Tag Archives: Los Angeles Angels

AL West: Off-season so far

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The AL West is yet another division where the reigning champions have been quiet so far this off-season.

The LA Angels have only completed a few minor deals (bringing in Matt Joyce, acquiring young pitcher Andrew Heaney) and, with significant commitments to the likes of Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton already on the books, their primary plan for 2015 is to rely on those who helped them to reach the postseason in 2014.

The Texas Rangers also haven’t done very much, yet they had a disastrous 2014 in which they lost 95 games and parted company with manager Ron Washington. Those losses were largely a consequence of terrible bad luck with injuries, highlighted by their new recruit Prince Fielder. He had played in 1283 of 1296 regular season games in his first eight full seasons as a Major Leaguer before missing 120 games in his first year with Texas due to a neck injury.

They’ve made a handy addition by trading for Ross Detwiler on the cheap and the Rangers will simply cross their fingers for better health in 2015 and see where that takes them. There’s a lengthy list of players that they need to come back fit and strong so it would be a stretch to predict them to be back in the postseason hunt just yet, whilst their state neighbours the Houston Astros also look to be too far out even though they are firmly on an upward curve back to contending in the next few years.

They have added Jed Lowrie as a placeholder for their elite shortstop prospect Carlos Correa and good bullpen arms in Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek who can help to stop wins slipping away in the short term and then most likely be dealt to a contender down the line.

That leaves the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners as potential Angel catchers.

The Oakland A’s reached for the stars in 2014. After surveying the wreckage following the crash-landing, General Manager Billy Beane could have attempted some patch repairs or ditched the whole thing and started again. True to unpredictable form, the A’s have taken neither course.

Whilst free agents like Jon Lester left with no hint of a potential return, other established players like Josh Donaldson, Jeff Samardzija, Brandon Moss and Derek Norris have been traded away. In their place have come Brett Lawrie, Billy Butler, Ike Davis, Marcus Semien and a number of players who could contribute in some form during 2015 and beyond.

In short, it will be a quite different team in 2015, but not in the sense of a rebuilding job. There are plenty of ‘ifs’ in the equation, yet if enough of those ifs (Brett Lawrie being healthy, Billy Butler recovering from a down season, Drew Pomeranz grabbing a rotation spot and building on the good points of his 2014 campaign etc) come through then a Wild Card run is not out of the question.

As for the Mariners, after acquiring a true star in Robinson Cano over the previous off-season, they’ve gone for a less-substantial version this year in slugger Nelson Cruz. The M’s needed extra thump in their lineup and Cruz will give them that, although his four-year, $57m contract is going to be a painful pill to swallow in 2017 and 2018.

They weren’t far off a Wild Card in 2014 and so they can be in the mix again in 2015; however a glimpse at their roster does raise questions about their depth of talent. If James Paxton and Taijuan Walker come good, perhaps with someone like Mike Zunino or Dustin Ackley taking a step forward with the bat too, then they could be in business.

If they really want to capitalise on their strong core of Cano, Cruz, Kyle Seager, Felix Hernandez and Hiashi Iwakuma in 2015 though, signing another good Major Leaguer or two would be wise and they’ve taken one step towards that over the past week by trading for outfielder Seth Smith. We’ll see if the M’s Front Office can make further improvements over the next couple of months.

 

If the awards matter, why announce them like they don’t?

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MlbHlSqDerek Jeter’s retirement had many scribes pondering who will become the new ‘face of MLB’ and how the sport could do a better job at promoting its stars.

Consequently it was wonderful to see Mike Trout, unquestionably one of the most dazzling young players the sport has got, receiving his first Most Valuable Player Award a couple of weeks ago.

The news stories, online videos and TV coverage garnered by him receiving a trophy from a legend of the game in front of a packed crowd at a gala event would have been a good way to keep MLB fresh in the mind.

That’s not how the awards are dished out in baseball, though.

Instead, there was a bland press release and various TV networks interviewing him on a video link from his parents’ house. From the point of view of demonstrating Trout is really just ‘a regular guy’ then that approach may have some merit.

From the point of view of celebrating a great baseball talent, and convincing people he’s someone special they should be excited about watching, it’s as much use as a chocolate teapot.

A televised gala award evening to celebrate the recent MLB season is a blindingly obvious way to present all the major trophies, reliving the pennant races, the postseason and also all the other smaller stories that made up the year, as well as acknowledging again the people elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame that year.

Getting everyone together in a single place in the offseason might not be the simplest task, but it is certainly achievable and would be a great way to send-off the season in style, whilst getting people excited about next season in the process.

MLB does many things very well. Promoting its players is not one of them.

It was only recently that MLB decided it might be worth making a show of the early rounds from the amateur draft. They are starting to build that up as a televised event now and an end-of-season review extravaganza would be a positive next step to further promote the game’s emerging young stars and established names.

Quite simply, if MLB can’t be bothered to make a big thing of the awards, why would a casual sports fan care about them either?

Evaluating achievements

Irrespective of the ropy way they were announced, this year’s selections for the four main awards all gave reason to consider some of the subtleties around how achievements should be weighted when selecting a winner.

With the MVP awards, the main talking point was the decision to crown LA Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw as the NL’s MVP alongside his now traditional Cy Young award. The fact that pitchers have their own prestigious award, and that they play in significantly less games over the season than a position player, does call into question whether a pitcher should win the MVP award.

The voting criteria makes clear that pitchers are eligible for the award; the case from there is how you measure a position player’s contribution against that of a starting pitcher. Starting pitchers may only take the ball one day out of five, but on that day they have a far greater impact on the game (delivering 100+ pitches) than a position player taking four or five at-bats and making a couple of fielding plays.

Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen both had great seasons, yet neither were exceptionally above Kershaw’s outstanding performance for the Dodgers and consequently that made him a fitting choice.

There were fewer arguments around Kershaw’s NL Cy Young award success. In the AL version it was Corey Kluber who came out on top over Felix Hernandez. Both had excellent years so whichever way you went with those two there was a good case to say you had the right answer.

