2012 Previews: Houston Astros

Ah yes, the good ole days.

Majors
I can't pronounce the names of half of the players on this team.

Minors
They're just filling their MLB club with a bunch of strangers, meanwhile moving their workhorse/2nd best starting pitcher to the fucking closer position.  If they're going to do that, in the worst division in baseball, then they had fucking well better be stacking up their minor league system with super prospects.  What's that?  They didn't stack up prospects in the farm system?  Oh.

Remember last year when they traded away Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence for disappointing hauls?  Yeah, it's a good job they did, because that's about all they have in that system.  Fortunately, they've got the first overall pick this year, and are so fucking bad that they'll probably get it again next year.  They've also got new ownership (who will hopefully opt to get rid of that stupid fucking hill in CF), a new GM, and a whole bunch of new scouts and statisticians and stuff in their front office.  Hopefully for them, this will translate in to better drafting, better development, and maybe some cash in to the system to help out.

The Verdict
This team might be the worst team we've seen since the Tigers of like 2003 or whichever year they lost 119 games.  They're going to try as hard as they can to trade away both Wandy Rodriguez and Brett Myers, but they shouldn't get much of a return on either.  Beyond that, this is just a big laundry list of AAAA scrubs who have literally 0 chance of being anywhere near respectable.  They''re also moving to the AL West next year.  Enjoy.

Projection: 60-102, dead fucking last in the AL West NL Central.

MLB '12 The Show Roster Preview

This can't really be worthy of a whole post, can it?  Operation Sports has a few preview videos of MLB '12 The Show, and among them is a quick preview of the top 9 players from each roster.  Here's his youtube page.

That little screenshot alone shows us that the Jays' best players are, in order, Jose Bautista, Francisco Cordero [note: What the fuck?], Ricky Romero, Sergio Santos, Darren Oliver, Brandon Morrow, Yunel Escobar, Jason Frasor, and ringin' up the rear (of the front), Brett Lawrie.  It would appear that Bautista is signed on for just the 1 year, as opposed to the 4 more (plus an option) that he's actually signed on for.  Santos is also signed through 2014 with 3 club options, but appears to be signed on in the game for his regular service time.  Some of the contracts in the game are pretty funny though.  Like Ryan Howard's deal only being for $4.2MM/yr, instead of the actual $25MM value.

Speaking of contracts and stuff, I just checked the Jays' Cots page, and uhhh... something kind of struck my eye: the word combo "club option" is listed on that page 46 times.  46!  The Jays have 3 club options on Lind and Santos, 2 on Escobar, and 1 on Morrow, Oliver, Janssen, Davis, Bautista and Romero, plus the exercised options on Encarnacion and Frasor.  A little ephemera for you.

It looks like the Astros are still the Astros.  Brett Myers, the innings-eating starter, has been named the team's closer, on this, the third day of Spring Training.  Sounds dumb, but probably worth a look in your fantasy pools if you're short on those.  Look for the Astros to fill Myers' rotation hole with another replacement level scrub who can only throw about 120 innings in a season.

Joey Votto was asked about playing in Toronto, and apparently didn't seem to enthusiastic.  Must be the turf.

2012 Previews: Texas Rangers

There's a reason why this team has gotten to the World Series two years in a row.

The Majors
This lineup.  Seriously, what Jon Daniels has done with this organization.

They were on the verge of bankruptcy when they traded ARod to New York, and now they're so fucking good it makes me want a cigarette. There just isn't an easy out in that lineup, 1-through-9.  Kinsler, Beltre, Napoli, Hamilton and Cruz all have 30+HR power (especially in this ballpark), and it seems like everybody gets on base at a good clip.  My main worry would be the health of Cruz and Hamilton.

The rotation is full of #2-3 guys, which isn't all that bad, considering the offense and bullpen.  Darvish is almost certainly an upgrade over CJ Wilson (though I think I'm a bit higher on Wilson than most), and guys like Matt Harrison and Derek Holland had breakout-ish years last year.  I'm not entirely sure what they plan to do with all of their starters/the closer situation if they really go through with the plan of moving Neftali Feliz to the rotation, but it's a nice problem to have.  I hope they keep Koji Uehara, but it looks like they're trying to trade him.  He should be their closer (if Feliz starts).

