Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Bird Watch: Interesting Weeks
We'll this was an interesting week for the Orioles, Jays and Cardinals, why you ask? Well that's for a couple reasons. First for the Jays, despite their offensive turn around in one of the games against both th Twins and Orioles they continue to have major struggles with their offence and their starting pitching situation is still more or less the same. This is evident because when you look at box scores you see that the Jays again have fallen back into their slump of terrible hitting with runners in scoring position with 1:13 or 0:7, just absolutely terrible and that's not even getting into some of e less patient hitters on the team falling back into swinging for the fences at whatever they want. The basic take away here is that Kevin Seitzer needs to sit down with some of the guys and give em another talk because it's obvious when they get frustrated at a slump they too fall back into old habits. On here side of the Orioles we have them just playing steady but that's not the interesting news, the interesting news is good ok' Manny Machado, see during the last weekend series against the Athletics he got into a bit of a bitchy mood after he was tagged out by Josh Donaldson, which he claimed was too hard. So next he hit the A's catcher Derek Norris in the head on his back swing several times and when it looked like a relief pitcher was throwing at him he decided to throw s bat, albeit poorly, at the pitcher. Now I do understand that this is a very young kid and other than this people have generally raved shout him being respectful, but the problem I have is how he handled it, which included a public apology followed by a contradictory appeal of his 5 game suspension. It's kind of ridiculous that he'd try and appeal, a suspension like that after putting up a 'heartfelt' apology but we'll see what happens with the appeal and if ten comes back to bite him. Now finally on the Cardinals they have had 2 serious things happen, the first is a bit of a reversal of their pitching mainly seen in Wachas recent struggles, which were coupled with major success from Miller and Garcia, which wasn't there before. Now again that's not much to be worried about because remember Wacha is a young guy in s first full season of baseball so don't fret unless this continues for a few more starts. The second, and more influential thing that happened with the Cardinals, which is that Adam Waignwright suffered an injury to his elbow! Fortunately this doesn't seem to be terribly serious as many on the Cardinals side have claimed that the issue is closer to tennis elbow than to a torn UCL, which would result in another Tommy John surgery, which might very well knock the Cardinals out of playoff contention. Similarly with Wacha the issue with Waignwright will likely become more clear once his supposed next start that he is supposed to make.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Well He Came Out Of No Where
This post is unfortunately not just an opinion or update on teams but just a re-hash of an article I read on Bleacher Report on the Houston Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel. Now I play in plenty of fantasy baseball leagues so I noticed pretty quickly that Keuchel was putting together some pretty good numbers and as such he's managed to put himself a top the Astros rotation and for good reason. However I never really considered him an 'Ace' level pitcher, now thats because when you look at his outings he's not usually striking out more than 5-7 batters, from fan graphs you can see he's more of a ground ball pitcher and well ……he's playing for the Astros. Now those are all really just stereotypical things because we all relate ace starting pitchers with those that have great control and can pound the strike zone to end the year with upwards of 200+ strikeouts. Now I couldn't be more wrong about Keuchel being an ace and here's why.
First off we look at his ERA, now that is at a surreal 2.38, and the even weirder thing is that the previous season had him post a 5.15 ERA. Now as you well know one of the first ways to check if a pitchers ERA is for real or not is to check their FIP and xFIP, and in this case Keuchel has a FIP of 2.82 and an xFIP of 2.80. Thats right the man is sporting field independent pitching stats only half a run higher than his ERA, so in short this is one indication that his performance is far from a fluke. Additionally we have his strikeout rate, which as I said, is about average at about 7.44 K/9 however to contrast this he has a 1.79 BB/9, so he's striking out an average number, allowing VERY few walks and then to top it off he has a ground ball percentage of 65.6%, and thats HUGE. Though the next question is how the hell he can keep that % high over the year because we see high GB% all the time and they all inevitably falter.
So how does he maintain the strikeouts and ground balls, well thats the work of his slider, which he gets the majority of his strikeouts from, but additionally he has the second highest swing and miss % (52.2) on his slider in the majors second only to Clayton Kershaw (57.9), thats right KERSHAW. Now saying his slider isn't really an explanation as to why it works so here is a little more, Chris Sale throws a cutter that for one is hard to hit because of his funky arm action, however it also has approximately 3.82 inches of horizontal movement making it harder for a hitter to lock onto and hit. Now if we then look at Keuchel's slider you'd find out that it in fact has 5.23 inches of horizontal movement, you heard me right 5.23 inches thats nearly a 6 inch sub sandwich! Hell thats about 1/3 of the length of a bat or so.
