tag cloud is used to give you a quick insight into which terms are being used most often. The larger the usage, the bigger the tag in the cloud (take a look, it’s easy to figure out). Striketwo.net has a tag cloud of player names. Each time a player is mentioned in a story, it gets tracked. Right now, Bronson Arroyo and Barry Bonds have both been mentioned a bunch. Val Majewski, well, he’s got sort of a small tag. There’s some team bias here: more folks write about the Red Sox and Yankees, so they get more mentions. But, it’s not so bad that it removes the usefullness of the tool.

This goes a level deeper. The tag cloud isn’t just used to see how often a player is mentioned. When you click on that player name, you’re dropped into a list of items that have referenced the player in recent days. It’s an incredibly useful feature, and something I find myself using often. Oh … did I mention you can get an RSS feed of a player? So, you want to know everytime someone writes something about Nook Logan? Or Kevin Youkilis? Just click on their name and snag the RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader (if you need more info on RSS, maybe start here).

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, our fair site is tracked by striketwo.net. But we pretty much have zero influence. So this wasn’t done in any way to make ourselves appear bigger. The nature of a tool like striketwo.net is that one blog/site/person can’t game the system. Now, if you linked to this article on your site (and they told two friends, and they told two friends … ), then this would pop up on striketwo.net. That’s how it works–the more folks that link to something, or discuss a common issue, the more likely that it’ll vault up to the top of the home page.

We’re a couple of weeks into the season, and that’s given me a few weeks to use striketwo.net. I’ve found it incredibly useful, and useful enough that I thought I would spread the gospel a bit. Head on over and poke around a bit … and drop us a comment to let us know what you think. Or, take advantage of the striketwo technology–write your own review of striketwo, link it here, and watch the discussion get picked up.

Technology is pretty great sometimes.

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By Mullet, 4/11/2006 6:21 am

Cubs Sign Lee to $65mm Extension

Apparently the new hotness is signing 30 year old 1B sluggers to huge long term contracts. Lee’s deal is for a little bit more than Ortizzle’s, which is fair, given that he’s a legit Gold Glove defender at 1B. His track record isn’t quite the track record of David Ortiz, but Derrek Lee was a pretty great player even before the hugeness of last season.

Now let’s just wait and see what Albert Pujols gets the next time his deal is up.

Down Goes Chipper!

As discussed yesterday, Chipper Jones is hurt and the Braves placed him on the DL. It’s not terribly surprising to see the 34 yo Jones injured. He’s back at 3B, which probably isn’t a huge savings in wear and tear on his body, and he’s now 3 seasons removed from his last relatively injury free year.

For you Braves fans, this means you get to see two weeks of Wilson Betemit. That’s really not as horrible as it sounds.

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By Mullet, 4/10/2006 6:20 am

A quick one this morning.

Cubs Extend GM Hendry

“We have all the confidence in the world that he’s capable of getting us to the World Series,” MacPhail said.

While Hendry did have the team within spitting distance of a World Series, I think the jury is largely out on whether or not he’s a good GM. On one hand, he’s acquired Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. On the other hand, he’s got Neifi Perez sucking up at-bats with Todd Walker up the middle, and gave up a some prospects and some money to fill 2/3rds of his OF with Juan Pierre and Jacque Jones.

My gut is that Hendry is one of those middle of the road GMs, competent enough to cover up his mistakes with the big money that the Cubs have to spend. Will he fix his gravest mistake by letting Dusty Baker move on?

Jones, Giles Hurt Against Giants

Neither is expected to be out for more than a couple of days, but even if they were, the Braves probably have two guys in A-ball who’d they call up and would hit ridiculously well for a month while Jones and Giles recovered. I think the entire Braves major league squad could fall into the hole at the “Springfield Mystery Spot” with Ozzie Smith and the minor leaguers called up would still perform well enough to make the playoffs. I don’t get it, but the Braves just don’t run out of talent.

Just keep them away from Ken Griffey and his grotesquely swollen jaw.

Reds Acquire Brandon Phillips for a “Whirrled Peas” Bumper Sticker and a Rick Cerrone Rookie Card

Actually, it was cash and a player to be named later. Possibly Rick Cerrone.

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By Mullet, 4/7/2006 6:45 am

Dickey Allows 6 HRs in 4 innings to Tigers

“If you look for positives, some of the homers were solos, but I’m really reaching,” Texas manager Buck Showalter said.

The scoring summary in this game is pretty great:
B Inge homered to left.
M Ordonez homered to left.
C Shelton homered to left.
C Shelton homered to left.
C Monroe homered to left, C Guillen scored.
M Thames homered to left.

The Rangers are thin on pitching with Adam Eaton on the DL, and newly acquired Robinson Tejeda in AAA. But I think it’s time to bring John Wasdin back up to the big club. Even “Way Back” Wasdin never gave up 6 bombs in 3.1 innings. It takes a special kind of pitcher to give up 2 homers an inning.

Gagne Out Indefinitely for Elbow Surgery

“I wouldn’t say that,” Johnston replied when asked if Gagne might miss the entire season. “After the surgeons get finished, there will be a timetable.”

That’s like a parent telling a child “Yes, after you finish your beets, there will be a timetable for us to go to Toys ‘R’ Us.” It ain’t happening.

Enjoy your tenure as GM, Mr. Colletti.

Rollins Hit Streak Over at 38 Games

Weak.

Ok, it was a pretty cool streak, especially given that he wrapped it across two seasons. But it hasn’t really helped the Phillies, and it’s somewhat inflated the value of Rollins, who’s more akin to Julio Lugo than he is to Miguel Tejada.

Since making his first trip to the All-Star game as a rookie, Rollins has been overshadowed by bigger-name shortstops such as Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Miguel Tejada and Nomar Garciaparra.

The overshadowed player here is Michael Young, who’s been just about as valuable as Miguel Tejada over the past two seasons, but folks continually seem to forget even exists.

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By Mullet, 4/6/2006 6:32 am

Griffey, Jr. Hits 537th HR, Moves to 12th All-time

Griffey passes Mantle (who’s one of his most comparable players) and continues to build on his already solid HOF case. Looking at his numbers, it’s strange to see a guy who peaked at age 23-24 (where he was unworldly), before settling into being simply great. I think Griffey’s actually going to lose some lustre with time, as his numbers, when you compare them to some of his contemporaries, weren’t the best in the league. He has continually been (until his recent spate of injuries) a fantastic hitter with the ability to play one of the toughest defensive positions. Now he’s a really good hitter and a horrible defender and badly needs to be traded to the AL where he can DH 3 or 4 times a week.

Elsewhere on the Reds …

Arroyo Strikes Out 7, Goes Deep in First Reds Win

Everyone knew the ball was gone long before it landed in the left-field seats, 403 feet away. Arroyo dropped his head and rounded the bases briskly, his shoulder-length hair flapping behind his helmet.

“I was in another world after hitting it out,” said Arroyo, who hadn’t hit one since high school.

Wily Mo Pena: 1 for 1, 1 2B, 1.000/1.000/2.000
Bronson Arroyo: 1 for 1, 1 HR, 1 BB, 1.000/1.000/4.000

Baseball is a strange game.

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By Mullet, 4/5/2006 6:40 am

Hanley Ramirez Goes 4 for 5 for Marlins
<boblobel>Why can’t we get guys like that?</boblobel>

In all seriousness, I really do think Hanley’s going to turn out to be a good player, I really wish we hadn’t had to give up he (and Sanchez) to get Beckett and his $9mm friend, and I wish that we had a SS on our roster who could hit. But I suppose it’s not long before Dustin Pedroia’s making some noise and they need to find a spot for him.

The Sports Guy Chronicles Opening Day (and I feel a little dumber for reading it …)

11:22 — You know, Michael Young’s 2005 batting title was kinda like “Shakespeare in Love’s” Oscar back in 1998 — I know it happened, but I’m not quite willing to accept it. Are we sure Ichiro didn’t win last season? We’re positive?

Yes – it is astounding that one of the two best offensive SS in baseball won a batting title.

We also learned from Remy that Crisp has the green light to steal whenever he wants. I always wondered how this works. Does Francona just send Crisp a “Yo, I forgot to tell you, you have the green light” e-mail? Does he call Crisp into his office and tell him? Does he quietly break the news during a baserunning meeting? Do other players get jealous that Crisp has the green light? Is this roughly the equivalent of giving your wife carte blanche on your credit card, when you eventually learn to regret it? I need more info.

And now my brains are officially bleeding out of my ears.

I hope this didn’t sound too harsh. I generally like Simmons, particularly when he’s writing about the NBA (but not about the Celtics–he’s far too tight with some folks there to be objective or rational). But, over the past few seasons, when he writes about baseball, he’s not “joe fan”. He’s “obnoxious joe fan who sits behind you in the bleachers and thinks its funny to make French jokes about Jacque Jones because his name is Jacque and Jacque is French and it’s FUNNY! and he’s drunk and now he fell down the stairs at Fenway and knocked over some little kid and here comes security and ooh look shiny!”

Nomar to the DL, Loney Up

It feels better today, which is good,” said Garciaparra. “Everybody who’s been around this kind of injury says that one swing and you could take a thousand steps backward. We can knock it out now and get healthy so it won’t linger the whole year. I believe it will be only a two-week thing.

Sorry Nomar. I love you in a manly way, but, at this point, I don’t think you’d shake a hangnail in less than a month.

