To hear people talk after a week and a half of baseball games that count, you would think the Major League Baseball season follows the same format as the WBC. The season still lasts six months right?
Sure, after less than 10 games, we know the Nationals aren?t going to compete, but other than a few situations that surprise no one, there are absolutely no conclusions that can yet be made that can accurately predict the outcome of a baseball season.
There are, however, some alarming happenings that, if not corrected soon, could turn into devastating situations for their respective teams.
Here are 10 that could have the most profound impact if not corrected:
10 ? The Milwaukee Brewers Pitching and Hitting
That about sums it up doesn?t it? The Brewers seem to be going through C.C. withdraw after the excitement of their 2008 pennant chase, and while no one seemed to think they would be anywhere near the same team without Sabathia and Ben Sheets, this team still has a potent lineup that should be able to compete in the NL Central with even mediocre pitching.
That offense is currently batting .217/.334/.391 as a team. With the likes of Braun, Fielder and Hardy in the lineup, that pace shouldn?t continue, but how deep of a hole will the Brew Crew be in once the bats come around?
And more importantly, who is pitching when they do?
Jeff Suppan was the Brewers Opening Day starter.
Yuck.
Nothing against Suppan. He?s a nice little starter, keeps his teams in games, makes all his starts. He?s the consummate veteran starting pitcher.
But he?s about as much of an ace as Bernie Brewer.
After that, the only Brewers pitcher who we can realistically expect to be better than average is Yovani Gallardo, but only if he?s healthy. The rest of the rotation is rounded out by mediocrity in the form of Braden Looper, Manny Parra and Dave Bush.
That pitching staff could theoretically keep the Brewers competitive, but they will have to bash their way to the playoffs this year.
9 ? The Cleveland Indians ?Aces?
The Indians were taking a bit of a ?Spahn and Sain and pray for rain? approach when they filled out their rotation with Scott Lewis, Anthony Reyes and Carl Pavano, but what would have happened in 1948 if Spahn and Sain had tossed out ERA?s north of 9.00?
We?re finding out so far this year in Cleveland.
Reigning Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee and Fausto Carmona, who burst onto the scene in 2007 with a 4th place finish for the same award, were supposed to be the two sure things in the Cleveland rotation this year. So far, they are a combined 0-4, having surrendered 21 earned runs in 20 IP. That?s how you start off 1-7.
Some regression from Lee was expected after his dominant and improbable 2008 season, but he needs to be the ace of that staff. Neither he nor Carmona are likely to keep up their 9.00+ ERA?s, but they both need to be better than average for the Indians to have any chance to compete.
Or pray for a lot more rain.
8 ? The Atlanta Braves Bullpen
The Braves have quietly put together a nice team this year. It?s a wonderful mix of veterans (Chipper Jones, Derek Lowe and Garrett Anderson), young players coming into their own (Brian McCann and Jair Jurrjens), and stud rookies (Jordan Schafer and eventually Tommy Hanson). In fact, it very much resembles many of the Braves playoff teams from the mid-90?s where, with all the roster turnover, there always seemed to be a mix of players in different spots in their careers who meshed well together.
This team would fit right into that dynasty, right down to the Achilles heel of a bullpen.
The Braves bullpen is the elephant in their room. Their lineup is solid, their rotation is solid, their bullpen will cause Bobby Cox to go grayer than he already is.
Mike Gonzalez is a nice arm to have, but he is hardly an established closer. If Cox feels like he has seen this episode before, he needs only to think back to his NLCS opponents in 1993. Add a mullet and Gonzalez could be Mitch Williams reincarnated.
After Gonzalez, it?s a crap shoot. Peter Moylan had a nice year in 2007, but threw only 5 2/3 innings last year. Rafael Soriano is a good set up man and can close in a pinch, but was also hurt in 2008. After that, we?ll see a mix of Buddy Carlyle, Blaine Boyer, Eric O?Flaherty and Jeff Bennett.
I heard Mark Wholers wants a tryout too.
Every team wants to strengthen their bullpen, and we can expect the Braves to be first in line for the likes of Matt Capps and Frank Francisco come July.
