Meow... Thump

Shortly after I sung the praises of the Texas Rangers for next season, Dayn Perry of FoxSports.com wrote a very similar column and came to the opposite conclusions. Perry knows a ton about baseball and has done a great job illuminating the importance of specific park factors, such as what a particular stadium does to a left-handed fly ball hitter as opposed to its general run scoring effects. Still, though, I disagree with Perry’s conclusions because I think he misinterprets some of the data. He argues that the addition of Brad Wilkerson will provide superficial benefits compared to Alfonso Soriano because Arlington has such a powerful run-enhancing effect, but that effect doesn’t change from season to season or from roster to roster. The Rangers play in the same stadium every year, so improving the team will help in any stadium. Yes, the offense will always look better than it really is and the defense worse, but they can succeed with a team ERA above league average or, consequently, an offense tailored to play to the home field advantages (as the acquisition of Wilkerson indicates they intend to make). All told, I think the Rangers have improved a little on offense and a little on the mound from last year in a neutral run scoring environment or in their own home stadium, even if the mainstream media continues to overestimate their offensive ability and underestimate their pitching staff.

That said, I would like to conclude the first portion of my earlier predication series today, giving out some honorable mention awards for teams on the rise. I have to add the caveat, though, that many of the teams listed here may experience a dead cat bounce more than a real improvement. In general, terrible teams have a lot of bad breaks, which is part of what makes them terrible teams. Last season’s Dodgers are an extreme example, where a pretty decent team became a very bad team. But the principle extends even further; if a team lost more than 95 games, there is a pretty good chance they had more injuries that one would expect or else performed below their Pythagorean projections. As a result, we can expect some natural improvement in what can be considered a perverse “regression” to the mean. With that said, here are a couple more teams that should improve on last year’s record.

(Note: I’m leaving off the Mets and Royals from this series. The improvement of the Mets should be no surprise to anyone, and the Royals are so far from competition that even a 20 game improvement would leave them completely irrelevant.)

Seattle Mariners (69-93, Pythagorean- 75-87)- I was hard on the Mariners for the contract they gave to Jarrod Washburn because they probably won’t contend over the course of the expensive long-term deal and would have been better off with one or two-year stopgaps like Jason Johnson or Brett Tomko, if they had to spend money on a starter at all. Also, signing the .300 OBP Carl Everett to DH was a terrible idea, and they could have filled that hole from within for much cheaper and with at least comparable production. Overall, I think the franchise is pretty much lost, especially in perhaps the toughest position in baseball. Still, I think they are set to win several more games than they did last year. Kenji Jojima steps in for a rabble of catchers that was cumulatively below replacement level offensively (largely due to new Florida starter Miguel Olivio’s -12.8 Value Over Replacement Player). The pitching staff can’t be much worse, as Joel Pineiro, Aaron Sele and Gil Meche all spent over 20 starts hovering around replacement level. A full season of Felix Hernandez will help, and Washburn is better than what they had, even if he is a bad investment. Maybe, if they’re really lucky, the huge investment in Adrian Beltre will be less of a disaster this year than last when he hit .255/.303/.413. Seattle is a great baseball city and the team has great ownership and a great stadium. More than anything, I want them to succeed, and I think 75-80 wins are within reach, but they are not ready for contention.

Milwaukee Brewers (81-81, Pythagorean 84-78)- I was in on the ground floor on this one, picking them to make the leap last year, and I’m not getting off the bandwagon now. It’s hard to imagine that they will get as much out of Geoff Jenkins, Bill Hall or Brady Clark as they did last year (49.8, 42.7 and 37.4 VORP, respectively), but the progression of Rickie Weeks, the emergence of Prince Fielder and the tremendous IF depth (Corey Koskie, J.J. Hardy, Jeff Cirillo, Russ Branyan, Zack Sorensen competing for time at 3B and UTIL) should help make up the difference. The pitching staff is similarly deep, featuring a solid front three of Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano and Doug Davis in front of Tomo Ohka, David Bush and Rick Helling. Sheets made only 22 injury-marred starts last year and was still very solid. His return to dominance in front of a strong bullpen could make the Brewers a contender in the Central in ’06. Their story doesn’t need to be one of tremendous improvement, as five or six more wins over last year’s Pythagorean record would get them in the hunt, which comes down to 25 more runs scored and prevented. St. Louis stands to slide back a little with an aging core and Houston is down to a big two-thirds, leaving the window open for an emerging contender.

Pittsburgh (67-95, Pythagorean 71-91)- Pittsburgh wins in the low-mid 70s every year, and last year was a bit of an aberration, as they half-heartedly committed to “rebuilding” after trading Kris Benson at the deadline. What that meant was that they wouldn’t make stupid free agent signings and trades like this year’s additions of Jeromy Burnitz and Sean Casey. Neither of those players is right for Pittsburgh, as they are too far along in their career to be bargains and not good enough to make them contend. Still, full seasons from Zack Duke, Ian Snell and Pat Maholm should help. Also, the offense behind Jason Bay shouldn’t be quite as pathetic as it was last year, as the top VORP after Bay’s 81.7 among Pirates at the end of 2006 belonged to Freddy Sanchez, at 17.7. As in Washburn’s case, the team’s acquisitions will make them better, it’s just a question of how much they want to spend to win 75 games. In this case, Brad Eldred and Craig Wilson would probably approximate the value of Casey and Burnitz over a full season at a fraction of the cost. Still, I’m reasonably confident that Pittsburgh will improve on last year’s 67 wins, probably by five or more, but they are a long way from really being any good. How’s that for a ringing endorsement?