We’re now in the home stretch of the offseason. In less than a month, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, and we’re all quite excited to find out who’s in The Best Shape of His Life ™. Unless your name is James Shields, the remaining free agent selection is a veritable who’s-who of scrapheap has-beens and injury-rebounding hopefuls looking for one more shot. Oh, and a couple interesting relievers.
In essence, we’ve reached the point where if you’ve got holes to plug, it’s time to pick the lesser of many evils or pony up and make a trade. What makes all of this fun is that every team has holes on its roster, even the seemingly godly Washington Nationals (now with more Max Scherzer!). What are the holes on each team, and how would they go about fixing them? And if you’re a team that’s still looking to sell, what part of your roster can you sell from? I’m glad you asked!
We’ve already covered the NL East, AL East, and NL Central.. Today, we’ll finish our look at the middle of the country with the AL Central.
Detroit Tigers – Have the Last Three Years Taught You Nothing?
In my piece on the NL East, I said that the Nationals didn’t have a “Tigers-sized problem” with their bullpen. Lo and behold, they appear to have addressed the issue with a single signing. Mike Rizzo snapped up Casey Janssen at the cost of one year and $5 million. The addition makes the Nats that much more freakishly complete, because Nationals. Since we’re here to talk about the AL Central, and specifically the Tigers, I ask you all this: why in the world wasn’t Dave Dombrowski all over Janssen?
In each of the Tigers’ recent mad dashes to the division title, they’ve done it all in spite of some truly terrible bullpens. It’s a well-documented and much-lambasted issue that Dombrowski seems loathe to address in full. The Tigers did some due diligence last winter when they brought in Proven Closer ™ extraordinaire Joe Nathan to close games, and took out a lottery ticket on Joba Chamberlain. Almost predictably, Nathan had extended bouts of looking a whole lot like Jose Valverde, and Chamberlain was only particularly useful in the first half before he started looking a whole lot like Joba Chamberlain. Even a midseason addition of Joakim Soria backfired when Soria promptly injured himself and sucked for the rest of the year.
Nathan and Soria return for 2015, while Chamberlain and Phil Coke (who is possibly the most frustrating to watch pitcher in the world, but secretly halfway decent at his job) have left in free agency. Al Albuquerque was the only other reliever worth mentioning in the Detroit bullpen coming into the winter, and because the Tigers employ him, he too has extended bouts of awfulness. So, to address this issue, Dave Dombrowski signed… Tom Gorzelanny.
I covered Gorzelanny in the relievers piece I linked to above, and to be fair, I think Gorzelanny is a pretty good addition to this bullpen. Blaine Hardy was the only lefty until Gorzelanny signed, and Gorzelanny is a pretty darn good LOOGY. That’s certainly an upgrade over Phil Coke. But goodness gracious, Dave, this is it? You’re going to count on Tom Gorzelanny and guys like Joel Hanrahan and Bruce Rondon returning from Tommy John to improve the most inconsistent bullpen in baseball? When you pair that decision with an aging core, a rotation that’s without question going to be markedly worse than it has been recently, and a total lack of depth… it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Tigers finish outside of first place this year. Time of give K-Rod and Rafael Soriano a call.
Kansas City Royals – The Rotation That Was Secretly Really Bad
The Royals were 90 feet from tying Game 7 of the World Series. The Royals are also projected by Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system to lose 90 games this year. How does that work? Kansas City lost only three major pieces to free agency. When one of them is James Shields, that’s understandably going to sting quite a bit. The other two were Billy Butler (who was actually below replacement level in 2014 by fWAR) and Nori Aoki, who’s a good little piece but won’t make or break a club. Why PECOTA hates the Royals is that there wasn’t a major push to improve those three slots when they were filled in free agency.
Dayton Moore brought in Edinson Volquez to fill the open slot in the rotation, which right away is an issue. Volquez had himself a year in Pittsburgh this past season when he threw 192.2 innings of 3.04 ERA ball, but a good portion of that ERA was a combination of the Pirates’ magical ability to gobble up every single ground ball sent their way (Volquez posted a 50.4% grounder rate). Because he pitched more like a 4.15 ERA pitcher according to FIP, he was only worth 0.7 fWAR. PECOTA despises Volquez because of how woefully bad he’s been in the past, and sees him getting smacked by the long arm of regression in 2015.
It’s worth noting that the Royals are an outstanding defensive club, as I’m sure everyone now knows from watching them field their way to the World Series. But when three fifths of a starting rotation is Volquez and aging fly ball machines Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Vargas, things can look pretty ugly. Danny Duffy is also most likely due for some serious regression, and Yordano Ventura can’t carry this team by himself. I’m a big fan of Kris Medlen being brought in as an injury-bounceback lottery ticket, but we can’t count on him for anything. Maybe Brandon Finnegan can move into the starting five at some point.
Oh, and the guys who replaced Butler and Aoki? Their names are Kendrys Morales and Alex Rios. The Royals already had trouble hitting their way out of a paper bag last year, and that doesn’t seem like it’s going to change anytime soon. There aren’t any hitting prospects close to being ready in this system, which means any offensive acquisition would have to come via trade. Ben Zobrist and Justin Upton are both free agents at the end of the season, by the way. If the A’s or the Padres find themselves on the ugly ends of their offseason experiments, they could be tantalizing targets.
