"Pick to Click" Series: NL Central UPDATE

Back in the original NL Central edition post of our "Pick to Click" Series, begrudgingly picked Fernando Martinez as my Pick to Click for the Houston Astros, not because I'm excited about him, but because I was less not-excited about him than anyone else on the team (follow the grammar there?). Anyway, since the original post, the Houston Astros have added a free agent who is now my Pick to Click for the team. Yep, that's right. Jack Cust. Cust, built in the pre-2011 Adam Dunn mode, is the definition of a "Three True Outcomes" player (strikeout, walk, or home run). He is not going to play good defense, he is not going to hit for a nice average, or steal bases. He probably won't do much of anything that resembles athleticism. But Cust has one worthwhile skill, and that is dropping bombs (Hitting home runs, I mean. No need to alert the local authorities). Up until this season, Cust has nearly his entire career in three of the worst hitters' parks in the game--San Diego, Oakland, and Seattle. But this year, he will be playing his home games in Minuit Maid Park, a stadium aptly nicknamed "The Juice Box" because of its small size. For this reason, while Jack may not be winning MVP awards or making All-Star teams, or frankly maybe not even really helping his team win, I do think that if he is given a full season worth of at-bats, he is going to hit 25+ dingers for the anemic Astros offense. Jack Cust... Pick to Click!

"Pick to Click" Series: NL Central

Good day, Hot-Stovers!  Today, we are beginning a new series we are calling the "Pick to Click" series.  We will be looking at every team and naming a player that is our "pick to click."  When we say that we think a player is going to "click," what we mean is that we think he is going to have everything fall into place in 2012 for a season of unexpected, and perhaps unprecedented, success.  (By the way, if you are fantasy baseball enthusiasts, like we are, you might term these guys as "sleepers"... Do with the info what you will.)

As we are wont to do, ADR and I will be going division by division, starting today with the National League Central.  Please, feel free to offer your own "pick to clicks" for the division in the comments below.  Without further ado...

St. Louis Cardinals

• Pick to Click--Tyler Greene
• I have been personally touting the Greene Lantern (it will catch on... just wait... I've already got the t-shirts printed up...) for years now.  Originally drafted in the first round of the 2005 amateur draft, a first round loaded with talent, Greene was originally slotted to take over at shortstop for David Eckstein.  However, while producing at the minor league level, Greene has never taken advantage of his short stints at the majors.  Many have been suspicious that he struggled under the iron fist of pro-crusty-veteran former manager, Tony LaRussa.  But, as you may have heard, Tony retired, and has been replaced by a more young-guy-friendly Mike Matheny.  Both Matheny and GM John Mozeliak have verbally praised Greene's minor league success (.323/.422/.579 slash line last year at triple-A... Yikes!)  and have expressed a desire to see him win the starting second base job for the Cards in 2012.   Tyler Greene... Pick to click!

Cincinnati Reds

• Pick to Click--Jay Bruce
• I know, I know.  You are saying that Jay Bruce kinda already clicked last year.  But I'm expecting even higher levels of clicktitude this year.  Like .300+ batting average and 40+ home runs clicking.  Bruce plays in a hitter-friendly stadium, and in a lineup where pitchers will be focused more on getting out Joey Votto.  Oh, and by the way, while it feels like he has been around for a while, Bruce is still only 24 years old.  Do you know who baseball-reference.com lists as the most comparable hitter through age 24?  Reggie Jackson.  Yep.  Jay Bruce... Pick to click!

Milwaukee Brewers

• Pick to Click--Matt Gamel
• Matt Gamel has displayed some serious mash in his minor league career, but many have labelled him a Quad-A player after his hitting prowess has seemingly not translated to the bigs.  If you look at his major league career, however, he really has not gotten an extended look with every day playing time.  Until this year, that is.  With the Purple Rain departing, the Brewers seem content to hand the first base gig to Gamel, who is coming off a Triple-A season in which he batted .310 with 28 home runs and a .540 slugging percentage.  I don't think he will be a world-beater, but I bet he has a really solid season.  Matt Gamel... Pick to click!

