31 March 2012

What's A Weak Hitter Worth?


You may have noticed that someone named Jonathan Lucroy recently agreed to an $11 million, five year contract with the Milwaukee Brewers. No deadly weapons were aimed threateningly at GM Doug Melvin's head, which surely had you shaking yours. Lucroy, after all, is a second-year backstop with a .260 batting average, 16 home runs in 700 at bats and no particular minor league pedigree.

Isn't professional sports truly the land of lottery tickets? Should Melvin instead have gifted his young catcher a hearty backslap and an expression of confidence that he'd be employed in the Majors in five years?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is, probably not. This is a deal with high upside and relatively little risk, which you can expect to see repeated league-wide.

In his first full season, Lucroy hit .265/.312/.391 last year for the Brewers. It's not exactly fantasy owner heaven, but it's slightly above average at catcher. Lucroy gets high marks for his skills in shin guards and at 25 can reasonably be expected to improve.

Without any behind-the-plate prospects on the farm, Milwaukee has locked up its backstop for the half decade he is most likely to excel. They are promising Lucroy roughly what he would earn during his pre-arbitration years and roughly what he'd earn in arbitration thereafter if he maintains his performance -- a win or two over replacement. (If Lucroy exceeds that, he can earn an extra $2 million.)

The alternative would be to roll the dice and hope to get . . . whatever detritus is out there. When Buster Posey's season evaporated in a home plate collision last year, the Giants lost five wins and the Wild Card. His replacements hit hardly better than Posey in a cast.

Having established cost-certainty at catcher, Milwaukee can turn its attention to keeping its pitching assets -- most notably Zack Greinke and Shawn Marcum, who qualify for free agency after this season.

So what's in it for Jonathan Lucroy, his wife and baby Ella? How about five guaranteed years of seven-figure paychecks? In the unlikely event that he turns into the next Mike Piazza, Lucroy can break the bank in 2018. Your wife would be okay with that, right?
b

28 March 2012

The 2012 Season, So Far


Dustin Ackley your AL batting champ? Who knew?

The first play-in game is in the books and it's everything we thought it would be. Seattle's anemic offense (2.45 runs per nine) tops just pitiful Oakland's (0.82).

It's nice to see Ichiro ahead again in the race for the batting title, at .800. All singles, as you'd have guessed. Ditto for Yoenis Cespedes, living up to Oakland's hopes with a .333/.500/.667 performance. He's got to cut down on the 324-strikeout pace though, or he'll never catch league-leading Ackley's 162-homer output.

King Felix's 272-inning pace with a 1.13 ERA screams Cy Young, even if he hasn't registered a decision all year. His .625 WHIP is historic, not to mention the envy of fantasy owners. It's the polar opposite of poor Andrew Carignan, the A's reliever on pace for 48 frames of 540 ERA ball and 162 losses. Are you sure he's not a Pirate?

Finally, games sure are moving quickly now that no one all season has issued a walk. Wait, the A's without a free pass? Did Billy Beane retire?
b

25 March 2012

The Final Standings As of March


For what it's worth, below are Baseball Prospectus's projections for the 2012 season.

Keep in mind that projections are not predictions. They are derived by aggregating the expected performances of each individual player and his projected playing time. Each player projection is a meld of his past performance and the experiences of players like them in the next year of their career.

BP runs a million season simulations and averages them for the numbers you see here.

NL East

Atlanta Braves            88  74  .543
Philadelphia Phillies    88  74  .543
Miami Marlins              87  75  .537
Washington Nationals 83  79  .512
New York Mets            78  84  .481

NL Central

St. Louis Cardinals      88  74  .543
Milwaukee Brewers    86  76  .531
Cincinnati Reds          85  77  .525
Chicago Cubs              74  88  .457
Pittsburgh Pirates      72  90  .444
Houston Astros          62  100 .383

NL West

San Francisco Giants     86  76  .531
Arizona Diamondbacks  85  77  .525
Colorado Rockies           80  82  .494
San Diego Padres           79  83  .488
Los Angeles Dodgers      78  84  .481

