SEA 45: 57-105
Offseason: Lots of preseason trades, mostly for prospects and 4A types. Most likely to have any impression in the Majors this year is Jackie Horst. Promoted a couple of rookie pitchers and grabbed a couple more in the Rule V. Just one cheap FA signing - OF Victor Avila - as jrcpga uses a fresh mwr window to rebuild.
Offense/Defense: With CF Lorenzo Rosario, C Torey Lively, 1B Richie Wilkins, and 3B's Emmanuel Fernandez (probably moves to 2B) and Fergie Schmidt, the Mounties have enough weapons to trot out a competitive lineup. Corner OF's Oliva and Avila will be adequate fill-in's for a season, but nothing more. I can't see them scoring less than last years 685 runs.
Pitching: Here's the risk. They're starting the season with a few returnees from a 4.91-ERA staff, a couple of RuleV'ers, and a couple of rookies who are AAA talents. They have ace-in-the-making Jose Encarnacion (the jewel of S44's IFA market and recipient of a $39MM bonus) and Audry Rojas (a $35.8MM IFA himself) ready to come up in 20 games. Is it enough? And if they figure out by Game 50 that it's not, tehn what do you do. The 4-season mwr creates more teams playing to win, so each win is a little bit tougher to get. For teams like Ottawa, playing to stay cheap, take advantage of the 55-game mwr and build, that 55 game mwr is a bit riskier than in the old days.
Forecast: I hope they make it. I'm afraid it's going to be close.
Prediction: 59-103
TXLnghrn
SEA 45: 75-87
Offseason: The Music made one interesting and mildly controversial trade this offseason, shipping power-hitting (and legit defensive) CF William Magee to Austin for the power-deficient but keen-eyed Dave Thompson. Critics of Vancouver's move site Magee's power and better defensive talent; others note that Magee's .861 OPS last year was very likely to be the best of his career by far (CON of 36 and splits of 49 and 43). We'll see, as Thompson will get the nod as Vancouver's 2B and Magee is the likely CF starter for the 'Clypse. Otherwise, VAN signed just one FA - P Jeremy Tollberg - and promoted 3B Ernesto Olivares (originally a $6MM IFA in S42 by New Orleans and obtained via trade in S44).
Offense/Defense: Welcome to Moneyball ala Hobbs. C Butera - 89 eye. 1B Contreras - 70 eye. New 2B Thompson (who they targeted) - 94 eye. New 3B Olivares - 89 eye. See the pattern. TXLnghrn is building an offense around on-base ability, and he's probably going to win big doing it because on-base is devalued and power is overvalued. To hell with mwr's - Vancouver's was 55 last year and they won 75 - their approach is to build by winning. They scored 684 last year: what will be the difference by adding good on-basers at 2B and 3B and replacing Magee's power with Ronnie Wingo? I think they'll get to 725 runs.
Pitching: Their pitching was pretty good last year, but I think they got a little lucky with over-performances from Jenry Garces (2.80 ERA in 189 IP), Joel Howard (2.44 ERA in 62 IP), and the since-departed Oswaldo Sardinha (2.75 ERA in 152 IP). That's 400 good innings you're either not getting for sure (in Sardinha's case) or likely not getting. This is all to say I actually like the signing of Tollberg for 5 years, $68 million by a rebuilding team. In a vacuum, that was probably too much for a pitcher with a career ERA of 3.96. But it was a scarce year for FA pitchers, so prices were up. VAN needed to do something in free agency to keep advancing the win totals (or at least try to). Sure, they're rebuilding and you need to get some bargain values, they just got them at 2B and 3B instead of SP.
Forecast: Pitching is still a risk, but I think they'll get a few good surprises somewhere else on the staff this year. With a little better run support, they'll be OK.
Prediction: 81-81
bluebaran
SEA 45: 94-68, won Division, advanced to 2nd Round and lost to Columbus
Offseason: Made this year's biggest FA splash with the max deal for perennial All-Star 3B Bud Robbins.
Offense/Defense: Well, they're adding Robbins in lieu of last year's .600-something OPS third sackers, so that's big. 1B Kennedy had a down year and is likely to rebound by more or less 60 OPS points. And while Royce Jordan had a ROY-worthy year (.270/45/107), it wouldn't surprise me to see him pop an even better one. With very good compliments in LF Kim and CF Ryan, this offense could explode to 800+ runs. Defensively, had just 86 errors and a league-low 16 bad plays. 1B Kennedy is the defensive rockstar (28 good plays).
Pitching: Bit of a flashing red light here. Of TOR's top 7 pitchers by innings in S44 that were still there in S45, 6 had better performances in S45 than in S44 and all 6 beat their career ERA marks in S45. If you add in Brandon Booth (who only tossed 18 innings in S44 but 200 last year), that's 7 of 8 who beat their career ERA number last season. Doesn't guarantee an increase in the team ERA this year, but it's likely.
Forecast: More runs and more runs allowed, so approximately the same result.
Prediction: 95-67
tytabs
SEA 45: 91-71, Wild Card, lost in Round 1 to Toronto
Offseason: Signed a pair of FA pitchers - Jayson Purcell and Felix Figueroa.
Offense/Defense: Get on base and hit with power - that's the simple Skyscraper formula. Embodied in the persons of RF Ralph Clancy (.311/26/107), one of the modern era's most proficient on-basers, and Yao-Lin Chen (.332/53/148), reigning NL MVP. They have plenty of help - another 5 players hit 20+ HR's last year en route to 242 totaland an NL-2nd 803 runs - but Clancy and Chen are the emblems. They committed a pretty-stingy 78 errors last year but only 55/21 on +/- plays. SS Burawa and 2B Curtis had the bulk of the good plays with 12 and 11.
Pitching: Holland and Walters are their 1 and 1a, and both have been around long enough that we can expect about a 3.50 ERA from each. Jayson Purcell earned a new contract with hislast 2 seasons (ERA's of 3.31 and 3.05, vs. a career 4.07), so he's #3. Gerald Seaver is #4, and #5 doesn't matter because that's a top 4 that cold win a 7-game series against anyone. Sam Teagarden is building a HOF resume as a middle reliever. The rest of the bullpen is either shaky (38-yo Mark Cloud, Peterson), injured (Bonham) or unproven (Fordham).
Forecast: When you compare NY's staff to TOR's head-to-head, I think you have to give the nod to NY in a close race.
Prediction: 95-67
1. New York
2. Toronto
3. Vancouver
4. Ottawa
No comments:
Post a Comment