2010 Most and Least Improved Teams
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 8, 2010 12:37 AM EST
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Debate the results all you like and please feel free to post your own. Results are based on current rosters and no considerations were made for mid-seasons acquisitions or expected landing spots for remaining free agents (Lopez, Wang, Smoltz, etc.). Only teams predicted to finish above .500 were considered for the most-improved section.
Most Improved Teams
The National League
East: NY Mets
86 wins could be symbolic, or it could be just enough to miss playoffs again without a midseason move.
Central: Brewers
Randy Wolf was all they needed to win this. A solid rookie campaign from Alcides and the division title is within reach.
West: D'Backs
Getting Webb back and importing Edwin Jackson give the D'Backs a top 3 unmatched in the NL. Adam LaRoche signing makes them a contender.
The American League
East: Red Sox
Lackey, Beltre, and Cameron negate the loss of Bay. Downgrade the offense slightly, but this team will be the toughest to score runs on in the AL, if not the entire league. A healthy Ortiz with a full season of Victor Martinez and this team could push 105 wins.
Orioles will likely improve more in terms of total wins over 09, but they don't break the .500 requirement.
Central: White Sox
A full season of the 3Ps (Peavy, Putz and Pierre) will keep them competitive with the Tigers and the Twins. Ahead of the competition is another story.
West: Mariners
Figgins, Bradley, Lee, Byrnes and the potential for 18 starts from Bedard. Losing Beltre is an afterthought. Mariners are easily the most improved team in all of MLB.
Least Improved Teams
The National League
Both were surprisingly good on the road last year, which won't be the case this year. Off-seasons moves or lack thereof does neither team favors, though emergence of Heyward should ease Braves loss of Vazquez.
Central: Tie: Pirates and Reds
Neither did much. Reds could reach .500 with a full season from Votto and Homer. Pirates are putting pieces in place for a better 2011, but 2010 doesn't look pretty.
West: Dodgers
50 more starts from Manny won't do much to negate losses elsewhere. The rest of the West got wilder while they made no significant upgrades.
The American League
East: Toronto
Losing Halladay would hurt any team. Lil Drabek and Morrow are good pieces to start rebuilding with.
Central: Indians
Quiet offseason forebodes an even worse 2010. Lots of rookies will crack the lineup, but learning curves will be steep.
West: Angels
Figgins and Vlad walk into the competitions starting lineups. Lackey just walks far, far away. Pineiro and Hideki ease the pain, but Wood will have to put up some historic rookie numbers to prevent the Angels from sliding into second or third place.
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The Mets had at least $32 million to spend and picked up around 5 wins.
The Mariners easily had the best offseason. They added Cliff Lee for nothing along with several very useful pieces.
You really think..
the mets are possibly the most improved team? Did I miss like fourteen moves last night during the superbowl?
the poll says
most improved based on change in record from 08 to 09. I don’t see any way that that is not the mets
by supermets on Feb 8, 2010 8:12 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
They're not an option, but I'd say that, in the NL East, the Nats probably are going to have the biggest change in record from 2009 to 2010.
They’re still not going anywhere, but given everything they’ve done, they’re bring projected to win 70-something games. That’s anywhere between 10-20 games or so, because of their horrendous 59-103 last season.
"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.
by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Feb 8, 2010 9:23 AM EST up reply actions
Record wise I think the Nats will be most improved this year
although they’ll still be way out of the playoff hunt. They’ve made some decent additions though. We’ve added a pile of garbage, but getting players back from the DL = free agent signings right?
by KeithsMoustache on Feb 8, 2010 10:16 AM EST reply actions
I think the Yankees should definitely be on the AL list
adding Granderson, Johnson, and Vazquez and all they lost was Damon and Matsui?
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
Umm
They lost Melky. He was a true Yankee. Any time you lose a true Yankee, that’s a big loss. And for Vazquez? He can’t pitch in New York, remember last time? That was a bad trade for the Yankees.
