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Let's remember the good with A-Rod

Alex Rodriguez is probably the greatest player I’ve ever rooted for. He had unbelievable talent, an easily mimicked swing and an undeniable ease about playing the game. But I still use the word probably because there are no absolutes with Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez except for this one: I have spent more minutes talking and thinking about Alex Rodriguez than any other athlete. 

Somehow, it’s taken until his retirement for the topic to get a little bit tired. I’m tired of talking about A-Rod’s morality and whether he should be in the Hall of Fame and using him as the poster boy for the Steroid Era.

When I think of A-Rod 10 years from now, I want to remember the 2009 postseason, in particular Game 2 of the ALCS, one of the forgotten great games from the past 10 years. It was rainy and disgusting outside and the game went 13 innings, ending early the next morning. In my 5^th grade class on Monday, I was one of the lucky kids because my parents let me stay up and watch. I was half asleep when A-Rod hit the tied the game in the 11^th but I still remember the feeling when the ball cleared the right field fence at Yankee Stadium by about six inches. Two innings later when Jerry Hairston Jr. scored the winning run, that feeling of anxiety and relief turned to joy and a little more than two weeks later the Yankees were on top of the world and it turned to euphoria.

I skipped school for the parade. My dad’s office had a perfect view of the Canyon of Heroes and we had sat and watched the year before when the Giants had their parade after beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. In 2009, we never got within a block of the building. It was so crowded you couldn’t cross the street without fighting a mob. I barely caught a glimpse of the parade but it didn’t matter because the Yankees were champions and order had been restored to the universe.

That parade doesn’t happen without Alex Rodriguez. Not just for his home run in Game 2 of the ALCS but for a .365 average that postseason, including six home runs and more clutch hits than you can count.

I want to remember hundreds more homers and big hits, more than I care to count. In August of 2009, the Yankees and Red Sox played 14 ½ scoreless innings before A-Rod blasted one into left-center to end it. I learned about that one the next day because I had fallen asleep listening to it on the radio. Last April when he hit one 471 feet in Tampa Bay and everyone knew that he was back and the walk-off grand slam against Baltimore nine Aprils ago, an eon in the timeline of A-Rod. And last night when he jogged out onto the field in the ninth inning to play third base for the first time in over a year and looked like a little boy who had just met Santa Claus.

And yes, there are also lots of things I’d love to forget about A-Rod. That goes without saying. Controversy came with the package but if you were to ask me, I’d happily do it again. There are too many memories to say otherwise.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

The Case for Trading Trout

There’s an important caveat to this exercise: The Angels are not going to trade Mike Trout. They haven’t been rumored to nor will they ever will be rumored to.  Trout has four straight top-two MVP finishes[1] and he’s the favorite to win this year’s award, per Odds Shark. More than that, he’s hands-down the best player in baseball, a generational talent whom the Angels are privileged to have in their organization. The rationale for keeping him makes perfect sense. But that doesn’t mean it’s correct.

The last time a hitter that led the league in Fangraphs’ WAR was traded in the middle of a season was Rickey Henderson in 1989 (Trout is currently tied with Josh Donaldson for the lead). Although the returns were, in hindsight, sparse for the Yankees[2] who traded him to Oakland, there was a litany of reasons for that. The Yankees were wavering on giving Henderson a new contract; in part because they thought he was in decline[3], and, per the New York Times[4], the team was in desperate need to pitching. Henderson also had a no-trade clause so he needed to approve any potential trades (which killed a deal with the Giants).

With that in mind, let’s consider what the Angels might get in return for Mike Trout. He’s on the second year of a 6-year, $144 million contract, per Spotrac, that looks great on paper. His salary rockets up to $33.25 million in 2018, but that’s right at his peak, when he’s 26, with the contract ending when Trout is 29 in 2020. Like Henderson, Trout has a full no-trade clause which could hold up talks with some teams though it’s tough to believe Trout wouldn’t want to play for a contender over the Angels. But even when you consider that, Trout would bring an unprecedented package back to the Angels, a team that desperately needs it. Keith Law had them dead last in his preseason farm system rankings with zero players in his top-100. They’re also dead last in the AL West with the well of talent beyond Trout having gone dry. Trout’s 6.0 Baseball-Reference WAR is practically triple any other Angels player (Kole Calhoun has 2.1 rWAR).

Think of what teams like the Cubs or Astros, both with stacked farm systems and in the heat of a pennant race, would give up for Mike Trout. Trout would hand the Cubs their first title in 108 years and solve a problem in centerfield for the Astros that goes by the name of Carlos Gomez. A team like the Mets would give up pitching galore and a team like the Yankees would gut their farm system so the franchise could have a superstar face attached to it again. Trout would vault a team like the Red Sox, Indians or Giants from contenders to odds-on favorites even at a gargantuan price tag that could potentially see young stars like Mookie Betts or Tyler Naquin go to Anaheim.

The Angels aren’t going to have a contender by the time Trout’s contract is up unless GM Billy Eppler works a miracle. There simply isn’t enough talent in the organization for it to be there by the time Trout hits free agency and leaves. This is the absolute peak of his value too, Trout is young and teams trading for him don’t have to think about whether or not they want to give him an inflated contract when he’s approaching 30 for another four years.  

The Angels can get themselves on the fast track to contention if they trade Trout. Whoever gets him gets the best player in baseball for his prime and likely becomes title favorites for all of those years and Trout himself gets to play meaningful baseball and truly be considered among the greats should he add a championship to his resume. This is a win for everybody. It’s a shame we’ll never see it happen.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

 

[1] That sentence probably should read “three of the last four MVPs” because that’s what he was deserving of and that’s what he would have had if the Angels were a playoff team in 2012 and 2015.

[2] They got back Greg Cadaret, Eric Plunk and Luis Polonia

[3] Henderson won the 1990 MVP and was in the league until 2003.

[4] This article is at least a seven on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.

It's time for the Yankees to blow it up

The New York Yankees have played 74 games and won exactly half of them. They sit in fourth place in the American League East, 7.5 games behind the Orioles and eighth place in the AL Wild Card standings, 2.5 games behind the Blue Jays. FiveThirtyEight gives them a 13 percent chance of making the postseason, Baseball Prospectus gives them a 9.4 percent chance of doing the same while Fangraphs’ model gives them a 12.6 percent chance. With that in mind, it’s time for the organization to stop deluding itself into thinking it can compete. It’s time to blow it up

The current iteration of the Yankees is not only mediocre, it’s old. Overwhelmingly old. On a given day, their lineup features Brian McCann, age 32, Mark Teixeira, age 36, Chase Headley, age 32, Brett Gardner, age 32, Jacoby Ellsbury, age 32, Carlos Beltran, age 39, and Alex Rodriguez, age 40. Their best starting pitcher, CC Sabathia is 35 and their best relief pitcher, Andrew Miller, is 31. It’s one thing to keep an older team together if you think it has a chance of winning but this team does not have a chance of winning. In their last 11 games, all against Minnesota and Colorado, two decisively bad teams, the Yankees went 6-5, blowing a chance to make a run at a playoff spot. Had they done well in those 11 games, there would be a reasonable argument to keep this team together and maybe even become buyers at the trade deadline. But they didn’t do well and now their schedule gets much harder with series against the Rangers, White Sox, Indians, Red Sox, Orioles and Giants making up most of their upcoming games.

Keeping this team together is a futile exercise, hurting the future of the team to keep up a charade of a contention to a fanbase that should know better. The Yankees should move Carlos Beltran to a team in need of a DH that has prospects to sell, perhaps Houston if they can continue to pull back into contention. They should trade Aroldis Chapman’s expiring contract to a bullpen-needy Cubs and try to get Kyle Schwarber in return, a young player on a good contract who’s a perfect hitter for Yankee Stadium. If it all possible[1], the Yankees should move CC Sabathia before his home run rate regresses, even if they can’t get all that much for his inflated contract.

It’s probably close to impossible to move more than those three unless they decide to trade Andrew Miller, a potentially regrettable move given that he’s under contract for two more seasons at just $9 million per year. That being said, the Yankees simply need to do what they can to build for the future. It’s overwhelmingly clear that this core isn’t winning a championship and it probably isn’t even winning a division. The organization needs to operate with realistic expectations of what this team is capable of, which means selling off assets and building for next season.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

All stats are accurate as of 6/27

 

[1] And I’m realistic to know it probably isn’t.

David Ortiz is 40 and he still scares the hell out of me

The aging curve is supposed to be a given in baseball. From Ruth to Mays to Jeter, when stars get old, they decline. Ruth hitting six home runs for the 1935 Boston Braves, Mays languishing in the outfield for the 1973 Mets and Jeter hanging on by a thread during his retirement tour are all images we’d like to forget but we also get it. After you get to a certain age, it becomes a lot harder to get around on a major league fastball.

Even in the rare instance of a player defying the aging curve, we can usually see why. Mariano Rivera had one of the best singular pitches in Major League history and that didn’t change too much as he got older. Barry Bonds had a .480 on base percentage with 28 home runs at age 42 because he’s the best hitter of all-time and he had some chemical help. Same goes for Roger Clemens winning four Cy Young Awards after hitting age 34.

The thing about David Ortiz being as good as he’s been this late in his career is that there isn’t really an explanation for it. Based on him already having been caught for steroids and vehemently denying years ago and increased drug testing now, he’s probably not using any PEDs. He’s not in good shape, he can’t run and he hasn’t played over 200 innings in the field since 2004 because of both those reasons. When his case is brought before the BBWAA, he’ll probably get into Cooperstown eventually but it probably won’t be on the first ballot either because of a combination of the steroids, Ortiz being a DH and his career numbers being on the borderline of entrance anyway[1].

Ortiz is an outlier in a game that so often gets boiled down to a line of best fit. What he’d done this year, unsustainable as it may be, is practically unprecedented for a 40-year old this side of Bonds. He’s hitting .340/.423/.708, leading the league in doubles, on base, slugging and OPS. Even more than that; as a Yankee fan, Ortiz still scares the hell out of me.

 Since I’ve been watching baseball, no player has consistently made me as nervous as David Ortiz[2]. Even before anyone tells you “Hey, this guy is really good and he also destroys the Yankees with regularity”, you know it just because of his demeanor. Even through a television screen, Ortiz is physically imposing when he steps in the box to the point where you almost don’t want to go inside on him. He hits the ball low exceptionally well with his sweet spot being low and away (where he’s hitting .370 since 2007 according to Brooks Baseball). A full chart of his batting average by pitch location shows that Ortiz hits the best when the ball is thrown to places pitchers like it the most.

He’s seen more pitches in the three zones where he has the highest batting average (low and away, low middle and outside middle) than anyplace else. Unless you can get him to chase somewhere, which is unlikely considering his surprisingly good plate discipline [3], there isn’t really a safe spot unless you’re comfortable leaving the ball up.

It doesn’t help that, of all teams, he does the best against the Yankees. Among American League teams[4], Ortiz has a higher batting average against the Yankees than any team except one. His career line against New York is .307/.395/.576 with 52 home runs. Obviously he was the 2004 ALCS MVP as well with a 1.199 OPS in the series and the two most important hits in Boston’s franchise history.

He’s in that rare class of players that performs twice as well when it counts. He’s got three World Series rings and plays at his highest level in October. In high leverage situations, Ortiz has a career .940 OPS. With 2 outs and runners in scoring position, he has a .950 OPS, in late and close games he has an .875 OPS and in tie games he has a .965 OPS. If you ask someone to pick a player from the last 15 years to bat in a pivotal moment during a Game 7, there’s a damn good chance they’d answer Ortiz.

As he’s gotten older, Yankee fans have been waiting for that inevitable decline so we can point and laugh when the Red Sox insist on hitting Ortiz cleanup just like the Boston fans did when the Yankees insisted on having Derek Jeter’s corpse at the top of the order. Instead, at age 40, Ortiz is going to be intentionally walked this postseason so opposing teams can face Hanley Ramirez instead. That makes his Hall of Fame argument better than any number can.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted.

 

[1] According to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system, Ortiz falls well short of the average benchmarks for a first baseman to make the Hall of Fame. Of course there are no reference points for a full-time DH as Ortiz is, Frank Thomas had a significantly higher JAWS score than Ortiz and made the Hall of Fame as did Edgar Martinez who has not yet made the Hall of Fame.

[2] Other players who came close: Kyle Farnsworth, Manny Ramirez, Jaret Wright, Cliff Lee, A-Rod during the postseason, Javier Vazquez and Kyle Farnsworth a second time. The guy on the complete opposite of the spectrum: Tim Wakefield.

[3] He has a 12.2 percent career walk rate which is high for any player, let alone a power-hitting DH.

[4] Not including the Astros because they were in the National League for the vast majority of Ortiz’s career.

2016 MLB Preview: NL West

From 2012 to 2015, the first years of the new Dodgers' ownership, the team looked a lot like the Yankees of the mid-2000's. Spend more than anyone, win a lot in the regular season, and then quietly exit come October. Since 2013, the Dodgers have had over 90 wins each year, won three NL West titles and gotten past the NLDS once. This year, that model changed a little bit. Though the Dodgers still boast the highest payroll in the league, per Spotrac, they're paying just over $254 million this season as oppose to over $301 million last year. 

The difference is pretty minimal and most of it can be found in two players who are no longer with the team: Zack Greinke and Jimmy Rollins. While no one will deny that the Dodgers aren't quite as fearsome without last year's Cy Young runner-up, even less people will tell you that Greinke's 6-year, $206.5 million contract, complete with a modified no trade clause that will see him in Arizona through his age-37 season (during which he'll be paid a total of $35 million, per Spotrac) was something the Dodgers would have been smart to match. Stan Kasten and co are learning on the fly, but they're doing a pretty good job. At the beginning of this ownership's regime, Greinke probably would have been signed to an even more bloated deal than he found in Arizona. Now, the owners understand that you don't just need big names to build; you need to do so from the ground up.

Not only do the Dodgers now have the league's second-best farm system according to Keith Law's rankings and a player in Corey Seager who seems like the unanimous Rookie of the Year before a pitch has been thrown, but the Dodgers refused to give up pieces of that system at the deadline last year. Seager and Julio Urias, one of their top pitchers, were off limits. Those two players, along with the rest of their farm system, are going to play a bigger role on winning Dodgers teams over the next decade than anyone they can acquire at the deadline and the ownership started to understand that last year. As early as this year, when Seager is the starting shortstop and Urias could get a September call-up, they're going to reap the rewards. 

5. Colorado Rockies

The Rockies have yet to solve the elusive problem of Coors Field in the 23 years since the franchise has existed. Three playoff appearances, one pennant and six last place finishes (including three in the last four years) are all the Rockies have to show for those 23 years. They haven't figured out how to build a good pitching staff (by WAR, the best 3 pitchers in Rockies history are Ubaldo Jimenez, Aaron Cook, and Jhoulys Chacin) nor have they figured out how to leverage the offensive advantages that the park provides (with the exception of those three playoff appearances). And they're not any closer to doing that in 2016. 

