2011 Season Preview Part 1

We are less than a week away from the 2nd most beautiful day of the year: Pitcher and Catchers reporting. Yes. Going to start with the NL East this week.
I think I’ve seen enough roster turnover to start making my predications for the coming year (as I’ve already sort of done and as last year’s column shows, I’ve got an okay track record. I admit to underselling the Reds (a tad) and the Rangers, but that’s okay. I said the Giants would win and raise your hand if you thought the Reds would even be good. I was (regrettably) correct about the White Sox, Twins and the mess called the AL East. I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked the Cubs to win the division, though.

AL East: Boston
AL Central: Chicago
AL West: Oakland
AL Wildcard: Yankees

NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Giants
NL Wildcard: Rockies


In the National League East, everyone knows what the Phillies have done. They signed Cliff Lee, who dominated the New York Yankees for them in the 2009 World Series and was yet again very good for the 2010 Texas Rangers in the World Series. While both the Yankees and Rangers offered Lee more money and more years (okay, one more year) than the Phillies, Lee wanted to go someplace that he loved and felt had the best chance to win (only difference between him and LeBron is that he didn’t do it on national TV).
The Phillies starting rotation of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt and Joe Blanton (at least, that’s how they should line up) are the best in the national league. But two are injury concerns while also being inconsistent and if rest of the team on the field is injury prone (Polanco, Utley, Howard, Rollins and Ibanez have all spent time on the DL in the past two season). Every one of the most important players on the team is the wrong side of 30 [that is, over it]. Don’t get me wrong – I like the Phillies and think they have a really good roster. On paper. But I also have them as Team A on my list of ‘most likely to crash and burn’ list (Team B would be the Boston Red Sox for much the same reason – injury potential).
The Atlanta Braves stepped up this offseason and traded for Marlins slugger Dan Uggla who will make the team better with his bat. He’s an awful defensive player (that was him in the 2008 All-Star Game), but for now his offense is enough to help the Braves who can count on growth from another batch of home grown starters and wunderkid Jason Heyward (on the short list of, “Oh my God!!!” players in baseball) [as you can tell, I have a lot of baseball lists….]. Freddy Gonzalez is no Bobby Cox, but since Cox is one of the greatest managers to ever walk the face of the earth, he doesn’t need to be. The Braves improved their roster from a year ago when they made the playoffs over the Padres and should enjoy another wildcard this year.
I’ve been predicting a Marlins run for the last 4 years now, and am going to stop. Hanley Ramirez is on the same list as Heyward, Mike Stanton was rumored to be talked about in exchange for White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen and Gabby Sanchez is probably for real. But no, I refuse to let the Marlins be a cruel mistress to me again. They are a talented roster with a cheap-as-Scrooge owner and a shrewd front office. I’ll give them 88-90 wins, but no playoffs. The Mets still have David Wright, so they have a pretty face on the field. But oh boy….is there a whole lot of badness in Queens otherwise. Johan is breaky, there’s no one else in the rotation (the Chris Young signing isn’t bad though) and the bullpen is a mess. Plus, you know, they are the Mets. So, good luck with that.
As for my actual favorite NL team, things are looking up. Yes, they gave out the winter’s worst contract (7 years, $126 million for Jayson Werth) after totally screwing up at the trade deadline and not trading Adam Dunn, but the future in Washington looks good (think 2012/13). Bryce Harper will be up and slugging at a corner outfield spot (I’m thinking left), Stephen Strasberg (who was just damn brilliant before his arm got hurt) will be back, plus they’ll have other top draft picks coming out of the pipeline and a healthy Ryan Zimmerman (criminally underrated) and Jayson Werth (a really, really good player, just not for 7 years and $126 million) around. Just won’t be a pretty 2011. But get ready America….the Nationals wont’ be a laughing stock forever.

The Snap-Back

Obviously, I still love baseball, but I have come to a sharp realization.

What the White Sox need to do, in order to improve their baseball club, is to fire the best General Manager and Field Manager the club has ever had. Right now.

Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen both have to be replaced in order for the White Sox to change their history. Now, I like Kenny Williams and like Ozzie, both have been mainstays for the White Sox over the past 10 years, both were largely responsible for the '05 title and both are, like I said, the best that the Sox have ever had at their respective positions. But they both have to be fired.

