Saturday Morning Musing-February Odds and Ends

As we all try to survive February, and a particularly nasty one here in Ohio, let's take a look at some Indians related news.

First off, let's look at the big news concerning the promotions of Shapiro and Antonetti. I wholeheartedly agree with keeping these guys in the organization. I'm a staunch Shapiro supporter and his right hand man Antonetti deserves a shot to be GM. I think the Indians severe underachieving the past few years came from a mixture of bad luck, injuries, Eric Wedge and historically bad bullpens (almost beyond belief). On a tight payroll Shapiro has created teams with these expected win-loss (X-L) records the past 5 years (actual W-L in parentheses):

2005: 96-66 (93-69, -3)

2006: 89-73 (78-84, -11)

2007: 91-71 (96-66, +5)

2008: 85-77, (81-81, -4)

2009: 73-89, (65-97, -8)

That's pretty damn good for a small market team. I'm tired off these trolls blaming him... as if somebody else could do much better (I'm sure there are plenty out there who could do much worse). You have 2005 where the Indians should have made the playoffs, but lost 6 out of their last 7 to fall just short. By the way the White Sox X-L that year was 91-71 or 5 behind the that of the Tribe's, but they managed to make the playoffs anyways and win the World Series.

The Indians actually lost 11 more games than their X-L record said they should of in 2006. Hard to imagine how that offense with a stellar trio of CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook heading the rotation finished so badly. Well I guess it comes down to THE BULLPEN. Grady Sizemore (.908 OPS at 23) and Travis Hafner (1.098 OPS) were otherworldly that year.

The only year the Indians actually outperformed their X-L record (2007) they collapsed in the ALCS.... In 2008 the Indians fell apart early, but came on strong at the end to finish 81-81 even after the Sabathia deal. Their X-L of 85-77 would have put them in the conversation for the division crown, which came down to a one game playoff between Minnesota and Chicago (both had 88 wins). And well, 2009 was just bad all around....

Using this evidence (teams that were or should have been in legitimate contention 4 out of last 5 years), I fully support promotions for Shapiro and Antonetti.

In other news, Russell Branyan is back for his fourth tour of duty in the Indians organization. For a reported 2 million dollars and another million in incentives, I like this deal. Hopefully he can have a hot first half and net the Indians a nice prospect, but moreover in light of the relatively optimistic CHONE and PECOTA standings predictions (Indians pegged at 81 and 77 wins respectively)... perhaps Branyan could push the Indians to the magical 82 or 83 wins that it may take to win this division (optimistic I know). Here's the probable lineup with Branyan onboard:

C- Lou Marson/Carlos Santana

1B- Russell Branyan

2B- Luis Valbuena

SS- Asdrubal Cabrera

3B- Jhonny Peralta

LF- Matt LaPorta

CF- Grady Sizemore

RF- Shin-Soo Choo

DH- Travis Hafner

Assuming health, that's a damned imposing lineup. Essentially Branyan takes the spot Brantley would have had in the lineup by shifting LaPorta out to leftfield. However, I have no problem with Brantley getting more seasoning at AAA. Maybe the lineup is a little too lefty heavy, but it's still impressive. If only, if only we had some pitching.....

Lastly, I got my copy of Baseball Prospectus' 2010 Handbook. It's always a good read and as a longtime reader of the publications such as The Onion I appreciate its snarky, sarcastic style. There were some nice nuggets of hope in the handbook, primarily concerning the tribe's offense, but surprisingly also about the Indians' pitching staff too.

BP's PECOTA predicted Grady Sizemore to bounce back and have the second highest WAR (5.4) in the AL behind only Joe Mauer (5.9). Furthermore, PECOTA remains a believer in Choo predicting that he'll have the fifth highest VORP (Value over Replacement Player) in the MLB amongst RF only behind Andre Eithier, Jayson Werth, Nick Markakis and Hunter Pence. Despite some predicted regression in '10 PECOTA likes young Asdrubal Cabrera's career prospects offering up impressive comparables in Tony Fernandez, Derek Jeter and Alan Trammell. Perhaps the most encouraging prediction was of rookie Carlos Santana who PECOTA saw as the catcher with the fifth highest VORP, a single slot beneath Victor Martinez.

On the pitching side there wasn't a great deal of optimism for '10, but a couple things caught my eye. One of Jeanmar Gomez's comparables was Javier Vazquez. Gomez sometimes gets forgotten within the incredible pitching depth of the Indians' system, but it's encouraging to see him favorably compared to Vazquez. Also, PECOTA likes Masterson and compared him to John Lackey. Hopefully he can learn to contain lefties a little better....

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for stopping by and to the readers who have e-mailed me insights/questions (I'll answer some reader questions in a future post). I'll be back next week with some first week opinions/reactions to tribe-related spring training intrigue.

