Baseball Studies Archives

The results of the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot will be announced this afternoon at 2, and expectations are that Barry Larkin will be the sole candidate elected. There being no pitchers on this year's ballot worth discussing that I haven't beaten to death in years past (short summary: no on Jack Morris, no on Lee Smith), let us a take a look at the non-pitchers.

I've already laid out my case for Tim Raines by comparing him to the other tablesetters in my December 2007 Hardball Times column here and for Barry Larkin and against Alan Trammell in my January 2007 THT column on the middle infielders here. I touched on Javy Lopez, new to this year's ballot, in my January 2009 column on the catchers. In my first column in the series, in January 2006, I discussed the case for Fred McGriff and sort of for Bernie Williams, and against Tim Salmon, Dale Murphy, and Don Mattingly. To complete the picture you can check out my April 2010 column on the third basemen, which endorses the Veterans Committee's latest selection, Ron Santo.

Utiliizing the same methodology from those columns - that is, excerpting the "prime" seasons for each hitter and translating them into a common offensive context (you can get the details explained in the THT columns), let's put the whole lot of them in a chart with a number of of the other sluggers of the past 30 years (I included some but not all of the tablesetters, third basemen, middle infielders and catchers for additional context). They are sorted by the "Rate" metric (using the context-adjusted numbers, I multiplied SLG * OBP * Plate Appearances per 162 scheduled games) - obviously you then have to modify that with the things not included in the Rate (baserunning, double plays, fielding, and team/postseason successes) as well as bear in mind how many seasons each player is rated on and how many other more modestly productive years he had. It's a rough metric, but the basic concept of rating Hall of Famers mainly on their prime years is one I feel strongly about.