With the failure of 2009 behind them, the 2010 White Sox set out to remake themselves into a more versatile ballclub. Out went Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome and Scott Podsednik. In came Juan Pierre, Mark Teahen and Andruw Jones. Bad was replaced with worse under a misguided notion that the White Sox were going to be a faster ballteam. Faster, yes. Better, no. The saga of the 2010 White Sox has been the feud between Kenny and Ozzie about one Jim Thome (or a larger disagreement about an everyday DH player).

Plain and simple: Ozzie was wrong about not wanting a slugger DH. Kenny was wrong to not put his footdown and force a DH on Ozzie.

Ozzie's job is to make requests and talk to the GM. It's the GM's job to give the manager what he needs, even if that differs from what he wants.

The 2010 White Sox have, as of tonight, lost 15 one run games. 15 one run games. Too many nights (tonight's game against the Tigers (Porcello vs. Jackson) being the perfect example).

Kenny's model of trading for damaged players with something to prove (Quentin, Thome), fallen prospects (Floyd, Danks, Jenks, Teahen) or just plan old (Andruw Jones, Ken Griffey Jr, Juan Pierre) only works until August. And then it invariably goes to pot. I know, I know, I know everyone's going to yell, "'05! '08!" Well, in '05 they did the exact same thing, pissed it all down their leg in August. It was only that the AL Central was so bad that year that the White Sox held the division lead. And 2008 is rather hollow, the fun of that season was beating the Twins in Game 163 (The Blackout). But you know what? Teams that suck play 163 games to determine division winners. Not good, World Series contending teams. Those teams (the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, Rangers and usually Angels) all kick your ass in 162 games.

Also, Kenny's last phenomenal trade was the Danks-for-McCarthy swap in 2007. The list since then (Jake Peavy, Nick Swisher [TWICE!!!!!], Mark Teahen)....bad.

Ozzie's issues are well documented and need no further expounding here. The fundamental flaw in his baseball theory is that big, lumbering sluggers are bad. No, they are not. Get as many of them as you can, or at least have one.

Anyone who watched the MLBNetwork's, "The Club" knows that at minimum, Kenny and Ozzie love the White Sox and love Jerry Reinsdorf. That's fine. But you know what? I don't want my GM and my Manager to love my team. That's my job. I'm the one, as a fan, who loves them through and despite their glaring faults, weaknesses, ugly moments, stupidity, glory, pain, agony and ecstasy. That's the fans job, not the job of those in charge of the organization.

Kenny and Ozzie deserve to be fired for their lack of foresight, inability to get along with each other, ignorance of the bounds of their job and (both of them) for their big mouths.

That pains me to say/type, because they are (in tandem and separately) the best GM, Manager and combination GM/Manager the Chicago White Sox have ever had.

I lied! AL Central now up!

I promise not to personalize this too much, but I'm going to write this now as I'm a lil' hopped up on coffee (coffee for a date apparently never means sex). I know I said in my AL East blog I was going to do the NL Central now, but I changed my mind and will stay in the American League (and tonight, July 22nd, we also learned that the Rays are not as fundamentally sound as they were last year (I'm looking at you, Jason Bartlett and B.J. Upton)).

