I’m one of the many observers picking the Phillies to prevail in the NL East. Like many prognosticators, however, I make this prediction with a sense of foreboding that a certain team down in Atlanta isn’t quite ready to cede the division. Rationally, I know the Braves’ rotation has been systematically disemboweled by age and departure. I also know that last season’s Panzer division of an offense has lost its two best performers, Javy Lopez and Gary Sheffield, to the AL East. Still, the last 13 years have taught me that betting against the Braves is a cockamamie endeavor. With all that in mind, let’s take a look at what PECOTA says about the division and determine what needs to happen for the Braves to dish out yet another dynastic noogie to the collective scalp of the NL East.
Some of the players that the Tigers brought in have some risk to them. Bobby Higginson may not have a light, but he does have a history. He’s another of the Pilates and core performance proponents, but his problems have been in his legs. Dmitri Young has had minor problems, including his back and both Achilles tendons, but again, he’ll be protected since he’s one of few true threats in the lineup. Even Carlos Pena has had problems, but the mysterious sluggingfirstbasemanitis of the wrist hasn’t affected him over the past few seasons. And that’s just the green lights…
Jack Cust could finally get his chance with the Orioles. The back of the Rockies’ rotation could be Tsao-Tsao. The Mets should benefit from stronger up-the-middle defense. These and other news and notes in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
The threshold for changing managers varies from team to team. In Boston, an obviously wrongheaded move with Pedro Martinez was enough the get Grady Little handed his hat, whereas in Houston a more sustained failure of critical thinking (rather than a failure of intelligence, which means a whole different thing these days) gets overlooked. As Billy Joel sang, it’s a matter of trust, though not in the “Will Billy Martin come to the park sober tonight?” sense, but rather the “Would you trust this doctor to prescribe you a Band-Aid?” aspect. Among the many underpublicized acts of suicide by a manager last year was Jimy Williams’ overfondness for Geoff Blum, Orlando Merced, and a host of other fill-ins; plate appearances were thrown away with an alarming profligacy, more than enough to make the difference in a close race. This time around, the big question is not only if Williams will repeat the same mistakes with his Orlando Palmeiro, his Jose Vizcaino, and his Mike Lamb (“Sometimes, when you have nothing to do,” says Sbirro in Stanley Ellin’s classic 1948 short story, “The Specialty of the House,” “you must turn your thoughts a little to the significance of the Lamb in religion. It will be so interesting.” ) but if, when the time comes, the organization will forcibly divorce the team from its favorite crutches by trading for a real catcher or center fielder.
The Rockies have become more like a puzzle than a baseball team. While the intellectual exercise is good, the fact is that the problem of winning at altitude has become a lot more interesting than the team itself. While baseball at a mile high should be among the most exciting spectacles in the game–tape measure home runs and plenty of hitting–this team just doesn’t look like anything more than a bad team. The Rockies head into the 2004 campaign with most of the same questions they had last season. Their best players are slightly fragile and their supporting cast isn’t enough to take up the slack when those players inevitably miss games. The pitching staff will be slightly healthier, but Denny Neagle has to be taken into account in the overall assessment of the medical staff.
The Braves hit the trade market for pitching help. The White Sox aim to find some use for Timo Perez. Kahrl to Twins: Free Justin Morneau! Khalil Greene claims the Padres SS job outright with St. Rey shuffling off. These and other happenings in today’s Transaction Analysis.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Four years ago, when the Mets and Cubs became the first teams to open the season
with a short series in Tokyo, I went to bed early, set my alarm for 2 a.m. PST,
jumped out of bed right around that time, watched the game and fired off a
diary of the experience for posting that morning. It was a fun exercise,
especially since it was a pretty good game and I had at least a few hours’
sleep.
So with my…er, the Yankees opening their 2004 season in Japan, I
figured this would be another opportunity to get a fun column out of it. Being
on the East Coast now, though, and with no real sleep pattern to speak of, I
elected to stay up all night to do so.
I guess that was my first bad decision. My second was asking Grady Little to
be my insurance policy in case I dozed off. As you’d expect, Little eventually
got me, but just a few minutes too late. Figures.
Curt Schilling could be perfectly suited for Fenway Park. The Reds’ rotation needs a lift from some young guns. The Marlins don’t need a roof on a new ballpark. The Yankees hope to avoid jet lag on their trip home from Japan. The Pirates’ baserunning errors didn’t hurt much last year. The Padres should expect improvement in their rotation. These and other news and notes in today’s Double-Stuft edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
While the Cubs and Astros are the consensus picks, there are smart analysts out there picking the Cardinals. There are reasons to believe this, but in the immortal words of The Dude, “The Dude cannot abide.” This lineup is not only bright Cardinal red, but a whole bunch of yellow. The second base situation is so bad that comparing it to an Ed Wood movie is an insult to Ed Wood, fuzzy sweater or not. Simply put, this team has the talent to win, but probably can’t keep that talent between the lines long enough to really challenge the Astros and Cubs. As Walter Sobchak would say, “You’re about to enter a world of pain.” Every position player has a light on the Cardinals, something I didn’t think had happened before. I checked and there’s never been more than six lights for the position players, even for AL teams where the DH is included in my lineups. The Cardinals can abide almost any injury as long as it’s not Albert Pujols. Pujols is gaining distance from his sprained elbow, but it remains a concern. His injury risk is reduced at first, but he remains yellow… and yet he’s the least risky player on the field.