King Felix clearly has the more impressive track record over a number of seasons, which could be argued as being a crucial factor rather than just focusing on one exceptional campaign. Ultimately there’s a good case that Kluber had the slightly better season – for example, using Baseball-References’ WAR as a guide Kluber added 7.4 wins to his team over a replacement player, compared to Hernandez’s 6.8 – and if the award is there to honour the best pitcher that season then previous seasons should only come into it if there is really nothing else to separate them.

In the Rookie of the Year stakes, Jacob deGrom gave the New York Mets a rare reason to be cheerful and Jose Abreu was a similarly uplifting presence for the Chicago White Sox.

Abreu doesn’t quite fit the traditional image of a young, fresh-faced rookie. He made his Major League debut this year as a 27-year-old having defected from Cuba and came into the Big Leagues with considerable experience of playing in his homeland and on the international stage.

His unanimous selection as Rookie of the Year showed that his strict definition as a Major League rookie regardless of his previous experience was good enough for the voters. Considering the challenge he faced in competing against MLB pitchers and in adjusting to life in the States, it was a decision few could find much fault with.

Finally, the Baltimore Orioles’ Buck Showalter and Washington Nationals’ Matt Williams took home the Manager of the Year honours for the AL and NL respectively.

Showalter’s work with the Orioles has cemented his reputation as an excellent, experienced manager. In some respects this contrasts considerably with Williams for whom 2014 wasn’t simply his first year as a Major League manager, but a manager at any level.

His team led the National League with 96 wins and that’s a good starting point for any discussions on how successful a year a manager has had. Still, the impact that a manager can have in the standings is always largely determined by the roster of players he has at his disposal.

There is a school of thought that Williams made his share of mistakes this year. Had Williams been given his managerial break by the Arizona Diamondbacks – for whom he was a coach for several years before joining the Nationals – or perhaps a team like the Colorado Rockies, then I’m betting he would not have been any part of the Manage of the Year conversation.

The problem with that stance is that you end up penalizing a manager for having the benefit of a talented group of players to call on, as trying to put some subjective value on what a manager brings to a team is devilishly difficult.

Bruce Bochy would have been an obvious alternative for his postseason exploits, yet let’s give Williams some credit for leading the Nationals to 96 wins and wait and see if he can do it again in 2015.

A Friday filled with Division Series drama

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MlbPostseason2014We are only a few days into the 2014 postseason, but it’s safe to say that when we look back over the offseason Friday’s bonanza of baseball will turn out to be one of the most memorable days from it.

It was the only day on the Division Series schedule in which we were guaranteed games from all four series – Monday could provide that too if the two American League series both go to a fourth game – and all four served up the sort of drama and excitement that playoff baseball is all about.

The MLB.com Game Recap videos combined provide a great way to spend 15 minutes re-living the action from the four Friday contests.

Detroit and Baltimore got the day underway with Game 2 of their series starting at 17.07 BST. The Orioles staged an incredible comeback to turn around a 5-1 deficit and to put themselves in the best possible position of a 2-0 series lead heading to Detroit.

The loss for Detroit highlighted the flaws of a team containing several outstanding players, yet having weak links in other parts of their roster despite it being put together at considerable expense. Although a home win for the Tigers in Game Three will put a completely different spin on the series, you would expect the Orioles to complete the job based on their regular season performance and the first two games of the series.

San Francisco and Washington went next and the Giants showed the World Series-winning magic of 2010 and 2012 may still be with them by grabbing the advantage by winning Game One.

One big change from those two title triumphs and this year is the introduction of the Video review challenge system. We saw the huge benefits of that in the third inning when the Giants’ Travis Ishikawa was called out on a close force-out play at second base only for the review process to prove that he was safe.

Ishikawa came around to score the opening run of the game two batters later and that’s exactly why replay is so important; getting potentially crucial calls right rather than relying on the hoary old tosh of ‘luck evening itself out’. Just as importantly, the umpire was able to come out of the game knowing that even though his professional pride may have taken a very slight dent by getting a tricky call wrong, the mistake didn’t cost the Giants and he didn’t have to deal with a bunch of reporters and irate fans.

Two other things stood out from the game for me. Firstly, there was the monumentally important bases-loaded strikeout by Hunter Strickland to end a Nationals threat in the sixth inning. Save-compiling closers apart, relief pitchers tend to fly under the radar until the playoffs come along. Strickland’s 100MPH punch-out pitch will certainly have gained him some attention last night.  Secondly, the Bryce Harper hype is something I’ve written about before, but even the naysayers have to admit that he has enormous talent. Mark down his gargantuan moonshot in the seventh inning – off Strickland, such is the hero/zero highwire act that relievers walk – as his first real playoff highlight.

Then came the ding-dong drama of the series opener between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Cards beat Clayton Kershaw in the playoffs yet again and whilst their fans will be desperate to take the next two games in as trouble-free a manner as possible, the rest of us can only look at all that happened in Game One and ask for four more of those, please.

It was a game that had everything, not least the sort of amped-up aggro that looks certain to turn the rest of the series into a passion-filled tussle that may well spill over from a figurative fight to a literal one.

In every best-of-five-game series, the home team that has lost Game One is desperate to win the next game rather than head to their opponent’s backyard in an 0-2 hole, yet it must carry even more weight here. The facts are simple: the Dodgers somehow lost after knocking out the Cardinals’ ace Adam Wainwright and handing a 6-1 lead to Kershaw to protect. If ever a team needed a win to wipe away the memories of yesterday with a win today, it’s these Dodgers.

A small crumb of comfort for the Dodgers is that they’re not yet in as big a hole as their cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Angels.

After two games at home, they’ve now suffered two extra inning defeats to Kansas City as the completely spurious but always-attractive feeling of a ‘team of destiny’ really starts to take hold around the Royals.