Even with the astronomical advantage that Coors Field provides, the Rockies ranked dead last in offense last season by wRC+. While playing in Coors Field hurts their wRC+ (the stat is adjusted for ballpark), that's still an awful sign. Essentially everyone on this team except for Nolan Arenado, a superstar, and Gerardo Parra, who the team just signed, is tradeable if someone will take them. The Rockies need to take this year and stock up their farm system to build around Arenado, a truly great player. Take Carlos Gonzalez, his teammate and former MVP candidate, as a cautionary tale, the lesson of which is to do everything you can to build around a star player. Arenado hit .287/.323/.575 last year with 42 home runs and 18 defensive runs saved at third base. If that's not a franchise player, nothing is. 

The road to building a winning team lies through trading everybody. Carlos Gonzalez has just two years left on his deal including 2016, making him an attractive trade candidate despite his age. When you factor in the Coors effect, Gonzalez hit 14 percent better than league average last season by wRC+, making him a viable trade candidate for any playoff team in need of an outfielder. Charlie Blackmon is another outfielder who hit decently last season, clocking in with a .797 OPS and 43 stolen bases last season. Blackmon's on a solid contract, so don’t be surprised if he gets shipped out as well despite heading into arbitration next offseason. D.J. LeMahieu is also tradeable, though 2.3 bWAR isn't great. 

Beyond those guys, there aren't many players who have trade value. Maybe they can find takers for Ben Paulsen or Nick Hundley, but that's pretty unlikely unless they perform well in the first part of the year. Nobody's trading for Jose Reyes after he had an 80 wRC+ last season to complement bad fielding and an incoming suspension. On the pitching side, Jorge De La Rosa may have some value but it's tough to believe that he'll play somewhere else at age 34 and the rest of the staff is awful.

The Rockies ranked dead last in ERA last season and before you tell me it had a lot to do with Coors, they ranked 26th in park-adjusted ERA-. Chad Bettis had a solid 3.85 FIP last season but that was in only 115 innings. Tyler Chatwood missed last year with injury, but when he was healthy two years ago he wasn't very good. Jordan Lyles pitched just 49 innings and had a sub-optimal 112 ERA- and Jon Gray, a heralded prospect, had a 5.53 ERA over the first 40.2 innings of his career.

Throw all of these elements together and you get a team that may challenge the Phillies for worst record in baseball with no way of getting better. There's a fire-sale coming but based on the history of this franchise, I can't see how they can develop enough prospects to contend. The Rockies have never been able to contend for an extended period of time, they've never had substantial success outside of 2007 and building a team in that altitude seems close to impossible. There really may be no way forward.

4. San Diego Padres

One year after a miserably failed experiment to get the Padres into contention, the team is sitting in limbo with bleak expectations for the future. A.J. Preller kept just enough assets from last year to make the Padres respectable, but not enough to make them good. Most of their struggles are going to come from hitting.

In addition to playing in Petco, a pitcher's park through and through, the Padres simply have very few strong hitters. Wil Myers was solid last season, hitting .253/.336/.427, but he has yet to make the leap into stardom and time is running out. Myers' rookie year remains his best in the majors and this year may be his last chance to make that leap. Matt Kemp hits well enough but had just 0.6 bWAR last season thanks to truly horrendous fielding. Kemp had -15 defensive runs saved and a -17.2 UZR last season and a .755 OPS isn't really good enough to make up for that. Melvin Upton hit surprisingly well in San Diego last season, putting up a .259/.327/.459 slash line last season but it's tough to buy that with a small sample size and the knowledge that Upton had a .593 OPS and hit below the Mendoza Line over the two years before 2015. Yangervis Solarte hit 9 percent above league average, but that feels like his ceiling and it's not good enough to make up for other deficiencies in the lineup. 

On top of bad hitting, the Padres also had ranked 26th in defensive runs saved last season and aren't going to be much better. Matt Kemp will continue to be one of the worst fielders in the game and while the rest of the team pales in comparison, things aren't that great. New shortstop Alexei Ramirez had -6 DRS last season and is aging while Solarte clocked in at -3 DRS. Without any particularly good fielders to counteract all of that, Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projects them at -6.6 FRAA this season. That's not awful, but it certainly doesn't help.

Pitching may be the saving grace of this team if players like Tyson Ross and Andrew Cashner aren't traded. While James Shields was disappointing last year, it's tough to imagine him giving up 1.47 home runs per 9 innings in Petco again. When you normalize home run rate and take out the defense, Shields had a 3.70 xFIP last season which most fans would probably be happy with from the 34-year old. Tyson Ross may be an All-Star this year if he can figure out his control. Ross led the league in both walks and wild pitches last season but despite that had a 2.98 FIP, which was top-10 in the league. Ross struck out well over a batter per inning and had 4.4 fWAR. If he stops walking so many people, he can be an All-Star for the second time in his career. Andrew Cashner could also be a solid third starter if things like defense improve. Cashner suffered from a .330 BABIP last year and was below replacement level by bWAR. However, when you look at the FIP-based WAR found on Fangraphs, Cashner was a 2.3-win player. That variance reflects how bad San Diego's defense was last season more than anything and if things improve even marginally, Cashner will probably be just fine.

While the starting staff, or at least the first three pitchers of it, will likely be fine, the bullpen is another issue. Fernando Rodney comes into the year as the closer which can't make fans very comfortable. Rodney had a 4.92 FIP last season and was below replacement level by fWAR. With the Mariners and Cubs, Rodney blew seven saves and converted only 16. That screams disaster and having rookie Jon Edwards open the season on the DL doesn't help the situation. 

The Padres have solid hitting and starting pitching at best but when you combine that with bad fielding and a bad bullpen, things don't look good. Without many impact bats, the offense will likely straggle around league average and fail to get over the hump. In a competitive NL West where the Dbacks, Giants and Dodgers all have playoff hopes the Padres will languish in mediocrity for yet another year. 

3. Arizona Diamondbacks

If a team tries to go from below .500 to a championship contender within one offseason, it’s inviting disaster and disaster has already struck with the Diamondbacks. While the plethora of new acquisitions has absolutely nothing to do with A.J. Pollock fracturing his elbow yesterday, the loss of an All-Star outfielder is going to put a dent into the chances of a team that was already going to struggle to fulfill lofty expectations. Though we don't know how long Pollock will be out for, it's not a good thing that he told Steve Gilbert his goal is to return this year. Losing Pollock is losing a .315/.367/.498, 20 home runs, 132 wRC+, hitter who won a Gold Glove in center field and accounted for 7.4 bWAR. This is a huge deal.

Their lineup depth wasn't all that great to start with but without Pollock it becomes really shaky. Obviously Paul Goldschmidt is one of the best hitters in all of baseball after yet another MVP-caliber season in which he put up a 1.005 OPS and hit 64 percent above league average by wRC+, but there are a lot of questions in the order. The rest of the infield, consisting of Chris Owings, Jean Segura and Jake Lamb, is not anywhere near reliable. Owings hit 48 percent below league average last year, was well below the OBP Mendoza Line of .300 and was below replacement level by both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference WAR. Segura, acquired from Milwaukee via trade, was marginally better, clocking as a replacement level player by bWAR and putting up a .616 OPS but hitting 38 percent worse than league average is never a good thing. And though Lamb's .263/.331/.386 slash line makes him look an All-Star by comparison, a .716 OPS is fairly pedestrian.

Even Yasmany Tomas, who the Dbacks brought last year to be a hitter despite not having a position, hit below league average by wRC+ last season. Factor in Tomas' predictably terrible fielding and both versions of WAR agree that Tomas was worth -1.3 wins last season. Even David Peralta, who led the league in triples last year and cemented himself as the cleanup hitter by the end of the season, isn't a sure thing. Peralta's rise was fueled by a .368 BABIP which is simply unsustainable. While his hard hit percentage was great he certainly won’t morph into a bad hitter, there will undoubtedly be regression with Peralta which the Diamondbacks can't afford.

Though the top of the rotation, fueled by new acquisitions Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller, is going to be great, I'm not sold on the rest of the staff. Patrick Corbin has pitched just 85 innings over the last two seasons and while he has great talent, health is always going to be a question. The back end of the rotation is fine with Rubby De La Rosa and Robbie Ray is fine, but its success hinges on Corbin's health. If either of those pitchers suddenly has to be the third guy, there's going to be a lot of trouble. As good as Greinke is after a 9.3-win season by bWAR, he and Miller are just two-fifths of the rotation.

The bullpen worries me as well. While Brad Ziegler and Tyler Clippard both played well last season, their defense-independent numbers indicate otherwise. Ziegler had a 3.44 FIP that's decidedly average compared to his 1.85 ERA and Clippard had an alarming 4.28 FIP and 5.30 xFIP. Even more cause for alarm with Clippard comes from the downturn in his performance after being traded to the Mets last season, where he had a 4.65 FIP compared to a 3.96 mark in Oakland. Even if the starting pitching turns out well, the bullpen is going to be an issue.

Things didn't look great for the Dbacks before Pollock got hurt and now it seems impossible that they meet expectations. They will be overwhelmed trying to compete with much better clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and then fade out quietly as the Padres, Marlins and Blue Jays have after trying similar experiments.

2. San Francisco Giants

With an even-year championship streak on the line, the Giants' outlook is strong. Though they may finish second in the division, this is a team that could very easily find itself in a wild card game, the same place their road to the championship started in 2014. 

Any Giants conversation has to start with Buster Posey and Posey continued to be a near-MVP caliber player last season. He hit .318/.379/.470 with 19 home runs and nine defensive runs saved at catcher. He's also one of the better pitch framers in the league right now and walked at a higher rate than he struck out last year to punctuate an All-Star campaign.

Though Posey is the face of the franchise, the infield may be the best in baseball. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better foursome than Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, Brandon Crawford and Matt Duffy, all of whom put up All-Star caliber numbers last year. Belt hit 35 percent above league average by wRC+, provided solid power and accounted for 3.9 bWAR. Panik is another well-rounded player, hitting .312/.378/.455 last season and earning All-Star honors for the first time. Crawford is the best fielder of the three, winning a Gold Glove at shortstop and saving 20 runs. Crawford led shortstops both fWAR and bWAR last season thanks to that fielding combined with .256/.321/.462 hitting. And Duffy was second to Kris Bryant in Rookie of the Year voting last season, hitting 16 percent above league average and fielding exceptionally well with a 10.6 UZR and 12 DRS.

Don't underestimate the outfield either. After adding Denard Span, the Giants are going to have a stacked lineup if he and Hunter Pence can stay healthy. That's no sure thing, neither came close to 300 PAs last season, but both received MVP votes two seasons ago and played well when healthy last season. Angel Pagan is more of a question mark in center field after hitting a pedestrian .262/.303/.332 last year and playing truly awful defense, but the rest of the lineup will more than make up for it.

The rotation isn't quite as good as the Dodgers' but it looks a lot better than last season after the acquisitions of Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija. By park-adjusted FIP, the Giants' starters were 12 percent worse than league average last season, so the front office went and did something about it. Cueto will do well in the role of a #2 starter and will be happy to come back to the National League. Though he struggled in Kansas City, Cueto had a 2.62 ERA and 3.20 FIP before being traded last season. And while Samardzija pitched poorly in Chicago, he also led the league in home runs allowed, which is going to regress especially in AT&T Park. The Giants also don't need Samardzija to do as much this season as the White Sox did last year. He'll be a third starter which means that if he can pitch 214 innings again and pitch even close to the level he did two years ago, the Giants will be set. Madison Bumgarner is a mainstay at the top of the rotation and continued to pitch brilliantly last year, putting up a 2.87 FIP and striking out 9.65 per 9 innings.

The back end of the rotation is somewhat worrisome with Jake Peavy aging and Matt Cain a shell of his former self. Chris Heston may play a big role again which isn't much better given that Heston's FIP was 10 percent below league average last season by FIP-.

The bullpen, however, was good last year and remains essentially unchanged with Santiago Casilla and Sergio Romo in the closer and set-up roles and solid pitchers like George Kontos and Hunter Strickland in middle relief. Despite worries at the back end of the rotation, this is a team you can trust to at least be in the wild card game come October.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers may not be spending at the insane level they were last season, but they have as good a chance to win it this year as anyone. Even without Greinke, they have a deep rotation and their lineup becomes all the more fearsome with Corey Seager there for a full year.

Clayton Kershaw may not have won the Cy Young last season but he's still probably the best pitcher on the planet. Kershaw pitched a league-leading 232.2 innings last season and had a league-leading 1.99 FIP and league leading 8.6 fWAR. Though the 1-2 punch of Kershaw and Greinke isn't there anymore, Scott Kazmir is going to be just fine as the #2 starter. Kazmir has always been a solid pitcher and that didn't change last year when he put up a 3.10 ERA and 3.3 bWAR. That's nowhere near Greinke's Herculean 2015, but the Dodgers are going to have rotational depth that they haven't in years past.

It's tough to know what to expect from Kenta Maeda, but he has a good reputation for control, he's been great in Japan and the Fangraphs projections are good. Hyun-jin Ryu is back in May after missing last year, the value of which cannot be overstated given that Ryu had a 2.62 FIP in 2014 and will likely be the #3 starter after returning. With Alex Wood and Mike Bolsinger both giving solid production in the back of the rotation, the Dodgers are set to have solid pitching staff from top to bottom.

Offensively, the Dodgers could be better than last year, when they were third in the league by wRC+. Corey Seager is already the consensus pick for Rookie of the Year and he replaces a Jimmy Rollins who had a .643 OPS last season at shortstop. If Yasmani Grandal can stay healthy, he'll follow up on last year's All-Star campaign, during which he hit 15 percent above league average by wRC+. Adrian Gonzalez continues to be one of the best first basemen in the league after hitting .275/.350/.480 with 28 home runs last season and Howie Kendrick is another solid hitter at second, despite a somewhat disappointing 2015. Justin Turner had his breakout campaign last season, putting up a 141 wRC+ and .861 OPS. Though whether or not he can replicate it is a question, it's hard to argue with Turner's 4.0 fWAR.

More than anything, the Dodgers need Joc Pederson and Yasiel Puig to be the best versions of themselves. Pederson's Rookie of the Year train slowed to a complete stop in the second half of last season when he hit below the Mendoza Line. He tore up the league in the first half with monstrous power, but the league seemed to figure him out. It's up to Pederson as to whether or not he can recover from that. The problems with Puig are obvious and well-stated. He's a great hitter, but he needs to go an entire season without being the subject of trade rumors or a story chronicling how much his teammates hate him.

If both of those things happen, the Dodgers could bring the Commissioner’s Trophy back to Los Angeles. If not, it could be an early exit.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

2016 MLB Preview: NL Central

Last season, the NL Central was the best division in baseball. The Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates had the best three records in all of baseball, resulting in a memorable race for the division. This year, those three teams are going to be back in competing for the divisional crown yet again though one team seems to be a step above the rest. 

The Cubs come into the year as the odds-on favorite to win their first World Series since 1908, per Sportsbook, and Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projects them to win the division by 12 games. The Cubs have the best team on paper after making splashes in free agency top supplement the talent they already had and if there was ever a time to end their 108-year World Series drought, this it it. 

The Cardinals are getting Adam Wainwright back and they're a franchise that simply knows how to win. They're like the Spurs and the Patriots in that you can never, ever count them out. That front office knows what it's doing even after the embarrassment of losing Jason Heyward and they've continued to win in the face of adversity more times than you can count, last year being one of those times. Don't count them out.