7 ? The Chicago White Sox Leadoff Situation
It sounds like something that NAFTA should be discussing, doesn?t it?
Dewayne Wise?s injury has left a hole at the top of the White Sox lineup, although it?s a hole he was hardly filling anyway. Manager Ozzie Guillen sure will miss penciling Wise and his .253 career OBP in at the top of that order.
But unfortunately, the replacement parts aren?t much better. Brian Anderson has yet to show he can hit at the major league level, nor has Brent Lillibridge, and we don?t even know if he can play centerfield. The ChiSox just picked Scott Podsednik up off the scrap heap, but his centerfield defense has been plummeting faster than the DOW.
The White Sox current lineup is like the scene in Old School when Luke Wilson asks Vince Vaughn if he got a student band to play at Mitch-a-palooza. Vaughn replies with ?Yeah, that?s it. I got a student alt rock band coming on next. I got more electronics up there than a damn KISS concert. You think I?m gonna roll out this type of red carpet for a marching band? Just make sure you can see the stage.? Then, of course, Snoop Dogg comes out and does his thing.
While Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Carlos Quentin, and Jermaine Dye playing the role of the expensive speakers in the White Sox lineup, Dewayne Wise and the rest of the leadoff crew are no doubt the student alt rock band.
The options are few and far between, and unless GM Kenny Williams can swing a deal during the season, centerfield at U.S. Cellular Field will be barren.
6 ? The Arizona Diamondbacks and Brandon Webb
In a division as wide open as the NL West, an injury to a player like Webb on a team like the Diamondbacks can shift the balance of power better than a Washington lobbyist.
With Webb, the D-Backs can contend. Their offense is just strong enough to compete with pitching like Webb and Haren. But without the former Cy Young award winner, their rotation suddenly looks inadequate. After Haren, it consists of the average Jon Garland and Doug Davis and the young and unproven Max Scherzer and Yusmeiro Petit. That group means a lot of innings on a bullpen which itself is unproven.
This would be a survivable situation for the Backs if their offense was dominant, but until we count strikeouts as runs, it is simply not the case.
Webb shifts everybody in that rotation down a notch where they belong. He may miss a start at some point, he may spend some time on the DL, or he may be fine, but if this is something that lingers, his performance could suffer greatly. Without him, every man in the Backs rotation must all pitch up a level, and that?s a situation that rarely works out well, even in the NL West.
5 ? The Red Sox, well?
What exactly has been the problem? Well for starters, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester have gotten rocked, and only Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay have hit the ball at all.
But the real problem may be that the Red Sox have the potential to simply not be as good as we think they are.
This is a team with great potential. The pitching depth is phenomenal. It also might be tested. The lineup is deep, but parts of it are beginning to survive on reputation.
Look at the question marks for the Red Sox. Jason Varitek is old and offers virtually nothing offensively. Dustin Pedroia will likely regress (at least a little) from his 2008 MVP season. They have no shortstop at the moment. How long will Mike Lowell?s hip last and what will it allow him to do? Perhaps Jacoby Ellsbury?s not the hitter we thought he was in 2007. How long until J.D. Drew hits the DL? Did the World Baseball Classic kill Dice-K?s arm?
And most importantly?
Is David Ortiz done?
That last one?s kind of a bomb, and it?s a dagger in the heart of Red Sox fans. But Boston has seen this before.
If you look at the bottom of Ortiz?s baseball-reference page, you see some ominous career projections for Ortiz?s twilight years. What do the 5th most similar batter to Ortiz, the 3rd most similar batter through age 32, and Ortiz?s most similar counterpart at ages 25, 29, and 30 have in common?
They?re all Mo Vaughn. Yikes.
The rest of his comparison list isn?t exactly full of guys who starred into their 40?s, but what do they all have in common? They?re all big, slow-moving power hitters, and players of that profile don?t typically age well.
Ortiz, 33 this season, could also still be battling through last season?s wrist injury. Injuries of that kind often linger, as was evidenced by his substantial drop in production in 2008. It might also be the kind of injury that doesn?t go away.
Most importantly for the Red Sox, Ortiz is the kind of player, leader, and personality that directs the entire mood of his clubhouse. According to those who know him best, Ortiz was not himself last year as he struggled through and the performance from the rest of the team, at times, reflected that.