Player	Yrs	Oth	Ages	PA	Avg	SLG	OBP	SB	CS	DP	Rate	Ballot
Frank Thomas	10	2	23-32	684	0.314	0.573	0.423	3	2	17	165.7	Not Yet
Jeff Bagwell	13	0	23-35	685	0.294	0.541	0.396	16	6	16	146.8	YES
Wade Boggs	9	3	25-33	705	0.338	0.481	0.425	2	3	16	144.1	IN
Don Mattingly	6	1	23-28	684	0.329	0.550	0.372	1	1	15	140.2	YES
Albert Belle	9	0	24-32	674	0.293	0.573	0.362	10	4	20	140.1	Off
Edgar Martinez	9	4	32-40	618	0.313	0.537	0.422	3	2	13	139.9	YES
Jim Thome	10	4	24-33	631	0.277	0.556	0.397	1	1	8	139.3	Not Yet
Todd Helton	9	1	25-33	673	0.303	0.525	0.391	4	2	13	138.2	Not Yet
Manny Ramirez	14	2	23-36	621	0.302	0.566	0.392	2	2	16	137.8	Not Yet
Jason Giambi	9	2	27-35	613	0.287	0.540	0.415	1	1	11	137.5	Not Yet
Gary Sheffield	10	3	27-36	632	0.298	0.537	0.404	12	5	12	137.2	Not Yet
Rafael Palmeiro	12	2	26-37	698	0.283	0.532	0.363	6	2	12	134.9	YES
Fred McGriff	9	3	24-32	658	0.283	0.544	0.375	6	3	15	134.1	YES
Sammy Sosa	10	1	25-34	670	0.282	0.570	0.351	14	6	13	134.0	Not Yet
Ken Griffey jr	11	2	20-30	643	0.290	0.567	0.366	15	5	11	133.7	Not Yet
Dale Murphy	8	0	24-31	681	0.276	0.535	0.361	17	6	12	131.7	YES
Eddie Murray	14	1	21-34	671	0.296	0.519	0.374	6	2	15	130.0	IN
Mark McGwire	13	0	23-35	549	0.266	0.601	0.389	1	1	11	128.3	YES
Chipper Jones	13	3	24-36	621	0.303	0.529	0.390	10	3	15	128.1	Not Yet
Mike Piazza	10	4	24-33	590	0.319	0.572	0.379	2	2	18	127.9	Not Yet
Criag Biggio	9	4	25-33	720	0.299	0.459	0.385	34	10	6	127.3	Not Yet
Jim Edmonds	6	4	30-35	590	0.285	0.557	0.387	6	4	7	127.0	Not Yet
Bernie Williams	9	1	25-33	649	0.309	0.504	0.388	13	7	15	126.8	YES
Dwight Evans	10	5	28-37	659	0.274	0.505	0.377	4	2	13	125.4	Off
John Olerud	10	3	24-33	650	0.301	0.475	0.399	1	1	17	123.2	Off
Keith Hernandez	11	1	23-33	666	0.301	0.473	0.388	9	5	12	122.5	Off
Paul Molitor	10	7	30-39	667	0.316	0.484	0.379	26	6	12	122.3	IN
Kirby Puckett	10	0	25-34	678	0.317	0.506	0.356	10	6	18	122.2	IN
Rickey Henderson	14	7	21-34	621	0.296	0.476	0.413	78	17	8	122.0	IN
Jim Rice	12	0	22-33	665	0.294	0.530	0.345	5	3	23	121.4	IN
Robin Yount	10	0	24-33	658	0.306	0.507	0.364	15	4	12	121.4	IN
Tim Raines	9	6	21-29	645	0.304	0.481	0.389	67	10	8	120.9	YES
Bobby Bonilla	10	1	25-34	651	0.285	0.514	0.359	3	4	13	120.2	Off
Will Clark	12	2	23-34	606	0.302	0.510	0.377	5	3	7	116.6	Off
Tony Gwynn	14	2	24-37	624	0.342	0.480	0.389	22	8	16	116.2	IN
Darryl Strawberry	9	0	21-29	571	0.267	0.554	0.360	22	9	6	114.0	Off
Mark Grace	11	3	25-35	667	0.303	0.450	0.373	6	4	15	112.0	Off
Tim Salmon	11	0	24-34	614	0.276	0.489	0.372	4	4	8	111.7	YES
Al Oliver	11	2	25-35	626	0.312	0.503	0.348	6	5	15	109.8	Off
Juan Gonzalez	11	0	21-31	586	0.290	0.559	0.333	2	2	15	109.0	YES
Larry Walker	13	0	24-36	541	0.294	0.535	0.369	16	5	10	106.9	YES
Jack Clark	14	0	22-35	534	0.271	0.522	0.383	4	4	12	106.7	Off
Andre Dawson	11	4	25-35	607	0.285	0.530	0.330	20	6	12	106.2	IN
Dave Parker	12	2	24-35	595	0.295	0.518	0.342	12	8	12	105.3	Off
Jorge Posada	8	3	28-35	574	0.275	0.474	0.377	2	2	15	102.5	Not Yet
Barry Larkin	9	4	27-35	567	0.295	0.473	0.377	28	5	11	101.3	YES
Alan Trammell	11	1	22-32	613	0.292	0.451	0.358	17	8	9	99.1	YES
Javy Lopez	10	1	24-33	472	0.282	0.483	0.326	1	2	14	74.3	YES

For most of these guys, picking the prime years is easy - in a few cases, like Palmeiro, Manny, and Sheffield, you could debate going a year or two more or less, but it doesn't affect the analysis much. But a couple of the candidates can be sliced in different ways. Raines and McGriff both had the same career pattern: a slightly shorter 8-9 year peak of superstardom, followed by a long tail of being a good but not great everyday player, followed in Raines' case by a 3-year coda with the Yankees as a successful and productive platoon/role player on a championship team. This has the unfortunate effect, especially since both players' latter years were much higher-scoring, of people forgetting how dominant they were at their peaks. Bagwell's career path is a better version of the same, with his best 8-year stretch being out of this world. Then there's Edgar, who was an absolute offensive monster for 7 years; the two years after that were good enough that I included them above, while the prior 5 included some great work (his 1991 batting title) but also a lot of time lost to injury. I include 3 different cuts on Edgar so you can judge for yourself.

