Season Preview – NL West

We’re up to the last division left to review with the NL West. You can also take a look at my previews of the AL East, AL Central, AL West,  NL East, and NL Central.

Last Year’s Records
San Francisco – 92-70
San Diego – 90-72
Colorado – 83-79
Los Angeles – 80-82
Arizona – 65-97

Notable Additions

Arizona – Xavier Nady, Russell Branyan, J.J. Putz, Melvin Mora, David Hernandez, Kam Mickolio

Colorado – Matt Lindstrom, John Maine, Jose Lopez, Ty Wigginton, Felipe Paulino

Los Angeles – Marcus Thames, Matt Guerrier, Jon Garland

San Diego – Brad Hawpe, Cameron Maybin, Jorge Cantu, Aaron Harang

San Francisco – Miguel Tejada

Notable Losses

Arizona – Ryan Church, Adam LaRoche, Mark Reynolds, Brandon Webb

Colorado – Miguel Olivo, Clint Barmes, Jeff Francis

Los Angeles – Russell Martin, Ryan Theriot, Scott Podsednik

San Diego – Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Tejada, Chris Young

San Francisco – Jose Guillen, Edgar Renteria

My Thoughts

Arizona – Under the leadership of new GM Kevin Towers, the Diamondbacks have already begun the process of rebuilding by trading away Mark Reynolds and letting Adam LaRoche and Brandon Webb leave via free agency.  They seem extremely unlikely to compete this season, but will look for improvements from Justin Upton and Stephen Drew.

Colorado – The Rockies spent their offseason spending money on contract extensions, as both Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki were signed to long term contract extensions. The team also did well to re-sign some of their free agents, most notably Jorge de la Rosa. This really seems like a team to me that has the chance to compete for the division title, providing they get a few breaks to go their way. They will look for a repeat performance from Ubaldo Jimenez and improvements from Jhoulys Chacin and Dexter Fowler as well.

Los Angeles – With the ownership situation in a state of partial disarray, the Dodgers didn’t really go out and spend a lot of money this offseason. They did resign free agent starter Ted Lilly, but otherwise did not make any large acquisitions. The pitching staff is excellent, but they will look for a bounce back season from Jonathan Broxton as the closer. The Dodgers are another team that seems to me like they can compete, providing they catch a few breaks.

San Diego – The biggest news out of the Padres this offseason unfortunately was the trade of star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. They have cut payroll down to a very minimal amount at this point, and could look to move closer Heath Bell if they fall out of contention. I am not seeing a repeat of last year’s 90 win performance out of this group of players, but I don’t think they are necessarily going to be terrible either. They will look for Mat Latos to build on his excellent 2010 season and try to take another step forward, but there’s a lot of questions after him in the rotation.

San Francisco – The reigning World Champions only had one slightly major acquisition (Tejada), but did well to resign Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff. Their pitching could conceivably be better than last year, with Madison Bumgarner making a full season of starts this year. 2010 NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey will be up for the full season this year, and top prospect Brandon Belt is not likely to be in AAA for very long either. This is a team that could compete for the NL crown again.

Overall Thoughts

The NL West has the Giants at the top, and then a lot of question marks behind them. I honestly think that any of the teams at 2 through 4 could finish in any order in those spots.  Here’s my predicted order of finish:

1. San Francisco
2. Colorado
3. Los Angeles
4. San Diego
5. Arizona

Season Preview: AL East

With Spring Training well under way and the first games starting very soon, I figured it was a good time to take a look at my own predictions for the league, and the changes the respective teams have made.

Last Year’s Records
Tampa Bay – 96-66
New York – 95-67
Boston – 89-73
Toronto – 85-77
Baltimore – 66-96

Notable Additions

Baltimore – Derrek Lee, Mark Reynolds, Vladimir Guerrero, J.J. Hardy, Justin Duchscherer

Boston – Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Bobby Jenks, Dan Wheeler

New York – Russell Martin, Rafael Soriano, Pedro Feliciano, Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon, Eric Chavez

Tampa Bay – Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez, Adam Russell, Cesar Ramos, Felipe Lopez, Sam Fuld, Chris Archer

