 |
| ||||||
Season 8: 114-48, AL East Champs, lost to the Anaheim Anteaters in the WS.
Notable acquisitions: Willis Bradford, Matty Montanez, Victor Lawrence, Trent Beverlin, Jackson Jenkins, Rex Byrd, Aaron Ford, etc.
Notable departures: Everyone? Seriously.
After a 3rd straight AL pennant, the Mets made the surprising decision to completely overhaul their team. Gone are legends such as Gerald Tomlinson, Gary Long, Geoffery Bates, Richard Stocker...the list goes on and on. WS hero and Gleeman World luminary Red Wainhouse is set to leave after the 28th game of the season. What makes the Mets even harder to gauge for Season 9 is that they're probably not done dealing yet. Even with Wainhouse's impending departure, this Mets team could probably still make a run at .500. They made a bevy of signings shortly after the conclusion of standard free agency, adding plenty of reasonably priced, underappreciated talent that should keep them above the dreck of the league. A few more moves could be expected during the season, but don't expect the Mets to go "first to worst;" they should still be respectable.
Prediction: 80-82.
 |
| ||||||
Season 8: 104-58, Wildcard, lost to the New York Metropolitans in the ALDS.
Notable acquisitions: Jayson Ellis, Billy Ray Prince, Bill Cameron, Jacob Stewart, Hector Santos, Tomas Alvarado
Notable departures: Jose Morales, Derek Page, Lee Roundtree, Jose Guerrero, Joshua Walsh, Francisco Pulido, Derrek Canizaro
Wow. Where do you even start with this one? After a convincing sweep at the hands of the Mets last year, the Red Sox cashed in all of their chips, trading away their three best prospects and Joshua Walsh in return for aging star pitchers Billy Ray Prince and Jayson Ellis, along with elite 2B Bill Cameron. Cameron replaces the departed Guerrero, and should be a huge upgrade. Prince and Ellis take over for Walsh and Pulido, also a massive improvement. Stewart is a much better late inning option than Canizaro, Alvarado should help provide plenty of quality starts behind the plate to keep the easily fatigued Tony Hernandez fresh (and help people forget about Derek Page), and Hector Santos, the prize of the FA pool this year, should obliterate Rob Matthews' (now in AAA) Season 8 OPS of .779. The loss of Roundtree is insignificant; he only logged 162 at-bats last year, and wasn't particularly good, either. The team overperformed its run differential a bit last year, but the improvements made this year should more than make up for this. The Red Sox, barring injury, are arguably the best team in baseball.
Prediction: 112-50, best record in baseball, AL East Champions
 |
| ||||||
Season 8: 71-91, 3rd place.
Notable acquisitions: Cesar Piedra, Otis Upshaw, Jack Ryan, Bob Crawford
Notable departures: Victor Lawrence, Archie Rizzuto, Tomas Alvarado, Rex Byrd
From last season's Pug Dog preview: "They could surprise me again and go .500, but I expect some regression this season. Prediction: 72-90, team ERA > 4.80." One of the very few predictions I made that ended up right on the money; the Pug Dogs finished one loss worse than my prediction, and their team ERA ended up a ghastly 5.01. The Pug Dogs didn't do a whole lot to improve this offseason, unfortunately. Victor Lawrence and Rex Byrd are gone, but both had ERAs well north of 5, so it's doubtful Pittsburgh will miss either of them very much. Bringing back prodigal son Otis Upshaw should help, and Jack Ryan has his uses, but the rotation and back of the bullpen are filled with question marks (Woody Perry? Alberto Melendez? Rico Silva?). The addition of Piedra and Crawford improves the offense marginally, but they're going to need more than that to win ballgames; the Pug Dog offense scored the 2nd fewest runs in the AL, only better than the woeful Armijo franchise. It's hard to say if this team will be better than last year's; they finished 4.5 games better than their run differential suggests they should have, which might end up merely balancing out any improvements made.
Prediction: 70-92.
 |
| ||||||
Season 8: 65-97, 4th place.
Notable acquisitions: Ismael Molina, Kenneth Thomas
Notable departures: Phil Sanders, Julian Castillo, Carl Barnes, Harold Arnold
The Phenomenauts are a tough read. Their major league roster, even with the additions of ace Ismael Molina and closer Kenneth Thomas, is woefully thin. The offense, which sputtered to a .715 OPS, 2nd worst in the AL, is basically unchanged. Their rotation now includes Molina, a 2-time Cy Young winner, but loses Sanders, arguably their best non-Molina starter, and Julian Castillo. Neither of them were very good last year, but then again, no Phenomenaut starter other than Carl Gray put up an ERA below 4.90, and Gray's season screams fluke. Adding Thomas helps the bullpen, but he's far from rubber-armed; his career high for innings pitched in a season is 46. The rest of the pen just isn't very good. If this was all there was to the team, I'd probably mark them down for a 90-95 loss season. However, the Phenomenauts have an army of AAA prospects knocking at the door, and GM cademord has admitted that he will likely call them up 20 games into the season, unscrupulously delaying their arbitration clocks. The list includes SPs Joe Bacsik and B.C. Mota, C Livan Guzman, COFs Tony Guerrero and Jesus Benitez, 1B Eddie Lamb, and 2B Pete Kennedy. The big question, of course, is how much these players will improve the team. Guzman and Guerrero are among the best prospects at their respective positions, and Benitez and Kennedy aren't too far off from the top, either. However, Lamb's bat is questionable at 1B, and Bacsik and Mota have both struggled badly at AAA, especially Bacsik, who somehow put up back-to-back ERAs above 6. It's hard to say how many wins these guys will contribute, but I don't see it being enough to push them over the top without adding a couple of good arms to the staff.
Prediction: 83-79, missing the playoffs
No comments:
Post a Comment