Season 44 NL North Preview

Helena Hot Heads
dbreez
SEA 43: 65-97

CF Lorenzo Rosario has 90 HR's in his first 2 seasons.  vR catcher Chris Bruske had a career -best OPS of .965 last season.  Pretty good trio of young arms  with B.C. Martinez, Yohan Lugo,  and Gerald Gilheeney.  3 more nice arms in AAA - Audry Rojas ($35MM IFA SEA 43 - he's a really good one), Del Wang (8th rounder in SEA 39 who became a nice DITR), and Al Martin (SEA 42's #19 overall).  Another good ML prospect at High A in Emmauel Fernandez ($30MM IFA SEA 42).  Last year's #1 pick Donald Swindell (C, #8 overall) is what allowed them to trade C Melky Osuna for SP Micah Scharein.  So it's a pretty nice pipeline set up for the next few years, and this year's total system payroll is a paltry $21MM.

The offense was in the bottom half of the league but really isn't bad at all for an all-out rebuilder.  Bruske, Rosario and 3B Fergie Schmidt OPS'd over .800, and 2 more regulars topped .750.  The staff is probably not at the same level - they were 13th in the NL in ERA last year.

What can you say about rebuilding teams?  It's almost always ugly.  

Predicted Record:  70-92

Chicago Orphans
cretins
SEA 43:  62-100

Glen Coste wrapped up 2 years in Chi-town with a 98-inning, 2.92 effort last year at age 37.  Would you believe he's #5 all-time in Hobbs in ERA?  I'll probably vote for him for the HOF although I doubt he'll make it.  Hong-Chih Park hit the 60-day DL again last year and still managed 34 taters.  He's far from the Mickey Mantle of Hobbs but he's reminiscent thereof.  The Orphans had the #3 pick last year and I think they nailed it with the selection of SP Jerad Jones.  He was drafted as a 20 year-old so he should be more advanced than many of last season's draftees, but with some of his key ratings already over 70, he's looking like a great pick.

Chicago looks, appropriately enough, like a rebuilding  team (13th in runs last year and 14th in ERA), but with a pretty high payroll of $70+MM.  That pretty much knocks them out of the running for the top IFA's, a pond Helena has fished successfully in for a couple of years now.  It does drop dramatically next year, though...maybe it just took them awhile to outlive some long contracts.

I'll go ahead and say it, I hate rebuilding and hate writing about rebuilding teams.



Predicted Record:  64-98

Toronto St. Pats
bluebaran
SEA 43: 73-89

Coming off a 13-win improvement, Toronto focused on budget FA signings in the offseason.  I especially like the $3.8MM/year deal for Brandon Booth.  He replaces Theo Schulte, who they dealt to Honolulu for IF prospect Cam Wathan.  Booth should be more or less the equivalent of Schulte for $2.7MM less per year, so I like the swap for the St. Pats.  Their $40MM system-wide payroll says "rebuild" but they already have some nice young players in the Majors.  I'd say OF's Alex Kim and Darrell Ryan have both exceeded expectations in their first 2 seasons.  1B Phillip Kennedy excelled in his first year in Toronto.  And #1 starter Chris Houston opened some eyes with a 2.92 ERA over 208 IP .  Last year's #1 overall, RF Royce Jordan, really was head-and-shoulders above everyone  else in the draft.  He could certainly use at least a year in the minors but wouldn't embarrass himself (at the plate at least...RF might be another story) at the ML level.  He starts the year in AAA.

Other than the aforementioned, this is pretty much your standard rebuilder with a bunch of sucky bargain veterans and 4-A types taking up space.  The aforementioned do make it a more interesting rebuild than most, though.

Nothing really terribly ugly here.  They've just about put together enough young talent in the Majors that they could make a big FA push and be a legit contender.  And even though anything can and does happen in the playoffs, that would probably be a really ugly strategy.

Predicted Record:  77-85

New York Lincoln Giants
rbedwell
SEA 43:

Well, it's taken a long time, but the Giants have arrived at the ultimate leverage position: 84-win Division Champ with a $47MM system-wide payroll, a bunch  of young stars and a hoard of sterling prospects stacked up throughout their minor league system.  Ralph Clancy is the "old man" of the ML stars at 26: he's on-based a cool .400 over his first 4 seasons.  3B Yao-Lin Chen has blasted exactly 100 HR's in his first 2 full ML seasons.  Their top 3 SP's of Walters, Holland and Seaver had ERA's last year of 3.01, 3.47 and 2.88 - that's really good, but I'm betting at some point rbedwell will move 1 or 2 of them in trades for aces.  The Sam Teagarden trade last year brought them a still-young ace RP who can probably get up to 160-165 IP if needed.  And there are probably another dozen ML prospects in the pipeline.

It's a pretty minor gripe, but it looks like all their draft and IFA moves produced a position-player heavy crop of prospects.  But, hey, they're still assets and as shown in the Teagarden trade, if you have valuable assets you can get pitching.

There are some who would say that the strategy of "rebuilding" for many years and building up a fortress-full of prospects is an "ugly" one.  Yep, there are many opinions out there on all available HBD strategies.

Predicted Record:  90-72