But they are post-curse Red Sox, so not all of these questions can go against them.
Can they?
4 ? The Yankees and Chien-Ming Wang
Do you think, if you were given the chance to throw 4 2/3 innings at the major league level, you could give up less than 15 runs? Depending on who you are, it?s at least debatable.
But this year, we can say that Chien-Ming Wang has not.
Two bad starts is one thing, but giving up 7 in 2 2/3 IP and following it up with 8 ER in 1 inning means something is wrong. Considering Wang is coming off a major foot injury, I?d start by looking there.
Wang is a pitcher who depends on movement and location to be successful. He doesn?t overpower hitters, he lets them beat the ball into submission by pounding sinker after sinker into the ground. When that sinker is up it still gets pounded, only it hits a fence before it hits the ground.
The Yankees need Wang to get right. Their starting rotation looks great on paper, but an injury to Wang leaves a gaping hole in their plans.
3 ? The Philadelphia Phillies and Cole Hamels
Anyone who followed the Phillies run through the 2008 postseason knows just how important Cole Hamels is to the Phillies. It?s not just his performance on the field; it?s his demeanor all the time that dictates how the Phillies perform.
Hamels is as cool and calm as his SoCal background would suggest. He exudes an attitude of ?don?t worry guys, I?ve got it,? and the rest of the Phillies feed off of that.
A part of that attitude is the feeling his teammates have when Hamels is on the mound. Even at his worst, he rarely leaves his team?s bullpen with 6 or 7 innings to pitch, the kind of outing which sets a team back for the rest of the week.
But Hamels is also very fragile. He does yoga and sees a chiropractor. He knows his body better than most, and knows when it?s not right. So despite receiving the news that his elbow discomfort in spring training was nothing more than some inflammation, all who follow the Phillies know that even that news was enough yin to throw off Hamels? yang.
He says he?s healthy now, but things didn?t look right during his first start in Colorado when he gave up 11 hits and 7 earned runs in 3 2/3 innings. The optimistic Phillies fans (of which there are very few) hope that this disaster of a start is simply because Hamels had no curveball in the thin Rocky Mountain air, and hung a few changeups.
Unfortunately, most of Philadelphia is not as optimistic.
2 ? The Minnesota Twins and Joe Mauer
The Twins have been successful recently thanks to a very simple formula: cultivate home-grown talent, have a great manager that gets the most out of that talent, and keep everyone relatively healthy.
So when one of those home-grown players has a strange injury that can?t seem to be diagnosed properly or treated with any kind of confidence, it tosses a variable in the formula that doesn?t add up to success.
And when that injured player is the backbone of both the offense and defense, a two-time batting champ (as a catcher, by the way), and generally the prodigal son of the state of Minnesota, it creates a general state of emergency.
The main problem for the Twins is the feeling of uncertainty. Joe Mauer ran for the first time this week. Should that be good news? What is the timetable for his injury? How should the Twins be handling the situation?
They don?t seem to know either, so at the moment, Mauer?s at-bats are going to Mike Redmond and Jose Morales. That?s not the long-term solution, but it might not be a long-term problem.
Either way, the Twins are scuffling without their star. They can compete in a generally weak AL Central, but without Mauer, they will have to do it with a new formula.
1 ? The New York Mets and Citi Field
We have no idea how Citi Field will end up playing, but man is that place big. If you haven?t seen one of the Mets? home games yet, Google ?Citi Field Dimensions? and take a look for yourself. The place makes Petco Park look like Citizens Bank in Philadelphia.
What will this do for the Mets?
Well the Mets have to hope that it will make their mediocre pitching better and let their best hitters find more gaps. In reality, it?s more likely that it will negate their best strength, their offense, and make their opponents? pitchers that much better. After all, the strike zone when Oliver Perez pitches didn?t get any bigger.
But the field isn?t really nearly as big of a problem as the Mets pitching in general. Perez has taken his Jekyll and Hyde act to a whole new level, Mike Pelfrey throws all fastballs and everybody knows it (and now he?s having arm problems) and Livan Hernandez is Livan Hernandez. The NL East is too good to survive with a pitching staff like that.
