2013 Preview: Philadelphia Phillies

I think I can sum up the impression of the team held by many baseball fans. “The Phillies are a collection of broken-down, overpaid players who all got old at the same time last year – just like the Yankees this year. They won’t be a factor again for years.” As I said, on the surface that’s understandable because after winning the NL East five straight times, Philadelphia did crash and burn last year struggling to play .500 baseball, never factoring in the NL East race, and finishing 17 games out of first place. Let’s look beneath the surface, however.

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2013 Preview: Washington Nationals

A year ago, it wasn’t too hard to see that the Washington Nationals had a bright future. Despite the fact that the franchise had never had a winning record since moving from Montreal to Washington D.C. before the 2005 season, all those losing records and last place finishes had started to pay off in the form of talented draft picks. Washington had a bevy of young players that seemed certain to challenge for NL East supremacy . . . eventually. But last year?

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2013 Preview: Minnesota Twins

In 2012, the Twins staff only struck out 15.2% of the batters they faced. The next worse team was the Indians at 17.3%, a huge 2.1% gap. (The gap between those two teams (30th and 29th) was larger than the gap between 29th and 18th in the league.) As a result, the Twins gave up the second most runs in the American League, and when you adjust for park effects (Target Field suppresses runs) it was the worst. So the Twins clearly need to find a way to improve its pitching staff and find hurlers who can strike out more batters.

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2013 Preview: Kansas City Royals

Sabermetric types – at least those who are attacked for working out of their mother’s basement – are frequently scolded by baseball insiders as not understanding the softer skills that are needed to run a baseball team. “You can’t run a baseball team treating your players like Strat-O-Matic cards” and “this isn’t fantasy baseball” are two commonly heard refrains. While I don’t dispute that – I’ve yet to encounter a workforce that is immune to the effects of a positive or negative workplace environment – that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to be gained by listening to the boxer-clad, out-of-work, “When is dinner ready, Mom?” crowd. For instance, fantasy players (especially in auction leagues) know that to win your league your players as a whole must produce more points-per-dollars than other teams’ players do. Everything you do as a manager is done with an eye on that metric.

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2013 Preview: Chicago White Sox

I know it’s disappointing if your favorite baseball team spends 126 calendar days in first place and doesn’t make the playoffs, but fans of the Chicago White Sox should be pleased with the 2012 effort of the South Siders. Thanks to excellent defense, the spectacularly successful conversion of Chris Sale from the bullpen to the starting rotation, and a bevy of home runs which offset an otherwise pedestrian offense, the White Sox managed to spend the last four months of the season in the thick of the AL Central race. To contend with the Tigers, the White Sox needed a lot to go right last year and that’s exactly what happened, but thanks to changes to both teams – as well as a vastly improved Cleveland Indians squad – there is little chance of that happening in 2013.

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