Toronto – Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, Juan Rivera, Scott Podsednik, Brett Lawrie, Rajai Davis

Notable Losses

Baltimore – Kevin Millwood, Julio Lugo, Ty Wigginton, David Hernandez, Kam Mickolio

Boston – Adrian Beltre, Victor Martinez, Anthony Rizzo, Casey Kelly, Bill Hall

New York – Javier Vazquez, Andy Pettitte, Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood

Tampa Bay – Carl Crawford, Matt Garza, Rafael Soriano, Carlos Pena, Grant Balfour, Joaquin Benoit

Toronto – Vernon Wells, Shaun Marcum, John Buck, Miguel Olivo, Scott Downs

Original Draft Series: Team #30 – Baltimore Orioles

For those that missed the guidelines I am using for this series of posts, you can find them here.

Team #30: Baltimore Orioles

General Managers(since 1994)

Roland Hemond (1994-1995): 134-122
Pat Gillick (1996-1998): 265-221
Frank Wren (1999): 78-84
Syd Thrift (2000-2002): 204-281
Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan (2003-2005): 223-263
Mike Flanagan (2006-2007): 70-92
Andy MacPhail (2007-current): 201-284

Team Performance

Playoffs			Division Finish
WC	League	Playoff App	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
0	0	2	1	2	2	9	2

Well, the Major League team hasn’t shown a whole lot of success in the past 15 years, with only a pair of playoff appearances in 1996 and 1997 while under the tutelage of general manager Pat Gillick. When looking through the rosters, these were the best players that I could come up with at each of these positions. I realize that a few of them are barely in the Majors as it is now, but unfortunately I really didn’t find anyone that played these positions that I would consider to be better than the players listed. All information is drawn from Baseball Reference.

Position	Name	Acquired	Years with Org.	Stats with Organization	Left?
C	Matt Wieters	2007 – 1st Rd (5)	3	153 gm, 13 HR, 60 RBI, 49 R	Currently with Org.
1B	Nolan Reimold	2005 – 2nd Rd	5	133 gm, .265/.353/.442, 17 HR, 55 RBI, 8 SB, 56 R	Currently with Org.
2B	Brian Roberts	1999 – 1st Rd (50)	11	1139 gm, .283/.355/.420, 77 HR, 443 RBI, 258 SB, 730 R	Currently with Org.
3B	Mike Fontenot	2001 – 1st Rd (19)	4	No Major League Appearances for Organization	Traded to CHC – 2/2/05
SS	Jerry Hairston	1997 – 11th Rd	8	530 gm, .261/.334/.371, 26 HR, 160 RBI, 94 SB, 241 R	Traded to CHC – 2/2/05
LF	Jayson Werth	1997 – 1st Rd (22)	3	No Major League Appearances for Organization	Traded to TOR –  12/11/00
CF	Willie Harris	1999 – 24th Rd	3	9 gm, .125/.125/.167, 3 R	Traded to CHW – 1/29/02
RF	Nick Markakis	2003 – 1st Rd (7)	7	688 gm, .297/.366/.466, 80 HR, 383 RBI, 37 SB, 393 R	Currently with Org.
DH	Gregg Zaun	1989 – 17th Rd	7+1	146 gm, 8 HR, 40 RBI, 1 SB, 57 R	Traded to TB – 8/7/09
SP	Erik Bedard	1999 – 6th Rd	8	40-34, 3.83 ERA, 639 K, 254 BB, 658 IP, 1.339 WHIP	Traded to SEA – 2/8/08
SP	Brian Matusz	2008 – 1st Rd (4)	2	7-9, 4.38 ERA, 99 K, 41 BB, 119.2 IP, 1.479 WHIP	Currently with Org.
SP	Brad Bergesen	2004- 4th Rd	6	10-9,  4.36 ERA, 79 K, 50 BB, 177.3 IP, 1.415 WHIP	Currently with Org.
SP	John Maine	2002 – 6th Rd	3	2-4, 6.60 ERA, 25 K, 27 BB, 43.2 IP, 1.672 WHIP	Traded to NYM – 1/22/06
SP	David Hernandez	2005 – 16th Rd	5	6-15, 1 SV, 5.19 ERA, 101 K, 77 BB, 151 IP, 1.570 WHIP	Currently with Org.
RP	Jim Johnson	2001 – 5th Rd	9	7-12, 12 SV, 3.87 ERA, 97 K, 60 BB, 153.1 IP, 1.396 WHIP	Currently with Org.
RP	Koji Uehara	Int’l FA – 2009	2	2-4, 3.89 ERA, 54 K, 15 BB, 71.2 IP, 1.242 WHIP	Currently with Org.
RP	Arthur Rhodes	1988 – 2nd Rd	11	43-36, 9 SV, 4.86 ERA, 579 K, 316 BB, 622.1 IP, 1.432 WHIP	Free Agency – 11/1/99
RP	D.J. Carrasco	1997 – 26th Rd	1	No Major League Appearances for Organization	Released – 6/14/98
RP	Jason Berken	2006 – 6th Rd	4	6-13, 5.65 ERA, 86 K, 52 BB, 151.1 IP, 1.632 WHIP	Currently with Org.
CL	Chris Ray	2003 – 3rd Rd	6	10-17, 49 SV, 4.11 ERA, 177 K, 86 BB, 192.2 IP,  1.370 WHIP	Traded to TEX – 12/9/09
BN	Darnell McDonald (OF)	1997 – 1st Rd (26)	7	17 gm, .156/.206/.188, 1 RBI, 1 SB, 3 R	Free Agency – 10/15/04
BN	Jake Arrieta (SP)	2007 – 5th Rd	3	1-0, 4.50 ERA, 6 K, 4 BB, 6 IP, 1.333 WHIP	Currently with Org.
BN	Augie Ojeda (IF)	1996 – 13th Rd	3	No Major League Appearances for Organization	Traded to CHC – 12/13/99
BN	Adam Loewen (OF/P)	2002 – 1st Rd (4)	6	8-8, 5.38 ERA, 134 K, 106 BB, 164 IP, 1.640 WHIP	Free Agency – 10/20/08
BN	Garrett Olson (P)	2005 – 1st Rd (48)	3	10-13, 6.87 ERA, 111 K, 90 BB, 165 IP, 1.818 WHIP	Traded to CHC – 1/18/09

