Relocating

Ross and I have decided to start our own Chicago baseball blog, Snobsvsslobs.com. I will be posting there from now on, but I will leave Taft's Baseball Blog up to refer back to things I have written in the past.

Thanks for everybody who read, and I hope you'll follow me to Snobs vs. Slobs.

Home Opener Preview

Kerry Wood makes his 2005 debut today at the Cubs home opener in Chicago. It is a rare thing to have a home opener on a day as beautiful and sunny as today is; it's not uncommon for it still to be snowing this time of the year in Chicago. But the weather gods are smiling down upon Wrigley today, and let's hope the baseball gods are, too, as the Cubs will have to go up against Chris Capuano.

Capuano was 2-2 against the Cubs last year. In his winning outings, Capuano baffled Cub hitters, going 12 1/3 innings pitched, giving up 3 runs on a 8 hits while striking out 9 and walking 6. In his losing outings, Capuano went 5 2/3, giving up 15 runs on 14 hits while striking out 9 and walking 4.

Capuano's problem throughout his career at both the minor and major league level has been that he gives up way too many hits. Last year he gave up118 hits in 121 innings, including 21 home runs. Opponents hit .269 against him, and his OPS allowed was .842.

Key Matchups (Numbers vs. Capuano, Wood)
Derrek Lee, 5-for-9, 2 HR, 1.933 OPS
Aramis Ramirez, 3-for-12, 1 HR, .891 OPS
Jeromy Burnitz, 0-for-8, 4 SO

Carlos Lee, 8-for-17, 1 HR, 1.232 OPS
Wes Helms, 4-for-9, 1.000 OPS
Damian Miller, 0-for-8, 5 SO

Prior's Minor League Outing

Mark Prior gave up seven runs on nine hits in five innings in his spring training outing. That's not much of an outing, unless one considers that the outing took place in Albuquerque. The Albuquerque Isotopes play in the minor league equivalent to Coors Field. The city of Albuquerque's elevation is 5,314 feet, which is even higher than Coors Field in Denver (which is 5,200 feet above sea level). To make matters worse for pitchers, the thin air caused by the elevation, the air in Albuquerque is very dry due to the surrounding desert conditions.

According to Baseball America's 2004 Minor League Park Factors (I'd use Baseball Prospectus' but they don't list them online), Albuquerque had a park factor of 1313, which is an absolutely staggering number. This means that Albuquerque allowed 31.3% more runs than a "neutral" park.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Prior's performance. He didn't pitch well. However, the most important thing is that he did pitch five innings despite giving up a lot of hits, and that he felt strong.

Blog Relocation

I really dislike Blogger. They don't allow tables, they don't allow pictures (unless you use their painfully annoying Picasa software); they don't really allow you to do much of anything other than type and link. With that in mind, I'm going to relocate my blog as soon as I find a service whose features I like, and I will also rename the blog, as "Taft's baseball blog" doesn't exactly scream originality.

The name is the thing I really need help with. Here are the names I've come up with so far. I'm not particularly attached or excited about any of them, but this is all I've thought of so far:

Despair at Clark and Addison
The Rational Cub Fan
You Can't Walk Across Home

Let me know which, if any, of those names you like by posting a comment or emailing me. If you have any ideas for a new blog name, please let me know. If I like it and I use it, I will give you $5. Seriously.

Already Doubting Dusty

Boy, it didn't take long for Dusty Baker to make some questionable managerial decisions, did it? On Tuesday night, the Cubs came to the plate with the tying run in scoring position with two outs. The pitchers spot came up, and Dusty elected to pinch hit with Mr. Career .680 OPS himself, Neifi Perez when there were clearly better options available.

Then in last night's game, Dusty made the brilliant decision of going with Ryan Dempster over Glendon Rusch for the third start of the season. Let's think about this objectively by looking at the last full season for each of these pitchers:

Pitcher A: 115.2 IP, 6.54 ERA, .845 OPS against, 6.54 K/9, 5.4 BB/9
Pitcher B: 129.2 IP, 3.47 ERA, .683 OPS against, 6.25 K/9, 2.3 BB/9

It doesn't take a genius to see that one of these pitchers is better than the other. While they both have similar strikeout ratios, Pitcher B walks 3 fewer batters per nine innings, and has a much better OPS against. It's obvious that Pitcher B is better, but what if I told you that Pitcher A was coming off of surgery and only pitched 20 innings last year, and that those numbers above were from 2003? Doesn't that make the choice that much easier?