Pittsburgh Pirates

• Pick to Click--Erik Bedard
• Hey, remember when Erik Bedard was awesome?  Back when he was traded for Adam (non-Pacman) Jones and four other players?  Back when he was arguably the second best starter in fantasy baseball after Johan Santana?  The Pirates do.  And so do I.  Erik Bedard... Pick to click!

Chicago Cubs

• Pick to Click--Ian Stewart
• I also thought about Bryan LaHair or Anthony Rizzo in this spot, but ultimately I settled on Ian Stewart.  Back when Stewart was still a prospect in the Rockies organization, I read an article by one of the Colorado sportswriters (nice citation form, right?) in which the author explained that at the time the Rockies would be okay with trading away Matt Holliday because they were confident that Ian Stewart would be able to fill his offensive void.  Pretty high expectations, but at the time the Colorado front office must have felt they were justified.  I'm betting that a change of scenery will be just what the doctor ordered for Stewart.  Ian Stewart... Pick to click!

Houston Astros (soon to be of the AL West)

• Pick to Click--Gross... Do I have to pick someone from the Astros?  Really?  Alright... Hmmm... I guess I'll go with... Fernando Martinez
• This team is absolutely devoid of anything exciting or hope-worthy.  So devoid that the guy I decided to (was forced to) pick is a guy the Mets just decided to cut.  Martinez, still only 23 years old, has long been on top prospect lists as a guy who has flashed impressive power rates, but just has not been able to stay healthy.  So I'm betting on him (by default) to finally start to live up to some of his potential with a change of scenery.  His new home with the Astros takes him from a bad hitters park in New York to a great one in Houston.  And the only thing standing between him and winning a starting job with the Astros is perhaps the worst starting outfield of all time, in Martinez, Schafer, and Bogusevic.  Fernando Martinez... Pick to click (sorta...)

The Injury Bug

If you listen long enough to any casual baseball conversation, a team's losing season is always attributed partly to the injury bug. These dreams of what might have been are often legitimate to a certain extent because with a grueling 162-game schedule, absolutely every team faces a number of injuries. But how can we compare and contrast the injury fortune or misfortune of different teams? How can this even be measured so we know which fans are just making excuses, and which fans have a valid point?

-Should we just list off important players from memory, listing who got hurt last year? Heck no.
-Do we tally up DL stints? Maybe, but some DL stints last for months and some only a few weeks.
-What about tallying up the total number of DL days for each team? You're getting warmer.
-Should we check Baseball Prospectus and hope they already did the leg work for us? Absolutely!

Corey Dawkins and Ben Lindbergh wrote a series of columns for BP called "Collateral Damage." They used WAR projections for each player who went on the DL, and calculated the number of days each player missed. This allowed them to determine how much value each team lost to injury throughout the course of the 2011 season ("WARP lost" is their name for the calculation). Unfortunately, these heated "Injury Bug" discussions are going to be a lot shorter in the future now that we have this data. Here at The Hottest Stove, all we have left to do is check out a few highlights from BP's "WARP lost" team rankings and discuss the implications for the coming year:

Some teams had a high number of injuries and were successful despite their bad fortune. Barring major roster changes, we would expect these teams to stay successful and possibly get even better if their luck evens out in 2012.

• The St. Louis Cardinals dealt with more injuries than 25 of the 30 teams in 2011, and still were able to sneak into the playoffs on the final day. None of the other teams in the top 5 in WARP lost were above .500.
• The Philadelphia Phillies dealt with a high number of injuries as well, and rode their starting pitching to 102 wins. They'll keep bolstering their roster through free agency and although their players are aging, they seem to fill roster holes pretty effectively during the year.
  
• The Texas Rangers also dealt with some key injuries throughout the summer months last year, but got incredibly hot once these pieces returned. The Rangers came within one strike of a World Series championship......twice.

