It's been awhile since I've posted on here. In the meantime, I visited the Windy City, got sick, and then visited bears in Gatlinburg (click image for larger picture).



But I'm back and I'm excited for this weekend to get here. No, I'm not talking about the start of the football season. I'm talking about the upcoming 3-game series between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets and the 3-game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Recently, I looked through the schedules to see how many teams controlled their own destiny. Here's the list of teams that control their own destiny:

Tampa Bay Rays
Boston Red Sox
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers

If you're looking for head-to-head matchups between these teams that will greatly affect the playoffs, you'll be disappointed. Other than this weekend's games, the White  Sox and Twins face off September 23-25 and that's it.

But wait, the Rockies could make things interesting. They didn't make the above list, but they only missed it by a 0.5 game. Once we include them, the number of matchups increase greatly. The Rockies face the Dodgers September 12-14, and they face the Diamondbacks September 19-21 and 26-28. Let's hope the Rockies climb their way back into this race and give us more interesting matchups down to the wire.

In the meantime, I'm going to put off football season for one more week and have my eyes glued to the matchups in the NL East and West this weekend.

I don’t have the NL version finished yet, but here’s the first 11 teams (by team name).

Houston Astros – D

Acquired LHP Randy Wolf for RHP Chad Reineke

Acquired RHP LaTroy Hawkins for INF Matt Cusick

I’m starting to think that the Astros enjoy mediocrity. As a team filled with veterans, they have no upside. Their core is on the decline, and there isn’t much help on the way in the farm system. Although the Astros had basically no shot at the playoffs, they continued to act like they were contenders. They didn’t really give up much, but why trade away something with a slim chance of helping in the future for something that has no chance of helping in the future? It just makes no sense, but that’s been common among Astros transactions for some time.

 

Atlanta Braves – B-

Acquired 1B Casey Kotchman and RHP Steve Marek for 1B Mark Teixeira

This is a rare trade where I’m basically neutral in opinion. While the Braves got a major leaguer in return (since their team’s age dictates that they try to contend again next year), they didn’t really get anything of impact either. I’m not impressed, but they didn’t give up for nothing either. While they’ve decided to hold on to Will Ohman, their next challenge is to find a taker for Mark Kotsay.

 

Milwaukee Brewers – A

Acquired LHP CC Sabathia for LF Matt LaPorta, LHP Zach Jackson, RHP Rob Bryson, and PTBNL

Acquired 2B Ray Durham for OF Darren Ford and LHP Steve Hammond

As everyone else has said, the Sabathia trade was great for the Brewers, so I’m not going to spend any more time on the move. I also like the acquisition of Durham for a couple of lesser prospects. Rickie Weeks has only hit righties at a .209/.310/.357 clip while Durham hits them to the tune of .306/.386/.435. Since Durham hasn’t been hitting lefties this year and Weeks has, they’re perfect platoon partners for each other.

 

St. Louis Cardinals – D

While the Cardinals are spinning their non-moves by saying that getting Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright are like making two great trades, that doesn’t address the fact that they sacrifice a lot of offense at their middle infield spots. At 2B and SS, only Aaron Miles has an OPS over .700 at .748. Let me repeat. That’s a lot of offense they’re sacrificing. When it doesn’t take that good of a player to make an improvement, it’s a shame that you aren’t able to bring in that upgrade. I don’t think the Cardinals are going to be able to make the playoffs, but I’ve been wrong about them before.

 

Chicago Cubs – A

Acquired RHPs Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin for RHP Sean Gallagher, LF Matt Murton, 2B/LF Eric Patterson, and C Josh Donaldson

Although the four guys they gave up all have value, they weren’t going to have value for the Cubs. Gallagher could have been a back-of-the-rotation pitcher, but so can Gaudin. Only Donaldson had much of a shot to become a player for the Cubs down the road, but they should have Geovany Soto behind the plate for several years making Donaldson expendable as well. It comes down to the Cubs adding Rich Harden for close to nothing, and in the middle of a pennant race, that goes down as a great move.