Clearly, I had to stretch quite a bit to get some of these starting positions filled. Nolan Reimold has never played at 1B in the Major Leagues, but has been working at 1B in the minor leagues this season. The next best player to fill that position would have been Gregg Zaun, who has played 2 games totaling 8 innings at 1B in his major league career, none of which were with the Orioles. Overall, this team looks pretty sad overall. You’ve got solid players at 2B, LF, and RF, and a single starting pitcher. After that, you have good young players who are too new to have shown exactly what they can do yet at C, 1B, and 2 of their starting pitchers. There are some good role players, but unfortunately the build for this team kind of looks similar to the real-life organization at this point: Very raw, and not particularly good.

Looking at their drafting results, they have had 29 first round picks in the last 15 drafts (not including 2010). Ignoring the 2009 draftee, they have had only 11 of these picks even play a single game in the Major Leagues. Even giving the benefit of the doubt for the 4 players who were first round picks but have not made it to the Majors yet, that still brings the Orioles to 14 misses in 15 seasons. Generally, the first round is the one round where an organization will have the best chance of finding a MLB quality talent, and with the poor performance of the Orioles throughout the years, they’ve had 8 picks in the top 10 in the last 9 years. As evidenced by the revolving door that has been the general manager’s office, that’s not getting it done.

Something else that has really illustrated itself as I go through the players is the lack of players from international markets, the ones outside of the draft. While it remains to be seen if there are specific reasons that the Orioles are not concentrating any effort to Latin America and Asia, the fact that they aren’t is clearly hurting their development as an organization.

Overall Grade: I think I have to give them a D-, due to the fact that I was barely able to fill the whole roster with players, and the fact that they’ve missed on so many first round picks. This team would have a hard time competing against nearly every major league team on a day-to-day basis. Throw in the fact that this 25 man roster is essentially 14 or possibly even 15 pitchers really doesn’t bode well for them. Hopefully the Orioles will start to see some of the fruit of the system shortly, as they really need it.