Kauffman Stadium is going to be absolutely electric on Sunday night as Kansas City hosts their first postseason game since 1985. The Angels didn’t win 98 regular season games by chance and so a comeback cannot be counted out, yet they are going to need C.J. Wilson to find a quality start from somewhere after an inconsistent patch of form. Despite his nickname, ‘Big Game’ James Shields hasn’t been particularly impressive so far in his playoff appearances. Sunday night would be the perfect time for the Royals’ starting pitcher to live up to his billing.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Second half begins

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WHGB11With the All-Star festivities behind us, we move into the unofficial ‘second half’ of the MLB season and a six-week period where teams compete – on the field and off it – to get themselves into a promising position before September and the final month of the regular season.

The off-field competition comes in the form of the battle for reinforcements, as teams look to add an extra piece or two that could make the difference between a playoff spot or sitting at home throughout October.

Trades on the way?

So far the trade market has been quiet besides the Oakland A’s two-pitcher swoop at the beginning of July. The A’s AL West rivals the Los Angeles Angels are the only other team to make a notable move of late in signing Huston Street (who started his career in Oakland) from the San Diego Padres on Friday.

Talk continues to surround the Tampa Bay Rays’ pitcher David Price as the most lusted after potential prize. The Rays have found a bit of form of late – winning 14 of their last 19 games prior to Saturday – to keep alive some vague hopes of staying in the playoff hunt in what’s been a very trying season, yet realistically they are firm outsiders to get back to the postseason.

Whether Price stays with the Rays will be determined by another team’s willingness to part with a couple of leading prospects and a useful Major League player. Seattle, in part with the A’s and Angels in mind, are the team most frequently linked with Price at the moment, although doubts over Price’s desire to sign long-term in Seattle could be a determining factor on the Mariners’ confidence in giving up the necessary package of players to acquire him.

Mariners moves?

Seattle are an interesting team to keep an eye on in the stick-or-twist stakes.

There’s a measure of pressure on them to reinforce their extravagant off-season capture of Robinson Cano. Whilst the long-term nature of that deal means 2014 isn’t the be-all and end-all, the second Wild Card gives them an opportunity to immediately put a big mark on the plus side of the ‘Cano gamble’ ledger.

Heading into Saturday’s games, the Mariners sat third in AL West, nine games behind the division-leading A’s, but their 51-45 record was good enough to see them sitting in the second Wild Card seat, 2.5 games ahead of a gang of four competitors. It took a glance at their section on the Baseball-Reference website to remind me that the M’s haven’t made it to the postseason since their great 116-win campaign of 2001.

They don’t appear to have a particularly deep roster when you search far past the leading lights of Cano, Kyle Seager, Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, yet strong performances from those players and decent contributions from the supporting cast could be enough to keep ahead of a pack of teams that also have their share of weaknesses, if Seattle could add one extra significant player.

Having waited since 2001 to get back to the playoffs, it’s not unreasonable to expect a bit of impulsiveness to creep in and for the Mariners’ Front Office to decide now is the time to take a shot.  Whether they do or not, and whether it works out for them, will be one of the most interesting storylines to follow as the 31 July trade deadline quickly approaches.

All-Star action

The American League representative in this year’s World Series will benefit from home field advantage this year after the AL’s 5-3 victory in the All-Star game at Target Field.

Much of the event was dominated by Derek Jeter as many took the opportunity to celebrate his career before he retires at the end of this season. It was an enjoyable moment seeing the fans, and the players, applauding Jeter as he came to the plate to lead off the bottom of the first inning.

We can all take our own view on the ‘groove-gate’ saga, both on whether Adam Wainwright did deliberately give Jeter a good pitch to hit and – if so – whether that was the right thing to do, but it did reinforce the point that the All-Star game is an exhibition and that’s how it should be.

The idea of ‘making the game count’ to reduce the number of players that opted out may have been well-intentioned, but when we get to October the fact that home-field advantage was decided by the game will once again feel wrong. I would revert back to it going to which of the two teams had the best win-loss record of the regular season, although the emerging idea of using the overall interleague play record could work too.

The long goodbye

Keeping on the Jeter theme, the Yankees announced that they will be holding a special pre-game ceremony on 9 September to honour the Captain. With CC Sabathia done for the season due to a knee injury and Masahiro Tanaka landing on the Disabled List with a dreaded elbow problem, it may be that the ‘long goodbye’ will be the central focus for Yankee fans by the time we get to the end of September in the Bronx.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Head-first hurts

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WHGB11Josh Hamilton was one of the major question marks hanging over the Los Angeles Angels coming into the 2014 season.

If he could regain his position as a fearsome hitter then the Halos would be one step closer to pushing for playoff contention; if he got lost in a mire of wild swinging again then they’d need to hope someone else could pick up the slack.

As always seems to be the case with Hamilton, things haven’t turned out quite that simply. He had shown encouraging signs at the plate that he was being more selective over his first eight games. The trouble is, he’s not going to be stepping into the batter’s box again for at least six weeks after tearing a ligament in his left thumb whilst sliding head-first into first base.

There’s no doubt that the all-action head-first slide looks good; it gives the impression of a player going all out to try to be safe regardless of any risk to his body. It’s not a smart way to play the game though; the Angels needed Hamilton in their lineup for the next six weeks much more than they needed him to be safe at first in the seventh inning of an early April game.

Sliding into bases does pose an injury risk, whether head-first or with your legs, and, as with any risk, you have to weigh up the rewards for the effort. The Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman fractured his right thumb diving back into second base on Saturday and he’ll be a loss to Washington, but from second base through to home plate the slide is often your only option to get there quickly whilst avoiding a tag play. You accept the risk that it’s the right way to do it and every now and then a digit can get caught in the wrong place.

That’s not the case at first base. The rules specifically allow you to run through the bag and not be tagged out. It’s the quickest way to get there, as shown in an ESPN Sports Science experiment, and is much the safer way. In a crucial late inning moment when a throw to first base is high it can be worth the gamble to slide, but in any other case it just doesn’t make sense and calling it ‘playing hard’ is to overlook the facts.

