Baseball 2000

National League Report

by David Kennedy

Last season, in my preview of the National League, I recall I was very cynical about baseball's future economically and how the wide financial disparity made it impossible for all but a few teams at the top of the economic totem pole to seriously contend for the pennant...

That view has gone through somewhat of a change.

More than anything the 1999 baseball season served as a reminder that even with the more money than God it is imperative that there be people in charge who know what the hell they are doing. No organization anywhere in the history of sports had more money thrown at player salaries than the 1999 Dodgers - and they needed the last three weeks of the season to scramble out of dead last place. The Angels and Orioles of the American League had the second and third largest payrolls in their league - Anaheim finished last in its division, and Baltimore finished in next to last.

Conversely, Toronto and its $37 million payroll stayed in the AL wild card race well into the final month. Oakland, with the lowest payroll in the AL, stayed in both the wild card and AL West races up until the final week. San Francisco stayed in the race for the wild card and NL West with a $48 million payroll that, while nothing to sneeze at, was dwarfed by the payrolls of the three teams that finished behind them in their division. And most impressively, Cincinnati won 96 games and played past the last day of the season with a payroll of $34 million.

The Dodgers, Angels, Orioles, and to a certain extent Rockies are unimpeachable proof that throwing tons of money at a problem is not the panacea to solving it. Even with tons of money it is clear these four organizations are going in the wrong direction. On the other hand, it is clear that even with limited funds the Blue Jays, Athletics, Giants and Reds are going in the right direction (I'll even go one better than Rich in the previous article and flat out state that if Oakland manages to pry Jim Edmonds loose from Anaheim the Athletics win the AL West).

As with every preview I write I won't choose any division winners. I'll just indicate whom I think will contend and whom I think won't contend. In each division I'll choose a sleeper pick. Keep in mind the sleeper pick is not who I think will win the division, but a team I think can surprise people and contend right up to the end, maybe even pull it out and surprise us with a playoff spot.

NL East

Finally! A competitive year in the NL East! Can anybody remember the last time that happened? For the first time since 1991, Atlanta actually had to fight for a division crown last season. This division had one of the two best races in the bigs, and this year it only gets better, because while the Braves had to fend just one team, this year there is another team in the mix that is looking to be a part of the post-season for the first time since '93.

Before we discuss the three legitimate contenders in this division, lets eliminate the two teams who will be out of it by July.

We'll start by eliminating the worst team in the league for the second year in a row, Florida. That streak gets extended to three this season. That said, there are some good players to get excited about in the everyday lineup. The top and middle of the batting order looks solid (Cliff Floyd, Preston Wilson, Mike Lowell). Second bagger Luis Castillo looks like a find in the leadoff spot. But the bottom of the batting order is as iffy as ever with Mark Kotsay, Derek Lee and Ramon Castro needing to prove they can make things happen with the bat. I will say this, though: this team is a solid defensively as there is in baseball, so they won't beat themselves in the field. The starting rotation is where things really spin out of control for the Marlins, with the linchpin being crusty veteran Alex Fernandez, who can still bring it when limited to 100 pitches but doesn't seem to get any run support to match his 3.38 ERA. Can't fault manager John Boles for bringing along young arms Vladimir Nunez, Ryan Dempster and Joe Fontenot behind Fernandez. Antonio Alfonseca is the new closer here, but once again there is nobody in the bullpen worth mentioning who will get a lead to Alfonseca. I'll give it to the Marlins, though, they finished ten games better than the year before, and they aren't doing anything to beat themselves going into this year. But without a new stadium in their future, improvement will come in small increments.

Next to go: Montreal. Get this - there's new ownership in Montreal in Jeff Loria, and he seems intent on stopping the sieve of talent draining from this organization. I guess that means the Vladimir Guerrero isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I don't know whether to be sad for Vlad or happy for (all two of) the fans in Montreal. For the rest of us it really is a shame that Guerrero is stuck in Quebec, because if you haven't seen him you have no idea what you are missing; there's and MVP or three in this guys future. Anyway, Geurrero and Rondell White are the best of what's here. It's not that I don't like Hideki Irabu, Dustin Hermanson, Mickey Morandini and Graeme Lloyd. It's just that if Loria is going to pay big bucks to mediocre talent just to make a statement about your commitment then he is getting off to a rather inauspicious start. Less talent here than in Florida, but they'll finish above the Marlins once again because one of the best day-in-day-out managers in the game, Felipe Alou, is still here. And he gets more mileage out of talent than anybody.