And the Pirates are better than PECOTA thinks as well. Like the Cardinals, this is an organization with a great front office and it's also a team that's pretty similar to the one that won 98 games last season. Expecting them to regress all the way down to 82 wins, as PECOTA does, seems unrealistic given what they did last season and given the Cubs' history, handing them the division in March seems a bit premature. 

As for the Reds and Brewers, well, someone has to be at the bottom.

5. Milwaukee Brewers

It's going to be another long year in Milwaukee as the Brewers, despite having a good farm system, are still a long way from competing. The Brewers were 27th in offense last season by wRC+ and 24th in ERA. It's tough to expect either of those numbers to get much better.

On the offensive end, things went from bad to worse last season when Jonathan Lucroy's numbers dipped downward after being an MVP candidate the year before. Lucroy had a middling .717 OPS last season and hit seven percent below league average. Though he missed significant time with injury, Lucroy's extra base hit percentage was down and his strikeout percentage was up. If he can't turn it around, it will be hugely discouraging given that the 29-year old looked to be the long-term solution at catcher going into last season.

With a disappointing performance from Lucroy, Ryan Braun was left as the only hitter in the lineup firmly above average. Given his age, I'd advocate for trading him but it would be shocking to see anybody willing to take on a contract that sees Braun get paid $105 million over 5 years and not hit free agency until as late as 2021 (depending on a mutual option). Chris Carter came over from the Astros in free agency, but Carter comes with a host of problems. Despite strong power numbers, he struck out a whopping 32.8 percent of the time last season and hit below the Mendoza Line. By bWAR, he was below replacement level last season thanks to that and below average fielding numbers at first base.

The team will turn to Jonathan Villar and Domingo Santana to continue above average production from last season but don't expect much from either of them. Villar played well in a fairly small sample size last season with Houston, as did Santana in both Houston and Milwaukee, but neither came to bat more than 200 times last season. While both are young and Santana is an intriguing prospect, it's tough to expect either to give the Brewers big production this year. 

Beyond that the lineup is filled with people like Aaron Hill, a has-been, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, a never-was, and Scooter Gennett, a probably-never-will-be. The only exciting players that Milwaukee can send to the plate this season currently reside in AAA Colorado Springs. And things don't get much better when you look at the pitching.

Craig Counsell's choice of Opening Day starters is between Wily Peralta and Jimmy Nelson which, to make a long story short, isn't a particularly good sign for the staff as a whole. Peralta, in just over 100 innings last season, had a FIP of 4.84 which was nearly as high as the number of batters he struck out per 9 innings. Nelson was able to pitch a more respectable number of innings, with more respectable results, but a 4.11 ERA last season isn't exactly what you want from an Opening Day starter. There's a decent chance that Taylor Jungmann could emerge as the ace of this staff given that his 3.77 ERA last season and 8.07 strikeouts per 9 both top anything the current group of starters has to offer. 

Matt Garza's career continued on its downward spiral last season when he had a 5.63 ERA and a 4.94 FIP, killing his trade value and, in turn, killing any chance to get out of Milwaukee. In the bullpen, Will Smith is an interesting trade candidate, but I wouldn't blame the Brewers for trying to keep Smith as he goes into arbitration next offseason if he pitches well in the closer role.

The silver lining of the dumpster fire of a season that’s about to ensue in Milwaukee is that the Brewers do have a solid farm system. Keith Law ranked them fifth this season and they received a good haul in trading Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers at the deadline last season. If they continue the rebuild around young talent, things will come together sooner rather than later, although their short-term prospects remain bleak.

4. Cincinnati Reds

 The Reds aren't coming into this season with much in terms of expectations, nor should they. This is a fairly young team, especially on the pitching staff, that simply isn't ready to compete. Offensively, things may move upward as Devin Mesoraco returns from injury, but it's tough to expect that much from the team as a whole. Mesoraco was a 2014 All-Star before getting hurt last season and comes into the year as one of the team's best players. Of course, Joey Votto is still one of the best hitters in the entire league after hitting .314/.459/.541 last season, 72 percent above league average by wRC. Though Votto remains a constant source of optimism, things around him don't look very good.

It seems likely that Jay Bruce will be traded at some point this season after a trade to Toronto was called off this spring, but Bruce is still a long way from what he was a few years ago. Bruce had a pedestrian 91 wRC+ last season and just 0.8 bWAR. Though he could rebound from a low BABIP, it seems likely that he won't return to the form that saw him get MVP votes as recently as 2013. Zack Cozart returns from injury, but it's tough to see someone who's never had an OPS above .700 in a full season making a big contribution to the offense.

This year also has to be a referendum on Billy Hamilton. As nice as it is having someone who can steal 57 bases and get caught just eight times, as Hamilton did last season, a .274 OBP and 52 wRC+ indicate that Hamilton is not a major league hitter. Speed is nice, as is the outfield defense that Hamilton provides, but it's tough to justify putting Hamilton in the lineup every day if his offensive contribution is barely above half of league average. Brandon Phillips has hit below league average the past three seasons and at age 34, don't expect him to return there. Eugenio Suarez is an interesting prospect who played well enough in a cup of coffee with Cincinnati last season but he had -12 DRS in a fairly small amount of playing time and is still developing as a hitter.

Homer Bailey's return from Tommy John surgery will likely help the pitching staff, but the focus there is on youth. Anthony DeSclafani had a respectable 3.67 FIP last season along with 3.2 fWAR. If he can maintain that, it will be a huge plus for the Reds in the future. Cincinnati goes into the season with unproven guys like Raisel Iglesias and John Lamb likely to start every fifth day, which could (and probably will) kill them in the short term. However, developing those guys is simply more important to a team that won't do much regardless.

Brandon Finnegan may be the most interesting young pitcher on the staff, if only for his contributions to the Royals two seasons ago as a reliever. Finnegan came over in the Johnny Cueto trade last season and pitched decently even as he was making the first few starts of his major league career. He has encouraging strikeout numbers, though the sample size is small (the same can be said for Iglesias and Lamb) along with good velocity. Hopefully, he becomes a mainstay in the rotation.

The Reds simply want to develop their young guys this season and that's a reasonable goal, especially on the pitching staff. If they can accelerate their rebuild a little and build a competitive team while Joey Votto is still an MVP candidate, the NL Central is going to get even better.

3. St Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals and Pirates are so close that you might as well toss a coin to figure out who's going to finish second in the division. It seems likely that both clubs, at the least, will be contending for a wild card, but I think that the Pirates just barely edge out the Cardinals.

One of the biggest reasons for that is defense. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projects the Pirates to have 32.0 FRAA while the Cardinals are at a mere 1.1 FRAA in their projection system. In addition to having a fairly uninspiring group of players on defense outside of Yadier Molina, a major reason for this is cluster luck. Per Ed Feng's tracking of cluster luck, the Cardinals had 104.9 runs in cluster luck on defense, more than double any other team in the majors (Arizona was second with 42.4 runs). It's nearly impossible that this doesn't regress and it's also likely that luck accounted for a lot of the success of the pitching staff.

No matter what happens in regards to cluster luck, it seems unlikely that the pitching staff maintains their level of performance that saw them post the third-best ERA- of any staff since expansion started in 1961, even with Adam Wainwright back from injury. While Wainwright gives them one of the best pitchers in baseball, Lance Lynn is missing the season after Tommy John surgery and John Lackey went to the Cubs in free agency. While Lackey’s departure may not hurt as much given his age, Lynn has quietly been one of the best pitchers in baseball for a while and the Cardinals will miss him greatly this season. Additionally, it's hard to believe that Jaime Garcia is going to maintain the 2.43 ERA he put up last season in 129.2 innings over a full season and Mike Leake's addition is a step down from the contribution the Cardinals were getting from that spot last season. Leake is a good pitcher, but a 3.70 ERA isn't consistent with the insane numbers the Cardinals were getting from their staff last season.

It's also worth noting that Garcia and Michael Wacha both had opposing BABIPs that are due for regression, further supporting the observations made by cluster luck. While the Cardinals' will still likely have one of the better pitching staffs in baseball, it likely won't perform at the historic level it did last season.

Offensively, things are good but not great. Matt Carpenter cemented himself as a star last season after hitting .272/.365/.505, leading the league in doubles and hitting 28 home runs. Both Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty put up great numbers in smaller sample sizes last season and both are young and improving. While both were fueled by high BABIPs and it will be tough to duplicate their numbers from last season, it's reasonable to expect both to make positive contributions to the lineup.

If Matt Holliday can stay healthy, he'll be a strong middle-of-the-order hitter. Holliday played just 73 games last season but earned All-Star honors before he got hurt. Though his age makes him a candidate for decline, Holliday has a record of defying his age and it's a decent bet that he continues doing so. Brandon Moss played well last season after being acquired from Cleveland, putting up a .753 OPS as a Cardinal and Jhonny Peralta had a solid 105 wRC+. The only red flag in this lineup is Yadier Molina, whose numbers took a sharp downturn last season, resulting in a lowly .660 OPS. Molina is older, which helps explain that downturn, but his Gold Glove-winning defense will help him stay in the lineup for yet another season.

Despite being due for regression, it's tough to see the Cardinals being significantly worse than last season. The top of the NL Central is stocked with three great teams and though I think the Cardinals will finish last of those three, I'd be shocked to see them out of contention come September.

2. Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates have been stuck in wild-card limbo for the past three years and it seems unlikely that things change this year, Though they have a solid chance of beating out the Cardinals, the Cubs are going to have the sole claim in the top of the division if preseason analysis is to be believed. The Pirates, however, could easily find themselves in yet another wild card game.

Led by Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates boast one of the better offenses in baseball. McCutchen earned his fifth straight All-Star appearance last season on the back of a .292/.401/.488 slash line, 23 home runs and a 146 wRC+. This lineup's depth is what makes it impressive though. Jung Ho Kang had a great Rookie of the Year argument last season before getting hurt, posting a 4.0 bWAR and hitting 30 percent above league average by wRC+. Josh Harrison struggled last season in comparison to 2014, but if he stays healthy this year and gets the 550 plate appearances he did in his All-Star campaign two years ago, things will work out for him. Starling Marte is a Gold Glove-winning left fielder who hit .287/.337/.444 last year, making him one of the more underrated 5-win players in baseball. 

Gregory Polanco is a young player whose OPS went up 50 points in his second season and Francisco Cervelli is a late bloomer who hit 19 percent above league average last season. The team solidified first base from an offensive standpoint by signing John Jaso, though his defense at first base may be an issue given that Jaso has played catcher his entire career. Even so, that shouldn't impact his offensive output which, in a fairly small sample of 216 PAs last season, saw him put up an .839 OPS. While more plate appearances could hurt Jaso, he's certainly an improvement over the inconsistency that Pedro Alvarez gave the Pirates in years past.

The pitching staff is one of the best in the league from top to bottom. The team had a 3.23 ERA last season, which ranked second, and a 3.36 FIP, also second. Gerrit Cole is the unchallenged ace, an All-Star with a 2.66 FIP that's 30 percent better than league average according to FIP-. Cole's wicked 95-mph fastball helped him strike out 8.74 per 9 last season and garner MVP votes for the first time in his career, but don't sell the rest of the staff short. Francisco Liriano struck out over a batter per inning last season and had a 3.38 ERA while Jeff Locke had a solid if uninspiring 3.95 FIP. The addition of Jonathan Niese will work out well as Niese is a #3 starter who was pushed to a #1 role for a number of years in New York. Now, as a #4 starter, where his 4.13 ERA is a good thing, he'll thrive. 

The bullpen is one of the best in baseball as well. It had a league-leading 2.67 FIP last season, a 79.8 strand percentage, which ranked third, and a 49.3 percent ground ball rate, which ranked second. Mark Melancon is an All-Star closer who led the league in saves last season and Tony Watson is one of the best set-up guys in baseball. If there's one thing Pirates fans should feel good about this season, it's the pitching staff.

They may not be good enough to stay neck-and-neck with the Cubs, but the Pirates have put together one of the league's better team. There's a good chance they get rewarded with a one-game playoff yet again, but it's not their fault that they've been placed in a really, really good division. (At some point they're going to start lobbying the league to get rid of divisions, right? It’s only logical at this point.) Eventually, they’ll catch fire in the postseason and go on a run. There's no reason to believe that this can't be that year.

1. Chicago Cubs 

It feels weird to write this, but the Cubs are World Series favorites. They're +450 to win it all on Sportsbook, PECOTA has them tied for the best record in baseball and Fangraphs' projections have them alone at the top with nearly a 20 percent chance of winning the World Series. I'm not quite ready to anoint the Cubs as my World Series pick, more because of their history than anything, but damn this team is good.

Offensively, things are going to go from good to great with the additions of Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist. Zobrist was the missing piece for the Royals last season and his hitting and versatility played a huge role in propelling them to the title. Zobrist hit .276/.359/.450 last season for a .816 OPS and 123 wRC+, continuing on his run of brilliance which finally culminated in a championship. Stealing Heyward from the Cardinals didn't just mess up their arch-rivals psychologically, it gave the Cubs a great two-way player who hit 21 percent better than league average last season and won a Gold Glove last season after saving 24 runs. Throw those two on top of the medley of young studs the Cubs already have in their lineup and you get a juggernaut. 

Anthony Rizzo led the league in plate appearances with 701 and hit .278/.387/.512. That's a 145 wRC+ and Rizzo also hit 31 home runs and fielded well to boot. Kris Bryant hit .275/.369/.488 in his rookie season and may already be a superstar. And then, of course, there's Kyle Schwarber.

via GIPHY

 

 Hell, Jorge Soler still has potential to be an All-Star in this league and he's not even going to be an everyday starter. This lineup is loaded with a capital L and the pitching staff might be better.

Chicago led the league in FIP last year and they added John Lackey (also from St Louis). Jake Arrieta won the Cy Young Award after an awe-inspiring second-half that saw him post a 0.75 ERA, a mark that seemed impossible even for just half of a season. On the year, Arrieta's ERA was slightly more pedestrian at 1.77, good for second in the league, and 55 percent above league average by ERA-. Jon Lester remains an ace after putting up a 2.92 FIP last season and a 5-win season by fWAR and John Lackey just put up his career-best season by ERA. Though Lackey is due for some regression according to his 3.57 FIP (remember St Louis' incredible cluster luck as well) but he’s going to be the third-best pitcher on this staff. Think about how incredible that is. Don't scoff at Kyle Hendricks or Jason Hammel either, neither of them got Cy Young votes last season but both had an ERA and FIP below 4 and good strikeout numbers. On other teams, they would be middle-of-the-rotation.

On paper, this is the best Cubs team in years. It's the best team in baseball and gives Chicago the best chance it had to end its championship drought since 2003. 

 

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

2016 MLB Preview: NL East

Since we're in the NL East, where the Phillies and Braves reside, now seems like as good a time as any to talk about tanking. Tanking in sports isn't new, but it's certainly gaining prevalence. The Sixers have been on a tanking mission unlike any other for the past few years, the Titans didn't exactly make much of an effort for Marcus Mariota to return after he got injured late last season, and nobody in their right minds can say that the Phillies and Braves come into this year with the goal being to win as many games as possible. And I'm not against tanking from a moral perspective. If I were the general manager of the Phillies, Braves, or any other team without much hope, I would do everything I could to ensure the best chance of winning in the long term. This, in most cases, includes losing and getting the highest draft pick possible in the short term. 

