213 Miles From Shea

The AL Central ended up being one of the more exciting races last year, where the Tigers were leading it the majority of the season. Around September, it turned into a three team race between the Tigers, the White Sox and the Twins. At the very end of the season, the Twins were able to force a one game playoff for the division crown in Minnesota. In game 163, in the 13th inning, the Twins were able to take the division title. Anyway here is the breakdown for this upcoming season:

1. Twins: I have a feeling they will repeat as their rotation is looking good, their lineup is slightly better than it was last year, and their bench is a lot better (key bat additions to the roster Thome, Hudson, and Hardy). Of course, the Twins recently lost one of their best pieces in Nathan and now will be closing by committee. Before the injury the Twins were a lock to win this division, but now that they have a weakness, they can be taken over. In the end, I still believe the Twins come out on top.

2 White Sox: The Sox really did nothing this winter, but what they did in the middle of last season (Rios, Peavy) could really make an impact in this division. In fact its their lineup that I am really intrgued by. Beckam at third could be trouble for opposing teams, while Alexi Ramiez has the potential to be dangerous. Juan Pierre, a move this offseason that was overlooked by a lot of people (including myself) could be the key to this team (really). If Ozzy runs this team like how he wants to, Pierre could have a monster season and so could the White Sox.

3. Tigers: Detriot has some big pieces in Verlander and Miguel, but unloading Granderson will hurt, especially when in general they needed to unload payroll in general this year. If their pitching can get it together, and this lineup can score runs (which is very possible) then this team can finish better than third.

4. Cleveland: The Indians are in a rebuilding mode just like the probable 5th place Royals. The reason they will finish above the Royals is because of the lineup. The Indians have a lot of interesting players that will score a good amount of runs for a team in a rebuilding year. While they shouldn't expect anything big, they shouldn't be in the cellar.

5. Royals: Kansas City didn't make any big moves but they made a lot of investment for their future (looking at you Arguelles). While not much will materialize this year, this was a good step for this franchise.

With Spring Training wrapping up this week, its time to start looking at the upcoming season, the surprises, the disappointments and of course, the division champions. We start out this season's preview series by looking the the division which should have a run-away winner. Last year the NL Central, the largest division in the major leagues, had only two teams finish above .500. There were the Cubs, who barely finished above .500 and then there were the Cards who ran away with the division. Here is how I see this season breaking down:

1. Cardinals: Honestly, probably the easiest division champion to crown in the preseason. If they didn't resign Holliday, they probably still would have won this division. The fact that they have right now Pujols and Holliday hitting back to back will make hitters around them better (like Rasmus, who I have picked in several fantasy leagues simply because of the lineup he hits in). Of course in a few years, this tandem will not be as effecitive as Holliday gets old, but right now it works. They also have one of the best pitchers in the National League (Carpenter) and one of the best pitching coaches. The signing of Felipe Lopez for next to nothing will also have a very positive prescence for this lineup.

2. Brewers: The Brew Crew almost finished above .500 last season, and this season, they have the tools to make it above .500. Their main struggle last season was their starting pitching, which was decimated with injuries. The rotation comes back with a new addition (Wolf) and actually a good amount of starters that are effecitive and can pitch in the rotation. In fact they now have too many, so one of them will have to go to the pen. However the pitchers will be the key for their season. It is very plausible that none of them improved which will spell disaster to this team. The reason I still have them ranked here is they remind me of the Phillies of a few years ago, which struggled with pitching but have a monster lineup. Fielder, Weeks and Braun if all healthy will carry this lineup in a lot of games, and (what is probably due to a biassed opinion) Gomez will add some diversity to this lineup.

3. Cubs: If they want to make the playoffs, their rope is starting to get shorter. Their amazing lineup of the last few years is starting to show its age and is starting to slowdown. While they have some bright spots in the rotation (Wells), they will need a lot of help in order to make a run for the playoffs. Mainly, their bullpen needs to be on point and their lineup will need to work. Soriano, Ramierez, Lee and Fukudome could be a fantastic lineup if they are healthy and if they all have good season. The problem is that is a lot of iffs, which is why they are ranked here.

