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MLB Sleepyhead Summary: Yankees sweep whilst the Rangers keep winning

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The MLB Sleepyhead Summary is a new regular column that helps British baseball fans keep up to speed with MLB despite the time difference!

Yankees sweeping up New York

The New York Yankees have had to sit back and take the jibes over the past few seasons as the New York Mets got to a World Series in 2015 and became the team everyone was talking about in the Big Apple.

That must have made this week’s Subway Series sweep all the more satisfying.

The Yankees won all four games against the Mets in one of the weird inter-league series that has two games at one venue, followed straight away by two games at the other. It makes more sense in a single-city match-up than it does when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros are paired together, as happened this week, at least.

That sets up this weekend’s series against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium perfectly, with the Red Sox leading the AL West by four games after defeating the St Louis Cardinals twice (victories including a triple-play and a three-run rally in the ninth inning).

You would be forgiven for assuming that the third game will be the ESPN Sunday Night contest, but they will be showing the Cardinals-Pirates game from the Williamsport Little League site, so instead we can catch the game at 18.30 BST. Sonny Gray, who got his first win in pinstripes on Tuesday, and Doug Fister are the probable pitchers for Sunday.

Rangers making a run for it

The team that’s really on the march right now is the Texas Rangers.

They’ve won 11 of their last 13 games, including a three-game sweep over Detroit and defeating the Chicago White Sox on Thursday in the first game of a four-game series.  The White Sox have lost their last five games and have the worst win-loss record in the American League, 45-73, so it’s a prime opportunity for the Rangers to continue their climb towards an American League Wild Card.

Whilst the Yankees have a 3.5 game gap for the top Wild Card, the rest of the group is very closely bunched, with the LA Angels currently holding the second spot and then seven teams sitting within three games of the Halos.

WC – NY Yankees (65-55) 3.5
WC – LA Angels (62-59) –
Kansas City (61-59) 0.5 Games Back
Minnesota (60-59) 1
Seattle (61-61) 1.5
Texas (60-60) 1.5
Tampa Bay (60-63) 3
Baltimore (59-62) 3
Toronto (59-62) 3

To illustrate how close it is, the Baltimore Orioles currently have five teams ahead of them before they get to the Angels, but if they can sweep their three-game series against LA this weekend they’ll have the same record as the team currently holding the second Wild Card. The Mariners have a chance to climb as they take on the out-of-form Tampa Bay Rays this weekend, whilst Kansas City and taking on the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians.

The Toronto Blue Jays are still in with a shout of an AL Wild Card despite their terrible start to the season and they go into their weekend inter-league series against the Chicago Cubs on the back of winning three of four against the Rays.

NL Central remains close

As for the Cubs, they split a four-game series with the Cincinnati Reds this week, losing the final game 13-10 despite slugging six home runs. Jon Lester had a day to forget, giving up nine runs in 1.2 innings before leaving the game with an injury. All three games against the Blue Jays at Wrigley Field are 19.20 BST starts. Friday’s game should see Jake Arrieta and J.A. Happ on the mound.

The Cardinals defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates last night in the first of an important four-game series. The Pirates have now lost five in a row, including both games of a short two-game series against Milwaukee on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Cubs now hold a one-game lead over the Cardinals, and a 1.5 game lead over Milwaukee in the NL Central. The Pirates have slipped to 5.5 games back and whilst there’s still plenty of games left to play, getting some wins back against the Cardinals this weekend will be crucial to avoid the gap increasing.

Milwaukee have bounced back from an indffierent spell coming out of the All-Star break. They’ve won four in a row heading into this weekend’s series in Colorado against the Rockies.

MLB 2016 – National League Preview

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MlbHlSqAfter looking at the American League yesterday, our attention now turns to the Senior Circuit.

The most significant difference between the two leagues coming into the 2016 season is that whilst every team in the AL at least has some chance – however small – of competing for a Wild Card place, 5 of the 15 teams in the National League are deliberately looking towards future seasons.

‘Tanking’ is the word people like to use, essentially where a team deliberately trades away its best players, slashes the payroll and prioritizes the acquisition and development of prospects over challenging for a play-off spot. It’s controversial given the amount of TV money these teams are banking – under the assumption that they would be fielding a team worth watching – yet the truth is the current MLB landscape doesn’t just allow teams to do this, it rewards them for it.

Nothing illustrates that better than the 2015 seasons had by the Chicago Cubs and the Houston Astros.

The Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies are all prepared to take some pain today for jam tomorrow.

The good news is that there are plenty of strong teams left in the NL to create a captivating regular season.