In case you haven't figured it out by now, Pitcher A is last night's starter, Ryan Dempster, who went 3 2/3 innings and gave up 7 earned runs. In true Ryan Dempster fashion, he gave up a lot of hits (9) and a lot of walks (3 - one per inning). Why anyone thinks he will be anything better than a league average starting pitcher is a mystery to me.

Covering My Bases: The Other Divisions

Finally, it's opening day, and I have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. I have already made my predictions and written analysis for the NL Central and the NL West.

Before this first week of baseball sweeps me off my feet, I wanted to post at very least my analysis-free predictions for the rest of the divisions:

NL East
Marlins
Phillies
Braves
Mets
Nationals

AL Central
Twins
White Sox
Indians
Tigers
Royals

AL East
Red Sox
Yankees
Orioles
Blue Jays
Devil Rays

AL West
Angels
A's
Rangers
Mariners

Wild Cards: NL: Phillies, AL: Yankees

NLDS: Cardinals over Phillies; Marlins over Dodgers
NLCS: Marlins over Cardinals

ALDS: Red Sox over Angels; Yankees over Twins
ALCS: Red Sox over Yankees

World Series: Red Sox over Marlins

Alex Sanchez Gets Caught

The first MLB player to actually get caught with a positive steroids test is Alex Sanchez, a player whose steroid-aided bulk powered him to a .386 slugging percentage last year and his release from the Tigers this spring. When you're released by the Tigers, there's only one place to go, and that's Tampa Bay, which is where Sanchez plays now.

The fact that Sanchez, a guy who is never going to be anything more exciting than a fifth outfielder, was the first player caught speaks volumes about who may or may not have been using during the so-called "steroid era." Alex Sanchez is, quite simply, a lousy ballplayer. He hit .322 last year, which is nice, but it was in 330 ABs and he only drew 7 walks, good for a .335 OBP. Combine that with his aforementioned anemic slugging, and you've got yourself a pretty lousy hitter. And by the way, all of this was at the age of 27.

If Alex Sanchez and his career .691 OPS are on steroids, who's to say that steroids really make you a better player? Moreover, if a player like Sanchez is on steroids, it illustrates that literally anybody in baseball over the past 10-15 years could have been on steroids.

I would like to think that a player like Sanchez getting caught will cease the ridiculous talk about barring players from the hall of fame or putting asterisks on record, but it won't. There are far too many people who will see the 90's and 00's as a period of unbalanced, unfair competition dominated by steroid-enhanced athletes. This simply isn't the case; because there were no rules against steroids during this time period, every single MLB player during that era is guilty simply by virtue of the possibility that he could have used steroids without consequence.

2005 NL West Predictions

Team, 2004 Record, 2004 RS/RA, 2004 Expected Record

Dodgers, 93-69, 761 RS/684 RA, Ex W-L: 90-72
Giants, 91-71, 850 RS/770 RA, Ex W-L: 89-73
Padres, 87-75, 768 RS/703 RA, Ex W-L: 88-74
Diamondbacks, 51-111, 615 RS/899 RA, Ex W-L: 52-110
Rockies, 68-94, 833 RS/923 RA, Ex W-L: 73-89