4. Reds: The Reds should be ranked 5 in the list, however their are two many sleepers on this team to ignore. Their offense is littered in players (Votto, Bruce) who could potentially click and then blow away the compeition. Their bullpen is strong so it all comes down to their rotation. The problem with the Brewers is their rotation is average. If Arroyo and Harang have big years, Bailey becomes the star he is supposed to and Chapman fans hitter this could be a sleeper team that is not only ranked 4th, but could go higher.

5. Astros: The 'stros have one of the better rotations in this division, but their bullpen is weak and their lineup is really weak. They will need some offense to get out of the bottom of this division, especially when the rest of the division is really offensively relevant. Generally pitching is better than hitting, but the Astros hitting is so poor, it will really hurt this team.

6. Pirates: Sadly things don't look good again for the Pirates. However, this year the Pirates played the offseason right signing players that will start to allow this team to rebuild. This team has talent in the farm system that is going to shine through eventually. They just need more time, and management that doesn't seem to botch it every year.

Something unexpected happened today.

Really unexpected.

Take a look.

Earlier this past week we looked at all of the promotions from the New York Mets for the month of April. I have gone through all 30 major league teams, and I have found some interesting promotions from other teams to share. First off, (interesting fact) the only teams that are not advertising a schedule magnet as a promotion are the Red Sox, the Jays and the Phillies. Some trends to look at in this list include the amount of teams that are giving out “sluggies” or the baseball version of the Snuggie (as seen on TV). Anyway, here are some promotional highlights:

4/6 – LAA: Matsui Blankee (a red blanket covered with the number 55 on it, and I am pretty sure this blanket has sleeves)
4/7 – Tampa Bay: You know those really cool glasses that their manager wears? Yeah they are giving away those.
4/7 – Cinncinnatti: Their version of the snuggie.
4/8 – LAA: Manager of the Year Bust
4/10 – Kansas City: A beautiful Replica Blue Royal Jersey
4/10 – Houston: A fantastic Astros' throwback jersey 
4/12 – Minnesota: An Opening Day Certificate for Target Field
4/15 – Oakland: Team “Sluggie”
4/16 – Seattle: Ken “The Kid” Griffy Jr Bobblehead. It features him as a young kid, with his old uniform, says “The Kid” and has the old stadium in the background.
4/17 – Seattle: Seattle Mariners military coins
4/17 – Oakland: Roy Steele (announcer) bobblehead. What is neat here is Steel is sitting at his desk.
4/22 – Pittsburgh: They really want to go green. Fans will get a green hat AND a green shirt at this game.
4/23 – San Francisco: Their version of a snuggie.
4/24 – Cinncinnatti: Reds' Turf Grower
4/25 – Texas: Andrus Jersey and it looks really nice.
4/30 – Cubs: The “W” Banner
4/30 – St. Louis: They also have a snuggie.
4/30 – Detroit: Justin Verlander Bobblehead, where the base is a counter to keep track of Verlander's strikeouts

Fantastic read from the New York Times today. Its about how Krod is helping Juan Urbina, and other Mets minor leaguers, adjust to baseball and life in America. I really don't want to give too much away, but this was a really nice read (Its from the Times, so that's expected).

Last night Jon Stewart on the Daily Show wanted to see what would happen if people had the rights as corporations. During which he takes a swipe at Citi Group and then the Mets (a team he is a big fan of). I thought the clip was pretty funny.

(Disclaimer: The Mets reference occurs about 8 minutes, maybe 8 and half minutes into the video, and its a really quick.)

Check it for yourself:

Recently we took a look at David Wright and what ESPN and CBS concluded would be his statistic outlook for the upcoming season. Let's do the same thing for Reyes, Bay and Francoeur. With Reyes, lets not even look at what he did last year and just look at what the two websites concluded for 2010:

One thing these two projections got correct would be the power numbers. I think those are right around where they should be (but could turn out a smidge higher). I thought it was also funny the discrepancy of stolen bases between the two sites. This shows everyone's uncertainty about where his speed will be once he comes back (the difference in the batting averages is also due to a question of where his hitting will be). The one stat that can be really picked apart is the RBI's. Ultimately, this will depend on how long or if it all Reyes's bats third. If he doesn't at all, his RBI numbers will be close to these projections, if he bats third, then it should be higher.

