So writing here has been a bit difficult to keep up with as of late however going to be committing to write more on here. Anyhow, onward! As the title suggests I'm just going to be looking at the teams performance over the first 1/3 of the season this year.
Baltimore Orioles:
So the AL East has been really weird these days huh, we've got all the teams who are only treading water above the .500 mark, which is pretty ridiculous when you consider where everyone finished the year at and how many major signings the Orioles and the Yankees have made that haven't seemingly made major differences yet (besides Masahiro Tanaka). Now the Orioles have been doing well in holding things together, now the current position is in part because of a slow start by some of their major offensive players (ie. Chris Davis and J.J Hardy) and a lacklustre performance by some of their starting pitchers (ie. Ubaldo Jimenez, Wei Yin Chen and Bud Norris) as well as some major players out of the lineup for a good amount of the first section of the season (Machado).
Now while these major negatives have kept the Orioles out of first and second place of the AL East or from really running away with the division while everyone else is down, many of their acquisitions have been very positive contributors. Going into the new season I thought a number of the signings that the Orioles made were a BIG mistake, Ubaldo Jimenez had really only had a small period of consistent success outside of his Cy Young season and had been pretty bad when it came to holding down the long ball. As well Nelson Cruz had come off of his PED suspension and I shared a view with other major analysts that his PED use may have been keeping him healthy, as before suspicion of PED use came about he was in and out of the DL almost every season. Now I'll be honest I was only 50% right there, Ubaldo so far has been a big disappointment for what he was expected to be, HOWEVER I was completely wrong about Cruz, he has been holding the offensive end of the Orioles lineup since the start of the season and in some of the early games I watched he surprised the hell out of me.
Now while, like other AL East teams, the Orioles have started slow some things are looking up, Chris Davis is heating up big time (he had a 3 home run game not long ago), Chris Tillman is working himself back into a groove, despite their closer Tommy Hunter getting injured Zach Britton has been able to hold his own very well. Now one of the odd things this season is that the Orioles have a winning record against the AL East, West and National League, however they are 7-13 against the AL Central and that comes off as odd because for one the Central has a more pitcher friendly set of parks, which should make it easier on their pitchers who aren't necessarily star calibre players and their hitters are weaker than the East or most teams in the West. In addition to Hunter running onto the DL, the Orioles have also lost Wieters for the foreseeable future making them a little weaker at the catcher position as well.
All in all it seems like, given where all of the other AL East teams are at, the Orioles are on pace to still keep in good competition in the AL East, as well they have a fairly easy/balanced next couple of months on their schedule leading up to the All Star Game. So if they can pick themselves up from the DL woes they've had and improve a bit on their offence, which seems to be happening, and get their 3 mediocre starters to take it up a notch they could easily see themselves in first or second in the AL East.
St. Louis Cardinals:
Oddly enough the situation the Cardinals have found themselves in over the first 1/3 of the season has been kinda similar to that of the Orioles as they are much lower in the standings than I'm sure people were expecting them to be. Also like the Orioles some of their major offensive producers from last year have been rather quiet, though some are heating up, those being Matt Adams, Matt Carpenter and Allen Craig. Now do I expect these 3 to continue being lacklustre? Not a chance! But this slow start is a big reason for them being where they are right now.
When the Cardinals hit the offseason there wasn't a lot of areas they needed to sign anyone significant to fill a spot in the roster, with exception to shortstop because of the injury issues to Rafael Furcal the years before and the fact that he was pushing 39. So they went out and signed Jhonny Peralta, again much like Cruz I thought this was going to be a bust because of his unusual spike in power last year and then being followed by his PED suspension. However shows me what the hell I know because he's been more than an above average offensive producer on the Cardinals batting order, and has kept about the same level of defence that he did when he was with the Tigers. Additionally they had some rotation and bullpen spots to fill so they slotted in a lot of their newbie pitchers (Wacha, Rosenthal, Martinez, Mille, etc) and there has been about a 50-50 turn out of these guys so far. Wacha has been fairly dominant in the bulk of his starts, which is great considering he didn't even play a full season at the major league level last year, on the other hand Miller has been a bit wobbly as he turns in some stellar outings and then others when he gets away with ALOT of bad pitching, though he has been turning it around as of late. Finally the Rosenthal and Martinez in the bullpen have also been showing the same sort of duality, Rosenthal has been, similar to Miller, struggling with command and because of that has blown a fair number of saves in addition to have some outings that could have been disastrous but thankfully were't due to things like he big time heater. Martinez on the other hand has been all smooth sailing since they put him in the set up role, which was a bit disappointing as most people, including myself, thought he's get the last rotation spot over Joe Kelly because well his stuff is just a lot better and he has the better prospect pedigree.
