This year I've decided to go with the line Arnold Poindexter used in Revenge of the Nerds on an Omega Moo sorority sister, "So would you rather live in the ascendancy of a civilization or it's decline?"; or as I'm paraphrasing, "So who do you like in the NL East?"
The teams on the ascendancy here are the Braves and their young arms (Hanson, Beachy, Kimbrel, Venters) and the Nationals with the dynamic duo of Stephen Strasbourg and Bryce Harper creating perhaps overly lofty expectations. The team in decline would have to be the Phillies due to an aging and increasingly brittle infield. Though bringing the talents of Halladay, Lee and Hamels to the hill 3 out of every 5 days hardly makes this the Last Days of Rome. Meanwhile the Marlins play the part of the suddenly resource rich former third world country. A wild card that has to be taken seriously due to the money they've brought to the table. And as for the Mets in this analogy, well, one conjures up images of those African tribes that are discovered living untouched by civilization for thousands of years. Best just to pull closed the curtain and leave them blissfully unaware of just how bad they've got it.
So here now is our NL East predictions with overlooked, but potentially key players noted in bold. Thanks for participating...
NL East (in order of finish)
Philadelphia Phillies-When a multi-millionaire, rock star, horn-dog like Mick Jagger tells me "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" it's a little hard to believe. Like Huey Lewis singing "I Wanna New Drug" (shut up and get back in your minivan Yuppie scum) or Gloria Gaynor saying "I Will Survive" (yeah, whatever happened to her?). But one look at Sir Mick's creased and craggy visage of late does at least lend some authenticity to the singing of "Mother's Little Helper"...Indeed it is a drag getting old.
We were very tempted to put the Braves here, but the aforementioned starters coupled with a strong, shored up bullpen headed by Jonathan Papelbon and nasty Antonio "You Magnificent" Bastardo is enough to give them the nod. Still despite all the mound magnificence there seems to be some trepidation surrounding this team because of an aging and increasingly brittle everyday core.
The entire right side of the infield will be on the DL to start the season. Ryan Howard being out until June and Chase Utley dealing with another nagging injury the likes of which have sent his once consistent numbers into a spiral the last two years. Throw in 36 year old Placido Polanco another player plagued by declining production and DL time and you have a growing problem in Philly which is only compounded by a pair of backup infielders in Michael Martinez and Freddy Galvis whose work in the batter box often evokes cries of "nice job, does your husband play?" from the Broad Street Phaithful. Mix in probable regression from 2011 surprise stars Shane Victorino and Carlos Ruiz and it seems possible even this killer staff could be wasted by a few bad breaks...or sprains...or hyperextensions.
So for our key player we're going to create a three-headed monster of Laynce Nix/Domonic Brown/John Mayberry, Jr.. Ty Wiggington can suffice at 1B in the short term, Polanco is currently healthy and Victorino and Ruiz are expected to regress slightly not nosedive per most projections. That means the one big question mark, assuming Utley is not out longer than expected, is in LF where Mayberry will platoon with Nix/Brown. As the short side of the platoon Mayberry, who tweaked his stance last year and finally delivered on some of the power potential his lineage hints at, should be fine. Thus either Brown or Nix needs to step up in what is expected to be a very competitive division. Nix provides veteran pop, but also brings an abysmal .288 OBP to bear so the Phillies are hoping the 24 year old Brown starts to live up to his can't-miss prospect projection. Last year D-Bro turned around a poor K/BB ration first in Triple-A and then in 210 ABs at the major level. If Mayberry maintains most of the gains he made last year and Brown begins to flower it could be Party-Time at Pat's Cheesesteaks come October...then again it could...aw Hell we won't even say it.
Yes, it should be a tight one in the NL East race this year.Atlanta Braves- An edition of the soon to be obsolete print edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica mentions that after retiring from politics ex-President John Adams liked to spend his days "admiring his prodigious manure pile which grew incrementally by the day." Many Atlanta fans have compared the 2011 Braves season to a pile of manure, but not because they admired it or it grew incrementally.
In fact the Braves season more resembled the "Drunkards Walk Theory" which states that things like the stock market or a baseball season do not move in a straight line, but rather lurch forward and pitch backward like a drunk trying to make it home down a city sidewalk. The idea being I...er I mean...the drunk will eventually reach his destination, but in an irregular path of progress and decline. For the inebriated Bravos it was a positive looking 3 steps forward, 1 step backward until with 30 games left and a 9.5 game lead in the Wild Card the final round of Jello shots apparently kicked in and they didn't just stumble backwards, but off the curb and into a speeding bus eventually losing in the 13th inning of the last game of the season to send eventual World Series winner St. Louis to the playoffs and themselves to the golf course.
The problen, of course, was the bats. ATL finished 23rd overall in runs scored and broken down sabermetrically they wound up an even worse 26th in True Average (TAv). Combine that with a middling defense and a young and talented, but overworked bullpen and you can see how a few bad bounces could skew short term results and lead to such a collapse. In short, the Braves had little margin for error due to their offensive ineptitude and paid an unlucky price.
This year it could be more of the same as the Braves thanks to the range challenged and Roberto Duran Hands-of-Stone duo of Freddie Freeman and Dan Uggla appear to be the worst defensive club in the division. Combine that with the fragility of the already DL-ed Chipper Jones, who's still arguably their most productive bat when healthy, and it could be another tight-rope walk to reach the playoffs.
That said the guy who has to deliver is Jason Heyward. He may not be under the radar, but his precipitous decline from 3.9 WARP to 0.5 last year was more than enough to cost Atlanta the Wild Card. Good news is it was partially manifested by a decidedly low .260 BABIP. With even average luck on balls in play Heyward should add 1.5 to 2 wins to his total from last year. Now the question is will it be enough to not only catch the Phils, but hold off the hard charging Nats and Marlins.