Facts that include Josh Hamilton sitting on the sidelines for the next six weeks or so, rather than helping his team to win games that may prove to be the difference between making the playoffs or not.

Injuries

Hamilton and Zimmerman were only two of the players to land on the Disabled List this week.

Much of the Tampa Bay Rays’ recent low-payroll defying success has been built on their young pitching talent and their ability to keep their hurlers relatively healthy.  That made it all the more painful a sight to see Matt Moore clutching his pitching arm elbow after throwing a pitch against the Royals on Monday.

Moore had problems with his elbow last season and was able to come through them. His consultation with Dr James Andrews didn’t provide a definitive prognosis so there remains some hope that he will not be added to the Tommy John surgery list, but the Rays will be looking at their pitching options with the potential that they could be without Moore’s services for the next year or so.

That fate has already been decided for another bright young pitching prospect. The Pirates hoped to add Jameson Taillon to their rotation at some point this season, joining fellow youngster Gerrit Cole as a great duo to build around for years to come. Instead, Taillon will spend the next year rehabbing after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow this week.

Elbow injuries to pitchers are a common theme, which makes them all the more frustrating as – rightly or wrongly – they seem like something the sport could do more to prevent.  Injuries will always be a part of the game though and we saw that this week when the Chicago White Sox’s outfielder Avisail Garcia landed awkwardly on his left shoulder when attempting a diving catch against the Rockies on Wednesday. Had he landed slightly differently he may have just been winded, instead he suffered a torn labrum in his shoulder and will now miss the rest of the season recovering from surgery.

When is a cheat not a cheat?

Cheat: verb, “act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage” (definition as per Oxford Dictionaries)

Cheat is a word that gets bandied about quite a bit, but despite the seemingly straightforward definition, it is a muddled label to apply to someone, based predominantly on subjective opinion.

Take the topical case of Michael Pineda, the New York Yankees’ resurgent pitcher, and the dirty mark on his pitching hand during Thursday’s game against the Boston Red Sox.

Rule 8.02, paragraph 4 of MLB’s Official Rules states that a pitcher shall not “apply a foreign substance of any kind to the ball”. Within the Rules themselves, the only indication of what constitutes a foreign substance is in Rule 3.02, which explains that  “No player shall intentionally discolour or damage the ball by rubbing it with soil, rosin, paraffin, licorice, sand-paper, emery-paper or other foreign substance”.

If, as it appeared, Pineda was putting some pine tar on his pitching hand, and therefore onto the ball, then that would contravene the rules and be an illegal act. The Boston Red Sox TV crew made much of the footage, not surprising perhaps after two of Boston’s pitchers – Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester – were hauled over the coals for the same thing last season. However, after the game players from both teams collectively shrugged their shoulders.

Pineda claimed it was just dirt used to stop the ball from slipping from his grasp and – after seeing Omar Infante get hit in the face by a pitch this week – if a bit of dirt or similar helps to avoid pitches slipping into a batter’s head then you could understand players being relaxed about such ‘cheating’.

Something brewing in Milwaukee

We’ve seen teams get off to hot starts in the past many times, only to quickly fall away. Still, the Milwaukee Brewers were touted as a team that could potentially pull itself up into Wild Card contention this season and their MLB-best 9-2 record to start the year gives fans of the Brew Crew something to shout about again after their disappointing 74-88 season in 2013.

Offseason so far: AL West

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After looking at the AL East and AL Central, today we complete a round-up of the offseason so far in the American League by reviewing the comings and goings from the AL West division.

Oakland A’s

There’s rarely a quiet offseason in Oakland as General Manager Billy Beane knows that his team, more than most, cannot afford to stand still whilst those with more money (which is pretty much every other team in the Majors) can outspend them.

The A’s have won the division in each of the last two years and, although they haven’t made any major moves, they’ve shuffled the pack to try and make it three on the spin. Oakland normally can’t afford to keep hold of players that hit free agency and, sure enough, Bartolo Colon (Mets) and Grant Balfour (still to find a team) will not be with the club in 2014. However, these losses didn’t start an Oakland firesale; in fact they immediately replaced those two key players with Scott Kazmir and Jim Johnson, the latter acquired in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles.

The A’s have traded away several players – including Seth Smith to the Padres, Brett Anderson to the Rockies and Jerry Blevins to the Nationals – but they’ve done so mainly to improve their options for the current roster, rather than as part of a rebuilding project. Outfielder Craig Gentry (from the Rangers) and reliever Luke Gregerson (Padres) are the main two new recruits likely to be regulars on the team.

Texas Rangers

The last two seasons haven’t been completely disastrous in Texas, yet they’ve certainly been a disappointment with a Wild Card game loss in 2012 and missing the playoffs completely last year.

The Rangers hope that some better luck with injuries will lead to an improvement in their pitching, so their offseason so far has been geared towards improving the batting lineup.

They did this in one surprising swoop when they traded away second baseman Ian Kinsler to acquire first baseman Prince Fielder from the Detroit Tigers. Fielder was only two years into a nine-year contract in Detroit, but he became something of a target from Tiger fans when logging just one extra base hit (a double) in 11 postseason games after ending the season with the lowest home run total of his career (25). A change of scenery could work out extremely well for Fielder and the Rangers.

He’ll be joined in the lineup by outfielder Shin-Soo Choo, who signed a 7-year, $130m contract with the team in mid-December. Choo will take over from Nelson Cruz, a free agent still searching for a new team, whilst Neftali Feliz is likely to return to being a closer after Joe Nathan left for the Tigers as a free agent.

Los Angeles Angels

After the big-ticket offseason signings of 2011/12 (Albert Pujols) and 2012/13 (Josh Hamilton), the Angels have been relatively quiet this time around. Their big hope is that they’ll be able to add fit, healthy and productive versions of those two players to their lineup regularly in 2014.