The National League West is easily the most open division in baseball this year. The Dodgers, Padres and Giants are all going to contend for the division title, and none of them are going to have more than 92 wins. They are all very similar teams, in that they all have a few strengths and big weaknesses.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are the team that has the most realistic chance of winning this division. I say that because they will likely finish with a similar Runs Scored to Allowed ratio as last year, and that will probably be good enough for them to get 88-92 wins and the division title. The Dodgers, when healthy, have a formidable offense that will produce a lot of runs with JD Drew, Milton Bradley and Jeff Kent in the middle of the lineup with young Jayson Werth continually improving in left. Hee Seop Choi, 26, will hit now that he has a chance to play every day (people forget he had an .883 OPS with the Fish last year before he was traded to the Dodgers). Jose Valentin replaces Adrian Beltre at third, and while he won't reproduce Beltre's numbers or get on base much, he is a good candidate to hit 30 home runs, which is why the Dodgers signed him. The Dodgers have a good pitching staff if they're healthy; Brad Penny, Odalis Perez and Derek Lowe is a pretty solid 1-2-3 punch for a team that plays in a great pitchers park, although Penny and Perez have been trudging through injuries this spring. Despite Derek Lowe's troubles last year, he is going to benefit from playing in Dodger stadium in front of a much improved defense (for him); Cesar Izturis is a vaccuum, easily a better defender than Nomar Garciaparra or Orlando Cabrera. Jeff Kent is not a slick fielder, but he's certainly no Mark Bellhorn. Jose Valentin is probably the most underrated defensive infielder in baseball. The Dodgers are very thin on the bench, and are thin in the starting rotation beyond Perez, Penny and Lowe. Their bullpen, anchored by Eric Gagne and Giovanni Carrara, should be among the best in baseball again. A lot of talking heads are wondering what the Dodgers are going to do without Guillermo Mota in the pen, but Paul DePodesta knows that quality bullpen help is often just a phone call to Vero Beach away. With a healthy Penny and Perez, the Dodgers could win 93 games again, but don't count on it... the Dodgers will probably end up winning somewhere around 87-91 games, and that will be good enough for the division title.

I came very close to picking the Padres to finish second, but the San Francisco Giants always seem to overperform. The reason they do this is probably because of Barry Bonds, about whom I may have said a word or two in this space. The question for the Giants is, when will Barry return? Without Bonds, the Giants are a team of old men who will creak their way to a second or third-place finish. With Bonds, the Giants add the equivalent of two good hitters rolled up into one and transform themselves into instant contenders. The Giants' hitters are old. It is completely unreasonable to expect Omar Vizquel, Moises Alou, J.T. Snow, Marquis Grissom, or Mike Matheny to improve over last year's offensive numbers. If you compare production of the Giants' free agent signees to the production they had at the position last season, it ends up looking like this (2004 OPS in parentheses):

2004 C: AJ Pierzynski (.729 OPS); 2005 C: Mike Matheny (.640 OPS) - Result: Major offensive decline
2004 SS: Deivi Cruz (.753 OPS); 2005 SS: Omar Vizquel (.741 OPS) - Omar Vizquel turns 38 on April 24. He is moving from Jacobs Field to one of the toughest pitcher's parks in baseball. Result: Major offensive decline.
2004 RF: Michael Tucker (.765 OPS); 2005 RF: Moises Alou (.919 OPS) - Alou hit 1.120 at Wrigley and .716 on the road last year. While I will say that the result is a minor offensive improvement, don't be surprised if Alou, who turns 39 in July, collapses this year.

The Giants are hoping that their pitching staff, which contains bright spots like Noah Lowry, Jeromie Robertson and, perhaps the best pitcher in the NL, Jason Schmidt, will help them survive. I'm not counting on it. The funny thing about this division though, is that the Giants are probably just about as close to winning the division as they are to a total collapse. It all depends on Mr. Bonds (a) returning and (b) being as ageless as he has been over the past several years. The Giants will win 85-89 games this year, and will contend for the NL West title. Without Barry Bonds, don't be surprised to see the Giants become a .500 (or worse) club.

I just don't buy what the San Diego Padres are selling. Okay, they've got a nice young pitching staff in Jake Peavy, Brian Lawrence and Adam Eaton, and Woody Williams should be a nice innings-eater for them. Of course, they may have the best bullpen in all of baseball with Chris Hammond, Scott Linebrink, Akinori Otsuka, and Trevor Hoffman.

But how is this team going to score runs? In terms of handeness, the Padres are a very balanced team, with four lefties and four righties in their starting lineup. But the problem is that the lefties (Klesko, Giles, Burroughs) are supposed to be the best hitters on the team, but PetCo park has been extremely unfriendly to them. Meanwhile, the right-handed hitters seem to do pretty well at PetCo; Phil Nevin hit 26 homers last year, Khalil Greene hit 15, Mark Loretta hit 16. Ryan Klesko, who has averaged 28 home runs per 162 games over the course of his career, hit just 9. The Padres need their left-handed thumpers to thump, and they're not going to do that in PetCo. The Padres will win 85-89 games and contend for the NL West crown. With a few key injuries to the Dodgers and the potential age-related collapse of the Giants, the Padres could emerge as easy winners in this division, but they are going to have to get a lot of hitting for that to happen.