AL East

New York Yankees           93  69  .543
Boston Red Sox              88  74  .543
Tampa Bay Rays              86  76  .525
Toronto Blue Jays           77  85  .474
Baltimore Orioles            73  89  .451

AL Central

Detroit Tigers          85  77  .519
Cleveland Indians     80  82  .494
Chicago White Sox   78  84  .481
Minnesota Twins      73  89  .451
Kansas City Royals    67  95  .414

AL West

Texas Rangers          99  63  .611
Los Angeles Angels   88  74  .543
Oakland A's               73  89  .451
Seattle Mariners       70  92  .432

The Texas projection shocks me, particularly losing C.J. Wilson and expecting a decline in performance from Josh Hamilton and perhaps some of the rest of the rotation. BP foresees big things from Japanese import Yu Darvish and the Texas offense, which it projects to outscore the Angels by 207 runs.


On the other end of the spectrum, it's hard to overstate how little the projection thinks of Houston. To lose 100 games, teams usually experience multiple breakdowns, injuries and unexpected bad play. This projection says the Astros will lose 100 if all goes according to plan. That means a bad season in Houston could mean 110 losses.


The projection sees the Yankees and Red Sox both crushing the ball, but New York doing a much better job of run prevention. (Andy Pettite's return makes little difference in that equation.) It also projects that the Blue Jays' pitching is even more odious than the Orioles', but less putrid than both the Twins' and Royals'. The system has little reverence for the AL Central in general.


With the departure of Roy Oswalt and serious regression from Vance Worley, BP sees the Phillies' rotation as a three-man All-Star Team. It rates the Giants' pitching staff as 19 runs superior, though that may all be ballpark.


These standings suggest rock-'em, sock-'em, top-to-bottom slugfests in the NL East and West, and a three-way dogfight in the NL Central. Not so much in the AL, where the projections, like the Watergate reporters, follow the money.
b

Sabathia, Nova . . . Johan Santana?


Great news for the Mets from Florida: Johan Santana is flummoxing batters again and appears on track to reclaim his position as ace of the rotation.

Big shakers of salt always have to accompany teams to Spring Training, but it's an especially tasty development in Santana's case following Sept. 2010 shoulder surgery that kept him out of action all last year.

A few more starts like his six-inning domination of the full Cardinals lineup should have Met brass celebrating with Santana's agent. And asking him to waive his no-trade clause.

Consider the Mets' dilemma in lists.

Here's the list of reasons the Metroplitans have no chance to compete in the NL East this year:
1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Atlanta Braves
3. Washington Nationals
4. Miami Marlins
5. They stink.

Here' are the top 6 items on the Mets' 2012-2013 Christmas list.
1. Money to make payroll.
2. Money to clear debt.
3. Money to sign developing talent.
4. Money to sign key free agents.
5. Young talent.
6. Patient commitment to a rebuilding plan

Here's the list of items, after a new Madoff-related subpoena, that Sandy Alderson can most do without in 2012-2013:
1. An extravagantly expensive 33-year-old starter with health concerns and trade value.
2. Unwarranted expectations by fans that this is anything more than the developmental squad for the 2014 team.

The cash-strapped franchise owes Santana $49 million over the next two years, plus a $5.5 buyout on a $25.5 team option for 2014. The odds of that contract paying off, equal to the odds of anyone picking up that option, are still greater than the odds that the Mets will be competitive during its life. With Santana and some good breaks, the Mets avoid the cellar and/or win half their games. Without him, they flop, rehire some laid-off ticket sales guys and mine some prospects.That's why they need to trade Santana.


The question then is: who would relinquish emerging talent and commit a fat chunk of payroll to an aging, ex-star whose performance began slipping even before his body came apart? By 2010, his heater had cooled a few degrees to 90 mph and his strikeout rate had plummeted to 6.5/game. It was topping 9.0/game in his Twins heyday.


The answer is no one, which is why the Mets would have to kick back a hefty chunk of Santana's salary. Still, saving $15 million/year (minus the $400,000/year cost of his replacement), rather than unloading the full $25 million salary, is better than nothing. It frees up 40 Lucas Duda salaries and maybe helps find the next Lucas Duda or two. 