David Freese has been acquired from the Cardinals to take over at third base, whilst slugger Mark Trumbo has been traded away to the Diamondbacks. Trumbo is really a home-run-hitter who provides little else and having traded away such a player they arguably acquired another one in 42-year-old veteran Raul Ibanez, who’s not much of a fielder and had just a .306 OBP last season, but did hit 29 homers in 124 games for the Mariners.

Jason Vargas has left the team as a free agent to join Kansas City. Hector Santiago and Tyler Skaggs, who was reacquired from the D-Backs having been traded to them in August 2010, will join the battle for a rotation spot, with Joe Smith signed as a free agent to be the set-up man for Ernesto Frieri.

Seattle Mariners

The Mariners haven’t been leading players in offseasons of recent years, but they’ve made the biggest move of all so far in 2013/04. Rumours that they were genuine contenders for the signature of Robinson Cano seemed fanciful right up to the point when the New York Yankees admitted defeat in their attempt to keep hold of their second baseman.

For all of the excitement generated by their $240m investment in Cano, everyone knew that Seattle needed more than one player, however talented, to be genuine playoff contenders after finishing 25 games behind the A’s last year.  They’ve acquired Logan Morrison in a trade with the Marlins and signed Corey Hart, who missed all of 2013 with a knee injury, but you still feel they are several players short and that may well mean their offseason work is far from over, especially in adding to the pitching staff.

The main free agent departures have been Ibanez’s above-mentioned move to the Angels and the anticipated departure of Kendrys Morales, who is yet another player still seeking a team.

Houston Astros

The rebuilding work continues in Houston where even the most optimistic Astros fan will see a winning season as being beyond them this year.

They have moved towards signing some established Major League players though. The main feature of their offseason work has been compiling what looks to be a good bullpen thanks to the acquisitions of Jesse Crain, Chad Qualls and Matt Albers.

Scott Feldman has been brought in on a three-year contract to lead a young rotation, whilst the Astros swung a trade with the Rockies to make Dexter Fowler their new centrefielder.

Rounding the Bases: More deals

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The week of the MLB Winter Meetings had a lot to live up to after the transaction bonanza of the preceding week.

Consequently it was a slightly underwhelming few days relative to what had come before, but there was still a series of signings worth catching up on.

Hello Cano

The major event of the week came in Seattle where second baseman Robinson Cano was officially unveiled as a Mariner, having agreed a staggering 10-year, $240m contract with the AL West team.

Such monumental investments carry a significant amount of risk, as discussed a week ago, but any concerns can be pushed to one side right now for Mariners fans as the revel in the excitement of their team acquiring one of the very best players in the Majors.

It is great to see a team like Seattle making a bold signing and further shows how competitive MLB is.

Every year, the vast majority of teams will start the season with genuine reason for optimism that they could be in the running for a playoff place, with the main exceptions being teams, such as the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs and Miami Marlins, who have deliberately chosen to take steps backwards to reload for better days in years to come.

Only ten teams can make it to the postseason in a given season, so those hopes will not be realised for many, but it is hope that keeps fans going and MLB has done a great job in creating an environment where most teams can offer this.

The Mariners’ next big task is to make further improvements to supplement the addition of Cano, particularly in the batting lineup. Former Milwaukee Brewer Corey Hart has been signed on a one-year deal after he missed all of the 2013 season due to knee surgery. If he’s healthy, Hart should add some much-need power to the lineup, and he’ll be joined by Logan Morrison, who was acquired in a trade with the Miami Marlins.

Seattle are unlikely to end their recruitment drive there and they continue to be linked with outfielder free agent Nelson Cruz, although his price tag may prove to be too rich following their spending so far this offseason.

Yankees still shopping

The sight of Robinson Cano smiling in a Mariners uniform didn’t just drive home the impact of his signing for Seattle, but also for his former team in the Bronx.

The Yankees have a Cano-shaped hole to fill at second base and that hasn’t started very well, with one potential target slipping away from them this week.

Omar Infante has reportedly agreed a four-year, $30.25m contract with the Kansas City Royals after the Yankees refused to increase their offer of a three-year deal worth $24m. The 32-year-old isn’t a superstar and holding firm at three years isn’t an overly questionable decision, but solid second baseman aren’t easy to find and there’s no doubt that the Yankees have a pressing need for such a player.  There were rumours of a potential trade with the Cincinnati Reds for Brandon Phillips early last week, but no deal was agreed and apparently talks have ceased for now, with New York turning their attention to Darwin Barney of the Chicago Cubs.

The Royals presumably will take a modicum of satisfaction from outbidding the Yankees for Infante after the Bronx Bombers did the same thing to them with Carlos Beltran.

Three teams, six players

We did get one Winter Meeting specialty last week: the three-team trade. The Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels combined in a deal including six players.

The best-known name of the bunch was Mark Trumbo. He will take his homer-hitting skills (although arguably supplemented with little else) from the Angels to the D-Backs, whilst Adam Eaton moves from Arizona to Chicago. The Angels are reunited with young pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who they drafted in the first round of the 2009 amateur draft but then traded to Arizona in August 2010 as part of a deal to acquire Dan Haren, and received another starting pitcher in the form of Hector Santiago from the White Sox.

Back to where they were

Several teams and players have decided to stage a reunion.

Juan Uribe has agreed a two-year, $15m deal to return to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Uribe struggled badly with the Dodgers in 2011 and 2012 and his hack-happy approach at the plate has never endeared him to connoisseurs of the science of hitting. However, he did a good job for the Dodgers in 2013 and, with limited options available, a reunion was always a decent possibility.

Former Dodger James Loney has also rejoined his 2013 team, agreeing a three-year, $21m contract with the Tampa Bay Rays. Loney doesn’t offer much power for a first baseman, yet he’s a good hitter and he enjoyed a comeback in 2013 with the Rays as a change of scenery from L.A., where he looked a little weighed down by not meeting the lofty expectations placed on him, worked out well.