Overall the Cardinals have done a good job despite their struggling core of their offence and some shakiness to their pitchers however you have to keep things in context because despite Miller and Rosenthal having bad outings now and then, their not blow outs and when you consider they have Wainwright who is definitely a top 5 pitcher this year to back them up they have the potential to hold out and improve. Rosenthal though does have something to worry about since Motte has just recently come off the DL from his Tommy John rehab and if things keep going sour for Rosenthal we could see him losing the closer job, though that would make you wonder what they do with him or Martinez (ie. push them back to 7th/8th inning, send one down to AAA or move one to the rotation?). Either way as they always do the Cardinals have more than enough potential to make a run at the NL Central and the NL as a whole.
Toronto Blue Jays:
Many people will look back on my posts during the offseason about railing Alex Anthopolous because he did nothing for the team, I mean I applauded his signing of Navarro because I thought he'd be a good fit for the rotation since, from his stats, he seemed to be a catcher who enhanced a pitchers abilities when they followed the pitches he called. However that was pretty much all he did and it drove me insane (not going to go into the Masahiro Tanka rant again). The main issue I thought that was going to bite them to begin with was their starting rotation because they hadn't made any significant changes to it, now yes they did add Hutchison and McGowan from the DL however what we've seen from history is typically it takes about a year for a starting pitcher to get completely back into form after returning from tommy john surgery, which both of them were. That alone made me very wary about trusting this rotation, that added with Brandon Morrow lacking any sense of consistency as usual. All in all this is pretty much exactly how the first month of the season played out, Hutchison pitched above average, Dickey did slightly better than what he did the year before, Morrow collapsed and got injured, McGowan was terrible, and then Mark Buerhle……had an ERA under 2?
Now oddly enough this year so far and most years previous the Jays have seldom had problems with offence, they have led the league or been in the top 5 of home runs hit in several seasons past, so their prime problem has been keeping good healthy starters on the mound for a full season. The Buerhle stuff so far this year really caught me off guard but like I said about Navarro enhancing a pitchers ability by being good at calling pitches I think may have worked BIG TIME for Buerhle since he doesn't shake off any pitch calls by the catcher and due to his diminished velocity has had to develop pinpoint accuracy. Don't get me wrong though I don't expect him to keep this ERA and everything up but I wouldn't be surprised if his ERA at the end of the year was somewhere around 3.00-3.10, where he usually ends up at 3.40-3.50 or higher and with maybe 15-18 wins, as he usually gets somewhere between 13-15 on the past few seasons.
Currently the lights seem to be all coming on for the Jays, nearly all of their offensive pieces are pushing forward at full force, Dickey has seemingly got past his 7th inning woes (the being that he had consistently collapsed in the 7th inning in several games), Reyes, Gose and Pillar have turned on the speed on the base paths, and our bullpen has stabilized a great deal with the return of Casey Janssen and our starters being more consistent. They have already swept both the A's and the Red Sox before that, which bodes well as a sweep of the Red Sox in their current condition doesn't mean much, but being able to beat out the best team in the AL right now is definitely something big and their match against the Rays today showed that the offence isn't slowing down.
Going into this season not much was expected out of the Jays, now that isn't necessarily because they were thought to be a bad team, just that all of the teams around them in the AL East had either made big signings to improve their club or were keeping a solid group of players together with major success last year, however with that backfiring on most of the other AL East teams if Toronto can keep up this offensive surge, keep up with quality pitching and maybe add another front of the rotation starter by the trade deadline then they could very well be a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs this year.
-Eric