Even in Citi Field.
Sure, after less than 10 games, we know the Nationals aren?t going to compete, but other than a few situations that surprise no one, there are absolutely no conclusions that can yet be made that can accurately predict the outcome of a baseball season.
There are, however, some alarming happenings that, if not corrected soon, could turn into devastating situations for their respective teams.
Here are 10 that could have the most profound impact if not corrected:
10 ? The Milwaukee Brewers Pitching and Hitting
That about sums it up doesn?t it? The Brewers seem to be going through C.C. withdraw after the excitement of their 2008 pennant chase, and while no one seemed to think they would be anywhere near the same team without Sabathia and Ben Sheets, this team still has a potent lineup that should be able to compete in the NL Central with even mediocre pitching.
That offense is currently batting .217/.334/.391 as a team. With the likes of Braun, Fielder and Hardy in the lineup, that pace shouldn?t continue, but how deep of a hole will the Brew Crew be in once the bats come around?
And more importantly, who is pitching when they do?
Jeff Suppan was the Brewers Opening Day starter.
Yuck.
Nothing against Suppan. He?s a nice little starter, keeps his teams in games, makes all his starts. He?s the consummate veteran starting pitcher.
But he?s about as much of an ace as Bernie Brewer.
After that, the only Brewers pitcher who we can realistically expect to be better than average is Yovani Gallardo, but only if he?s healthy. The rest of the rotation is rounded out by mediocrity in the form of Braden Looper, Manny Parra and Dave Bush.
That pitching staff could theoretically keep the Brewers competitive, but they will have to bash their way to the playoffs this year.
9 ? The Cleveland Indians ?Aces?
The Indians were taking a bit of a ?Spahn and Sain and pray for rain? approach when they filled out their rotation with Scott Lewis, Anthony Reyes and Carl Pavano, but what would have happened in 1948 if Spahn and Sain had tossed out ERA?s north of 9.00?
We?re finding out so far this year in Cleveland.
Reigning Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee and Fausto Carmona, who burst onto the scene in 2007 with a 4th place finish for the same award, were supposed to be the two sure things in the Cleveland rotation this year. So far, they are a combined 0-4, having surrendered 21 earned runs in 20 IP. That?s how you start off 1-7.
Some regression from Lee was expected after his dominant and improbable 2008 season, but he needs to be the ace of that staff. Neither he nor Carmona are likely to keep up their 9.00+ ERA?s, but they both need to be better than average for the Indians to have any chance to compete.
Or pray for a lot more rain.
8 ? The Atlanta Braves Bullpen
The Braves have quietly put together a nice team this year. It?s a wonderful mix of veterans (Chipper Jones, Derek Lowe and Garrett Anderson), young players coming into their own (Brian McCann and Jair Jurrjens), and stud rookies (Jordan Schafer and eventually Tommy Hanson). In fact, it very much resembles many of the Braves playoff teams from the mid-90?s where, with all the roster turnover, there always seemed to be a mix of players in different spots in their careers who meshed well together.
This team would fit right into that dynasty, right down to the Achilles heel of a bullpen.
The Braves bullpen is the elephant in their room. Their lineup is solid, their rotation is solid, their bullpen will cause Bobby Cox to go grayer than he already is.
Mike Gonzalez is a nice arm to have, but he is hardly an established closer. If Cox feels like he has seen this episode before, he needs only to think back to his NLCS opponents in 1993. Add a mullet and Gonzalez could be Mitch Williams reincarnated.
After Gonzalez, it?s a crap shoot. Peter Moylan had a nice year in 2007, but threw only 5 2/3 innings last year. Rafael Soriano is a good set up man and can close in a pinch, but was also hurt in 2008. After that, we?ll see a mix of Buddy Carlyle, Blaine Boyer, Eric O?Flaherty and Jeff Bennett.
I heard Mark Wholers wants a tryout too.
Every team wants to strengthen their bullpen, and we can expect the Braves to be first in line for the likes of Matt Capps and Frank Francisco come July.
7 ? The Chicago White Sox Leadoff Situation
It sounds like something that NAFTA should be discussing, doesn?t it?
