kansas city and pitching stats:

lastly, we have the royals of kansas city. poor kc. they finished in last place in the AL central for the third straight year, posting a 62-100 record. it seems like ages ago they finished above .500. actually it was just back in 2003, when they shocked the world and finished 83-79. in 2002, they had an identical record to last year.

so, what of 2007? their win total may increase, slightly, but i believe the result will be the same. looking up at every other team in the AL central. they do have some good young talent. but until they can assemble a starting rotation of five good starting pitchers, competing for the division crown WILL BE an impossibility. most of the young talent they have resides on the offensive side.

so, i mentioned pithcing being key. as i mentioned in my previous blog, three of the six teams that won 90 games were from the AL central this year. cleveland won 90 games in 2005, of course. when it comes to team ERA, here is how all the teams from the AL central fared when compared to the rest of the AL.

#1 detroit, 3.84
#2 minnesota, 3.95
#6 cleveland, 4.41
#10 chicago, 4.61
#14 kansas city, 5.65 (last in the AL)

quality starts:

#1 los angeles, 97
#2 detroit, 88
#3 cleveland, 82
#4 chicago, 81
#9 minnesota, 73 (a surpise from the division champs, it tells you how strong there bullpen was)
#14 kansas city, 47 (last again, AND less than half the total of the angels!)

strikeouts:

#1 minnesota, los angles, 1164 (a tie)
#8 chicago, 1012
#9 detroit, 1003
#13 cleveland, 948
#14 kansas city, 904 (a pattern has become evident)

fewest walks allowed:

#1 minnesota, 356
#2 cleveland, 429 (makes up for the lack of k's)
#3 chicago, 433
#5 detroit, 489
#14 kansas city, 637 (not to labor the point...)

lowest batting average allowed:

#1 los angeles, .254 (i notice a pattern here too, yet they did not make the playoffs)
#2 detroit, .257
#5 minnesota, .267 (the second category that do not dominate in)
#7 chicago, .271
#11 cleveland, .282
#14 kansas city, .292 (umm....)

GM dayton moore did what he could in free agency. he had to overspend like crazy. the result: $55 mil to gil meche for 5 years. that is one million dollars for each career win. a guy who in 143 career starts, has never pitched more than 200 innings. he was injured for two full years, and did not pitch in either 2001 and 2002. in 810.0 innings, he struck out 575, walked 363, and has an ERA of 4.65. this guy is now an $11 million dollar a year pitcher, and the ace of a major league baseball team. i do not which statement is more shocking. there are six other pitchers who will be competing for the final four spots in the rotation.
this group includes:

brian bannister. brian is a good prospect actually. was aquired from the mets for flame throwing yet all over the place (aka rick vaughn before the glasses) ambriorix burgos.

scott elarton. scott was the openning day starter for kc last season. last year's gil meche. the tribe resurrected scott's career in 2004. he was a very good #5 starter for us. not good enough to outbid kc. his season was mercifully shut down in august with a shoulder injury. his ERA was 5.34.

zack grienke. zack actually looked like he would be a good starter back in the day. he was a rookie in 2004, and finished that year with a 3.97 ERA in 24 starts, over 145.0 inning pitched. 2005 was horrible though. next thing, he quits baseball. he stated he did not like the game. then he went to a shrink, and found out the root of his problem: a social 'disorder'. now he is back.

luke hudson. luke had a good year last year. except for one game, against the tribe. he did not make it out of the first inning, and gave up 11 runs. remove that start from the books, and his ERA falls from 5.12 t0 4.18. luke has been a prospect for awhile. has his time arrived?

odalis perez. odalis used to be a good starter for the dodgers. he is not the same pitcher from back then. his ERA the last three years: 4.56, 5.64, and 6.20 (6.83 with the royals).

jorge de la rosa i do not know why he is being considered for a position. he is a lefty, but the best year of his career came in the NL in 2004, when he was used strictly as a reliever by the brew crew. last year, in 10 starts with kc he had an ERA of 5.18.

