MATUSZ OF IMPORTANCE

Brian Matusz came through again, stymieing the Phillies with no hits and two walks over five and a third innings.  He's the real deal, until he comes down with Dengue fever or something, like the rest of my promising pitchers.

Nick Masset tossed a scoreless inning against the Mariners with two K's.  Kenshin Kawakami stretched out to five innings with two earned runs allowed and four strikeouts.

Bobby Abreu returned from his undisclosed "side" injury to hit his first spring homer.  It's all on you, Adrian Gonzalez (who took another oh-fer).  The Red Sox are paying attention to your spring power outage as much as I am, buddy.

TEAM EVALUATIONS: SHOOTERS

Team: Shooters

Conference: Liberty

Division: North

2009 Record: 82-80, 3rd Place

Typical Lineup:

1B Lyle Overbay

2B Dan Uggla

SS Christian Guzman/Everth Cabrera

3B Casey Blake/Casey McGehee

LF Carl Crawford

CF Shane Victorino

RF Shin-Soo Choo

C Brian McCann/Bengie Molina

DH Luke Scott

Solid around the field with no obvious holes other than SS.  The catching duo is top-notch, and the outfield defense is fantastic.  The infield defense is weak other than Overbay.

Starting Rotation:

Jair Jurrjens

Chris Carpenter

Paul Maholm

Brian Bannister

Tommie Hunter/Koji Uehara

The top two are outstanding, but then there is a precipitous drop off.  Hunter and Uehara combine for a decent 5th starter.  There are a bunch of other options not mentioned, but none of them are particularly good.

Bullpen:

Jason Frasor

Jason Bulger

Hideki Okajima

Brandon League

Matt Capps

The two Jasons and Okijima are good, but again, a big drop-off after that.

Closer:

David Aardsma

Aardsma has emerged as one of the game's top closers, and will greatly help the Shooters in close games.

Minors:

J.P. Arencibia

Philippe Aumont

Adeiny Hechevarria

Scott Sizemore

The Cuban defector Hechevarria may have solved the Shooters SS problems after he signed a hefty deal with the Blue Jays.  Arencibia looks like a good catching prospect, and Sizemore will start at 2B for the Tigers.  Aumont may be several years away, but he has potential.  It's not a huge prospect list, but it fills some holes.

The Shooters have a good all-around offense, two great starting pitchers, and a great closer.  This should all add up a to a winning season, but not a championship.  They have a shot at winning the division and should at least grab a wild card.  It will be difficult to beat the very tough OshKosh squad to get to the World Series though.

Predicted Record: 91-71

AARON (HILL) MAKES LIKE AARON (HANK)

Aaron Hill hit his first spring homer, finally.  Only a few more homerless guys to go.  I'm looking at you, Adrian Gonzalez.  Quit worrying about your next contract and hit!

Jose Mijares and Francisco Rodriguez did the pitching staff proud by recording a scoreless inning each.  My starters are all pretty much relegated to facing local squads of coach-pitch teams at this point to build up their confidence.  It didn't help when that little snot-nosed Jimmy Finkel of Tempe Roosevelt Elementary took Ben Sheets deep.

Another team evaluation to follow.  I compiled the overall stats from all 20 teams yesterday, and my offense actually looks good compared to the league.  My starting pitching is going to absolutely kill me, though.  It's always much worse than it looks on paper, and it's not that good on paper.

TEAM EVALUATIONS: SKEETERS

Team: Skeeters

Conference: Liberty

Division: North

2009 Record: 56-106, 5th Place

Typical Lineup:

1B Hank Blalock

2B Felipe Lopez

SS Ryan Theriot

3B Gordon Beckham/Ty Wigginton/Jhonny Peralta

LF Colby Rasmus

CF Michael Bourn

RF Andrew McCutcheon/Cameron Maybin

C Miguel Olivo/Taylor Teagarden/Gerald Laird

DH Ty Wigginton/Jhonny Peralta

The lineup overall is pretty weak, especially at 1B with Blalock, SS with Theriot, and DH with Wigginton and Peralta.  Only one player, McCutcheon, cracks the .800 OPS barrier, and Lopez leads all hitters with a .361 OBP.  Nobody slugs .500.  This team will really struggle to score runs.  Run prevention looks better, with Bourn and McCutcheon in the outfield and Theriot and Lopez on the infield.  Olivo and Teagarden make a pretty good catching tandem.