NL East

This time last year many onlookers had penciled-in the Washington Nationals as not only the team to beat in the NL East, but the team to beat across the whole league. They had won 96 games in 2014 and responded to an early play-off exit by signing ace pitcher Max Scherzer, so the hype was not unwarranted; however it was something the team singularly failed to live up to and ultimately cost manager Matt Williams his job.

In 2016 it’s the New York Mets who are receiving the same platitudes, yet it seems highly unlikely that they will buckle under the weight of expectations. Their young pitching staff is genuinely outstanding and, having unexpectedly made the World Series last season, figure to only get better in 2016. That’s a scary thought for everyone else.

Where does that leave the Nationals? The one true success of 2015 for them was the MVP season put together by Bryce Harper and just as you can count on the likes of Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard to pitch like aces for the Mets, so you can expect Harper to do the near-impossible and challenge Mike Trout for the honour of the best player in MLB.

The experienced Dusty Baker has been brought in to pull the team together and create a happy ship out of what was a combustible crew. Whether they will challenge the Mets, or at least win a Wild Card spot, will come down to good health and how effectively they take advantage of the 38 games that they will play combined against the rebuilding Braves and Phillies.

NL Central

It’s been an off-season diet of the Cubs, Cubs and more Cubs in the NL Central. Joe Maddon and his team are the new media darlings and you can understand why. They’ve amassed an enviable group of young talent and supplemented it with free agent signings in the form of Jon Lester in the 2014/15 off-season and now again with Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist and John Lackey.

They were really good in 2015 and will be again in 2016.

What we shouldn’t lose sight of, though, is that the Pittsburgh Pirates were just as good last season and the St Louis Cardinals were even better. Neither team has added the experienced talent that the Cubs have acquired, and Chicago’s gain has very directly been St Louis’s loss with Heyward and Lackey moving to the other side of that rivalry, but they still have strong rosters and the way things are shaping up could really suit them.

The Cubs are the team with all the expectations. It’s been very noticeable in Spring Training that the Cardinals are almost enjoying the way everyone is jumping on the Chicago bandwagon, ready to prove exactly why they’ve won the division for the past three seasons and have no intention of letting the upstarts crash their party.

As for the Pirates, you’ll struggle to find a team more determined to win a division having experienced the pain of a one-game-and-gone play-off exit in each of the past two seasons.  This is going to be a true three-way battle.

NL West

Will there be a three-way battle in the West?

The Arizona Diamondbacks are intent on making that so. Their audacious signing of Zack Greinke mirrored the Cubs’ Cardinal clear-out job by taking him away from the LA Dodgers, with the added benefit that the San Francisco Giants lusted after the free agent too. They followed that up by trading for Shelby Miller and whilst the package they gave up for him may prove to be a high price to pay, it’s given them a front three with Patrick Corbin that stacks up well against their division rivals.

The D-Backs are confident, although it’s often been the case that the team that ‘won the off-season’ in recent years has gone on to win precious little else. What Arizona needed was for their existing players to either repeat or improve on their previous performances to make the additions count. That hope took a hammer blow last night with outfielder A.J. Pollock breaking his elbow. Pollock quietly developed into one of the best players in the National League last year. He will be out for an extended period – a similar injury cost him the entire 2010 season – and whilst it’s not fatal for the D-Backs’ chances, it certainly reduces them.

Injuries are also the story in LA where the Dodgers have been devastated by a succession of setbacks. At time of writing, MLB.com’s injury report lists no fewer than 13 Dodgers suffering notable ailments with as many as 10 of them being a doubt for Opening Day, if not out of action for much longer. They’re Major League-leading payroll ensures that sympathy will be in short supply and the Dodgers still have a solid group to compete with. As players return to health during the season, alongside the always-present potential for them to acquire new players and to up the payroll even further, you would be wrong to write them off even if they are in third place by the end of May.

As for the Giants, they’ve added starting pitchers Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija to their rotation and it’s an even year, so the omens are good for them.

My predictions

NL East – NY Mets, Washington, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta

NL Central – St Louis, Chicago Cubs (WC), Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee

NL West – LA Dodgers, San Francisco (WC), Arizona, San Diego, Colorado

WHGB: Notes from MLB Opening Week

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WHGB11There were 15 MLB games yesterday, 15 today and then another 14 tomorrow. After so many months without it, you very quickly get back into the swing of having baseball to enjoy every day.

I’m planning to publish articles a bit more regularly this season rather than bringing everything together into a weekly column, but there will still be weeks when I have a range of things to comment on that don’t fit into their own article.