Player	Yrs	Oth	Ages	PA	Avg	SLG	OBP	SB	CS	DP	Rate	Ballot
Jeff Bagwell	8	5	26-35	695	0.297	0.567	0.409	19	7	15	161.1	YES
Edgar Martinez	7	6	32-38	650	0.318	0.550	0.426	3	2	14	152.2	YES
Fred McGriff	7	2	24-30	650	0.286	0.567	0.385	6	3	13	141.8	YES
Edgar Martinez	14	0	27-40	578	0.311	0.523	0.412	3	2	13	124.4	YES
Fred McGriff	15	0	24-38	644	0.281	0.511	0.367	5	2	15	120.8	YES
Tim Raines	15	0	21-35	631	0.296	0.456	0.382	54	10	8	109.9	YES
Fred McGriff	8	7	31-38	640	0.277	0.468	0.352	3	2	16	105.4	YES
Tim Raines	9	9	30-38	507	0.285	0.416	0.370	25	6	7	78.0	YES

My short answer is that of the 14 or 15 serious candidates (I say 14, discounting Tim Salmon), there are 2 no-brainers: Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines. I realize Raines doesn't stick out as well on this chart as when you compare him to the other tablesetters, but when you roll in his very high-value base thievery, few GIDP and longetivity, I think he clears the bar easily. There's one more to me who is a fairly easy call: Fred McGriff. As I've said before, among the shortstops I go with Larkin and not Trammell, and among the pre-1994 sluggers I find Mattingly's and Murphy's prime years too short, and Dave Parker's numbers weighed down by the big performance-detracting drug phase in the middle of his prime (Edited: I forgot that Parker's off the ballot now). Javy Lopez had a season or two of genuine Hall-worthy production, but he doesn't make the cut; Jorge Posada, who retired this weekend, should but that's another year's debate.

Then you get to the PED-era sluggers. Realistically, there's actually not a huge gulf between a number of the guys on this ballot who make it, and those who don't. Some just were healthier, more durable, in circumstances more suited to their talents than others. And that's precisely why the PEDs are such a big issue.

A brief digression, since the issue is unavoidable. I'm sort of in the middle on a lot of steroids debates. I reject the simplistic argument that steroids are of no help to performance in baseball. I find something suspicious in, especially, the unique aging pattern of Barry Bonds, and there is no question that Mark McGwire in particular used PEDs to help him get healthy again in the second half of his career. And while I understand why people expect more of baseball players, I accept the argument that there's never been a true age of innocence in Major League Baseball. And I'm sick of the agendas on all sides of the debate. In the end, for a variety of reasons, I say we ignore PEDs, put in the guys who got the job done on the field, and let the arguments follow.

Setting that aside, I start with Palmeiro, who was a paragon of consistent productivity for 12-13 years. To me, the fact that his teams could bank on his performance is a huge factor.

At the other end you have Juan Gonzalez and Larry Walker, Gonzalez with Hall of Fame power, Walker with a more complete package of skills. But you see them even below the less glamorous Tim Salmon on the chart because neither had the in-season durability over their primes. So, an easy no on Gonzalez, Walker and Salmon.

That brings us to the three hard cases: McGwire, Edgar and Bernie. I do think setting them next to the other sluggers of that era is helpful - whether we know it or not, we're already setting the stage for what we will do when Thomas, Thome, Helton, Manny, Giambi, Sheffield, Sosa, Griffey and Edmonds get on the ballot. Poor Albert Belle already got stampeded off the ballot, despite the fact that his offensive prime tops any of those guys but Thomas and Bagwell by this measurement.

Bernie, like Griffey, gets a leg up for being a center fielder (a good one, albeit with a bad arm), and of course for being one of the core players on a legitimate dynasty. I'm inclined to vote yes on Bernie, even though that means a very crowded list of Yankees from that era (Jeter and Rivera will go in, Torre probably will, Raines, Posada and Mussina should, Sheffield should, Clemens and A-Rod will unless the writers are really ridiculous about PEDs, and that's before you get to Giambi and Pettitte, to say nothing of the not-so-far-off-the-pace guys like O'Neill, Ventura, Strawberry, Knoblauch, Gooden, Cone and Justice). But really all that is on 9 years' worth of prime production, not an especially long stretch for a guy who was never dominant.