Yours truly,

Alex Trebek

Previewing the NL

It's still snowing out there.... We have something like 25 inches on the ground here in central Ohio. I thought I'd finish my preliminary preview of baseball in '10 before my evening seminar. Once again, I apologize for the strange formating issues.... and remember this post is just for fun since despite all the research in the world you can't easily predict the random nature of a 162 game baseball season. Enjoy!

NL East W L

(1) Philadelphia Phillies 92 70

(4) Atlanta Braves 89 73

Florida Marlins 82 80

New York Mets 81 81

Washington Nationals 66 96

The NL East is still a strong division and every team save the Nationals has a legitimate shot at the playoffs. The Phillies questionably swapped out Lee for Halladay, but still have a damn imposing rotation of Halladay, Hamels(I expect him to return to his ’08 form), Blanton, Happ and Moyer. There offense is similarly stacked with the likes of Howard, Utley, Werth, Rollins and Victorino. Who knows what to expect from their bullpen with an erratic Brad Lidge penciled in as closer, but bullpens are so volatile they’re not even worth projecting. It’s hard to pick against the Phillies here. The Braves almost made the playoffs last year and once again sport a fine looking roster in ’10. Despite the subtraction of Javier Vazquez, they still have a superb rotation headlined by a potent trio of Hudson-Hansen-Jurrjens and their offense should be better for the subtraction of Garrett Anderson’s 496 ABs and Jason Heyward’s impending arrival. The Marlins locked up ace Josh Johnson over the winter to give them a centerpiece on the pitching-side to complement their centerpiece on the hitting side Hanley Ramirez. Ricky Nolasco suffered horrible luck last year (5.08 ERA, 3.28 xFIP) and I view him as a co-ace to Johnson. The Marlins have plenty of young pitching depth to slot behind Johnson and Nolasco and with hitters like Uggla, Coghlan, Cantu and hopefully Maybin the Marlins could easily make some more noise this year in the East. The Mets have a Royal-esque offseason and triggered a hilarious post on fangraphs entitled “the contest” between Drayton Moore and Omar Minaya. Although they overspent for Bay, the Mets were so unhealthy last year that I believe they are getting underestimated. They’re a .500 team or maybe a little better, but I still think they’re fourth in the division. The future doesn’t look quite so grim for the Nationals with Strasburg in the minors. They could have a decent team in 2011 with guys like Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman, Drew Storen and Ryan Zimmerman leading a talented young core. 2010 you ask? Well, don’t hold your breath.

NL Central W L

(2) St. Louis Cardinals 90 72

Cincinnati Reds 86 76

Milwaukee Brewers 81 81

Chicago Cubs 78 84

Pittsburgh Pirates 67 95

Houston Astros 63 99

The Cardinals are the strongest team here on paper. The quartet of Carpenter, Wainwright, Pujols and Holliday is not one you want to mess with. They depleted their farm system and much of their young talent with their trades for Holliday and DeRosa last year, but it was worth it and they’re a strong team. Look for budding star Colby Rasmus to breakout this year and make it a powerful quintet of all-stars heading St. Louis’ roster. The Reds are a team I like a lot. They probably still are a year away, but they have a high upside, if volatile, rotation headed by Volquez, Cueto and Bailey that has already showed flashes of brilliance. Watch out for their 2012 rotation which could be dominating with Volquez, Cueto, Bailey, first round pick Mike Leake and stud Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman. Votto is an underappreciated star and their offense should be fine with guys like Bruce and Rolen. The Brewers improved their downright awful pitching staff with solid cogs Randy Wolf and Doug Davis to slot behind Yovani Gallardo. However, it’s still an underwhelming staff. At least the offense will be fun to watch with the Prince and Ryan “the Hebrew Hammer” Braun holding down the heart of the lineup. They look like a .500 team to me. I’m not particularly high on the Cubs. The Cubbies are handicapped by bad contracts and an aging roster and I’m not a fan of their GM Jim Hendry either. The Pirates are showing progress and have a young core in the majors and high minors that could turn the ship around in Pittsburgh. I’m a big Andrew McCutchen fan. Pirates GM Neil Huntington is doing his best in a tough situation. My Astros prediction may be a little harsh, but I foresee a collapse in Houston. They have an old, listless roster weighed down by bad contracts. Houston needs to focus inwards and build up their consistently lousy farm system. If not, Houston could suffer a lost decade…. and signing lousy, injury prone relievers to 3 year, 15 million dollar contracts doesn’t help Houston’s cause *cough, Brandon Lyon, cough*.

