2011 MLB Season

[sahyder1]

We're just a couple of weeks away from Spring Training. Time to start the thread.

Will wait to comment on it until full trade is announced but Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Jays/Angels have made a trade. Napoli going to the Jays and Vernon Wells going to the Angels. I'm interested to see what else the Angels get in the trade.

[MyKILLv2.0]

I'm sure at some point the Rays will trade someone to the Angels, too. They are about the only team left whom they haven't shipped off a player too in exchange for another farmer.

[sahyder1]

Speaking of the Rays.

Damon gets $5.25 mil from Rays plus 750 grand in attendance bonuses, manny gets $2 mil from rays.

Link

[Ananas]

The deal is official. Multiple sources including Keith Law confirming that there is NO money going LAA's way. I'm simply speechless. Alex Anthopoulos is a silent assassin.

[MyKILLv2.0]

Hey Rays, the year 2004 just called and said GREAT SIGNING! (Y) Maybe you can get Ortiz and Curt Schilling too!

[sahyder1]

Hey Rays, the year 2004 just called and said GREAT SIGNING! (Y) Maybe you can get Ortiz and Curt Schilling too!

Yeah, because at $7.25 million combined it's not worth the chance at all.

[Ananas]

That 2-for-1 package they got is excellent value for the Rays. Damon plays as an inexpensive back-up plan in case Desmond Jennings isn't ready and the Manny signing has the potential to be the best club contract signed this off-season. This is a guy who has basically put up a .390 and up OBP like clockwork with good power. He can't field, but his bat has the potential to be worth 4 times what they signed him for. And if he flops, so what? It's 2MM.

[gunnar hendershow]

What a great deal for the Jays. Unfortunately, as an O's fan, this isn't the kind of highway robbery you want to see in your division. Wells is a good player and all, but his contract was going to really hinder the Jays ability to add pieces. Now they sent him to a team with a much larger payroll and in turn got Napoli. As for the Angels, I don't think this was quite the best deal for them to make. Too much to give up to get a guy who is on the other side of 30 and will cost them a ton of money for the next few years.

Also, Orioles are close to adding Vlad for a one-year deal. Not sure where he fits in, I don't think as a DH he'll be that much of an upgrade over Scott, if not a downgrade. Markakis has RF locked down, obviously. A little more power in the lineup would be a good thing though, and it definitely makes the options at DH deeper. 4th place baby!

[Lowerdeck]

1. Yanks

2. Boston

3. Tampa Bay

4. Toronto

5. Baltimore

There's my prediction for the AL East. I would really like to put Boston over the hump and winning the division, but the Yanks find some freaking way to do it every year. Boston does get the Wild Card though.

Tampa should do alright, but come nowhere close to competing for a playoff spot. They've lost too much, so unless they got a bunch of studs in waiting - .500 for them?

Can't say I know much about Toronto and what they got for next year.

Baltimore: I still can only name one of their pitchers. Do they plan on winning 10-9 every game?

[gunnar hendershow]

Baltimore's pitching at the end of last year was very strong, it's a young rotation so who knows whether there will be consistency but everyone thinks this is the year Matusz fulfills his potential and is in the thick of Cy Young discussion.

[Ananas]

4th place is still a stretch. With the culture shock of a management change now over, I'd expect them to regress to the mean unless guys like Jones and Markakis have rebound seasons. Not sure how much of an impact Vladdy is going to have given his numbers were significantly inflated by playing in Arlington. And Brian Matusz may very well be the David Price of 2011, but how's that going to make up the 19 game difference between the Jays and Orioles? With the Wells deal the Jays are a marginally worse team although just marginally. The platoon of Napoli, Lind and Encarnacion should produce more at 1B/DH than the absolute gong show of Lyle Overbay and Lind the previous year (more Lind's problem than Overbay's). Aaron Hill cannot possibly be worse than he was in 2010, the same could be suggested about a guy like Yunel Escobar. And as for breakout potential you'd say Matt Wieters and I'd say Travis Snider. Couple that with the depth the Jays already have in the rotation and the additions they made to the bullpen and I peg them as a slightly better than .500 team in 2011. The Orioles are better than they were last year, but I highly doubt they're as good as they were after Buck took over.

[gunnar hendershow]

I actually think the team that the O's will battle for last place with are the Rays. Sox, Yanks, Jays, O's, and Rays is my order. The departures Tampa had are pretty significant, it puts a lot more stress on hitters who benefitted from not being Crawford or Pena to produce like Crawford and Pena. The pitching staff, besides Price, is worrisome. The division's so deep where the bottom 3 is a total crapshoot (Top 2 are cemented, obviously). Jays have a lot of good young guys who performed last year, but for every guy who continues his progress another regresses. The same situation falls on the Orioles, who smartly went out and filled holes instead of rushing unprepared players up to the big league roster. Rays really struggled in 09 after Pena went down, their lineup isn't as dangerous now, and their pitching as I said is worrisome. Basically all three teams are mirror images of each other, and it's a total crapshoot.

[SeanDMan]

So your version of the AL East standings would be:

Rays

Sox

Yanks

Jays

O's

Rays

Interesting of the Rays to appear there twice, and to appear at both first and last position.

[Lowerdeck]

I actually think the team that the O's will battle for last place with are the Rays.

Sox, Yanks, Jays, O's, and Rays is my order.

That's what it's supposed to be. Two separate things.

[SeanDMan]

That used to be a comma.

[Toe]

The Jays have sent Mike Napoli to Texas for reliever Frank Francisco and cash.

http://tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=351016

[Ananas]

The Jays have certainly cornered the market on hard throwing right handed middle relievers. Not sure how he's a substantial upgrade over, say, Jason Frasor but if Double A has earned anything it's the benefit of the doubt. Still, Rauch, Frasor, Dotel, Villanueva, Roenicke, now Francisco - I don't think this bullpen's big enough for the 6 of them.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Either DJF or Parkes on his personal account tweeted that maybe right-handed sorta-closers are the new undervalued piece in baseball.

I think he was half-joking, but I also think there must be something to it...it's not like the Jays had a weakness in the bullpen before hand, so why keep shoring it up? Only explanation that I can come up with is that AA thinks a bunch of teams will be desperate for bullpen help by midseason and he'll be able to sell high.

Incidentally, we're back to needing two regular or quasi-regular position players before I can feel comfortable with this team.

[Ananas]

As of now, the presumptive starting lineup:

DH - Edwin Encarnacion

C - JP Arencibia

1B - Adam Lind

2B - Aaron Hill

SS - Yunel Escobar

3B - Jose Bautista

RF - Juan Rivera

CF - Rajai Davis

LF - Travis Snider

I'm comfortable with this team if they can get a reasonable 3B candidate to push Bautista back to RF and Rivera back to the bench. Juan Rivera should not be an everyday player. If they do that the team isn't going to win the division or anything, but they should at least be able to remain competitive as the newly restocked farm starts to develop and AA continues to look for pieces.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Even with one solid player (outfielder or someone who can push Bautista into the outfield), you're still looking at a frightening lack of depth. One guy goes down, and either Molina, McDonald, or Rivera is playing every day.