Hitting The Cutoff Man

Months of waiting are finally over, and the 2011 season has arrived. To mark the occasion, everyone is making their predictions, saying what they think will happen this season.

What a boring, glass-half-full approach. Here is what WON’T happen in MLB in 2011.*

* To answer your first question, yes, I hate your favorite team and am out to get them, and no, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just wanted to be upfront about that.

Last year’s World Series participants get back to the playoffs.
Since the six-division wildcard format was introduced in 1995, 19 of 30 World Series teams have returned to the postseason the next year, with five returning to the championship round. This will not be one of those years. Rather, this will be like 2006 or 2007, when neither World Series participant from the year prior played extra ballgames.

To be clear, I don’t think what the Giants or Rangers accomplished last season was a mirage. Those were both talented clubs, and they certainly have a good shot to reproduce their success. But a lot of things – not everything, of course – broke right for both teams last year, and that rarely happens twice in a row. Both San Francisco and Texas are flawed teams, flawed enough that I have them being overtaken this year by Colorado and Oakland, respectively, and finishing behind the second-place team from the East for the wild card.

The Yankees and Red Sox both make the postseason.
Sorry, TV network executives! For the seventh straight year, your dream ALCS will not come to fruition. Now, you certainly could argue that the Yankees and Sox look like the two best teams in baseball, and that would be hard to dispute. There are concerns with both, but you also know they will do what is necessary to address any issues with in-season trades.

That said, whether it’s my NY-BOS fatigue or the fact I’m currently reading Jonah Keri’s fascinating The Extra 2%, I’m going to say the Rays find a way to steal one of the two playoff spots that will almost certainly go to the AL East. Losing Carl Crawford to Boston and the whole bullpen to various other teams were tough pills to swallow for Tampa, but I think additions like Manny Ramirez and Jeremy Hellickson will push the Rays through.

The Phillies starting rotation proves to be the greatest of all time.
No, I’m not invoking the SI cover jinx. And I do believe the quartet of Halladay-Lee-Hamels-Oswalt is good enough to drag the Phillies’ wounded lineup into the playoffs and maybe even the World Series. That said, I think expectations probably have gotten a bit outlandish in the off-season.

The Big Four have been a pretty durable bunch in recent years, but of course it’s not hard to imagine one of them going down with an injury somewhere along the line. Pitching is a tough business. And consider this: The 1997 Braves had four starters with an ERA+ of at least 138 (100 is league average). The Phillies’ four have combined to reach that number in 15 of 29 seasons in which they made at least 20 starts. So while it’s certainly possible all four will enjoy great years, I think it’s pretty reasonable to believe at least one will get hurt or have a down season. And I’m not convinced run support will be in abundance, which means that those paying attention to pitcher wins might be disappointed.

The Reds take the next step toward building an NL Central power.
Those were heady days in Cincy last season. Joey Votto was NL MVP, Jay Bruce took a step forward, Scott Rolen managed 537 productive plate appearances, and Dusty Baker and company cobbled together a decent pitching staff. The result was a division title and the franchise’s first playoff appearance since 1995.

Granted, the Reds played as well as their record indicated last year, based on run differential. And they are a young club with room for growth. But as we’ve seen in recent seasons with teams like Arizona, young and talented teams can hit some speed bumps after initially finding success, and I think that happens with the Reds in 2011. The rotation in particular has some blow-up potential with Johnny Cueto and Homer Bailey likely starting the year on the DL, Edinson Volquez not too far removed from major arm surgery and the rest of the bunch awfully short on big league credentials. With the Brewers improved, the Cardinals still dangerous and the Cubs likely to be better, I think someone overtakes Dusty’s crew this time around.

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2009: 88-74, 3rd in NL West. Pythagorean record of 86-76.
Key Additions: 1B Aubrey Huff, LF Mark DeRosa, SP Todd Wellemeyer
Key Losses: SPs Randy Johnson and Brad Penny, RP Bob Howry, OF Randy Winn, 1B Ryan Garko 2010 Projections: PECOTA – 81-81, 4th in NL West. CHONE – 76-86, 5th. CAIRO – 78.3-83.7, 4th.