NL West W L

(3) Arizona D-Backs 89 73

Colorado Rockies 86 76

Los Angeles Dodgers 83 79

San Francisco Giants 75 87

San Diego Padres 68 94

My predictions here are fairly bold. People fall into the comfortable habit of predicting divisions like they finished the year beforehand. Although Arizona finished dead last with only 70 wins in ’09, they’ve made some moves this offseason and have an impressive core. Let’s start with the rotation. If Brandon Webb comes back healthy, a Haren-Webb-Edwin Jackson trio looks very strong. I believe that Ian Kennedy will benefit greatly from this change of scenery. He’ls still only 25, posted fine numbers in AAA last year (9.93 K/9, 3.57 K/BB, 1.92 FIP) and should make a fine #4 starter. On the offense end, the D-Backs have budding superstars Mark Reynolds and Justin Upton, along with a talented group of Stephen Drew, Miguel Montero, Connor Jackson and Chris Young. Imagine if that latter group can bring it together. As a result, I’m bullish on Arizona. The Rockies were a great story in ’09, sprinting into the wild card after an atrocious start. I almost picked them in the West because their talented roster spearheaded by Tulowitzki, Helton, Jimenez and Flower could still easily take it. The Dodgers had a lackluster offseason and strangely decided against offering arbitration to Randy Wolf and Orlando Hudson. It’s difficult to predict their gifted, but volatile pitching duo of Clayton Kershaw (ugly 4.79 BB/9, but only 119H in 171 IP) and Chad Billingsley (3.14 ERA in first 120.1IP in '10, 5.45 ERA in last 79.1IP). They still have a nice offense spearheaded by an excellent outfield of Kemp, Ethier and Ramirez. The Giants just have such a lousy offense that it’s hard to put them any higher than this. Now the trio of Lincecum/Cain/Sandoval is imposing, but in general I think the Giants are overhyped due to their nice 88 win campaign last year. The Padres are in the capable hands of former Red Sox assistant GM Jed Hoyer. They have some nice guys coming through their system starting with #3 overall pick last year Donovan Tate. However, the team topside just isn’t very good, although I like youngster Matt Latos and think Adrian Gonzalez and Health Bell could make superb trade bait.

Playoffs:

ALDS

(1) New York over (3) Minnesota in 3 games

(2) Texas over (4) Boston in 4 games

NLDS

(3) Arizona over (1) Philadelphia in 5 games

(4) Atlanta over (2) St. Louis in 4 games

ALCS

(2) Texas over (1) New York in 6 games

NLCS

(4) Atlanta over (3) Arizona in 5 games

World Series

Texas over Atlanta in 7 games

Spring Training in a week!

Alex Trebek

Saturday Morning Musing-Previewing the AL

Before you start: I am sorry about the formating issues with the W-L records.

Winter rages onwards. Well I'm here at the college library procrastinating from doing a german paper on "althochdeutsch" (old high german). I guess let's take a break and preview the AL in 2010. Granted, it's fairly useless to predict W-L records in February because of the injuries/luck/other intangibles involved with a 162 game baseball season, nonetheless let's just have some fun. Moreover, there's already half a foot of snow on the ground and it doesn't look like it's going to stop coming down anytime soon.

AL East W L

(1) New York Yankees 102 60

(4) Boston Red Sox 99 63

Tampa Bay Rays 91 71

Baltimore O’s 71 91

Toronto Blue Jays 68 94

The AL East will once again be the strongest in all of baseball. Personally, I’d peg the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays as the three best teams in baseball. The Yankees and Red Sox with their enormous payrolls and shrewd front offices are almost in a league of their own. I’ll take the Yankees here because I like their offseason moves to an already menacing team. The newly acquired trio of Curtis Granderson, Javier Vazquez and on-base machine Nick Johnson may not be as impressive as last years trio of Sabathia, Burnett and Texieria, but don’t discount it. I see them winning about as many games as last year (103) because their improvements are tempered somewhat by an aging roster (Jeter, Rodriguez, Pettitte, M. Rivera, Posada) that was unusually healthy last year. The Red Sox are probably still a step behind the Yankees. However, given Boston’s strong farm system, impressive core and monetary advantage if they aren’t as good as the Yanks this year they will be soon. The Rays and their creative GM Andrew Friedman shocked baseball in ’08 by making a run at a championship. It’s incredible that they have kept pace with the megamarkets of New York and Boston…. Despite their leadership, young talent and minor league system, I still see the Red Sox and Yanks as being superior to the small market Rays. The Baltimore O’s could be a surprise team in ’11… They already have a strong offense spearheaded by Markakis, Jones, Roberts, Reimold and Wieters and have an outstanding young pitching quartet of Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta and Zach Britton coming through the minor league system. Toronto has an ok farm system and an ok major league team (although the trio of Aaron Hill, Travis Snider and Adam Lind is something to build around). Mediocre Farm System+ Mediocre Major League Team=Screwed in AL East.