Now with two Wild Cards, everyone this side of the Astros thinks they're a pitcher away. A veteran squad with a rotation hole and a big bank account -- I'm looking at you Rangers, Yankees,  Red Sox, Cardinals, Marlins and even you Brewers -- might entertain a deal.


The key to a Met Renaissance is as much about whether the team is willing to trade the present for the future as it is about what they are able to get in those trades. As the oldest and least affordable of their chips, a seemingly healthy Santana should be at the top of that list.
b

24 March 2012

Feeling Chipper in Retirement


Good for Chipper Jones.

Knowing when to hang 'em up is a skill not well correlated with hitting a baseball. And if there's anything this future Hall of Fame third baseman knows, it's hitting a baseball. Even in the geriatric segment of his career, Chipper has continued to contribute with the bat.

Now, as he turns 40, Chipper has announced that 2012 will be his curtain call. This is a beautiful thing. He will enjoy a 162-game valedictory tour and retire as a lifelong Brave. That's six months of hosannas at 20 ballparks around the Majoirs. He will go out as a productive player to the last, or at the very least, as one who quit as soon as his skills ebbed. And he will go home with his body intact.

Chipper has admitted that he had to begin icing down after each game starting in 2009, at age 37. Not coincidentally, that's when his production slid from MVP-caliber to good. He has played in 140 games just once since turning 33 and he's missed more than 100 games the last two years. And while "statuesque" works for supermodels, it's not what the Braves want defensively from their third baseman.

So we will spend the 2012 season reviewing a gargantuan career. A World Series. An MVP. Seven All-Star appearances. Five years of 1,000+ OPS. The third most home runs -- 454 so far -- of any switch hitter in history. In his worst year (by OPS), Chipper hit 16% above average, walked nearly as often as he whiffed, slugged 30 homers and got aboard at a .362 clip. 

Why stain that legacy, hurting all the way? Congratulations to Chipper Jones for ending on an up note. As Bruce Springsteen said, we've got to get out while we're young.
b

18 March 2012

A Sterling Silva Career


The thoroughly eccentric career of Carlos Silva appears to have come to an end as he was cast out by the Boston Red Sox on St. Patrick's Day. If so, Silva's time in the majors will be remembered as a singularity.

Actually, to be accurate, Silva's career came to an end on August 1, 2011, following a magnificent half season for the Cubs. Unable to catch his breath after the first inning of a start, Silva went under the knife for a heart arrhythmia and has never been the same since. 

Not that he was ever the same before that.

Silva was drafted by the Phillies out of Venezuela in '96 and made his pro debut in '02. Featuring a fastball and sinker and little else, the results were excellent -- 5-0, 3.21 out of the pen. But there were troubling signs. A soft-tossing righty, Silva was relinquishing more than a hit-an-inning and fanning just four per game. Pitchers who aren't fooling batters sufficiently to whiff six or seven per nine rarely have long MLB careers.

What was keeping Silva successful was a plethora of ground balls. He allowed just four hits to leave the yard in 84 frames, and as long as he could keep that up, and the walks down, he had a chance to survive, even if it was a tightrope walk. The following season he gave up three more homers in just three more innings, his walk rate spiked to nearly four per game and he fired a dozen wild pitches. Not surprisingly, his ERA busted loose to 4.43 and his value tanked. Before the '04 season the Phils shipped him off to Minnesota -- the land of soft-tossers -- as part of a package for Eric Milton.

Score one for the Twins. Moved into the starting rotation, Silva surrendered more hits and more home runs and struck out even fewer -- a nearly inconceivable 3.4 per game. But he helped pace a staff of extreme control freaks, walking just 1.6 batters per nine innings. He contributed 14-8, 4.21 in a 4.50 ERA league and helped Minnesota win the Central.

