Offseason
Had a basketful of age 35+ FA defections, notably RP Eric Duncan, RP Marcel Calixte, and C Hack Palmer. Countered by signing and equally-old set of FA's, although 39-yo Wladimir Mercado will be a step up from any of the losses.
Outlook/Forecast
Winning games is a hard slog when you score 674 runs (4.2 per game), and I can't see any improvement coming. RF Alexander Pickett is a top producer (.263/33/89 in what was an almost exactly average year) but the only hitter above .800 OPS. Ezdra Rodriguez (875 career SB's) has been superb (and taught us that 60+ splits were not mandatory) but is about to hit the severe decline stage. Their staff has traditionally been in the top half of the league and could be again despite some impressive turnover. They'll need Mercado to dial up one more good year, plus get some surprise (in a good way) performances from some of their unheralded arms.
With their pretty good pitching but lackluster offense they're stuck between neither contending nor being bad enough to land a needle-moving draft pick (although maybe they can get some help at #8 this year). They could use a total blowup (trade Pickett, 1B Andujar and anything else of value), some real luck with a radical FA plan (All-OBP hitters all the time? Pitchers with mediocre splits but good pitches?), or maybe a couple more years picking at #8.
For this year the hitters age a little more, and pitchers get a bit less lucky. Somewhere between 60-65 wins.
Offseason
Although the strategy of filling out the roster with budget free agents hasn't changed (if you do enough of them some are going to be gems...witness last year's signing of Ervin Payton for $1.0MM and his production of .285/25/76), enough high-end prospects have arrived that they can't help but graduate from turnaround to contender. SS Santiago Pujols (60 ML games last year) and MR Thomas Miranda (from last year's Richmond trade) join former top draftees and IFA's Peaches Eierman, Bud Benson, Nori Zhang, and Eugene Blake to from the young core. And don't forget uber-prospect Saul Santana at AAA.
Outlook/Forecast
They may win this ripe-for-the-taking division by default. If they bring up 1B Cookie Gonzalez, 2B/3B/CF Andres Pizzaro and SP Santana (and I'm assuming they will) I think they'll win the division handily. If they keep more of an eye on kicking off the service time clock, they might win the division anyway and bring up those guys for the playoffs. Either way, they're now relevant and a really interesting new contender.
Offseason
They may have won the division but they're still acting more like a rebuilding team than a contender. No FA signings, 1 promotion (SS Vince Atkins) and 21 players on the MML roster 10 games into the season. We're going to see more promotions (Santon Guillon, David Bonilla...? and 2 more) in 10 more games.
Outlook/Forecast
Season 48 was a bit of a head fake for the rebuilding Scotts. They got a big bump from Norman and Tejera (even the ever-tradeable William Magee pitched in 32 HR's and good defense in CF) - the prime dividends of the Season 47 mega-deal with Austin. But now they're waiting for their low-A prospects to arrive while surviving with a staff that posted a 4.91 ERA last year (topped only by Colorado). Guillon will become the best pitcher on the staff when he arrives, but they're still likely to back up a few games.
Offseason
They didn't re-sign Destin Williamson, and we may be seeing the end of the line for one of the most under-appreciated hitters in recent years. Compiled 465 HR's over his 13 seasons, and had 40+ HR's in each of his first 8 full seasons. Signed RP Wilbur Harris plus a pair of budget arms. Made 4 trades - all getting prospects for vets (including SP's Shigetoshi Bong and Midre Miro).
Outlook/Forecast
They've been in a full-on youth movement for several seasons now and have an almost all twenty-something roster. 1B Wolf Tolleson, 2B Harry Diaz, and 3B Haywood Brinson are now the big dogs of the lineup; I don't know if their pitching is better or worse without Bong and Miro, but it's cheaper (their ML payroll is down to $25MM). But despite acting like an IFA-hunting rebuilder, they might win the division. I don't think their pitching will be quite enough, but Montgomery and New Orleans have plenty of flaws, too. I think they'll end up somewhere between last year's 77 wins and S47's 90.
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