I’ll badge them up under my usual ‘Weekly Hit Ground Ball’ theme, so just bear in mind that they might not be quite so weekly as the name suggests.

Good starts for some

It happens every season: several teams get off to good or bad starts and there’s an overreaction as to how representative that early record is compared to the true talent of the team concerned.

It’s not just baseball this happens in either. Aston Villa took 10 points from their first four games of the 2014/15 Premier League season and ridiculously gave manager Paul Lambert a contract extension on the back of it. “We can look to the future with real optimism”, Lambert said at the time. When reality set in (and considering their early good form included an unconvincing 2-1 home win against Hull and a 0-0 home bore draw against Newcastle, it shouldn’t have needed much thinking time) he ended up being hounded out in mid February with the team fighting a relegation battle.

So, nobody should be too quick to put money on the 4-1 Colorado Rockies winning the NL West, nor to laugh at the Washington Nationals’ pre-season favourites tag due to their 1-4 start.

Having written that, the Atlanta Braves should be celebrating their 5-0 start considering their lowly expectations for the year ahead, just as Cincinnati Reds can delight in their 4-1 start at home, and the Kansas City Royals can see their 5-0 start as a thumb in the eye for all who considered their 2014 World Series appearance to be a fluke.

Those starts to the season may not be the least bit indicative of the year ahead, but that doesn’t mean fans of those teams can’t enjoy them all the same.

Breakfast baseball

One part of following MLB in the UK that I neglected to mention in my recent article was the wonderful bonus of breakfast time baseball that we occasionally get to enjoy. This is typically when a west coast game runs on for a while – perhaps going into extra innings or due to a rain delay – so that the game is still ongoing around 7 a.m. BST.

We got our first dose of Bonus Breakfast Baseball on Wednesday morning and it was a memorable way to start as it featured Craig Kimbrel making his San Diego Padres debut. Kimbrel didn’t disappoint, striking out all three LA Dodgers batters he faced and leaving his new teammates like James Shields laughing in the dugout at the ease in which he can make Major Leaguer hitters look so helpless.

Rodriguez record approaching

Pitcher Masahiro Tanaka captured most of the attention from the New York Yankees’ opening game as concerns about the state of his elbow continue to keep the Yankee beat writers occupied. However, the other main story coming out of the game was the largely positive reaction Alex Rodriguez received from the home crowd following his year-long drug-related suspension.

Rodriguez undoubtedly will be booed at every other stadium he plays in – although that’s nothing new – but it was less certain quite how the Bronx faithful would respond to him wearing pinstripes once again.

The majority appear to have taken the stance that he has served his time and so long as he is trying to help their team win games from here, they will support him like they do the rest of their players. That may well change if he starts slumping at the plate as the season progresses.

The interesting story will come if Rodriguez does have a decent season and continues to add more home runs to the one he hit against Toronto on Thursday. The Yankees spent much of the off-season seemingly trying to find ways to get out of their contract with him and particularly in respect of the marketing bonuses he will receive as he reaches new home run landmarks.

Heading into Sunday, Rodriguez is fifth on the all-time MLB home run list with 655 and just five homers behind Willie Mays. The Yankees will have to pay him $6m if he gets to 660 and the next man on the list to catch is Yankee legend Babe Ruth with 714. Ruth’s tally will likely prove to be out of reach as Rodriguez turns 40 in July, but 660 should be only a matter of time and as pessimism over the team’s 2015 prospects already starts to grow, we may find the Yankees make more of the event than you might have thought just a few months ago.

NL Central: Off-season so far

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Just as the San Diego Padres have made a splash in the NL West, it’s a team that was nowhere near contending in the NL Central in 2014 that has made the most noise in the off-season so far.

The Chicago Cubs have added a high-profile manager in Joe Maddon, a top-shelf free agent pitcher in Jon Lester, and some other useful players (Jason Hammel, Miguel Montero) to their batch of young players and generated a mountain of expectation for 2015.

However, history has shown that ‘winning the off-season’ doesn’t guarantee you will win much when the games come around. Although all teams start on 0-0 in a new campaign, that doesn’t mean the previous season counts for nothing. The Cubs have made eye-catching moves, but they did lose 89 games in 2014.

In contrast the reigning champions the St. Louis Cardinals haven’t made much of a splash, the main roster move being the trade for Jason Heyward in part in response to the tragic death of Oscar Taveras. Yet this was a team that won 90 games in 2014 and whilst players do get older (to state the obvious), this isn’t a roster chock-full with players in their mid-thirties that could all be about to get injured or have poor seasons.