Then it got crazy. As Silva added the pounds, he focused his control. In '05, he became just the second pitcher in more than 80 years to match his walk total in wins, with nine each. (In 1994, Bret Saberhagen walked just 13 batters en route to a 14-4 mark with the Mets. He gave up as many home runs as walks that year.) Despite torn knee cartilage, Silva (9-8, 3.44) teamed with Johan Santana and Brad Radke for an astonishing 5.53 K/BB ratio. It sounds great, but with just 77 KOs in 188 innings, Silva had little room to maneuver.

The next season the ball began flying out of the park and the ERA ballooned to 5.94. He got things back under control a bit in his walk year (13-14, 4.81) but Seattle inconceivably broke the bank for him (four years, $48 million) a move that contributed to GM Bill Bavasi's dismissal.

More homers, more walks, even fewer strikeouts and a 10-car pile-up of injuries, including a frayed rotator cuff that liquidated most of the '09 season, bedeviled Silva and he went 5-18, 6.80 over those two years, prompting the Mariners to enact the trade of broken toys with the Cubs for uncertified lunatic Milton Bradley. Seattle got hosed when Bradley broke down and Silva shocked the world. He jacked his strikeout rate 50% higher than normal (to nearly the Major League average)and delivered 13 quality starts in 16 tries. Using Seattle's money, the Cubs got half a season of Roy Halladay quality out of Carlos Silva.

The wheels came off in the second half of 2010, then the heart palpitations, then elbow tendinitis, then the Cubs gave him his walking papers and an $11.5 million severance. The Yankees took a look last year, but you know the end has arrived when a team breaks camp with the smoldering remains of a 280-pound right-hander and it's Bartolo Colon, not you. So Silva returned to Medina, MN to live off the last MLB check with his wife and two kids.

For his career, Silva's 70-70 record is probably generous given a 4.68 ERA. He struck out just four-a-game, but walked just 1.7, the fifth lowest career rate for a starter since 1950. (Bob Tewksbury, Brad Radke, Bret Saberhagen and Rick Reed rank ahead of him. Greg Maddux and Roy Halladay aren't far behind.) All the rest of that group pitched better, longer and managed to miss a bat now and then. Given what Silva evidently had to work with, he squeezed nine years and $54 million out of that lemon. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
b

"I Had VCU In the Final Four Last Year"


Kentucky's versatility . . .North Carolina's "length" . . . Syracuse's interior defense without Melo . . . the perimeter game of Team X versus the 2-3 zone of Team Y . . . and on and on. A glut of basketball savants, "bracketologists" and coaching experts fill the airwaves these days with their gratuitous knowledge.

So how many of the hoops cognoscenti could even conceive of Lehigh beating Duke?  Norfolk State downing Missouri? Ohio U. ousting Michigan?

In all of the free market, nowhere are supply and demand more out of balance than in the market for sports "experts." Every ink-stained wretch, gabber and Twitmonger can fill your ears with the number of Drexel's top-100 wins, but for all the words they expend on the subject, not one of them can out-pick the chalkline on their bracket sheet.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course. The winds of fortune are more powerful than a seed line. It's the claims of expertise that are so silly.

Just once I'd like to hear an "analyst" refuse to pick winners because it's a fool's errand. Similarly, I'd like to see a local newscast in which the weather dude admits that your guess about the weather six days from now is as good as his.

I once broadcast the news on Sundays at a radio station that used a four-day forecast from a TV meteorologist who had failed to call in. I used his Saturday forecast for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and regressed halfway to the mean for Wednesday. (A mix of sun and clouds, chance of rain around 50%, pretty much covers all bases.) An hour later, when he called in with the updated forecast, I told him what I'd done. This was his response:

"Yeah, that's what I do."

I like to keep that in mind when someone who can name the sixth man on Colorado State says something definitive about the NCAA tournament. Because until he tells me in advance that NC State, a bubble-team, is going to knock off Georgetown, a three-seed, all I hear is static anyway.
b

09 March 2012

Peyton Manning, Baseball-Style


You don't need 40,000 yards of insight to realize that the confluence of Peyton Manning's sore neck and the Colt's team disintegration is a happy coincidence for both, leading to an amicable divorce that serves both the team and the star well.