Cleveland Indians – Nick Swisher Happens to the Best of Us
Full disclosure: I am a firm Nick Swisher apologist. As some of you may know, I’m a Yankees fan (boo, hiss!). I was in high school when Swish arrived in New York for the Yankees’ most recent run to the World Series. In addition to being part of the brigade of players that Brian Cashman brought in to help the Yanks rebound from what was, by their standards, a disastrous 2008, Swisher had a distinct quality that many of the other Yankees lacked.
Swisher actually had a personality. He quickly became one of my favorite Bombers because of that. Goodness gracious, there was an interesting person on the Yankees that wasn’t named Alex Rodriguez. Swisher gets a lot of hate for his frat bro persona, and I completely understand if that’s not your thing. But I will always have a spot in my heart for Nick Swisher. It’s for that reason that it pains me to see him struggle so much in Cleveland. He was pretty decent when he first arrived in his native Ohio (.246/.341/.423, 22 homers, 2.3 fWAR), but 2014 was an unmitigated disaster. Injuries of all sorts plagued Swisher and he floundered to -1.6 fWAR in only 97 games.
The good news is that Swisher is pretty much the only blemish on what looks like an otherwise excellent roster for Cleveland roster. The Indians have solid bats at nearly every position, including 2014 breakout Michael Brantley patrolling left field. They’re also projected by both PECOTA and Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS system to rebound from a 2014 in which they were by far the worst defensive team in baseball. The acquisition of Brandon Moss should enable Terry Francona to spell Swisher at DH and first base with a combination of Moss and Carlos Santana, and uberprospect Francisco Lindor should be putting on quite a show at shortstop in due time.
The Indians also have a remarkable group of pitchers to play with. Obviously, there’s the reigning Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber, but also Danny Salazar, Trevor Bauer, T.J. House, Gavin Floyd, and last season’s underrated breakout pitcher in Carlos Carrasco. Carrasco absolutely eviscerated the competition down the stretch, and could be a vital part of any championship run Cleveland makes. Keep an eye on this team.
Chicago White Sox – So You’re Starting Hector Noesi on a Contender
What an offseason for the city of Chicago. We’ve already covered all the stuff that the Cubs pulled off, but Rick Hahn was quite a busy bee himself. Adam LaRoche, David Robertson, Melky Cabrera, Zach Duke, Emilio Bonifacio, Jeff Samardzija, and Geovany Soto are all new members of the Pale Hose, which is a metric ton of talent for one team to add in an offseason. There were already some fantastic building blocks on this team (Jose Abreu, Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton, Alexei Ramirez, Avisail Garcia), so are the Sox about to challenge for the division title?
Maybe. Chicago can go toe-to-toe with Detroit in the competition for the best first three starters in the AL (and I think they come out on top, too), but their back two starters are an area of serious concern. John Danks just hasn’t been very good, period. But he’s not going anywhere due to the ugly contract he’s tied to. And then there’s Hector Noesi in the fifth spot. Hector Noesi, who has never posted a FIP under 4.00 in the majors. Hector Noesi, human batting practice machine. Not exactly who you want anywhere near your starting rotation if you’re going for it.
It’s a good thing that Noesi is just keeping a seat warm, then. That slot in the rotation is destined to be held by one Carlos Rodon, the third overall pick in last year’s draft who’s already reached Triple-A. He’s almost ready. Once he gets some more seasoning in, expect to see Rodon in Chicago sometime around June. Much depends on how effective Rodon can be when he arrives, though, as the Sox don’t have a ton of depth in that department after trading Chris Bassitt to Oakland. Rodon failing to be effective after his call-up could lead to Hahn dealing someone like Micah Johnson for an arm, and the Sox don’t want to do that just yet. If Rodon can get batters out at the highest level, the Sox may turn into a runaway train.
Minnesota Twins – This is Why Your Mother and I Threatened to Take Away Your Credit Card, Terry
The Twins lost 92 games last year. The Twins are projected by PECOTA to lose 92 games again this year. I don’t think the Twins realize that they’re still a bad team.
They gave up a draft pick and oodles of money to sign Ervin Santana. They gave up a bit less money to bring Torii Hunter back for one final year, even though there’s no way that Hunter is going to be anywhere near good this year. And aside from signing middle reliever Tim Stauffer and giving Phil Hughes an extension (which was actually a good move, by the way), that’s it. It would be one thing if the Twins knew they were going to be bad this year, and simply signed Hunter as a way of making nice with the fans. After all, his yearlong retirement party is going to bring in a lot of money.
But you don’t sign Ervin Santana and give up a draft pick if you know you’re going to be bad. You sign Ervin Santana and give up a draft pick to put the finishing touch on a rotation to give your team one last shove of talent into the thick of the playoff race. I don’t think Terry Ryan realizes this. It’s the same thing he did last year when he brought in Hughes and Ricky Nolasco. We all know how that went.
Are the Twins counting on a big push from their talent-loaded farm system? Perhaps. We may be seeing Miguel Sano and Alex Meyer in the near future, but Sano is coming off major elbow surgery and Meyer hasn’t quite developed the command to go with his electric stuff. That sounds like a reliever to me, not a shot-in-the-arm starter to jump-start this rotation. I hate to break it to you, Terry, but Joe Mauer isn’t that great anymore. If you’re going to rebuild, rebuild. Byron Buxton isn’t here to save the day just yet.
Next, we’ll finish our trip to the West Coast and explore the NL West.
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