For the first time since their pennant drive in '93, Philadelphia looks to have a breakout season. With steady improvement over the last two seasons manager Terry Francona is expecting his charges to make a substantial leap into contention down the stretch. The top two-thirds of the batting order is as good as any in the division (Doug Glanville, Ron Gant, Bobby Abreu, Scott Rolen, Rico Brogna, Mike Lieberthal), but the bottom third is not scaring anybody (Marion Anderson, Desi Relaford), especially on defense. Andy Ashby will hold down the fort in the rotation until Curt Schilling comes back from a shoulder operation. While I like closer Mike Jackson, I think he has seen better days, but with Jeff Brantley and Wayne Gomes in the pen there is plenty of depth here. The Phillies actually were in the race until an August swoon brought them back to earth, but with a year's experience under their belts they now have some horses to stay in the race going into the home stretch.

The best everyday lineup in this division now belongs to New York (and with the drug suspension of Darryl Strawberry, the Mets may arguably have an even better everyday lineup than the cross-town Yankees). Not unlike their AL counterparts, this lineup is built around patience at the plate, contact hitters who can drive the ball and players who don't make baserunning errors (Rickey Henderson, Edgardo Alfonso, Derek Bell, Mike Piazza, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Darryl Hamilton, Rey Ordonez). And they don't make any fielding errors; this is the best defensive team in the bigs. In new ace Mike Hampton and returning workhorse Al Leiter they have the guns to go up against the two out of every five days. The other three days they'll have to rely on their bats and defense to make up for Rick Reed and the two Bobby Jones, all three of whom will rely heavily on a deep bullpen - with John Franco, Turk Wendell, Dennis Cook and closer Armando Benitez - to bail them out when they get them a lead. The Mets should win close to 100 games with this lineup and defense, but I'm not sold on their chances in the postseason with the volatile Bobby Valentine at the helm.

Even coming off a 103-win season, some of the shine has come off Atlanta. as both New York teams proved this is a beatable team under the right circumstances. Manager Bobby Cox never worries about horses; this is still the deepest team in the majors with the deepest farm system. Still one of the scariest lineups in the league (Quilvio Veras, Reggie Sanders, league MVP Chipper Jones, Brian Jordan, Javy Lopez, new star in the making Andruw Jones), made even scarier with the return of Andres Galarraga or his replacement at first base, Wally Joyner. The best year-in-and-year-out rotation there is for the ninth year running (Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Kevin Millwood, with either Bruce Chen or Mike Remlinger as the fifth starter) will have to do without its best big game pitcher, John Smoltz, for the season due to elbow surgery. His off-season stupidity notwithstanding, John Rocker was a prime time closer, and an underrated bullpen of Remlinger and Kevin McGlinty is made better with the return of Kerry Ligtenberg. The Braves do everything well, which is why they are still the best in this division and the league. But surviving the loss of Smoltz with the Mets and Phillies breathing down their necks is going to be a tall order.

The Sleeper: Everybody expects Atlanta and New York to fight it out for this division. So I'll go with Philadelphia. Hey, weirder things have happened. There is enough talent and team chemistry in Philly to pull off this year's version of the Reds. Find somebody to take Ron Gant off their hands for some quality help down the stretch and they could be looking at 90 wins.

NL Central

The new glamour division in the majors, the Central is no longer as mediocre as is has been in past years. And with the addition of the recognized best player in baseball, Ken Griffey, Jr., to prime-time players Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jeff "Alligator" Bagwell, most fans are expecting to see some bombs bursting in division play. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but aside from the entertaining array of home runs that may be displayed on a nightly basis here, this division has failed to send a team past the first round of the playoffs every year except one since the inception of divisional playoffs ('96 Cardinals).

The Central doesn't look like a one-horse race anymore. Three teams are in it to win it now.

Year in and year out Pittsburgh will continue to be an also-ran until they get some new revenue streams from their new stadium, but at least manager Gene Lamont and GM Cam Bonifay have this team moving in the right direction finally. Trading Al Martin was a sure sign that the commitment to retaining their own talent to move forward on the field is not there yet. It's anybody's guess who will bat leadoff, but there are some sticks in the middle of the lineup (Pat Meares, Brian Giles, Kevin Young, new signeee Wil Cordero, Warren Morris, and a healthy and returning Jason Kendall) who won't impress you with their long ball ability but are good line-drive hitters who put wood on the ball and into play. Defensively, they don't beat themselves. If you haven't been paying attention, you wouldn't have noticed that the starting rotation is better than competent (Jason Schmidt, Todd Ritchie, Francisco Cordova, Kris Benson) and quite competitive. Lamont doesn't have a go-to guy at closer so he will throw a lot of arms out of the bullpen in an attempt to hide his reliever deficiencies. The Pirates won 78 games last season; I can envision them making it to the 80-win plateau with the kind of teamwork Lamont has them playing.

