NL EAST
Atlanta Braves
For all the buzz about Heyward, I’m more excited about Jurrjens, Hanson, Hudson, Lowe, & Wagner. Cox’s last year ends in playoffs?
Florida Marlins
The youngest team in the league: the Fish have one regular over 30, and no starters older than 26. Ain’t youth grand?
New York Mets
More money, more problems. The hitting coach was catalyst for Wright’s declining HR’s. Mets bounce back with Jay-Bay?
Philadelphia Phillies
Silver cloud: two World Series in a row, Roy Halladay, Utley, scads of talent. Black lining: Phillies are the oldest team in the NL.
Washington Nationals
9 innings, 12 strikeouts, 1 walk: a franchise turns its lonely eyes to you, Stephen Stausburg. Zimmerman to pass Pujols as NL’s best player?
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Okay…enough character counting.
The two obvious contenders in the East are the Phillies and the Braves. Tackling the Phillies first…the defending NL champs have a terrific offense, having led the NL in runs per game in 2009. They’re an old group: Rollins is thirty-one this year, and he posted a career-low .298 on-base percentage in 2009. Raul Ibanez and Jayson Werth are coming off career years: it will be difficult for either player to repeat their performance. On the other hand, there is a chance the team’s pitching could be better in 2010: a healthy Hamels and a full year of Halladay and Happ could make the Philly rotation one of the five best in the league. Their bullpen is a concern, but they have good arms: it’s just a question of who gets the closer job.
I like the Braves: losing Javier Vazquez hurts, but I like Jurrjens, Hanson, Hudson, and Lowe, and I’m particularly bullish on Billy Wagner as their closer. A health season pushes Wagner to fourth on the all-time save list, behind Hoffman, Rivera, and Lee Smith.
Jason Heyward’s been the talk of the spring so far: this is a subjective measure, but he sure as hell looks like a hitter: he has the same menacing bat-wiggle that Gary Sheffield had. They’re already calling him the ‘next great Brave’: what’s incredible is he seems utterly unaffected by the attention.
As a player…last year Heyward posted a .323/.408/.555 line in 99 games, splitting his time between A+ and AA league teams. He was nineteen. I thought of Andruw Jones, as I suppose a few of you did. How do Heyward’s minor league numbers compare to Andruw’s?
In 1996 Jones posted a 339/.421/.652 line during 116 games, while splitting time between A+ and AA. He was 19, like Heyward was last year. The numbers are similar numbers, sure, but Andruw Jones showed a bit more pop, and was already an elite defensive player. During his first full season in the majors Jones posted a .231/.329/.416 line, with 18 homeruns and 20 stolen bases.
I’m glad that the Braves are giving Heyward the full-time job on Opening Day, but I’m not quite ready to give him the MVP. Not this year, anyway.
The Marlins and the Mets are the two teams likely to surprise should the Phillies and Braves falter, and the two teams are studies in contrasts. The Marlins payroll was $36 million last year, while the Mets paid $150 million in salary. The Marlins go with youth over experience, while the Mets approach is to throw money at the latest free agent du jour: I love Jason Bay, but I don’t know why he’s a solution in New York.
The Mets have a lot of big names: David Wright and Jose Reyes and Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran and Jason Bay. The consensus is that Wright’s power outage was due to a hitting approach that focused on spraying the ball: he should rebound to 25-30 homeruns.
Still, I like the Marlins better: they outperformed their Pythagorean W-L record by five games last year, but they are the youngest club in the league. It’d be nice to see Anibal Sanchez should come back strong this year.
The Nationals will be in the basement for the next year, but Strasburg will give D.C. fans a reason to crowd the stadium come June. Ryan Zimmerman is a good candidate to replace Pujols as the NL's best player. I mean, someone has to, right?
We’ll predict: Braves, Phillies, Marlins, Mets, and Nationals.
NL CENTRAL
Chicago Cubs
There are $90 million reasons why Soriano’s contract was a mistake. Soto rebounds, Marmol causes palpitations, & the Cub vets get another year older.
Cincinnati Reds
A young and talented lineup, but only improvements by Cueto, Bruce, and Jay Stubbs, along with a healthy Harang, can bring the Reds over .500.
Houston Astros
The Phillies are old and talented. The Astros are just plain old. Only Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence are under thirty-four in the lineup. Bad news.
Milwaukee Brewers
Having Prince, Braun, and Gallardo is a bedrock the envy of the NL Central. Brew Crew should contend in 2010.
Pittsburgh Prates
Count me as one of the many believers in Andrew McCutchen. This is the year the Bucs rise out of the cellar and start turning things around.
St. Louis Cardinals
All things being equal, Pujols makes the Cards the heavy favorites in the Central. Of course, Holliday, Carpenter, and Wainwright make all else unequal.
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Going into the 2010 season, the Cardinals are the strong favorites in the NL Central. They had the division’s best pitching last year, and the second best offense (behind Milwaukee).
If they slip (if, say, Albert Pujols misses 90 games), the Brewers are the team most likely to fill the gap. They can certainly score runs, but their rotation, outside of Gallardo and Randy Wolf, is shaky.
Just a quick aside: Bill projects that the top-ten projected hitters in terms of Runs Created next year will be Pujols, Cabrera, Braun, Fielder, Howard, Hanley Ramirez, Teixeira, Holliday, Mauer, and Longoria. Four of those ten players play for two NL Central clubs. Just saying: the NL has a few thumpers.