 

Arizona Diamondbacks – C

Signed CF Chris Young to a 5-year, $28 million extension

Acquired 1B Tony Clark for RHP Evan Scribner

Acquired RHP Jon Rauch for 2B Emilio Bonifacio

Signed Dan Haren to a 2-year, $32.5 million extension with a $15.5 million option for 2013

Back in December 2006, the Cardinals signed Chris Carpenter to a three-year extension worth $48.5 million. They haven’t even gotten to the extension yet, and after his injury problems, he’d likely get less than the $48.5 million he signed for less than two years ago. With all of the performance metrics and scouting reports available, it’s possible to somewhat reliably project hitters four-to-five years into the future. We aren’t there yet with pitchers, so why are teams signing pitchers to extensions when they’re already under contract for two more years? These types of moves just don’t make sense. Every game they pitch in, they perform an unnatural movement 100+ times, and I’ve seen a statistic mentioned that each pitcher has roughly a 40% chance of getting hurt during a major league season. When the risk is so great and you have two more full seasons left until they can leave as free agents, why not delay the decision as long as possible?

 

Los Angeles Dodgers – I

Acquired 3B Casey Blake and about $2 million for C Carlos Santana and RHP Jonathan Meloan

Acquired LF Manny Ramirez and $7 million for 3B Andy LaRoche and RHP Bryan Morris

With Andy LaRoche still around at the time, I have no idea why the Dodgers gave up two prospects for Casey Blake. LaRoche is probably Blake’s equal given full playing time in 2008, and LaRoche would help the Dodgers plenty over the next five years as well. On the other hand, the Blake acquisition allowed them to send LaRoche away in a package for Ramirez. The reason I gave it an incomplete deals with whose playing time these moves takes away. If it creates an outfield of Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and Andre Ethier 5 days a week, that’s an easy A-. If it puts Ethier on the bench in favor of slap-hitter Juan Pierre, it drops to a B. The difference between Ethier and Pierre is that much. To borrow from Joe Sheehan, the Dodgers have scored 4.76 runs with Kemp leading off compared to only 3.36 with Juan Pierre leading off. Given the lineups since the trade, it’s looking more like a B as Ethier got his first start since the trade last night.

Before moving onto the next team, let’s look at the Dodgers in an alternate reality. In this alternate reality, the Dodgers signed Barry Bonds instead of acquiring either Blake or Manny. It’s a hard argument to say that Bonds would be more distracting than Manny, so that’s out the window. In 2007, Bonds was a better hitter (.276/.480/.565 to Manny’s .286/.388/.493), and he’s arguably a better fielder. Manny will play more often, but the Dodgers have plenty of alternatives to give Bonds the requisite day off once every four or five days. Instead of giving up four good young players, the Dodgers could have coughed up the league minimum Bonds has been asking for and fielded a better team for the rest of the season as LaRoche and Bonds is a better duo than Blake and Ramirez.

 

San Francisco Giants – C

The Giants didn’t really have much of interest to trade away. They dealt away Ray Durham for a couple of prospects, and they could always do the same with Randy Winn, Dave Roberts, and Rich Aurilia in August. Other than the young pitchers, there’s just not much to the Giants, and it’s going to be a while before there is.

 

Florida Marlins – C+

Acquired LHP Arthur Rhodes for RHP Gaby Hernandez

While the Marlins were able to make the typical veteran left-handed reliever deadline move, they still don’t have a catcher. It’s possible that they can still get a catcher through a waiver trade, but the catcher crop will be limited. As a team that has been outscored by 23 runs on the season, I wouldn’t have high hopes for them making the playoffs.

 

New York Mets – D+

Other than a managerial change, the Mets haven’t made any major moves, other than those involving the DL. While they still have Fernando Martinez and Jon Niese in the system, they’re also missing at least one corner outfielder.

 

Washington Nationals – D-

Signed SS Cristian Guzman to a 2-year, $16 million extension

Acquired 2B Emilio Bonifacio for RHP Jon Rauch

Released SS Felipe Lopez and Cs Paul Lo Duca and Johnny Estrada

I already covered the Guzman extension before it was signed. I don’t want to get too much into the absurdity involved here, but I didn’t know the dollar amount back then. His two-year extension is nearly identical in price as his current four-year deal. Given that the four-year deal is widely considered a failure, what gives the Nationals the idea that Guzman will be able to give you $16 million in value over the next two years when he failed to do so in the last four?

In exchange for the next 2+ years of Jon Rauch, the Nationals got a 23-year old 2B who hasn’t been able to hit for anything of value since he was in A. It’s just one more Jim Bowden move that leaves you scratching your head.

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I should have the last five teams up by the end of the weekend.