it appeared management was building a bullpen of power arms. none of those guys are around anymore. gone is andrew cisco, mike mac dougal, and ambiorix burgos. joel peralta and joe nelson both show promise. quality middle reliever and ex indian david riske was added to the mix. octavio dotel was brought in to close out games. it remains to be seen if he is healthy, and if he is, how long he will stay so. ken ray is another newcomer / hopeful to the group. todd wellemeyer and lefty jimmy gobble probably will round out the pen. an upgrade all around, but minor at best.

so, they do have depth for a change. quality is another.

as bad as there pitching was, the offense somewhat surprisingly was not much better. the two additions will not do much to help things out. utility first baseman ross gload and jason la rue, who will be competing for the starting catching job versus incumbent john buck, were the additions. what may help, alex gordon becoming the third baseman. if this does happen, mark teahen will move to the outfield. reggie sanders could then be traded for more pitching. a healthy mike sweeney is always a good thing. then again, he has not played in more than 130 games since 2001. yes, it will be a long hard road out of last place.

next, we have the chicago white sox. last season proved that it is pitching that wins the world series. that is because despite an offense that put up way better numbers in regards to batting average, runs, and homers than those produced by the 2005 world series champs, they did not even make the playoffs this past season. they still won 90 games, but 53 of those wins came before the all star break. i saw where annoying manager ozzie guillen contributed it to a drop in production of lead off man scott posednik, along with drop offs of SS juan uribe and 2B tadahito iguchi. the article made no mention how brian anderson, the man who replaced aaron rowand in center field after he was traded for jim thome, had an awful year. but thome had an awesome year, as did jermaine dye and paul konerko. i believe that the white sox fall was a product of their pitching. in 2005, their five starters were unbelievable, especially in the playoffs. maybe it was fatigue, but no starter from '05 replicated their success in '06. this includes orlando hernandez, even though he was traded to az (then to the mets) for javier vazquez.

so, what were the drop offs like? let me tell you.

first of all, their is top lefty mark buehrle. their staff ace had a big drop off. check out his stats:

2005: 236-2/3 IP / 240 H / 40 BB / 149 K's / 20 HR / 3.12 ERA
2006: 204.0 IP / 247 H / 48 BB / 98 K's / 36 HR / 4.99 ERA

he got worse in every possible category. his ERA jumped almost 2 full runs. fewer IP's, yet more hits, walks and home runs allowed. mark never has been a dominating pitcher, just one who never allowed many runs. the big question, will he rebound in '07? was it just fatigue? or is the league finally catching up with him. playing in such a tough division may be taking its toll on him. that is my theory anyway. fatigue had to be a part of it though, thus i believe his 2007 stats will fall somewhere in between the two extremes. i envision 220 IP / 240 H / 50 BB / 110K's / 32 HR / 4.08 ERA. but i feel the fall off in mark's production is the biggest reason for thew white sox failure to make the playoffs. but to have such a bad second half, obviously some other pitchers are to blame, and they were.

let's also look at freddy garcia. he won three more games, but that was the only stat that improved from '05 to '06.

2005: 228.0 IP / 225 H / 60 BB / 146 K's / 26 HR / 3.87 ERA
2006: 216-2/3 IP / 228 H / 48 BB / 135 K's / 32 HR / 4.53 ERA

it is weird. nothing screams out as way worse except for the most important stat, ERA. he actually had better control. but it is not important, because he is now gone. traded to philly for failed prospect gavin floyd and one time white sox prospect gio gonzalez, who was also part of the aforementioned jim thome trade.

another 'disappointment' was jose contreras.

2005: 15-7 / 204-2/3 IP / 177H / 75 BB / 154 K's / 23 HR / 3.61 ERA
2006: 13-9 / 194.0 IP / 194 H / 55 BB / 134 K's / 20 HR / 4.27 ERA

once again, ERA was the stat the ballooned the most. the hit rate was worse, but his control did get better. his home run rate was essentially unchanged, especially when compared to the increases in the rates of mark and freddy.

lastly, there was 2005 surprise jon garland. because of a late season charge, he had the same amount of wins (18). but as with everyone else from '05, he did not have that magical season.