The usual arc of the story in which a championship vehicle temporarily loses its steering wheel is one of wobbling to a mediocre finish. In one sense, that's better luck, but in another, it's no Luck at all. The team's downward spiral is masked, unwarranted hope is kept alive and there's no #1 draft pick awaiting.

For Indianapolis, there is no denying the need for a total rebuild, the kind of no use to, and able to make no use of, an aging Peyton Manning. Manning is now free to choose the best spot for his golden parachute landing, and IF he is healthy -- the most momentous two letters in English -- to continue his historic career with opportunities to win more championships.

It got me thinking, who is the Peyton Manning of baseball? That is, which accomplished veteran is most in need of a new uniform where his departure would most aid his team?

The simple answer is that there is no baseball analogy for Manning; indeed, there might be no equivalent in all of sports, which is why the Colts dilemma has been such ubiquitous news for months. Still, we can draw some parallels. Here are a few:

Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota Twins -- The Twins lost 99 games last year for two reasons: they didn't hit and they didn't pitch. This year, Francisco Liriano is back from injury and Mauer and Justin Morneau might be. Or they might not. Mauer played in just 82 games after knee surgery and lingering doubts about a 6'5" backstop. Morneau has played in 150 games in two years, suffering from a  string of injuries wired in parallel, including a pair of concussions that sidelined him for more than four months and four surgeries (neck, knee, foot, wrist) among other assorted cricks, cracks and creaks. 

The Target field denizens aren't going anywhere this year or probably next, the last two seasons Mauer will spend in his 20s. If he wants to contribute to a winner, he desperately needs to play elsewhere. Coincidentally, the Twinkles could use relief from that eight-year, $184 million albatross they signed Mauer to following his anomalous 2009 season (.365/.44/.587 ). Maybe then they'll be able to sign a pitcher or two who can actually break glass with his fastball.

David Wright, 3B, NY Mets -- For starters, Wright might like to be paid this year in American legal tender. Fred Wilpon's got some of that around here somewhere. Hey, here's some chit, a few hundred IOUs and a whole box of rubber checks. Oh wait, I also have this autographed Jose Reyes photo from his dreadlock days. That's gotta be worth four digits on Ebay if you act before the 2012 season starts.

If the Mets still exist during Mitt Romney's second term, perhaps they won't suck. For now, they just need to shed salary, and David Wright needs other kids to play with while he's still young (29) and carefree. Citi Field is sapping his power and masking his continuing tremendiosity. Even last year, laid up for 50 games and limited to a .254 B.A., he hit 14% above league average. 

Johan Santana, P, NY Mets --  Sorry Met fans, but Santana is the closest thing to Peyton Manning in MLB. After a string of great performances, he's missed a full season and his current health is a wild card. He's on the wrong side of 32 and he's already begun to decline. (After five seasons of 219+ innings, he's thrown 167, 199 and zero. After four seasons of 235+ strikeouts, he fanned 146 and 144 (and, of course, zero) for the Mets.)

The Mets' marketing department might be able wring a couple of Venezuelan Nights out of their lefty ace, but beyond that, does it really matter whether they win 70 games with Santana on the hill every sixth night or 65 games with Chris Schwinden? You bet it does! It makes a $79 million difference, that being the gap between Santana's remaining $80 million salary through 2014 (plus buyout) and what Schwinden would make if he manages to cling to a roster spot.

Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle and the Cubs figure to be gawdawful this year as well, but they aren't holding any competent veterans hostage, so these three players strike me as the closest to Peyton doppelgangers in America's pastime. Good luck, Joe, David and Johan!
b

04 March 2012

More Intriguing Players for 2012


He was an All-Star last year, but Miguel Montero's name might still escape your notice. The Diamondbacks' catcher is one of the best in the game, after a second year of .282/.351/.469 performance with 18 jacks from behind the tools of ignorance.

Once Randy Johnson's personal backstop, the 215-pound Venezuelan contributed about four wins by himself to the Snakes' surprising division preeminence in 2011. With another NL West jumble this year among San Francisco, Arizona and Colorado, that makes him one of the more irreplaceable players.

