Next up, the NL West, where defending champ San Fran has now won the Division 8 times running.
The Lineup: Time to adjust to life after Brad Terry. Terry seems headed for retirement with a .367 career OBP and 454 homers. That OBP is important because it's 72 points above the Dogs' team OBP last year. Even without Terry they have plenty of power (3B Langerhans, RF Bell, LF Lindblom and ? Howard can all easily top 30+, but they're all challenged as on-basers: Bell led the group last year with .331). Their catchers are defense-oriented, and they're carrying 4 shortstops ranging from "I can hit some but I'm not really a SS (both Lee and Wiggington)" to "Can't hit at all but could win a GG (Tejada)". Rule V'er Teodoro Hollands is kind of an interesting power prospect and may be in the running for the fulltime 1B job.
There's talent here but it's all power. Another rough year near the bottom of the NL in runs scored.
The Staff: It's much more optimistic on the pitching side. Start with young star B.C. Querecuto, who's fashioned 2 straight sub-3.00 ERA seasons. He's more than capably seconded by Tucker Hood, who has rather quietly put together 10 straight seasons with ERA's in the 3's (and 215+ innings pitched in 9 of them). The other rotation spots are up in the air, with rookies Raymond Griffin, Bo Hutton, and Dellin Hernandez challenging Yamil Desoto and Marco Smith. The 9th inning gets a boost with Andrew Lane signing on. He can't itch enough to be that everyday closer but he can still get those important 2-3 outs every third day. Looks like they're going to start the season with 10 pitchers and then add 1 more (probably) reliever.
The Leather: With the 4 SS's they can play some interesting configurations. They were sure-handed last year (.988) but only 62/42 on good/bad plays, so the SS quartet should improve that number. I can't really tell if they've settled on an everyday SS, but Tejada could contend for a Gold Glove. It's not like any of the others would make any difference in the on-base department.
Interesting team in the power arena, but they have to find a way to get more guys on base. Pitching will be OK and the defense improved but you can only go so far without scoring runs.
The Lineup: Here's how our bias for power works: you get a regular HBD owner who's unfamiliar with this world to look at the respective lineups of Scottsdale and Honolulu. Just a quick scan...a few minutes...and ask them to tell you which team scored more runs last year. 10 to 1 says they'll pick Honolulu. Yep, the Cards hit 77 fewer homers than the Luau Dogs and outscored them by 65. The difference that matters more than power? 201 more hits and walks, translating to a .317 OBP vs. Honolulu's .295. Not that the Cards won't have their challenges. They didn't re-sign their best on-baser (Darrin Shermann), didn't sign any free agents, and continued the youth movement they started last year. They certainly have some ML-caliber bats on the field: Cameron Sears, Chip Skole, Doug Cook, Darryl Hennessey (despite having one of the lowest vR's I've ever seen for an everyday player), but they're average-to-below-average Ml players. I think their runs are going to fall off some this year.
The Staff: Scottsdale pitching of late has been Walker, Timmons, Mathis and a bunch of nobodies. James Appel could well add a 4th formidable arm. The S44 #9 pick got hit pretty hard in a 100-inning audition last year, but I think he has the stuff to be the #1 of this rotation. Sal Callaway is essentially a 28-yo rookie who will get the 5th starter spot. If they get really lucky, he'll stay healthy, give them 200 innings, and the HBD gods will look more at his pitches than his splits. Lot of luck involved there, but it's plausible they could be rolling out 5 pretty good starters. Francisco Peguero is the best talent in the bullpen; they probably should try to get him up to 140 innings and try to hide everyone else.
The Leather: They have 1 outstanding defender - Defending Gold Glove 1B Yonder Guzman - and a bunch of guys who are dinkin' around with their phones when they're in the field. 115 errors and 36 bad plays...they need to rethink this approach.
I was pretty optimistic about Scottsdale in last year's preview (I don't know, maybe just feeling nostalgic for the days of Trammel, Herzog, Encarnacion and 250+ homers), and was disappointed, so this year I'm dumping on them in the hopes it produces a big turnaround.
The Lineup: They've made a couple of nice additions to what was a pretty good lineup last year. Dario Chong came over in a late-S47 trade and gives them a legit 30-HR COF, and this off-season they got C Yovani Avila from Jacksonville. He wears out righties and will likely be the vR part of a platoon. LF Glen Davey really blossomed in his 2nd season - .275/39/103 (not bad for a 15th round selection). CF Darrell Ryan continues to hit better than his ratings say he can. Junior Burawa is a plus hitter at SS. They have their weak spots for sure - most notably, they're going to need way better than a .640 OPS from a guy who will demand $8MM a year pretty soon (3B Alvarado). But they look like they'll improve on last year's 700 runs.
The Staff: They're likely to get rebounds from Mark Wallace (5.52 ERA vs. career 4.10), Wladimir Mercado (4.14 in Salt Lake vs. 3.53 career) and Edgmer Gil (4.84 vs. career 4.03) - their 3 big acquisitions from last year who obviously all bombed. I'm also pretty optimistic about Albert Ortiz. He was S44's #6 pick, but got shellacked in his debut last year. Don't pencil him in for any Cy Youngs, but 180 innings of 4.00 ERA wouldn't be a shock. Beyond that there are some guys who will have the occasional good season, but none they can depend on.
The Leather: It's a sub-par defense. Burawa is really the only defender who plays his position very well - they get a lot of "-" plays, presumably from low-range fielders like CF Ryan. Hard to fix everything at once.
Certainly they had some bad luck in the pitching department last year. I expect a nice rebound there plus a little bump in runs scored.
The Lineup: Here we were about to rave about SF signing the best player in free agency (Phillip Kennedy) and BOOM! Down he goes for the season with the silly forearm nerve irritation injury. I don't know if my calculations are correct, but I think it's possible Kennedy could be back for late-playoff action should the Fog make it that far. Until then they'll have to limp along with $14MM black hole in their payroll and an improvised lineup. The Fog really depend on packing the bases to score runs and they have 2 of the best on-basers in the biz in 1B Francisco Guerrero and RF Del Perez, but they're sorely short on power (hence the Kennedy ink). Catcher Almadova has been their best power guy recently, but he's 34 and the power rating is sliding. Hipolito Francisco appears to be the vR portion of a CF platoon (with Tyson Sample) - he could put up 15-20 jacks in 400 AB's in a good year. Jeurys Vargas was a Sep 1 FA signing and his power bat probably gets first look in LF.
The Staff: One could look at SF's decline in pitching numbers from S46 to S47 and assume it's age-related (after all, their mainstays Martin, Doubrant and Marks are 36, 37 and 38) but that's not the case. Their top dogs were all right around their career ERA marks (except for Pena who came in a full run below his career number). The problem was their previously-reliable down-staff guys Peterson, Pelaez, Wilkinson and Booth, who all blew up to ERA's a run or more over their career averages. That's 4 unusually terrible seasons from guys who threw a total of 600 innings in S46 (Booth was a starter for TOR in S46). Is that going to happen again? Nope. They'll be closer to career averages this year, which will knock a chunk out of that S46 ERA of 4.05.
The Leather: They're among the better defensive teams in the NL. No terrible fielders anywhere and A+ at 1B (Guerrero), 3B (Puffer) and SS (Castillo). CF will be improved over Valenzuela's play.
Well, the Fog has probably already suffered the worst break of the season for any team, but they'll still probably win the Division. Maybe not in dominating fashion - runs might be a little scarce - but the pitching and defense will be improved - and good enough to go deep into the playoffs.
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