In a very timely way, I’m currently reading the Steroids chapter in Baseball Prospectus’ book: Baseball Between the Numbers (which is just fantastic and makes you realize more how much of a bag of crap Mind Game was–I will not link to that book, as I don’t want to encourage anyone to read it). One of the nice points that’s brought up is that steroids won’t necessarily help players get better, as the increased muscle mass can bring about a reduction in flexibility and an increase in injuries.

I don’t know whether or not Nomar juiced. But he certainly worked hard to change his body type to become more muscular, and I don’t think there’s a doubt he reduced his flexibility. It cost him defensively in the field, and it’s cost him with a long stretch of nagging injuries that have moved him from a first ballot Hall of Famer to a second or third ballot Hall of Famer (but yes, I still think he’ll get in and be deserving, if he can have another one or two productive seasons). Sad.

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By Mullet, 4/4/2006 9:00 am

I’m going to try and pull together interesting news from around baseball each day, and mix it with some snarky commentary (when possible … there are things even I can’t snark about). I’ll probably use some fun tools like the newly released Ballbug, old fave del.icio.us, and maybe mix in some Technorati.

Lackey Signs 3-year Deal with Angels

Lackey will get $3.01 million this year with a $1 million signing bonus. He will make $5.5 million in 2007, $7 million in 2008 and can make between $9 million and 10.5 million in the 2009 option year depending on incentives. The Angels also hold a $500,000 buyout for 2009.

This is a pretty good deal for the Angels on a pitcher who’s only 27 and took a huge step forward last year (increasing his K rate to 8.56/9 and dropping his HR rate to .56/9). He’s cheap for 2 years, and if he performs reasonably well, it makes the latter 2 season of his deal that much more palatable. No snark here.

Pirates Give Littlefield 1 Year Extension

The Pirates and general manager Dave Littlefield agreed Monday to a one-year contract extension through 2008, the second time in three seasons he got a new deal on opening day.

Pittsburgh has gone through 13 straight losing seasons. Littlefield was hired on July 13, 2001, and the Pirates are 314-407 since then.

Is there better job security than being GM in Pittsburgh? Cam Bonifay sucked for years and got to keep his job even through “Operation Shutdown.” Maybe Jack Wilson can threaten “Operation No-hit.”

At least Nate McLouth made the roster. I picked him out as my fave minor leaguer a couple of seasons ago, and now he’s my fave player on the best minor league team in all of baseball (the Pirates, of course).

Rollins Continues Hit Streak in Last AB

Down eight runs with four outs left, Jimmy Rollins wasn’t looking for a walk with his hitting streak on the line.

Rollins is a slacker. A real man would have continued his hit streak in his first at-bat. None of these last at-bat shenanigans. Besides, if Rollins was a real man, he would have stepped into pitch for Phils, since Jon Lieber apparently forgot how.

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By Mullet, 4/3/2006 6:14 am

I’m going to take a slightly different bent on this preview, so bear with me. Let me get the basics out of the way.

St. Louis Cardinals
2005: 100-62 1st in the NL Central, defeated the San Diego Padres (3-0) in the NLDS, lost to the Houston Astros (4-2) in the NLCS

Projected Lineup
SS David Eckstein
2B Junior Spivey
3B Scott Rolen
1B Albert Pujols
CF Jim Edmonds
RF Juan Encarnacion
LF Larry Bigbie
C Yadier Molina

Projected Rotation
Cris Carpenter
Mark Mulder
Jeff Suppan
Jason Marquis
Sidney Ponson

Projected Closer
Jason Isringhausen

Chicago White Sox
2005: 99-63 1st in the AL Central, defeated the Boston Red Sox (3-0) in the ALDS, defeated the Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim) (4-1) in the ALCS, defeated the Houston Astros (4-0) in the World Series

Projected Lineup
CF Scott Podsednik
2B Tadahito Iguchi
DH Jim Thome
1B Paul Konerko
RF Jermaine Dye
C A.J. Pierzynski
3B Joe Crede
SS Juan Uribe
CF Brian Anderson

Projected Rotation
Mark Buehrle
Freddy Garcia
Jose Contreras
Jon Garland
Javier Vazquez

Projected Closer
Bobby Jenks

The only thing that can stop the Cardinals from winning the NL Central and being the favorite to win the NL is Father Time. He’s approaching, and approaching fast, but I think he’s probably a year off.

That’s what I said last season about the St. Louis Cardinals, and I think that was about as accurate as one can get in a prognostication. The Cardinals cruised to their second straight 100+ win season, and lost a competitive NLCS to an Astros team that was simply on fire.

Couple that with a likely improved staff (upon the return of the injured Buehrle) and I think that’s a recipe for a couple game improvement. 85 wins probably won’t be enough to win the division, especially with every other team in the AL Central arguably improved, but this team is good enough to take the Central should the Twins slip.

On the other hand, they’re managed by Ozzie Guillen. Maybe I should reverse that 85 and 77.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as accurate on my analysis of the White Sox. They outperformed my prediction by a full 14 wins, and Ozzie Guillen was pretty much the consensus manager of the millenium, as he guided the Pale Hose to their first World Series victory since well before the elderly could recline in their Craftmatic adjustable beds (honestly – I’ve always just wanted to make a Craftmatic reference). The White Sox pitching staff was stellar and had one of the most dominating post-season performances in history.

So here we have two teams, the two teams with the best records in their leagues, with GMs of differing reputations. Walt Jocketty is, for the most part, considered to be a solid GM. Not the most inventive guy, but good enough to use the resources he has to put together teams that are consitently good (they’ve made the playoffs in 5 out of the last 6 seasons). Ken Williams was widely ridiculed (and quite often by me), considered to be a guy who didn’t get it, a guy who has a big market team that simply couldn’t get over the hump. When the going got rough, he got a new manager. Since he took over in 2001, the team had never finished with less than 81 wins, but never more than 86.

Then 2005 happened.

Everything came together for the White Sox. The small ball offense did enough to stay in games, while the pitching staff just shut down the opposition. When I say shut down the opposition, I mean it in about as dominating way as one can. The team ERA+ was 123. Just absolute domination.

Likewise, the St. Louis Cardinals dominated their opposition. The team ERA+ … also 123, just like the Pale Hose. The offense was less exciting than usual, as Scott Rolen spent most of the season on the sidelines, and only the great Albert Pujols had a full, healthy, stellar season. The entire starting outfield (Edmonds, Walker, Sanders) hit well–but none played an entire season. The Cardinals got by on their dominant pitching and it carried them to the NLCS where they ran into a team with more dominant pitching.

So, 2005. Two teams, two dominant staffs, the clear cream of their leagues. What would 2006 hold for them? What would Jocketty and Williams do to help get their teams over the hump?

Oddly enough, it would be Ken Williams who would do the most. Walt Jocketty stood back. He let Matt Morris leave–not a huge loss given Morris’ recent performance, but he replaced him with Sidney Ponson and Anthony Reyes. Reyes will be good, and good soon, but there’s not a whole lot of room for error there, given the variability in pitching from year to year and the injury histories of Mark Mulder and Cris Carpenter. Gone from the dominant pen are Al Reyes, Ray King, and Julian Tavarez. In their stead? Braden Looper, Ricardo Rincon, and Josh Hancock. It’s tough to project bullpens, and the Cardinals did get younger, but I think it’s a safe bet the bullpen will be less successful in 2006.

Jocketty lost Walker to retirement, and Sanders to KC. He replaced them with Larry Bigbie and Juan Encarnacion. Both are ok players. Neither has been, to this point in their careers, good enough to carry a corner outfield spot. Junior Spivey replaces Mark Grudzielanek at 2B. Again, the Cards got younger, but they didn’t get better. Overall, these three offensive additions probably net the Cards a net -50 runs. The only saving grace is the return of a healthy Scott Rolen, who at age 31, should still have something left to compete with David Wright as the best 3B in the NL. This is a team that, at best, is probably a treaded water (and likely lost 25-50 runs offensively and defensively). In the newly hyper-competitive NL Central, that might not be enough to keep the Cards on top. Or certainly not on top for very long.

Ken Williams could have sat back and reaped the rewards of a World Series victory. He could have sat there, knowing that his team probably wasn’t as good as their record said, and let 2006 take its course, secure in his position as the man who brought a title to Chicago. He didn’t. He traded away fan favorite Aaron Rowand, bringing in Jim Thome to take bats at DH. He traded for Javier Vazquez to replace the weak link in the pitching staff (Orlando Hernandez) and make a formidable pitching staff more formidable.
Not many GMs would trade away the starting CF and a starting pitcher from a World Series winning club. But Williams did what needed to be done to make his team better and take advantage of some of the new revenue headed to the Sox. With Thome, the offense will be better and will not need to rely on nearly as much small ball to win. With Vazquez, the White Sox still have the best pitching in the league, and now have Brandon McCarthy ready to step in when needed, should someone get hurt or fall apart. The White Sox still won’t score 1000 runs, but they’ll score 800.

You have to figure on some regression on the part of both pitching staffs. If the Cards staff regresses much at all, the offense won’t be there to pick up the slack. Similarly, if the Sox staff regresses, the offense won’t be there to carry it, but it will be enough to keep them above water (whereas last season, they would have drowned). Two teams, seemingly moving in opposite directions, but are in similar situations in recent history. Fittingly, they’ll have similar records:

St. Louis Cardinals
Projection: 92-70

Chicago White Sox
Projection: 92-70

Comments (3)

By Mullet, 3/31/2006 8:12 am

Much like Sully did earlier, I’ll be throwing in double duty on two teams who probably don’t deserve such short shrift, but I can’t bring myself to get energized to type much more about them.