Executives should encourage tanking because leagues reward it. The Oilers tanked the hell out of last season and did Gary Bettman sanction them for it? Of course not. But they did win the lottery and grab a potentially generational player in Connor McDavid at #1 in the draft. The Lakers are letting Byron Scott keep his job this season and it's not a coincidence that they have a top-3 protected pick that they desperately need to keep. They probably could have done the sensible thing and hired Tom Thibodeau at any point this season, but they needed that pick so they kept Scott around (at least that's what I tell myself, the Lakers might just be an incredibly stupid franchise). Whether the Lakers are doing it on purpose or not, the league is probably going to reward them for it in June. If blame can't be placed on the teams themselves, then the blame has to be placed on the leagues.

First off, every league should have a draft lottery. Second, that lottery needs to have odds that are more spread out than what they currently are in the NBA and NHL. My personal preference is the system the NBA originally had in place, before Orlando won the lottery twice in a row in the '90's. When Orlando landed Penny Hardaway in the second of those drafts, their odds of doing so were, I believe, 1/66. That episode scared off the NBA from having a fairly even lottery and led them to implement the system that the Sixers are exploiting right now.  But the Magic were a competitive team that year and shouldn’t be rewarded more than a team that tries to lose games? Get rid of the current lottery systems in the NBA and NHL, get rid of the systems in the MLB and NFL that directly reward tanking and put in a lottery that doesn't reward tanking. Hell, give playoff teams a ping-pong ball. The Warriors getting the #1 pick next season is better than rewarding a Sixers team that's trying to lose.

Also, maybe acknowledge tanking exists and punish the teams that are doing so. Every time any commissioner has been pressed on this, they've basically said that there's nothing going on. Just admit it and do something about it. Investigate the Sixers and the Phillies and then fine them or, even better, take away their draft picks. As long as leagues reward tanking, teams are going to do it because they have no reason not to. It's the best way to set a given franchise up to win a championship eventually. If you want to stop it from happening, then make an effort to do so. Don't reward it, punish it.

On to the preview.

5. Philadelphia Phillies

If nothing else, at least the Phillies are finally headed in the right direction. After letting Ruben Amaro Jr. stick around, seemingly for the hell of it, for an extra two years, the Phillies fired him in September of last season. In doing so, they marked an end to an era of incompetence in the front office that will hopefully allow them to return to contention sooner rather than later. In his place, Andy MacPhail hired Matt Klentak, someone with a background in analytics who seems to understand the way baseball works. However, that hiring likely won't do anything to deter the Phillies from awfulness in the short term.  

Philadelphia had the league's 28th ranked offense by wRC+ last season and I can't say I think it will get much better. Maikel Franco's rookie season, in which he put up a .280/.343/.497 slash line, was one of the only bright spots for the club and the other ones also came with young players. Odubel Herrera had an encouraging rookie campaign, hitting 10 percent above league average by wRC+ and saving 10 runs in centerfield while Aaron Altherr had a 124 wRC+ in left. Both, however, had strikeout rates hovering around 25 percent that could hinder them from producing at a higher level. 

Aaron Nola's major league debut on the mound was an interesting glimpse of the future as well. Nola, in 77.2 innings, had a solid 3.59 ERA and struck out 7.88 per 9, showing that he certainly belongs in the big leagues. The farm system is improving, especially after the Cole Hamels trade last year, and top prospect J.P. Crawford will likely be at shortstop by the end of the season. Just about everything else, however, is miserable.

And where better a place to start than Ryan Howard? Howard hit .229/.277/.443 last season, accounting for -1.4 bWAR. For that performance, he got paid $25 million, per Spotrac. Not good. Howard has been and will continue to be a symbol of Amaro's incompetence that opposing fans will laugh at until his time in the city is over. Despite that, he still might be one of the better hitters in this lineup. Cameron Rupp and Freddy Galvis both were barely above the OBP Mendoza Line last season and it's likely that just three of their Opening Day starters will have hit above league average last season by wRC+. 

On the pitching side of things, it's likely that Aaron Nola is already the best starter on the staff. That's not an endorsement of Nola, though I think he'll be a solid player, rather it's a condemnation of the rest of the staff. Jeremy Hellickson and Charlie Morton will make things slightly better, but neither is anything more than back of the rotation starters and it's possible they'll be starting the first two games of the season for this team. Hellickson's 4.44 FIP is somehow an improvement as the Phillies' starters had the second-worst FIP in baseball last season at 4.77. Morton suffered from some bad luck last season as his ERA was well over half a run higher than his FIP, but I wouldn't expect that to change in Philadelphia. The Phillies had the second-worst defense in baseball by Defensive Efficiency last season, per Baseball Prospectus, and the worst by far according to Defensive Runs Saved. No pitcher is going to do well in that environment, especially pitchers who aren't particularly good in the first place. 

Phillies fans should either buy MLB.tv or take up an interest in MLS because their team is going to be miserable for yet another year. 

4. Atlanta Braves

I have some good news and bad news for Braves fans. Let's get the bad news out of the way first. You guys are going to be bad this year. Really bad. Potentially below 70 wins. 

Now for the good news. In terms of rebuilding teams, the Braves are much further along than most. Keith Law rated them as having the best farm system in baseball, the value of which cannot be overstated. The Braves knew that they desperately needed young blood to rebuild around, so they went and got it. The biggest thing they did to kick start the rebuilding process was trade star pitcher Shelby Miller to the Dbacks for a treasure trove of prospects including last year's No. 1 overall pick, Dansby Swanson. Swanson is the exclamation point that underscores a deep, well-built farm system that will have the Braves ready to win soon. They even have a comparatively decent number of pieces that will play a role on the next winning Braves team already in the majors. 

Freddie Freeman is one of very few players from the Braves last playoff team that has stuck it out in Atlanta and he hasn't gotten any worse. Freeman hit .276/.370/.471 last season along with 18 home runs and solid fielding. Make no mistake; Freeman continues to be a star on an otherwise dull Braves team. Atlanta will also hope that Hector Olivera and Ender Inciarte have roles to play on the 2018 Braves. Olivera is older and unproven at the major league level, but was a superstar in Cuba and has the talent to do well. Inciarte was a league average hitter last season, but had a 3.3 fWAR thanks to his incredible fielding. Inciarte had a 14.5 UZR and 29 DRS in centerfield last year for Arizona, something the Braves will need him to continue in the future. 

The lineup depth, however, is thin at best. A.J. Pierzynski somehow hit well last season, but at age 39, it's very hard to expect that to continue. Jace Peterson and Erick Aybar were both 20 percent below league average by wRC+ and Nick Markakis had a 0.080 ISO last season. By wRC+, this was the second-worst offense in all of baseball last season and the front office isn't exactly trying to improve for the near future. 

The pitching staff is in a similar situation, with Julio Teheran as the sole carrier of optimism on a staff otherwise filled with players who are simply not effective. Even Teheran struggled last season after an All-Star 2014. Teheran's 4.04 ERA and 4.40 FIP was a disappointing failure to build on the previous season which saw him come close to reaching his potential. If Teheran can't find the level he reached in 2014 again, it will be a major setback for the organization, which likely wants him to anchor the staff in the future.

Once you get past Teheran, things get really depressing, really fast. Bud Norris had a 6.72 ERA last season. Matt Wisler had a 5.10 xFIP and Mike Foltynewicz had -1.4 bWAR. Saying that things are going to be ugly is an understatement. 

But there is a silver lining. The Braves have a great farm system which means that things are going to be better sooner rather than later. Given the choice, I'd rather be the Braves than the Phillies or Rockies or any other franchise in turmoil. SunTrust Park will be open in 2017 and the team will likely be competitive again by 2018 or 2019. Compared to their rivals in Philly, that's a pretty good situation to be in.

3. Miami Marlins

This season, in the grand scheme of things, is going to be looked upon as a positive for the Marlins. A year after the franchise fell flat on its face and failed to live up to high preseason expectations, the expectations are fairly low. This team seems to be nestled right in the middle of the NL East, in between the bottom-feeding Braves and Phillies but a clear step down from the Nationals and Mets. Despite the general lack of expectation, this is an important year for the franchise. The Marlins need to prove that they can be competitive, they haven't had more than 77 wins since 2010, and they need to start looking like they have the base of a team that will eventually win. On paper, they do.

Giancarlo Stanton might be the most purely talented hitter in the league. Last season, he hit .265/.346/.606 with 27 home runs. He hit 52 percent better than league average and had a .341 ISO, but his season ended on June 26 thanks to injury. Stanton may be the rare player with the talent to live up to a 13-year, $325 million contract which certainly makes him the perfect piece to build a team around. Of course, doing so has been the hard part for the Marlins but they do have some players that could eventually be a part of a competitive team.

Management likely sees an outfield that lasts for a long time in Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna but things didn't work out as planned last season. Stanton got hurt and Ozuna disappointed for most of the season, eventually getting demoted to AAA, leaving Yelich as the only of the three who got over 500 PAs last season. Yelich played well, hitting .300/.366/.416 and putting up 3.5 bWAR, but that’s not enough. Although he played well in September, after his return from the minors, Ozuna needs to prove that he can be a long-term solution in centerfield this season.

In the infield, there are reasons for optimism as well. Dee Gordon may not be an inspiring hitter, but he did win the batting title last season, albeit doing so by hitting singles. There's value in that, which is reflected in his 4.9 bWAR, but Gordon can't be the best hitter on the team as he was for the bulk of last season. There's also reason to believe that Justin Bour could be the solution at first. In 446 plate appearances last season, Bour displayed good power, hitting 23 home runs and posting a .218 ISO and there's little reason to think the 27-year old can't keep it up in his sophomore campaign. Although Martin Prado might not be a long-term solution at third given his age, he remained a league average hitter last season by wRC+ and can still contribute this season. 

All things considered, this is not a bad offense if everyone stays healthy. The Marlins have encouraging pieces, all of whom can contribute this season. It's probably not at a level that would see the team contend for the playoffs, but it can certainly be above league average. 

Last season, the pitching staff was 16th in ERA and, like the offense, there are signs it can improve as well. First and foremost, a full season of Jose Fernandez is going to work wonders for this team. In the 64.2 innings that Fernandez was able to make last season, he had a 2.92 ERA which was somehow higher than his 2.24 FIP and struck out 10.99 per 9. Obviously that's a small sample size, but don't underestimate his ability. In 2013, the only full season he's pitched, Fernandez had a 2.19 ERA. If he stays healthy, Fernandez is going to be a Cy Young contender. 

To supplement him in the rotation, the team signed Wei-Yin Chen to a 5-year $80 million deal, per Spotrac. That's a big number that the team may regret down the road, but for now, Chen gives the Marlins a sturdy #2 pitcher, something they haven't had in a while. A 3.34 ERA in 191.1 innings is a huge improvement on what the Marlins were getting last season from anyone in their rotation. 

Once you get past the first two spots though, the rotation may revert to the shaky state it was in last season. Tom Koehler had a solid 4.08 ERA last season, but FIP pegs that number to go up in 2016. If Koehler can keep his ERA around 4, it will be the key to the rotation's success. Jarred Cosart is unreliable at best and whether the team chooses Edwin Jackson, David Phelps, or someone else to round out the rotation, they won't expect much.

Despite that, optimism can return to the Marlins if the team gets above .500 this season. It's a reasonable expectation for the team and it's one they need to fulfill if they are to continue building around this core.

2. Washington Nationals

After last season's implosion, the Nationals face an uphill climb to the playoffs and I can't say I see them making it. Although their chemistry will improve with Dusty Baker at the helm, that doesn't change the fact that Baker's decision-making has been questionable in the past and he doesn't have the analytical base of knowledge that we expect from managers today. I do think the Nationals will be better off with Baker than Matt Williams, just not better enough to compete with the powerhouse in New York for the division or for the Cardinals and Pirates for the wild card.

Offensively, this team worries me. Although Bryce Harper has a claim as the best hitter in baseball after winning NL MVP thanks to a stunning .306/.460/.649 slash line that was 97 percent (!) better than league average last season, the Nationals have question marks surrounding him.

Jayson Werth went from 4.1 bWAR in 2014 to -1.6 bWAR last season, a stunning drop that almost has to regress upwards this year, but I would be surprised to see him back above league average. He's 36 years old and can no longer play the field effectively, even if he finds his hitting stroke, his value is questionable. I would also question Anthony Rendon's ability to bounce back from an injury-riddled 2015. Maybe he improves from a .707 OPS if he has a full season, but it's tough to see him getting back to the level he was in 2014. 

If Rendon and Werth struggle again, there isn't much else in the lineup that can produce. Daniel Murphy had a nice postseason for the Mets and is an adequate hitter, but he's not lifting up the rest of the lineup. Additionally, his fielding offsets any value his hitting provides. The metrics for his fielding aren't horrible and I rarely turn to the eye test, but having watched him for his entire career, I can say confidently that he's one of the worst fielders in all of baseball. It shocks me that a National League team signed him. 

Turning elsewhere, Ben Revere is a decent leadoff hitter who can run the bases well, but he's not much else. Danny Espinosa hit below league average last season while Wilson Ramos was barely above replacement level. There just isn't enough in this lineup that I can be confident in other than Bryce Harper. 

Although I don't like the offense, the pitching staff has a chance to be good. Max Scherzer didn't get enough hype for the Cy Young award last season after posting a 2.79 ERA and striking out 10.86 per 9 over 228.2 innings. Those numbers are pretty incredible and so is Scherzer's 7.1 bWAR. Although the rest of the rotation wasn't quite as reliable last season, the signs are there for improvement in 2016. Although Stephen Strasburg seems to have been labeled somewhat of a disappointment, he had a 2.81 FIP last season. He's proven that he's one of the better pitchers in baseball when healthy. He just needs to pitch 200 innings instead of the 127.1 innings he did last season. Gio Gonzalez's defense-independent numbers told a different story than his 3.79 ERA as well. Gonzalez had a 3.05 FIP last season and a 3.7 fWAR. Expect him to improve in 2016. 

Additionally, Tanner Roark showed that he has good talent in 2014. Moving back to a starting role full-time will be good for him and he should be a viable 4th starter. Even Joe Ross has upside. In a small sample size of 76.2 innings last year, Ross struck out 8.1 per 9. You don't expect much from a fifth starter and Ross can certainly exceed that expectation.

Despite my optimism on the pitching staff, I just can't see the Nationals making too much noise this season. The offense has too many question marks and the competition is too good. This team may need to retool its lineup around Harper if it’s going to compete in the future.

1. New York Mets

The Mets accelerated their timeline last season, winning the NL pennant in a year they simply hoped to compete for the playoffs, and they're full-fledged title contenders this year. Their pitching staff is going to be the best in baseball and their offense has filled a lot of the holes it had for most of last season.

In Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard, the Mets have a likable, young group of aces. In Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler, they have two young starters who aren't too far from that level. The Harvey-deGrom-Syndergaard trio is proven as a force after propelling the Mets to the World Series last season. Harvey's ERA last season was 2.71, deGrom's was 2.71, and Syndergaard's was 3.24. That's not just great, that's incredible. All three struck out at least 8.94 per 9 innings with Syndergaard nearly at 10. Syndergaard, who had an xFIP- 25 percent better than league average last season, is somehow clearly the worst pitcher of this threesome. That's scary-good.

