AL West Champion Odds
While Derek tinkers with the ZIPS projects on Diamond Mind, I figured I’d offer up my non-computerized, untested, totally subjective guess at the probabilities of each team winning the division this year. This is updated with the latest news that Ervin Santana will start the year on the DL for the Angels and that Justin Duchscherer’s perpetual arm problems might keep him from starting on Opening Day for the A’s.
Again, this is just my estimate, based on looking at the teams as they stand today.
Angels: 35%
A’s: 25%
Mariners: 20%
Rangers: 20%
The Angels are the best team in the division, but they aren’t great. The A’s have improved themselves, but their rotation is a massive question mark. The Rangers have some interesting pieces but are probably a year or two away. Despite a Mariner roster that has a lot of questions, there’s a decent sized door to the playoffs that the M’s could walk through.
WBC hitting leaders
Average: #? Chris Snelling, .600
On-base percentage: #16 (many-way tie), Chris Snelling, .667
Slugging percentage: #5, Chris Snelling, 1.800
Home runs: #1 (tie), Chris Snelling, 2
Total bases: #3 (tie), Chris Snelling, 9
Random facts from the shakedown
Like last year, I’m working on using projections and Diamond Mind to take a look at the upcoming season (check it out, this year’s projections in DMB season disk form now available). This exercise is generally met with delight or mockery, but as the kids say, what evahhhhhhh.
Anyway, random thoughts: cutting the hitters down turns out to be a tough exercise when you get to the end. Morse or Wlad? If you play Griffey in the field, who ends up dropping off the 25-man? Do you play Clement at DH then, and carry Burke or Rob Johnson? Do you want to field an anti-RHP lineup that leaves no lefties on the bench at all? And bullpen construction! How unbalanced a bullpen do you want?
Also, in this projection disk it makes sense to flip Gutierrez and Chavez when they’re both playing because it gets you
LF: Gutierrez’s “Very Good” defense (he’s rated “average” in center)
CF: Chavez’s “Excellent” defense (he’s rated “excellent” at all three positions)
RF: Ichiro’s “Very Good” defense
And the rotation I used is Felix-Bedard-Morrow-Washburn-Silva, which makes me want to grind my teeth, frankly, but what are you going to do? Well, actually… I’m going to start pitching RRS over Silva.
Anyway, the rosters are all messed up for other teams, the lineups don’t make sense, and I’ll probably manage to talk myself into a totally different 25-man in the next hour.
The one big thing, though — the run prevention just rocks (even without the playing-to-the-sim OF switch). I’ve run a couple of seasons now and the M’s have been AL-best every time. Maybe that’s just random noise as I shake it out, but I doubt it.
More soon.
Trial By Fire
Phillippe Aumont, pitching in relief for Team Canada in their opener against the U.S. in the WBC today:
P Aumont relieved C Leroux.
D Pedroia doubled to deep right.
J Rollins reached on infield single to third.
D Pedroia to third, J Rollins to second on wild pitch by P Aumont.
C Jones walked.
D Wright lined out to shortstop.
K Youkilis struck out swinging.
C Granderson struck out swinging.
Aumont loads the bases without reitiring anyone, then stares at David Wright, Kevin Youkilis, and Curtis Granderson – three legitimate MLB all-stars. A line drive and a couple of strikeouts later and he leaves without giving up a run.
Welcome to big time baseball, kid. Nice job.
Saturday Mariner baseball
Spring training! Viewable on your PC while outside it rains/snows/sleets.
The game will feature Gaby Hernandez, who looks in his picture on the M’s home page like the photographer just surprised him at 2am leaving, in full uniform, out of an Arizona strip club. But yeah, it’s supposedly on MLB TV and freeeeee.
Yay more spring training Washburn yay
I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself until noon.
Random Thursday Thoughts
DOYLE! Somebody sign that guy.
I’m not that concerned the M’s are investing time, coaching, and spring training playing Griffey in the field. I’m worried that by the start of the season they’ll talk themselves into playing him there regularly.
I’m also worried that Griffey’s knee, which is supposed to be awesome and healed and won’t drain his power and whatever, has already had a swelling issue. Though as I read the report I’m not even sure it’s the same knee.
Nice to see The Interview do well today. If he’s back and healthy it’s a huge step to getting the team to competitive from last year’s disaster.
Manny’s deal with the Dodgers is crazy.
And I hope Lasorda was joking:
“It’s our game. Baseball is America’s game. It doesn’t belong to the Italians or the Cubans or the Koreans or the Japanese,” he said. “It’s our game, and we’re not going to let them beat us.”
Morrow Feeling Tightness
Larry Stone lets us know that Brandon Morrow has been scratched from his next scheduled start due to some tightness in his forearm. It’s early in spring, and lots of guys deal with stuff while getting ready for the season, so don’t panic. However, the M’s are rightfully going to be very cautious with him – the conversion from the bullpen to the rotation is a taxing one, and they have to be careful not to push his arm too hard.
Stuff like this is why I only expect Morrow to throw between 120-140 innings this year. He’s going to need to be handled differently than the rest of the staff, and when his arm starts feeling things, they’re going to have to let him skip starts. This is why trading for guys like Garrett Olson and Jason Vargas was important – the M’s need to have guys around to take the hill on days when they want to be careful with Morrow’s arm.
Open Roster Spots
With so many young players in camp, and the media’s general ignorance of the various quality of prospects (this isn’t meant to be an insult – most of the beat writers just don’t have time to do any real prospect analysis and have to rely on skimming Baseball America and taking what the organization tells them at face value), we’ve seen a lot of stuff written about how various players are trying to position themselves for jobs with the major league team. In reality, a lot of them just don’t really have any real shot of making the majors.