Baltimore Orioles
2005: 74-88 4th in the AL East

Projected Lineup
2B Brian Roberts
C Ramon Hernandez
3B Melvin Mora
SS Miguel Tejada
DH Javy Lopez
RF Jay Gibbons
LF Jeff Conine
1B Kevin Millar
CF Nick Markakis

Projected Rotation
Rodrigo Lopez
Erik Bedard
Kris Benson
Daniel Cabrera
Bruce Chen

Projected Closer
Chris Ray

Outlook
Honestly, this team isn’t that bad. Sure, they’ve got Kevin Millar, Jeff Conine, and Nick Markakis starting (since I’m assuming even the O’s are smart enough not to start Corey Patterson). If it’s not rookie phenom Markakis, it’ll be Luis Matos who, when healthy, is a pretty mediocre hitter–but he might be just mediocre enough to make up for it with his glove. Kevin Millar is also a pretty mediocre hitter–but he plays 1B where being mediocre is a crime. The sooner the O’s can get Javy Lopez to 1B, and anyone to DH, they’ll be better off. Jeff Conine, at 40, is pretty much the same hitter he’s always been. He’s upped his OBP a bit to compensate for the decrease in his SLG, but he’ll give you average performance for 400 ABs a season. That’s not necessarily what you want out of a corner OF, but he’s just a placeholder for Val Majewski.

The rest of the offense is really pretty good. Mora’s late career bloom has been a pretty great thing to watch, and it was funny when he sold his octuplets to the circus. Miguel Tejada is one of the two best SS in baseball. Brian Roberts, before he got the super contacts, was a pretty crappy little player. Then he became superman. I’m betting on something in between. Gibbons, Lopez, Hernandez … these are all guys who aren’t holes in your lineup. It’s a thin team, but they’ll score enough runs to be competitive.

The question: Can the pitching staff keep them in games?
The answer: I have absolutely no clue.

Rodrigo Lopez saw a drop in his K rate, and a spike in his ERA. He’s probably a little better than he showed last season. Chen, Cabrera, and Bedard are all starters who’ve got pretty good stuff, but iffy control, and that tends to cause some variance in their performance. The O’s acquired newly single Kris Benson to fill out their rotation–and he fits in nicely in the “good stuff, iffy control, mediocre performance” staff they’ve created. They let B.J. Ryan walk to Toronto, but youngster Chris Ray looks like a good facsimile.

The Orioles will go as far as their big off-season acquisition carries them. If Leo Mazzone can turn this staff into Atlanta north, this team might be good enough to win 85 games–even in the AL East. If Leo Mazzone turns out a staff that looks like last year’s staff, well, they might get passed by the Devil Rays.

The upshot is that, win or lose, there is a good chance they’ll all get a chance to ride the Anna Benson Express.

Prediction: 74-88 (yes, the same as last season)

Arizona Diamondbacks
2005: 77-85 2nd in NL West

Projected Lineup
CF Eric Byrnes
SS Craig Counsell
LF Luis Gonzalez
RF Shawn Green
3B Chad Tracy
1B Conor Jackson
C Johnny Estrada
2B Orlando Hudson

Projected Rotation
Brandon Webb
Orlando Hernandez
Miguel Batista
Russ Ortiz
Claudio Vargas

Projected Closer
Jose Valverde

Outlook
Is it ok to say I hate this franchise? Other than defeating the Yankees, there’s nothing to like about this franchise. They continually suck, their previous management went about building a team in about the most annoying and dishonest way possible (well, this side of Wayne Huizenga), and they made me look stupid last year, even though I predicted Russ Ortiz would be the worst FA signing ever.

It looks like the Dbacks are trying to change things, brining in Josh Byrnes and some of the recent Sox braintrust. On the other hand, it also looks like Byrnes is content to punt this season. His outfield is probably the worst defensive outfield in baseball. I guess that’s not so bad given that most of the balls heading towards the fence in this park, against this pitching staff, are going to be going over the fence not landing in front of it. Green and Gonzalez are both aging, oft-injured players who are rapidly descending into averageness and beyond. Eric Byrnes is already beyond average. He’s crap. Chad Tracy and Conor Jackson at the corners could be a very nice thing for the Snakes, assuming Tracy is for real (he’s not) and Jackson develops (he will). Craig Counsell might be the worst all around SS in baseball, complemented by Orlando Hudson, whose range beyond 2B is the only thing that will keep Brandon Webb from killing himself.

Speaking of Webb, the pitching staff is a weird amalgam talented youngish pitchers (Webb, Vargas) and older, not as talented pitchers (Hernandez, Batista). And Russ Ortiz, the single worst FA signing in the history of baseball (worse than Chan Ho Park, because Park’s signing came when teams were still not paying attention to statistics — everyone knew that Ortiz sucked). Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh towards Ortiz, but in my defense, he did kill my great uncle in a circus accident.

The only reason to pay attention to Arizona is to watch when they give up and start playing Drew, Upton, and the rest of their stellar prospects. I’m betting July.

Prediction: 70-92

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By Mullet, 3/26/2006 10:56 pm

San Francisco Giants
2005: 75-87 3rd in the NL West

Projected Lineup
CF Randy Winn
2B Ray Durham
LF Barry Bonds
RF Moises Alou
1B Lance Niekro
3B Pedro Feliz
SS Omar Vizquel
C Mike Matheny

Projected Rotation
Jason Schmidt
Matt Morris
Noah Lowry
Matt Cain
Brad Hennessey

Projected Closer
Armando Benitez

Outlook
This is a tough team to project. Last season, the Giants were pretty bad. They had the second worst offense in the National League (actually, second worst in all of baseball). Even in SBC Park, that’s not a good thing. Of course, the Giants were without their best player for all but about 50 plate appearances last season. The offense was lead by Ray Durham and Moises Alou, the only two players to put up above average lines in near-full seasons of action (Randy Winn had a fantastic half-season after arriving from Seattle). But, what can you expect when exactly one player in your regular lineup is under the age of 30 (and said player, Jason Ellison, is looking like he might be a 5th outfielder this season).

Brian Sabean has an age issue. He likes, let’s say, mature offensive players. When healthy, this lineup of mature, finely aged players will score runs. However, how often will the lineup of 41 yo Bonds, 39 yo Alou, 39 yo Omar Vizquel, 35 yo Mike Matheny, and 34 yo Ray Durham actually be healthy? How often will they be able to play in long stretches of back-to-back games without taking a night off? When you’re offense depends on contributions from Mike Matheny (.242/.295/.406), Omar Vizquel (.271/.341/.350), and Pedro Feliz (.250/.295/.422), does it matter?

This offense comes down to one player, and one player alone: Barry Bonds. This team is dependent on one player, and one player alone: Barry Bonds. Brian Sabean’s legacy as a GM is dependent on one player … well, you get the picture. The Giants will go as far as Bonds’ reportedly acne-scarred back will take them. If he stays healthy, has 500 PA, and doesn’t get suspended, the Giants will probably add 100 runs to their 2005 total, just from Bonds alone! In 2004, Barry Bonds created 184 runs in a near full-season of action. In 2005, Michael Tucker and Jason Ellison created 70 runs combined. A normal Bonds season should easily double their production. A normal Bonds is probably a 10-win swing – he’s normally a 12-15 WARP-type player; Ellison and Tucker were worth roughly 3 WARP. Even just an average Bonds season is probably worth at least 5 wins to the Giants.

There are only a couple of changes to the Giants offense, Bonds aside. Randy Winn is back for a full season, and hopes to build on the amazing performance he put up after arriving from Seattle (a Bonds-like .359/.391/.680). He’s stretched a bit in CF, but his bat is more than enough to carry the position, even if he doesn’t hit as well as he did last season. Sabean fulfilled his old player off-season acquisition quota by getting Steve Finley to be the 4th OF. Finley sucked last season (to put it mildly), and at 41, isn’t a good bet to bounce back. Jason Ellison lurks behind, waiting for one of the decrepit outfielders to break a hip or choke on metamucil. Finally, 1B has been given to Lance Niekro, who sadly, does not throw knucklers around the diamond. Niekro had a somewhat disappointing 2005, and at 27, has got to breakout, or fear losing the position to prospect Travis Ishikawa at some point in the next season or so.

Suprisingly, for a front office that eschews first round picks by signing crappy free agents, the Giants have put together a fairly good young crop of pitchers. Noah Lowry is the 3rd starter in name only, as he was the best starter on the team last season, and doesn’t look to be slowing down. He’s now got about 270 IP under his belt at age 25, and saw his K/9 rate spike up to just over 7 last season. That spike came with a small spike in his BB/9 rate as well, which is the only knock on his record. But, having a high walk rate is something a pitcher can generally get away with in SBC Park. With a small increase in his control, Lowry’s looking like a solid anchor for the Giants rotation.

If Lowry is the ace in practice, Jason Schmidt is the ace in name. Coming back from an injury, Schmidt might finally be showing some wear and tear on his well-used arm. His walk rate increased to an alarming 4 per 9 innings, which is simply too high to be effective. Like Lowry, if Schmidt can increase his control a tiny bit, he’ll be infinitely more valuable to the team. The Giants big off-season acquisition is former Cardinal Matt Morris. Morris is a fairly predictable pitcher. He won’t strike a lot of guys out, but he also won’t walk a ton, and he’ll probably be 5-10% better than your average pitcher. His numbers should look ok in San Francisco, and he’s definitely an improvement on Brett Tomko. The staff is rounded out by youngsters Matt Cain and Brad Hennessey, both of whom saw action last season. Neither looked stellar, but Hennessey should throw about 200 league average innings, which is pretty darn good for a cost controlled guy at the end of your rotation. Matt Cain is a stud and is projected as the future ace of this rotation. It remains to be seen whether or not he’s ready for that label, but he’s ridiculously young and has pretty well proven himself in the minors at this point.