Pitching: 2009 – 3.85 FIP (4th in MLB), 3.85 for starters, 3.86 for relievers
2010 – The No. 1 spot in the rotation obviously is taken care of here, and Matt Cain is a solid No. 2. Thankfully for the Giants, it appears Barry Zito might have figured out a way to provide a little bit of value for the remainder of his insane contract.
Hitting: 2009 – .305 wOBA (30th in MLB)
2010 – The Giants, desperate for offense, signed DeRosa and Huff and brought back Freddy Sanchez. These guys probably are upgrades over the players San Francisco otherwise would have penciled in at those positions, but it's also not clear the difference is going to be nearly great enough to pull the team out of its offensive stupor. Nate Schierholtz might be the only player besides Pablo Sandoval in the everyday starting lineup under the age of 32.
Fielding: 2009 – UZR of 51.2(4th in MLB)
2010 – Replacing Winn with DeRosa in the outfield subtracts defensive prowess, and if Huff takes a lot of innings away from Travis Ishikawa at first, that will hurt the run-stopping as well. The Giants also have a couple of once sterling defenders up the middle in Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria who are starting to show their age with the glove.

Reasons to Watch
1. Pablo Sandoval: Kung Fu Panda has the best nickname around and the talent to back it up. In his first full major league season last year, he hit .330/.387/.556 and finished 16th in MLB in wOBA. It was an impressive display, to say the least. But there is one issue with Sandoval: his weight. The Giants want to improve his fitness, even instituting an "Operation Panda" program this offseason, and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler believes Sandoval needs to get in better shape in order to enjoy a long and successful career.
2. Tim Lincecum: Not only is Lincecum the best pitcher in baseball, with two Cy Youngs to his credit at age 25, but he is also unique due to his unorthodox pitching style and delivery. Of course, those factors also lead people to question if The Freak will stay healthy, especially with more than 450 innings on his arm over the last two years. Injuries are always lurking in the shadows for any pitcher, but it's certainly possible Lincecum has found something that will keep his arm going. That would be bad news for MLB hitters, who have put up a line of .217/.290/.318 against Linecum in his career (in other words, Adam Everett-type production).
3. The catcher situation: Bengie Molina will turn 36 this season and put up a .308 wOBA in 2009. Yet, the Giants chose to bring him back for 2010, when he will most certainly poach at-bats from Buster Posey, the team's first-round draft pick in 2008. Posey just turned 23 and tore the cover off the ball in both Class-A and Triple-A last season. The bat seems ready, and he apparently is strong behind the plate. Despite this, it sounds like Posey either will start the year in the minors or get moved around to different positions. The Giants don't figure to make the playoffs in 2010, no matter who their catcher is, but making Posey their primary backstop would help.

Paint By Numbers: Molina's 2.5 percent walk rate was the lowest of any qualified hitter last season and held his OBP down to .285 despite a .265 batting average. ... In 2009, the Giants as a team drew 29 fewer walks than anyone else and finished last in OBP. Fred Lewis and Andres Torres were the only San Francisco players with at least 100 plate appearances to post a walk rate of better than the league average of 8.9 percent. ... Barry Zito's 4.31 FIP last season was his best since 2005. A big reason why was Zito's strikeout rate of 7.2/9 IP, which was actually slightly better than his mark in 2002, when he won the AL Cy Young Award.

Blog Jog: Grant at McCovey Chronicles analyzes news involving Matt Cain and Nate Schierholtz and also weighs in on the Brian Wilson contract extension. ... Raising Matt Cain's M.C. O'Conner looks at the Giants' chances of scoring some runs this season. ... This shirt featured at El Lefty Malo is kind of awesome.

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Baseball, perhaps more than any other sport, loves its unwritten rules.

One of the most stringent is "Don't show up thine opponent, or expect to get plunked." A guy showboats, and he better watch his back the next time he steps up.

But is it right?

We saw this scenario played out again -- in Spring Training -- yesterday, when Barry Zito nailed Prince Fielder in the back in the first inning. The reason behind it, acknowledged by most everyone except a fine-averse Zito, was Fielder's celebration after a walk-off homer against the Giants last September.

You can see the original offending incident here.

My feeling is that Fielder and the Brewers were having some fun after a dramatic moment on their home field. If you don't want to see that kind of thing happen, don't give up the home run. And if you want to get revenge, strike him out next time.

At least Zito had the sense to hit Fielder in a padded area (not that it's difficult), but it's still something I'd rather not see.

But maybe that's just me. What do you all think?

Retaliation via HBP: acceptable part of the game, or dangerous and silly artifact of another era?

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