I'm really conflicted on all three. McGwire strikes me as a Hall of Famer due to his amazing power numbers and great OBPs over a 13 year span, and gets some credit for playing for a team that won 3 straight pennants and a championship. But his injuries put him at the back of this pack, although by this measure he still stands ahead of Edgar over their 13/14 year primes.

Edgar is also a very tough call. Elite, Hall-quality hitter, no doubt. But even aside from the negatives we incorporate here (high-scoring offensive context, durability issues), Edgar has everything else going against him: zero defensive value, slow baserunner, played for teams that consistently underacheived despite an amazing talent core, a career mark of .156/.239/.234 in three ALCS (compared, to be fair, to .375/.481/.781 in four ALDS). I certainly would not be offended at including a guy of Edgar's elite status as a hitter, but the case for him seems much weaker to me than it seems to a lot of sabermetrically-inclined folks who tend to total up his career numbers and ignore the injury-driven holes in his playing time.

The thing that struck me the most is that when you set aside their mystiques and the offsetting virtues of Edgar's high batting averages vs Big Mac's homers, what you see is that their cases are quite similar. That doesn't mean you can't reach opposite conclusions based on the factors at the margins, as I do with Larkin and Trammell, but it does suggest that just writing one of the two in and the other one out should not be done without a thorough analysis. If forced to vote, I'd pull the lever today for Bernie and McGwire but not Edgar, but I could easily be persuaded to the contrary for any of the three. That leaves us:

YES
Jeff Bagwell
Tim Raines
Fred McGriff
Rafael Palmeiro
Barry Larkin
Mark McGwire
Bernie Williams*

NO
Edgar Martinez
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker
Jack Morris
Lee Smith
Don Mattingly
Dale Murphy
Juan Gonzalez
Tim Salmon*
Javy Lopez*

* - First time candidates. Also no on the rest of the first timers, of which the best is probably Ruben Sierra.

Finally, for what it's worth, below the fold is another quick set of metrics on the career numbers.

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One of my longstanding hobbyhorses in baseball analysis is two related points: (1) durability/quantity of playing time matters and (2) because baseball is played in seasons, it matters to study how much a player contributed by season. For example, one of my points of disagreement with Bill James' argument in his first Historical Abstract for Lefty Grove over Walter Johnson as the best pitcher in MLB history is the failure to adjust for the fact that Johnson was frequently at or around the league lead in innings; Grove carried a less demanding workload by the standards of his own time, and won two of his ERA titles late in his career (with the Red Sox) as effectively a Sunday pitcher, starting less than 24 games a year.

How often have pitchers been the best in the league (by ERA+, ERA adjusted for park and league) and led the league in innings in the same year? It's rarer than you might think - there are plenty of guys like Roy Halladay who have led the league in both, but never in the same year. Most likely because those last few innings can sometimes bring diminishing returns.

What's even more impressive is pulling the feat multiple times. As it turns out, only two pitchers have done it more than twice: Greg Maddux (four years running from 1992-95, including tying Denny Neagle for the league lead in innings in 1995) and Grover Alexander in 1915-16 and 1920 (interrupted by his service in World War I, which cost him most of 1918. I discussed the monumental nature of Alexander's peak and workload in this 2003 essay. Maddux got his just a bit cheaply (1994-95 were strike-shortened schedules, in which he led the league with just under 210 innings pitched each year), but it's still a staggering achievement when you consider how far he stood above the league.