2005: 221.0 IP / 212 H / 47 BB / 115 K's / 26 HR / 3.50ERA
2006: 211-1/3 IP / 247 H / 41 BB / 112 K's / 26 HR / 4.51 ERA

as with the others, jon's ERA suffered the worst drop numbers wise.

then there was javier vazquez. when he was with montreal, he was considered one of the elite pichers in all of baseball. then he was traded to the yankees. he has never been the same since. he did have a good year in his only year in az in '05. he often showed glimpses of his old, dominating form last year. a typical game seemed to be that he would dominate through most of his outings, but have one or two bad innings that were his undoing. he put up solid numbers, when compared to a regular #5 starter. but he used to be a number one starter, and the white sox were expecting way better than average production. this is what they recieved from javier.

2006: 11-12 / 202-2/3 IP / 206 H / 56 BB / 184 K's / 23 HR / 4.84 ERA.

so, now that garcia is in philly, and stand out brandon mccarthy is in texas, vazquez is now the #4 starter and the #5 spot belongs to either floyd or a rookie knuckleballer charlie haeger, who had a great year in the minors.

the pen also had a fall off in production. the set up mostly were to blaim, as bobby jenks had a good year as closer and did not succumb to a sophomore slump. for this season, they traded utility 1B ross gload to kc for power arm andrew sisco. they also traded neal cotts to their cross town rivals for david aardsma. they obtained mike mcdougal from kc mid season last year. lefty matt thorton was very productive. but can a bullpen compromised of two ex kc relievers expect to be that good? if macdougal can stay healthy and sicso learns control, they will be.

and the offense will be fine also. jim will hit his bombs, as will konerko. i find it hard to believe that dye will hit like he did last year when he made the all star team and finished the year with 44 HR's, two more than thome. uribe, who battled some legal problems in the off season, should have a better year, as should posednik. and if brian anderson gets off to a slow start or has a bad spring, in may step rookie prospect ryan sweeney. or they may find a way to sneak another top prospect, josh fields, into the line up. regardless, the white sox were the only team to have every regular hit at least 20 or more doubles. despite all of these players returning, C/DH toby hall and OF/1B and all around tough dude darin erstad were added. last i heard, posednik will not be ready for the start of the '07 season, and this partly was why erstad was added. erstad back in the day was a stud hitting machine. last year with the angels, erstad only had 95 AB's and batted .221. hopefully when the indians are playing the white sox, we will not be viewing the ghost of grady sizemore's future in darin. grady exhibits the same all out, wall banging, diving around style that was a trademark of darin in his heyday.

so, what does all this mean? it means the white sox win total will once again fall. probably not by much. 85-89 wins seems feasible. but in this tough divison, it will probably only get them third place, and another year at home watching the playoffs.

ok, baseball is gearing up, so must i. thankfully, all else has been sorta quiet in winter haven. no bad news since day one, when keith retired. that is good. it lets me commence with the division break down. i have discussed minnesota earlier. so, first of all, let's take a look at the division as a whole. in usa today's sports weekly, they have released their power rankings. this is how the AL central teams were ranked, out of all 30 teams.
detriot #2
chicago #5
minnesota #9
cleveland #14
kansas city #29

not that i believe this an an accurate indicator of the true strength of a team (it is based on the voting of 13 usa today writers and editors), but let me break this data down.

division----overall average--best 3 teams average--best 4 teams average
AL central:------11.8-------------5.3--------------------7.5
AL east:-----------12.8-------------4.0--------------------9.0
AL west:---------15.0------------12.7------------------15.0
NL east:-----------16.4------------11.0-------------------13.0
NL west:---------17.2------------11.7------------------15.0
NL central:--------18.8------------14.0-------------------15.8

if not for the money hogs new york and boston (ranked #1 and #3), the AL central would dominate this ranking, even though we have the second worst team in the majors with kc. and i think kc will surprise a lot of teams this season, thus being ranked higher at the end of the season. i read a web article / blog listing the toughest divisions in baseball, and the AL central was not listed. four divisions were listed, and the AL central was not one of them. last season, six teams won 90 or more games. three were from the AL central. case closed.

as for minnesota, i have no idea how they are in the top 10. they lost shannon stewart, brad radke retires, fransisco liriano is out for the season, their 'replacements' are ramon ortiz and sidney ponson or rookies, and they only have three legitimate offensive threats.