I've been high on Chicago in the past, but I'm not holding out much hope for them this season. They collapsed mightily the last four months of last season, most notably because they just weren't able to get anybody on base in front of the big bombers in the middle of the lineup (Sammy Sosa, Henry Rodriguez, Mark Grace). When Sammy wasn't hitting home runs he was striking out and leaving what few baserunners he inherited stranded. New manager Don Baylor's first task was to get table-setters Eric Young and Damon Buford as the top two hitters in a lineup that sorely needs people on base. The last three spots in the batting order still leaves much to be desired (Shane Andrews, Joe Girardi, Riky Gutierrez). John Lieber was the only Cub with a decent ERA, and he now has Ismael Valdes to join him in a rotation that I can't seem to figure out past these two, even with a long-in-the-tooth Kevin Tapani still making noise. And we won't even discuss the bullpen, where it's anybody's guess who will emerge as a closer, let alone provide decent setup work. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on the northside, so don't be surprised if the Cubs finish behind the Pirates.

It's about time Davey Lopes got a chance to manage in the big leagues. Unfortunately, he gets to try to make some semblance of a team out of Milwaukee. Somehow I can't see him being optimistic about his chances here when he starts off without Jeff Cirillo, Jose Valentin, Fernando Vina, Hideo Nomo, and David Nilsson (who is sitting out this season so he can play for his home country of Australia in the Sydney Olympics). That said, I can see Lopes managing the same way he played: scrappy, fundamentally-sound baseball emphasizing execution and eliminating mental and physical errors. Does he have the players to do it? Well, you can do worse than attempting to build a team around Jeromy Burnitz. Lopes does have two defensive strengths in the outfield (Burnitz, Marquis Grissom, Geoff Jenkins) and the double play duo (Ron Belliard, Mark Loretta). Trying to piece together a pitching rotation out of Steve Woodard, Jamey Wright, Jimmy Haynes, Bill Pulsipher and Jason Bere will be one helluva chore (although Haynes still has some great stuff). And they can do much worse than closer Bob Wickman, but getting him leads will be an adventure. Too bad the Brewers won't get into their new stadium until next year.

For the first time since their surprise run to the NLCS in '96, St. Louis should break out and make a serious playoff run. Why such optimism after two lackluster seasons which saw a talented team underachieve? GM Walt Jocketty went out and got quality arms for manager Tony LaRussa's rotation. Pat Hentgen, Darryl Kile and Andy Benes are three starters capable of providing 200 innings each to a staff that already has overachieving Kent Bottenfeld and super phenom Rich Ankiel. There is even reason to be optimistic about the bullpen, where Jocketty acquired relievers in Dave Veras and Heathcliffe Slocumb to go with Scott Radinsky and Chad Hutchinson. Providing nothing happens during the spring, the Cardinals could finally go into the season with a healthy lineup. Mark McGwire and Fernando Tatis are stars; Ray Lankford and J.D. Drew are killers at the plate when healthy; and Fernando Vina and Edger Renteria can be a prime-time double play combo who will be the table-setters at the top of the batting order. LaRussa finally has some tools to work with here, but I think what is being left unsaid here is that if he doesn't produce a contender with the new players added to the healthy returnees his job security may take a drastic downturn.

Well, who'd a thunk it? This time last year I was doing my annual discard of Cincinnati, and they up and have the breakout season they've been saying would come for over four years now. I never would have thought that manager Jack McKeon could do so well, but for two years now he has done better than expectations. And now he has Ken Griffey, Jr. in the middle of an already potent lineup of hard-charging veterans (Barry Larkin, Dante Bichette, Dmitri Young) and new stars in the making (Pokey Reese, Sean Casey, Aaron Boone, Eddie Taubensee). Add Deion Sanders to the mix and this team can flat out hit with the best. There was no better relief corps in all of baseball (Danny Graves, Scott Williamson, Scott Sullivan, Denny Reyes), which carried the team. That really isn't good news - when your bullpen is the sole entity holding your pitching together you just can't count on that holding up from year-to-year. And this starting rotation could ill afford to let starter Brad Tomko go, not with medical histories such as Denny Neagle and Pete Harnisch anchoring a rotation that includes inconsistent Steve Parris and Ron Villone. A lot of people are expecting the Reds to make a thrust to the pennant based on the Griffey addition to an already potent lineup. The Reds will contend to the end, but the starting pitching doesn't make them as scary as people think.