When I hear people on television like John Kruk say that if Bonds is out for the season, the Arizona Diamondbacks will win the division, I want to call them up and yell, do you realize how awful the Diamondbacks were last year? I mean, do you have any idea? The Diamondbacks were 51-111, winning 31.4% of their games, the worst mark in baseball by 7 games. They scored the fewest runs in the National League and allowed the third-most, and that was with Randy Johnson and Brandon Webb. Apparently when there's a lot of movement on a team, it's enough to distract people from facts like that, and they come to believe that Shawn Green, Troy Glaus, Russ Ortiz and Javy Vazquez will be enough to make this team improve by... 30something games? That's ridiculous. Shawn Green is overrated, as is Russ Ortiz. The combination of Ortiz and Vazquez in the pitching rotation will probably help a little bit, but not all that much; remember, this is a team that had the best pitcher in the National League on it last year, and they still only won 51 games. Shawn Green is one of the most overrated players around. He's a decent player, but he is clearly past his peak, which took place during his age 26-30 seasons (1998-2002). He's never going to hit 40 homers again, although he's a good bet to hit 30 in the thin air in Arizona. Troy Glaus could hit 40 homers in that park, but he was out most of last year because of a shoulder injury that he got when he was fielding. As a result, the Angels played him at DH for most of the time when he returned so as not to re-aggravate it. He does not have that option in Arizona, and they are apparently not going to move him to first base, which might have helped.

Don't listen to John Kruk; the Diamondbacks are going to be bad. I would be shocked if they won more than 76 games this year, and they probably won't win that many. If they do manage that many victories, Arizona fans should poop their pants with glee,

Quick: name one starting position player on the Colorado Rockies not named Todd Helton.

Preston Wilson. Okay, there's one. Ummm... Aaron Miles? Is he still with them? Okay, that's two.... Umm.....

Actually, the Rockies have one of the more exciting rookies in the NL in a young man named Jeff Francis. The problem is, he's a pitcher, and we all know what happens to pitchers at Coors Field. It doesn't keep me up at nights, but sometimes I wonder if the Rockies will ever contend as long as they're playing a mile above sea level. They have had one wild card season there, so it's possible, but it sure doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.

Other than Francis and Todd Helton, one of the great hitters of the 90's and oughts, the Rockies don't have a lot going for them. They have a lot of promising young hitters in their minor league system. But this year, the Rockies will be the worst team in the National League. Expect them to win 60-66 games.

2005 NL Central Predictions

Team, 2004 Record, 2004 RS/RA, 2004 Expected Record
Cardinals, 105-57, 855 RS/659 RA, Ex W-L: 102-60
Cubs, 89-73, 789 RS/665 RA, Ex W-L: 95-67
Astros, 92-70, 803 RS/698 RA, Ex W-L: 92-70
Pirates, 72-89, 680 RS/744 RA, Ex W-L: 74-88
Reds: 76-86, 750 RS/907 RA, Ex W-L: 66-96
Brewers: 67-94, 634 RS/757 RA, Ex W-L: 67-95

As much as I would love to predict the demise of the St. Louis Cardinals, I'm afraid I will have to do just the opposite: The Cardinals were the best team in the National League last year, allowing the fewest runs and scoring the most. The good news for Cub fans is that they won't be as good as last year; Chris Carpenter pitched way over his head last year, there are always questions about Matt Morris' health, and there are questions about Mark Mulder's consistency. However, if you look at Mark Mulder as a replacement for Woody Williams, it's reasonable to expect that the pitching staff will be just about as good as it was last year. The bullpen, one of the best in the league, remains largely intact, but they did lose Steve "We're Number One" Kline to Baltimore. David Eckstein represents a major defensive downgrade for a pitching staff that doesn't strike a lot of guys out. Still, with an offensive core that will bring four 1.000 OPS-caliber hitters to the plate every day, the Cardinals won't need much more than league average starting pitching. Barring crippling injuries to two or three of their Big Four (Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds, Walker), the Cardinals will win 92-98 games and remain the best team in the NL.