The Cubs and Reds are dark horses in the division…the Cubs strength is pitching this year: they have four starters from last season who posted sub-4.00 ERA’s while pitching at least 150 innings. The offense is a problem: Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez are obviously talented, and Geovanny Soto should be one of the better hitting backstops in the NL in 2010, but the rest of the offense is mediocre. The Cubs were 10th in the NL in runs scored last year: with Wrigley as their home park, they need to be in the top-5 in the league to hope to contend. I don’t know that they will.
Cincinnati has a lot of young talent: Votto is a star in the making, and I like Jay Bruce to post Adam Dunn-like numbers in 2010. Johnny Cueto posted a respectable 3.62 ERA during the first-half of last season, and the rest of the rotation (Arroyo, Harang, Bailey) should be okay.
Like the Marlins, the Pirates are a young team, and they’re finally starting to bubble with talent. Andrew McCutchen is the most exciting player the Pirates have had since Barry Bonds left for San Francisco, and Garrett Jones surprised everyone with 21 major league homeruns to go alongside the 158 he’s hit in the minors. The rotation has a bunch of horses: Duke (213 1P), Maholm (194 IP), and Ohlendorf (176 IP) should give plenty of stability, and righty Daniel McCutchen could blossom into a good starter.
Houston is old. Cecil Cooper worked a miracle to keep the Astros in the race in 2008, and he managed a 60-odd win team to more victories than they had any right to claim in 2009. The Astros fired him for it: I hope some major league team isn’t so short sighted about Cooper.
Going with: Cardinals, Brewers, Reds, Cubs, Pirates, and Astros. And we’ll give the Brewers the Wild Card.
NL WEST
Arizona Diamondbacks
The D’Backs should surprise in 2010: come June they’ll have five excellent starters to go along with a good core of young talent in the lineup.
Colorado Rockies
Ubaldo Jimenez (3.34 home ERA) proved it’s possible for a pitcher to thrive in Denver, at least for one year. Rox showed they didn’t miss Holliday any.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Kemp, Ethier, and Loney disguise an aging lineup. But Billingsly, Kershaw, and Broxton are young arms with lots of talent. Plus: Haeger!
San Diego Padres
This is the only NL West team not in contention in 2010: Adrian Gonzalez will be packing his bags this summer.
San Francisco Giants
Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, and Zito might be the best staff in the division. The lineup around Sandoval, however, is pretty abysmal.
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Four teams could win this division: that’s exciting. If you’re a fan of the Giants, Dodgers. Rockies, or Diamondbacks, you have a reason to look forward to 2010. If you’re a Padres fan, well, you probably live in San Diego. You have no reason to complain.
Four teams could win…which team will win?
Well, the Giants have the most glaring weakness: their offense is probably the worst in division (the Padres scored fewer runs last year, but they outscored the Giants in road games, 360 to 299). Sandoval is a great hitter, but he’s the only bat in the lineup. Obviously, the Giants have some excellent pitchers, but it is difficult to see how their offense can contend against the bashers in Arizona, Colorado, and Los Angeles.
The Rockies were second in the NL in runs scored, but is their offense that good? Not to keep using the same metric, but the Padres outscored the Rockies in road games last year, 360 to 340. They have young hitters, but only Carlos Gonzalez and Dexter Fowler project to be good players…maybe they will be productive players, but if they’re not the offense will suffer. And I’m not sold on the pitchers, either: Ubaldo Jimenez was terrific last year, but batters had a .287 BABIP against him in 2009, and he has a career average of 4.1 walks/9 IP. The saving grace for Jimenez is that he’s allowed just 0.5 homeruns per 9 innings pitched, but he’s doing a high-wire act in Colorado: if that HR rate jumps, the walks are going to turn into runs allowed.
I’m not implying that the Rockies don’t have talent: they have scads of young, major-league ready players. But I don’t know if that talent will come together in 2010.
The Dodgers have Andre Ethier (Age 28), Matt Kemp (25), James Loney (26), Russell Martin (27), Clayton Kershaw (22), Chad Billingsly (25), and Jonathan Broxton (26)…that’s a lot of young-to-peak-age talent on one ballclub. They’re surrounded by guys like Ramirez, Casey Blake, and Rafael Furcal: veterans who can still play. If you’re a Dodgers fan, you have a lot to look forward to in 2010.
Still…I like Arizona to win the division. The Diamondbacks finished last in 2009, so it’ll take a lot to rise to the top in a tough division. Still, I like their chances:
The core of the lineup, Upton, Montero, and Reynolds, is excellent, and I think the supporting players are terrific. Conor Jackson should have a great 2010: he had a lost 2009, due to a weird desert parasite he caught during spring training, but all reports are that he is healthy again. Chris Young hit 32 homeruns three years ago, at the age of 23: there’s talent there. And Stephen Drew and Kelly Johnson will give the D’Backs good production from the middle infield.
The rotation is terrific: Haran is a beast, and Brandon Webb should come back in mid-summer. Edwin Jackson is a terrific, and he’s shifting to the NL. And Ian Kennedy and Billy Buckner are solid 4-5 starters.
What separates the Dodgers and Diamondbacks is the degree to which we know the team. We have fewer questions about the Dodgers: it’s easy to imagine what most of their players will do in the coming year. The picture of the team is clear, somehow.
For Arizona, I think the picture is very muddy: what will Webb be like? What is Stephen Drew going to do? What about Conor Jackson? What about Chris Young? How’s Kennedy going to do with a real gig in the rotation? How will Jackson do in the NL? It’s a team of questions.
I think the answers to those questions are going to be positive, so I’m taking Arizona. They’ll be followed by the Dodgers, Rockies, Giants, and Padres.
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Chicago. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com