Armando Benitez was injured much of last season, and when healthy, was his normal scary self. Still, he’s talented enough to be an effective anchor for the bullpen. Along with Benitez are veterans Jeff Fassero, Tim Worrell, and Steve Kline. At this point in their careers, none of these guys are great bets to be anything more than passable arms. Tyler Walker was last season’s Benitez insurance, and performed similarly, right down to the scary walk rate and ability to give up bombs even in limited action. The only young arm with any upside in the bullpen is Scott Munter, but his peripherals are awful. His saving grace is being a groundball pitcher in a pitcher’s park. Unfortunately for Munter, he’s now inducing groundballs into a defense that is the combined age of the Golden Girls.

If healthy, as ancient as they are, this team will win somewhere in the neighborhood of 88 games, which might be enough in the NL West. If this team loses Bonds, Winn, Durham, or Alou for any significant period of time, they’ll win 75 games again, and be looking up at everybody but the Diamondbacks and Rockies.

Prediction: 85-77

Top 10 Prospects
1.Matt Cain RHP
2.Merkin Valdez RHP
3.Eddy Martinez-Esteve OF
4.Travis Ishikawa 1B
5.Marcus Sanders 2B
6.Daniel Griffin RHP
7.Jonathan Sanchez LHP
8.Kevin Frandsen 3B
9.Nate Schierholtz OF
10.Pablo Sandoval 3B

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By Mullet, 3/21/2006 8:00 am

Washington Nationals
2005: 81-81 5th in the NL East

Projected Lineup
Disgruntled Alfonso Soriano
2B Jose Vidro
CF Ryan Church
1B Nick Johnson
RF Jose Guillen
3B Ryan Zimmerman
C Brian Schneider
SS Christian Guzman

Projected Rotation
Livan Hernandez
John Patterson
Ramon Ortiz
Brian Lawrence (injured) / Tony Armas, Jr.
Ryan Drese

Projected Closer
Chad Cordero

Outlook
Jim Bowden strikes again. Washington had a nifty little team, a little thin on pitching, but with some offensive potential (if they could ever rid themselves of the black hole known as Christian Guzman). Hot prospect Ryan Zimmerman hit a godly .397/.419/.569 in a late season 58 AB stint and looks ready for the full time job at 3B. Jose Vidro and Brian Scheider remain some of the better hitters at their respective positions. Jose Guillen hit well enough to play full time in a corner, and even better, didn’t assault anyone (that we know of). Ryan Church came up and hit well in a half-season stint, well enough to play the other corner and not hurt the team. Nick Johnson stayed healthy (for the most part) and finally had that 850+ OPS/15 HR season folks have been waiting for.

Unfortunately for Nationals fans, Brad Wilkerson had a bit of a down year in CF. Not a bad year, but he just didn’t put the ball in play enough, and his rate stats suffered. It looked like a flukey bad year, and certainly not a sign that he wasn’t fit to hold down a job for the Nats.

Well, Wilkerson isn’t toolsy enough for Jim Bowden. So he went and traded Wilkerson (and more) for Alfonso Soriano. Second baseman Alfonso Soriano. Where the Nationals already have stalwart Jose Vidro. Bowden said Soriano would play the outfield, even though Soriano has always fought against that idea. There’s no doubt that Soriano can hit. There’s also no doubt that he’s an awful 2B. But, he wants to play 2B and he’s shown no signs of agreeing to move elsewhere. “No worries,” said Bowden, “we’ll make it work.”

Yesterday, March 20th, Soriano was slotted into his first spring game after the WBC. He was in the lineup to bat leadoff and play LF. He refused to take the field, and now Bowden is talking about putting him on the disqualified list (or attempting to trade him). Trading him is probably the best option, except teams are going to rape Bowden like he’s Beecher in Oz. Everyone knows the Nationals need to move him, why pay full price?

Bowden’s folly in making this deal leaves the team hurting a bit. The team’s now looking at starting one of Dos Marlons (Marlon Anderson or Marlon Byrd), neither of whom is a particularly good hitter. The Nationals will still be starting the completely useless Guzman at SS, and now a mostly useless Marlon brother in LF. This team simply doesn’t have the offensive power to handle the loss of Wilkerson and Soriano, especially given that they scored only 639 runs in 2005 (I said they were a nifty team, not a great one).

The pitching staff is similarly thin. Livan Hernandez is a freak. He’s probably a better hitter than some of the folks the Nationals have on the bench. He also just keeps throwing about 250 innings of league average pitching every year. He’s helped significantly by his park (which kills offense like Lil Jon kills good hip hop), but he’s also helped by the fact that he’s fat and seems to never tire. I’ve given up trying to figure him out. John Patterson broke out with a solid season in 2005, and his peripherals give one hope that he’ll be able to produce similar numbers this season. He’s only 28 and there’s a chance that Patterson could quietly become one of the tier 1 / 1.5 type guys in the National League.

Here’s where the wheels fall off a bit. Ramon Ortiz is the 3rd starter, but he’s about 4 seasons removed from his last really good season, and is also about 4 years older than his listed age. Removing RFK from the situation, Ortiz is a good bet to suck and suck bad. Brian Lawrence would be one of the best #3 or 4 starters in the NL, and was a steal for Vinny Castilla, except he’s hurt and won’t pitch for a good while. That means Ryan Drese makes the starting rotation. Ryan Drese pitched OK at home, and awful everywhere else. He’s a bad pitcher. Bad. He’s not going to last the season, and will likely lose some starts to Sunny Kim/Zach Day/Jon Rauch. Washington fans, be excited! Finally, Tony Armas, Jr. (the second player in the major leagues to have four body parts in his name) rounds out the staff. He was bad last season, is always hurt, and has simply stopped striking anyone out. There’s a chance he could rebound, but it’s minute and it doesn’t matter since he’ll probably be hurt by May 3rd or so.

There’s a bright spot for Washington: Chad Cordero. He’s 24, strikes guys out, doesn’t walk many, and takes advantage of his home park to put up ridiculously filthy numbers. Even park adjusted, his numbers easily rank amongst the best in baseball. He won’t save 47 games again, not for this team, but if used wisely by Frank Robinson, could help keep this wretched pitching from being deplorable. The rest of the bullpen is similarly solid. Gary Majewski, Luis Ayala, Joey Eischen, and Mike Stanton are all good to great relievers who will be asked to throw a lot of innings this year. Quite frankly, that’s probably a best case scenario for this team.

The Nationals overachieved last year, having a bizarrely good season when their numbers said they should have won about 77 games. The offense got worse, with the loss of Wilkerson, the potential loss of Soriano, and the non-loss of Guzman. The pitching got worse, with the loss of Brian Lawrence, and the addition of Ramon Ortiz and more innings from Ryan Drese.

Just think, Jim Bowden could have been our GM. Enjoy Washington!

Prediction: 72-90

Top 10 Prospects
1.Ryan Zimmerman 3B
2.Kory Casto 3B
3.Larry Broadway 1B
4.Brendan Harris 2B
5.Bill Bray LHP
6.Clint Everts RHP
7.Mike Hinckley LHP
8.Justin Maxwell OF
9.Daryl Thompson RHP
10.Collin Balester RHP

Comments (2)

By Mullet, 3/13/2006 7:50 am

Seattle Mariners
2005: 69-93 4th in the AL West

Projected Lineup
RF Ichiro Suzuki
C Kenji Johjima
LF Raul Ibanez
1B Richie Sexson
3B Adrian Beltre
DH Carl Everett
CF Jeremy Reed
2B Jose Lopez
SS Yuniesky Betancourt

Projected Rotation
Jamie Moyer
Jarrod Washburn
Joel Pineiro
Gil Meche
Felix Hernandez

Projected Closer
Eddie Guardado

Outlook
After turning into the AL’s version of Brian Sabean, collecting as many overpaid veteran players as he could muster, Seattle GM Bill Bavasi pretty much did a complete 180 in 2005. Sure, he kept around some of the older veteran players, but he handed over CF to 24 yo Jeremy Reed, SS to 23 yo Yuniesky Betancourt, and 2B to 21 yo Jose Lopez. Sure, all three of these players put up pretty abysmal lines, even adjusting for the offense-depressing design of Safeco Field. Reed’s line of .254/.322/.352 is almost palatable, given that he grew into his role of fly catcher in the outfield, but Lopez and Betancourt’s respective sub-.300 OBPs and sub-.380 SLG put them pretty close to replacement level talent (with VORPs of 1.5 and 2.7, respectively). There is some upside here—Lopez, Reed, and Betancourt are all young, they are cheap, and they are arguably all solid defensive players. Reed, in particular, is a good bet to improve some upon his mediocre offensive line, given that he’s been a pretty solid hitter throughout his collegiate and minor league years (his knock was always whether or not his glove was good enough for centerfield, not his bat). Given that Reed was the off-season poster child for up and coming centerfielders desired by other teams, he’s the most likely of the three to develop into a salvageable major league player. Neither Betancourt nor Lopez have great track records, or anything in their history to suggest they’re ever going to be much better than they are now, though, admittedly, Betancourt simply doesn’t have a track record. In the end, this Seattle youth movement is going to have to be carried by the other bats in the lineup: whether it’s 2 or 3 replacement level hitters, Bavasi is going to have to load up the rest of his lineup to compensate.