Now outside of his slider Keuchel also has a sinker that happens to be responsible for 81% of his ground balls and if you watch him throw it in a game you notice just how low to the ground it stays and that in itself makes the ridiculous GB% make a whole lot more sense. Finally rounding out his main pitches are his cutter and his change up, now the cutter isn't as good as the previously mentioned pitches but given how much movement he can get on his pitches its a good weapon to have. Finally his change up has batters a tad confused as well since batters are only hitting .208 on it.
All in all Dallas Keuchel is a force to be reckoned with and my god if the Astros manage to turn their prospects into a winning team in the next few years their pitching rotation with Keuchel at the front is going to be scary as all hell.
First off we look at his ERA, now that is at a surreal 2.38, and the even weirder thing is that the previous season had him post a 5.15 ERA. Now as you well know one of the first ways to check if a pitchers ERA is for real or not is to check their FIP and xFIP, and in this case Keuchel has a FIP of 2.82 and an xFIP of 2.80. Thats right the man is sporting field independent pitching stats only half a run higher than his ERA, so in short this is one indication that his performance is far from a fluke. Additionally we have his strikeout rate, which as I said, is about average at about 7.44 K/9 however to contrast this he has a 1.79 BB/9, so he's striking out an average number, allowing VERY few walks and then to top it off he has a ground ball percentage of 65.6%, and thats HUGE. Though the next question is how the hell he can keep that % high over the year because we see high GB% all the time and they all inevitably falter.
So how does he maintain the strikeouts and ground balls, well thats the work of his slider, which he gets the majority of his strikeouts from, but additionally he has the second highest swing and miss % (52.2) on his slider in the majors second only to Clayton Kershaw (57.9), thats right KERSHAW. Now saying his slider isn't really an explanation as to why it works so here is a little more, Chris Sale throws a cutter that for one is hard to hit because of his funky arm action, however it also has approximately 3.82 inches of horizontal movement making it harder for a hitter to lock onto and hit. Now if we then look at Keuchel's slider you'd find out that it in fact has 5.23 inches of horizontal movement, you heard me right 5.23 inches thats nearly a 6 inch sub sandwich! Hell thats about 1/3 of the length of a bat or so.
Now outside of his slider Keuchel also has a sinker that happens to be responsible for 81% of his ground balls and if you watch him throw it in a game you notice just how low to the ground it stays and that in itself makes the ridiculous GB% make a whole lot more sense. Finally rounding out his main pitches are his cutter and his change up, now the cutter isn't as good as the previously mentioned pitches but given how much movement he can get on his pitches its a good weapon to have. Finally his change up has batters a tad confused as well since batters are only hitting .208 on it.
All in all Dallas Keuchel is a force to be reckoned with and my god if the Astros manage to turn their prospects into a winning team in the next few years their pitching rotation with Keuchel at the front is going to be scary as all hell.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Bird Watch: One Up One Down
So this weekends games between the Cardinals and the Blue Jays made a couple things a bit apparent, first off the Jays still need one more star starting pitcher before they are complete contenders, the Jays offence isn't undefeatable and the Cardinals pitching staff seems to be getting back into the swing of things. All of the Cardinals starters for those 3 games managed to hold the Jays down so I think we can look forward to a second half comeback by the Cardinals. Though while the offensive showing during those 3 games by the Jays was disappointing they did manage to score 5 runs against the Twins Monday despite Janssen being a bit shaky and allowing the first runs he has this season. These performances just mean that both teams are not quite what we think they are, the Cardinals are not a flop and will more than likely make up a lot of ground in the coming months and the Jays, while on a bit offensive streak are likely to hit a brick wall or two on the way.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Maybe Fans Shouldn't
I decided to write to post when, several times, during the games I've been watching today fans booed it when the pitcher threw to first second or third base to pick off a runner. Now I understand why fans do it because it puts a damper on the action of the game and makes the pitcher seem I guess cowardly as if their running away from the current batter, and the thought I guess is that the booing will stop the pitcher from keeping up the pickoff attempts. However ts is actually a good thing for our team, why you ask? Well that's because this part of the game is a major part of the mental game in baseball and yea yea I understand that doesn't equal on field excitement, but the result of it often does. You see a pitcher is throwing a ball at speeds between 75-95+ mph over a distance of 60 feet, 6 inches and that requires a LOT of concentration. When the pitcher throws a pick off attempt it divides the pitchers attention, all of a sudden their trying to concentrate on pitching to the current batter as well as keeping an eye on the runner to ensure they know if he's going for a steal. As a result pitchers often end up giving up hits or having lacklustre control during these times because of this divide of attention, hell there are even times where this can lead to throwing errors due to bad pick off throws. In summary don't boo pick off attempts by opposing pitchers, it means that the runner on base is getting to the pitcher and he is likely to faulter fairly soon.