Starting Rotation:

Clayton Kershaw

Jarrod Washburn

Andy Pettitte

Vicente Padilla

Scott Richmond/Clay Buchholz/Jordan Zimmerman

This is a young and very promising rotation, and could be dominant in a few years, but looks pretty average after Kershaw this season.  Still, it's a deep talent pool and won't be awful.

Bullpen:

Derek Holland

Franklin Morales

Bobby Parnell

Now this, this is awful.

Closer:

Leo Nunez

Pretty mediocre.

Minors:

Pedro Alvarez

Buster Posey

Lars Anderson

Josh Bell

Chris Carter (OAK)

Aroldis Chapman

Casey Crosby

Christian Friedrich

Dee Gordon

Aaron Hicks

Logan Morrison

Derek Norris

Help is on the way!  And plenty of it.  Chapman leads a bountiful crop of young talent, followed by Posey, Alvarez, Morrison, Carter, Crosby...ok, all of these guys are potentially very good.  I think the Skeeters are well on their way to contention after the 2010 draft, and they were getting better quickly before that.

It'll be another down year for the Skeeters, but huge improvement is very close.  It was probably a good idea to forgo building a decent bullpen this year, since the losses will come from the innings prior to the 7th with such a poor offense and lack of dominant starting pitching.  This lineup looks stacked in the years to come, and the bullpen can be filled in later.

Predicted Record:  65-97

THE USUAL CRAP

Let's see, Hunter Pence had a couple of hits, Nick Masset threw a scoreless inning, Juan Uribe hit a homer, and of course, Andrew Miller got hammered.  Pretty much another typical day in Florida and Arizona.  They sent Aaron Crow down to AA, despite the fact that he didn't allow a run in three outings.  Carlos Quentin made an appearance between injuries (he hasn't had his next one yet, but it's only a matter of time).  I'm ready for the season to start, and they have another two whole weeks of this nonsense.

I got the post-draft roster file, and I will be doing another team evaluation soon.  Yay, I guess.

WAN QUENTIN BLUES

Here we go again department:  Carlos Quentin was removed from a game against the Rockies due to an "undisclosed minor injury".  Next thing you know, he has Crohn's Disease or something.  This guy just wasn't meant to play competitive sports.

Justin Smoak, meanwhile, hit his first spring homer off Marcos Mateo of the Cubs.  Two minor leaguers involved in that AB, pretty much, unless Chris Davis goes into another tailspin.  Jose Mijares pitched a scoreless inning against the Orioles.  Kevin Millwood has been reduced to intrasquad games, and he's getting shelled in those, too.

We finally got a pick from our last draft straggler, but I haven't received the final post-draft roster yet.  If I get it, I'll do another team evaluation.

I'M GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS SHEETS

Ok, this is getting bad.  Really bad.  Ben Sheets didn't get anybody out yesterday against the Reds, getting pulled after allowing eight hits and a walk and all nine baserunners to score (plus a guy who had reached on an error - Sheets' own error of course).  Curtis Dickerson finished off Bennie's day with a two-run homer.  That was positively Noah Lowry-like in it's disastrousness, and we know where Lowry is now, panhandling for any LOOGY job he can get.  And Sheets isn't even left-handed!  It may be time for Ben to take his $10 million guaranteed from the A's and go start a fine bedding business.  Sheets by Sheets.  Sounds like a winner to me.

In other calamities, Mark Buehrle got cuffed around by the freakin' Royals of all teams for nine hits and three runs in four innings.  Miguel Cabrera finally did something positive, smacking a homer off Mark, uh, I'm not even going to try to spell that name.  You know, that Polish guy from the Blue Jays.  That guy must be murder on the clubhouse people in Toronto.  Chris Snyder had a couple of hits, and managed to get thrown at his head by Cliff Lee, who was promptly ejected after the requisite bench-clearing ballet (this is only the Cactus League, after all).  Apparently, Lee took issue with Snyder running into him on a play at the plate in the first inning that Lee was backing up.  You go, Chris!  Disabling the other teams' guys is our only hope.

I'm waiting for the final post-draft roster spreadsheet to be issued to do any more team evaluations.  We still have one guy who hasn't made his 10th round pick.  I'll trade you Ben Sheets for it!