Houston has finally been playing like the big-time contenders they are for the last two seasons. In any other season there'd be reason for optimism with the return of Moises Alou to an already scary batting order. But to celebrate the grand opening of their new field this season the Astros slashed their payroll by deleting Mike Hampton, Derek Bell and Carl Everett. Not a good way to start life in your new home. Still, it is hard to find too many faults in manager Larry Dierker's batting order (Craig Biggio, Roger Cedeno, Jeff Bagwell, Ken Caminiti, Richard Hidalgo, Moises Alou). I'm not as thrilled about the bottom of the batting order (Tony Eusebio, Tim Bogar), which isn't useful at all. The big question is can staff aces Jose Lima and Shane Reynolds make up for the loss of Hampton? If Scott Elarton finally begins to live up to expectations and Octavio Dotal really is as good as advertised there shouldn't be too much drop-off. And any bullpen that ends with closer Billy Wagner is explosive, and you could do far worse than Doug Henry, Jose Cabrera and Jay Powell in setup. Dierker always expects to win the division, but he is no longer in the Astrodome. And if the recent history of small new ballparks is any indication, then even with Hampton a lot of the air would still be let out of the Astros pitching.

The Sleeper: I'll take St. Louis. Walt Jocketty did a great job of providing Tony LaRussa with the players he needed in the lineup and on the mound. There is vast improvement in the offing here.

NL West

Having now been supplanted by the NL Central as the leagues glamour division, the West still has the largest payroll of any division in the majors. Only one team in this division is actually trying to build a winner, while the one team is trying to tread water while waiting for its revenue to come via a new stadium down the road. The other three teams are trying to buy a winner with mixed results.

I'll give it the manager Bruce Bochy. He actually did a great job of managing San Diego to a respectable record after management sold off most of their blue-chip talent after the '98 World Series season. He insists that his team plays hard, which will make up for an obvious lack of talent. Class act Tony Gwynn still toils here, which is a credit to his loyalty to an organization that has too frequently not shown any real loyalty to him. Brett Boone and Ryan Klesko join the cast after better-than-average seasons in Atlanta, and they are still waiting on Phil Nevin and Mike Darr to realize some of their potential. Letting Andy Ashby go to Philadelphia didn't do the rotation any good, not when they now have to rely on Sterling Hitchcock and Woody Williams to anchor it while waiting for Matt Clement to step in and fill a starter's role. The bullpen looks good with closer Trevor Hoffman anchoring it with Donne Wall and Steve Montgomery coming in for long and short relief. The Padres could have made a stride towards respectability in this division had they not let go of Ashby, Wally Joyner, Carlos Reyes, Reggie Sanders and Quilvio Veras. Without them they'll still be scrappy but not nearly as competitive.

I can't help but think that the rare air in Denver's Coors Field is what drove Jim Leyland out of baseball after just one season in Colorado. After seven years of building a baseball team around the horrendously extreme offensive characteristics of their ballpark, GM Dan O'Dowd and new manager Buddy Bell have finally decided to build a team that can play anywhere. Trying to out-homer their opposition at Coors Field was one thing; trying to on the road, where a lot of the steam was let out of their offense, was quite another. After a fire-sale of players during the off-season when the dust settled the Rockies still had Larry Walker and Todd Helton to build around, two players who have proven they can hit anywhere at anytime. The Rockies have finally realized that they are going to have to build their batting order around line-drive hitters with some pop in their bats and some speed on the basepaths to be able to play on the road, also. To that end, they dumped Dante Bichette and Vinny Castilla and brought in Jeff Cirillo, Jeffrey Hammonds, Tom Goodwin and Brent Mayne to add to the contact-hitting, double-play duo of Neifi Perez and Mike Lansing. Kudos there, but this is still the worst pitcher's park in the majors, so relying on a rotation of Pedro Astacio, Rolando Arrojo, Masato Yoshii, Brian Bohannon and Scott Karl to get you quality starts at home is still asking too much here. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Either they move the fences back about 40 feet or they don't ever make it past the divisional the playoffs.