If he keeps producing, that is. Entering his age-28 season, Montero should have a couple of more good years left in his squat, and the D-backs will need it or they'll be forced to play veteran Henry Blanco, who possesses neither the on-base skills nor the pop -- or for that matter the defensive skill -- of the man he understudies.

Arizona's 94-win season in 2011 required some unexpected performances, one of which was Gerardo Parra's. The speedy left field savant developed on-base acumen, the threat of theft and dazzling glove work all in the same year. Prior to last year's .292/.357/.422 performance with 15 of 16 steals and a Gold Glove, Parra had, well, demonstrated little talent for any of that. He hadn't hit for average or power, walked much, covered much ground in left or on the basepaths. In his third season, he doubled his home run output, added 38 points to his OBP, and reversed his incompetence in the base stealing department in which he got thrown out seven times while stealing six bases.

Standard projections suggest players who break out often regress to their mean, but Parra only turns 25 in May. To repeat atop the division, his team will need him to continue to progress, or at least consolidate the gains he made last season.

On the flip side, there's the case of Chase Utley. Once the king of the keystone riding the Hall of Fame rails, Utley has begun to run aground. His batting average and slugging percentage have slipped each of the last four years, with playing time and home run rate wilting in three of those seasons.

Concomitant regression by Ryan Howard, the departures of Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez, and the failure of Dominic Brown to blossom on schedule means the 100-win Phillies are suddenly vulnerable in the NL East. Halladay, Lee, Hamels & Co. remain a formidable rotation -- though minus Oswalt, no longer  historic -- but they are getting diminishing returns from the offense.

That's where a rebound by Utley would come in handy after being sidelined for weeks by patellar tendinitis. But he's 33 now and he seems to suffer from Roseanne Roseannadanna Disease -- it's always something. An injury-free season and a return to greatness at the plate could staunch some of the bleeding in Philadelphia. 

That's not usually the way to bet, health being a skill that Utley evidently lacks. But top performers like him retain their skill longer, and the projections forecast at least one more season of exemplary play, though without the gaudy home run total or the .300 average. Such a bounce-back would go a long way towards staving off the rest of the NL East.
b

Series-O! The Newest Lottery


The new playoff regimen is a travesty, of course, built on the quicksand NBA model that cheapens the regular season beyond relevance. Baseball isn't yet at that point, but the vector points south.

For one thing, MLB sachems are now officially attempting to shoehorn seven months of baseball into six months, only five of which promise decent weather above the Mason-Dixon line. More importantly, it opens the lottery that is the post-season to more contestants.

I'm looking forward to the following scenario:

Team A, let's call them the Rays as an homage to my dad, rides a rotation stuffed with arms to the second-best record in baseball, just behind their division rivals, let's call them the Rose Hose. The Rays match their 96 wins against a vagabond outfit from a threadbare division, let's call them the Native Americans, whose 87 wins is simply the best of the rest.

The Native Americans cash in one good pitching performance and a wind-aided big fly to end the Rays' season. Three of five fluke victories over the 102-win Rose Hose later, they're in the league championship series having won just four times.

If MLB doesn't think that's an abomination, then it has the right formula. Unlike football and basketball, the better team doesn't win a whole lot more often than the lesser team in baseball. Adding two more -- weaker -- Wild Card teams intensifies the regrettable trend of creating two baseball seasons, the regular season and the playoffs. The regular season is no longer about winning anything, it's about accumulating the minimum number of wins to make the next round.
b

03 March 2012

How Washington Eliminates the Deficit


Having finally achieved Major League status after six years of bottom-feeding in the NL East, the Washington Nationals will sport some shiny new pitching along with their double-signed third-base hero, Ryan Zimmerman.

Coming off a down year -- when .289/.355/.483 and sterling defense from the keystone is a down year, it's time for your agent to rattle the corporate cage for an extension -- the face of the franchise inked a six-year, $104 million deal to kick in after the current three-for-$45 million contract winds down following next season. Zim missed 60 games in '11 due to abdominal surgery and was hamstrung (technically he was rectus femorised) upon his return, particularly in the throwing department. Three years earlier he missed 50 games with a torn labrum.

