Dodgers are crushing the Padres in the first game of Spring Season on ESPN. It’s sunny outside, it’s National Margarita Day…Life is Good.
So what do you think of your team’s chances this year?
There’s no stopping the Nats, now that they’ve acquired Joey Gallo. 
Yanks will be better but unlikely to win it all.
I’m cautiously optimistic about the Mariners for no good reason at all.
It’s Spring Training, being optimistic is what we’re supposed to do!
I think the Royals have a puncher’s chance in the AL Central, because why not?
I think that Scott Boras is going to end up blinking first, and that Cody Bellinger will end up resigning with the Cubs.
Maybe I’m just being overly optimistic, though. Spring training is when hope springs eternal.
The White Sox will dethrone the Oakland A’s as the Worst Team in MLB. Within a very few years they will be decamping for Nashville or Charlotte.
Orioles should at least win a playoff series. Probably still a few moves away from reaching the ALCS or WS, but we’ll see how it’s going at the break.
They’ve got a distance to go in dethroning Oakland. The Sox were -200 in run differential last year; the A’s were (gulp) -339, the third worst figure in since-1900 AL/NL baseball. Also, there’s Colorado in between them! So all is not lost! (Maybe)
Those cities might at least get an expansion team.
But probably not within a few years.
Martinez: Nats’ next World Series title is coming ‘real soon’
Hopefully, ‘real soon’ means within my lifetime.
I miss Joe Posnanski’s yearly “Why the Royals will win the World Series” column… those were always a hoot. Of course, then they went and won the damn thing and ruined the joke!
For my Cardinals, I’m not optimistic. They don’t seem to have learned the lessons the rest of the league has, and their evaluation of their own talent is still way off. The team they could have with folks they traded away is infuriating.
And their solution to needing 2-3 quality starters was Sonny Gray (OK, fine), Lance Lynn (ugh), and Kyle Gibson (double-ugh). I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see that rotation working out.
Still, Fangraphs has them as pretty strong favorites in their division, which kinda blows my mind.
What’s up with the NL Cy Young winner (Blake Snell) not having a team yet? That seems pretty bonkers to me.
Two words: Scott Boras. They’re banking on spring training revealing a rotational deficit, or an opportune injury leaving a team or two a top starter away from a real contention run.
Yep. Snell has gotten at least one really good offer from the Yankees but is holding out for outrageous money. He’s had two great years and several not so great years. The team that gets him has to gamble they are getting 2023 Snell and not 2021 Snell. Boras wants him paid like he’s 1999 Pedro.
The problem as I understand it, beyond Boras, is that in between winning Cy Youngs, he’s more or less average. So if you give him a 7-year contract for $250-300M, as he’s reportedly asking, you’re paying for a year or two of greatness, maybe, and 5-6 years of mediocrity.
That makes sense. Injuries can crop up very early in spring training, like with the Mets’ Kodai Senga being out after just a couple of bullpen sessions (not that they’re looking for expensive pitching help).
If and when a top-of-the-rotation starter goes down, Snell and Montgomery*'s salary demands will seem more reasonable to some teams.
*the latest rumor mill stirrings have the Red Sox trying to sign Montgomery, the odds of which are somewhere between zero and who are you kidding?
This. Looking at the last six seasons (excluding the short 2020), and his bWAR in those seasons:
- 2017: 1.3
- 2018: 7.1 (Cy Young)
- 2019: 1.4
- 2021: 1.4
- 2022: 2.1
- 2023: 6.0 (Cy Young)
And, last year, his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) number was 3.44, over a full run above his actual ERA (2.25), indicating that he benefitted a lot from his fielders.
I think Snell is a really good pitcher. He has two extremely good pitches in his 4-seamer and his slider - and can dominate a game when those are under control. He’s added other secondary pitches, but nothing’s really been amazing.
I don’t mind the huge increases to salaries the last couple years, but Snell’s ask seems unreasonably huge.
Snell’s ERA-FIP in his 2 Cy years, disregarding the COVID season (- means he overperformed):
-1.05
-1.19
His ERA-FIP in his other years since his 1st win:
+0.97
+0.38
+0.58
Worrisome is his 5.0 BB/9 last year, leading to the 1.19 run gap above.
I’m just still glad that you all were nice enough to take Willson Contreras off of Chicago’s hands before he fell apart.