Minors

If the lineup gets Rockclapping.gif, the minor league system should get something along these lines:

Much like Tampa, this system is really chock full of high-ceiling guys.  They've graduated a few guys, and have had a few busts in the last couple of years, but it's still a great system, especially considering how good the MLB-roster is.  Texas doesn't seem to draft/develop pitchers as well as Tampa does, but neither does anybody, really.  I think Anthopoulos is following the Texas model more so than the Tampa model, since Toronto and Texas both have decent payroll capabilities, where Tampa does not.

The Verdict: This is my pick for the World Series.  I realize that it's not at all risky to pick a team that's been to back-to-back World Series', but hey, what can you do, right?  This is the best team in baseball, so they should be my pick.

Projection: 98-64, 1st in the AL West

2012 Previews: Tampa Bay Rays

I think this is the perfect combination of pitching, hitting, defense, and coaching. Andrew Friedman is a god among men.

The Majors
Simply, I love this team.  The organization just keeps churning out amazing pitcher after amazing pitcher.  Price, Shields, Moore and Hellickson is right up there with PHI and LAA as the best rotations in baseball, whoever they opt to stick in as their fifth starter.

The thing is, as good as the rotation is, the offense is probably going to be the best it's been in franchise history.  Evan Longoria is probably the best player in baseball (certainly in the argument), and there just doesn't seem to be any weak spots around him, thanks to the way this club is managed by Joe Maddon.  I'm amazed that other teams aren't doing the same thing as the Rays are, in terms of building their team with a bunch of guys who can play multiple positions, giving the team as many lineup options as possible, so as to maximize the amount of times batters come up with the right lefty/righty splits.  I don't necessarily think that this the most talented team in baseball, but they squeeze out more value with what they have than any other club.  Despite not really having any big time power hitters beyond Evan Longoria (Pena, I guess), this team is full of guys with 20HR power, and they all get on base.

The Minors
This is a consensus top-3 system, and is easily top-5 even if you don't consider Matt Moore a prospect anymore.  I kind of wonder if Andrew Friedman would even bother using an extra $30MM if he had it sitting around.  Most players hit their peak at ages 27-29, which also happens to be when they're becoming expensive.  If Friedman continually moves players as they get worse and more expensive (as opposed to retaining them for more money), he can rebuild his farm system over and over and over again, while the players he moves are still valuable.  The fact that there is a giant pile of prospects in this system at all times is a security net that allows him to keep costs down, run an efficient team, and keep his club constantly moving towards the peaks of their careers.

Now that Type-B free agent compensation has been removed, teams are going to have to get a little more clever, and maybe trade players earlier in to their service clocks in order to get large returns.  Friedman was kind of doing that before the new CBA anyway, once people realized that he was just hogging relievers who were close to Type-B status for draft picks.  He's very much ahead of the game, zigging when other zag, so to speak.

Verdict
What else do I have to say?  I think this is the best team in the AL East, and the second best team in baseball.  A lot of people are pointing to the Red Sox, saying that their record last year was well below what it should have been, thanks to the 0-7 start, and the September blowup.  Let's not forget that the 2011 Rays started 1-8, ultimately winning 91 games.  I think they're better than they were last year, and the competition (NYY and BOS) are either the same, or slightly worse.

Projection: 1st in the AL East, 96-66

A Week of Stuff in One Day

I've been working all week, and typically only write stuff on days that I don't work.  In terms of hours, this was a good week, and thus, I have hardly updated this thing.  I've been working as a substitute teacher until I can find something permanent, and I think things can only go down from here.  Yesterday, I wrote outlines for two 2012 previews, which will probably go up tomorrow (TBR and TEX), plus wrote an outline for a post at Nowhere Plans, which went up this morning and can check out, if you're at all interested in Survivor.  Then I dunked a basketball in front of 14 5 year-olds while sitting in for someone else's gym class, and instantly became the coolest person on the planet in their eyes.

The weird thing is that despite essentially missing a week of updates, I've only started missing writable content over the last day or so.  There were a few things that I could have included in a stuff post, but nothing really important enough to warrant it's own post (other than stuff that literally everybody everywhere has already written about).  With that little preamble-ramble, here goes:

Sportsnet.ca, thestar.com, and theglobeandmail.com all have backlogs of meaningless fluff pieces about not very much from over the last week.  I planned on glossing over all of them, but even the worst laid plans something something.  One of them is about how Colby Rasmus didn't like STL, and now has longer hair.  I wish I was lying.