The Pittsburgh Pirates also haven’t done a whole lot after finishing two games behind the Cards. Francisco Liriano has been re-signed and A.J. Burnett is on his way back after a year in Philadelphia, but otherwise the roster is essentially as it was in 2014 minus the not inconsiderable loss of catcher Russell Martin, who has joined the Toronto Blue Jays.

Putting the Milwaukee Brewers to one side (Adam Lind being the only addition to a middling 2014 team) and the Cincinnati Reds in the ‘ who knows’ box (traded away Mat Latos, but still have some quality players), that does create space for the Cubs to make a charge, emboldened by a wave of optimism and perhaps a couple of the young prospects dazzling in their first full year.

As things stand right now, the Cardinals and Pirates still lead the way without having made signings that clearly improve them from 2014. Some strong individual performances (Michael Wacha returning to health and form, for instance) would keep the Cubs at bay, yet so far it’s still possible that either one or both could fall back just enough to give Chicago a sniff.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: O’s add 2

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Much as I enjoy all the news and rumours that the offseason ‘Hot Stove’ brings, there’s a certain joy in knowing this is the last column I’ll be writing for just over eight months that is not influenced by actual games being played.

The Spring Training leagues begin on Wednesday. These are the main stories of the week or so leading up to umpires shouting ‘play ball’ once again.

O’s2

Baltimore Orioles fans had sat through the majority of the offseason waiting for their team to do something to give them hope for the season ahead.

That hope may have been about to run out before the O’s revealed their London Bus approach to the free agent market: waiting around for ages and then signing two at once.

Baltimore, like every team, was keen to add a starting pitcher and they did so in the form of Ubaldo Jimenez on a four-year, $50m contract.

Jimenez is an enigmatic player, switching between ‘Ubaldo the Magnificent’ and ‘Ubaldo the Mess’ like a change in the weather. Scouts explain that his complicated pitching mechanics make him more susceptible to ‘losing’ his delivery, as you sometimes see with cricket bowlers (England’s Stephen Finn would be a good recent example). When a pitcher struggles to repeat his delivery, he struggles to put the ball where he wants to and the result is walks and ‘hit me’ pitches.

Jimenez is a quality pitcher when everything is in synch, such as during his 19-8 season with the Colorado Rockies in 2010 and last year with the Cleveland Indians. It’s unlikely, although far from impossible, that the Orioles will receive four consecutive seasons of Jimenez at his best, but one such season along with three decent ones would still make for a good return on their relatively modest $50m investment.

Jimenez was one of the group of players still on the free agent market in part because signing them involved giving up a valuable amateur draft pick. Nelson Cruz was also on that list until he agreed a one-year deal worth $8m with Baltimore and it’s no coincidence that the Orioles doubled-up on their free agent signings. Having already lost their 2014 draft first round pick due to signing Jimenez, Cruz will only cost Baltimore their less-valuable second round selection. He is slated to be the team’s Designated Hitter this season.

Bailey bonanza

The Cincinnati Reds signed pitcher Homer Bailey to a six-year, $105m contract extension this week (roughly an average of £202k per week).

Bailey was drafted out of High School by the Reds in 2004 and he has come through some growing pains since making his Major League debut as a 21 year old in 2007. The past two seasons, both of which included him pitching a no-hitter, have seen the big Texan develop into the quality starting pitcher that the Reds always believed he could become.

You could argue that he’s not quite an ace, even factoring in that his home ballpark is hitter-friendly (his career ERA is a full run less on the road than it is at the Great American Ballpark – 3.73 compared with 4.74), but if so then he’s at least very close to being one.

Last season he was 24th among pitchers in the Majors with his combined performances measured at 3.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), as per Fangraphs, a mark that put him 10th in the National League and second on his club behind Mat Latos (4.4 WAR).

Securing his services for the next six seasons at what is, based on the current market, a sensible annual cost is a good piece of work from the Reds, made all the more welcome due to it coming in an offseason where the team has been relatively quiet.

Add Bailey to the list that’s no longer on the list

As noted by ESPN.com’s David Schoenfield, Bailey is the latest player to be taken off the potential free agent list as part of a growing trend in which teams are signing their key players to contract extensions.

The most positive part of this development is that, as in the case of Cincinnati, it’s not just the clubs with the biggest pockets that are able to do this now.

The Reds’ 10-year, $225m contract with first baseman Joey Votto, signed in April 2012 and coming into effect from this season onwards, was the most significant deal  so far in that regard, alongside the eight-year, $184m contract that the Minnesota Twins agreed with Joe Mauer in 2011.