"Three home teams advance, and the fuckin' Jets" - Rex Ryan
Yanks made some bad decisions
They let Matsui go for $5/1yr and signed Johnson $5.75/1yr I’d rather have Matsui than Johnson especially if Damon left now he’s your full time DH. Vazquez could’nt handle NY before so now he all of a sudden can, I do love the Granderson trade. I met him a couple years ago and he’s a stand up guy. I would rather have him than Bay.
Yankees just didn't improve as much as the Red Sox
The Red Sox could easily jump 8-10 wins with their overall improvements, whereas the Yankees are looking at 5 max.
The Granderson trade is a smart move for the long term and that’s Cashman following through on his design. The fact that he was able to jettison Kennedy in the deal makes it all the more impressive.
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 15, 2010 8:26 PM EST up reply actions
5 max?
I’m not seeing how you’re getting 5 max, Granderson and Winn/Gardner is like a 2-3 win improvement over Damon/Gardner, Johnson is probably a wash with Matsui, and Vazquez is probably a 3-5 win improvement over whoever he’s replacing, Wang I guess?
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
The
Granderson/Winn/Gardner/Johnson combo is pretty much equivalent to the Damon/Melky/Gardner/Hideki combo from last year, maybe 1-1.5 wins more. Vazquez is actually taking the #4 spot from Joba and should be closer to a 3-3.5 win improvement The 5 spot isn’t settled, but should be improved for another win.
Now factor in that Jorge, Jeter, Swisher, Cano, Mariano, CC, Burnett and Pettitte are all expected to regress and throw in some injuries and not even an extra month of A-Rod at-bats can prevent the whole of this group from negating a good chunk of the offseason “upgrades”
Overall, 5 wins looks a little generous.
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 16, 2010 12:16 AM EST up reply actions
Why are Cano, Swisher and CC expected to regress?
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
Cano and Swisher's performance
is expected to decline with the overall decline in the offense. They both likely over-performed a bit last year as well.
CC is likely to regress based on age and his workload .
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 18, 2010 2:10 PM EST up reply actions
Although I think I might agree that the Red Sox improved more
but I haven’t payed enough attention to them this off-season to really tell.
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
Us, for sure.
I’m not going to argue that we’ve had a good off-season — we haven’t. But we should win a lot more games in 2010 than we did in 2009, if only due to injuries healing and, yes, Bay.
Just look at CHONE, and we should pick up at least 7 wins from our offense this year if (big if) everyone is healthy. Reyes goes from 0.7 in 2009 to 5.3 in 2010 — that’s 4.5. Bay plus Tatis will likely get the playing time that Delgado+Sheff+Tatis got last year, netting another 2.5 wins. Other various parts probably cancel out (Francoeur and Pagan go down, Beltran goes up, Wright goes up but catcher-1B-2B probably diffuses a bit) or net us another 0.5-2.0 wins.
Pro-rating the FanGraph fan predictions for pitchers by cutting them a quarter, and we get a nice bounce out of the (four man, ugh) rotation, too. Johan gains 0.7. Pelfrey gains 0.9. OP gains 1.7 (easy when you were below replacement level, I guess) and Maine gains 1.0. That’s another 4.3 wins.
Going from 72 to 86 seems reasonable.
Yeah but are we actually improved over the team we had going into the 09 season?
If everyone had been healthy we probably would have won 88+ games, now we’re looking more at 82-84. That’s more of an improvement just based on luck, as in we were unlucky last year.
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
Is our luck really regressing to league average?
We still have the same front office handling injuries, despite of what the doctors say. We still have Jerry locking players in the doghouse and bunting/pinch hitting in games.
Y'know I truthfully have no idea
Hopefully Johan won’t be struggling with injuries, but I suppose we really don’t know what to expect there, we hope Jose will be healthy, but like you said the same incompetence that couldn’t keep him healthy last year is still in tact. We’re already down Beltran, and Pagan has an uneven history of staying healthy so I suppose there’s still a chance Gmjr could see a lot of innings, Bay is replacing Delgado so we shouldn’t be looking at losing that production again but then there’s the rumors of his bad knees. Then Castillo was reasonably healthy, for Castillo at least, last year so we might not be able to expect that again, which of course means more innings for Cora and then there’s Maine who we really don’t know what to expect from him, and Ollie who could be completely healthy and still be awful and then ?? for the 5th spot.