Steven Matz pitched well in the 35.2 big-league innings he had last season and though a 2.27 ERA may be a result of a small sample size, Matz is going to be a good major league pitcher. And, to the delight of Mets fans, Zack Wheeler is projected to return in early July to round out the rotation of young studs. Although he missed last season after Tommy John surgery, Wheeler had a 3.54 ERA in 2014 and is just 25. He'll likely be on an innings limit, but thinking about the Mets' rotation at full strength is going to inspire nightmares in opposing hitters.

Expect the offense to be pretty good as well. The team came into the offseason with the goal of keeping Yoenis Cespedes and keep Yoenis Cespedes it did. The importance of this cannot be overstated, not just for the offense which instantly improved after his arrival last season, but for the fanbase which saw Cespedes as a symbol of ownership's willingness to spend in order to compete. Cespedes hit .291/.328/.542 last season, but after being traded to the Mets on deadline day he had a .942 OPS. In addition to a full year of Cespedes, the Mets also have David Wright back for a full season, assuming health (which is never a safe assumption, especially with David Wright). If he can stay healthy, Wright will continue to be one of the better hitters in this lineup. In 174 PAs last season, Wright hit 33 percent above league average and had a .814 OPS. 

This is the only year in recent memory that the Mets have come into the year feeling like they have a good lineup from top to bottom. If Michael Conforto can follow up on a rookie year that saw him post a .841 OPS, he could be an All-Star. Curtis Granderson hit 26 home runs last season and had 5.1 bWAR. Lucas Duda hit 27 home runs and had a .242 ISO and if Travis d'Arnaud is healthy, he's one of the better hitting catchers in the league. Perhaps the most impressive stat of all: barring injury, it's likely that every Opening Day starter will have hit above league average last season. Unless Juan Lagares or Alejandro De Aza gets the start over Conforto, that's going to happen. If you had told that to a Mets fan last July, when the team was hitting John Mayberry Jr. cleanup, you would have been laughed at. 

The Mets are a great team from top to bottom. After years of misery, the fanbase was finally rewarded with a World Series run last season. Expect them to compete for the title again this season.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted

2016 MLB Preview: AL West

The top of the AL West is an utter dogfight. The Rangers surprised just about everyone last year when they won the division after being eight games out and under .500 going into August. Their comeback was remarkable but there are some big questions about their capabilities in repeating what they did over the last two months of 2015. They were bad defensively last season and will likely be bad defensively this year and the rotation is filled with the unknown after you get past Cole Hamels. The Mariners are coming off of a tumultuous season in which they fired their general manager, Jack Zduriencik, after a series of failed offseason moves intended to put Seattle back into the playoffs. But, there does seem to be a legitimate chance of Seattle's first playoff appearance since 2001 finally happening this year given that Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA has them winning 95 games and the division. Zduriencik's replacement, Jerry DiPoto, has sharpened the corners of the roster that were well-worn under his predecessor and kept in place the star power that makes the Mariners so interesting. And in Houston, Jeff Luhnow has nearly finished creating a juggernaut capable of contending for a championship for the next decade. The Astros' six straight years between mediocrity and outright awfulness have turned out so well that the team is singlehandedly keeping Sixers fans optimistic. They're primed to make the playoffs for the second straight year and possibly do even more.

5. Oakland Athletics

So, um, I hate to ask, but, um, what the hell is Billy Beane's plan with this team? I still have faith in him, but the team he's put together this season seems destined for failure for the second year running. The talent level is subpar at best and there isn't really that much to get excited about in the farm system as Franklin Barreto is their only prospect in Keith Law's Top 50. Although I'm sure that there's a plan behind this, the way this team has been run over the past couple years has been confusing at best and it's left them without much to work with this year.

Stephen Vogt and Josh Reddick are both exciting players, but given that Vogt is 31 and Reddick is 29, it's likely that neither of them will be a part of the next great A's team. Vogt had has first All-Star appearance last season thanks to a 115 wRC+, 18 home runs, and a .261/.341/.443 and teams will be willing to trade for him. He's on a 1-year contract which is a positive given his age (though the money is unknown according to Spotrac), and there are teams that will give Oakland value for a catcher coming off of a 3.5-win season by bWAR. The same goes for Josh Reddick who also put up a 3.5-win by bWAR. Reddick, who had 20 home runs and a .177 ISO last season, is on a 1-year, $6.575 million contract. That makes him the prototype for a player Oakland can let go of come July to bolster its farm system. 

Other than those two players, Oakland's lineup is comprised almost entirely of players who were disappointing last season. Marcus Semien is an intriguing player but his fielding was so horrendous at shortstop last season that it's a question as to whether he can start in the majors. Semien had a -10.0 UZR last season and -4.2 fielding runs above average, per Baseball Prospectus. Billy Butler was the team's biggest acquisition in free agency in the winter of 2014 and he hit .251/.323/.390 in his first year as an Athletic. Once you factor in Butler's -11.10 BsR, which was dead last among qualified players, he was below replacement level. 

Coco Crisp, who was hurt for most of the season, didn't help himself when healthy. Crisp hit .175/.252/.222, 65 percent below league average according to wRC+. And though Jed Lowrie may be due for a bounce back season given that he had a .233 BABIP last season, trading for someone who had a .312 OBP last season isn't exactly encouraging. Yonder Alonso may be the most intriguing player in Oakland's lineup and he did hit 11 percent better than league average last season, but had just a .099 ISO which, to say the least, is concerning. Alonso, a former top prospect, has never been able to hit for power in the majors and it seems that his destiny is as a singles hitter.

Things look a little better on the pitching side of things, if only because of Sonny Gray, but it's still hard to be optimistic. While Gray is a superstar who came third in AL Cy Young voting last year after putting up a 2.73 ERA, there isn't much behind him. Jesse Hahn is intriguing, but he took a step back last season. Hahn's strikeout numbers went down and his ERA went up. While he still posted an encouraging 3.35 ERA, he still has yet to pitch more than 96.2 innings in a season and this is a year where he has to trend upwards instead of downwards. Kendall Graveman is another interesting player, but he had a 4.60 FIP last season. Although he's decently young at age 25, Graveman wasn't particularly impressive in his first full season in the majors. 

The bullpen becomes more interesting with Sean Doolittle returning to the closer role, but that doesn't move the needle all that much. Doolittle was an All-Star in 2014 and has that same capability, but it's tough to imagine him making much of a difference when the rest of the pitching staff is lacking.

More than anything, I'm interested to see what the front office is doing come July. The A's have some tradeable assets and it's going to be interesting who they try to move and what they can get. However, when the most intriguing storyline with a team is who they're going to trade, then things aren't exactly looking up.

4. Los Angeles Angels

2016 already feels like yet another year of Mike Trout's time with the Angels that will be wasted. While Trout is coming off of the fourth straight year in which he could have (or should have) won the MVP, one in which he hit .299/.402/.590 along with 41 home runs, a league-leading .991 OPS and 9.4 bWAR. Just another year for baseball's best player and it was the fourth year in the five he's been in the majors that the Angels have failed to build around him adequately. Don't expect much more from the sixth. 

The two biggest acquisitions for them were Andrelton Simmons and Yunel Escobar, Simmons via trade and Escobar via a 2-year, $13 million contract in free agency, per Spotrac. These are both solid role players, but neither is going to take this team to the next level. Simmons can provide more value than anyone in the league defensively, he saved 25 runs at shortstop last year for the Braves, but after four years in the league he still can't hit. Simmons has had an OPS over .700 just once in his career and that was in his rookie year. Last season, that number was at .660, 18 percent below league average by wRC+. Escobar is the polar opposite. He hit .314/.375/.415 last year, 20 percent above league average by wRC+, but had -11 defensive runs saved. The good news: both had markedly good value by WAR. The bad news: neither is near well-rounded. 

Albert Pujols had a year largely thought to be rejuvenating in 2015, bombing 40 homers, but in the second half he looked his age. Post All-Star break, Pujols hit .231/.288/.419, a harrowing sign for the future. Pujols is now 36 and after not living up to lofty expectations for the entirety of his time in Los Angeles despite producing at a high level, it may be that his production starts declining to what you may expect to see from a normal 36-year old first baseman. While his BABIP was at a career low last season and will likely rebound, it hasn't been close to league average since 2010. 

While C.J. Cron and Kole Calhoun both produced at a solid level last season, neither of them is expected to do much more. Cron is a solid power hitter, but that's essentially all he is. He hit 16 home runs, had a .177 ISO, and a .439 slugging percentage last season, but everything else was subpar. Cron's OBP was right at .300 (the OBP Mendoza Line) and had just 0.5 bWAR. Calhoun is much better thanks to his fielding, which earned him a Gold Glove, but he's not adding high-level production to the lineup. By wRC+, he hit 5 percent better than league average last season, which is productive but it's not the answer the Angels are looking for. 

Don't look to the pitching staff for those answers either. This is a team completely without an ace. They will hope for Garrett Richards to fill that role, or for either C.J. Wilson or Jered Weaver to reprise what they did a few seasons ago, but none of those outcomes are particularly likely. While Richards had a good 2015, pitching 207.1 innings with an ERA four percent better than league average by ERA-, that's not good enough for an ace. And discouragingly, his 3.65 ERA last season was over a run higher than his 2014 mark as was his FIP. Wilson's ERA was below league average by ERA- and his defensive-independent numbers were worse. He had a 4.24 xFIP and walked 3.14 per 9 innings. On top of that, Weaver, a former Cy Young contender, had a 5.10 xFIP last season and struck out just 5.9 per 9 innings. 

Perhaps the only positive for the Angels' pitching staff is Andrew Heaney. Heaney, acquired in the trade that sent Howie Kendrick to the Dodgers last offseason, posted encouraging numbers in the 105.2 innings he pitched in 2015. He had a 3.49 ERA and 3.73 FIP last season, which is encouraging, but I wouldn't expect Heaney to transform into a full-fledged ace anytime soon. It seems more likely that he becomes a #2 or 3 starter, but I'd be surprised to see him be the savior that the Angels' pitching staff needs. 

This is an Angels team that simply needs to be shaken up. They didn't change enough in the offseason and from the outside looking it, it seems like they're wasting Mike Trout's career. They're projected to win 76 games this season and they have the worst farm system in baseball according to Keith Law. Trout is under contract until 2020, per Spotrac, and it's sad that all of that time could potentially be wasted for a player as good as him.

3. Texas Rangers

As incredible as it was to watch this team shock everybody by winning the division before they fell apart in that fateful 7th inning of Game 5 against Toronto, I have doubts about whether they can do it again. Mainly, I worry about their defense and their depth. Let's start with the former.

The Rangers weren't all that bad by defensive efficiency last season, but when you look closer, things become clearer. Although they converted a solid 70.6 percent of balls in play into outs, when you adjust that number for ballpark, it looks a lot worse. The Rangers' park-adjusted defensive efficiency ranked 23rd in the league and PECOTA projects them for -13 FRAA this season. And that number is not too far-fetched. With Rougned Odor checking in at -7 DRS, Delino DeShields at -9, Shin-Soo Choo at -11 and no regular other than Adrian Beltre above +3, there's a clear problem. Even with Beltre, a Gold Glove-caliber fielder for the entirety of his career, you have to have questions. Throw in Ian Desmond playing outfield for the first time in his career and those questions turn into serious concerns. Beltre is their only solid piece defensively and as good as he'd been, he's going to be 37 on April 7th and his defense is going to decline sooner rather than later. If Beltre can't have the same positive impact he did last season on the defensive end, the Rangers are going to be in for a world of trouble.

The issue of depth comes up a lot in these previews and the reason for it is because I don't think you can win games consistently without lineup in both your lineup and rotation. I'm not asking for nine Prince Fielders or five Cole Hamels', but you need to have confidence no matter who's out there and I don't have that factor with the Rangers when it comes to their pitching. Cole Hamels is a 4-win player with a brilliant changeup and I don't think that changes anytime in the near future. But I can't say I have the same confidence for the other starters in the rotation.

Yu Darvish isn't going to fall off a cliff after missing a year from Tommy John surgery, but will he be the same player who struck out 11.35 per 9 and had a 2.84 FIP in 2014? Will his agent decide that he can't pitch more than 150 innings even though the Rangers have said there won't be an innings limit? I don't know the answer to any of those questions and I'm not going to pretend to. Yu Darvish will probably still pitch at a high level, but will he pitch at a level as high as he did before surgery? I want to at least watch him for a month before I commit to saying that he will.

As daunting as a Hamels-Darvish 1-2 punch is, Texas' rotation gets really thin really fast after that. Colby Lewis ate up innings last season, but didn't have particularly impressive results. A 4.66 ERA, 9 percent above league average by ERA-, is sub-optimal at best. His defense-independent numbers show slight improvement, and his FIP is solid, but it's nothing to write home about, especially given that Lewis struck out just 6.24 per 9 last season and is going into his age 36 season. Derek Holland can't stay healthy and even in the 58.2 innings he managed to pitch last year; he had an ERA approaching 5. Martin Perez is probably the most interesting guy in the back of the rotation, but people have been saying that for a long time about him without much evidence to back it up at the major league level. If everything goes well for Perez, his ERA may wind up around 4, if not he may be stuck between AAA and the majors. 

Whatever happens with their pitching staff, we can be fairly sure that this will be a good offense. Prince Fielder is coming off of a MVP-caliber season at the plate, where he hit .305/.378/.463 along with 23 home runs. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of his game from a statistical perspective is his 12.7 percent strikeout rate. Normally, somebody with Fielder's type of game, a power-hitting DH, strikes out a lot. For example, Prince Fielder's dad, Cecil Fielder, struck out 27 percent of the time in 1990, a year in which he hit 51 home runs for the Tigers, although Cecil played the field more than his son. Prince Fielder, however, walks nearly as much as he strikes out and he hasn't struck out over 20 percent of the time in any year where he's had over 100 PAs. 

While Fielder is the star, this lineup has serious depth to it. Shin-Soo Choo was a better hitter than Fielder last season if wRC+ is to be believed and Choo nearly matched Fielder in home runs as well. Rougned Odor had an impressive .832 OPS in the second half and was one of the Rangers' best players in the ALDS. Mitch Moreland smacked 23 home runs and had a .278/.330/.482 slash line while Adrian Beltre continued to defy his age by putting up a 5.8-win season by bWAR. And although Ian Desmond may be a disaster defensively, we've seen him put up top-tier hitting numbers before, even if last year was a disappointment. I would expect him to recover from a weak 2015 now that he's in a different clubhouse with the contract issues behind him. That's good depth and we haven't even started talking about Joey Gallo yet. 

Gallo is going to be getting regular playing time by the end of this season and he's going to be good. This kid has a lot of power and watching him is going to be a lot of fun. Although his brief stint in the majors last season wasn't great, his power is good enough to get him far and he's only going to improve. 

Although the Rangers may have the offensive firepower to compete, I'm not confident in their pitching or defense. In a highly competitive AL West, that's going to cost them heavily.