TEAM EVALUATIONS: SENATORS

Team: Senators

Conference: Liberty

Division: Northeast

2009 Record: 98-64, 1st place

Typical lineup:

1B Billy Butler

2B Robinson Cano

SS Jason Bartlett

3B Chone Figgins

LF Josh Willingham/Melky Cabrera

CF Carlos Beltran/Felix Pie

RF Ryan Ludwick/Elijah Dukes

DH Jack Cust

C Jadier Molina/Jose Morales

Nothing spectacular, but steady all the way across, with some great speed, defense, and enough power to do some damage.  Cano, Bartlett and Figgins are all standouts in the infield.  The outfield is not as strong, but there are a lot of spare parts (some not shown here) that will add to the overall effectiveness.  Molina is terrific all-around backstop.

Starting Rotation:

Cliff Lee

John Lannan

Jason Marquis

J.A. Happ

Aaron Harang

Chris Volstad

Lee is a true ace, and Happ looks great in a more limited role.  The rest are pretty much league-average, but not so horrible that you would mind running them out there.  This is the rotation of a borderline playoff team in our league.

Bullpen:

Shawn Camp

Bobby Howry

Guillermo Mota

Fu-Te Ni

Takaishi Saito

Claudio Vargas

Deep, solid and versatile, but not spectacular.  There won't be too much lead-surrendering here, but it could get hairy sometimes.

Closer:

Chad Qualls

Not the best.  They have an advantage in that Saito can help take up some slack.

Minors:

Ryan Tucker

Another team built for now.  The one prospect, Tucker, is a pitcher in the Marlins organization who spent much of 2009 on the DL.  He now says he has Raynaud's Disease, which causes numbness in his extremities in cold weather.  Not good for a guy who would have to play against the Mets, Phillies, Nationals, Rockies, Cards, Pirates, and Cubs in April, May, and September.  Let's hope he gets traded out West somewhere.

It looks to me like the Senators will not repeat or improve on their 98-win season of a year ago, and might be heading for a several-years-long decline without some major re-tooling.  They should contend for at least a wild-card this season, though.  They have enough pitching and the offense is just good enough to put them at that level, but not much further.  I can't see a long playoff run here.

Predicted Record: 89-73

SPRING STATS, PART II

Man, my pitching has gone to hell.  At least everybody is getting in games and staying relatively healthy, except for Old Man Moyer.  Millwood looks like he'll have a snapped neck watching balls fly out of Camden Yards this year.  I'm not sure what happened to Masset in that one outing.  He's not a gopher-ball guy.  Maybe he was working on a new pitch.  As for the offense, I'm a bit concerned about not one homer among those first five guys.  Other than that, not too terrible.  I like the 32 BB/34 SO ratio.  I wish we could keep that up all season.

NOTHING ELSE MATUSZ

Brian Matusz continues to look like a future ace of, well, the Gunslingers anyway, if not the Orioles.  That would be Kevin Millwood.  Ha!  Anyway, Matusz lasted five strong innings, giving up only three hits, no walks, one earned run, and striking out two Phillies.

Hunter Pence got the offense back on track, sort of, with a homer and a single.  In that same game, Kenshin Kawakami looked like he had a yen for some home sushi, giving up eight hits and three earned runs in what was supposed to be his first five-inning outing, but was shortened to three and two-thirds.

Over in Arizona, Jonathan Sanchez followed up his good outing in the last game with a clunker, walking five and giving up six earned runs to the Brewers in only two innings.

Bobby Abreu was scratched due to pain in "his side".  Not sure which side or what body part even, but I'm guessing it's a lat or pec or ab injury or something.  Maybe it was a bad enchilada, or whatever they eat in Venezuela (Wikipedia says the national dish is Pabellón criollo - looks pretty good).  Come on, Bobby, hold it together for at least one more year, buddy.  We need you.

Another statistical roundup and a team evaluation to follow.

MILLER CRIME

Andrew Miller continued his quest for a starting spot in the New Orleans Zephyrs rotation (maybe he likes Dixieland Jazz?) by giving up three runs in three innings of work.  The four walks didn't help much either.


David Wright and Andres Torres each homered on separate sides of the country.  Not at the same exact instant, though.  That would have been creepy.


Luke Gregerson went an inning and two-thirds of scoreless relief in a 10-inning loss to Oakland.


I'll do another team evaluation tomorrow.  We are done with the draft, except for a couple of stragglers who don't seem to want that last guy on their team.  I'll pick one of the perennial league championship contenders just to make myself even more depressed.