That’s exactly what Bavasi tried in 2005. He brought in Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre on huge contracts. One of them paid off. Sexson was worth almost 4 times as much as Beltre was last season, putting together a season that probably ranked him amongst the top 30 hitters in baseball. And I give Bavasi credit for sticking with him, even as some of the Seattle faithful balked at his AL-leading 167 Ks. Beltre, on the other hand, played like he had a fork sticking out of his back, which is odd given that he was only 26 yo. Beltre’s 2005 fits much better into his overall career than his 2004 season did, so, in reality, Bavasi got what he paid for. If you’re keeping track at home, we’re now up to four regulars in the Seattle offense putting up below league average offense. Let’s make it five, as catcher was a black hole all season. Literally a black hole, sucking out the offensive talent of anyone who came near the position. Bavasi used much of the money I’ve paid to Nintendo over the years (Mario Kart is like crack) to bring in Kenji Johjima, the latest Japanese import. Johjima has shown some tremendous power in Japan, mixed with a good contact rate and iffy plate patience. It’s impossible to say how he’ll do in the US, but it is also impossible for him to be as bad as the catcher spot was last season. There’s no doubt this is an ugprade, and, if Johjima follows the Ichiro/Hideki Matsui route, he could be among the top 3 catchers in baseball. If he follows that Kaz Matsui route, he’ll still be better than what the Mariners had last season. So it’s win-win for Seattle fans.

Bavasi’s first big free agent acquisition was Raul Ibanez, something I was ridiculously critical of, as Ibanez was heading into his 32 yo season after about a season and a half of 115 OPS+ after an entire career of suckitude. Well, Bavasi had it right, as Ibanez has been ridiculously consistent at DH/LF/1B for the Ms. He’s not a great player, but he’s an offensive value for a team that is not deep and really needs players who can hold their own with the bat. Bavasi’s recent big free agent acquisition is noted dino-non-believer Carl Everett. It’s impossible not to be riveted by Everett, as he is certifiably insane. Everett is going to play the role of DH/backup OF. He’s probably not going to hit enough to be a valuable asset, but again, the Mariners need all the offense they can muster, and Everett is an improvement over what they had last season, even if he’s barely average at this point in his career. Now, this is a spot where Bavasi could have continued the youth movement, with either Chris Snelling or Shin-soo Choo taking over in LF and Ibanez continuing at DH, but Snelling has this issue where he can’t stay healthy (I think because he’s Australian and he expects the water to flush the other way. He really needs a good “booting.”) and Choo might not have enough pop for a corner spot. Bavasi took flyers on Everett and also Matt Lawton (which is amusing, given the steroid issues in the Seattle organization). That’s a lot of depth to rotate through the DH/4th outfield spot, and that’s a smart move by Bavasi, who desparately needs to uncover offensive talent for his team.

Finally, there’s Ichiro. He’s really an impossible player to discuss. His approach at the plate makes him alternately more valuable and less valuable than his component numbers. He’s a super valuable fantasy player, with his high average and stolen bases, but might be less valuable to his offense (well, not the Seattle offense, but a real major league offense) due to his trading a lot of walks for singles. Ask ten people, and you’ll get ten answers about where he ranks among his peers. All I’ll say is that he’s the Mariners RF and easily their most valuable offensive player this side of Richie Sexson (and even some fans would argue that fact!)

All that discussion about a Mariner offense that scored 699 runs in 2005 (22nd in baseball!), and is probably on pace to add maybe 25 runs to that total in 2006? Well, what else would you talk about when talking about the Mariners? 90 year old Jamie Moyer? The mediocrity of Joel Pineiro? The suckicity of Gil Meche? The vastly overrated acquisition of Jarrod Washburn (always a good bet to implode, given his scarily low strikeout rates)? The surprisingly good, hard throwing bullpen with luminaries such as Eddie Guardado, Rafael Soriano, J.J. Putz, and Julio Mateo?

Oh wait. The Mariners have Felix Hernandez. “King Felix.” King Felix.

Felix Hernandez is everyone’s odds on favorite to win AL Rookie of the Year, or he would be, if he hadn’t already dominated AL batters for 80+ innings last season. He’s the modern day Dwight Gooden, a 19 yo pitcher who burst onto the seem with a smoking fastball and secondary pitches to match. Flawless mechanics, a track record that says that what he did in 2005 (2.67 ERA, 7.8 K/9, .5 HR/9) is exactly what we should expect from him, and a ballpark conducive to his pitching. Basically, Felix Hernandez is the next big thing. Strike that, he’s the current big thing. If there’s a single story to follow on the Mariners this season, it’s the progression of Felix Hernandez, who’ll turn 20 shortly after opening day, and will immediately become a Cy Young contender. He’s one of the players to watch in 2006, a reason to go to the ballpark, a reason to take a vacation to Seattle.

Basically, he’s pretty much the only thing standing between the Mariners and complete obscurity.

Prediction: 75-87

Top 10 Prospects
1.Jeff Clement C
2.Kenji Johjima C
3.Adam Jones OF
4.Clint Nageotte RHP
5.Chris Snelling OF
6.Asdrubal Cabrera SS
7.Shin-soo Choo OF
8.Yorman Bazardo RHP
9.Matt Tuiasosopo SS
10.Bobby Livingston LHP

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By Mullet, 3/5/2006 9:42 pm

Milwaukee Brewers
2005: 81-81 3rd in the NL Central

Projected Lineup
CF Brady Clark
2B Ricky Weeks
1B Prince Fielder
RF Carlos Lee
LF Geoff Jenkins
3B Corey Koskie
SS J.J. Hardy
C Damian Miller

Projected Rotation
Ben Sheets
Doug Davis
Chris Capuano
Tomo Ohka
Dave Bush

Projected Closer
Derrick Turnbow

Outlook
The Athletics, the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, the Indians, the DePodesta-led Dodgers. When people talk about the new era of sabermetrically-minded front offices, these are the teams that spring to mind. For my money, the Doug Melvin-helmed Brewers need to be added to that group. In fact, removing the taint of the Selig family from the proceedings for the moment, there might not be an organization that has put together a better model for building a contender in a smallish market. That’s the reason I’ve developed a man-crush on this team over the past few seasons.

Sure, it’s not all Doug Melvin. He came into a situation where he had a handful of great prospects, and he’s simply not screwed them up. This season, the big trio of Ricky Weeks, J.J. Hardy, and Prince Fielder should all hit the field opening day and herald the arrival of a new era in Milwaukee Brewer history. Three infielders, all 23 or younger, all pretty solid bets to be better than league average at their positions right now. There simply aren’t a lot of teams in baseball that can claim that, and then follow that up with a 26 yo super sub like Bill Hall, who can backup pretty much every spot in the infield while swinging a pretty decent stick. Neither Hall nor Hardy will be huge threats with the bat, but they look like they simply will be solid players who hit well enough to be amongst the top 10 or so at their position. Weeks and Fielder project to be better than that, both with 25+ HR potential and the ceilings to be amongst the top hitters at their positions. It’s an amazing core of position players, all coming together at the same time, under cost-control, something that is imperative for a small-to-mid-market team to compete in a division with the Astros, Cardinals, and Cubs.

Melvin made way for Fielder by dealing Lyle Overbay to the Blue Jays, and then picked up Corey Koskie to play across the diamond from him in a second deal with Toronto. Koskie was acquired fairly cheaply, really for nothing more than taking on his salary; that’s pretty easy to do when 75% of your starting infield is under the age of 23. Koskie is coming off a down year, but if healthy, is a pretty solid bet to give the team 800+ OPS, which would likely give the Brewers an entire infield of better than average hitters. Throw Damian Miller into the mix behind the plate (and try to find him a caddy to hit LHP), and the Brewers have a nice mix of youth and veteranicity, and a bunch of players who simply go out and hit the ball pretty well.

The outfield is exactly the same as it was last season, with Carlos Lee, Brady Clark, and Geoff Jenkins lined up left to right. In 2005, Lee did exactly what he’s done in odd years: hit a good bit of HRs (32) and get on base less than you like (.324). If his odd-even trend continues, the Brewers might actually get more out of Lee in 2006 than they did in 2005, as Lee has had a tendency to bounce back and put up better OBPs in even years than in odd. Should the Crew bet on that? Well, no, but the odd-even trend held up for the bulk of Bret Saberhagen’s career, so it’s fun to note. Geoff Jenkins is the Brewers longest tenured position player, and again had a nifty season in ’05, putting up a line of .292/.375/.513 and playing in 148 games. If healthy (and Jenkins has been healthy for 2 straight seasons), there’s no reason he won’t do the same in ’06. Brady Clark had a breakout season in 2005, a 32 yo getting his first consistent playing time and capitalizing by simply doing what you’d want a leadoff hitter to do: get on base. Clark’s not particularly speedy (10 SB in 23 attempts), but is a perfectly competent CF given his bat. If you want to bet on someone on this team to regress, it’d be Clark, but it’s hard to imagine him dropping too far from his ’05 performance. Gabe Gross (arriving in the Overbay trade) will backup the corners, where his defense is a plus but his stick is so poor that the Brewers will likely end up shuttling him off to AAA at some point. He’s not a good bet to stay on the roster. A better bet to stick around is another of the Brewers many prospects, 6’6” speedster Corey Hart. Hart put up a great line in Nashville last season (17 HRs, 31 for 38 SB, 900+ OPS) and walks enough that he should be a valuable part of the 2006 Brew Crew. With Hart, the Brewers will certainly “Never Surrender.” (Sorry, it is requisite to have at least one Corey Hart joke.)

