The Lineup: A new owner, a new city and an old team; all the ingredients for a rebuild. Last year's team had 4 power sources, 3 of those four Tim Jeter, Darren Haren and Domingo Marmol are gone, leaving LF Dallas Sever (,280/23/.268) as the main power source. Holdovers Achilles Hoffman at C and Peter Stockton (CF) are decent players, while 1B Bobby Appel and 3B Weldon Bailey will help some. Overall, this is an offense that will struggle. Early callups won't provide a lot of help, but RF Erasmo Lunar, 1B Derby Williams and C Bill Gyorko may provide aa little boost. Last season's .703 OPS may look pretty good in hindsight.
The Staff: If there is a reason for optimism about making the MWR, it lies with the starting rotation. Four of five SPs return, and all are good MLB pitchers, led by team ace Luther Padden. All are in their early 30s so they should not begin to experience declines for a while. Closer Willis McDade notched 37 saves last year but is not what you would hope for in your closer. No one stands out as more than a borderline Major league pitcher after that. The only potential help in AAA is LH SP Lonny Sosa who has to harness his control a little better to make an impact.
The Leather: Same song, different verse. A lot of poor to middling fielders with the exceptions of 3B Bailey who is exceptional, and the platoon at SS of PT Franco and Brian Pritchett, who are both good.
Boise looks to be doing a high wire act tiptoeing along the MWR, Those starters had better be ready for some real heavy lifting. I say he slips in by two wins for next year, but then it gets really hard the year after,
The Lineup: Here is a surprise, the Horrors led the AL in pretty much every significant stat last year, OPSing .900. Led by superstar DH/C Frank Graham (.314/68/155) they should pick up right where they left off. He is supported by 1B Yoslan Nunez (.314/43/135), CF Phil Crawford (.301/32/84), RF Emil Buchanan (.299/45/103) and LF Einar Nunez (.318/28/75). They may drop off a little due to some lineup changes and a slightly improved emphasis on defense, but I still expect a team slash line of around .288/.345/.510. That is a top 2 or 3 hitting team in any league.
The Staff: Gulp. Here is the downside to playing in Coors. Last year's team had an ERA that was 1.65 above the next worse team. The best ERA on the team for a pitcher with ore than 20 innings pitched was Pedro Morales at 5.42 The rotation would be good enough to befit a .500 team in a neutral park, but Lon Loman, Carl Latham, Carson Wallace and Morales don't cut it in the mile high city. Burke Yarnall is a good RP who can pitch a lot of innings but every other reliever has at least one flaw that makes him just unplayable at altitude. Neal Thomas in AAA has pretty good stuff, but flunked his first MLB test in Salt Lake last year. I would still call him up at game 20 to see what he can do.
The Leather: Give werniss credit here. While the Horrors are still not a really good defensive team, they will be improved, which will help the pitching staff immensely. Moving Buchanan to RF, opens up 2B to a Taylor Barkley/ Max Vazquez platoon at 2B. Moving Yoslan Nunez to 1B (where he should thrive) opens LF for Einar Nunez. Add good fielders in C Wayne Janssen and 3B Olmedo Hernandez, and average to good pitchers will have a chance.
The outlook in Colorado looks somewhat better this year. From last year's 64 wins, I look for an improvement to something like 70-72 this year. As with Boise, the MWR looms large.
The Lineup: RF Willie Taylor (.275/42/120) is the straw that stirs the drink in Vegas. You can pencil him in for those numbers every year. After him, it seems like most of the Mongeese hitters had down years. LF Howie Lee (.254/17/60), 2B Damon Ainsworth (.276/15/66), 3B Greg Stock (.254/20/64) and 1B Fu-Te Okajima (.250/20/73) all are capable of better performances. CF Tyson Sample (.247/12/63) was lost to SF. Young Will Crane can easily replace his bat, but will not match his glove. SS Eddie Fonville (.259/25/71) is just a solid player who is good at everything. Miguel Perez could probably use an upgrade at DH, or a platoon partner to hit righties, despite posting good numbers: .292/21/60. Overall this was a pretty average group of hitters, who should improve due to some bounce back seasons. Lets say an improvement from 737 runs to about 780.
The Staff: The pitching was just about as average as the offense. The rotation has a bunch of guys who are going to be right around 4.50 ERAs. If there is a potential guy who may be an ace, it is probably Maicer Candelaria (12-7 4.64) He has good velocity, fine pitches and vL. If either his vR or control were over 80, he would be a stud. Viosergy Cummack (1 -13 4.20)is in a similar place: A quality pitcher if he had at least one good pitch after his first. Yimi Arcia (37 saves) was a very good closer, last year. Daniel Parker (1.21/3.24) was a fine setup man despite questionable splits. Enerio Otanez (1.29/4.37) was also a good innings eater.
The Leather: This was the strength of the team last year, with a +/- play numbers of 86-15. Losing Sample and 6 time GG winner Yamil Gerrido will hurt. Crowe and Fonville will struggle to replace their output. Otherwise they are still going to be solid. Stock will have to get a GG at 3B one of these seasons, while C Jordany Pujols (.210/9/49) is not in the lineup for his bat. Look for a little drop in production, but still above average.
Last year had average hitting and average pitching. Quite the surprise hw would finish 81-81. With no real help in the minors and a veteran team, I would be tempted to say he finishes within a couple of games of season 47. Given the rebuilds other teams in the division are embarking on, I will call him an 87 game winner, just missing the playoffs.
The Lineup: That the Crue finished over .500 last year was certainly not a testament to their bats. Their slash line of .236/.294/.366 were all dead last. Mot just in the AL, but in all of Hobbs....kind of impressive actually. The highest average on the team (.267) belonged to 2B Tony Acosta. The biggest bats were CF Al Padilla (.250/23/79) and LF Yoervis Dejesus (.242/28/84). Rookie Adam Dale at 3B (.208/14/57) was not good at all, but looks like he should improve quite a lot. 1B Elmer Borkowski and RF Rico Bournigal may be called up from AAA to help out, but they are not likely to be major upgrades. With no new faces added and limited help available in the minors, expect more of the same for season 48.
The Staff: The strength of the team lies with it's pitchers. Aided by all the plus plays from their defense and the good defense of catchers DJ Douglas and Garland Harris, they finished 4th in ERA at 4.08 and fifth in WHIP at 1.29. The starters were led by Welden Jenkins (14-8/3.23), the hilariously named Sticky Puffer (14-10/3.28) and Rico Alomar (11-11/3.67). Erstwhile ace Matty Ludwick finished at 12-10 and 4.38, but at 32 should easily bounce back. Lefty Dan Eibner was fantastic in the closer role, posting 49 saves en route to the Fireman of the year award. Rookie Keon Lowell looks to move into the prime setup role. An overall solid staff other than a weak middle relief corps.
The Leather: The defense may be as good as the hitting is bad. Led by Acosta (31 + plays and 1B Clint Susac (29 + plays), they finished in third place overall with 98 as compared to just 18 minus plays and were average or just above in both fielding % and stolen base %.
With the two rebuilding teams, it is hard to see them dropping, even if 82 wins last year seemed like overachieving. Look for them to finish second to Vegas with 84 wins.
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