First, I’d like to point out Ken Pomeroy’s Bracket Breakdowns at the start of the NCAA tournament. Using his Pomeroy Ratings and log5 computations, he posted the chances of each team getting to each round. So why am I bringing this up now? If you had simply used those odds to make your picks, you would have ended up with the top score in Yahoo’s Tournament Pick’em.

Originally, I was going to say that I was going to be putting this blog on the backburner while I go through a career transition, but I’m going to try my best to keep this going. I’m not going to promise anything regularly getting posted, but we’ll see how it goes. I still have the Balancing the Market series to finish. While I plan on completing that series, it takes quite a bit of work for me to assemble the information in one place so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t get finished for a while.

For today, I just want to tie up some loose ends. A while back, I had promised that I would post my projected standings before the season. While it’s obviously not before the season anymore, I will post my picks I made in BP’s Predictatron. In making these picks, I leaned on the PECOTA projections, which you can get a fairly close look at here (although those are updated every day by taking games completed into account). In adjusting away from those projections, I used a combination of things: how I disagree with PECOTA about certain teams, expectations of teams to improve via trade, and expectations of teams to dump FA-bound players at the deadline.

AL East

1.       New York Yankees (94-68) – a lot of risk in the pitching staff, but they’ve got the arms and front office ability to get the job done

2.       Boston Red Sox (91-71) – same as above, but less likely to make a big deal at the deadline

3.       Tampa Bay Rays (84-78) – maturation at the plate and among the pitching prospects, and improved defense over last year

4.       Toronto Blue Jays (78-84) – lack big-time star to put them over the top, but they do have plenty of big-time injury risks

5.       Baltimore Orioles (67-95) – doing the right thing by getting younger and their 2008 team will get worse if Brian Roberts finally leaves town

AL Central

1.       Cleveland Indians (93-69) – I think I made a mistake here as the 2007 IP increases for C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona could hurt their 2008 chances

2.       Detroit Tigers (90-72) – if C.C. and Carmona falter, the Tigers will end up on top of the division

3.       Chicago White Sox (78-84) – several players on the wrong side of 30 could offset the acquisitions of Orlando Cabrera and Nick Swisher

4.       Kansas City Royals (76-86) – the Royals are starting to turn things around, and they might get out of the basement again in 2008

5.       Minnesota Twins (71-91) – after losing Torii Hunter and Johan Santana, the Twins will be lucky to stay out of the basement, which makes the Joe Nathan extension a bit of a head-scratcher

AL West

1.       Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (86-76) – the Angels have been hit hard with injuries, but they’re lucky they don’t have much competition here

2.       Oakland Athletics (80-82) – the A’s weren’t as bad as their record in 2007, and they just might regret trading away Haren and Swisher as the season progresses

3.       Seattle Mariners (76-86) – unlike the A’s, the Mariners weren’t as good as their record in 2007; they couldn’t even outscore their opponents, and it’s not like they have youth on their side (lineup’s average age is 31)

4.       Texas Rangers (74-88) – after last year’s trades of Mark Teixeira, Eric Gagne, and Kenny Lofton, the Rangers went completely into rebuild mode, and they’ll be there for a couple more years

NL East

1.       New York Mets (91-71) – after acquiring Johan Santana, how can you not pick the Mets here?

2.       Atlanta Braves (86-76) – very good lineup and SP depth

3.       Philadelphia Phillies (84-78) – very good lineup and no pitching depth

4.       Florida Marlins (75-87) – without Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, I guess Marlins fans will have to celebrate that they still have Hanley Ramirez

5.       Washington Nationals (74-88) – new park, but they still don’t have their farm system completely rebuilt; at least they’re getting closer

NL Central

1.       Chicago Cubs (91-71) – I’d be more confident here if they could fix their lineup (hint: OBP guys go at the top)

2.       Milwaukee Brewers (90-72) – could take the division once they figure out that Jason Kendall is no longer a starting catcher; yes, he’s done well, but he has a .375 BABIP with only a 14.6% line drive rate (expected BABIP of .266)

3.       Cincinnati Reds (82-80) – despite Corey Patterson’s hot start (5 doubles and 4 home runs), he still has the lowest OBP in the lineup and is still batting leadoff

4.       St. Louis Cardinals (77-85) – Albert Pujols and the gang won’t keep up this 111-win pace

5.       Pittsburgh Pirates (71-91) – new management was still sorting things out this offseason; if several of their players restore some of their trade value early, don’t be surprised if they end the season in different uniforms midseason