That could have proved a problem for the Rays as good players tend to end up moving out of their price range (David Price being a prime example, although at time of writing his expected trade away from the Rays hasn’t materialized), yet in this case they’ve been able to come to an agreement to keep hold of one of their free agents.

Elsewhere, Clint Barmes has returned to Pittsburgh, whilst Mike Pelfrey has decided to stay in Minnesota. The Twins have now added three pitchers to their rotation, Pelfrey being joined by Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes, and they may still be in the conversation to sign former Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo too. None of these hurlers are aces, but they all have their plus points and if they can find some form at Target Field then the Twins may be able to reverse their recent run of disappointing seasons and at least get back on the right path.

Pitchers changing places

Pelfrey wasn’t the only pitcher agreeing terms on a new contract this past week.

Bartolo Colon will try to continue to defy the ageing process after signing a two-year, $20m contract with the New York Mets. Colon performed brilliantly for the Oakland A’s over the last two seasons and a move to another pitcher-friendly home ballpark should increase the odds that he can keep that run going, although moving to the non-DH league where he may have to find his way around the basepads may be a problem for the Mets, and a source of laughter for the rest of us.

The A’s have continued their recent activity by trading away Brett Anderson to the Colorado Rockies and Jerry Blevins to the Washington Nationals. Anderson has been beset by injuries in recent seasons and Coors Field isn’t the first place a pitcher would pick to get their career back on track, but A’s fans will wish him well whilst hoping that former top prospect Drew Pomeranz (selected fifth overall by the Cleveland Indians in the 2010 draft) is a gamble that pays off in return. Blevins should usefully fill a hole in the Nats’ bullpen as a reliable lefty, with the A’s receiving speedy outfield prospect Billy Burns in return.

Another reliever changing teams this week was Joba Chamberlain. Much-hyped as a New York Yankee prospect, Chamberlain never quite lived up to his billing in the Bronx and a move to the Detroit Tigers as a free agent could be just what he needs to get his career going again.

Doc calls it a day

Finally, Roy Halladay announced his retirement this week, signing a one-day deal so that he could retire as a Toronto Blue Jay. His dominating run of seasons from 2002 to 2011 were the equal of some of the very greatest the game has seen and although he doesn’t have all of the impressive counting stats that you’d normally associate with a Hall of Fame player (‘only’ 203 career wins, for example) he was an exceptional pitcher for a significant period of time and should receive serious consideration for a place in Cooperstown.

Rounding the Bases: Deals being made

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One week ago I stated that we may be waiting a few weeks before the MLB Hot Stove started to heat up and teams began making significant roster additions.

It turned out that this past week was in fact quite a busy one, with several free agent signings being completed and one major trade.

Fielder and Kinsler swap teams

At breakfast time on Thursday morning I was tucking into a bowl of porridge and enjoying watching the highlights of Day One of the first Ashes Test on Sky Sports News (enjoy the good times while they last, comes to mind) when I noticed that an MLB news item was about to scroll across the bottom of the screen. I expected it to be news of a minor free agent signing, but instead was taken aback to read that the Texas Rangers had swung a trade to acquire first baseman Prince Fielder from the Detroit Tigers for second baseman Ian Kinsler.

Just two years ago, the Tigers caused a major shock by coming out of nowhere and signing Fielder to a nine-year, $214m contract. Despite having a disappointing 2013 season, Fielder appeared to be set to stay in Detroit for years to come and yet all of a sudden the long-term commitment between player and team had been broken.

At first glance it looks to be a trade that should benefit both teams handsomely, not just in the player each team has required but the knock-on effects for their respective rosters.

The Tigers can now move Miguel Cabrera over to first base, where his limited fielding skills are better suited, and create an opening for their best prospect, third baseman Nick Castellanos. Kinsler will add a combination of some power and speed to the lineup and moving the majority of Fielder’s hefty contract (the Tigers have given the Rangers $30m as part of the deal to cover some of the remaining $168m) gives them some financial flexibility potentially to add another player or two or to add to the pot for a contract extension for Max Scherzer and, down the line, Miguel Cabrera.

As for the Rangers, they were desperate to make a big move after suffering late season heartbreak in the last two seasons. Acquiring a premium slugger is a statement of intent and moving to the homer-friendly confines of Rangers Ballpark should suit Fielder down to the ground. Moving Kinsler also frees up some space for the Rangers to let top prospect Jurickson Profar settle in at second base.

Angels and Cardinals

The Rangers’ AL West rivals the Los Angeles Angels also completed a trade this week, acquiring third baseman David Freese from the St. Louis Cardinals for centre fielder Peter Bourjos, with a couple of young prospects thrown into the deal too.

Freese will forever be a hometown hero in St. Louis for his 2011 World Series heroics, yet it looks like a good time for him to move on to a new challenge with the Angels. The Cardinals will probably move their infield players around so that Matt Carpenter shifts over to third base and Kolten Wong moves into second base full-time, potentially with former Detroit Tiger Jhonny Peralta joining the team as their new shortstop if the rumours from Saturday night are accurate. Bourjos, if he can stay fit and on the field, will be a better option in centrefield than the disappointing John Jay for the Cards, whilst Mike Trout will no longer be moved aside to the Angels’ left field and will instead be the number one centre fielder.

Pitchers getting paid

David Freese should be a good addition for the Angels, but their most pressing need over the offseason is to bolster their pitching corps. Another opening in the rotation has been created by Jason Vargas departing as a free agent as he agreed a four-year, $32m contract with the Kansas City Royals.

The signing was met by a fairly lukewarm response. In part this was because of the Royals rumours swirling in the hour before it was announced:

A “major-baseball announcement” immediately created visions for some of Carlos Beltran donning the ‘KC’ cap once again, so when the reality was a player you can neatly file under the words ‘solid’ and ‘dependable’ there was bound to be some disappointment.