Back by popular demand, I bring you another installment of “Conversations With Dave,” which are, in fact, not with Dave, but with someone not named Dave at all, who’s not a stathead or blogger, or even a management consultant. The conversation was not transcribed perfectly, but Dave has had an opportunity to review and approve the final copy, to make certain he wasn’t misrepresented.
Jaret Wright doesn’t get it. Jim Hendry and Dusty Baker talk chemistry. Doubles or home runs? Tough question, according to the Brewers. All this and more in this week’s edition of The Week In Quotes.
The last week was a whirlwind, with four Pizza Feeds in three days in the Philadelphia and New York areas. At every one, I got to meet enthusiastic BP readers who provided both great feedback on the book and the Web site, as well as hours of interesting baseball talk. The highlights for me were the first and last events: Tuesday afternoon’s Feed in Philly’s Central City included a great Q&A session from an overflow crowd, while Thursday night’s session in Brooklyn featured another group that spilled out into the Fiction and Literature aisles, and a panel of five BPers touching on everything from fantasy baseball to what wins in the postseason to the World War II-era Washington Senators. One thing I’ll take from this trip is the enthusiasm for baseball I encountered in both cities. For all the shots Philadelphia sports fans have taken, they seem genuinely excited about this year’s team and the opening of Citizens Bank Ballpark. They have good reason to be, because their boys are the consensus favorite to win the NL East. Even my pessimism about Larry Bowa can’t convince me that the Phillies will do anything but win the division comfortably this year. Meanwhile, New York was its usual baseball-crazed self; I had any number of random conversations with people who, upon discovering what it is I do, wanted to give me their analysis of the Yankees’ rotation, the Mets’ new acquisitions, and the not-so-popular baseball team located a bit to the Northeast.
I’m going to type “it’s time to answer some reader mail” into AltaVista’s Babelfish, translate it from English to German, from German to French and then from French back to English. Then, I’ll take what comes out of the wash, translate it from English to French, French to German and then back to English. And we have: “it is a time, in order to answer to the station of the reader.” This entertains me.
This week’s YOU, tenth in an ongoing series looking at today through the looking glass of yesterday focuses on two unusual mammals, one of the marine variety, the other a pitcher with an unusual adaptation. The passing last week of left-handed knuckleball pitcher Gene Bearden, hero of the 1948 American League pennant race, has me missing Stellar’s Sea Cow. It’s a silly emotion because I’ve never seen a Stellar’s Sea Cow, and neither has anyone living. Stellar’s was ejected from the big game back in 1768. Still, to know that there was once such a magnificent creature on this planet and to have missed a chance to see it is quite depressing.
Stellar’s was the mega-manatee, a huge version of the endangered Florida marine mammal. Like Cecil Fielder, it weighed as much as ten tons and could reach lengths of up to 100 feet. At one time Stellar’s had a large range, but due to hunting by primitive fishermen with pointy sticks they hung out exclusively in the Bering Strait by the time they were officially discovered in 1741. The Russians, who found them quite accidentally, exterminated them in about two minutes, give or take 27 years. The eighteenth century is known as the Age of the Enlightenment, which proves that historians have a sense of humor.
Having gone back and read what I just wrote, the following now seems sort of trivial. Aspiring writers, avoid this sort of segue: knuckleball pitchers are baseball’s version of Stellar’s Sea Cow circa 1767. If you were around to follow the game in the 1980s, you had a good chance of seeing at least two starts by a knuckleball pitcher in any given week. Back when it was morning in America, Phil Niekro, Joe Niekro, Tom Candiotti, and Charlie Hough made a combined 917 starts (1981-1990), and at times they were each very good. In fact, Hough was consistently one of the best pitchers in the game.
John Patterson and Juan Cruz: good riddance, or highway robbery? The Astros drop another roadblock in Morgan Ensburg’s way. Itinerant pitcher Bruce Chen’s destiny likely includes fitting for a few more major league uniforms. All this and more in Friday’s Transaction Analysis.
The Diamondbacks may not look deep, but they’re one of few teams with solid upper level pitching prospects, they’ve got a deep bench, and they develop pitchers well, if slowly. As they unwind some of the financial machinations that brought them a ring, they’re slowly becoming the type of team fans like to root for–homegrown, but recognizable. Is that good enough to win this season? They should be healthy enough to find out.