Speaking as a White Sox fan, I despise the Minnesota Twins. Everything about them. I hate Kerby Puckett, I hate Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and I especially, especially, especially hate Nick Punto (with all the silly 'grindyness' and sliding into first base). Having gone to college in Michigan (just a small, central Michigan school with a rather well known football team and colors of Maize & Blue), I know that Tiger fans feel much the same way (although they have as much White Sox loathing as Cubs fans). However, as said White Sox fan, I also fear the Minnesota Twins. But only in the Metrodome because the Twins don't play well on the road. Every year, the Twins seem to be in the race for the division in August, dinking and dunking their way to a division title. But, what gets lost in the labels of 'small ball' and 'Twins ball' is the fact that they have 2 absolute superstars in the center of their lineup (and anyone who says that the Twins don't win with superstar players is a brain-dead baseball bonehead) who crush the ball out of the ballpark. I speak, of course of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau (and if 2 batting titles, one MVP trophy and a home-run derby championship aren't superstar credentials, then I'm giving up following baseball). Jason Kubel can be thrown in there as a guy who can hit with power (same with Joe Crede), but I really want to stop hearing about the Twins being a 'small ball' team. What the Twins do not have is starting pitching. Or relief pitching, save for one guy, Joe Nathan. He's the other reason the Twins are perennial contenders, they only play 8 inning games with Nathan as the closer (and boy oh boy, is that guy good at his job). The Twins, just 20-27 on the road, most certainly have the easiest remaining schedule (only 33 of their next 70+ games are against teams above .500), but that doesn't mean a damn thing, as the Twins late in the season can't seem to get the job done (see the glorious choke job of 2008 against the Royals when they only had to win 1 game to put the White Sox out of their misery). And see also the pasting the Oakland Athletics just gave them...in Oakland (Oakland? Oakland! Seriously? You got pounded by their sorry baseball behinds?! What? What?!!) So, no pitching, two really really really good hitters and a slightly soft schedule all add up to...I'm going to go with a straight 2nd place finish, because they'll have to outslug their opponents and are just an average baseball team, but one with a great fielding percentage (2nd overall in the AL). [I'm a big believer in defense, which is part of the reason this division is so competitive].

The Detroit Tigers have a phenomenal starter in Justin Verlander and a phenomenal hitter in Miguel Cabrera and a really nice guy/good player in Curtis Granderson and the underrated Placido Polanco but little else. No bullpen (we'll get to that), bad starters other than Verlander and Edwin Jackson, but he's an interesting case (and for all of my buddies who are Tigers fans, I'm about to shred him, so bear with me. Still love you though, guys).

For 2009, Edwin Jackson has a BABIP of .244. (For those not yet familiar, BABIP is batting average of balls in play, a statistic which measure luck, for either hitters or batters. It averages out to .290, so a pitcher under that has been lucky, a hitter under it unlucky and vice versa). A .244 BABIP says that Jackson's due to get hit hard (statistically, BABIP's even out over a season)in the second half, and his career era of 4.57 isn't pretty either if you love the old English 'D' for your baseball team. Even more bad news: the Minnesota Twins bat .314 against Jackson in his career, the Chicago White Sox (American's new team, in case you didn't see the All-Star Game) even better at .324. For the other real good Detroit starter, 2008 was a fluke year for Justin Verlander. That guy is legit good, top of the rotation good. But his BABIP against the White Sox is .266. However, he's given up 19 homer runs against them, along with 14 doubles and 9 losses. Quite simply, the White Sox beat him to death. Both on the South Side and in Detroit. But the BABIP stat indicates that not only do the White Sox absolutely tattoo him, but they've UNDER-PERFORMED against him. Statistically speaking, they should have hit him harder than they have in his career, and he's got a career 5.44 ERA against them. OUCH! But, in his defense, Verlander is an amazing pitcher against everybody else, including the Twins (well, the Indians have hit him too, but I won't believe in the Indians ever again. Seriously, you got a 22-3 record from Cliff Lee in 2008 (with RIDICULOUS peripheral stats, like BABIP, WHIP, BB/K's, K's/9, etc) and were still only .500. Cleveland Rocks? Oh, puh-lease).

As for the Tigers line up, there's Miguel Cabrera and everybody else. Now, Polanco is a very underrated player (but has no pop), and Granderson is really fun to watch (and a really nice guy, by all accounts too), but you make your pitches to him, and he's an easy out. So, frankly is Brandon Inge for all the love he gets in Michigan (real good defender, but hits mistakes. That's it). Frankly, there is no reason to pitch to Miguel Cabrera. Seriously, walk his rear end every time. Maggs can't hit anymore (and he left his power in Chicago in 2004 when Willie Harris took out his knee), Carlos Guillen is broken, Gerald Laird is back to being bad at hitting (which happens to him when he's a full time catcher), and Tiger fans will tell you they want a hitter. But it won't happen, given the payroll constraints of that franchise, particularly in that city. The signing of Adam Everett was really nice though. The Tigers fielding percentage is 4th in the AL which will keep them around (along with their top two starters), but their bullpen is...lacking, to be kind. Fernando Rodney will not last [not with a .274 BABIP, which is already starting to even out this 2nd half and an era of 3.82], and Brandon Lyon is bad. No statistics are needed for that one, he's just bad at baseball. I think the Tigers will end up 3rd in the division, but not by much (say, a game or 3 between 1st and 3rd place). That leaves us with...