2. Seattle Mariners

 Coming off the heels of disaster, there's reason for hope in Seattle and good reason at that. Although last year's debacle was roughly equivalent to a nuclear plant melting down on its first day of operation, the Mariners have come back strong. They replaced Jack Zduriencik, a man who seemingly knew nothing about modern baseball, with Jerry DiPoto, a man who was fired from the Angels for knowing too much about modern baseball. Most importantly, they've refurnished the roster into something that works (on paper at least) and it's going to result in a team that will contend for the division and for the playoffs.

The big names haven't changed for the Mariners. Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, and Kyle Seager are going to be their 3-4-5 combination again and that's a good thing. Cano just hit .287/.334/.446 with 21 home runs in what was widely considered the most disappointing season of his career. Some of that downturn is attributable to aging, but Cano is an extremely talented hitter and I would expect his numbers to jump up closer to what may qualify as a normal season for Cano, who had notched five straight All-Star appearances before last season. And though Cruz may be older than Cano, age clearly hasn't started to affect things for him yet. Cruz finished sixth in MVP voting last season in a year that saw him hit 58 percent above league average and swat 44 home runs. Seager has been a solid and consistent player for the last number of years and he continued to be just that. He had 4.3 bWAR, 26 home runs, and a .779 OPS in another stellar season and there's no reason not to expect him to continue putting up those types of numbers.

Unlike last season, the Mariners have some depth to their lineup. In his first offseason, Jerry DiPoto added Adam Lind and Nori Aoki, both of whom will go a long way towards giving Seattle one of the better offenses in all of baseball. Lind adds even more power to this lineup, he hit 20 home runs and had a .183 ISO last year in Milwaukee, and Aoki is simply a solid all-around player. He had a 112 wRC+ last year with the Giants and can field decently as well. Aoki may not be a world-beater, but he's going to add depth to a team that had almost none last season.

Both Ketel Marte and Seth Smith can do the same. Marte hit 12 percent above league average last season and Smith hit 13 percent above league average (both by wRC+), which makes them perfect complements to the killer 3-4-5 combination that comes with Cano, Cruz, and Seager. From top to bottom, Seattle's lineup doesn't have many holes and their pitching staff isn't too shabby either. 

Felix Hernandez continues to anchor the starting rotation and the future Hall of Famer shows little sign of slowing down. Hernandez was seventh in Cy Young voting last season after yet another 200-inning season in which he had a 3.53 ERA and struck out 8.52 per 9 innings. Though the rest of the rotation wasn't great last season, I would expect improvement in 2016. You can't predict health, but if Hisashi Iwakuma stays off the disabled list, he's going to be a strong #2 starter behind Hernandez. Iwakuma had a 92 ERA- last season and 2.4 bWAR in just 129.2 innings of work. If he can stay healthy, that's a huge positive for the Mariners. 

However, the biggest key to Seattle's rotation may be Taijuan Walker. Walker, if things go well, will be the #3 starter by the end of the season. He certainly had the potential to do so, but last season his ERA was a disappointing 4.56. If his ERA this season can reflect his defense-independent numbers--a 4.07 FIP and 3.82 xFIP along with an impressive 8.33 strikeouts per 9--Walker is an interesting breakout candidate. If not, the Mariners will have trouble finding the rotational depth necessary to compete for a playoff spot. 

Wade Miley is a viable #4 starter even after a disappointing year in Boston and the team should feel good about James Paxton or Nathan Karns rounding out the rotation. Under DiPoto, the bullpen has been almost completely revamped; a good thing after it had a subpar 107 ERA- last season. Steve Cishek, Joaquin Benoit, Evan Scribner, Justin DeFratus, Ryan Cook, and Jonathan Aro have all been added and of that group, a number of them will stick as solid pieces. Cishek in the closer spot may be the most intriguing, his ERA dramatically improved last season after being traded from Miami to St Louis. Whether or not Seattle gets the same Cishek that closed out the season with a 2.31 ERA in St Louis as its closer is going to play a big role in determining how far this team goes.

Although the pitching staff has its questions, I feel that the Mariners can provide better answers to those questions than the Rangers. With a more well-rounded offense, a more competent general manager, and a pitching staff ready to improve after a disappointing 2015, the Mariners are primed to compete for their first playoff appearance in 15 seasons. 

1. Houston Astros

The Astros started to reap the rewards of their years of tanking in 2015. They won 86 games, the AL wild card game, and nearly beat the Royals in the ALDS. That's a nice start, but in 2016, the Astros are going to take a step up. With the young core that started to come together last season fully intact, the Astros are going to be championship contenders in 2016. 

Houston had the league's 4th-best offense last year by wRC+ and it could get even better. First and foremost, they're going to have a full year of Carlos Correa. In the 432 plate appearances that made up Correa's rookie year, the 21-year old proved to be a generational talent. He hit .279/.345/.512, 33 percent better than league average by wRC+. He hit 22 home runs and had a .233 ISO, won the AL Rookie of the Year award, accounted for 4.1 WAR, and even got a few MVP votes. All in his rookie year, which started on June 8. Correa has the chance to be in the running for MVP in his second season thanks to a rare ability to hit reminiscent of a young Alex Rodriguez. 

But it's not just Correa that makes Houston's offense so salivating. It's a cast of characters that includes players the team has put years into developing like Jose Altuve and George Springer as well as players like Carlos Gomez who the team viewed as a missing piece last season. Altuve is one of the best pure hitters in the league. A .313/.353/.459 slash line supplemented with a 9.7 percent strikeout rate, the fifth-best in all of baseball , fielding that earned him a Gold Glove last season, and a Baseball Reference page with black ink under hits and stolen bases (among other things) is a shortlist of what Altuve brings to the table. Springer came into last season as a power hitter and not much else, but supplemented that part of his game with a solid .276 average and .376 OBP. His .826 OPS was up 22 points from 2014 and though he still strikes out nearly a fourth of the time, Springer is a great piece to have in the middle of any lineup. Gomez is going to be a big positive for this team, even after a down year. Though Gomez was somewhat disappointing last year after coming over from Milwaukee at the deadline, this is still a player who was one of the league's best a short time ago. Don't be scared off by a down year; expect Gomez to come back strong and be a solid part of a great Astros team.

The rest of Houston's lineup, if nothing else, has power. Luis Valbuena, Colby Rasmus, and Evan Gattis all hit at least 25 home runs last season, a year that saw the Astros hit more home runs than all but one team. Expect this trend to continue as the Astros continue to roll out a three-true-outcomes-heavy lineup this season. 

On top of their powerhouse lineup, the Astros also boast one of the league's better pitching staffs. It's always a good thing to have a Cy Young recipient taking the mound on Opening Day and in Dallas Keuchel, the Astros have just that. Keuchel won the Cy Young last season by posting a 2.48 ERA over a league-leading 232 innings. The southpaw also led the league in WHIP, and struck out 8.38 per 9 innings last season as he completed his ascent to stardom.

Collin McHugh and Lance McCullers are going to fill the second and third spots in the rotation well. McHugh's 3.58 FIP in 2015 was 13 percent above league average by FIP- and McCullers was even better by that metric as his 79 FIP- was 21 percent above league average. McHugh accumulated 3.9 fWAR and even got Cy Young votes last season. McCullers struck out over a batter per inning and if he can be on the mound for the 200+ innings that Keuchel and McHugh were last season, he'll be in Cy Young contention as well. Throw Doug Fister and Mike Fiers into the mix in the back of the rotation, and you have the makings of a very good pitching staff.

This year has been a long time coming for Astros fans. They suffered through 100-loss seasons and went through a period of being a laughingstock. Now, it's paying off.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted. 

2016 MLB Preview: AL Central

Last season, the Royals won the AL Central with 95 wins, finishing with a lead of 12 games over the second place Minnesota Twins. They went on to beat the Astros, the Blue Jays, and finally the Mets on their way to the world championship. After their second straight American League pennant and a World Series victory, it only makes sense that they would be preseason favorites and, for the most part, they are. The Royals have the lowest odds to win the division again at +140, the lowest odds to win the American League again at 5/1, and the sixth-lowest odds to win a second straight world title at 14/1 (odds per Sportsbook). However, there is one glaring exception to the hordes of people that expect the Royals to do well next season: computers.

Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projects the Royals to finish at 76-86, in last place. Fangraphs' projection systems have them at 77-85, also in last. But why do the computers have the Royals underperforming so badly when even most of the analysts employed by those websites expect the Royals to continue to do well? Mainly because the Royals were the luckiest team in baseball according to Ed Feng's Cluster Luck, a stat that measures how often hits are clustered together both on offense and defense. Because this stat often regresses, statistical models think that the Royals stop being so lucky. However, this is one of the rare instances where conventional wisdom seems to have an edge over computers. Every statistical model predicted the Royals to regress from their 2014 pennant-winning year and every statistical model was dead wrong. This year, they'll likely be wrong again. 

On to the rest of the division.

5. Minnesota Twins

Like the Royals, the Twins had a good 2015 and are projected to fall significantly. However, this time the statistical models are much more likely to be correct because it's not just Cluster Luck where the Twins rank highly (and they rank third in Cluster Luck). The Twins aren't a team with expectations this season because even they knew that 83 wins last season was an anomaly. Unlike the Royals, this is a team without the level of talent to justify it replicating the surprising performance it had last season. Their lineup is dotted with, question marks and their rotation doesn't have anything but. 

Outside of Brian Dozier, a bona fide star, there is no sure thing in Minnesota's lineup. Miguel Sano had a great rookie year, hitting .269/.385/.530 along with 18 home runs, but he also benefited from an outrageous .396 BABIP. Sano is going to be in this league for a long time, but that number is going to regress. Byron Buxton, Minnesota's other highly touted young player, has yet to produce at a major league level. He certainly will eventually and his fielding acumen will translate easily, but improving from a 54 wRC+ to even a league average mark isn't easy. And Minnesota's lineup doesn't get any better.

Even Joe Mauer, one of the best hitters in the league for the past decade, tailed off last season, posting the lowest wRC+ of his career. At age 32, don't expect it to get much better. The Twins will hope to get production out of Trevor Plouffe, Eddie Rosario, and Byung Ho Park, but getting enough to compete is wishful thinking. Plouffe is a solid player, who put up a 2.5 bWAR last season, but his .742 OPS last season is below the level that the Twins need from him in order to replicate their performance. The same goes for Rosario, who was able to put up a similar season by WAR thanks to good baserunning and fielding, coupled with decent power numbers, but the .289 on-base percentage he posted last season tells a different story. As for Park, 53 home runs in Korea are nice, but that often doesn't translate to the majors, where the quality of pitching is significantly better. All things considered, it's hard to see all these parts adding up to a whole much better than league average.

Though the lineup is uninspiring, the pitching staff may be a lost cause. Kyle Gibson's ability is intriguing and his 3.84 ERA is solid, but nothing he's done points to improvement. His defense-independent numbers don't differentiate much from his ERA and his BABIP is more likely to regress upward than downward. He doesn't have great velocity, nor does he strike a lot of players out which may indicate that it's going to be tough for him to improve.  Tyler Duffey had a strong debut in 2015, but xFIP pegs his 3.10 ERA as likely to jump up slightly and 58 innings of good pitching isn't a strong indicator either way.

While Gibson and Duffey offer some hope, the rest of Minnesota's starting staff seems confined to mediocrity. Phil Hughes regressed from his brilliant 2014 campaign, putting up numbers that can best be defined as "meh". To be precise, a 4.40 ERA, 5.45 K's per 9, and a nice, round 1.0 fWAR. The same goes for Ervin Santana who had a 4.00 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, and struck out just 6.83 per 9. The starting staff simply can't get past mediocre. Nearly every one of the pitchers who are likely to start the season in the rotation would be #3 starters on most teams. Normally, that wouldn't translate to last place, but consider their competition.

The Twins are in a division with the defending World Series champions, an Indians team projected to win 92 games by PECOTA, and teams in Detroit and Chicago that are trying to compete and have expectations. Trotting out Phil Hughes on Opening Day isn't good enough to compete in that environment. The Twins may have surprised people last season, but that won't happen again.

4. Chicago White Sox

The White Sox can be looked at as baseball's answer to the Sacramento Kings. There are two superstars, one on each side of the ball. Both are pieces that the team can build around for the foreseeable future, yet the team has continually failed to do so. They tried again this offseason and the players they brought in aren't too bad, but there are still glaring problems that will ultimately, probably, cost them a winning year.

Admittedly, that's not a perfect comparison. The White Sox haven't been plagued with the same level of mismanagement that the Kings have, nor have there been widely publicized chemistry issues. Nonetheless, the White Sox have continually failed to build around Jose Abreu and Chris Sale, just as the Kings have failed to build around DeMarcus Cousins. And it doesn't look like it's getting much better.

A lot of that is due to offense. Despite Jose Abreu hitting 30 home runs and putting up a .290/.347/.502 slash line, the rest of the lineup continues to languish behind. Signing Todd Frazier, an All-Star last season who hit 35 home runs and had a .242 ISO with the Reds, is going to help, but that's just two out of nine spots. Beyond that, there's nothing to get excited about, at all.

Adam Eaton is a solid hitter, but he might be this team's third-best offensive player. And despite his 118 wRC+ last season, Eaton had a .345 BABIP, a number likely to regress, and was horrendous defensively. He had -14 DRS and a -10.2 UZR which, if they hold up next season, may offset any positive Eaton contributes offensively. And it gets worse from there. 

Adam LaRoche hugely took a huge step back from the .817 OPS he had last season with that number dropping all the way down to .634. By wRC+, that's 25 percent worse than league average. They brought in Alex Avila, a former All-Star, to play catcher, but in 2015 an injury-riddled Avila hit .191/.339/.287 in 219 plate appearances. He also struck out over 30 percent of the time. Brett Lawrie is a former top prospect, but he had an on-base percentage a shade below .300 last season. (Can we officially declare .300 the Mendoza Line for OBP? Because for all intents and purposes, it is. That's the lowest possible number that anyone should be willing to accept, so why is it any different than the Mendoza Line we have for batting average? You know what, it's settled. From now on, I'm referring to .300 as the OBP Mendoza Line).

Shortstop Tyler Saladino was also below the OBP Mendoza Line, with a lowly mark of .267 which he paired with a .335 slugging percentage. That's a .602 OPS from someone who's probably starting on Opening Day and it's not an anomaly. The only three White Sox players listed on their official depth chart who had a wRC+ above league average last season are Abreu, Frazier, and Eaton. That alone takes this team out of contention, which is too bad because their pitching staff is legitimately good.

Chris Sale is a legitimate superstar, one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Sale led the league in FIP and strikeouts last season along with a 6.2 fWAR. When you adjust his 2.73 FIP for park effects, it's 35 percent better than league average. And they've built a solid staff behind him as well. Jose Quintana had a 3.18 FIP, a 4.8 fWAR, and struck out 7.72 per 9. Quintana has a chance to be an All-Star this year if things go well for him and Carlos Rodon isn't far behind. Rodon struck out nearly a batter per inning last season and coupled it with a 3.75 ERA. That was in just 139.1 innings and though he struggled somewhat with consistency, it was an impressive rookie year from the southpaw. 

They have a solid bullpen as well. David Robertson has proven himself to be a solid closer as he put up a 2.52 FIP, though his ERA was hurt by bad fielding. Robertson struck out an impressive 12.22 per 9 last season and had just a 0.93 WHIP. Zach Duke is a solid set-up man behind him as well. Duke also struck out over a batter per inning and had an ERA 16 percent below league average. 