Five other pitchers have managed the feat twice. One is Walter Johnson, who led the league in innings five times and ERA+ six times, and synced the two in 1913 (when he had a 1.14 ERA and 259 ERA+) and 1915. The others were Randy Johnson in 1999 & 2002, Roger Clemens in 1991 & 1997 (the latter an IP tie with Pat Hentgen), Steve Carlton in 1972 & 1980, and Bucky Walters in 1939-40. The rest to do it once are below the fold

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I cut off my examination of runs scored per times on base at 1920 because of the many ways in which the early game was different. But let's complete the picture with guys who reached base 3500 or more times and were active before 1920 (I went through the end of their careers this time, so the numbers for Babe Ruth are a little different here; Frankie Frisch's totals are different but the percentages are the same). The #1 man here, of the 24 guys who qualified, sure does stick out. I ran the numbers both with and without including homers, and ranked by the latter:

Player	R	TOBwe	HR	R/TOB	R/TOB(-HR)
Willie Keeler	1719	3585	33	47.9%	47.5%
Roger Connor	1620	3508	138	46.2%	44.0%
Cap Anson	1999	4451	97	44.9%	43.7%
Fred Clarke	1622	3707	67	43.8%	42.7%
Jesse Burkett	1720	3954	75	43.5%	42.4%
Bill Dahlen	1590	3665	84	43.4%	42.1%
George Davis	1545	3614	73	42.8%	41.6%
Jake Beckley	1602	3733	87	42.9%	41.6%
Frankie Frisch	1532	3639	105	42.1%	40.4%
Sam Rice	1514	3751	34	40.4%	39.8%
Max Carey	1545	3782	70	40.9%	39.7%
Ty Cobb	2246	5532	117	40.6%	39.3%
Harry Hooper	1429	3678	75	38.9%	37.6%
Nap Lajoie	1504	3892	82	38.6%	37.3%
Honus Wagner	1739	4508	101	38.6%	37.2%
Lou Gehrig	1771	3983	464	44.5%	37.1%
Eddie Collins	1821	4891	47	37.2%	36.6%
Tris Speaker	1882	4998	117	37.7%	36.2%
Sam Crawford	1391	3744	97	37.2%	35.5%
Goose Goslin	1477	3722	246	39.7%	35.4%
Rogers Hornsby	1579	4019	301	39.3%	34.4%
Babe Ruth	2174	4978	714	43.7%	34.2%
Zack Wheat	1289	3611	132	35.7%	33.3%
Harry Heilmann	1291	3556	183	36.3%	32.8%

Just out of curiosity, I ran the same numbers over the whole 1871-2011 period for three groups of players with over 2000 plate appearances who seemed likely to score a lot: players who scored at least 60% of their times on base overall, players who scored at least 0.85 runs per game, and players who stole at least 30% as many bases as times on base. It will not surprise you that this list is dominated by guys from the game's very earliest days; Keeler sticks out a lot less on this list, when compared to contemporaries and teammates like Hamilton, Delahanty, McGraw, Thompson, Duffy and Brouthers. It's sort of disappointing that the all-time leader here is the obscure Ned Cuthbert, who retired in 1884 with a career .276 OBP, but the #2 man is the game's very first dominant superstar, and the #3 man one of the founding fathers of organized professional baseball:

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What does it take to score runs? Well, getting on base is Job #1. But once you're on base, not everybody scores at the same rate. Among players who reached base (counting errors) at least 3500 times since the dawn of modern offenses in 1920, here's the 20 guys who scored most often:

Player	R	TOBwe	R/TOB
Babe Ruth	1972	4438	44.4%
Lou Gehrig	1888	4274	44.2%
Charlie Gehringer	1774	4075	43.5%
Kenny Lofton	1528	3527	43.3%
Alex Rodriguez	1824	4218	43.2%
Jimmie Foxx	1751	4111	42.6%
Johnny Damon	1643	3891	42.2%
Al Simmons	1507	3572	42.2%
Frankie Frisch	1511	3592	42.1%
Sammy Sosa	1475	3512	42.0%
Rickey Henderson	2295	5503	41.7%
Willie Mays	2062	4959	41.6%
Steve Finley	1443	3535	40.8%
Lou Brock	1610	4001	40.2%
Hank Aaron	2174	5404	40.2%
Derek Jeter	1769	4416	40.1%
Mel Ott	1859	4648	40.0%
Goose Goslin	1483	3739	39.7%
Craig Biggio	1844	4679	39.4%
Mickey Mantle	1676	4268	39.3%

There's no single common thread here. Most of these guys played on good offenses and/or in good offensive times, in particular in lineups with a lot of high OBPs. Many of them were excellent at getting to scoring position on their own, whether by power (Ruth, Gehrig) or speed (Rickey, Brock). Others, like Mickey and A-Rod, had both great power and, in their younger years, excellent speed. (Obviously, you could re-run this with adjustments for HRs and the like to see who scores from where they start).

