On the Final Day of Spring: Spring Headlines

5 Positives

1. Red Sox Starters

Lackey and Buchholz looked great over the spring. They, along with Lester, posted ERAs under 3.0. Daisuke, after tune-ups, looked great down the stretch. Beckett had some real positive games, and some ugly ones. All five Sox starters posted over ten strikeouts, and less than 10 walks. After some tune up games the rotation seemed to settle down and find their comfort zones. The biggest goal for this group was getting to April healthy and they’ve done that. There are still concerns, but for right now they look ready to dominate all season long.

2. The Marlins Bombing Offense

The Marlins young bats were supposed to be good, but right now they look darn right amazing. Mike Stanton, Hanley Ramirez, Omar Infante, Chris Coghlan, and Gaby Sanchez are hitting a combined .408 in spring. Sanchez leads the team in doubles and RBIs with 10 and 11. Even more ridiculous: Mike Stanton is slugging .933. In only 15 ABs he has two bombs and 10 RBIs. If Florida is going to compete their offense will be a key component, and right now they look poised to dominate. The bats break camp optimistic and ready to go.

3. Youngsters on Display

Hype surrounded many young players this spring, and they delivered. As I already mentioned Mike Stanton showed ridiculous power. Even though he only had 18 ABs Bryce Harper hit .389 with an OPS of 1.06. Brandon Belt, the key to San Francisco’s offense, hit .279 with three bombs. Mariner future batting champ Dustin Ackley only hit .269, but he managed to post an OBP of .423 with eight walks. Most impressive was probably Royals top prospect Eric Hosmer hitting two bombs with a .468 average, an OPS of 1.470, while garnering eight RBIs, all in only 20 ABs.

As for pitchers Braves closer Craig Kimbrel was incredibly impressive; in 12.1 innings he had a 2.92 ERA with 15 strikeouts. Orioles top pitching prospect Zach Britton looks poised to take the AL East by storm, going 3-0, in four starts, with a 1.35 ERA. Michael Pineda had a 2.12 ERA in four starts with 15 Ks in 17 innings; imagine how good he’ll look at Safeco. Finally, the Ray everyone has their eyes on, Jeremy Hellickson had a 2.45 ERA with seven Ks in 11 innings.

4. New Look Third Basemen

Last season Pablo Sandoval and Alex Rodriguez disappointed a lot of people. After hitting .330, 25 bombs, and posting an OPS of .943 Sandoval looked awful in 2011, having only 13 bombs, while hitting .268 with an OPS of .732. Last season Rodriguez got off to a terribly slow start, hit only 30 homeruns, stole only four bases, had less than 100 runs, and posted career lows in average and OBP, as well as the second lowest OPS of his career. So far this spring Kung Fu Panda has looked great. He’s slimmed down, he’s hit three homeruns, stolen a surprising two bases, and is actually playing worthwhile defense. Meanwhile, A-Rod has hit .388 with six homeruns this spring. Whether these trends continue into the regular season is unknown, but the Yankees and Giants will both depend on their hot corner men, to continue doing what they’re doing, this year.

5. Confidence in the NL West

When talking about confidence you have to mention the San Francisco Giants, last years World Series winners; however, no one can forget the young Rockies club preparing to steal the division. No one pegged the Giants as being as good as they were last October and they seem ready to surprise again. They have a lot of great personalities on that squad and they want to win. The Rockies are just as hungry for October and have looked great this spring. They started camp off by unveiling their new spring facility (I saw some video/pictures and it looks amazing) and they’ve never looked back. I’m excited for the attitudes of these clubs because both could be so good and competitive and that means we’re in for some exciting baseball down the stretch. Each time these teams meet this season is going to be epic.

5 Concerns

1. Pitching in the NL Central

Going into the season it looked like the NL Central might have some of the best pitching of any division. The Brewers loaded up with Zach Greinke and Shaun Marcum, the Cubs acquired Matt Garza, and Adam Wainwright anchored the Cardinals. However, that has now all changed. Greinke is out for a couple weeks with a broken rib, and Marcum has been dealing with mysterious shoulder issues. The heavy attitudes and tempers in Chicago have already blown up, culminating in an Aramis Ramirez Carlos Silva bench scuffle mid-spring and resulting in the release of the latter. Adam Wainwright went down early, and is now set to have Tommy John Surgery; now the Cardinals are dependent on an aging Carpenter and a more than lucky Garcia. Oh, and don’t count out the Reds from all this injury mess, they’re still ran by the young arm destroying dirge that is Dusty Baker. Going into 2011 it looks like the Pirates could have the healthiest rotation (notice, I said healthiest, not best).