Ah, my favorite subject, the Los Angeles Dodgers. The highest payroll of any team anywhere ever - and they need the last three weeks of the season to scramble out of last place. What kills me is that they think that switching Shawn Green for Raul Mondesi is the only thing they really needed to do during the off-season to improve. For some reason adding any players to the regular lineup of Mark Grudzielanek, Devon White, Gary Sheffield, Eric Karros, Todd Hundley and Adrian Beltre is like throwing a ripe pristine apple into a barrel full of rotten ones. It's not that these guys can't play ball; they clearly can. They just don't play with any intensity or urgency (not unlike their LA environs), and lacking any kind of heart doesn't get you results in world-class professional sports. The best thing about this team was starting pitcher Kevin Brown, who pitched like the ace he is but received very little run support (there's that intensity thing again). The rest of the rotation (Chan Ho Park, Darren Dreifort, returnee Orel Hershiser, and rookie Eric Gagne) are some live arms but will not be helped by Hundley behind the plate. Manager Davey Johnson lost control of this team last season. He reasserts control by either staking his territory as the boss early or getting rid of those who don't want to listen to him. Either way the Dodgers are not help by a meddlesome upper management. They have tons of money but no baseball sense.

Still high on Arizona? If you are you have good reason. They bought an obscene amount of talent last off-season, blazed out of the gates in this division, ran away and hid. I thought they would show their inexperience during the season despite their talent because they were only a second-year team. I was wrong; they waited until the divisional playoffs to show their inexperience by losing in three straight to a Mets team they had no business losing to. That said, the division winners return virtually everybody intact. Like all the good teams in the majors their batting order is scary (Tony Womack, Jay Bell, Luis Gonzalez, Matt Williams, Steve Finley, Travis Lee, Erubial Durazo), but unlike most of the good teams they do everything well: hit, hit for power, run the bases, play fundamentally sound and don't make many mistakes either at the plate, on the basepaths or in the field. Any rotation that begins with Randy Johnson (who struck out the world) must be good, made especially better by the pitchers who follow him (Todd Stottlemyre, Omar Daal, Brian Anderson and Armando Reynoso). They found a jewel of a closer in July in Matt Mantei, who brought order to a disorganized bullpen that now has some depth and won't give up too many runs at "The Bob". From top to bottom manager Buck Showalter has the most solid team in the division and with their new confidence the clear favorites.

The Dodgers, Rockies and Diamondbacks all have more money and resources than San Francisco, but ask anybody in this division and they'll tell you the team they fear the most is the Giants. Two reasons why: (1) GM Brian Sabean, and most of all (2) manager Dusty Baker. With the exception of Billy Beane across the bay in Oakland there is no GM who can bring in quality players at less-than-exorbitant prices than Sabean. And nobody gets more out of the players he has than Dusty. This season is no exception. The middle of the lineup is as scary as there is anywhere (Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, Ellis Burks, J.T. Snow), with good line-drive hitters at the top of the order who can get on base (Marvin Benard, Bill Muellar), and even some surprising hitting at the bottom of the order (Rich Aurelia, Doug Mirabelli). The best part about the rotation (Russ Ortiz, Shawn Estes, Kirk Reuter, Joe Nathan, Livan Hernandez) is that they have live arms and can bring it. And outside of Cincinnati or the Yankess, the bullpen is arguably the deepest there is (closer Robb Nen, John Johnstone, Alan Embree, Felix Rodriguez, Mark Gardner). The one drawback is that beginning this year they are playing their home games away from pitcher-friendly Candlestick Park and in their new digs at PacBell Ballpark, which will be small and especially friendly to left-handed hitters. This will be more of a feeling-out year for the Giants, but as usual any Dusty-led team will win more than they lose and figure out a way to finish in the money.

The Sleeper: San Francisco. I pick them every year, and every year since '97 they haven't disappointed me. New ballpark means new revenue stream which makes acquiring the players they need down the stretch that much easier. Sabean can pull of some monster mid-season trades and Baker knows how to fit them into his scheme. In '97 and '98 they played past the last day of the regular season, and in '99 they were in the wild-card hunt until the end of September.

David Kennedy, the creator and editor of the on-line cyberzine Psrhea and the host of the radio talk show The Sport Authority on 91.5 FM The Voice in Sacramento, CA has been making noises and finding the evidence of things not seen for most of his thirty eight years. This would be less of a problem for him if he could just find someplace that sells motrin and prozac over the counter... cheap!

Copyright 2000 Accurate Letters Enterprises

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