Now, the bottom ten:

Player	R	TOBwe	R/TOB
Edgar Martinez	1219	3694	33.0%
Willie McCovey	1229	3735	32.9%
Buddy Bell	1151	3518	32.7%
Luke Appling	1319	4064	32.5%
Mark Grace	1179	3650	32.3%
Ron Santo	1138	3535	32.2%
Harold Baines	1299	4043	32.1%
Brooks Robinson	1232	3916	31.5%
John Olerud	1139	3679	31.0%
Rusty Staub	1189	4165	28.5%

No surprise here: Rusty is the slowest of a slow lot, and only McCovey - who played in a low-scoring era - had great power in this group. This is why Rusty is not in the Hall of Fame, despite being arguably a good enough hitter to be in there, compared to other guys with similar longetivity. Here's the rest of the list:

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A.J. Burnett has thrown a league-leading 23 wild pitches this year in 172.1 innings pitched, one of the grislier stats in an increasingly ugly season. How historic is that?

Well, among pitchers who have qualified for the ERA title since 1893 (the dawn of something like modern pitching, when the mound was moved back to 60 feet 6 inches), Burnett's rate of one wild pitch per 7.493 innings pitched would be the highest by a fairly significant margin:

Pitcher	WP	Year	Age	G	GS	IP	BB	SO	ERA	BF	HBP	IP/WP	BF/WP
A.J. Burnett	23	2011	34	29	29	172.3	78	148	5.27	761	7	7.493	33.087
Jack Hamilton	22	1962	23	41	26	182.0	107	101	5.09	820	5	8.273	37.273
Juan Guzman	26	1993	26	33	33	221.0	110	194	3.99	963	3	8.500	37.038
Red Ames	30	1905	22	34	31	262.7	105	198	2.74	1064	3	8.756	35.467
Matt Clement	23	2000	25	34	34	205.0	125	170	5.14	940	16	8.913	40.870
Tim Leary	23	1990	32	31	31	208.0	78	138	4.11	881	7	9.043	38.304
Nolan Ryan	16	1981	34	21	21	149.0	68	140	1.69	605	1	9.313	37.813
Tony Cloninger	27	1966	25	39	38	257.7	116	178	4.12	1132	6	9.543	41.926
Jaime Navarro	18	1998	31	37	27	172.7	77	71	6.36	802	7	9.593	44.556
Ken Howell	21	1989	28	33	32	204.0	86	164	3.44	827	2	9.714	39.381

Red Ames' 30 wild pitches qualifies as the post-1893 record. Needless to say, Nolan Ryan in 1981 is the only one of these guys to win the ERA title. (For curiosity - Sandy Koufax in 1958 would have made this list at #9 if he'd thrown just a few more innings). Among pitchers who threw at least 15 wild pitches but didn't qualify for the ERA title, here's the top 10; Burnett would rank 12th:

Pitcher	WP	Year	Age	G	GS	IP	BB	SO	ERA	BF	HBP	IP/WP	BF/WP
Stu Flythe	16	1936	24	17	3	39.3	61	14	13.04	229	3	2.458	14.313
Scott Williamson	21	2000	24	48	10	112.0	75	136	3.29	495	3	5.333	23.571
Dennis Higgins	15	1969	29	55	0	85.3	56	71	3.48	383	3	5.689	25.533
Hector Carrasco	15	1995	25	64	0	87.3	46	64	4.12	391	2	5.822	26.067
Jason Grimsley	16	2000	32	63	4	96.3	42	53	5.04	428	5	6.021	26.750
John Wetteland	16	1989	22	31	12	102.7	34	96	3.77	411	0	6.417	25.688
Bobby Witt	22	1986	22	31	31	157.7	143	174	5.48	741	3	7.167	33.682
Bo Belinsky	16	1967	30	27	18	115.3	54	80	4.68	510	8	7.208	31.875
Johan Santana	15	2002	23	27	14	108.3	49	137	2.99	452	1	7.222	30.133
Mac Suzuki	16	2001	26	33	19	118.3	73	89	5.86	542	8	7.396	33.875