Giving a four-year contract to a less-than-spectacular player also raised a few eyebrows, yet $8m per year for a good starting pitcher looks like being a good deal for the Royals on the current pitching market.

The San Francisco Giants spent $23m this week to sign 38-year old Tim Hudson on a two-year contract (£137k per week). Hudson’s 2013 season was ended by a horrible freak accident when the Mets’ Eric Young accidentally landed on the pitcher’s right ankle as he was covering first base. The Giants are confident that Hudson will come back from his fractured ankle as good as new and if he does then he should help the team in their attempt to get back to the postseason and to win a third World Series in five years.

Elsewhere in the NL West, the San Diego Padres have also signed a pitcher whose 2013 was impacted by injury. Josh Johnson has spent most of his career so far battling the tag of being an ace when not injured. Recently he’s spent more time injured than being an ace but the Padres have little to lose in signing him to a one-year contract worth $8m and, with Petco Park being a great place for a pitcher to ply his trade, it’s also a good setting for Johnson to have a good year and then earn a more lucrative contract in a year’s time.

Another veteran for the Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies played at the Veterans Stadium for 33 seasons before moving to Citizens Bank Park in 2004. The team’s General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr has done a good job in recent years of honouring their old home by building rosters dominated by veterans and, just a week after signing 36-year-old Marlon Byrd to a two-year contract, he added another this week with the re-signing of catcher Carlos Ruiz.

Ruiz has spent his whole Major League career with the Phillies and even when his contract ran out at the end of the 2013 season, there always seemed a very good chance that he would carry on with the club.

Amaro’s decision to hand the 35-year-old a three-year contract worth a guaranteed $26m (annual salaries of $8.5m – approximately £101k per week – with a $500k 2017 buyout fee) made sure of that and immediately led to the GM’s thought processes (or more precisely lack of) being questioned.

Giving a three-year contract to a 35-year-old catcher isn’t ideal, but Ruiz is a good all-round player, not spectacular at anything but solid enough at the plate and behind it, at a position where merely being good carries plenty of value. Additionally the risk involved is mitigated slightly by the Phillies’ familiarity with him, from how he fits into the group as a personality to a detailed knowledge of his fitness.

And finally …

The Phillies kept hold of their catcher, but it looks like the Atlanta Braves have lost theirs. Brian McCann has been with the Braves for his entire professional career and his nine-season Major League run with the team always looked likely to come to an end this offseason when he became a free agent. Sure enough, late on Saturday night it was being reported that he has agreed a five-year, $85m contract (just over £200k per week) with the New York Yankees.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Seasons made by trades

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The MLB regular season picks up momentum in July.

Teams pass the half-way mark in regular season games played, inching us closer to the crunch time in the season.  The All-Star break arrives to provide a momentary breather as we all get ready for the second half. The non-waiver trade deadline looms large at the end of the month.

Last year’s deadline carried an extra subplot as many pondered whether the increase in postseason spots, from eight to ten, would affect the trade market.

Theoretically more teams would be in with a shout of making it to the playoffs, but the consequences of that needed to be discovered.

Whilst more teams might be keen to complete a trade that could be a difference-maker, potentially there would be fewer teams with no realistic chance of playing in October and therefore willing to part with a key player.

The trade deadline in 2012 didn’t provide any conclusive answers, although the general impression was that the market was broadly the same as in previous years. Most teams were out there searching to find a player or two who could improve them and that will be the same this year.

What 2012 did show is that it isn’t necessarily the big names that will produce the best returns.

A good example of this can be found in two separate trades completed on 27 July last year: Zack Greinke moving to the Los Angeles Angels and Marco Scutaro moving to the San Francisco Giants

Greinke was the type of ace pitcher that every potential playoff team would love to add down the stretch. He did pitch well for the Angels in his 13 regular season starts (6-2 with a 3.53 ERA), but it wasn’t enough to get them into the playoffs, let alone help them to the World Series, and Greinke then signed with Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent over the offseason.

Even though they had acquired an excellent pitcher, the Angels didn’t get the overall benefit they hoped for. Furthermore, those two months from Greinke will look very expensive if Jean Segura, the young shortstop the Angels traded to the Milwaukee Brewers to sign Greinke, carries on the brilliant form he has shown so far this season and develops into one of the better infielders in the Majors in the years ahead.

The Giants’ signing of Marco Scutaro was the polar opposite of the Angels’ signing of Greinke.

Scutaro was a long way down the list of desirable trade targets. His career prior to 2012 could best be described as solid without coming close to being spectacular and his mediocre first half of last season playing home games in the hitter-friendly Coors Field ensured that his trade to the Giants was little more than a ‘by the way’ news item.

No one could have foreseen just how greatly such muted expectations would be exceeded.

The ‘Legend of Scutaro’ will forever be one of the memorable storylines from the 2012 season. His move to San Francisco suddenly turned him into a hitting machine. He put together a batting line of .362/.473/.859 during his 61 regular season games with the Giants and won the NLCS MVP award as he helped the team win their second World Series in three years.

As the trade rumours go into overdrive in the next few weeks, don’t be quick to overlook some of the so-called lesser deals. You never know when one team might just catch lightning in a bottle.

All-Star rosters

The 2013 All-Star rosters were announced on Saturday and there were not too many shocks, unless you were one of the Yankee fans on Twitter who didn’t think the fact that Derek Jeter has been out injured all season should count against his candidacy.

From an A’s fan perspective, having only one player on the AL roster isn’t a fair recognition of the team’s performances over the past twelve months, but there’s nothing to say the rosters have to be ‘fair’.

Individual fans vote for whoever they want to see in the game, players make their selections too based on their own preferences and the managers then have to juggle the requirements of making sure every team is represented and that the roster has enough flexibility so that no other manager has room to complain about the way their players were used during the game.

There is still one place on each roster that is up for grabs in the Final Vote. There won’t be much interest in either ‘race’ although that will be for completely different reasons in the two leagues.