ok, so enough about them. on to last year's AL wild card team and world series representatives, the surprising detroit tigers. their only significant loss was tough lefty reliever jaime walker to the O's. their biggest addition was trading prospects for gary sheffield. they added jose mesa (no comment) to their bullpen, and did resign sean casey. adding sheff was a nice touch. he is old, but if he can stay healthy and doesn't bitch and moan about being their DH, it should be a very addition to their offense. loosing walker could somewhat hurt their pen, especially if wilfredo ledezma (who used to be a starter) does not work out. but the way i see it, success is not guaranteed. they have rookies who pitched a lot last year who could suffer sophomore slumps. justin verlander and joel zumaya readily come to mind. zach miner and roman colon are another pair of rookies who had success last year. and they have many old players who are now a year older. kenny rogers, shef, sean casey, jose mesa, and todd jones all fall into this category. mike maroth is another enigmatic starter who has battled injuries the last couple years. plus, they no longer have the surprise factor on their side. everybody will be out to get them. success is expected this year. i expect a slight fall off, reminiscent of chicago going from world series champs to finishing third last year.

the offense should be somewhere in the decent to good range, at best. this scenario includes everyone staying healthy, and curtis granderson being the curtis from the first half of last season and in the playoffs, not the curtis who struggled mightily inbetween. overall, he batted .260 with 174 strikeouts and only 66 walks. he did have 31 doubles, 9 triples, 19 homeruns. he was only successful on 8 of 13 steal attempts. i single him out because these are no where near ideal lead off batter statistics. 174 strikeouts! and when the lead off man does not get on, the offense will stagnate. i do not think it was a coincidence that detroit's struggles as a team down the stretch coincided with curtis' struggles at the plate. as a team though, detroit does not walk alot. this will make a team more prone to slumps. i wonder what will be of chris shelton this year? he was the hottest hitter in the milky way galaxy the first couple of weeks of april, and really helped the tigers jump out to an early lead in the division. of course, they were helped by cleveland beating up on chicago and minnesota early on. but chris cooled off (as did cleveland), and he eventually was sent back down to the minors.

defensively, they are ok. forget about all the pitchers errors in the world series. that was a fluke, probably brought on by equal parts inexperience, fatigue, and bad luck.

but a starting rotation of kenny rogers, justin verlander, jeremy bonderman, nate robertson, and mike maroth does appear to be one of the strongest in all of baseball, on paper. they have some depth with zach miner and roman colon. but they are young. the bullpen should be good. todd jones, fernando rodney, and joel zumaya are the keys. any one of these three could close games, but it is best if jones is da man while the other two set up. an injury or ineffectiveness to any one of the three could upset the delicate balance of this pen.

look for them to win 80-90 games this year, good for a second or third place division finish.

he didn't have to prove me wrong so quickly! back in my blog regarding keith foulke, i mentioned an article that i read awhile back that claimed that keith foulke was a selfish, non team player who did not get along at all with his teammates. he proved me wrong on the first day of spring training (the day that pitchers and catchers were to report), which was coincidentally keith's last day as an indian. he retired on this day. in doing so, he turned down the $5 million promised him by the indians to be their closer. actually, he was competing to be the closer with joe borowski. now there is no competition. joe borowski is our closer. competition over.

but in regards to keith. at first, this seemed an announcement reminiscent of the one made on the very first day to training camp for the cleveland browns. yet another reminder of the cleveland curse. on the first day of the browns season, le charles bentley sustained an injury that ended his season the day it started. the man who was signed to beef up a 'sad sack' offensive line. the man some 'scouts' had rated one of the best free agents available. the man who was going to vastly improve our running game. the man who was going to give us the upper edge when playing the hated steelers. the man. the myth. the legend. sustains a 'freak' injury and so goes any optimism for the 2006 season. on that front, i just read an article that states le charles may not play in 2007 either. his career may be done, all because of this freak injury.