Bird Watch: Aw What The.........
So here I was sitting and watching the first inning of the Jays game on my computer when suddenly I get an alert on Bo my iPad and iPhone. I of course take a quick glimpse and see some very unfortunate news, good ol' injury risk Johan Santana, who I might add was pretty much thought to be coming up to help the Orioles rotation due to their series of injuries, has gone down when he tore his Achilles during extended spring training. Now this is just straight up terrible luck for he Orioles because they've lost a couple of their pitchers to either major or minor injuries over the last few weeks and I'm sure a lot of Oriioles fans had hoped that the gamble on Santana would turn out for the better and maybe they would have him back in ear his Cy Young calibre pitching. Unfortunately it was not to be, now I'm not going to say that the Orioles were stupid for trying to sign him, I thought at the time it may be a smart move, mainly because they have a lot of high end young prospects but the brunt of them still have a way to go until their major league ready so getting a guy like Santana who could act as cheap pitching depth until these guys were ready would have been great for the Orioles.
So the obvious next question, what do the Orioles do now? We'll they have to hope the hit that Bud. Norris took to the hand isn't that serious and they've already called up Kevin Gausman, though they may need to look at their other star pitching prospect Dylan Bundy as we but the choice to leave him down isn't a terrible one either since they still aren't nearly out of the running in the AL East as they only trail the Jays by 5.5 games.
All in all it's really crappy news for the Orioles but given that their farm system is in good shape they have the pitching depth to carry on even if it means that they have to bring up some guys a little earlier than they were expected to come up.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Bird Watch: Make Or Break Time
So the Blue Jays have been on a bit of a tear recently, now one thing that I have had to keep reminding myself about this is that for the most part they have been facing teams that are either bad or are struggling bit time. So basically taking a look at their schedule it seems that the results of their next few series will likely tell us if the way they are currently playing is really because they've turned over a new leaf so to speak or if its just a function of the bad teams they've been beating up on, so lets take a look at whats in store.
Current Series: @ Detroit. Now this one is obviously already underway and the results have been rather surprising so far as the Jays have managed to take the first 2 games of the series with a pretty commanding lead though in both instances their starting pitcher was almost too much of a challenge to get a leg up on. The fact that Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello combined for only 1 earned run over their time pitching in these 2 games tells us that there may still be a bit of work to be done since these two guys aren't even the cream of the crop pitching in the MLB. Now our pitching in these games is like Jekyll and Hyde as Hutchison went pitch for pitch against Sanchez and even got more strikeouts, however Dickey, despite only allowing 2 runs, had little control of the knuckleball and it seemingly got worse as the game went on, he allowed one hit in the first inning, 2 in the second, 3 in the third and then it pattered out a bit but ended in a bases loaded situation. Overall if you look at these outings together out pitching would be rather average, basically we're still in need of another solid contributor to our rotation since Dickey has been so inconsistent and we can't really count on stellar outings from Happ and Stroman on a regular basis as Happ is just not that kind of pitcher and Stroman lacks the experience to be able to do that (unless he's secretly Matt Harvey or something). As well we could very well complete this as a sweep since Happ's last couple starts have been quality and Verlander has been kind of shaky (at least for what he normally is).
On the other hand our offence was stellar, and I say that even despite the lack of offensive production against the starters because we took advantage of the Tigers weak point, their bullpen, and just drilled them into the group with 7 runs in the last 4 innings of the second game and 5 runs in the last inning of the first game. Overall this is a good start and the fact that most of these guys are much better with their approach at the plate makes things all the better, thank you Kevin Seitzer!
