There’s nothing quite like baseball season, whether you’re the nostalgic guy with the scorecard and pencil, the family man with his wife and kids or the fantasy-playing stat geek.
Face it, most of our sports teams take the summer off, and a man can only take so much talk of free agents. We need games, so we turn to baseball and its monstrous 162-game schedule, spending warm days at the ballpark with a cold one, or arguing for hours about the merits of Ryan Howard versus Prince Fielder.
And everyone needs a refresher heading into the season, so we turned to Ben Nicholson-Smith of the excellent site, MLB Trade Rumors.
Dan: Hey Ben, which teams had the best offseason in terms of signing free agents?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: There are a lot of candidates because plenty of teams actually had really strong offseasons. Definitely, the Mariners for adding Chone Figgins and getting Milton Bradley, who’s hit or miss but could be a big addition. Adding Ryan Garko and Casey Kotchman were both solid moves and of course, getting Cliff Lee to anchor the rotation.
You also have teams like the Twins and the Red Sox, along with the Rangers. Those teams are all in the American League and they all had great offseasons..
Dan: Ok, it’s obvious the AL improved, but there’s got to be some GMs in the National League that made good moves… How about the Phillies swapping out Cliff Lee for Roy Halladay?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: It’s been an interesting winter for the Phillies… I don’t love what they did, signing Placido Polanco to a three-year deal, because he’s not elite and there’s no reason to commit that money to him.
As far as Lee-Halladay… sure, I’d rather have Doc than Lee any day, but they gave up better prospects than they received from Seattle and they did it to lock Halladay up to an extension. So they have him for three extra years now, which you can’t really complain about. Lee is going to be looking for similar money and they have arguably the best pitcher in the world instead. They had give up the prospects to get him.
Dan: With Tim Lincecum and Zach Greinke emerging, you still think Halladay’s the best pitcher in the world?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: Yeah, I think he is the best pitcher in the world right now. I think he logs more innings than anyone else.
You look at Lincecum, who definitely had a better year than Halladay and has enjoyed an amazing two-and-a-half year run. Even so, I have more confidence in Halladay going forward and I’m sure lots of people have similar arguments for Lincecum. It’s down to Hallady, Lincecum, Lee, Felix Hernandez, maybe Greinke or Justin Verlander. I don’t think it’s because I’m from Canada, but I really do think Halladay is as good as it gets.
Dan: So we’ve talked about the good, but let’s look at the bad and the ugly. Which teams botched this past offseason?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: It’s easy to pick on the Mets but I’m going to pick on the Mets. You look at what they set to to do… sure, they got a left fielder in Jason Bay, but they wanted to add pitching too, and they didn’t accomplish that. They haven’t really beefed up their rotation and they haven’t really found a bullpen piece, although they still have time… but you look at the Mets and they still have uncertainty at first base, not that they should have brought back (the injured) Carlos Delgado, but yeah, the Mets had a pretty rough offseason.
Dan: I wouldn’t worry about it Ben, I think everyone picks on the Mets. Let’s get back to some good news and look at the Cincinnati Reds, who signed Cuban left-hander Aroldis Chapman to a nice contract… you wouldn’t traditionally think of the Reds as the team to do that, would you?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: No, you generally wouldn’t and I think it’s great. You look at the Reds and you don’t think of them as a big bidder for international talent, or any kind of free agent talent, but they snuck up on everyone and got Chapman, who has ace potential… he’s only 21 and apparently looks good in spring training.
Overall, it’s great to see this happening. It’s a good sign to see a team like the Royals sign another big-name Cuban (Noel Arguelles) and to see the Twins get a huge prospect in Dominican Miguel Angel Sano.
These small market teams are going out and being really aggressive on international talent and they’ve realized that it’s a big way for them to win.
Dan: It’s definitely good to see and I think we were all sick of the Yanks and Sox grabbing everyone. But come on, we know there’s still plenty of bad news for small market teams. Which ones will have to unload some players and who’s likely to be on the move this season?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: It starts with Adrian Gonzalez. We’re going to be so sick of hearing about him, but it’s what happens when you have a guy who’s under contract for pretty cheap and he’s on a team that’s not expected win anything. The Padres are going to have a chance to get big talent for Gonzalez, whether it’s from the Mariners, Dodgers, Red Sox or some other team. Someone’s going to step up and make a big offer and it’s going to be pretty tough for San Diego to turn that down… they know they’re probably not going to be an elite team in the time that Gonzalez is with them.
We’ll hear about Lance Berkman too, although the Astros have held onto their stars pretty tightly. Still, he’s in the last year of his contract and could be moved. You’ll also have lesser guys – Travis Hafner, Kerry Wood, along with a couple Blue Jays – Scott Downs, Jason Frasor, Lyle Overbay. These are a bunch of second tier guys but the big name to watch is Adrian Gonzalez.
Dan: Wow, tough times for Padres fans. Can you see any other teams looking to make trades, possibly to gain talent?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: Most of that depends on injuries at this point, but the AL Central is a division that’s probably weaker than most others. One midseason addition could swing power more than in the AL East or AL West, for example. Because of that, I could see a team like the Twins, White Sox or Tigers saying, “man if we added one more half-decent starter, we’ll win the division” and I could see one of those teams having lots of reasons to make a move.
Dan: Makes sense – too bad we don’t have that parity in the AL East, right? Let’s talk rookies – who’s making an impact?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: The ones that people have heard of – Chapman, Strasburg - should be up by midseason – and Jason Heyword looks like he’s going to make the Braves with all the hype around him.
Then you look at the Tigers and they have a couple of rookies that could see regular playing time. Scott Sizemore looks ready to take over for Polanco at second base and Austin Jackson should be ready to play the outfield, but he’s a few years younger and it could take time.
Dan: How about guys that have come up but still have room for growth?
Ben Nicholson-Smith: The A’s have a young rotation that should only get better, including guys like Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson. Their division-rival Texas Rangers also have young pitchers with big potential in Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland and both could make an impact on the playoff race.
Alex Gordon is a guy who we heard about three years ago when he made his debut, but now he’s only 26 and nobody’s really talking about him. After all the hype, we’ve forgotten how much potential he had and how well he played in the minors a couple of years ago. He has the chance to have a nice season.
And if you look to the Rangers again, you have Colby Lewis. The numbers he put up overseas were unbelievable and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can produce in America.
We finished up with some predictions, but left the playoffs out for now. Here are Ben's division and wild card picks:
AL West: LA Angels
AL Central: Minnesota Twins
AL East: New York Yankees
Wild Card: Boston Red Sox
NL East Philadelphia Phillies
NL: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Colorado Rockies
Wild Card: Atlanta Braves
We'll get back to you with our World Series picks soon. Thanks a lot Ben, it's been fun.
Hey Rivalspot readers, what should we ask next? Give us questions for the next segment with MLB Trade Rumors, as we stay on top of baseball news throughout the summer. Drop a line in the comments section or email us at blog@rivalspot.com. And hey, make sure to drop by our gaming arenas to play everything from Madden 10 to Fight Night Round 4. Rivalspot is the home to sports video game titles for the PS3 and Xbox 360… click here to start gaming!