The success of the Chicago Cubs depends on a lot of "if/then" scenarios. If Mark Prior and Kerry Wood make 30 starts each, then the Cubs will have the best starting rotation in Major League Baseball. If Nomar Garciaparra stays healthy for 150+ games and Dusty Baker lets Todd Walker play every day, the Cubs might have the best offensive infield in all of baseball. If Corey Patterson can learn to stop chasing face-high fastballs, then the Cubs might have an actual leadoff man. If Dusty Baker starts Jason Dubois instead of Todd Hollandsworth, who will get hurt, the Cubs would have a pretty strong bench. Those are all really big ifs. But even if none of those ifs come true, the Cubs are still easily the second-best team in this division, with a depleted Houston Astros team and a soft underbelly in the division's second tier. With the losses of Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou, their offense has gotten worse, but with full years from Prior and Wood, the pitching staff could be better. The question for the Cubs is, will their new "more balanced" offense be able to score runs with more consistency than the feast-or-famine offense of 2004? Time will tell, but the answer is probably no. The reason the Cubs didn't score runs with consistency last year wasn't because they were dependent on the home run; it was because they never had men on base when they did hit the home run. The Cubs finished 11th in the National League in on-base percentage last year. All four 2004 NL playoff teams finished in the top half of the league in OBP. The Cubs organization has not shown much interest in investing in players with on-base skills, has not shown any interest in trying to teach on-base skills to their minor leaguers, and Dusty Baker certainly isn't going to start preaching the virtues of Moneyball anytime soon. That said, the Cubs should be a slightly better on-base team this year with (theoretically) full years from Todd Walker and Nomar Garciaparra. While their infield defense will likely remain average to slightly below average, the Cubs outfield defense has improved drastically by replacing Alou and Sosa with Hollandsworth/Dubois and Burnitz, respectively. The bottom line with the Cubs is, there's no reason to believe that they will be any better than they were last year. However, the National League Central isn't as competitive as it was last year, so the Cubs should have enough to win 84 to 90 games, which will be enough to compete for the wild card, especially if Hendry is dealing at the deadline.

The Houston Astros will not have enough to compete this year, and it's mostly because they weren't able to retain Carlos Beltran. The good news first: Roger Clemens returns for yet another season, which immediately gives the Astros fifteen wins that they wouldn't have had if Clemens had retired. Roy Oswalt is a stud, and is heading into his age 27 season. That's about it. Now the bad news: The Astros didn't make any moves this offseason, mostly because they are paying Clemens $80 bajillion this coming season and because they are on the books for 37 year-old Jeff Bagwell's albatross of a contract (he will be paid $17 million this year). The Astros aren't quite sure to do with Craig Biggio; they seem to understand that he is an awful, awful outfielder, so they have moved him back to second base to get Mike Lamb some at-bats in left. The good news is that this will probably open up center field for the Astros promising young prospect, Willy Tavarez, at least until Lance Berkman gets back from his injury. The bad news is that Biggio's return to 2B will block Chris Burke from getting the job. Burke is 25 and a .300/.380/.450 hitter in the minors, so now is the time to promote him. This will stifle the Astros offense, as 39 year-old Biggio's numbers will continue to drop as he ages. Biggio's .806 OPS last season looks fluky - it was the first time since 2001 he'd posted an OPS higher than .800, and it looks like he was greatly aided by a hitter-friendly home ballpark (.831 at home, .781 on the road). More bad news for the Astros: Andy Pettite isn't nearly as good of a pitcher as they think he is. Pettite's a nice pitcher, but he's no ace. His ERAs have fluctuated wildly in his career due to his unspectacular strikeout rate (6.5 K/9 for his career). Last year, Pettite seemed to learn that he would need to strike more batters out after playing his entire career in a park friendly to left-handed pitchers, as his K rate increased to the highest in his career, 8.57 per 9 innings. We will never know if that was what caused his world famous "barky" elbow to act up, as he made only 15 starts. Even if the Astros get a full season from Pettite, he's basically a slightly better than average pitcher. The Astros have a lot of empty spaces in their bullpen, on their bench, and if they continue to let Biggio play every day, at second base. If Clemens and Pettite are healthy, the Astros will be good enough to win 82-86 games, but they won't have the offense to stick around for the playoff hunt. With aging players at catcher, first base, second base and in the rotation, and big bullpen and bench questions, don't be surprised if the Astros collapse this year.