Thanks to rising national and local TV contracts, even teams outside of the leading media markets such as New York and Los Angeles have a chance of funding contracts that allow them to keep hold of at least some of their best players. That can make the free agent market a bit less exciting, but few fans will mind this if it means that there’s a better chance that their favourite players are not inevitably going to be snapped up by the big boys.

Braves keeping hold of their own

The Atlanta Braves are yet another example of this trend. They followed up their contract extensions with Freddie Freeman (six-years, $135m) and Julio Teheran (six-years, $32.4m) this week with a four-year, $42m contract with closer Craig Kimbrel and a seven-year, $58m contract with shortstop Andrelton Simmons,.

The performance value of a closer is always hotly debated when weighing up the amount of innings they pitch (including the postseason, Kimbrel has averaged 70 innings per season over the past three years) against their perceived importance and the fact that reliable outstanding closers are a very rare breed.

Kimbrel has been so dominant in the role that the Braves’ desire to keep hold of him is understandable, although the ever-present fear of a year lost to Tommy John surgery will make it more important than normal to wait and see if it was money well spent once the contract comes to an end.

As for Simmons, watching him play shortstop is one of the delights of the game and if he can at least hold his own at the plate, Braves fans will be delighted to have him on their team for years to come.

Greinke the Grouch

Finally, Spring Training will have a different feel to it this year for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers as they head over to Australia for two regular season games on 22-23 March.

The Dodgers’ Zack Greinke is not greatly enthused by the prospect, stating to ESPNLosAngeles.com “I would say there is absolutely zero excitement for it … there just isn’t any excitement to it. I can’t think of one reason to be excited for it”.

Hopefully he’ll enjoy it when he gets there.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Jeter to retire

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One of the joys of this time of year is that none of us really knows what the season will bring; the possibilities are endless in Spring.

However, we do already know one thing that 2014 will be remembered for.

One more year for Jeter

The announcement on Wednesday that this will be Derek Jeter’s final season was a major news story and, particularly considering it was telling us something that’s not actually going to happen until later in the year (my instant reaction to the mass coverage was to mis-read it and I thought he was retiring there and then), that goes to show just how big an impact he has had on the game.

ESPN’s Jayson Stark summed it up by drawing on research last August that overwhelming placed Jeter as the recognised ‘face of MLB’. As Stark put it:

“How does any sport replicate what Derek Jeter has meant to baseball over the last decade and a half — and still does? Is that even possible?

Oh, the Yankees will find another shortstop. There’s a 100 percent probability of that. And Jeter will find stuff to do that probably doesn’t involve spending 14 hours a day curled up in a chair playing Sudoku.

But where does baseball find the next Derek Jeter? Good luck on that”.

It’s difficult to judge from the U.K., where generally you are either a dedicated baseball fan or don’t pay it any attention whatsoever, but clearly Jeter has meant a lot to baseball in terms of its image to the casual fan in the States and, with so many entertainment options out there competing for people’s eyes, ears and money, that’s an important factor that MLB needs to grapple with.

Yet the very nature of sport means that legends come and go. Even if there isn’t necessarily a ready-made, obvious replacement – as Stark suggests is the case here – other players will emerge in time to take on the mantle. MLB will produce new icons, but it won’t be so easy for the Yankees to find another Jeter and what he represented.

He was part of a group of players that created a new era in the rich history of the New York Yankees. There are some similarities here to Manchester United’s ‘Class of ‘92’, documented in the film released last December.  In both cases, you had a group of very talented young players who came through together and, for a period, personified the team. Beckham, Scholes, Giggs and co became Man Utd, just as Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Posada and co became what you thought of when you thought of the Yankees.

Not only was that felt by the fans, particularly of the respective teams, but you got a sense that it was felt by players that joined the teams too. Star players coming into the dressing room or clubhouse generally had to fit in with the culture and example that was set by those core players.

Jeter is the last of the fabled ‘core four’ and whilst the Yankees may well use their spending power to put together championship-contending teams in the years to come, it will be a while before they, or potentially any other team, brings through such an incredible group of players that define an era quite like this group has.

A.J. to the Phillies

A.J. Burnett won a World Series with Jeter and the Yankees in 2009 and in 2014 he’ll be pitching for the team that they beat. The Philadelphia Phillies have continued their offseason trend of adding veteran players by bringing in the 37-year-old pitcher on a one-year deal.

If he pitches as well as he did in the past two years with the Pirates then the Phillies will be more than happy with their $16m investment, yet it’s difficult to shake the feeling that the deal would make more sense for a team with a genuinely good shot at making the playoffs this year.

And it’s difficult to shake the feeling that the Phillies’ General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is misjudging his roster if he’s putting his team in that category.