Some teams had their actual talent level masked by high injury totals to key players. Expect a bounce back if these teams are healthy in 2012.

• The Minnesota Twins were awful in 2011, but who can blame them with injuries to just about everyone. They lost more value to injury than any other team, and by a wide margin. And you know, the Twins without Mauer and Morneau are a little like a mule with a spinning wheel. (He doesn't know how he got it, and darned if he knows how to use it....) Here's the short list of DL stints: Mauer, Morneau, Liriano, Baker, Kubel, Span, Slowey, Thome, Young, Nathan, and Nishioka. The AL central is wide open, and I wouldn't be shocked if the Twins are in the mix next year despite their terrible results in 2011.
  
• The San Francisco Giants will take a big step forward in 2012 and put themselves back atop the AL West. If they add a few decent bats, continue to pitch well, and get healthy, 2012 could be a great year for this group. The Giants (6th highest WARP lost) had a high number of injuries, while the Diamondbacks had relatively few injuries (4th lowest WARP lost total). Even though some of this is due to the age of the two rosters, look for a regression and for the AL West to be taken by San Francisco.

Some teams just aren't very good, and it wasn't because of injuries. The WARP lost total is very low on teams where the starters on the roster are very similar to replacement level.

• The Astros lost the least value of any team in the majors to injury, but this is partly due to the lack of value on their roster. No resurgence is in sight until they draft well and bring in more talent via trade/free agency.
• The Cubs lost surprisingly little value to injury in a year where they underachieved. Many expected good things from this roster last year, but even with luck seemingly on their side they couldn't get the job done.
• The Oakland Athletics didn't put much value on the field last year, so they didn't lose much to injury. The moneyball theory is excellent, but if every team is using it AND paying more for quality players it is hard to expect good results.
  

Astros Moving! But Also Two New Wild Cards in MLB Playoffs :(

So, believe it or not, in a previous post, I advocated moving the Astros to the AL West to even out divisions.  And now it is happening.  Well done!  Now about the Pirates and Braves... (see "Common Sense Division Realignment..." post)

Unfortunately, along with the realignment announcement came another declaration from the commissioner's office that as soon as next year, there will be two new wild card teams in the playoffs, and the two wild card teams per league will meet in a one game playoff.  My complaint about the MLB playoff system has always been the initial round of divisional playoff series is too short at the present best of five format.  The unique thing about baseball is that it is an 162 game grind, where over the course of many months the cream rises to the top.  It always seemed cheap to have two of the top four teams in each league eliminated in a series that is so brief when compared with the duration of the regular season.

But now something even more absurd is being introduced.  A one game playoff.  After pushing through a grueling 162 games, filled with highs and lows, a team now has four hours to decide its playoff fate.  Keep in mind, this isn't the NFL in which a one game playoff makes sense because it is 1/16 of the regular season. For  baseball, a one game playoff is a minuscule 1/162 of the season.

Will the ratings be high?  Probably.  Will MLB make a lot of money?  Definitely.  But the net result is that the league is further cheapening the regular season.

Common-Sense Divisional Realignment Suggestions for MLB Commissioner Bud Selig

I think that in all of sports, there is nothing more universally hated than the present college football BCS bowl system.  It's the only sports system in which a team can go the entire season without losing a game and not win a championship.  Absurd.  It defies all logic.  I would like to think that we could get a group of people in a room, and even if they have never watched college football in their lives, they could come up with a better system.  Because all it takes is common-sense.

This website, though, is not about college football.  It's about baseball, of course!  But like the BCS situation, there are a few oddities with the present MLB format that defy logic.  So, Commissioner Selig, I want to offer just a few common-sense suggestions for you.  Nothing ground-breaking, of course.