AL Central W L

(3) Minnesota Twins 86 76

Chicago White Sox 80 82

Cleveland Indians 76 86

Detroit Tigers 73 89

Kansas City Royals 66 96

The AL Central sucks. There, I said what was on everybody's mind. I’ll pick Minnesota by default. Scott Baker is a nice pitcher and I expect Francisco Liriano to turn it around after his nice stint in winterball (although I doubt he’ll ever come close to his unbelievable ’06 form). Minnesota’s offense has its holes, but Joe Mauer is a superstar and Morneau, Hardy, Cuddyer, Kubel and Span are all solid pieces around which to build. The White Sox have a potent quartet of starters in Jake Peavy, Mark Buerhle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd, but their offense looks pretty awful. Gordon Beckham will be a star and I expect bounce back seasons from Alex Rios and Carlos Quentin, but I’ve never been a big Alexei Ramirez fan personally (.723 OPS in his age 27 season) and there isn’t much help coming from the farm. The White Sox have a solid chance to capture the AL Central, but they don’t look like much more than a .500 team and are far inferior to the trio of New York-Boston-Tampa Bay. Cleveland has promise, but is rebuilding and is almost certainly at least a year away. Their offense spearheaded by Grady Sizemore, Shin-Soo Choo and Asdrubal Cabrera will receive young reinforcements from the likes of Matt LaPorta, Carlos Santana and Michael Brantley, but the necessary pitching just isn’t there yet. The Tigers almost captured the AL Central crown in ’09, but probably outdid themselves. They were outscored 743-745 and lost important cogs Edwin Jackson and Curtis Granderson. Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello are outstanding pieces to build around and the minor league system has some promising pieces, but I just don’t see them going anywhere this year (although the AL Central is awful....). The Royals have Zach Grienke and Billy Butler along with nice pieces in David DeJesus, Gil Meche and hopefully a productive Alex Gordon, but Dayton Moore has made some notoriously questionable moves this offseason. They’ve paid free agents like Jason Kendall, Brian Anderson and Scott Podsednik who are just as qualified to receive a major league contract as to work at a gas station.

AL West W L

(2) Texas Rangers 88 74

Oakland A’s 86 76

Los Angeles Angels 85 77

Seattle Mariners 82 80

This division is the one I’m most looking forward to seeing in 2010. All four teams have a decent solid at the division crown. The consensus groupthink (if that’s not too Orwellian) is that the Mariners stand out from the crowd here. Granted the Mariners won 85 games last year and had an excellent offseason, but they were still outscored by 52 runs last year. Figgins and Lee are outstanding additions and I do like Jack Z, but the offense still is not that good and not to curb the collective enthusiasm of Mariners fans, but your team is probably a bit overrated (although a King Felix-Lee-healthy Bedard trio could very well prove me wrong). Furthermore I would like to say that although usually there is no harm in taking on a player for essentially nothing like the M’s did with Milton Bradley, but I think Bradley is an asshole in the mold of Albert Belle who will eventually alienate anybody he’s around long enough. I picked the Rangers because I like what’s brewing down there in Texas. Their offense core is already potent with the likes of Kinsler, Young and Cruz. I believe that despite Chris Davis’ ridiculously high number of K’s (150K’s in 391ABs!) that he could become a quality major leaguer. Add Rich Harden to a pitching corps built around young talent like Feldman, Holland, Hunter and Feliz and things start to look quite promising for the Texas Rangers. Moreover the Rangers were picked for the second straight year as BA’s top minor league system. Not much not to like there. I feel the A’s are underrated especially if Ben Sheets is healthy. Brett Anderson+Ben Sheets is almost enough to justify a winning record alone. Despite their spotty offense, pitchers like Braden and Cahill mean the A’s should be a solid or better team in ’09. It’s almost trendy to pick against the Angels every year despite their consistency and record of success. The duel losses of Lackey and Figgins hurt the Angels a lot, but they are a resilient bunch and could once again silence the doubters in ’10 by capturing another division crown.

ALDS

(1) New York over (3) Minnesota

(2) Texas over (4) Boston

ALCS

(2) Texas over (1) New York

Well there you go. Constructive criticism is always welcome and I value everybody's perspective. I do follow major and minor baseball closely and weigh a wide variety of sources before I make my picks, but remember I'm only one guy making picks in February. Admittedly my predictions were pretty lousy for the 2009 season. I did have the Yankees winning it all, but I had them beating the Mets in 7 games. In my myopic nostalgia I like to think that I correctly predicted the World Series winner in '09 (not that I liked the Yankees victory), but well in hindsight the Mets were still an awful choice for the NL champion.

Peace,

Alex Trebek