Hamels hobbled

The Phillies certainly have some reason to hope that they could get in the Wild Card race, but they need their ageing roster to stay healthy and they suffered a blow this week when Cole Hamels, one of the younger veterans at 30 years old, revealed he has a shoulder injury that could see him miss most of the first month of the season.

Iwakuma injured too

Injuries to pitchers is a depressingly familiar theme each Spring and the Seattle Mariners are also cursing their bad luck early in Spring Training. Hisashi Iwakuma, who had such an impressive season in 2013, has injured his right middle finger and will miss 4 to 6 weeks, meaning he won’t be ready for the start of the season.

The Mariners do have some talented young pitchers to call on and my favourite scouting work of the week came from their ace Felix Hernandez, who described James Paxton as “a funky lefty dealing over the top, throwing 97 [mph]” and Taijuan Walker as “a big dude throwing cheese”.

The Mariners also lost outfielder Franklin Gutierrez for the coming season due to a recurrence of a “gastrointestinal problem”, or as new manager Lloyd McClendon put it: “his health was not cooperating with him”.

Late start for Latos

The Cincinnati Reds’ Mat Latos is another pitcher who started Spring in exactly the way he hoped he wouldn’t. Latos felt a twinge in his left knee during some workouts on Tuesday and underwent minor arthroscopic surgery on Friday. The Reds hope it will only sideline him for 10 days or so, but any setback is a worry for a team that had a relatively quiet offseason and is mainly relying on the players they had last year combining to have a better year in 2014.

Contract extensions

Ending on a more positive note, two young players had a very good opening week to Spring Training by agreeing contract extensions with their respective teams.

Outfielder Michael Brantley signed a four-year contract extension with the Cleveland Indians worth $25m, whilst pitcher Julio Teheran agreed a six-year, $32.4m extension with the Atlanta Braves. The deal with Teheran follows the eight-year contract extension signed by first baseman Freddie Freeman recently as the Braves try to keep hold of their core young talent for years to come.

Offseason so far: NL Central

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Next up in our offseason round-up, we move onto the home of the National League champions.

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals showed their strength in depth whilst making it to another World Series appearance last season and they look set to be strong contenders in the National League again this year.

They acted quickly in November to plug a hole in the infield by signing free agent Jhonny Peralta on a four-year contract (despite him recently serving a drug suspension) and made a trade with the Angels to sign Peter Bourjos in the knowledge that Carlos Beltran was likely to leave as a free agent (sure enough, he’s now a Yankee).

David Freese went to the Angels in that trade, Chris Carpenter has retired and Edward Mujica has signed with the Red Sox, but the losses will be balanced out by their farm system products, with full seasons from Michael Wacha and Kolten Wong in prospect.

Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates finally made it back into the playoffs last year, which was a source of great joy in Pittsburgh. However, that shouldn’t be an end in itself and Buccos fans will be disappointed that so far this offseason their team has failed to build on the promise of 2013.

The biggest unknown is A.J. Burnett, who was terrific for the Pirates last year but may well decide to retire (there’s no definitive word on that as yet). They’ve brought in Edinson Volquez on a one-year contract but shouldn’t be too optimistic he’ll bounce back the way that Francisco Liriano did in 2013.

The only other Major League addition made so far has been signing back-up catcher Chris Stewart from the Yankees, after Jack Buck moved on to the Mariners.  With late-season pick-ups Marlon Byrd and Justin Morneau also leaving as free agents, there’s certainly plenty of room for improvement in the period up to Opening Day.

Cincinnati Reds

The Reds are in a similar position to the Pirates: a fan base hoping for positive moves and being left underwhelmed.

The main concern for their 2014 prospects will be found in the lead-off spot. Shin-Soo Choo proved to be a fantastic one-year addition from the previous offseason, but now that he has signed a seven-year deal with the Rangers, the Reds look like leaning on young speedster Billy Hamilton. Choo was instrumental in the Red’s offence last year in getting on base and whilst Hamilton will put up large stolen base numbers, there are doubts as to whether he will get on base enough to be a Major League regular, never mind getting close to Choo’s .423 mark of last season.

Brayan Pena has joined the catching crew with Ryan Hanigan moving on to the Rays and Skip Schumaker will be their new utility man, but new manager Bryan Price is probably hoping his Front Office will give him a bit more help before the season starts.

Milwaukee Brewers

The most newsworthy name on the Brewers’ lineup this season will be that of Ryan Braun, the ex-MVP who is trying to rebuild his career with the team following a shameful drug suspension after previous vehement denials.