As you might imagine, this was the only season of Stu Flythe's major league "pitching" career; he was not one of Connie Mack's finer discoveries. Bobby Witt's near-legendary rookie season missed by just a few innings topping Burnett.

It would not be useful to chart the guys with higher rates from the pre-1893 era, when you had guys with no catcher's mitts or shin guards catching pitches thrown from 50 feet, often from a standing position several feet behind the plate. A few high points: Mark Baldwin threw the MLB-record 83 wild pitches (in 513.2 innings, one per 6.19 innings pitched) in 1889; Jim McElroy in 1884 threw 46 wild pitches in 116 innings, one every 2.52 innings pitched, the worst rate for anybody with 100 or more innings. A 19-year-old pitcher named Dan Collins threw 12 wild pitches in 11 innings in 1884; the only other guy to match that in more than 3 innings pitched was Rich Rodas, who threw 5 wild pitches in 4.2 innings for the Dodgers in 1983.

PS - A look at wild pitches on a per-pitch basis here. Funny fact: I saw a tweet linking to that a few days ago, favorited it (I have trouble clicking through links when reading Twitter from my Blackberry so I tend to favorite things to read later) and completely forgot about it until after I wrote this post and started getting a nagging feeling I'd seen something about Burnett's historic wildness before.

UPDATED after the season: AJ improved just a bit to finish with 25 wild pitches in 190.1 IP, still easily the record (one every 7.61 IP, or every 33.48 batters faced). In the postseason he added 1 more in 5.2 innings, facing 24 batters.

SNY's Ted Berg asked this question on Twitter, and it seemed worthy of a detailed response: "Is there any hard evidence that Citi Field plays as an extreme pitcher's park?"

Well, using the same method as in my "History of Defense" breakdowns, I combined the batting stats for all Mets games 2009-11 thru Sunday's action, both by and against the Mets. Here's the home/road splits:

Runs per game:

Home: 8.18
Road: 8.82

Batting Average on Balls in Play:

Home: .311
Road: .322

Doubles per 600 at bats:

Home: 38.72
Road: 41.25

Triples per 600 at bats:

Home: 5.68
Road: 4.21

Home Runs per 600 at bats:

Home: 16.93
Road: 19.41

Walks per 660 plate appearances (I used a PA metric rather than at bats for walks and strikeouts):

Home: 59.10
Road: 57.49

Strikeouts per 660 plate appearances:

Home: 113.53
Road: 110.81

Conclusion: From 2009-11, which now seems a large enough sample size to judge, Citi Field has played as a fairly extreme pitchers' park, drastically reducing scoring and home runs, depressing batting averages on balls in play, and slightly decreasing doubles and increasing strikeouts. It is, however, a great triples park, undoubtedly due to its spacious power alleys (and a few Mets hitters well-suited to exploit them), and has seen walks increase slightly at home.

UPDATE: So, if the Mets are looking down the road to what kinds of hitters prosper at Citi Field, who should they be looking at? Here's the 2009-11 home/road splits of Mets hitters with at least 200 plate appearances at Citi Field - home line on the left, road line on the right, and home OPS divided by road OPS in the H/R column:

