By Taylor Nigrelli
A quick look at the MLB standings provides a bit of a shock and a few questions. We’re already a quarter through the season? How can that be? Didn’t Opening Day just happen?
More prominently, some baseball-related questions may arise. Is this no longer considered a small sample size? Are Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz good enough to keep Boston competitive all year? Who’s worse: The Astros or Marlins? What’s going on with the Los Angeles teams? And why are the Diamondbacks surging when they’re supposed to be falling back? All of these questions and more will be answered in this week’s MLB in Review.
Boston Flamethrowers
The Red Sox lost 93 games in 2012 mostly due to a horrifically bad pitching staff. This year, with mostly the same staff, the Sox are 27-17 with middle-of –the-pack pitching numbers. This improvement has been almost entirely the result of the lights out pitching of Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester. Both are 6-0, Lester with a 2.72 ERA, Buchholz with a miniscule 1.78. Obviously some improvement was expected after a horrid season by two pitchers in their primes, but both have far exceeded expectation so far in 2013. But will that be enough to keep the Red Sox afloat all season? Probably not. Buchholz and Lester will eventually fall back to Earth and there’s not much behind them in the rotation to get excited about (Ryan Dempster, Jon Lackey, Felix Doubront). Meanwhile, how long can they expect to get THIS type of production from Daniel Nava and Shane Victorino? Expect the Red Sox to slow down fairly soon, most likely soon after Buchholz and Lester regress to their respective capabilities.
Hollywood Horror
In the past year and a half, no city has made more noise in the free agent and trade markets than Los Angeles. Both the Angels and the Dodgers have opened their respective wallets players such as Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Hanley Ramirez, Josh Beckett, CJ Wilson and Zach Greinke. Their payrolls now exceed a combined $400 million. So it should be no great surprise that the Dodgers are in last place in the NL West while the Angels are in fourth, kept out of the AL West basement only by the historical ineptitude of the Houston Astros.
Both teams totally ignored modern-team building techniques and basic sense in an attempt to become the Yankees of the West. What they failed to realize is throwing money around doesn’t build a baseball team. It never did. It’s especially not true now. Teams don’t allow quality players to reach free agency before their 30th birthdays anymore. That’s why the Dodgers got stuck with a bunch of guys who got old young (Gonzalez, Crawford, Ramirez) while the Angels gave mega-deals to two guys in their 30’s in consecutive off-seasons.
The teams’ failures have obvious and spectacular so far. They don’t appear to be on a path to narrowly missing the playoffs like last year, they’re both among the worst teams in the league. The Angels, albeit struggling with multiples injuries, are 17-27 while the Dodgers are 17-25 with a -38 run differential. This might not be the year for either team. I recommend Ned Colletti and Jerry Dipoto both pick up a copy of Moneyball in the offseason so they stop wasting their owner’s valuable resources.
The Great Duel of Futility
According to MLBProspects.com, Carlos Rodon of North Carolina State is the top prospect for the 2014 draft. The front offices of Marlins and Astros must really be high on Rodon because their futility has been nothing short of incredible. The race for last place may be more exciting and action-packed than any of this year’s playoff races.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Both teams are 12-32. The Marlins have the league’s worst offense by 24 runs while the Astros have allowed 42 more runs than anyone else (and are on pace to allow nearly 1000 on the season).
Other remarkable stats for the teams:
The five players who have taken the most at bats for Miami this season are batting .243, .236, .210, .221 and .278, respectively.
Justin Ruggiano, the .210 from above, has been the team’s most effective hitter with a .698 OPS and .5 wins above replacement.
Houston has already used seven starting pitchers; only two have an ERA below five, none below 4.32.
Besides young star Jose Altuve, the Astros best hitters are Marwin Gonzalez and Carlos Pena.
The Astros employ Carlos Pena.
We’re in for a good old fashioned southern duel this summer. May the most pathetic franchise win.
The D-Backs are Back
Although you may not remember it, the Diamondbacks captured the 2011 NL West division title in between San Francisco championships. Yes, that actually happened. Last year I wrote briefly about their vastly underrated, young core and now it appears people are taking notice. First basemen Paul Goldschmidt was called “an early MVP candidate” by ESPN”s Buster Olney. The 25-year-old is batting .335 with a .418 on-base percentage and 12 home runs. He’s entering his prime and could form quite a duo with right fielder Gerardo Parra. The fifth-year Parra has a batting line of .327/.394/.506 and, like Goldschmidt, is rounding into his prime at age 26. The D-Backs also employ young pitchers Patrick Corbin (6-0, 1.52 ERA) and Trevor Cahill (2.48 ERA).
Arizona management may have made some questionable moves in the offseason (trading young star Justin Upton because…) but there’s still a solid and balanced young core in place and most of them seem to be rounding into their primes. Because of this, Arizona currently sits in first place in the NL West with a 25-18. They might have a chance at further improvement if Ian Kennedy and Brandon McCarthy are both able to re-capture some of their 2011 magic.
Arizona could be the NL team of the future provided that Kevin Towers doesn’t sell the rest of his budding stars for pennies on the dollar.
Hot and not-so-hot teams
The Rays have now won eight of ten are surging back into AL East contention. Remarkably, Tampa is sixth in runs scored. That’s not a typo. The Tampa Bay Rays have one of baseball’s best offenses. And, of course, James Loney is leading the charge. The man who formerly defined the moniker “average Joe” has a line of .371/.423/.540. Sneaky-awesome signing Kelly Johnson and superstar Evan Longoria have also been phenomenal for the Rays. As of now, it appears there are five dogs in the AL East race.
After starting the season 17-10 and moving into first place, the Kansas City Royals have dropped nine of twelve and have fallen to third in the AL Central. They’ll have a chance to turn things around, however, as they travel to Houston to take on the lowly Astros this week before hosting the slumping Angels.
That it for this week. Stay hungry, my friends.
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