fast forward to this past friday. i get on-line after a long day of work to check my e-mails. i was anxious to check out the indians website to read about their first day of spring training. i do not care that only the pitchers and catchers report on this day. it is the FIRST DAY. the off season is over. spring is near. baseball is back. for most teams, there is no real news. a few position players may report early. certain players may not make it for many various, mostly boring reasons. so and so looked in good shape. so and so isn't 100%. the manager made a joke. optimism is high. blah blah blah. i did not expect to hear indians news about this day in an e-mail. but there it was. from the indians website. 'foulke retires' i believe was the headline. my first thought is that of looming disaster. how could this bastard do that to us???! but time, and future articles, have proved to me he made this decision was made by a man of strong character and out of respect to the indians.

the best i can garner is that foulke's body was not responding to the gearing up he usually performed to get his body ready for an upcoming season. he had sustained many injuries the last few years. but he did pass the indian's physical. i have nothing but respect for a pitcher. it is amazing what they can do. i always considered myself a strong guy (for my size). i was absolutely humbled the first time a threw a baseball at a cage with a radar gun. on my first attempt, i think i registered 50 something. i was amazed. i was determined to throw the next ball 25 MPH faster. i think it registered the same, or maybe a couple MPH more. on the third attempt, a made a few changes that i thought would help. it didn't. i do not believe i hit 60. and my arm was sore later. sore, from those three pathetic attempts to throw a baseball as fast as i could. it looks so easy on the tv. everybody always complains when someone is wild. from 60'6" away, everyone complains when they are an inch or two off. any trig peeps out there? what is the angle of a triangle with a = 726" and b = 2". i believe it involves taking the inverse tangent of a / b. trust me, the angle is minute. less than 1 degree. math aside, my point is pitching is an amazing accomplishment. being able to excel at it is even more amazing. just look at the salaries mediocre (at best) pitchers recieved this off season. look up the contracts of recently singed starting pitchers adam eaton, jeff weaver, jason marquis, gil meche, and miguel batista, to name a few. most of these guys recieved somewhere between $8 to $11 mil a year to pitch. then look at their career stats. i consider eaton the best of the group, but he is always injured. weaver was dropped by the angels last year before the cardinals picked him up, and he got hot in the playoffs / world series. marquis and his 6 something ERA did not even make the card's post season roster. gil can be good, but inconsistency and injury have 'plagued' him. same with miguel.

ok, my point. throwing a baseball is an amazing talent. it is also an unnatural skill. one that can destroy a body. i believe keith knew his body could no longer take it. he was signed to be a closer. some call the closer the toughest position in baseball. because not only must one possess the skill, but also a mental 'toughness'. to forget about a blown save. to forget that he got hammered (pitching-wise) the night before. the last time he faced this team. the last time he pitched in the world series and blew the save in game seven that would have ended his team's uber long drought. that the hard work that the starting pitcher and maybe set up man / men performed, plus the work of the offense to put up more runs, and the defense to back up the pitchers, just got 'wasted' because you could not get the last three outs of the ball game. the indians wanted him to be an elite performer, and keith's body told him this was not going to happen. so he retired. and turned down $5 mil in the process. had he came to camp and tried to work through this, or even if he came and just pretended to try, he would have recieved his $5 mil. for less than one month, he could have made $5 mil. for a team 'on a budget', $5 mil IS huge. now, it can be used in a trade, or saved and used next winter / off season. now part of this ties into my whole disdain over contract disputes. if keith needed the $5 mil, he would have done so. who wouldn't, if they needed it? i do not know if he has a wife and /or kids. regardless, he could have had $5 mil. but how many times does a player leave his hometown team because someone else gave him a bigger contract, even though he really 'wanted' to stay with their old team? $5 mil. i do not know how many millions keith has already made. i do not want to know. all i know is this: he made enough that an extra 5 meant nada to him.

ok, i hate talking about salaries and money. they are ruining baseball. and it is greed, plain and simple. this story proves it, like i needed the proof. they do not need that extra money. j.d drew leaving LA early. a-rod possibly opting out of his contract early, so that it can be restructured. head buried in sand. i make less than $20 per hour. do you really think i am going to sympathise with you? no! get off my team, you greedy lying bastard. thank goodness for karma. need proof, the yankees haven't won the world series since 2000. enough said.

so keith, thank you. i think it is sorta cool you retired as an indian, despite never having thrown a pitch.