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March 2008 - Posts
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1. Detroit Tigers
2. Cleveland Indians
3. Minnesota Twins
4. Chicago White Sox
5. Kansas City Royals I've gone back and forth on the top end of this division. My first instinct was to say that Detroit just will score so many runs and Cleveland's lineup is no where near as deep, and thus Detroit would win. Then I started thinking about the fragility a performance questions of the Detroit rotation after Verlander and the superiority of the Cleveland pen, and I was inclined to give the nod to the Tribe. Ultimately, the pitcher I'm most comfortable with in the division is Verlander (I think the Cleveland 1-2 could be in for a rough year after big usage last year) and the Detroit lineup is stacked, so I'll go with the Tigers to win a close race, though I'm not at all confident about it. The back end of the division should still be competitive and interesting to watch. The Twins feature an intriguing young rotation, and have a solid middle of the order lineup that should be relatively productive. Losing Hunter isn't as bad as people think but they would have benefited from more of a return on Johan and the team doesn't have the guns to keep up with the top of the division. The White Sox probably should be rebuilding, but they have enough firepower and solid enough pitching to stay competitive for a while, perhaps. I could see them slugging their way to 3rd or getting hurt, aging and falling to last. The Royals are clearly on the road to recovery, but they were so far depleted in talent a few years ago and have such limited resources that it will be a long road back. Still, the Meche signing turned out ok for now, and they have some good young hitters to build around.
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This is the first of a week-long series previewing the upcoming seasons divisional races: 1. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
2. Seattle Mariners
3. Oakland Athletics
4. Texas Rangers
We're looking at a two horse race in the west that has tightened a bit since the first of the year, with Eric Bedard's trade to Seattle, John Lackey down for the first month of the season and Kelvim Escobar possibly missing the year. Seattle has a potentially lethal 1-2 punch with Bedard and Felix Hernandez, but the back end of the rotation is more suspect. The Angels have some very underrated pitchers in John Lackey, Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders with Nick Adenhart potentially on the way at some point. Both have good closers, but the Halo's pen is much deeper as a whole. Vlad Guerrero is a great anchor, Torri Hunter should help for a few years and they have some interesting young players up and down the lineup. The Mariners are still tied down to the big contracts given Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre a few years back and the rest of the lineup is unremarkable. Ultimately, the Mariners almost certainly over-performed last year and are due to fall to earth a bit this year. The Angels will get some reinforcements from the minor leagues that the Mariners just can't match. Fighting it out on the bottom end of the division are two teams undertaking very interesting rebuilding efforts. The Athletics will start the year with the pitching to be a fringe contender, at least until injuries or trades take their toll. Joe Blanton, Rich Harden and Huston Street are all capable, though are all candidates to be traded should the right deal come along. If Beane does find someone making him an offer he can't refuse for one of them, they could well fall into the cellar of the division. The hitting is more suspect, though Travis Buck, Daric Barton, Ryan Sweeney and Kurt Suzuki have a chance to be part of a long term future and Jack Cust, Bobby Crosby and Eric Chavez have their positives, when healthy. The Rangers have given themselves some interesting options on the hitting side, though they may be fielding offers for some of them come mid year. Ian Kinsler, Michael Young and Josh Hamilton could be long term solutions somewhere and the farm should help fill some gaps. But alas, the Rangers never ending quest for pitching continues on. Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla are usually thoroughly average and after that it gets scary. 4th place will probably be determined more on injuries and trades than talent, but these teams both have interesting futures. This has been edited into a format I was happier with after the original post.
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The way I see it, the ultimate success or failure of the Brewers season is going to depend on the following factors, in no particular order:
1. Will the defensive realignment live up to its billing?
According to some metrics, the Brewers have improved their defense by 2 to 3 wins simply by acquiring Mike Cameron to play center, moving Hall to third where he was decidedly average in his career and moving Braun to Left, where he can do considerably less damage. The team also acquired Jason Kendall who comes with a much stronger defensive and pitcher handling reputation than his predecessor, Johnny Estrada. If these changes play true to form, they should not only help the pitching staff keep runs off the board by converting balls in play into outs, but also by allowing the better pitchers to throw fewer pitches which allows them to pitch longer.
2. How deep can the rotation can go into games?
A critical failure of the 2007 Brewers was the rotation's inability to consistently navigate the middle innings to hand leads to bullpen in the 7th inning and beyond. No pitcher epitomized this problem like Claudio Vargas, who recorded outs after the 6th inning twice, in 23 starts. Chris Capuano, Jeff Suppan and Dave Bush also experienced problems getting through the middle innings. A defensive improvement should help on this count. Both Bush and Suppan will have to pick up their games a bit, because the young starters (especially Parra and Gallardo) will likely be on stricter pitch counts that may limit what they can be expected to do. Their ability to effectively navigate the middle innings will take some stress off of the bullpen and allow Yost to use his better relievers more often in critical situations, and not to just eat innings.
