Well, since Doug did mention it, here comes what I expect will be the most contentious pick - the NL East. Ah well.
Oh yeah, one correction. I realized that in the AL East roundup I criticized the Orioles for trading Josh Phelps, their best catching prospect, to the Blue Jays. This was incorrect. They traded Jayson Werth, their best catching prospect, to the Blue Jays. Josh Phelps was, and remains, the Blue Jays best catching prospect. Jayson Werth is now their second-best catching prospect. Needless to say, he's a better prospect than anyone in the Orioles' system. Oh yes - quoted from ESPN.com: "The Rangers know that they just can't outscore everybody." A question. What, exactly, is your objective in a baseball game if it _isn't_ to outscore the other team? Anyone want to answer that one? Atlanta - Yes, again. I know we're all tired of it. I can't believe that a John Schuerholz-GMed organization is doing it either. But what can you do? Atlanta's central problem is that they have the core of an absolutely phenomenal team - that was created by Bobby Cox when he was GM. Then they picked a GM to replace him who was completely unsuited to the task. A decent hitting 1B grows on trees in baseball. You can't throw a rock in AAA without finding one. The last good one the Braves had was - who? I honestly can't even remember. That's their central problem right there. Even when you have the best pitching rotation _of all time_ - which the Braves of the early '90s did - in modern baseball, if you can't hit, you can't win. Despite that, this Atlanta team has got at least one more season in it. Probably more. The Gary Sheffield trade was exactly the right move to make, and suggests that Schuerholz has finally learned something. Don't choose the middle ground. If you're going to stand pat, then do it - don't fritter away prime talent on marginal moves. If you're going to make a move, make a big one. You only get one shot. As it is, they basically robbed Sheffield from the Dodgers, who desperately needed to dump his salary. Getting him in exchange for the incredibly overrated Brian Jordan and an excellent, although superfluous, pitching prospect was a great deal. Take Sheffield out of Dodger Stadium and everyone will see that he is one of the best hitters in MLB. The foolishness of moving Chipper Jones from 3B - where he might be the best 3B in baseball - to left field, where we don't know how he will field and the value of his hitting decreases significantly - really ticks me off. But there you go. The Braves will have one of the best outfields in the majors. Andruw Jones has enough range to allow the Braves to get away with having Jones and Sheffield on the corners - plus the Braves have a groundball heavy staff anyways. But a team with Javy Lopez, Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, and Gary Sheffield will hit pretty well. Plus, Marcus Giles is the best 2B prospect in baseball, and Rafael Furcal, even at 23, is going to be an excellent shortstop and leadoff hitter. Wilson Betemit in the minors is probably the best SS/2B prospect in baseball and may push Giles to 3B fairly soon. In which case the Braves will have a heck of an offense - only a couple of years too late to take proper advantage of Maddux and Glavine, sadly. Still, it will be enough for another NL East pennant this year. Mets - This team has big problems. There is _nothing_ on the farm system. Absolutely nothing. Their offense was so atrocious last year that even adding Moe Vaughn will probably only take them up to League average. To get that they sacrificed enough of their pitching strength that this may cause them problems as well. Missing an entire year will cause Vaughn to decline even more than age normally would. Plus he doesn't keep in shape - which suggests that his decline due to age will probably be more rapid than it would be for a Cal Ripken type. Mike Piazza is still the best hitting catcher of all time, but catchers do tend to age fast. He's great, no doubt about it, he's just not enough. Jeromy Burnitz is similarly in decline. Robbie Alomar is a great player, but he won't be as good this year as he was last. Plus the Mets already had an incredibly 2B - Edgardo Alfonzo. Alomar's better, but he's not _that much_ better. Alfonzo now gets moved to 3B, where he's significantly less valuable. They carry the incedible offensive void of Rey Ordonez - who is also older than we thought, no less. Ordonez might actually be a more valuable player if he went to the plate without a bat - then at least he'd walk occasionally and not ground into DPs. Al Leiter is also getting significantly on in years. Bruce Chen will be good. But Shawn Estes is hideously inconsistent. Jeff D'Amico is an injury waiting to happen, and Pedro Astacio, well, I just don't have much faith. It's not that there isn't talent there - the Mets have the talent to be a great team. But if every single thing breaks right for them, and some things go badly for the Braves - then it will be a close race. That's just not a good bet to make. They shot their bolt in 2000, and it's downhill from here. It's going to be a while before the next really good Mets team, I think. In any other division I'd pick them for worse than second. Marlins - There's some talent here, I think. A lot on the farm system, certainly. Josh Beckett is God's own pitching prospect - so good that, despite my belief that spending a first round draft pick on a HS pitcher is the dumbest move in baseball, he might actually have been a good pick. Preston Wilson is quite good, as is Charles Johnson, although neither will be as good this year as they were last year. AJ Burnett, Brad Penny, Matt Clement, and Ryan Dempster are all good with a very high upside. But young pitching will break your heart. Fundamentally this team has a problem developing hitting prospects. They're pretty good with pitchers - which is very difficult - but pretty poor with hitters - which is easy. Very odd. Abraham Nunez and Adrian Gonzalez are both excellent, however, so I may be overstating the case on that. I would have said this is a team on the rise - but now they've been bought by Jeffrey Loria, who brought over all of his Expos people. It's really a shame. The team that built a superb farm system and the beginnings of a good team in Florida all get canned, while the incompetents who've been running the Expos for years will get credit for successes they did nothing to deserve. This poor management will probably cripple the Marlins in the long run and keep them from fulfilling their potential, I'm sorry to say. Beckett will be a lot of fun to watch, though. Phillies - Last year was a fluke. It's not going to happen again. They're just not that good. There's some talent here. Obviously Scott Rolen is excellent. Bobby Abreu might be the most underrated player in the Majors. Mike Lieberthal is quite good. Pat Burrell is going to be something special, maybe even this year. So there's talent here. Does anyone know what the _hell_ has happened to Travis Lee? He was supposed to be good. I don't get it. But I guess he might still improve. There were some hopeful signs last year, IIRC. Mesa will not repeat the success of last year, and in fact the whole pitching staff was essentially smoke and mirrors. That's not going to happen again. There's just no pitching here, and not enough hitting to make up for it. Marlon Byrd in AA is a decent CF prospect, but we're not talking Joe Borchard here either. Expos - I think I'm actually underrating the Expos, but I'm just not sure where to place them. There's a _lot_ of talent here. Vlad Guerrero all by himself would qualify as a lot of talent, and he's not alone. Orlando Cabrera is one of the best young shortstops in baseball. Jose Canseco is exactly what the Expos needed - cheap power. Jose Vidro is excellent. Javier Vazquez and Tony Armas are both very good as well. There's less on the farm, though. Plus, Frank Robinson is at least decent as a manager. I think I just convinced myself to put them above the Phillies, but I don't feel like cutting and pasting :-) Fernando Tatis also has a lot of talent, actually, but seems tempermentally unsuited to utilising it fully. Peter Bergeron and Brad Wilkerson are pretty good too, actually. Definitely better than the Phillies. The problem with the Expos is that they're run by MLB which is 1) incompetent and 2) immoral. I have this vision of Vlad Guerrero and Orlando Cabrera being traded to the Brewers for some bratwurst. So I'm going to give the Expos an * as a team so out of the ordinary that prediction is virtually impossible. Could be good, could be catastrophic. Gautam