Ryan Braun won his appeal yesterday, probably due to a chain of custody technicality.  Follow Victor Conte on twitter for some real gems.  Google "Victor Conte" if you don't know who that is [hint: he was Barry Bonds' trainer/roid supplier].  This is one of those things that everybody everywhere has written a lot about, despite not really knowing a whole lot about the drug testing/appeal process, so I won't bother.  I'm sure you can find something about this on literally every baseball blog in the history of the internet, so if you really need more, go nuts.  What I liked was this one, courtesy of Tango.  Basically, go bet on the Brewers before the odds change, if they haven't already.

2012 ZiPS projections are out, and Dave Cameron of Fangraphs had a look at the top 5 non-pitchers at each position (I assume pitchers will be done soon if it wasn't done already... I haven't checked yet, since I'm a few days behind on posting links).

1BlueJaysWay is doing his/their annual 25-man-roster-athon.  Go do that.  You could win a Randy Knorr something!  I went with the obvious choices, plus Perez in the pen, Thames in LF, and Mccoy/Francisco/Mathis/Davis on the bench.

Gregg Zaun was on Prime Time Sports on Wednesday, I think, and he called out Colby Rasmus as being a not-hustly guy.  You can watch that below, or check out what Stoeten wrote at DJF, complete with retorts from John Farrell.  Remember, Zaunny didn't like the Jays' offseason, and has a pretty negative outlook on the whole scenario.



Carlos Beltran paid Jon Niese to go get a nosejob.

2012 Previews: New York Yankees

They're getting older...

The Majors
I feel like I could probably copy and paste my Red Sox preview in to this one, for the most part, because these are two really similar teams.  Vicious offenses, amazing bullpens, and up until about 3 weeks ago, questionable rotations.  Consider this: Brian Cashman moved a somewhat extraneous DH for a starting pitcher with 5 years of control, signed another pitcher to a low-risk contract, and traded away a massive disappointment, whereas Ben Cherington traded his starting shortstop for nothing -- Advantage: Yankees.  The result is an improved Yankees rotation, complimented by an excellent bullpen and a rapidly aging lineup that probably wouldn't have had room for Jesus Montero anyway.

This is still a great team that won the toughest division in baseball by several games last season, but at some point, you have to worry about guys like ARod (age 36), Jeter (Age 37) and Mark Teixeira (age 32) all still being under contract for five, three (2+ a player option), and four more years, with all of them well in to the decline phases of their careers.

Based on the above contracts (plus CC Sabathia, Rafael Soriano, and commitments to AJ Burnett) and the new CBA payroll restrictions, it's tough to envision the Yankees hanging on to Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher,  and Curtis Granderson over the coming years.  The Yanks can no longer just spend their way in to remaining in contention.

Fortunately, Brian Cashman is a wise man, and appears to be trying to cut costs.  The Yankees have always scouted and drafted well, and consistently have up-and-comers within their system, allowing them to compete year-in and year-out.  I still see a decline in the future with all of the long-term contracts entering their back halves, but it shouldn't be too steep, and can certainly be managed with their payroll capabilities.

The Minors
First off, I'm a firm believer in the conspiracy theory that Yankee prospects get overrated simply by virtue of being in the Yankees' system.  Having said that, most of the talent in this system is a few years away from doing much at the major league level, with the exception of Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering ARod and Jeter are going to continue getting playing time until the end of their contracts anyway.  I'd rather have my prospects be far from the majors than have a couple of geezers blocking them.  They got a potential ace in the Michael Pineda deal in Jose Campos.  Of course, the Yankees don't really keep their prospects, preferring to use them as trade bait, so that might not matter (and could actually hurt in terms of trade value).

The Verdict
They'll win the wild card (or the division), barring any hilarious Red Sox-style setbacks.  I think we're actually going to see a slight improvement out of ARod if he can stay healthy, but he's 36 years old, so I could be very wrong.  Expect Granderson to regress.  They'll still be a really good team, but I think they're going to be worse than last year as a whole.

Projection: 94-68, 2nd in the AL East.

Jays Pass the Dutchy, Sign Rick Vandenhurk

The Blue Jays have signed recent Orioles ex-pat Henricus "Rick" VandenHurk to a split contract, and have placed Alan Farina on the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man roster.  Purely a depth move, similar to, say, Wilfredo Ledezma last year.  This is hardly news, much like absolutely everything else that's happened over the last two weeks.

A piece of stuff for you: Check out Nowhere Plans for a three-piece guide, written by myself and some guy I've never met in real life, to players who may be your surprise young guns of the year.  Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.