There’s not much chance of other matters putting his return into the shade as it’s been a quiet offseason in Milwaukee, with the most notable move being their decision to trade away useful outfielder Norichika Aoki to the Royals for pitcher Will Smith. Corey Hart, out for all of 2013 with a knee injury, has left the team to join Seattle, whilst Mark Reynolds has been added to the Brewers’ roster recently in the hope of adding some power to the lineup.

Chicago Cubs

The north-siders are still in something of a holding pattern as their rebuilding process continues to gradually add a group of impressive young talent to the Major League roster over the next couple of seasons.

They have added a few players with Major League experience in closer Jose Veras, Ryan Roberts and Justin Ruggiano this offseason, but the big news may still be to come. The Cubs reportedly are making a big push to sign Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka we may find out at the end of this week which team has come out on top in the race to sign him.

It could be difficult to tempt him to join a rebuilding project ahead of the dollars on offer from the Dodgers and Yankees, but it’s good to see the Cubs trying to add a player of his calibre and he would certainly be a nice joining present for new manager Rick Renteria.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Playoffs in Pittsburgh

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The final week of the 2013 MLB regular season produced plenty of drama from storylines of retiring Yankees to a gripping Wild Card race in the American League and an incredible no-hitter by the Miami Marlins’ Henderson Alvarez ended on a walk-off wild pitch.

And just as we all hoped, we look set to have an enthralling October of playoff baseball.

Nowhere will that be more welcome than in Pittsburgh, for far to long a city that has been starved of all the thrills and spills that the postseason brings.

Their series win over the Cincinnati Reds to end the regular season meant that PNC Park will be the venue for their final battle of 2013 with that same team.

The Pirates were on their way to breaking their losing-season hoodoo last year when they collapsed down the stretch. This time, they’ve been able to hold steady over the final two months and now homegrown talents such as the outstanding Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, Pedro Alvarez and Gerrit Cole will get the chance to play on the biggest stage.

There will be plenty of pressure on the team come Tuesday night (the early hours of Wednesday for us in the U.K.). Getting this far is a great achievement for the Buccos but as the first pitch nears a nagging thought will linger at the back of the mind: after waiting so long for this moment to come, it will be an enormous let down to have it all end after just one game. Losing a Division Series is tough enough, falling short in the Wild Card game will be ten times worse.

That nervousness is something the Reds need to take advantage of. They have their own pressures to deal with after letting a 2-0 NLDS lead slip against the San Francisco Giants last year. Their scheduled starting pitcher for the Wild Card game will certainly have that on his mind.

Johnny Cueto lasted just one batter in Game One of that series before suffering an injury that ruled him out for the rest of campaign. Mat Latos stepped into the breach by pitching four relief innings as the Reds went on to win 5-2. In one of those curious coincidences that sport can produce, Latos’s own injury issues have ruled him out of the game against Pittsburgh and this time roles will reverse with Cueto trying to save the day.

Whilst the Reds are publicly stating their confidence in Cueto, quietly there has to be some doubt as to which version will show up. The pitcher has been on the Disabled List three times this season and has only recently returned to action with two decent outings against the Houston Astros and New York Mets. Neither of those opponents has exactly dazzled this season on offence so Pittsburgh have to fancy their chances of jumping on him early and getting the home crowd going even more.

As for the Pirates, they will counter Cueto with an off-season addition that has turned out much better than anyone could have predicted. The news that Pittsburgh had come to an agreement with Francisco Lirano didn’t seem all that inspiring, as I wrote just before Christmas last year:

“Liriano has put up a 5.23 ERA over 60 appearances (52 starts) for the Twins and White Sox during the past two seasons and whilst he has been close to striking out a batter per inning over that span (279 K’s in 291 innings pitched), he has dished out free passes at a rate (5 per nine innings) that makes it hard to be successful.

Mired in the longest-ever sequence of consecutive losing seasons, the Pirates would have to pay top dollar to beat other teams to sign a leading free agent and they cannot afford to do so (nor even come close, one suspects). That leaves them giving money to players that might not help them all that much.  Moving to the non-DH league may be a slight positive for Liriano’s performances; however a two-year, $12.75m investment in him doesn’t seem likely to bring the Pirates a fortune-changing return.”

Liriano suffered an injury to his non-throwing arm not long after the deal had been agreed and the two sides came to a revised arrangement, only guaranteeing the pitcher $1m in 2013 (with another $3.75m dependent on staying healthy) and a club option of $8m for 2014. The Pirates couldn’t call on Liriano until 11 May as he recovered but he was more than worth the wait.