On the American League side you have five relief pitchers who – team bias aside – will not generate any voting enthusiasm whatsoever.

On the National League side you have Yasiel Puig who, judging by the MLB.com promotional campaign, is sure to win in a landslide.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Hope in Spring

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‘Hope springs eternal’, but in baseball spring is an eternal source of hope.

The sun beats down onto the backs of returning ballplayers in Arizona and Florida, some of the recipients driven by a winter of frustration, some emboldened by the confidence of success from the previous year.

It is the sense of renewal that makes spring such a glorious part of the baseball calendar. Everything starts again and that means anything is possible; however the past is always present in the mind and every player will have something to prove on the back of the 2012 performance.

Here are six players whose 2012 seasons, for differing reasons, will make following their fortunes in 2013 all the more intriguing.

Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)

When we witness a player excelling at a young age it is too tantalizing not to look ahead and wonder just how good he will become. Sportsmen often hit their peak in their late-twenties, so it is natural to see Mike Trout’s incredible performance as a 20 year-old in 2012 as a starting point for our expectations.

Yet how realistic would that be? Whilst experience and physical maturity could hone Trout’s remarkable talent even further, the level of competition in MLB must put a limit on how far he can improve.

It’s possible that Trout could have a long and successful career and never quite top 2012. If we use Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as our measure then Trout’s season (10.7 WAR) is the joint-17th highest in a single season since the end of World War Two. Of all the many thousands of individual player seasons from 1946 onwards, only 16 have been better judged by WAR.

Upon considering that staggering fact, no baseball fan can help but be fascinated by what Trout will serve up as an encore in 2013.

Roy Halladay (Philadelphia Phillies)

Whilst Trout was dazzling as a young star in the AL West, Halladay was struggling as a veteran star in the NL East.  2012 arguably was his worst full season since 2000.

A tough year as a 24 year old can be recovered from, as Halladay’s exceptional career since shows. Fighting back from a disappointing season when you are 36 is a much more difficult task. Halladay was clearly hampered by an injury to his right-shoulder and he has entered Spring Training with a revised training regime, adjusted pitching mechanics and a positive frame of mind.

Every player is in ‘the best shape of their life’ coming into Spring Training and it could be overly optimistic to consider 2012 as a mere bump in the road, but Halladay’s previous excellence means he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If the Phillies are to challenge the Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves in the NL East, they need ‘Doc’ to return to somewhere close to his previous form.

Jemile Weeks (Oakland A’s)

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Weeks came into the A’s Spring Training camp all set to become the leading face of the club. His impressive rookie campaign in 2011 had earned him an extremely rare compliment: the A’s General Manager Billy Beane described him as the one ‘untouchable’ asset on the roster that he wouldn’t consider trading.

In Oakland’s home season-opener against the Seattle Mariners, Weeks led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and the A’s TV commentators were quick to state that they expected big things of the second baseman in the season ahead.

Instead, Weeks played so poorly that he was demoted to Triple-A on 21 August and he was relegated to cheer-leading duty as Oakland secured a surprising AL West division title.

Weeks was defiant at the time of his demotion, stating: “at the end of the day, I’m going to be a star in this game, man. You’ve got to have your ups and downs. It just makes the story so much sweeter when you come back. I don’t want to expand too much on it, but you’re looking at a star, period”.

If Weeks is to live up to his own billing, he needs to have a big bounceback season in 2013. That includes simply winning a starting job during Spring Training.

Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)

In 2012, Lincecum played his part in helping the Giants to their second World Series title in three years. However, the two-time Cy Young Award winner’s role was to chip in with 4.2 innings of relief pitching during the Fall Classic having lost his place in the starting rotation after putting up a 5.37 ERA over 33 regular season starts.

Lincecum will be a free agent at the end of the coming season and if he is to earn a lucrative new contract he will need to show that his disappointing 2012, and the declining speed of his fastball, was just a blip.

He turned up to the Giants’ Spring Training camp with his trademark long hair cut short, either as a sign that he is smartening up his act or that he is trying a reverse-Samson approach to regain his powers.

Aroldis Chapman (Cincinnati Reds)

Lincecum was temporarily moved from starting to relief pitching for the 2012 playoffs and one of the biggest National League stories in Spring Training will be the Reds’ plan to take the opposite approach with their ‘Cuban missile’.

When Cincinnati won the race to Chapman’s signature in January 2010, their offer of a 6 year, $30.25m contract reflected the scouting reports that he could become a dominating starting pitcher. So far they have harnessed his blazing fastball/slider combination out of the bullpen to great effect and he took to the role of closer superbly last season, striking out a scarcely believable 122 batters in just 71.2 innings (15.3 K’s per 9 innings).

However, a quality starting pitcher that can give you 200 innings in a season, plus a potential dominant postseason start or two, is more valuable to a team than 70 innings as a closer and the Reds have decided now is the time to find out if Chapman has what it takes.

With Cincinnati all set to be in a tight NL Central battle with the St. Louis Cardinals, it will be interesting to see how much patience they have before deciding to move him back to the closer role.

Carl Crawford (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Here’s a question for you: will Crawford come into Spring Training this year happier than he did two years ago?

Back in 2011, he met his new Boston Red Sox teammates for the first time flush with a 7 year, $142m contract and full of excitement about what he hoped would be a successful new chapter in his career.  From the outside, everything was perfect, but there was a lingering doubt as to how Crawford would adapt to playing in the media hothouse of Boston compared to his days with the underdog Tampa Bay Rays.

The dream turned into a nightmare as a poor 2011 season was followed by an injury hit 2012. Crawford recently admitted to his feelings of desperation, stating: “I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me. I just didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. It puts you in kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out”.

Thankfully for Crawford – and for the Red Sox – the dollar-dispensing Dodgers provided an unlikely way out with their summertime mega-trade. The outfielder is still rehabbing from elbow surgery and may not be ready for Opening Day, but 2013 will offer Crawford a chance to get his career back on track.