6.       Houston Astros (70-92) – if you ignore pitching staffs, the Astros might be contenders

NL West

1.       Arizona Diamondbacks (90-72) – although they were outscored last year, nearly all Diamondbacks players are on the upswing portion of their careers; they’ll outscore their opponents this year

2.       Los Angeles Dodgers (86-76) – plenty of top young talent; if they learn to bench Juan Pierre, the Dodgers have the talent to win the division

3.       Colorado Rockies (81-81) – my expectations from Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales aren’t too high, and they don’t have the depth behind them

4.       San Diego Padres (76-86) – I’m probably expecting too little from the Padres (I always do), but their outfield is a mess as they don’t really have a capable CF as Jim Edmonds doesn’t really qualify anymore

5.       San Francisco (68-94) – Q:  How long until the Bay Area writers start to wish Barry Bonds was still around? A: It won’t happen; they’re too stubborn to admit it.

For those curious, my mortal lock picks are the Red Sox and Giants. The Red Sox are possibly the best run organization in baseball, so I’m confident they can finish around 91 wins. The Giants have Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and nothing else, so I’m pretty confident they’ll end up around 68 wins. My only worry is that they’ll end up with a lot less.

My World Series pick is the Boston Red Sox crushing Cubs’ fans spirits.

Tonight, I was watching the Rays and Yankees on ESPN2, and the subject of Rocco Baldelli came up. Steve Phillips and Orel Hershiser were talking about something they don’t really know about – mitochondrial disease. Now, I don’t know much about the disease, but I don’t believe what they were saying. Phillips and Hershiser were talking about the amount of time that Baldelli has missed and how mitochondrial disease possibly played a role. Hershiser claimed that the disease made him so fatigued at times that Baldelli felt he was injured, implying that he wasn’t actually injured. Let’s see here – torn ACL, torn UCL (Tommy John surgery), recurrent hamstring problems. Those sound like real injuries to me. From what I understand, Baldelli becomes more fatigued due to the disease. When athletes get fatigued, their mechanics start to fail, whether they be throwing, hitting, or running. When you start to go away from your normal mechanics, your body is taxed differently than it normally is, and that results in injuries. If they wanted to tie his disease in with his injuries, that’s the route to take, not the seemingly “fake” injuries route.

They also gave their opinions on the Joba Chamberlain plan. They proclaimed that they don’t think the Yankees have the bullpen depth to move Chamberlain out of the 8th-inning role. They also covered the risks in their rotation, but I feel they left out one major component. Tom Verducci and Will Carroll have both mentioned a rule involved with young pitchers – an increase of over 30 innings from one year to the next results in heightened risk (injury and/or loss of effectiveness) the following year. That means that Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy can’t be in the rotation all season, and that’s probably a major reason why the Yankees are planning on moving Joba to the rotation.

Getting off my soapbox, I’d like to talk about the Chris Young extension. It’s rumored that the deal is about the same as the deal Troy Tulowitzki ($31M over 6 years) got in January. Just over a month ago, I mentioned Young as a guy that would be worth signing to an extension after a good 2008 season, but it seems that Arizona is more confident in Young’s ability. This type of extension is one that is great for both sides. Young gets the guaranteed millions every young player dreams of, and Arizona gets cost certainty through 2013. Congratulations to both Chris Young and Diamondbacks’ fans.

As I expected, things are picking up as we move around the diamond. There’s a lot to talk about at the keystone, so let’s get to it.

Trade Market

One of the second baseman that I think should be traded has already been mentioned several times in trade rumors this offseason – Brian Roberts. Another player I think should be made available is Mark Ellis. Roberts is due $6.6M and $8M the next two seasons before becoming a free agent, and playing on a bad Baltimore club, he isn’t worth that price. Put him on a contender, and he’s easily worth that salary. The same case could be made for Ellis, who is due $5M in 2008 and will be a free agent following the season. Both teams have already shown a willingness to trade away veterans this offseason, and Roberts and Ellis should be on their ways out.

As for who should be trying to acquire either one of these players, the first team that comes to mind is Houston, who just gave a 3-year, $15M contract to Kazuo Matsui. Matsui only hit .249/.304/.333 away from Coors Field last year, and he was protected against left-handed pitchers as he only had 70 ABs in which he hit .271/.311/.386 against them. It doesn’t appear that Houston would have what it takes to acquire Roberts anyway, but it’s not like they gave Baltimore much for Miguel Tejada either.