The Chicago White Sox. They are, by no means, perfect. They don't have the best starting pitcher in the division (that would be Verlander), but they do have the 2nd (that would be Mark Buerhle). They don't have the best hitter (Mauer, Cabrera and Morneau, Victor Martinez of the Indians and then Placido Polanco) in the division, but they have a larger collection of good hitters (Dye, Konerko, Thome, Pierzynski and Quentin [his 2008 wasn't a fluke, but more Q!perman in a bit]) than anyone else in the division. They don't have the best closer (Nathan) but do have the overall best bullpen (although Scott Linebrink and his career 3.72 second half-era and straight-as-a-string-fastball BLOW and should be put to sleep). They have an incredibly underrated manager in Ozzie Guillen. Ozzie is, without debate, one of the 5 best managers in the AL. Let's see...4 years...2 division titles, 1 world series championship, consistently outperforming computer-model projections for his team (exception being 2007, when he got career worst years from Buerhle, Dye, his bullpen and Pierzynski)...oh yea, and being really, really funny and honest. And, for the first time in my lifetime, the White Sox actually have a farm system they can go down to and get guys from for reinforcements (see Torres, Carlos and Beckham, Gordon [who has the best hair in White Sox history. I have a serious man-crush on Gordon Beckham]). The starting staff has been very good since June as well, mostly on the backs on Gavin Floyd's turn around (and his sparkling sub 2.5 era since June) and Mark Buerhle. I do not expect Jose Contreras to keep up his post-Triple-A performance, after all, he's 498753245092 years old (never trust what any Cuban birth certificate says).

What the White Sox do not do, do not have, and will not get, are play defense, a good defense and a good defense, respectively. They give teams 4 and 5 outs an inning far, far too much. Among 14 AL teams, the White Sox come in 12th in defensive efficiency. That's some bad medicine there, kids. And sending down Brian Anderson in order to make room for Carlos 'Q!perman' Quentin only compounds the problem, because you're putting Scott Podsedink in center field regularly. That retching sound is the SouthSide of the city of Chicago. Speaking of Pods, another reason I have a hard time believe in the White Sox is because of him. He's hit waaaay over his head this being picked up off the scrap heap by Kenny Williams. His BABIP this season is .335. OMG... .335. RIDICULOUSLY lucky in the batters box. That should come down, much like Jackson's should go up [but with baseball, one never knows, that's the fun. Jackson and Pods could stay this good all year, but looking at past performance, that likelihood is not promising]. If the White Sox could pick up the baseball, which they can't, then I'd say they'd run away with the division. But Minnesota and Detroit are just much much better at not giving the other team extra outs (and extra outs are a boon to the oppoenet, as the White Sox found out tonight, beating the Rays on 2 miscues by Bartlett and Upton. BYAH!!!)

I do think the White Sox will win the division, particularly if Q stays healthy. None of his stats from 2008 were out of line with his minor league performance, his 2008 BABIP was .278, his 2209 BABIP thus far is .214. His fb/gb ratio this year matches what he did last year, as does his hr/fb ratio, meaning that he's been unlucky and unhealthy. Not a good thing for Detroit and Minnesota. Statistical and anecdotal (based purely off of observations, which are notoriously flawed as all humans have an overwhelming tendency to see what they want in all things [I read that in a book. Yes, I read books]) signs point to the White Sox in the Al Central this year, but again, it's baseball. Anything can (and often does) happen. Either way, it's going to be a fun race in this division (sit back, relax and strap it down), but who ever wins will get waxed by the AL East winner in the ALDS (again) this year. But hey, just get into the playoffs and anything can happen (see 2006 Cardinals). That wasn't a shot at the Tigers, by the way, just a reference point.

I'm sure there are things I've missed, but I'm off to bed. Peace and love, peace and love, AL West up next.