Take Bryan LaHair, for instance. He has a 0.0% chance of making this team. It doesn’t matter that he’s volunteering to play left field or thinks that he’s figured out how to hit for power now that he’s over some injury issues. With the talent ahead of him, he’s just not going to fit on the roster.
So, which roster spots are actually up for grabs, and who has a shot at them?
Let’s fill out the roster with the no doubt guys – Johjima, Branyan, Lopez, Betancourt, Beltre, Chavez, Gutierrez, Ichiro, Griffey, and Cedeno are on the team unless they start the season on the DL. These guys have 10 of the 13 or 14 position player spots locked up. That leaves 3 or 4 spots potentially available, depending on whether they go with an 11 or 12 man pitching staff. Those three or four spots have specific roles, though – here’s the spots that are open and who is actually in the mix for those spots.
Catcher: Jeff Clement, Jamie Burke, Rob Johnson
I almost put Clement in the lock category, but there is some chance that he has a bad enough spring that the team decides to start him off in Tacoma and goes with Kenji as the starter. The odds of that are probably less than 10%, but, they aren’t zero, so I put it here. In reality, though, Burke or Johnson can’t really play their way onto the club – their only shot is if Clement looks so bad that he plays himself off the roster. And, of course, that would be a pretty bad development for the M’s, so they’ll do whatever they can to avoid this scenario. Most likely, Clement takes this job and gets a good chunk of the time behind the plate while Johnson goes to Tacoma and Burke gets released.
Right-Handed 1B/DH: Chris Shelton, Mike Morse, Mike Sweeney
Even with the M’s talking about giving Branyan a chance to play everyday, they’re still going to carry a backup at first base, and given his historical platoon splits, it only makes sense to have a backup 1B who can hit left-handed pitching. Right-handed hitters only need apply for this job. Morse is out of options and still has fans from his big spring last year, but he’s simply not as good of a player as Shelton, so if the team decides on production potential, Shelton’s the winner. Sweeney’s got the leadership/chemistry stuff over both of them, but management has been very clear that they were going to build a winning team and expected chemistry to follow, rather than the other way around. Unless Sweeney hits a bunch of long home runs and shows that he’s found the fountain of youth, he probably retires at the end of ST, and the M’s are left to choose between Shelton and Morse. Bet on Shelton.
Right-Handed Outfielder: Wladimir Balentien, Prentice Redman
Considering that Griffey will act as the DH occasionally (or regularly, if we’re lucky), the team has to carry another outfielder besides Chavez-Gutierrez-Ichiro. With Gutierrez as the only RH hitter among the outfielders on the roster, it doesn’t make much sense for the extra OF to be another left-handed bat. So, like with the backup first baseman, right-handed bats only need apply for this role. And, with that being the case, Balentien is the obvious choice here. Despite the visa issues and the comments about how he’s got a lot of work to catch up on, it’s remarkably hard to see the M’s putting Balentien on waivers in order to keep a replacement level player like Prentice Redman. In reality, there just isn’t anyone in camp that is going to put any real pressure on Wlad for this spot, especially since he’s out of options. Unless he’s part of a spring training deal, he’s extremely likely to fill the RH OF/DH spot.
If they go with a 12 man pitching staff, then that’s your bench – Cedeno, the catcher, the 1B, and the OF. If they decide to only go with 11 pitchers, then there’s one more open spot, and given the speed of some of the guys on the roster, it should really go to a pinch runner. And that would almost certainly be Reegie Corona – the M’s didn’t spend the second pick in the Rule 5 draft on him for no reason, and if they are carrying a player specifically for his wheels, it’s going to be Corona.
So, there’s a few options for how the open roster spots will shake out, but a good chunk of guys in camp have no chance of making this roster. Realistically, it’s going to be one of Clement/Johnson/Burke (strong favorite Clement), one of Shelton/Morse/Sweeney (favorite Shelton), and one of Balentien/Redman (strong favorite Balentien), with Corona’s future depending on how many pitchers they decide to go with.
For all the other position players in camp, they aren’t really in the mix. Tui, LaHair, Woodward, Crabbe, Wilson – they can have the spring training of their lives, but they still aren’t making this team.
The #27 and #33 picks
As everyone knows, the M’s have the second pick in the draft this summer. You know the names by now – pray for Washington to pass on Strasburg, but if they don’t, the consolation prize is probably going to be one of Alex White, Dustin Ackley, or Grant Green. You can get a lot of information on those four from Baseball America and some googling.
However, the M’s also have two other first round-ish type picks as compensation for losing Raul Ibanez. In a conversation with a scout friend, a few names popped up that he thinks could be available in that area and be good fits for the M’s. So, we’ll talk about one of those guys today.
6’2, 200 lb LH hitting outfielder. Good contact/gap power hitter, excellent defense, terrific baserunner. Similar in some ways to Michael Saunders. Plays with reckless abandon, draws comparisons to Lenny Dykstra for style of play. He was rated as the 8th best prospect in the Cape Cod League last summer
Baseball America wrote him up based on their conversations with scouts this weekend.
He’s started the ’09 season by going 15 for 36 with 6 doubles and an even 5 walks and 5 strikeouts so far. If he has a solid junior season, continues to show some power development and controls the strike zone, he’ll be a first round pick. If he’s available at #27, he fits the mold of players that the M’s are looking for, and could be a good addition to the organization.