2. The Sinking Phils

When I wrote about the NL East I discussed how hitting would be key to Philadelphia’s success. They were eliminated in the NLCS last September because they could only hit .216, and losing Jayson Werth over the winter was not a pick me up. Highly toted rightfield prospect Dominic Brown has already gone down with a broken hand and will miss some time. The biggest concern though is with franchise cornerstone Chase Utley. The athletic, defense minded, beast with a bat, second baseman has struggled all spring with knee issues and will now start the season on the DL. The timetable for his return: unknown. That is about the worst thing that could happen for Philadelphia. Today it was released that Brad Lidge could miss the entire first half of the season because of rotator cuff tendinitis. Things keep getting worse.

3. Andrew Bailey

Oakland has one of the best rotations and bullpens in all of baseball. If they can compete this season it’s going to be because of the pitching. During spring Andrew Bailey went down with an unknown arm ailment. He expects to be back soon, but with his history of injuries who knows. When healthy Bailey can be elite. If Oakland is going to win the west they need their pitchers at full tilt. If Bailey is out they stretch the ‘pen too thin and threaten giving away games. Oakland will be hoping for the best from their young closer, but if he struggles their season could be in jeopardy.

4. The New York Mets

As if they weren’t hurt enough. There’s already a risk with Carlos Beltran and no one is sure when Johan Santana will be back. They’ve recently released Luis Castillo putting them without a proven second baseman. Jason Bay has suffered an injury to his ribs and is now expected to miss the beginning of the season. To top it all off Mets owner, Fred Wilpon, is being sued because of his involvement in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. If Wilpon loses he could lose his stake in the Mets causing some unknown to take over ownership. If the Mets are as bad as everyone expects they could move David Wright and Jose Reyes at the trade deadline, leaving them even more dead in the water.

5. The Lack of Deals

The Cardinals let the Pujols deadline slip by and now questions hang in the air. Will he be a Cardinal for his entire career? This blogger sure hopes so! Pujols might be the best player to ever play in my lifetime, and at his current pace he could hit more than 800 homeruns in his career. A special guy like that deserves to play in the same park for his entire career. Another incomplete deal is Adrian Gonzalez. He’s hit a couple bombs in spring and seems healthy so I would love to see the Sox finally lock him up and give him the contract he deserves (especially before the season starts and his price goes up).

The biggest deal I want to see talked about is the new CBA. With the NFL lockout, and a lockout and possible contraction looming in the NBA, the MLB has been surprisingly quiet on this subject. With all the other sports having issues no one wants to see another MLB strike.

5 Unknowns

1. Will Justin Morneau and Joe Nathan Return to Form?

Morneau is returning from a concussion and Nathan is returning from TJ Surgery. Both are elite players who can have huge results for the Twins this year. If they return to full strength it’d be huge for Minnesota.

2. Can the Yankees Compete?

The rotation is set with Sabathia, Hughes, Burnett, Nova, and Garcia…. yikes! They aren’t getting any younger, though A-Rod has had an impressive spring. They have a lot of talent on this team, it just isn’t as young as they once were, but to compete in their division they’ll have to find a way to fake it.

3. Is Buck Showalter the Next Ozzie Guillen?

I understand Showalter was trying to fire his team up, but his comments about Derek Jeter and Theo Epstein seemed unnecessary. If you hadn’t heard, Showalter said Jeter gets calls because he’s Jeter, and that Epstein couldn’t be as good of a GM as he is if he had the payroll like the Rays have. Whether you agree with him, or not, the comments weren’t warranted and it’ll be interesting to see how he continues to run his mouth during the season.

4. Will Pitching and Defense Dominate?

The theme of focusing on pitching and defense has begun to develop in the MLB and seems to be culminating this season. The Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners, and San Francisco Giants are all teams that are sporting pitching heavy teams with superb defense. Most of these teams will look to compete in 2011 and it’ll be interesting to see how the philosophy succeeds.

5. What were the Rangers Thinking?

The Rangers have no ace, that’s a given. They have a pretty good/deep bullpen, that is also a given. They have Neftali Feliz who they’ve decided to keep as their closer. If the Rangers really want to compete in 2011 they need an ace and Feliz could’ve filled that role. Only the season will show how this experiment turns out, but I think not well.