The Bandits jettisoned contracts at a furious pace this offseason, with Wilin Tejada, Juan Trinidad and Luther Padden signing elsewhere, and 7 more leaving in FA (but are still unsigned). They filled out the roster with an assortment of trades (Alex Lewis and Keith Gray from Buffalo), Rule V picks, waiver claims, promotions, and a couple of FA signings.
Outlook/Forecast
Boise was last in runs in the AL last year, and I don't expect that to change dramatically (although they will spend less for the honor). CF Peter Stockton is really the only position player sporting any kind of ML resume (.775 OPS over 7 seasons), but the lineup should suffice for an all-out rebuilder. The staff wasn't dreadful last year (tied for 10th in ERA). It will have to perform reasonably well to keep them afloat again; unfortunately it looks more 4-A-ish than the lineup. Keith Gray - basically a 30-yo rookie - looks like the best of the bunch.
Look for the Bandits to score a little more but melt down on the mound more. They'll drop a few wins from last year's total.
Offseason
The biggest move was trading the pitchers' nightmare of Coors for the slightly pitcher-friendly Security Service Field. Crawford left in FA, but they replaced him with Raimel Arruebarrena, and stretched a little to add 38-yo Lawrence Morey on a 3-year contract. They were in perpetual motion on the trade market, adding switch-hitting 1B/LF Tony Leonard, defensive 2B Phil Pan, 2B Stefan Guardado, and longtime Richmond standout SP Shigetoshi Bong.
Outlook/Forecast
All of a sudden they appear to have a credible staff. Morey and Bong are solid SP's (remember, Morey won the NL CY just 2 years ago at age 36), and guys like Burke Yarnall and Tracy Sterns who had no prayer in Coors could be competitive again. Conversely, hitters like Ojeda with his vL 51 and vR 38, are likely to nosedive (although in a bizarre twist, Ojeda OPS'd .930 at home and .999 on the road last year). Overall, a much better pitching/defense squad that still has decent power.
I think they'll improve 5-10 wins.
Won 83 and nabbed their 4th AL West Title in 6 seasons, then advanced to the ALCS and gave eventual AL Champ all they wanted in a 7-game nail-biter. 2B Ainsworth and RF Taylor won Silver Sluggers (the 2nd for Ainsworth but amazingly the first for Taylor, who extended his streak of 40+ HR seasons to 7).
Offseason
Taylor took the big $$ from KC, leaving a gaping RF hole. The Royals deftly countered by trading for Lou Crawford - not the hitter Taylor is (.813 career OPS vs. Taylor's .906) but even better on defense. Pitching - long the stepsister behind the Ainsworth/Taylor/Greg Stock/Eddie Fonville lineup stars - got a full makeover with 5 free agents headed by Kirk Marks and James Haney. They have assembled an interesting 4-catcher platoon, although it's likely Phil Kim will only DH.
Outlook/Forecast
It doesn't look like their offense is going to lose anything...Kim and Bruske at DH will make up for the falloff from Taylor to Crawford. A pitching improvement (middle of the pack in S48) is far from assured. 3-time CY winner Marks is 39 and coming off his worst season...can he dial it up one more time (shades of Billy Chappel)? Haney occasionally flashed ace-like stuff in Boston, stunk it up for 4 years in KC, and last year popped out 19 wins out of the blue. Can he do that again?
I really like the bold moves by a new owner. It's already a good team - 1 game from the WS last year - so improving is that much harder. They look pretty close to last year's number to me - last year's 83 + or - 3 games.
Offseason
A very quiet interim for the Crue. No trades, no FA additions. As close to a carbon copy of S48's team as you'll see.
Outlook/Forecast
In recent years no team has depended on defense to win more than LA. It fell off a bit last year - 98 + plays to 84. I don't know if this signals a shift in strategy to scoring more runs or just normal season-to-season variation (their 76-run improvement kind of suggests the former, though). It's a deceptively effective staff (helped no doubt both by the defensive emphasis and the relatively spacious park) that has finished 3rd, 1st, 4th and 3rd in the AL's team ERA ranking the last 4 seasons. Matty Ludwick (13-13, 3.52) and Rico Alomar (12-10, 3.51) front the rotation. Lowell seems to have established himself as the primary setup man, with Dan Eibner closing for at least 1 more season.
I've always admired the teams that can win without scoring a lot of runs; that said, it definitely seems to limit your upside, a situation the Crue seem to face annually. They sacrifice offense to shore up their pitching (and it works...their pitching always seems to surpass it's collective ratings), but 700 runs is tough to work with. I think they win 85 if everything goes perfectly, and could fall to 75 with an average season's quota of bad breaks.
(I'm going to do predictions for wins and order-of-finish for all divisions when I read all the previews)