The Braves used to play in Boston...right?Miami Marlins-I can still remember my Mom sitting at the dinner table and proclaming that "beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes right to the bone"...then she turned away and started talking to my sister. In short you can slap a coat of concealer and a pushup bra on any Hollywood starlet and look good in the short term, but time will eventually seperate the timeless Christie Brinkley's and Jane Seymour's from the in seclusion for a reason Melanie Griffith's of the world (if only Antonio Banderas had such foresight). And that brings us to the new and supposedly improved Marlins.
The key additions in Miami this year are Jose Reyes, Heath Bell and Mark Buehrle who combined with new manager Ozzie Guillen and the excitement over the grand opening of a state-of-the-art ballpark have led to expectations perhaps getting out of hand. After all this is essentially still a team that lost 92 games last year, hasn't made the playoffs since 2003 and plays in far and away the toughest division in the National League. Breaking the hype down further Reyes is arguably the biggest non-pitcher injury risk in all of baseball with a hammy that's been glazed so often you may as well toss a pineapple ring on top of it at this point and at 34 with a declining K rate, a ready to regress .269 BABIP and a move out of every pitcher's favorite park in S.D. is Heath Bell really that much of an upgrade over The Closer Formerly Known As Leo Nunez?
Still there's plenty here to suggest that Miami will close the gap on the Braves and Phillies considerably and even vie for a WC spot. While not spectacular Mark Buerhle is as consistent as they come and could even see a bump in his numbers this year with a new league full of hitters who have yet to be baffled by his off-speed stuff, Hanley Ramirez is due for a rebound of sorts after providing no value in 2011 and the starting 4 at least is set and solid with Buehrle, Ricky Nolasco, Anibal Sanchez and Josh Johnson.
Thus the key is the core that contributed to those 92 losses playing better. Giancarlo nee Mike Stanton is a monster, but may have trouble living up to his breakout 2011 so we'll call our key player LF Logan Morrison who needs to build off his 23 homer, .798 OPS season to compensate for any decline by Stanton and cover the Emilio Bonifacio/Chris Coghlan/Scott Cousins mess that will handle CF. Projections are that Morrison overshot his power last year, but the new park is expected to be left-handed power friendly and at 24 he's still young enough to build on prior success. In the end, though, we're not buying the hype coming outta South Beach and think the Marlins, while still worth a roll in the hay, are not the full season beauty some are making them out to be.
Washington Nationals-And speaking of hype...it is almost always a bad thing to get caught up in especially if it surrounds something new and unproven. Start believing every new flavor that comes out is the next great thing and before you know it you're wondering why you're sweating pit stains in your t-shirt carrying another milk crate full of Flock of Seagulls and Spandau Ballet vinyl records three flights up to your new apartment. As they say in Missouri "Show Me" and while we like the direction this team is going there's still a lot of speculation and only a smattering of proven substance.
The pitching trio of Stephen Strasbourg, Jordan Zimmerman and Drew Storen coupled with the eventual first coming of the Savior Bryce Harper has things moving along in the right direction, but the buzz surrounding these guys tends to deflect attention from several shortcomings. First off the middle of the field is weak with only 2B Danny Espinosa's glove projecting as a real asset when taking into account the potential value of Espinosa, SS Ian Desmond, and CFs Roger Bernadina and Rick Ankiel. The Sage of the Second Division First Basemen Adam LaRoche unexcitingly mans one corner and while Ryan Zimmerman in the hotter of the two corners is a true star the recently back from being kidnapped C Wilson Ramos and LF Michael Morse look like regression candidates in 2012. That makes our key player RF Jayson Werth. No he's never going back to the 5+ win player he was in Philly, but nagging injuries and a 62 point BABIP drop last year suggest better things at the plate this year. If Werth can adequately fill a 3-4-5 hole and things break right there could be meaningful baseball into the fall in D.C. But until Strasbourg shows he can handle an extended workload and Harper proves himself vs. MLB pitching we're taking a Costco type approach, that is we'll sample the hype, but we're not buying just yet.
New York Mets-Two words: Sandy Alderson...alright that's one name, but the point is clear. The Mets are done with the free spending, Hispanic-fication of the roster as attempted by Omar Minaya and into a full-fledged rebuilding mode. And Alderson appears to be as good a man as they could get for the job.
From 1983-97 GM Alderson's Oakland A's went to 3 World Series (winning one) and one ALCS after slowly rebuilding a team that had lost 94 games in 1982 and restocking its farm system. At his next stop in San Diego he put together 2 Division winners in 5 years. By no means is his record spotless, but after Minaya and the chubby chasing likes of Steve Phillips it's nice to know there's a guy with some proven success calling the shots at Citi Field.
The Mets aren't gonna win this year or even next so we're not going to go into particulars, but if you want a key player try Johan Santana on for size. Already Alderson has cleared the multi-million dollar likes of Carlos Beltran, K-Rod, Luis Castillo, Jose Reyes and...God help us all...Oliver Perez off the books and getting someone to take Santana off their hands would be a bonus. He's signed through 2013, but the problem is coming off a year lost to major surgery no one knows what to expect. He'll be 36 by the time the Mets figure to contend so the idea of dropping all or a portion of his salary while getting some young talent in return is one that plays into the overall scheme here. Santana was ready to go Opening Day so things are starting off right. And who knows maybe this time that light at the end of the tunnel in Flushing Meadows isn't the D-Train.
And one to temporarily distract you Mets fans...Done. We'll try to update once a week with our insights...and yes more pictures...so stop on back. Beer...what a good idea!