So really I guess the answer is who konws?
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
DanDot
Other various parts probably cancel out (Francoeur and Pagan go down, Beltran goes up, Wright goes up but catcher-1B-2B probably diffuses a bit) or net us another 0.5-2.0 wins.
Try evaluating this region a bit more thoroughly.
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 9, 2010 12:14 PM EST up reply actions
Orioles will improve. They have a bunch of super talented young guys who will continue to improve
What kills the obviously is that they play in the ALeast and even a moderate improvement in each players perfoemance might not add up to more wins simply because they play the Yankees and Red Sox 36 times.
"Wait till Biggus Dickus hears about this!"
by scott from peekskill on Feb 8, 2010 4:28 PM EST reply actions
Yeah the imbalance in the AL is insane
especially with the way the play-offs are set up. I wonder if there will ever be a push to somehow change it.
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
Probably not.
The main moneymakers, the Yankees and the Red Sox, seem perfectly happy with the close-quarters contention and everything. The people who suffer because of it don’t have as big voices.
"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!"
Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.
by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Feb 8, 2010 5:12 PM EST up reply actions
Symbolic as in....
86 wins could be symbolic, or it could be just enough to miss playoffs again without a midseason move.
finish the season one game out ?.
you know what I'm sayin' ?
Bingo
Unless Murphy hits 25+ HRs with 110 RBI’s, the Mets ridiculously right-handed heavy lineup is going to have problems.
Luckily at the trade deadline, Adrian Gonzalez will be available, as will any number of the lefty 1st base that signed or are still waiting to sign this offseason. There are some other big name lefty power bats that might become available depending on how things shape up by midseason.
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 8, 2010 11:35 PM EST up reply actions
Unrest in Seattle already
Could be a long season for the Mariners if Lee struggles out of the gate.
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 9, 2010 5:34 PM EST reply actions
as a mets fan, I don't understand this
"We decided Lee should have the surgery as soon as possible, rather than try to pitch with the discomfort during the year," general manager Jack Zduriencik said in a release Monday. "To get it out of the way and have it behind us is important."
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
Weird.
It’s almost as if they are trying to avoid aggravating the injury by having it worked on now instead of having the player work through it and possibly have a negative effect on his performance. What’s the deal with that?
"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez
by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Feb 9, 2010 5:48 PM EST up reply actions
well, it's
not like the mariners do everything right
http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2010/2/10/1304689/mariners-sign-bad-pitcher?ref=yahoo
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 10, 2010 5:49 PM EST up reply actions
Signing a bad pitcher to a minor league deal and hope he figures something out?
There have been far worse signings. It’s not like they gave him 3/36.
"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez
by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Feb 10, 2010 6:13 PM EST up reply actions
yeah
its too bad our GM doesn’t do stuff like this? o wait.
by Olde Isle Mets Fan on Feb 10, 2010 9:08 PM EST up reply actions
But by not playing through the pain
Lee isn’t a gamer. But Beltran’s not a gamer either even though he plays through pain. And Lee’s a winner. And Reyes doesn’t try hard so he didn’t play after injury. And surgery isn’t gritty. And Reyes…. but Beltran….. sdkgbsadjkbvkjhbvwbv
I’m lost, what just happened?
No wonder they didn't want him in Philly anymore.
"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez
by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Feb 9, 2010 6:05 PM EST up reply actions
YOUR HEAD A SPLODE!
If there's ever a riot at Citi Field and Oliver Perez was the starter, I started the riot.
The only way I can make any sense of it
is that Lee will be performing the surgery himself and making his own cast, otherwise how could they find out how much heart he has?
"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'
it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.
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