However, a solid pitching staff doesn't mean much if you can't hit and the White Sox can't hit. Their lineup depth is simply nonexistent. You can't win if two-thirds of your lineup hits at a level below league average. It's just not good enough.

3. Detroit Tigers

The Tigers are perfectly capable of competing for a wild card spot, but they fall just short of the level of talent necessary to compete for the division. There is every reason to believe that this lineup can be right there with the best of them.

Miguel Cabrera is aging but shows no signs of slowing down. Last year, in his age 31 season, Cabrera hit .338/.440/.534, leading the league in batting average and on-base percentage while earning his sixth Silver Slugger. His .974 OPS was 65 percent above league average by wRC+ and there is no reason to believe that Cabrera, perhaps the best hitter of this generation, will slow down. Ian Kinsler was a 6-win player by bWAR last season thanks to a .770 OPS and splendid fielding highlighted by 19 defensive runs saved. J.D. Martinez put up impressive numbers as well, 38 home runs and a 137 wRC+ to be specific. That's a deadly threesome and it doesn't end there. Justin Upton signed a monster 6-year, $132 million contract in the offseason and though that contract may be regrettable in 2020, it won't be in 2016. Upton hit .251/.336/.454 last season in San Diego and accounted for 4.4 bWAR. 

However, there are holes as well. Unlike Cabrera, Victor Martinez is an aging superstar who is playing like an aging superstar. He hit a measly .245/.301/.366 last season with over 20 home runs less than the season before and just a .120 ISO. Cameron Maybin, acquired via trade, is a below average hitter who had -16 DRS last season. Nick Castellanos was below replacement level last season by fWAR, mostly thanks to a -10.3 UZR. The Tigers have a solid lineup, but there are holes and those holes are going to prevent them from competing on the highest level this season. 

While their lineup is decent, their pitching staff is lacking at best. Jordan Zimmerman is someone who can give you 200 innings at a high level. Last season, he had a 3.66 ERA and a solid 7.32 strikeouts per 9, but it's hard not to wonder whether he can carry a rotation. Because although Zimmerman's 2015 numbers were fine, they weren't what you would expect from an ace and, more importantly, they were down from 2014. His ERA was a full run higher and his FIP was over a run higher than it was in 2014. That's concerning, especially when Zimmerman is far and away the best pitcher in the rotation. 

Justin Verlander had a successful return last season, but at 33 years old it's a huge question whether he can come close to the 3.38 ERA he put up last season. It's worth noting that his xFIP was 4.15 and he was helped by a .267 BABIP. It seems unlikely at best that he performs at the same level he did in 2015. Anibal Sanchez took a huge step back last season with his ERA ballooning up to nearly 5. He walked 2.81 per 9 innings and had a FIP 17 percent better than league average. There are some intriguing young players in Daniel Norris and Shane Greene who could make an impact, but neither has been particularly impressive in the majors so far. Norris, in 60 innings last season, had a 4.63 FIP and struck out just 6.75 batters per 9 innings. Greene has been much worse than that, posting a horrific 6.88 ERA in 83.2 innings. That's not the makeup of a reliable rotation, nor is it the makeup of a team ready to compete for a division title.

2. Cleveland Indians

There are few teams in baseball more interesting to me than the Indians. A lot of people (including Sports Illustrated) liked this team coming into last season and it didn't work out. It wasn't until Francisco Lindor and Giovanny Urshela got bigger roles that the Indians started to play well with more consistency and by then, it was too late. This season, people like the Indians again, for the same reasons. And I can see why. The Indians are going to have one of the best pitching staffs in the league and their lineup should be well above average. 

Corey Kluber, the undisputed ace, followed up on his 2014 Cy Young campaign by posting a 2.97 FIP and a 5.5-win season by fWAR. He also struck out nearly 10 batters per 9 innings, a theme consistent with the rest of Cleveland's starters. Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar, and Trevor Bauer all struck out at least 8.69 per 9 innings last season which is a large reason why I think they'll be so successful this season. Strikeouts are the best thing a pitcher can do to prevent runs from scoring and the Indians led the league in strikeouts per 9 innings last season. Thanks in large part to the lofty strikeout numbers; Carlos Carrasco had a 2.84 FIP last season, a number 30 percent above league average by FIP-. Carrasco even earned Cy Young votes for the first time in his career because those numbers were so strong. 

Danny Salazar started to unlock his potential last season when he had a 3.45 ERA and was a 3-win player by fWAR. Salazar has some control issues--he walked 2.58 per 9 last season--but he still provides significantly more value than most #3 starters. And though walks undermined Trevor Bauer as well, he has the same salivating strikeout numbers as the rest of Cleveland's staff as well. Though he had a sub-optimal 4.33 FIP last season, Bauer is a candidate to improve should he gain more control. In any case, Bauer will likely give the Indians as much or more from the #4 spot in the rotation than most teams. 

Don't overlook the bullpen either. Cody Allen has proven to be a solid closer after putting up a 1.82 FIP and striking out 12.85 per 9 last season. And although small sample size always must be considered with a bullpen, it's hard not to be impressed by Jeff Manship's 0.92 ERA in spite of the fact that it's almost certainly unsustainable.

Unlike their division rivals in Chicago, the Indians do have a lineup capable of supporting their star-studded pitching staff. Jason Kipnis is a bona fide superstar who hit .303/.372/.451 last season and Francisco Lindor isn't far behind. Lindor, who would have won Rookie of the Year if not for the perhaps generational talent of Carlos Correa, was simply brilliant in all facets of the game. Not only did he put up a .835 OPS and equal Kipnis' output in bWAR, he put himself in the running for the best defensive shortstop in the game. Lindor had 10 defensive runs saved in his rookie season, which was fourth in baseball despite him playing well over 100 innings less than anyone near him on the leaderboard. Giovanny Urshela's fielding prowess is impressive as well, though the 24 year old still has a long way to go at the plate. Michael Brantley, an often overlooked star, hit 35 percent better than league average last season according to wRC+. He also led the league in doubles and continued to be a threat on the basepaths, stealing 15 bases and getting caught just once. Perhaps the most impressive stat on Brantley's Baseball Reference page: he struck out just 8.6% of the time last season, one of the five lowest marks in all of baseball among qualified hitters. 

Cleveland's lineup is filled from top to bottom and their pitching staff is one of the league's best. I don't think they'll hit the 92-win mark set for them by PECOTA, but I'd be surprised if the Indians aren't at least in the wild card game come October.

1. Kansas City Royals

Expect the defending champs are going to be back at the top of the division again. This is largely the same group of players that hoisted the Commissioner's Trophy last season and although they're missing some of the second-half rentals that pushed them over the edge, the Royals are still good enough to get through at least the regular season without much trouble.

Their lineup is filled with All-Star level talent. Eric Hosmer has become one of the game's premier players thanks to his brilliant offensive output and Mike Moustakas isn't far behind. Hosmer his .297/.363/.459 last season with 18 home runs and won a Gold Glove at first base. Moustakas bested him in power numbers, equaled him in MVP votes and ended up just one percent short of Hosmer's total output by wRC+. Although Hosmer and Moustakas make up a young core that is the result of years of building up a great farm system, Alex Gordon still may be the team's most electrifying player. In a year shortened by an injury that saw him miss most of July and the entire month of August, Gordon hit .271/.377/.432, had 7 defensive runs saved, and a .351 wOBA. Gordon is the elder statesman of a young lineup that, in addition to Hosmer and Moustakas, boasts a young superstar in Lorenzo Cain and All-Star fixtures (that is, assuming Royals fans continue to rock the vote) in Salvador Perez and Alcides Escobar.

Cain put up numbers last season that would have been MVP-worthy in some seasons. To be specific, he had a .838 OPS, a 129 wRC+, and a .307/.361/.477 slash line. Cain isn't just a hitter though; he excels in every facet of the game. He had a 6.2 BsR and saved 18 runs in centerfield. Put that all together and you get a stunning 7.2 bWAR, 8th among position players last season. Perez and Escobar aren't standout hitters; as a matter of fact both were below league average last season. However, both provided huge value in terms of fielding. Perez saved 5 runs at catcher and had a 2.2 bWAR along with 21 home runs at the plate that salvaged some of his value as a hitter. Escobar had a 7.1 UZR at shortstop, deservedly earning Gold Glove honors. Though Escobar is a fairly horrendous hitter, the rest of the lineup coupled with his fielding ability makes up for it (though it would be nice if Ned Yost stopped hitting him in the leadoff spot). 

The most concerning part about this team is the starting pitching and with fairly good reason. With Johnny Cueto off to greener pastures, the Royals are left without much of an ace. It's likely that Edinson Volquez will start Opening Day and although Volquez is a solid pitcher with a 3.55 ERA that was 13 percent better than league average last season by ERA-, he is far from an ace.  And there isn't much to get excited about behind him either. Yordano Ventura took what would be generously explained as a step back last season when he had a 4.08 ERA, walked 3.2 per 9 innings and made his ever-rising temper a defining part of his game. Though Ventura still has loads of potential that comes with a fastball that averages between 95 and 96 mph according to PITCHf/x, it remains to be seen whether he can tap into it. Ian Kennedy is an interesting signing, but he’s not someone who will put this team over the edge. The Royals will hope that Kennedy's lacking numbers last season were merely a by-product of the disaster that occurred in San Diego and that Kennedy can get back to his 2014 level. That's not an outlandish expectation given that Kennedy has gone from one of the worst defensive teams in the majors to one of the best, but don't expect him to carry the rotation. 

Although the rotation may be lacking, the bullpen is among the league's best. Kansas City's bullpen produced a league best .211 batting average against last season and may be even better this year with the addition of Joakim Soria. Soria, who had a 2.53 ERA last season, will likely slot into a 7th inning role behind the deadly duo of Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis. Both Herrera and Davis were All-Stars last season and both were simply brilliant. Herrera was one of the best relief pitcher in the league last season, posting a 2.71 ERA in 69.2 innings but Davis truly had a season for the ages. In 67.1 innings pitched, Davis had a 0.94 ERA, a number so good that he finished 6th in Cy Young voting as a set-up man. With Greg Holland hurt and, on top of that, unsigned, Davis is well-fit to take on his role. 

Though the Royals may lack the finishing pieces that pushed them over the championship edge last season, they still have talent far better than most teams in all of baseball. And on top of that, perhaps more importantly, the Royals have an innate ability to win games. Though this may qualify as hearsay in the analytics era, the Royals are simply a winning team. They have an extreme talent for winning games they shouldn't, for resiliency, and for pulling off the impossible. Expect them to defy the numbers yet again in 2016.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted 

2016 MLB Preview: AL East

In the past 10 years, the AL East has gone from a monarchy to a socialist’s paradise. From 1998 to 2006, the Yankees reigned supreme over the division, with the Red Sox close in tandem and everyone else languishing behind. But since then, the division has been open for the taking. Since 2010, all five teams have won the division at least once and unpredictability is at an all-time high.

The only thing that projection systems seem to agree on is Baltimore finishing in last. Despite the (very) recent signing of Yovani Gallardo, it seems that the Orioles simply don't have enough pitching to compete. The Rangers found Gallardo to be unsatisfactory as an ace, trading for Cole Hamels at the deadline last year to help solve the problem, and it seems likely the Orioles will as well. However, they will open the season with him as their surest bet on the mound. 

Beyond Baltimore, the division can seemingly go in any way you choose. The Rays, who have the longest odds of the remaining four teams according to Sportsbook, have been made the favorite by Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projection system. The lack of clarity in what experts think of the Rays can essentially be transferred to the rest of the division as well. You don't have to look hard to find people whose thoughts range from a given team winning to that same team bottoming out. If nothing else, the AL East promises to be unpredictable. Now, let's get to the teams themselves.

5. Baltimore Orioles: 

Let's start with the problem we've already mentioned: pitching. They simply don't have it. 

Yovani Gallardo comes into the season as their likely opening day starter which is a problem for a multitude of reasons. First, the timing of Gallardo's signing was sub-optimal at best. Signing someone at essentially the latest possible time they can be signed without missing significant parts of camp is a bad idea. The Orioles are stepping into a situation over which they have no control in signing Gallardo this late. They don't know what (if anything) Gallardo did this winter while he was waiting around for a team to sign him and Gallardo himself likely didn't have a chance to meet his coaches before camp. The Orioles are, of course, aware of this and I'm sure they've taken steps to try and allow Gallardo to ease into things, but it's a bad start nonetheless. 

Even without that factor, the fact remains that Yovani Gallardo simply is not an ace. While his 3.42 ERA is fine, his defensive-independent numbers tell a different story. He had a 4.00 FIP last season and a 4.31 xFIP, neither of which are anywhere near the numbers you want from someone who will likely take the ball on Opening Day. He strikes out just 5.91 batters per 9 innings as well, which is further cause for concern. While Baseball Reference pegged him as a 4-win player last season, Fangraphs' FIP-based WAR saw him as just a 2.5-win player. 

Once you get past the beatable Gallardo, the Orioles' rotation becomes shakier than DeAndre Jordan at the free throw line. Between Chris Tillman, Miguel Gonzalez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Kevin Gausman, and Mike Wright, there isn't a park-adjusted ERA better than league average. Any hint of reliability that the Orioles ever had is gone. Though Jimenez may be able to put up solid numbers, he's historically been inconsistent on a year-to-year basis. Gausman is young and a 3.80 xFIP is encouraging, it seems unlikely at best that he'll be the ace they need.

The Orioles are stronger in the bullpen, where Zach Britton and Darren O'Day form a formidable 8-9 combo, but getting through the first seven innings is going to be a challenge for the pitching staff.

Offensively, the Orioles are better-off. Re-signing Chris Davis to a massive contract may hurt in the long-term, but this year, while Davis is still 29, don't expect them to regret it. Davis hit .262/.361/.562 last season and led the league with 47 home runs to boot. His .923 OPS was a full 47 percent above league average by wRC+ and he also put up a monstrous .300 ISO. Manny Machado is a nice complement to Davis in the middle of the order, put it lightly. Machado, whose 8.4 UZR and 14 defensive runs saved earned him a Gold Glove at 3rd base, launched 35 home runs on his own while hitting .286/.359/.502 to boot. 

Adam Jones is still an All-Star as well who can flash the leather in center field as well as anyone. Jones had a 7.1 UZR and continued to display good power, hitting 27 dingers. Power hitting seems to be a building block of the Orioles' lineup this season, as they've brought in Mark Trumbo as well. Trumbo has struggled the past two years, but is still capable of hitting over 20 home runs a year regardless. Beyond their power though, the Orioles may not have much to offer. Outside of Machado, Davis, and Jones, there are few sure things.

In order to compete, the Orioles need Matt Wieters to stay healthy, Hyun Soo Kim to pay off, Jimmy Paredes to play like he did in the first half of last season as oppose to the second, and J.J. Hardy to turn into a run-of-the-mill below average player instead of the horror show he was last season. That's a lot to ask.

Wieters has just 394 plate appearances in the past two seasons and long gone are the days when Sports Illustrated declared him the franchise's future. Wieters is a solid hitter, but health is, and will always be an issue with him. Kim was a good player in Korea, but it's impossible to know if his numbers will translate to the MLB, where the pitching is tougher and he'll be under more scrutiny. 