With a developing offense that looks to be pretty solid and a good bet to improve on last season’s 726 runs, is the pitching a good bet to improve on it’s 697 runs allowed?

In a word: no.

That’s not to say they’re going to implode. I don’t think they will. A lot of things went right for the young, talented Brewers staff in 2005, and it’s not prudent to expect that things will go as swimmingly in ’06. That being said, this staff is solid top to bottom, is quite young, and has a good enough track record to build on last year’s numbers.

The starting rotation is anchored by Ben Sheets. Sheets is simply awesome when healthy, and if healthy, is a sleeper for the Cy Young. Doug Davis, possibly the best cheap acquisition in baseball over the past 5 seasons, is the #2 starter. He’s a lefty, he strikes out batters at a good clip (8.41 K/9, 7th in the NL), and has just been good for the past 2.5 seasons in Milwaukee. Chris Capuano came out of nowhere to put up great numbers last season, and is basically Doug Davis minus a few years. He’s lefty, was 15th in the NL in K/9, and if he can maintain his control, is a solid bet to throw another productive 200+ innings. The much travelled Tomo Ohka is a bit of a head case, but has been an effective starter at every single stop in his National League career. He does nothing particularly well, but four straight seasons of average production is hard to balk at in #4. The rest of the Overbay haul, David Bush, is your likely 5th starter, another young gun, with 200+ above-average career innings in the American League. Whereas Sheets, Davis, and Capuano have the peripherals to scare opposing lineups, Ohka and Bush are the bottom of the rotation guys who just throw 200 innings and get guys out. They’re not likely to be significantly better or worse than average, but knowing that you’ve got 400 average, cheap innings is a pretty fantastic thing for a team like the Brewers.

The Brewers stumbled into closer Derrick Turnbow, and all he did was shut down opposing lineups. A 1.74 ERA, and 64 K in 67 innings is a nice resume for the incumbent closer. Throw in Matt Wise (another K per inning reliever), young fireballers Jose Capellan (acquired for fellow bullpen returnee Danny Kolb in another Melvin steal) and Jorge de la Rosa, lefty youngster Dana Eveland, and successful veteran reclamation project Rick Helling, and you’ve got a bullpen that is young, but has a solid track record. This isn’t the greatest bullpen in the world, but given how difficult it is to project relievers from season to season, this bullpen has a lot of what smart GMs look for when building a pen: youth, strikeouts, and enough depth to rotate out the ineffective relievers.

2006 might be a season of change in the NL Central. The Cardinals look weaker than any point in the previous few seasons, the Cubs should be better than they were in ’05, but have a fragile starting rotation and the most insane manager this side of Jimy Williams. The Astros are rapidly aging, may or may not have Roger Clemens, and have ridiculous expectations after the great run last season. Throw in some randomness, some luck, and some health, and there’s simply no question in my mind that the Brewers could steal the NL Central outright. I don’t think ’06 is that year, but I do think that both a division title or Wild Card are distinct, non-remote possibilities. With the complete implosion of the Packers, folks in Wisconsin might want to look to Milwaukee for their new bright and shining hope for postseason play. And once the Bucks season is over, they can keep looking to Milwaukee to see if the Brewers can slide in the back door.

Prediction: 86-76

Top 10 Prospects
1.Prince Fielder 1B
2.Ryan Braun 3B
3.Corey Hart OF
4.Jose Capellan RHP
5.Dana Eveland LHP
6.Zach Jackson LHP
7.Nelson Cruz OF
8.Yovani Gallardo RHP
9.Mark Rogers RHP
10.Will Inman RHP

Comments (3)

By Mullet, 3/2/2006 2:50 pm

Toronto Blue Jays
2005: 80-82 3rd in the AL East

Projected Lineup
LF Frank Catalanotto
2B Aaron Hill
CF Vernon Wells
3B Troy Glaus
1B Lyle Overbay
DH Shea Hillenbrand
RF Alexis Rios
SS Russ Adams
C Bengie Molina

Projected Rotation
Roy Halladay
A.J. Burnett
Ted Lilly
Gustavo Chacin
Josh Towers

Projected Closer
B.J. Ryan

Outlook
2005 AL East Standings

That’s one hell of a dog fight for a division title. 3 teams within 2 games of 1st place? Wait? You don’t remember the Jays finishing that close with the Sox and Yankees?

Oops. Forgot a word in that table heading. It should read “2005 AL East Pythagorean Standings.” The Blue Jays underperformed their expected win total by a full 8 games. They were unlucky enough to do it in a year where both the Red Sox and Yankees outperformed their expectations by 5 games, making the division look significantly less competitive than it was in reality.

How does a team underperform its expectations by 8 wins? Well, one place to look is 1-run games. The Blue Jays were 16-31 in 1-run games, the worst in baseball. At least some portion of your won-loss record in 1-run games is just plain old luck. There’s also a hypothesis that teams with strong bullpens do well in 1-run games. Let’s take a look at how the Blue Jays bullpen stacked up in 2005:

Reliever ERA+ (greater than 50 IP):
Scott Downs – 103 (94 IP)
Pete Walker – 126 (84 IP)
Miguel Batista – 109 (74.2 IP)
Jason Frasor – 137 (74.2 IP)
Vinnie Chulk – 115 (72 IP)
Justin Speier – 173 (66.2 IP)
Scott Schoeneweis – 134 (57 IP)

Well, I don’t think the bullpen was an issue. The worst pitcher in the Blue Jays pen to pitch in more than 20 games was Scott Downs. He was about 3% better than league average. Downs, of course, started a bunch of games when Roy Halladay went down, so those numbers are skewed a bit. But still, there’s no way the Blue Jays bullpen was the weak link.

So how exactly did the Blue Jays end up performing so abysmally in 1-run games? The offense, while not great, still scored 775 runs, good for 5th in the AL. The pitching was very good, allowing only 705 runs. Defense, of course, is much harder to measure. Baseball Prospectus’ Defensive Efficiency had the Blue Jays 10th best in baseball. Even if you don’t buy into BP’s Efficiency stat, is hard to see how the Jays defense could be the culprit.

What it comes down to is that the Blue Jays had some really crappy luck, and they compounded it by having a criminally thin bench. The Jays really didn’t have anyone coming off the bench who was even a league average hitter in 2005. Purely from a non-statistical, “let’s rationalize why the Jays ended up 2 games under .500” point of view, relying on Eric Hinske, or Reed Johnson, or Frank Menechino to come up with a big hit in the late innings is simply foolish. Not because those players are somehow “unclutch” but because they’re just not very good in general.

So, J.P. Ricciardi took a bunch of money and decided he was going to make his team deeper. And he didn’t just do it on offense. David Bush’s league averageness is gone, replaced by the high-priced, but cannon-armed A.J. Burnett. Burnett easily becomes the Jays’ second best arm, and the Jays’ second starter who can actually get hitters to swing and miss. Ricciardi paid too much for Burnett, but in such a thin market, when Ricciardi made the right move. He overpaid for someone he thought would make a big difference, rather than spreading out money to a bunch of players who are easily replaceable with cheap, fungible talent. The same goes for Ricciardi’s other gift to Torontonians (Torontoites? Torotoniacs?), former Orioles’ closer B.J. Ryan. J.P. acquired A.J. and B.J. for a whole lot of money and periods, but if you’re going to overpay, at least get the best available talent. And that’s what he did.

Ricciardi also improved the offense. He picked up new 1B Lyle Overbay on the cheap from the Brewers, who were simply looking to make room for Prince Fielder. Bengie Molina was a late pickup, on a pretty reasonably priced 1 year deal for a catcher with a little bit of pop. The middle infield is anchored down by Aaron Hill and Russ Adams who’s batting lines seem basically interchangeable. Hill and Adams are both in the under-25 crowd, giving the Jays a keystone connection that might grow together for a few years until they’re FA-eligible. Assuming they follow normal growth patterns, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them both put up league average type numbers, which isn’t a bad thing for your middle infielders. The Jays’ outfield remains pretty much unchanged: Frank Catalanotto, Vernon Wells, and Alexis Rios. Catalanotto and Wells are both pretty good players; Rios isn’t. Unless the Jays start slotting in Greg Myers at DH (where gay-friendly Shea Hillenbrand is likely to reside), Rios will be the worst hitter in the lineup.

The best hitter in the lineup? That will be the Blue Jays other big acquisition of the winter, 3B Troy Glaus (complete with new and improved wife-horse-riding clause). Glaus is the best bat the Blue Jays have had since … well, since Carlos Delgado. This is an offense that should exceed the 775 runs they scored in 2005.

Better pitching. Better hitting. Why shouldn’t I just project the Jays to win 95 games and the AL East? “Well,” I say to myself, “this team is still highly dependent on slugging percentage. There are a whole lot of guys in the lineup who are out machines.”

And I’m right. The only two likely starters who’ll end up with OBPs above .350 are Troy Glaus and Frank Catalanotto. Everyone else is likely to fall between .300 and .340. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not a good thing either. It’s much harder to be a consistently good offense when you’re making a whole bunch of outs, especially since you only get 3 outs each inning, and 27 outs each game. It’s true, look it up.

There’s also the fact that the Blue Jays pitching staff is of the wily-variety, once you get past Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett. Gustavo Chacin is ripe for a hard regression in ’06, since he strikes out less than 2 batters for every one he walks. When you can’t strike anyone out, walk a bunch of batters, and give up a bunch of hits, it’s tough to project a good sophomore season for the Ugly One. Josh Towers doesn’t strike anyone out, but he doesn’t hurt himself with walks either. He probably won’t be as successful in ’06, but he shouldn’t completely implode. Ted Lilly, the last of the wily-triumverate, simply can’t pitch any worse than he did last season. It is an impossibility. The universe would simply cease to exist.