Dewayne Wise?s injury has left a hole at the top of the White Sox lineup, although it?s a hole he was hardly filling anyway. Manager Ozzie Guillen sure will miss penciling Wise and his .253 career OBP in at the top of that order.
But unfortunately, the replacement parts aren?t much better. Brian Anderson has yet to show he can hit at the major league level, nor has Brent Lillibridge, and we don?t even know if he can play centerfield. The ChiSox just picked Scott Podsednik up off the scrap heap, but his centerfield defense has been plummeting faster than the DOW.
The White Sox current lineup is like the scene in Old School when Luke Wilson asks Vince Vaughn if he got a student band to play at Mitch-a-palooza. Vaughn replies with ?Yeah, that?s it. I got a student alt rock band coming on next. I got more electronics up there than a damn KISS concert. You think I?m gonna roll out this type of red carpet for a marching band? Just make sure you can see the stage.? Then, of course, Snoop Dogg comes out and does his thing.
While Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Carlos Quentin, and Jermaine Dye playing the role of the expensive speakers in the White Sox lineup, Dewayne Wise and the rest of the leadoff crew are no doubt the student alt rock band.
The options are few and far between, and unless GM Kenny Williams can swing a deal during the season, centerfield at U.S. Cellular Field will be barren.
6 ? The Arizona Diamondbacks and Brandon Webb
In a division as wide open as the NL West, an injury to a player like Webb on a team like the Diamondbacks can shift the balance of power better than a Washington lobbyist.
With Webb, the D-Backs can contend. Their offense is just strong enough to compete with pitching like Webb and Haren. But without the former Cy Young award winner, their rotation suddenly looks inadequate. After Haren, it consists of the average Jon Garland and Doug Davis and the young and unproven Max Scherzer and Yusmeiro Petit. That group means a lot of innings on a bullpen which itself is unproven.
This would be a survivable situation for the Backs if their offense was dominant, but until we count strikeouts as runs, it is simply not the case.
Webb shifts everybody in that rotation down a notch where they belong. He may miss a start at some point, he may spend some time on the DL, or he may be fine, but if this is something that lingers, his performance could suffer greatly. Without him, every man in the Backs rotation must all pitch up a level, and that?s a situation that rarely works out well, even in the NL West.
5 ? The Red Sox, well?
What exactly has been the problem? Well for starters, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester have gotten rocked, and only Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay have hit the ball at all.
But the real problem may be that the Red Sox have the potential to simply not be as good as we think they are.
This is a team with great potential. The pitching depth is phenomenal. It also might be tested. The lineup is deep, but parts of it are beginning to survive on reputation.
Look at the question marks for the Red Sox. Jason Varitek is old and offers virtually nothing offensively. Dustin Pedroia will likely regress (at least a little) from his 2008 MVP season. They have no shortstop at the moment. How long will Mike Lowell?s hip last and what will it allow him to do? Perhaps Jacoby Ellsbury?s not the hitter we thought he was in 2007. How long until J.D. Drew hits the DL? Did the World Baseball Classic kill Dice-K?s arm?
And most importantly?
Is David Ortiz done?
That last one?s kind of a bomb, and it?s a dagger in the heart of Red Sox fans. But Boston has seen this before.
If you look at the bottom of Ortiz?s baseball-reference page, you see some ominous career projections for Ortiz?s twilight years. What do the 5th most similar batter to Ortiz, the 3rd most similar batter through age 32, and Ortiz?s most similar counterpart at ages 25, 29, and 30 have in common?
They?re all Mo Vaughn. Yikes.
The rest of his comparison list isn?t exactly full of guys who starred into their 40?s, but what do they all have in common? They?re all big, slow-moving power hitters, and players of that profile don?t typically age well.
Ortiz, 33 this season, could also still be battling through last season?s wrist injury. Injuries of that kind often linger, as was evidenced by his substantial drop in production in 2008. It might also be the kind of injury that doesn?t go away.
Most importantly for the Red Sox, Ortiz is the kind of player, leader, and personality that directs the entire mood of his clubhouse. According to those who know him best, Ortiz was not himself last year as he struggled through and the performance from the rest of the team, at times, reflected that.