Jason Bay is a player who's numbers have been picked apart all off season, and now its time to do it again with is 2009 numbers, ESPN and CBS projections:

Ready for this rant? ESPN says the drop in power will be due to Citi Field. Honestly I am sick of this at this point. First off, if you want to use statistics, they all show that hitting a homerun is not that difficult at Citi Field. Not only did the Mets hit more homers at Citi than on the road, but the Phillies hit more homers against the Mets last year in Queens than when the played the Mets at Philly! Also, ITS ONE YEAR. We do not have the stats yet to truely know what the effects of Citi Field are (and honestly you do not want to hear my rant about how the media in general, especially in politics, misuse statistics).

Finally there is Jeff Francoeur. Honestly I think he's a good player, and I know people have think that he isn't. He is decent. The Mets do not need everyone to be awesome and hopefully this year the Mets will not (knock on wood), need him to bat cleanup. Anyway here are his stats (for the ESPN one, the numbers in parethesis are the stats related to what he hit last year):

If Franceour hits these numbers in the sixth spot, that will be very productive for the Amazin's this year. Its also always funny to see how many walks people expect Frenchy to get.

Finally, because its always fun to compare, here are the numbers from ESPN on how Pujols and Hanely Ramirez expect to perform this year, written in the same system as Frenchy above:

The Mets got some really great news yesterday. Jose Reyes was cleared to return to baseball activities. It is unclear if he will resume today and it is still unclear if he will be ready for Openning Day but it is so good to just have Reyes back. Before we get to what this means for the Mets, here is the back of the New York Post:
(From the NY Post)

And the New York Daily News:
(From the NY Daily News)

In terms of the lineup (without getting into the whole batting leadoff vs batting 3rd arguement), this will most likely put a damper on the whole Tejada vs Cora arguement. That debate was more relavent when it seemed like the Mets could go possibly through May without Reyes. Before the news of Reyes returning, I was for Tejada because he is a better defensive player than Cora. However now that the time without Reyes has been severely shortened I am for Cora to fill in any time in the regular season that Reyes will miss because now the Mets will not have to waste options on Tejada (in other words, now my decision is soley based from an adminstration point of view).

Just an all around good day for the Amazin's.

It's no secret that David Wright had a rough year last year. It can be contributed to a lot of things (trying to the pull the ball too much, no lineup protection, etc) and it is also no secret that Wright has worked really hard over the offseason to improve his swing, balance, hitting spread (I didn't know how to say using the whole field in a few words), power, etc. Many fantasy pundits have concluded that Wright will have a bounce back year because, well its a safe bet. And Wright will have a bounce back year. Here are David Wright's stats from 2009 and 2008:

And now stat projections for 2010:

From the above projections, I think the ESPN one is closer to what it actually will be, and its not just because its better. Even though the Mets are not starting the year with Beltran and Reyes, you would have to think with Bay, Wright will score more runs and will hit more often with players on base. What I don't agree with is ESPN's K's stats. That seems to be a direct correlation only using last years stats, and not previous years. Of course, I am also hoping that his year is bigger than what both sites are projecting, and I feel that it will be.

The June 2010 draft will be here soon and its time to start to look at the draft order. Because of the nature of the baseball draft with compensation picks, the order actually was just finished with the signing of Rod Barajas (although if another Type A or B agent signs then the draft order will change again). From the Mets perspective, since we performed so poorly last year, even though we signed Jason Bay, a Type A agent, our first round pick is actually protected. However, we lose our second round pick. There are also a lot of compensation picks this year in the supplemental round, so our next pick, in the third round, is actually pick 89 (or 82 picks later).

In a way this is exciting for the Mets because of the high pick we have, on the other side, we will have to wait a while to get another pick. What's more interesting though is the amount of first round picks that other teams have. The first number represents total first round picks, the second number represents the amount of picks in the supplemental round.

Looks like the Angels loosing Figgins and Lackey will have a huge benefit for the Angels' farm system, although they would probably would like to have Figgins and Lackey back so they could win now. Next MLB Draft Preview will be about the Mets recent draft successes and who they could be picking with the seventh pick.

Here's a site with an updated draft order:
http://mlbbonusbaby.com/category/2010-draft-order/