Next Series: Home against the Cardinals: Now when I heard the Cardinals were coming over I expected this to be the tipping point however, the Cardinals are on a really lacklustre streak with their offence and the starting pitchers we are set to face (Garcia, Miller and Lynn) are unfortunately the worst of the batch. Still despite the bad offence the Cardinals are still formidable defensively and given that they have probably the best catcher for throwing out runners in Yadier Molina speed may be eliminated from the Jays usual game. This however is still a turning point in my eyes since we know how strong the Cardinals can be when their on and even a slight tweak of their rotation could very well have us facing Wacha or Wainwright to VERY deadly pitchers.
Now the next set of series have us up against the Twins, Orioles, Yankees, Reds, Yankees and White Sox until the end of June, which gives us a up and down ride as the Yankees have been pretty crap over this year but the Twins have been having some pitching success and the Orioles players seem to be putting things together and lets not forget that the Reds have Johnny Cueto and could have Mat Lator back by then as well. The 2 weeks following that are the next surge of 'prove yourself' games as we go into series against the Milkwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics and L.A Angels, all of which are on a tear both offensively and in pitching. Meaning that the true strength of the 2014 Blue Jays will be decided between now and the start of the All Star game, if we're in the same position we are in now or at least within a few games of it then the Jays are legitimate World Series contenders.
Current Series: @ Detroit. Now this one is obviously already underway and the results have been rather surprising so far as the Jays have managed to take the first 2 games of the series with a pretty commanding lead though in both instances their starting pitcher was almost too much of a challenge to get a leg up on. The fact that Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello combined for only 1 earned run over their time pitching in these 2 games tells us that there may still be a bit of work to be done since these two guys aren't even the cream of the crop pitching in the MLB. Now our pitching in these games is like Jekyll and Hyde as Hutchison went pitch for pitch against Sanchez and even got more strikeouts, however Dickey, despite only allowing 2 runs, had little control of the knuckleball and it seemingly got worse as the game went on, he allowed one hit in the first inning, 2 in the second, 3 in the third and then it pattered out a bit but ended in a bases loaded situation. Overall if you look at these outings together out pitching would be rather average, basically we're still in need of another solid contributor to our rotation since Dickey has been so inconsistent and we can't really count on stellar outings from Happ and Stroman on a regular basis as Happ is just not that kind of pitcher and Stroman lacks the experience to be able to do that (unless he's secretly Matt Harvey or something). As well we could very well complete this as a sweep since Happ's last couple starts have been quality and Verlander has been kind of shaky (at least for what he normally is).
On the other hand our offence was stellar, and I say that even despite the lack of offensive production against the starters because we took advantage of the Tigers weak point, their bullpen, and just drilled them into the group with 7 runs in the last 4 innings of the second game and 5 runs in the last inning of the first game. Overall this is a good start and the fact that most of these guys are much better with their approach at the plate makes things all the better, thank you Kevin Seitzer!
Next Series: Home against the Cardinals: Now when I heard the Cardinals were coming over I expected this to be the tipping point however, the Cardinals are on a really lacklustre streak with their offence and the starting pitchers we are set to face (Garcia, Miller and Lynn) are unfortunately the worst of the batch. Still despite the bad offence the Cardinals are still formidable defensively and given that they have probably the best catcher for throwing out runners in Yadier Molina speed may be eliminated from the Jays usual game. This however is still a turning point in my eyes since we know how strong the Cardinals can be when their on and even a slight tweak of their rotation could very well have us facing Wacha or Wainwright to VERY deadly pitchers.
Now the next set of series have us up against the Twins, Orioles, Yankees, Reds, Yankees and White Sox until the end of June, which gives us a up and down ride as the Yankees have been pretty crap over this year but the Twins have been having some pitching success and the Orioles players seem to be putting things together and lets not forget that the Reds have Johnny Cueto and could have Mat Lator back by then as well. The 2 weeks following that are the next surge of 'prove yourself' games as we go into series against the Milkwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics and L.A Angels, all of which are on a tear both offensively and in pitching. Meaning that the true strength of the 2014 Blue Jays will be decided between now and the start of the All Star game, if we're in the same position we are in now or at least within a few games of it then the Jays are legitimate World Series contenders.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Bird Watch: Update and 1/3 Mark
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
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
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