3. How will the rebuilt bullpen hold up?
General Manager Doug Melvin deserves credit for assembling a lot of options for Manager Ned Yost to deploy and for doing so without trading important pieces or committing to large, long term deals. What remains to be seen is how they will sort themselves out and how effective they can be. As was noted earlier on this blog there are reasons to wonder if the man expected to step into the closers role, Eric Gagne, is ready to take on that duty. The team has other options, but Gagne will get the first look. The ability of the middle relieves David Riske, Guillermo Mota and Salomon Torres to eat up innings with quality work may actually be more important, though less high profile. The problems for the Brewers bullpen last year had more to do with navigating the middle innings than the 8th and 9th. Best of all would be for those guys to be called on to pitch as little as possible, but if they are able to answer the bell better when called upon than their predecessors, that would be a big step forward for this team.
4) Can the young players improve their plate discipline?
The Brewers figure to have no trouble slugging the ball this year. Last year they led the majors with 231 home runs and finished second in the NL in slugging percentage. That would lead one to suppose that the Brewers scored a lot of runs, which is somewhat true, though the team only finished 5th in the league in run scoring. So what was it that kept them out of those top spots? The team finished 11th in the National League in on-base percent. The team did, almost certainly, upgrade in this department by acquiring Mike Cameron and Jason Kendall. The real drive to improve in this area will need to come from the young players, most specifically Ryan Braun, Corey Hart and JJ Hardy. All three have significant room and ability to improve in this area. Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder are already reasonably good at drawing walks and Bill Hall's walk rate is what it is, and his OBP will be more dependent on his batting average. As a team, they will need to take more walks and work pitchers more to take the next step up from being a powerful and scary offense to a run producing machine.
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I'm still a little stunned about the news today that Claudio Vargas has been released by the Brewers. Going into spring training, the team had eight legitimate potential starters. With Chris Capuano likely out for the year, Vargas dismissal leaves the team with six legitimate options: Ben Sheets, Yovanni Gallardo, Jeff Suppan, Dave Bush, Manny Parra and Carlos Villanueva. The team basically made the decision to go with their five best options to open the year, and there is something to be said for that. The reaction in the fan base seems to be mostly positive at this point, though there are those with their doubts. The team will save $2.7 million by releasing him toady, and that flexibility may well come in handy around the trade deadline.
But barring the sudden emergence of Zach Jackson, Tim Dillard, Chris Narveson or someone totally off the radar at the moment, chances are good that if they need to go beyond "Big Six" for anything other than a spot start, they will likely have to hit either the free talent or trade market to fill the slot. That isn't necessarily the end of the world, but given Sheets injury history and the fact that they are relying on at least two starters (and possibly three) with under a full year of starting experience, that doesn't seem like much of a long shot. Doug Melvin is placing a lot of trust in the young pitchers here.
It was a tough, "lesser of two evils" type of call all along, with Vargas being the 7th best pitcher in line for the job after Capuano went down and the only pitcher fighting for a spot out of options. On the other hand, it is also a sign of organizational strength that they had to make a decision like this at all. We're a long way from Gary Glover versus Wes Obermueller here people.
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In case you had not heard, the second largest prize of the off-season trade market, Miguel Cabrera, has reportedly signed a hefty extension with the Detroit Tigers. If it is as reported, it is essentially a 9 year deal for $164.6 million, when you take into account the fact that he will still be paid his $11.3 million this year and the 8 year deal for $153.3 million will run from 2009 to 2016. That means this deal bought out 7 years of his free agency at roughly 19 million per year.
In many ways, Miguel Cabrera has helped set a preliminary bench mark for the type of money Prince Fielder will be looking for. Prince is two years behind Cabrera in terms of his schedule for arbitration and free agent eligibility. But they both came up and were productive at very young ages and both are/were eligible to hit the free agent market before their 28th birthdays. Cabrera gets and edge by playing 3rd (no matter how poorly) and in the batting average department. But Fielder has already shown more pure power than Cabrera has and isn't far behind in the on base department. If you use Ryan Howard's 10 million dollar deal for this year as a benchmark of the sort of money Prince will command next year in arby, and then figure in a solid raise of a few million more each of the next few years, you are probably looking at him making $35-$40 million in the arbitration process from 2009-2011. At that point, he will likely be seeking at least the sort of deal Cabrera got, something maybe 8 years for $20 million per year. That is 12 years worth of commitment for $200 million, not counting a raise for this season. It would almost certainly take at least a 10 year offer worth roughly that amount to get any serious negotiation going at this point.
Does anyone think the Brewers can or should make an offer in that ballpark to sign a guy who will likely need to be a DH by his 30th birthday?
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