So, toss in a little regression, sprinkle in some new arms, and you’ve probably got a ptiching staff that’s a little better than last season.

Going with the WAG method (Wild Assed Guess), I think this team might be on a 800 runs scored, 700 runs allowed pace. That’d put the Jays right up around 90-92 wins. Right in the middle of the dogfight for the AL East title, just like last season.

If only Pythagoras were still alive …

Prediction: 90-72

Top 10 Prospects
1.Dustin McGowan RHP
2.David Purcey LHP
3.Ricardo Romero LHP
4.Josh Banks RHP
5.Ryan Patterson OF
6.Adam Lind OF
7.Casey Janssen RHP
8.Francisco Rosario RHP
9.Brandon League RHP
10.Curtis Thigpen C

Comments (4)

By Mullet, 2/27/2006 6:59 am

Texas Rangers
2005: 79-83 3rd in the AL West

Projected Lineup
LF David Dellucci
SS Michael Young
CF Brad Wilkerson
1B Mark Teixeira
3B Hank Blalock
DH Phil Nevin
RF Kevin Mench
2B Ian Kinsler
C Rod Barajas

Projected Rotation
Kevin Millwood
Adam Eaton
Vincente Padilla
Kameron Loe
Juan Dominguez

Projected Closer
Francisco Cordero

Outlook
Given ESPN’s non-stop coverage of the “overhaul” of the Boston Red Sox, the rise of the Toronto Blue Jays, and the attempt to maintain the crown by the New York Yankees, you’d think that maybe there’s little going on outside of the AL East. Rather quietly, the Texas Rangers had a rather impressive off-season, though it remains to be seen whether or not the new-and-improved Rangers are good enough to pass the Angels and Athletics … or whether they’re even good enough to win outside of the cozy confines of Ameriquest Field.

The biggest news from Arlington wasn’t the trade of Alfonso Soriano for Brad Wilkerson, but the announcement that wunderkind Jon Daniels was the new GM. Daniels set about to reform the Rangers in his mold, starting with the aforementioned trade of Alfonso Soriano. Soriano, a 30-30 threat with poor plate patience and pour(ous) defense, was blocking top 50 prospect Ian Kinsler, and isn’t exactly a favorite of the performance-analysis crowd. Showing an acumen rare in new GMs, Daniels knew exactly who to call: Jim Bowden. Bowden’s never been shy about his fondness for the toolsy players, and jumped at the opportunity to acquire Soriano (even though he didn’t have a position for him). Daniels was able to acquire solid CF Brad Wilkerson, who was admittedly coming off of a very down year, along with OF Termell Sledge. Wilkerson shores up what has been a weak spot for the Rangers, as Laynce Nix has simply never developed an offense to go along with his defense (not to mention his constant presence on the DL).

Daniels moved from his acquisition of Wilkerson straight onto fixing the Rangers’ achilles heel—starting pitching. He acquired started Vincente Padilla from the Phillies for a player to be named later. Daniels signed AL ERA champion Kevin Millwood, and traded aging prospect Adrian Gonzales (blocked by potential MVP Mark Teixeira), surprising young pitcher Chris Young, and the recently acquired Sledge for Padres starter Adam Eaton and reliever Akinori Otsuka. All of a sudden, the Rangers had at least the appearance of a real rotation to go along with their ever-present offense.

The trio of Millwood, Eaton, and Padilla isn’t going to strike fear in the hearts of opposing offenses, but it’s certainly better than trotting out a staff that had four pitchers make double-digit starts with ERAs greater than 5.50. Millwood is a bit of an enigma, but is generally going to give you 200 innings of above average pitching. Eaton has yet to hit league average production over a full season, but he’s still young (28) and he doesn’t have a lot of mileage on his arm. Padilla is two seasons removed from his last good season, but, again, he’s not Chan Ho Park. The rotation will be rounded out by youngsters Kameron Loe and Juan Dominguez, who had very successful auditions in late 2005. The staff actually runs a bit deeper, with R.A. Dickey (now throwing a knuckleball alongside the “Thing”), Joaquin Benoit, and even John Wasdin around to fill in for ineffective or injured starters. Things are certainly better in the starting pitching department than they were a season ago.

One suprising strength of the Rangers over the past few seasons has been its bullpen, though that wasn’t as true in ’05. With injuries (Frank Francisco) and ineffectiveness (Brian Shouse, Doug Brocail), the Rangers’ bullpen wasn’t much better than its starters. Still, they’re anchored by flamethrowing closer Francisco Cordero (37 saves and 79 Ks in 69 IP), and should see a positive bounce with the acquisition of Otsuka and the benefit of having some of the starting pitching depth adding some talent to the bullpen (Benoit and Wasdin were both fairly effective out of the pen in ’05). This pitching staff certainly isn’t as good as the As or the Angels, but it’s better than the staff that gave up 858 runs in 2005.

The Rangers hitters pound the crap out of the ball. Well, at home, at least. Away from Arlington, the team is much less scary. Things are looking up for Rangers fans—with Soriano gone to Washington, only Hank Blalock has a really amazingly bad home/away split. The rest of the Rangers hitters are certainly better at home than away, but not nearly with the serverity that the team has seen in recent seasons. The offense is paced by Michael Young and Mark Teixeira, two of the best young hitters at their positions in all of baseball. Young has likely moved into the top 3 SS in the AL, quite possibly passing Derek Jeter to trail only Miguel Tejada. Playing in Texas, with boppers like Teixeira and Blalock, Young has toiled in some obscurity, but he’s proven to be a quality ballplayer and has a chance to make some noise on the world stage in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Teixeira, he of the of the annoyingly difficult name to spell, had a breakout season in 2005, showing up all over the leader boards, winning a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger. Hank Blalock continues to hit like an All-Star at home (20 HRs, 895 OPS) and like Pokey Reese on the road (5 HR, 611 OPS). At age 25, and with three full seasons under his belt, he’s entering the time where he needs to become a complete player or the Rangers will likely start looking for a replacement. The infield is rounded out by rookie Ian Kinsler. Kinsler has put up solid offensive lines in the minors, and the Rangers have finally given him a chance to prove his worth at the major league level. It’s quite possible that the Rangers could have a double play tandem that will hit a combined 50 HRs, even without Alfonso Soriano. Rod Barajas bats 9th, catches the ball behind the plate, and hits 20 HRs. He doesn’t need to do much else to be one of the better offensive catchers in the AL (even if his career OBP is an anemic .278)

Across the outfield, the Rangers have Dave Dellucci, Brad Wilkerson, and Kevin Mench, with Gary Matthews playing the role of super 4th OF. Dellucci had a mini-breakout season at age 31. He’s one to expect some regression from, but he’s had back-to-back nifty seasons for Texas, so his regression to the mean might not be as hard a fall as some are expecting. Wilkerson has 35 HR potential in Texas, and if he can improve his contact rate at all, he’ll once again be a solid offensive player, given his high walk rate. If he’s healthy, he should easily produce as much as Soriano did, while giving the team better defense. Kevin Mench has found his niche: a poor fielder who hits for power and walks a bit, who would be better as a 4th outfielder but isn’t awful as a starter. The DH is Phil Nevin, who was god-awful last season, is now 35, and has always been fragile. Reports are that he’s come into camp in shape and looking great, but that’s what they always say about old players during spring training. If Nevin is particularly bad, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Dellucci moved to DH and Matthews moved into the starting lineup.

It’s hard to see how the Rangers could be worse than last season’s near .500 finish. They improved the pitching staff—not enough to win the division, but enough to be competitive. They lost Alfonso Soriano, but replaced him with two players (Wilkerson and Kinsler) who should replace his offense. Even with some regression from players like Dellucci, Barajas, and Matthews, this team is still a good bet to score 825-850 runs. It won’t be enough, but this will be a competitive team and a good, young base for Jon Daniels to build on.

Prediction: 82-80

Top 10 Prospects
1.John Danks LHP
2.Thomas Diamond RHP
3.Ian Kinsler SS
4.Eric Hurley RHP
5.Edison Volquez RHP
6.Taylor Teagarden C
7.Jason Botts 1B
8.Joaquin Arias SS
9.Armando Galarraga RHP
10.John Mayberry Jr. OF

Comments (3)

By Mullet, 2/25/2006 7:37 pm

Doing my daily baseball reading, I came across an optimal lineup generator that David Pinto of Baseball Musings had coded, based on a Perl script that Ken Arneson of Catfish Stew wrote, based on the work of Cyril Morong from Beyond the Box Score. Morong has taken Retrosheet data from ’89-’02 and ran a regression analysis to determine the coefficients for OBP and SLG for each lineup slot.

Got all that?

Then it turns out that BoSoxBob over at HireMeTheo ran the lineup analysis using the ZiPS projections from Baseball Think Factory. He found that the best lineup had Manny Ramirez second and Coco Crisp third. I’m guessing that’s pretty optimistic projection for Crisp (.303/.353/.448).

Well, given that I dork around in Perl most of the day for a living, and given that Ken Arneson did all the work already anyway, I figured I’d toss some Red Sox projections into the script and see what it spit out. Given that I’m partial to the heavily regressed Marcel the Monkey projections, I decided to use those. In the 2006 Marcels, Crisp’s line is a slightly more palatable (for my tastes, anyway) .293/.345/.439.