But they are post-curse Red Sox, so not all of these questions can go against them.
Can they?
4 ? The Yankees and Chien-Ming Wang
Do you think, if you were given the chance to throw 4 2/3 innings at the major league level, you could give up less than 15 runs? Depending on who you are, it?s at least debatable.
But this year, we can say that Chien-Ming Wang has not.
Two bad starts is one thing, but giving up 7 in 2 2/3 IP and following it up with 8 ER in 1 inning means something is wrong. Considering Wang is coming off a major foot injury, I?d start by looking there.
Wang is a pitcher who depends on movement and location to be successful. He doesn?t overpower hitters, he lets them beat the ball into submission by pounding sinker after sinker into the ground. When that sinker is up it still gets pounded, only it hits a fence before it hits the ground.
The Yankees need Wang to get right. Their starting rotation looks great on paper, but an injury to Wang leaves a gaping hole in their plans.
3 ? The Philadelphia Phillies and Cole Hamels
Anyone who followed the Phillies run through the 2008 postseason knows just how important Cole Hamels is to the Phillies. It?s not just his performance on the field; it?s his demeanor all the time that dictates how the Phillies perform.
Hamels is as cool and calm as his SoCal background would suggest. He exudes an attitude of ?don?t worry guys, I?ve got it,? and the rest of the Phillies feed off of that.
A part of that attitude is the feeling his teammates have when Hamels is on the mound. Even at his worst, he rarely leaves his team?s bullpen with 6 or 7 innings to pitch, the kind of outing which sets a team back for the rest of the week.
But Hamels is also very fragile. He does yoga and sees a chiropractor. He knows his body better than most, and knows when it?s not right. So despite receiving the news that his elbow discomfort in spring training was nothing more than some inflammation, all who follow the Phillies know that even that news was enough yin to throw off Hamels? yang.
He says he?s healthy now, but things didn?t look right during his first start in Colorado when he gave up 11 hits and 7 earned runs in 3 2/3 innings. The optimistic Phillies fans (of which there are very few) hope that this disaster of a start is simply because Hamels had no curveball in the thin Rocky Mountain air, and hung a few changeups.
Unfortunately, most of Philadelphia is not as optimistic.
2 ? The Minnesota Twins and Joe Mauer
The Twins have been successful recently thanks to a very simple formula: cultivate home-grown talent, have a great manager that gets the most out of that talent, and keep everyone relatively healthy.
So when one of those home-grown players has a strange injury that can?t seem to be diagnosed properly or treated with any kind of confidence, it tosses a variable in the formula that doesn?t add up to success.
And when that injured player is the backbone of both the offense and defense, a two-time batting champ (as a catcher, by the way), and generally the prodigal son of the state of Minnesota, it creates a general state of emergency.
The main problem for the Twins is the feeling of uncertainty. Joe Mauer ran for the first time this week. Should that be good news? What is the timetable for his injury? How should the Twins be handling the situation?
They don?t seem to know either, so at the moment, Mauer?s at-bats are going to Mike Redmond and Jose Morales. That?s not the long-term solution, but it might not be a long-term problem.
Either way, the Twins are scuffling without their star. They can compete in a generally weak AL Central, but without Mauer, they will have to do it with a new formula.
1 ? The New York Mets and Citi Field
We have no idea how Citi Field will end up playing, but man is that place big. If you haven?t seen one of the Mets? home games yet, Google ?Citi Field Dimensions? and take a look for yourself. The place makes Petco Park look like Citizens Bank in Philadelphia.
What will this do for the Mets?
Well the Mets have to hope that it will make their mediocre pitching better and let their best hitters find more gaps. In reality, it?s more likely that it will negate their best strength, their offense, and make their opponents? pitchers that much better. After all, the strike zone when Oliver Perez pitches didn?t get any bigger.
But the field isn?t really nearly as big of a problem as the Mets pitching in general. Perez has taken his Jekyll and Hyde act to a whole new level, Mike Pelfrey throws all fastballs and everybody knows it (and now he?s having arm problems) and Livan Hernandez is Livan Hernandez. The NL East is too good to survive with a pitching staff like that.
Even in Citi Field.