The left-hander has gone 16-8 with a 3.02 ERA over 26 starts and his peripheral stats show this has not been a fluke. He’s continued his recent trend of striking out a batter every inning (163K’s in 161 innings pitched) whilst cutting down on the free passes to 3.5 per inning. His five starts in September have yielded a less-impressive 5.14 ERA which might suggest he’s running out of steam, but his strikeouts and walks have remained on course (28 IP, 28K, 12BB) and within those five games was a strong eight-inning effort against the Reds.

It should be an intriguing match-up and PNC Park will be a wonderful host venue. It’s one of the most picturesque ballparks in the Majors and it will be crammed full with Pirates fans, quite a few of whom will be watching their team playing postseason baseball for the first time.

Put it alongside the American League Wild Card shuffle and we’re sure to have an exciting start to October.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: the Chapman conundrum

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To start or not to start, that was the question being pondered by Aroldis Chapman and the Cincinnati Reds.

The Cuban pitcher came into Spring Training preparing to be moved into a starting pitching role, just as he did a year ago.

As in 2012, that decision has been reversed and Chapman will once ago serve up his flame-throwing act in the ninth inning of games, rather than taking a spot in the Reds’ starting rotation.

The decision, announced on Friday, was not a surprise as Chapman had revealed a week earlier that his preference was to continue as the team’s closer.

The Reds stated in response that a decision would be made in the best interests of the team, not solely determined by the player, and that was emphasised again by General Manager Walt Jocketty when he confirmed Chapman’s role for the season ahead. However once the pitcher was sure enough that he was prepared to state his preference publicly, it became difficult for the Reds to do anything else.

Whilst no team wants to be seen to bow to the whims of an individual player, it isn’t a sign of weakness to take their views into account. Manager Dusty Baker stated “you want a guy at a comfort level” and although that applies to some extent to every player, a good manager will know which players are particularly sensitive to this.

It’s common across all team sports. Kevin Pieterson has been criticised in some quarters over the years for preferring to bat at 4 rather than 3 for England in Test cricket, but he’s a mercurial talent, capable of winning a game virtually single-handed when at his best. If batting at 4 is where he’s happiest, for whatever reason, it’s counter-productive to cloud his thinking by putting him in a different spot. What’s ‘best for the team’ is to get the best out of your best players.

If Chapman really wasn’t convinced about starting – maybe, away from what he would admit publicly, he doesn’t have confidence in his secondary pitches, for example – then forcing him into it wouldn’t help anyone, other than the Reds’ opponents.

The mystery with this argument – if true – is that this is the second time in two years that the Reds have pushed ahead with the plan to convert Chapman into a starter. They aborted the idea last year predominantly because Ryan Madson, who they had brought in to become their new closer, suffered a season-ending injury before throwing a pitch for the team.  They signed Jonathan Broxton to a three-year/$21m contract this winter, once again as a clear intent to fill the closer role with another pitcher.

It doesn’t immediately make much sense to act in this way unless Cincinnati were confident that Chapman was fully on board with the plan. Deciding to keep him as the closer because he’s comfortable in that role is justifiable, but coming to that conclusion little more than a week before the new season begins is strange to say the least.

Cincinnati have been criticised for their decision because there’s a convincing argument that a good starting pitcher, throwing 200 innings, is more valuable to a team than a closer pitching only 70. Many applauded the Reds’ initial plan to convert Chapman into a starter precisely for this reason and therefore the way they have backtracked leaves them – and the perception is that it’s mainly Baker that wanted to keep him as the closer – open to the claim that they are failing to appreciate the worth of a starter compared to a closer.

That claim may be completely off-base. It could be the worth of a starting pitcher that made the Reds try to coax Chapman into letting go of his misgivings once again. In that scenario, the signing of Broxton can be seen as the Reds trying to focus Chapman’s attention on becoming a starter and perhaps more could have been done to reinforce the message.

As with every roster decision, ultimately it will be judged by how the team’s season turns out.

Cincinnati had the most stable starting rotation in the Majors last season. Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, Bronson Arroyo and Mike Leake together started all but one of the Reds’ 162 regular season games, the other outing being a Major League debut for 27-year old Todd Redmond in the second game of a day-night doubleheader on 18 August.

All five of the main pitchers are with the Reds again this season – it was presumed that Leake would be the man to make way for Chapman – and they should form a quality rotation again. With Chapman and Broxton at the sharp-end of the bullpen, the Reds will have a strong core to their pitching staff.

Keeping Chapman as the closer may not be the optimum strategy, but the Reds are still in a good position heading into the season and if they have the lead in a deciding World Series game, Reds fans will be glad to be able to call on their Cuban Missile.

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.