It's also hard to be bullish about Paredes, who had a case to be an All-Star after his first half before putting up an abysmal .517 OPS in the second half. Additionally, there may not be a place for Paredes, who struggles to play the field, while Trumbo is in the lineup at DH. At shortstop, J.J. Hardy was a mere shell of himself last season. His 49 wRC+ was less than half the league average and a .219/.253/.311 slash line is just sad for someone who was once an All-Star. While his .257 BABIP will likely improve, it's hard to see Hardy do much better without anti-aging medication. 

The number of things that have to go right for the Orioles to simply too much to expect anything other than last place. The lineup depth isn't there and it's nearly impossible to have confidence in a starting rotation missing an ace. Don't expect much from the Orioles this season.

4. Tampa Bay Rays

Last year, the Rays were solid but underwhelming in both their pitching and offense and it didn't work. Though they're on the road to solving that problem, they still have a long way to go. 

The biggest thing they did to help their lack of firepower on offense was acquire Corey Dickerson from the Rockies. Dickerson is a nice player and his .304/.333/.536 slash line is impressive. However, he did that over just 234 plate appearances and has never had over 500 PAs in a season. Dickerson's year was also fueled by an unsustainable .367 BABIP and his .695 career OPS away from Coors Field tells a different story than one of a cornerstone player. Though Dickerson is going to help the Rays, who simply didn't have enough offensively last season, he's not a solution to the problem.

Perhaps the most obvious example of the help the Rays need offensively is Kevin Kiermaier. Kiermaier was the Rays' highest rated player by a wide margin according to both fWAR and bWAR despite a .298 on-base percentage. Don't get me wrong, Kiermaier is a hugely valuable player. He had a 30.0 UZR and 42 defensive runs saved last season, both of which are completely insane. But the mere fact that the Rays' most valuable position player gets his accolades for fielding is fitting for a franchise that simply needs more offense.

Outside of Dickerson, Evan Longoria and Logan Forsythe are the only two players in their lineup that can be consistently depended on. Longoria has declined from superstardom, but a .764 OPS, 21 homers and 4.2 fWAR is still a very high level. Logan Forsythe's breakout last season was a welcome surprise for the Rays as he batted .281/.359/.444, which translates to a 126 wRC+. It's a question as to whether or not Forsythe can replicate that considering in the four years of his career prior to 2015 he hadn't put up an OPS above .733, but the Rays need him to be the same guy he was last season. They simply can't afford to be trotting out another questionable offensive player.

Perhaps their best chance of finding another reliable offensive player lies in Steven Souza Jr. Obtained in a three-team deal that saw Tampa give Wil Myers to the Padres two offseasons ago, Souza was the biggest piece that the Rays got in that deal and he fell flat on his face in Year 1. Despite the hype, Souza hit .225/.318/.399 in a disappointing rookie year. Souza still has the same potential and tools that everyone saw in him when he was a prospect, but he needs to prove that they can translate to the majors this season. If the Rays are to contend, Souza is needed to break out.

The rest of their lineup is weak at best, no position more so than catcher. Rene Rivera is a good pitch-framer (though his numbers fell last season), but his offensive output is simply not that of a major league baseball player. Rivera's 33 wRC+ is a third of what you would expect from a league average hitter. Though Curt Casali and Hank Conger will get a chance at the position, but neither can be consistently depended on and both are unreliable at best defensively. 

When it comes to pitching, the Rays have the star their lineup lacks and a solid amount of depth behind him. Chris Archer went from solid player with intriguing potential to outright superstar last year when he struck out 10.7 per 9, had a 2.90 FIP, and a 5.3 fWAR. Archer, who earned his first All-Star appearance last season, has cemented himself as the backbone of the rotation and is ready to supplant Evan Longoria as the face of the team itself. 

The rotational depth behind Archer is there, but it's lacking a major piece. Alex Cobb missed all of last season and he's going to miss at least the first half of this one, which is a huge blow to their chances. Cobb, who put up a 2.87 ERA when he was last healthy in 2014, would give them a fourth reliable pitcher if not for his injuries. Even if he does come back after the All-Star break (which is probably optimistic), his ability after not having pitched for a year and a half has to be in question. If you're going to win with pitching, like the Rays are trying to do, you need at least four solid pitchers to truly contend. The Mets were able to stay afloat with three last seasons, but it wasn't until they acquired Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright returned from injury, giving them an offense, that they were a playoff team.

Right now, the Rays have enough pitching to stay afloat. Jake Odorizzi and Drew Smyly are both more than able to exceed expectations. Last season, Smyly's 3.11 ERA was 20 percent better than league average when you account for park effects and Odorizzi's 3.35 ERA was 14 percent above league average on the same scale. Both strike out a solid number of opposing batters as well, though their fielding independent numbers both see them regressing somewhat this year. 

Though the Rays have a solid foundation in their rotation, their current roster is not good enough to compete for a full season in this division. If they trade for some offense, a prospect that seems unlikely, then they might have enough firepower to stay in the playoff race. However, the more likely outcome is another depressing season in the dingy and depressing Tropicana Field.

3. New York Yankees

I fear that the Yankees we saw in September, the team that lapsed horribly with a .702 collective OPS, down 42 points from the entire season, a 4.47 ERA, which ballooned nearly half a run from its season average, and a noncompetitive loss to the Astros in the wild card round, is going to be the team we see in the 2016 season. The Yankees depend on too many older players for hitting and too many injury prone guys for pitching. A season like the last one, when injuries didn't leave their mark until late in the season, is simply unlikely to happen. A season like the last one, when Mark Teixeira, age 35, and Alex Rodriguez, age 40, combine for 64 home runs, is more than unlikely. It's flat out impossible.

Alex Rodriguez took the baseball world by storm last season when he hit .250/.356/.486, but the second half, when his average dropped to a mere .216, seems the more likely outcome for this season. Rodriguez is a Hall of Famer, one of the best hitters ever. But playing baseball and producing at a high level simply becomes close to impossible at a certain age. It happened to Ruth, who finished out his career as a Boston Brave, hitting 6 home runs with no retirement tour to smooth it over, Griffey, who hit .229/.332/.397 over his last three seasons, and Mays, who had a .647 OPS in his last season while withering away in the outfield for the Mets. Time is undefeated and Alex Rodriguez is set to be its latest victim.

Rodriguez and Teixeira accounted for so much of the Yankees' production last season that taking away even some of that might be a death blow to their offense. Coming into the year, the team's best hitter besides them by last year's wRC+ is Carlos Beltran, age 38, who accounted for -14 defensive runs saved last season and cannot be moved to DH because that is A-Rod's permanent territory. 

With an offense headed by Brian McCann and Jacoby Ellsbury, 2011 All-Stars the both of them, the Yankees are setting themselves up for disaster. With Brett Gardner still held up as a display of the homegrown talent the Yankees can offer, as he has been since he came into the league in 2008, perhaps this has been a long time coming. 

And yes, their bullpen is going to be incredible. Even with Aroldis Chapman missing the first 30 games, the Yankees still have an ability to shorten games that no other team does. A threesome of Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Dellin Betances in the final three innings is deadly. The Yankees aren't going to lose many games they're leading after six innings with those three flamethrowers following each other. But it can be tough to hold a lead that you do not have and the Yankees lack the offense to be holding a lead often enough to contend. 

The Yankees' starting pitching is worrying as well, though not for the reasons of age as much for the reason of health. Masahiro Tanaka got through a full season last year with an elbow that had many worried in March, but even after arthroscopic surgery on that elbow in the offseason, the threat of injury will continue to hang over him as it does Michael Pineda. Pineda, who did get hurt last season, though he missed just a month as oppose to the many, many months he missed between 2012 and 2014, a time span over which he took the mound just 13 times, seems to be cursed. Perhaps this is the year he can go through the wall and make it from April to October (hopefully) without getting hurt, but there's no reason to assume that will happen when it has not happened since 2011.

Should Tanaka and Pineda both remain healthy, the Yankees might have something to work with. Tanaka is a Cy Young-caliber pitcher at his best while Pineda is an All-Star. Last season, Tanaka had a 0.99 WHIP to complement 8.12 Ks per 9 and a 3.51 ERA which paled in comparison to his 2014 campaign which, until he was hurt for an extended period of time, was one of the better in baseball. Pineda, on the other hand, was pitching up to his potential in the first half, when he had a 2.69 FIP, before hitting a wall in the second half, during which he was also injured. If both of those players perform to their potential, the Yankees will be able to win with their pitching.

The back end of their rotation is an asset. Nate Eovaldi had a 3.42 FIP last season, throws 100 mph, and is only going to get better. Luis Severino is going into his first full season as one of the more hyped Yankees' prospects in recent memory and his ability is mouthwatering. Even C.C. Sabathia, who had an abysmal season before going to rehab for alcoholism, could bounce back slightly if only because it seems impossible that he gives up 1.51 home runs per 9 innings again. If those three don't have expectation put on them then they can and will perform. However, if the top of the rotation falters, or spends time on the disabled list, then the Yankees will be in trouble, and fast.

2. Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays are in win-now mode, but they lack the artillery necessary to win the AL East. However, their problem will certainly not be one of offense. The bats that fueled an offense that took the American League by storm last season are back, which means that the Blue Jays are a tough out at the least. Last season, the Blue Jays led the league in wRC+, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, wOBA, ISO, and home runs. In short, they were really, really good at hitting baseballs. And not much has changed.

Josh Donaldson's list of achievements last season included an All-Star appearance, Silver Slugger award, and 8.8-win season according to bWAR, 41 home runs, and a .297/.371/.568 slash line, which translates to 54 percent above league average by wRC+. Oh, and he won the American League MVP Award. As you go down the list of Toronto hitters, that theme doesn't change. Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, and Chris Colabello also hit over 40 percent above league average according to wRC+ while Russell Martin hit 23 home runs and got MVP votes. Troy Tulowitzki, acquired midseason, hit .280/.337/.440 in what was considered a down year. 

Given that Ryan Goins will likely split time at second base with Devon Travis and that Michael Saunders' situation is unclear (the Blue Jays nearly traded him for Jay Bruce last month and Dalton Pompey will likely have a role regardless), the only every day starter for the Blue Jays who hit below league average last season was Kevin Pillar. And despite that, Pillar was a 5.2-win player last season by bWAR thanks to his 22 defensive runs saved and 15.4 UZR in centerfield. 

Where Toronto does falter, however, is in its pitching staff. Last season, the Blue Jays were unable to gain momentum until they traded for David Price, someone who could anchor their staff. This season, they no longer have Price to anchor that rotation which leaves them with a major hole. Yes, Marcus Stroman is healthy and yes, Marcus Stroman could be that player. He certainly did well last season in the 27 innings he pitched after missing most of the season with an ACL tear. Stroman is an exciting, young player with lots of potential, but he just missed essentially an entire season and he's still developing. Asking him to anchor a rotation in only his second full season is a lot to put on his shoulders.

Marco Estrada had an impressive 2015, but his defense-independent numbers told a different story. His FIP was well over a full run higher than his 3.13 ERA and his xFIP was an uninspiring 4.93. Estrada also benefited from a .216 BABIP which is bound to regress to the mean. As you go deeper into the rotation, the questions get bigger. R.A. Dickey may be a former Cy Young Award winner, but it seems that age is taking his toll on him. Dickey had a 122 xFIP- last season and had a .257 BABIP which is likely to regress. J.A. Happ and Aaron Sanchez, assuming they become the starters in the back-end of the rotation, are fairly unreliable at best. 

Though their bullpen has likely gotten better with the addition of Drew Storen, it still stands out as a weak spot. Storen is an improvement, but a closer with a 3.44 ERA, who was demoted last season in Washington, is not ideal. Roberto Osuna could usurp him as closer by season's end as Jonathan Papelbon did last season in Washington. Without a rotation, or a bullpen, that can complement their big bats, the Blue Jays simply cannot win the division.

1. Boston Red Sox

Boston's core of young players is simply unparalleled within the division and their veterans aren't too shabby either. Blake Swihart struggled somewhat in his rookie year, but with a year of experience under his belt will perform much better than the 91 wRC+ he put up last season. Rusney Castillo may continue to struggle at the plate, but his ability in the outfield, where he accounted for 15 defensive runs saved, makes him valuable. The same goes for Jackie Bradley Jr, who had 8 DRS and a 10.4 UZR. Bradley, however, hit .249/.335/.498 last season, coming into his own as a hitter as he finally started to fulfill his sky-high potential. 

 The cream of the crop, though, is Mookie Betts. Betts hit .291/.341/.479 last season, earning some MVP votes to complement his 18 homers, 8.3 BsR, 10 defensive runs saved, and 6 wins above replacement according to Baseball Reference. That was just his second season in the majors and in his third, Betts is ready to transform into a full-fledged superstar. Betts is one of the most exciting young players in baseball in every facet of the game. With David Ortiz embarking on a retirement tour, Betts is set to become the face of the franchise this season. 

Though the Red Sox will still have to deal with Hanley Ramirez playing first base, a position he has never played before, and Pablo Sandoval playing third base, where he had a -16.9 UZR last season, their team will not suffer as much as it did last season because of it. Ramirez's fielding will continue to be a problem, but his hitting will likely improve given his .257 BABIP last season. Sandoval had his worst ever season in the field last year and was previously a solid defensive third baseman. He too will improve.

Additionally, Dustin Pedroia continues to produce at a high level, putting up a 116 wRC+ last season while his teammates languished behind. Even David Ortiz, whose retirement marks the end of an era for the Red Sox, earned an MVP vote last season after hitting .273/.360/.553 along with 37 home runs last season.

However, the single biggest reason that the Red Sox will win the division is the acquisition of David Price. Their team had a lot of problems last season, but none was bigger than the glaring lack of a true ace. Price's contract will hurt eventually, but for now, he gives them the ace they so desperately needed. Price came in second place for Cy Young voting last year when he put up a 2.45 ERA and 2.78 FIP, struck out 9.19 per 9 innings, and accounted for at least 6 wins by both Baseball Reference's and Fangraphs' version of WAR. Price gives their rotation what it so desperately needed.

In addition to Price, the Red Sox will also have full seasons out of Eduardo Rodriguez and Henry Owens. Rodriguez was impressive in his rookie year when he had an ERA 9 percent better than league average when you account for park effects and quality of opponent. Henry Owens didn't have as much experience as Rodriguez but is an intriguing prospect in an organization that has excelled at churning out talent in recent years. On top of that, both Clay Buchholz and Rick Porcello are more than capable without the large expectation placed on them last year, when they were expected to be the best pitchers in the rotation. Buchholz did play well last season, but struggled in regards to health. If his performance picks up where it left off last season, the Red Sox will be in good shape. Porcello, on the other hand, will need his ERA to reflect his 3.72 xFIP, which would be just fine if he's in a smaller role.

The Red Sox have also bolstered their bullpen with the addition of Craig Kimbrel. Though Kimbrel struggled last season in comparison with what he had done in Atlanta the fact remains that he is a huge improvement over Koji Uehara. Kimbrel, who had a 69 ERA- last season, remains as one of best closers in the game. Boston has done everything necessary to improve. They've added the pitching which they so desperately needed and their young talent is only going to get better. This is a franchise ready to return to the playoffs.

All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted