To celebrate the start of the baseball season, I'm rolling out a massive, multi-part preview that will contain so many predictions and proclamations I will either be hailed as a genius or a moron by the end of the season (the smart money is on moron). How many parts, i don't quite know yet, but I will cover every division in the league and predict all of the major awards. You can read Part 1 here. Enjoy!
Since 2006, the NL West has probably been the most
competitive, balanced division in all of baseball. In the past 6 seasons, 4 of
the 5 NL West teams have won at least one division crown, and the only team
that hasn’t, the Colorado Rockies, have won the Wild Card twice in the same
span. Two teams have played in the World Series, and 4 of the 5 teams (Col, SF,
ARI, LAD) have played in the NLCS. The
San Francisco Giants went from 4th in 2008 to 1st in
2010. Arizona went from last in 2010, to Division champ in 2011. Over the last 6 seasons, Colorado, San
Francisco, Arizona, and San Diego have each averaged between 79 & 81 wins a
year. Four teams separated by an average of 2 games a season. Year in and year
out, the NL West gives MLB surprising storylines and compelling pennant
races. It also makes a fool out of
anyone trying to predict exactly what is going to happen in this upside down
division. Lucky for you, the potential
to look stupid has never stopped me before, so here’s how 2012 will shake out
in the NL West:
NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST PROJECTED FINISH
- Arizona Diamondbacks
- San Francisco Giants
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Colorado Rockies
- San Diego Padres
If that order looks familiar, that’s because it is. That’s the exact order of finish as the 2011
season. All that talk about
unpredictability and constant changes, and I go with a carbon copy of last
season? Does that mean the NL West is going to settle into a groove for the
next few years? The answer: absolutely not. Consider this year the calm before
the storm. Arizona and San Francisco are the only teams that have the look of
potential contenders in 2012, but the rest of the division will be joining the
arms race in a serious way in the years to come.
San Diego is in for a rough year. They were an offensively
challenged squad last year, and there isn’t much of a reason to believe the
lineup will be any more intimidating this time around. It’s largely the same
group that finished 2nd to last in runs scored last year, and the
few changes aren’t exactly of the high-profile variety. Factor in that they
traded away last year’s opening day starter Mat Latos and are replacing him
with Cincinnati Reds castoff Edinson Volquez who is coming off a disastrous
season, to put it nicely, and it looks like a safe bet that San Diego will find
themselves in the cellar again for 2012. However, the future is bright for San
Diego. They plucked two quality prospects away from the Texas Rangers when they
sent reliever Mike Adams away last year, and snaked two former 1st
round picks from the Cincinnati Reds in the Latos deal, Yonder Alonso and
Yasmani Grandal. San Diego’s farm
system is being hailed as currently the best in baseball. They will be very bad this year, and they
may not have the money of the rest of their division mates, but they are
putting themselves in a very good position to emulate the winning-on-the-cheap
methods of Tampa Bay Rays and be a legit contender for the NL West crown.
Colorado is a bit of a weirder situation. They’ve been the
media darlings the past 2 pre-seasons, but have completely collapsed both
times. Its easy to see why the media has fallen in love with Colorado the last
few years, the main reason being that they have arguably 2 of the 4 best
position players in the division in the heart of their order. The rest of the
offense keeps up their end as well, finishing 2nd in the NL last
year in runs scored with 735 runs scored, or about 730 more than the Giants
scored in 2011 (at least that’s how it felt).
The problem for the Rockies was their starting rotation was
a catastrophe of the highest order.
Jhoulys Chacin was the only starter to make more than 27 starts and
acquitted himself well, sporting a 3.62 ERA. Unfortunately, no other Rockies
starter was within a half run of Chacin’s ERA.
It seems almost impossible, but Esmil Rodgers and Aaron Cook made a
combind 30 starts while sporting a 7.05 and 6.03 ERA, respectively. Combine the Rockies offense with the Giants
pitching and you have far and away the best team in baseball. Of course, if you
combined the Giants hitting with the Rockies pitching, you’d have a team that
would struggle to beat the Richmond Flying Squirrels (yes that’s a real
team). With the recent announcement
that Jamie Moyer, a man who reminisces often about his days pitching against
Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth, being slotted as their #2 starter, its safe to
say that pitching will once again be an issue for the Rockies. They do have some talent in the minors, and
with that offense they just need a couple of non AARP eligible arms to show up
in the next year or two, and they’ll be right back as media favorite.
Los Angeles is in a weird situation, but the reason behind
its hope for the future is very simple: the team just sold for $2 billion, and the
owners are going to throw money at every high-profile agent they can to make
the team competitive again. As much as
it pains me to say it, the dodgers already have, arguably, the best pitcher and
position player in the division in Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp (Oh god I
think I’m going to be sick). The rest of the roster is pretty barren and
uninspiring right now, but with new owners who are desperate to start writing
checks, they can start to fill in those blank spots this coming off-season.
Fortunately, that does nothing to help the Dodgers this year, and at least
gives all Giants fans a few more months before Dodger fans become even more
punch-in-the-face-able.
Speaking of the Giants, they find themselves in an
interesting position as well. The pitching is already at World Championship
level, with the best pitching staff in all of baseball, and yes I know that
includes the $126 million BP pitcher at the back end of the rotation. That’s how good this pitching staff is, from
starters to bullpen. The offense, while
historically bad last year, will see a bit of a rebound in 2012. Buster Posey
is back and healthy, and even if he wasn’t it is impossible for him to hit as
bad as the Chris Stewart/Eli Whiteside combo did in his place last year. Pablo Sandoval should play more than 120
games in 2012, after missing 30+ games with a broken hand last year. Aubrey Huff can’t possibly be as bad he was
last year, and if he is, the Giants have a young gun in waiting in Brandon
Belt. Simple progression should make Brandon Crawford’s sophomore effort more
productive than last years, and I think he’ll stretch beyond “not a total
embarrassment” which is all many Giants fans are hoping for, and end up in the
realm of “perfectly average”. Now, this
will not be an elite offense by any stretch, and probably not even a good
offense. The thing is, they don’t need
to be good. With their pitching, if the
offense can simply approach average, they will be a contender. When the Giants won the World Series in 2010
(GOD, that never stops being an awesome thing to be able to say), they ranked 9th
out of 16 NL teams in Runs scored.
Rebound years by many of the veterans who struggled last year, coupled
with some of the new pieces like Melky Cabrera & Angel Pagan should get
this offense back toward league average.
And with a few intriguing minor league prospects in the pipeline like
Gary Brown, Hector Sanchez, & Joe Panik, the Giants will have the necessary
youth to stay competitive when veterans like Freddy Sanchez & Aubrey Huff
finally give out.
As much as I wanted to put the Giants here, I just couldn’t
put them over Arizona. I don’t
necessarily buy into Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson repeating their breakout
success from last year, but the addition of legit stud Trevor Cahill means that
even if they don’t, Arizona will be able to weather that storm anyway. Plus,
they have the guy who actually IS the best player in the division in Justin
Upton, and a capable supporting cast with guys like Miguel Montero and Gerardo
Parra capable of giving their pitchers plenty of breathing room. All that, and the fact that Arizona still
has a pretty solid minor league system, headlined by the #3 pick in last years
draft, Trevor Bauer, and I feel comfortable saying that Arizona is the team
that every other NL West squad will be chasing for the coming years.
That doesn’t mean they can’t be caught, though.
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