The second tier of the NL Central contains three teams that do not have a prayer to contend this year. It may surprise some of you to see me predicting the Pittsburgh Pirates finishing fourth, but the Pirates have many players that we should reasonably expect to improve this year. Jason Bay, last year's Rookie of the Year winner, will be 26 is heading into his prime. Craig Wilson, 28, and Jack Wilson, 27, both performed well last year in a park that is unfriendly to right-handed hitters. Oliver Perez is just 23 and struck out 10.97 hitters per 9 innings last year. Kip Wells and Josh Fogg are both league average pitchers who are 27 and 28 respectively, so they could both improve as well. The bad news for Pirates fans is that the Bucs don't have much promise in the pipeline. What they have should be enough for them to win 72-78 games this year and claim first place in the NL Central's Tier of Mediocrity.

I don't think people realize how truly lucky the Cincinnati Reds were last season. The Red were the luckiest team in the National League, winning 10 games more than their Runs Scored to Allowed Ratio would have expected them to. The Reds pitching staff allowed a whopping 907 runs, the second-worst mark in all of major league baseball. The only teams that allowed more than 900 runs last year were the Rockies (923), the Reds (907) and the Royals. The Reds were the only team out of those three not to lose 90 games, and they came pretty close, at 86. The Reds recognized that they had a problem with their pitching, so they went out and got Eric Milton to bolster the rotation and Kent Mercker and David Weathers to bolster the bullpen. However, at the same time the Reds addressed their pitching problems, they ignored them. The Reds gave up 236 homers last year, the most in the National League; shockingly, they gave up more home runs than the Rockies. Jose Acevedo gave up 30. Paul Wilson and Aaron Harang both gave up 26. Eric Milton, the man who would save the Reds rotation, gave up 43 homers last year with the Phillies, the most in the National League. Meanwhile, the Reds keep praying that Ken Griffey Jr. and Austin Kearns will stay healthy an entire season so that the Reds can bob their heads above the .500 level. Griffey's never going to be healthy for a full season again, and there's little reason to believe that Kearns will be either. The good news for the Reds is that they have Willy Mo Pena to back them up, who is a good power threat if little else. With an awful, home run prone pitching staff in a home run prone ballpark, the Reds are going to allow a lot of runs, maybe just as many as last year. It's going to be a long summer in Cincinnati as the Reds starters give up home run after home run, the bullpen gets worn out quickly, and the Reds win 68-72 games.

The Milwaukee Brewers' success won't come this year, but make no mistake, if the Brewers can retain Ben Sheets, they will be a pretty good team in 2006. By then they will have a rotation that inculdes Ben Sheets, Doug Davis (3.39 ERA, 7.21 K/9 ratio last year) and highly touted prospect Jose Capellan, who will be 25 in '06, and a lineup that will include Carlos Lee, Geoff Jenkins, Lyle Overbay, and youngsters Rickie Weeks, J.J. Hardy and Prince Fielder, all of whom have put up monster numbers at their positions in the minor leagues.

With the possible exception of Hardy, all of those guys will start the season in the minors, which means Brewers fans will suffer through another long summer in Milwaukee. While Carlos Lee will help the outfield production, 31 year-old Brady Clark's .280/.385/.397 season looks very fluky compared to his career numbers of .267/.353/.389, and he is slated to start in center field. Geoff Jenkins is what he is: a good bet for an .800 to .850 OPS and an even better bet to land on the DL. With the exception of Lyle Overbay, the infield looks awful from an offensive standpoint: Damian Miller, Junior Spivey, Bill Hall and Russ Branyan do not exactly strike fear into the hearts of opposing pitching. To make matters worse, they have no bullpen, and a bunch of question marks in the rotation after Sheets and Davis. With the team they have currently assembled, I can't see the Brewers winning more than 70 games this year. But keep the faith, Brewers fans... 2006 could be the year the Brewers contend.