The next tier of teams that should be interested in upgrading at second consists of the New York Mets, Colorado Rockies, and Chicago Cubs. Like the Astros, the New York Mets just signed a player to a multi-year deal to play second base, but Luis Castillo has been on the decline the last couple of years. At 32, he’s no longer the speedster he was in Florida, and he’s only managed to hit .296/.358/.370 and .301/.362/.359 the last two years. Those would be acceptable lines if his defense was better. Since Castillo will make $6M for each of the next 4 years, I think it’s safe to say that the Mets aren’t looking to replace him anytime soon.

The Rockies are going into camp with the second base job up for grabs between Jayson Nix, Marcus Giles, Omar Quintanilla, and Ian Stewart. If Stewart can play an acceptable second base, the Rockies could be scratched off the list, but there are doubts that he can make the transition from third. One of the Rockies’ top prospects is shortstop Chris Nelson. With Troy Tulowitzki locked into the shortstop spot at the major league level, maybe they could part with Nelson in a package for Roberts. A move for Roberts would considerably improve their chances of making a return trip to the postseason.

Although the Cubs have been rumored to be trading for Brian Roberts for quite a while, I actually think they’d be better off asking about Mark Ellis. Right now, their middle infield spots will be occupied by two of Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, Eric Patterson, Ryan Theriot, and Ronny Cedeno. If they acquire Roberts, the shortstop job would be up to DeRosa and Theriot (assuming Cedeno gets traded). If instead they got Ellis, they could play him at either second or short with the remaining spot going to one of DeRosa, Fontenot, Patterson, Theriot, and Cedeno (minus whoever gets traded). If they get a deal done for either one, the real key to how much they’ve improved their ’08 playoff odds is whether or not Theriot remains in the starting lineup.

Contract Extensions

Mark Ellis, Orlando Hudson, and Jeff Kent are all free agents after the season. I’ve already covered Ellis, and Kent contemplated retirement following the 2007 season, eliminating both from the contract extension discussion unless Ellis gets traded. Regarding Hudson, the Diamondbacks got Chris Burke in the Jose Valverde trade, and some speculate that Burke will be Hudson’s successor in Arizona. While I wanted the Astros to give him Craig Biggio’s starting job for a couple of years now, I don’t see him as a great replacement for Hudson in Arizona. Burke’s going to be 28 when the season starts, and if he hasn’t proven his worth as a starter so far, I doubt he ever will. He has a career .249/.319/.377 line over 1020 major league ABs. At 30, Hudson’s entering his decline phase, but a two- or three-year extension could help keep the Diamondbacks at the top of a tough division.

When looking at young second baseman worth offering an extension during their pre-arbitration years, Dustin Pedroia, Ian Kinsler, Kelly Johnson, Dan Uggla, Howie Kendrick, and Rickie Weeks all enter the discussion. Pedroia and Kendrick both have two years before arbitration, so I wouldn’t worry about getting them locked up just yet. The other four all have one pre-arbitration year left. In two years as a starting shortstop, Kinsler has put up pretty similar seasons, and the Rangers should consider locking him up to be Michael Young’s double play partner for the next four or five years. Johnson split time in left field with Brian Jordan and Ryan Langerhans back in 2005 before spending 2006 battling injury and recovering from Tommy John surgery. He returned last year at second base and did very well. I think waiting one more year to see if he can do it again is the right move for the Braves. Uggla’s ability to stay at second base has been questioned time and time again. If he’s forced to change positions, his bat goes from remarkable to average. With that question mark hanging in the balance, it would be unwise to offer him an extension at the present time. Despite three straight years as the Milwaukee second baseman, Weeks has yet to put in a full season with the big league club. Many are expecting him to breakout in 2008, and at 25, there’s no reason he can’t. If it was my money, I’d like to see him break out in 2008 before awarding him with a big-time contract.

Recap

Brian Roberts and Mark Ellis should be available on the trade market, and the Astros, Mets, Rockies, and Cubs could all use an upgrade at the position. With multi-year contracts given to free agent second basemen this offseason, the Astros and Mets probably don’t agree. The Diamondbacks should look to extend Orlando Hudson before he leaves as a free agent following the 2008 season. Ian Kinsler is the only pre-arbitration second baseman I’d be worried about signing to an extension right now; I’d wait a year to worry about Dustin Pedroia, Howie Kendrick, Kelly Johnson, and Rickie Weeks.