So … without futher ado … the optimal 2006 Boston Red Sox batting order!
Mark Loretta (.299/.371/.422)
Manny Ramirez (.295/.400/.554)
Jason Varitek (.275/.365/.467)
David Ortiz (.290/.383/.563)
Trot Nixon (.282/.367/.479)
Mike Lowell (.264/.340/.439)
Coco Crisp (.293/.345/.439)
Alex Gonzalez (.251/.315/.406)
Kevin Youkilis (.268/.363/.426)

According to the projections and the lineup analyis, that batting order would score 944 runs. However, it’s not terribly likely that we’ll see Terry Francona trot out a lineup like that this year. Ortiz/Nixon back to back won’t happen very often, and I don’t think Terry will ever bat Manny second. Plus, it sounds like they’re leaning towards batting Crisp leadoff, for “traditional baseball reasons” (i.e. he’s fast and plays CF) and probably because it’s also better PR to do that given that he’s essentially replacing Johnny Damon.

The likely batting order will probably shakeout like this:
Crisp
Loretta
Oritz
Ramirez
Nixon
Varitek
Lowell
Youkilis
Gonzalez

That lineup, according to the analysis, would score 920 runs — 24 runs less than the optimal lineup. 24 sounds like a lot — and it is, given that 10 runs of offense generally improves your team by 1 win — but over the course of the season that might not be worth the headaches that one would deal with when using the optimal lineup. One anecdote: given that there are about 360k permutations of a 9 player lineup (9! or 9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1), there are approximately 140k lineup combinations that would score more runs than the Sox likely lineup. In most cases, it’s literally 1/100th of a run, but I just thought it was an interesting little nugget for you to use on days when the Sox aren’t scoring … “Hey Francona … there’s like a hundred thousand better lineups you could have trotted out today … jackass.”

Still, there’s got to a better lineup that won’t cost the Sox 2 wins, but also will be palatable to the baseball traditionalists. The best I could find:
Loretta
Youkilis
Ortiz
Ramirez
Nixon
Lowell
Varitek
Gonzalez
Crisp

This version would score 931 runs, so it’s about 1 win worse than optimal, but 1 win likely than the likely lineup. Given that the Sox finished in a dead heat with the Yankees last season, I’ve just found us an AL East title. Go me.

Of course, now let’s discuss the fun questions. How could Terry Francona get himself canned? What lineup is green kryptonite to the Sox offense? What lineup would Grady Little run out there?

Ok, the Grady Little shot was a bit much. But here’s the Sox worst possible lineup:
Gonzalez
Crisp
Nixon
Youkilis
Lowell
Loretta
Varitek
Ramirez
Ortiz

The Bad News Sox would still score 887 runs, but losing almost 60 runs off of your season total might very well be the difference between 1st and 3rd place in the AL East this season.

So there you have it. The optimal Red Sox lineup (using the 2006 Marcel projections). Of course, this is the sort of thing that just spawns more questions (How does PECOTA make the Sox lineup shakeout? What happens if you replace Coco Crisp with Johnny Damon? Randy Winn? What if Lowell is complete ass again this season?).

Well – those questions will need to wait for a future installment. However, I was curious enough to throw the 2006 Johnny Damon projection in and take a look at the production of the likely Red Sox lineup (Damon/Loretta/Ortiz/Ramirez/Nixon/Varitek/Lowell/Gonzalez/Youkilis).

Let’s just say that according to the Marcels, Coco Crisp better be at least 15 runs better than Damon defensively in CF.

Comments (6)

By Mullet, 12/27/2005 11:01 am

I’ve got a slightly different perspective on this off-season than does Sully. Let me start by saying that it’s not even 2006 yet, and there’s a long time to go before the roster is finalized, and I’m in no way saying that the Red Sox are doomed …. DOOMED.

However, I am saying that, just as I believed last season, there’s a battle going on in the front office. It’s not just the oft cited and discussed Epstein/Lucchino differences, but a seeming complete strategic overhaul of the short- and long-term plans of the Boston Red Sox. There’s, as much as one can discern from inferences and biased newspaper reporting, a definitive plan to get younger and less dramatic, while simultaneously staying competitive. I certainly don’t disagree with this plan (well, the get younger part, at least). And I fully believe that a team with the second largest payroll in baseball should be able to rebuild and stay competitive.

I’m just not sure the Red Sox are going about things in the best way.

Let’s start with the 2005 regular season and the initial move away from near-strict performance analysis into a more nuanced (and less proven) clubhouse chemistry roster construction. Sticking with older players when younger counterparts were ready to offer up similar or better performance was the initial indicator that things were a-changing. Sticking with Millar and Embree, and bringing in Kapler, when we had cheap minor league resources available was the first sign that the Sox valued the clubhouse contributions of those players over the moderate improvement younger players might have brought. You can actually go back a little ways and look at the Pedro Martinez/Jason Varitek free agency negotiations to see that the Sox were taking a firm stand and saying “we can build a team of people who don’t flap their jaws or expect a separate set of rules for themselves,” even arguably overpaying a catcher who they claimed brought so much more than just his on the field performance.

Cut to the 2005 offseason. The Sox make a big acquisition of Josh Beckett (and Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota), giving up a couple of highly touted prospects. It’s certainly a good deal, acquiring a young, really good pitcher for a pitcher who may never even hit the ceiling of what Beckett has accomplished to this point. Mota’s a throw-in, another arm for the bullpen to churn through to see if he’s got anything left. The problem, of course, is Mike Lowell.

Lowell looked done last year. Cooked. He’s been recovering from a pretty devastating illness, and the likelihood of him bouncing back and being better than league average is probably pretty small. Lowell, in essence, was the acquisition cost of Josh Beckett. And that’s where this deal starts to get a little less pretty.

See, the Sox already have a 3rd baseman who’s cheap and likely to give us a little better than league average performance (Youkilis). And they offered arbitration to 2 other players who would see time at 3B, if they accept (Mueller, Graffanino). Lowell just adds to the logjam at the position, moving Youkilis to 1B, and basically meaning that the cheap, young Josh Beckett is going to be costing the team about $11mm in each of the next 2 seasons. That’s not so cheap.

Still, Beckett is Schilling insurance, and was a solid pickup. Not a steal, but a good deal for the Sox.

Then the Sox made another deal. They traded backup catcher Doug Mirabelli to the Padres for 2B Mark Loretta. This is a steal. Mirabelli should be replaced by Kelly Shoppach, who projects to be a better hitter and catcher than good ol’ Doug. Loretta, although coming off a down, injury-ridden season, is signed fairly cheaply and is a good stop gap until Dustin Pedroia is ready to take over 2B full time. This deal is a great “keep the window open while planning for the future deal.” Now an infield of Lowell, Renteria, Loretta, Youkilis is probably about equal to what the Sox ran out last season (with Lowell playing the role of Kevin Millar), and maybe a little better defensively.

Except the Sox then traded Renteria to the Braves for Andy Marte. Marte’s a stud, no doubt, and if the Sox find a way to get a league average bat at SS, then in the long run, this will be a solid move.

But there’s just no way a team that’s trying to win the World Series should go into the season with Alex Cora or Tony Graffanino at SS. Neither has the defensive chops to play the position. Cora’s got a noodle bat, and Graf is coming off a career year. Suddenly the Sox have given back a bunch of the runs they gained when they acquired Beckett.

Still, one weak spot on a contending team isn’t awful.

Then Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees. I will state it clearly: I would not have resigned Johnny Damon for the deal the Yankees got him for. Where the Red Sox failed was giving Damon an ultimatum without having already lined up plan B.

Heading into 2006, the have no CF and no SS. Still no platoon partner for Trot in RF. The already thin free agent market is getting thinner, and now every team in baseball knows the Sox are desparate for a SS and CF. Why would Bill Bavasi trade Jeremy Reed for Bronson Arroyo when he could trade him for Bronson Arroyo and Jeff Corsaletti? Why would Friedman/Hunsicker deal Julio Lugo to the Sox for Matt Clement when they know they can get Clement and Shoppach?

Each move the Sox have made this off-season has looked very good in a vaccuum. If you evaluate just the individual deal, the Sox look brilliant. But when you step back … take a broader look, things aren’t as pretty. The Sox have backed themselves into a corner (further evidenced by the futile attempt to acquire Kevin Millwood). Other teams around baseball know that we don’t want to go into the season with George Lombard or David Murphy in CF and Alex Cora at SS, and they’re going to make the Sox pay to remedy that.

Is this indicative of a failure of the front office? Maybe. Is the 2-headed GM working in concert, or are they pulling in different directions? Is Larry Lucchino’s desire to rid the team of any one who talks out of turn and isn’t a professional overriding the baseball operations group? Have the Sox gone so far in their thinking that they believe that they know the market better than the market?

Who knows. What we do know is, that heading into 2006, the Sox have a stronger pitching staff, top to bottom than they did in 2005. They’ve got a weaker offense, top to bottom, than they did in 2005.

There’s a long way to go until April, so this isn’t a death knell. It’s not even a “woe is me.” It’s simply a notice that the Sox haven’t had a successful or unsuccessful offseason. They’ve had an incomplete offseason. As much as some want to give the GMs all ‘As’ for acquiring Marte and Beckett, and some want to give them all ‘Fs’ for letting Damon and Mueller walk.

They get neither. They get an INC and a kick in the ass to start figuring out how to turn our collection of league average starting pitching and infielders into a bonafide major league SS and CF.

My apologies for a long and rambling post.