Of course, not all surprises are good ones. These players and teams have not exactly gotten off to the kind of starts that they were expecting.
Albert Pujols
I never thought I would live to see the day that Albert Pujols was hitting at a .200/.260/.267 clip, even if it is only 11 games into the season. We all know about Pujols' impending free agency and maybe that really is serving as a distraction to him. Maybe the fact that Albert has crossed over that 30 year old threshold meant that we should have expected to see some regression. But none of those factors explain a slugging percentage lower than Ryan Theriot's or and OBP a hundred points lower than David Freese. I'm sure that he will get it together eventually, but the longer this slump lasts, the smarter the Cards look for not giving him the extension he was looking for before the season began.
Honorable mention: Adrian Gonzalez, Adrian Beltre
Chad Billingsley
Sure, lots of guys have gotten off to similar starts as Billingsley. But not all of them signed $36 million extensions in the off-season (Some of them signed $125 million contracts: Lee, Clifton). Aside from his BABIP, which is unusually high, his numbers are in line with his career averages suggesting that all he needs is a little luck to get things straightened out. The fact that he hasn't through the 7th inning thus far is not very encouraging for Dodgers fans, or Fantasy owners, either.
Honorable mention: Cliff Lee, Clay Buchholz, Francisco Liriano
Minnesota Twins
30th in slugging percentage, 29th in on base percentage, and 30th in runs. That pretty much sums up the Twins season thus far. When Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau have a
combined OPS (1.127) lower than Yunel Escobar (1.200), you know things are going bad. Unfortunately, the pitching isn't picking up the slack with an ERA, OPS and WHIP in the bottom half of the league. Its tough to imagine the two former MVP's Morneau and Mauer, struggling like this all season. But if they don't pick up the pace soon, they're going to find themselves in hole too deep to dig themselves out of as they are already staring up at every team in their division.
Honorable mention: St. Louis Cardinals, SF Giants
Yeah, I think Buchholz, Hughes, and Liriano all deserve to be there instead of Billingsley. He has been a bit off, undoubtedly. But if you watched that Giants-Dodgers game the other night you would have seen how bad his luck really was. It doesn't help, either, that the Dodgers' defense is so horrible, especially in the outfield, where singles turn into doubles and doubles turn into triples. I continue to be amazed at how bad at his job Ned Coletti is.
ReplyDeleteAlbert will be fine. So too will Mauer, obviously. Nevertheless, I wonder if either of their teams will be ok this year, especially since I don't trust the pitching staffs for either, especially in Minnesota. Re-signing Carl Pavano and sticking Kevin Slowey in the bullpen, where he immediately got hurt, has to count as one of the dumber Bill Smith/Ron Gardenhire decisions we've witnessed for some time.
While I'm on the subject, I think I'll also mention how overrated I think the Twins' program is. Has there ever been a team so wed to its own conception of what "their guys" should be? The Twins' Rule 5 debacle this offseason (with Atlanta) should give some idea of just how obsessed they are with soft tossing strike throwers: how can you give up the one power bullpen arm in your system for the 11th version of what you already have, a guy who will never be better than AAAA material? Awful. I can't stand the sight of Duensing or Blackburn, and I refuse to believe that any team featuring those two guys, as well as Carl Pavano, will ever win three postseason series in a row. Sorry, Twins fans.
I guess the Twins get the love because they keep on winning their division with these AAAA guys. Forget about them winning three postseason series, their fans just want one postseason win.
ReplyDeleteAs for the pitchers, I guess the reason I picked Billingsley is that I just don't like that guy's stuff all that much. I know his BABIP is going to be hurt by that defense, which is why he's on the bad list instead of the ugly, but those other guys just have better stuff and I expect them to have better season when all is said and done.
I'd like to nominate the Braves for "the bad" as well.
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