• There are presently six divisions in baseball: NL/AL Central, NL/AL West, and NL/AL East.  Of those six divisions, four of them have five teams, one has six teams, and one has four teams.  Do you see a problem here?  Yep, the divisions don't all have the same number of teams, yielding a competitive imbalance.  The four teams in the AL West have a better chance than the other twenty-six teams because they only have to beat out three other teams (instead of four) to win their division, while the six teams in the NL Central have a worse chance than the other twenty-four teams because they have to beat out five other teams (instead of four) to win their division. 
• Fortunately, this one isn't a tough one to fix.  Simply move one of the six teams from the NL Central to the AL West, and then all the divisions will  have an equal number of teams.  Ta-Da!  
• But which one to move?  If only one of the teams in the NL Central was really in a western state... and maybe even had a natural in-state rivalry with one of the teams in the AL West... boy, that would work out nicely.... Oh wait!  Don't the Houston Astros play in the western state of Texas, the same state that the AL West Texas Rangers play in?  (Rhetorical question, but the answer, of course, is "YES!")  The simple solution to the problem is to move the Houston Astros to the AL West.  Speaking as someone who lives in an NL Central city, we won't really miss them anyway.  
• "But wait!" the hypothetical objector retorts, "if there are fifteen teams in each league, then there will have to be an interleague game played every day."  
• My response: "That's ok with me."  Plus, this might finally be an excuse to do away with the archaic DH rule.
• Excursus #1: The Designated Hitter
• The designated hitter rule was instituted in 1973 as a "stimulus package" for the financially struggling American League.  They figured that by adding the designated hitter, it would allow for American League teams to sign washed-up players who could no longer play the field, but whose name-recognition would still attract fans to buy tickets.  Early examples of this include players like Henry Aaron at the very end of his career.  Seemed like a decent plan at the time.  However, the American League doesn't need this stimulus anymore!  The reason for the designated hitter rule died long ago, and so we should let the designated hitter rule follow suit.   
• Excursus #2: Inter-League Scheduling
• Before this World Series, do you know how many times the Texas Rangers played the Cardinals in St. Louis?  I'll give you a hint: Interleague play has been around for fifteen seasons... Give up?  Actually, the answer is zero.  Before the 2011 postseason, the Texas Rangers had never been to St. Louis.  The original draw of Interleague play was the excitement of seeing teams that you normally wouldn't see in a given season.  Because of this, fans expected some sort of rotation in which eventually, over the course of a number of years, every team would visit every other team.  How is it possible, then, that this was the first time the Rangers visited St. Louis?  The answer is what MLB has dubbed the "rivalry" series in which the league has sought to create new rivalries by forcing teams that are geographically close to one another but in separate leagues to play a home and home (six games) with each other every year.  Some of these have been fairly captivating (White Sox/Cubs), but most have quickly gotten stale (Cardinals/Royals).  I think it might be time to say goodbye to the "rivalry" series, and set up interleague play on a purely rotational basis so that every team visits every park.
• Anyway, back to realignment thoughts... This one is a bit more quirky, and may reveal a bit of O.C.D on my part, but stick with me, and hear my argument out.  After employing my previously mentioned switch of the Astros to the AL West, I think that the Pittsburgh Pirates (NL Central) should switch division with the Atlanta Braves (NL East).  Here are my reasons:
• 1.) Pittsburgh is further east than Atlanta. 
• 2.) It could potentially create an interesting rivalry between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies, between two cities that already don't like each other.  I'm actually surprised this rivalry isn't happening at the moment, but perhaps being division-mates will stir the pot.  Now, I know what you might be thinking.  The Phillies have been great and the Pirates have been horrible.  But keep in mind, that the Pirates are on the way up with young talent, and the Phillies are on the way down with old talent.  Perhaps they will meet in the middle
• 3.) The move of the Braves will give the NL Central the southern presence that they will have lost by moving the Houston Astros to the AL West.  

Well, that's all for now.  I hope that these ideas seem as common-sense to you as they do to me.  I await your rebuttal in the comments section!