Pittsburgh Pirates Offseason Recap and Preview
Sorry Bucs fans, I have to go here:
Grade: C
Lyle Overbay, Scott Olsen, Matt Diaz, Garrett Atkins, Jose Veras, and Joe Biemel.
Notable Subtractions:
Joe Martinez, Brandon Moss, Brian Bass, Delwyn Young, Zach Duke, and Chan Ho Park.
Why?: The best way to describe the offseason is, eh. Not fantastic but not devastating. They lost some faces of the past and solid players but also gained solid players. Although unlike other teams, the Pirates gained and lost the talent in different places. They might have lost
some stability in the outfield but also became stronger in the infield.
Right now they are in the seemingly never ending stage of rebuilding. I warn Pirates fans that for this particular organization this stage will never end until they invest some into the ball club. What the Pirates ownership is doing at the moment is cost cutting and making money off of the league’s revenue sharing. This may be a way to beat the system and make a profit but it does not do them well when it comes to winning.
Predicted Record Range: 60-65 wins. Just put in the last part of my last paragraph of “Why?” here. The Pirates will not win until the ownership stops trying to beat the system.
Up Next: San Francisco Giants
Chicago Cubs Offseason Recap and Preview
They were doing well until:
From then on out not much winning.
Grade: B
Notable Additions:
Matt Garza, Carlos Pena, Kerry Wood, Reed Johnson, and Todd Wellemeyer.
Notable Subtractions:
Tom Gorzelanny, Xavier Nady, Christopher Archer, and Mason Tobin.
Why?: I understand that the Cubs did give away a lot of prospects for Matt Garza but I don’t exactly remember the quality of those prospects so I will judge the Cubs’ offseason just by the number of prospects and the net talent.
They got: front-of-the-line starter, set-up man, power hitting lefty, outfielder, and solid bullpen pitcher. They lost: middle-of-the-rotation starter, solid hitting righty and a bushel of prospects. To me, this evens out to a B grade but again, I don’t know how good the prospects were so I can’t judge this that well.
Predicted Record Range: 77-82 wins. This is one of those overhyped big market situations… I think. They only reason I can see them improving is if the pitchers previously on the team (mainly silva and Zambrano) stabilize and become more consistent.
Next up: Pittsburgh Pirates
Houston Astros Offseason Recap and Preview
The two faces of the Franchise:
Grade: C
Notable Additons:
Notable Subtractions:
Why?: Really nothing to report here. There won’t be anything to report until the prospects they received in their garage sale come to fruition. They had the most uneventful offseason I have reported so far.
Their rotation is young and can be a good one for years to come headed by Wandy Rodriguez and J.A. Happ. Those two still have room for improvement and will be helped by sharing a staff with, now veteran leader, Brett Myers. This is where I think future success will come from if any exists in the next few years.
Predicted Record Range: 60-65 wins. I don’t know how they will wins besides pitching. This record is a product of my ignorance to their players. If I weren’t two weeks behind I would bother to learn them but now no.
Up Next: Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers Offseason Recap and Preview
Although the result was not what they would have wanted, one good thing came out of the 2010 season for the Brewers:
Grade: B+
Notable Additions:
Zack Greinke, Shawn Marcum, Yuniesky Betancourt, Sean Green, Takashi Saito, and Mark Kotsay.
Notable Subtractions:
Dave Bush, Chris Capuano, Todd Coffey, Carlos Villanueva, Brett Lawrie, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress, Lorenzo Cain, Gregg Zaun, Doug Davis, and Trevor Hoffman.
Why?: Yeah, sure they got two front-of-the-line pitchers (yes I do consider Shawn Marcum front-of-the-line when he is not in the AL East) but also look at all the players they lost. They lost: 4 starters, 3 relievers, two infielders, an outfielder, a catcher, and one prospect I didn’t bother to look up.
I think their rotation should be fine despite losing those four starters as they are a strong five… but if (read: when) one of their starters goes down in the season this offseason has created a canyon of talent between the 5 starter and next in line.
Their offense should be great as always and might even increase seeing as Prince is in a walk year and might get up a little extra for it. I am not saying he doesn’t try hard but for many stars it enables them to use their family as motivation to do well.
There is also the factor of good pitching affecting the hitting. It will be interesting to see whther this hurts or helps. As far as I can see, it will either help to not feel like they have to score 10 runs a game and they will relax/ hit better or they will relax too much and not score enough.
Predicted Record Range: 85-90 wins. I am not expecting that much of them because they did only win 77 games last year and didn’t imporve that much when you think about it. This is still giving them an improvement of 8-13 wins which is a lot for a team to accomplish (and in retro spect might be a bit much).
Up Next: Chicago Cubs
St. Louis Cardinals Offseason Recap and Preview
They thought they were the champs. They fought the Reds strongly:
They took the competition late into the season. Then this happened:
Grade: B-
Notable Additions:
Jim Edmonds, Ryan Theriot, Lance Berkman, Gerald Laird, Miguel Bautista, Ian Snell, and Nick Punto.
Notable Subtractions:
Brad Penny, Randy Winn, Pedro Feliz, Brendan Ryan, Aaron Miles, and Jeff Suppan.
Why?: Initially I was going to give them a C- but then I typed in all the notable additions and they are all solid players. I then looked and saw they didn’t have many subtractions worth crying about. They boosted each of the four Cardinal (pun intended) categories of Relief Pitching, Stating Pitching, Infield, and Outfield.
The losses are also solid players but everywhere they replaced the players and then added some more. This entry was supposed to be before Wainwright went out so I won’t count him as a subtraction but looking at these players they did decently in the offseason.
Predicted Record Range: 80-85 wins. The Wainwright isn’t enough alone to lower the wins THAT much so I say with his actual stats gone and the emotional blow it adds, 3-5 wins should be expected off of last year’s win total.
Up Next: Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati Reds Offseason Recap and Preview
For so long they had struggled at the bottom of the NL Central with the Brewers and Pirates but last year:
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