In between, Zimmerman has authored a curriculum vitae of 128 home runs, a 120 OPS+ and superb glove play over six years, dating back to his almost Rookie of the Year award, which Hanley Ramirez won on a hanging chad. His signing removes the stigma that Jayson (Not) Werth is the team's highest-paid performer.

Can the Nats expect better ROI on Zimmerman than on Werth? Almost certainly so, but that's setting the bar limbo low. Simply by stitching together previous achievements into one mosaic, Zimmerman is due for the kind of breakout that earns MVP votes. He's appeared in 162 games before. He's hit .307 before. He's walked 72 times, smacked 33 home runs and 47 doubles. He's won Gold Gloves, for whatever that's worth. Altogether, that's a .307/.400/.600 kind of campaign of which awards are made. Two or three of those seasons along with a handful more "average" Zimmerman years and the bill is paid in full with some value left over for Werth's below average flailing.

Baseball Prospectus's projections say the NL East is a coin flip in which everyone but the Mets gets a side. The Phillies are getting decrepit, the Braves stood still and the Marlins and Nationals visited the baseball team store and bought entirely new outfits. Washington picked out a smashing new pitching staff and Miami selected some lovely accessories, including a dreadlocked shortstop (which they had altered), a Gold Glove pitcher and a must-have closer (I know the price is ridiculous for a handbag, but I just love it!) Injuries, luck and a couple of unexpected performances could turn the division inside-out and backwards twice before the leaves start turning.

That means, of course, that no one player is responsible for his team's fate. But it's almost inconceivable that the Nationals can break through to the top without their new highest-paid ballplayer.
b

Rolen Along To A Title


With Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder out of the NL Central, the Cincinnati Reds have visions of a division title in 2012. To get there, they may be banking on a 37-year-old infielder whose shoulder woes last year limited him to 65 games, strangled his offense (.242/.279/.347) and drained his defense of added value. He's in the final year of a contract for his fourth team after things skittered to a close at his first two stops -- first because the home field was unkind to him and second because the manager was.

Maybe expecting a bounce-back is unrealistic, but Scott Rolen has surprised people for years.

Even in his dotage, last year was an outlier for Rolen. In 2010, he came to the Queen City and helped the Reds to the division crown by hitting .285/.358/.497 with 20 home runs in 133 games. The year prior, for Toronto and Cincinnati, and despite missing 35 games, Rolen contributed .305/.368/.455 and his usual sterling hot corner defense.

Before that, Scott Rolen was a Hall of Fame third baseman. If that doesn't square with your notion of him, consider this comparison:

Other third baseman: .267/.322/.401 with a 104 OPS+ and defense worth 14 runs above average/year.
268 homers, 1357 RBI, 1232 runs , 28 steals in 50 attempts over 23 seasons

Scott Rolen: .282/.366/.494 with a 123 OPS+ and defense worth 11 runs above average/year.
308 homers, 1248 RBI, 1185 runs, 116 steals in 164 attempts over 16 seasons

(OPS+ measures OBP + SLG as compared to league average, which is expressed as 100. A 123 OPS+ means Rolen is a 23% better hitter than league average.)

Rolen is not quite the wizard with the glove that the other player was, but he's no slouch in that department. And he's significantly more adept at every other part of the game, although for a shorter time. I looked at their peak five seasons, and the two players were pretty indistinguishable.

If he retired today, Scott Rolen could put his career up against Brooks Robinson's first-ballot Hall of Fame tenure without batting an eye. That sounds like a HOF case to me.

None of that, though, presages his 2012 contributions to the Reds. The hounding leg and shoulder issues, coupled with eight years remove from his offensive peak and the steady evaporation of his advantage afield, could mean that this year is nothing more than a swan song. It matters a great deal to the Reds, because the additions of Mat Latos to a handsome young rotation and Ryan Ludwick to an above-average offense could catapult this team into the post-season.

Milwaukee and St. Louis are wounded but remain formidable. Is Scott Rolen?
b