Player	AB	BA	OBA	Slug%	AB	BA	OBA	Slug%	H/R
Jose Reyes	494	0.324	0.378	0.506	459	0.266	0.305	0.375	1.300
Jason Bay	229	0.266	0.357	0.424	253	0.229	0.317	0.324	1.218
Luis Castillo	364	0.313	0.402	0.354	369	0.247	0.337	0.285	1.215
Angel Pagan	544	0.314	0.354	0.478	487	0.261	0.321	0.382	1.183
Daniel Murphy	347	0.303	0.341	0.470	339	0.251	0.313	0.386	1.160
Fernando Tatis	194	0.284	0.358	0.443	211	0.251	0.294	0.403	1.149
Ike Davis	317	0.271	0.366	0.470	335	0.272	0.348	0.451	1.046
David Wright	598	0.288	0.382	0.472	670	0.285	0.353	0.464	1.045
Josh Thole	208	0.269	0.335	0.356	184	0.266	0.344	0.326	1.031
Alex Cora	215	0.228	0.305	0.274	225	0.240	0.293	0.320	0.945
Jeff Francoeur	338	0.254	0.294	0.414	352	0.281	0.327	0.432	0.933
Carlos Beltran	350	0.294	0.363	0.466	379	0.290	0.394	0.501	0.926

I admit it's odd to see Bay (and Tatis) that high, but otherwise it's the people you'd expect: line-drive/gap hitters like Reyes, Castillo, Pagan and Murphy at the top, Beltran at the bottom (Wright hasn't suffered at Citi nearly as much as Beltran). Reyes this season is batting .395/.453/.645 with 10 triples in 29 games at home, .277/.315/.361 with zero triples on the road.

So, if the Mets go to the free agent market in 2011, they should be looking to sign a player as much like Jose Reyes as possible. Gee, if only such a player was going to be a free agent after this season...

Part II here.

Who are the best defensive teams of all time? Individual defensive statistics in baseball - as in other team sports - have been crudely kept and poorly understood for years, with the more sophisticated modern methods only being gathered for the past decade or two. As a result, even statistically-oriented baseball fans have tended to answer questions about defense as much by reputation and anecdote as anything. The lack of a statistical framework tends to make defense a bit invisible in our memories; even most knowledgeable fans have no more concrete sense of, say, Ty Cobb as a defensive player than they do of Turkey Stearnes as a hitter. My goal in this essay is to a little bit to remedy that on the team level.

We do have one measurement of team defense that endures over time and thus can be used as a baseline for measuring team defense: Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER). I'd like to walk you through the history of the best and worst teams in each league, and the league average, in DER from the dawn of organized league ball in 1871 down to this season. As usual, I'll try to explain here what I'm measuring in terms that make sense to readers who may not be all that familiar with the 'sabermetric' literature, although I make no claim to be current myself on every study out there, and welcome comments pointing to additional studies.

What is DER?

DER is, put simply, the percentage of balls in play against a team that are turned into outs. The exact formulas used to compute DER can vary a bit, and while Baseball-Reference.com - which I used for this study - computes DERs all the way back to the start of organized baseball in 1871, its description of the formula is a bit vague:

Percentage of balls in play converted into outs This is an estimate based on team defensive and pitching stats. We utilize two estimates of plays made. One using innings pitched, strikeouts, double plays and outfield assists. And the other with batters faced, strikeouts, hits allowed, walks allowed, hbp, and .71*errors committed (avg percent of errors that result in an ROE) Total plays available are plays made + hits allowed - home runs + error committed estimate.

All methods for computing DER look at the percentage of balls in play that become hits; it appears that Baseball-Reference.com's formula also counts the outs that result from double plays or outfield assists, both clear examples of outs created by good defense, as well as counting against the defense the one thing that fielding percentages always recorded - errors - but only where they put a man on base. From what I can tell, essentially the same formula is used over all of the site's historical DER data, so the data is generally consistent over time.

It's worth recalling that DER only measures outs vs. men reaching base - it doesn't deal with extra bases on doubles and triples, or stolen bases and caught stealing, or other baserunning issues. So, it's only one part of the picture just as on base percentage is just one part of the offensive picture. But like OBP, it's the single most important part.

What Goes Into Team DER?

One of Bill James' maxims throughout the 1980s was that "much of what we perceive to be pitching is in fact defense." As most of my readers will recall, Voros McCracken broke major ground in the field of baseball analysis of pitching and defense in 2001 with a study showing that Major League pitchers, over time, had no effect - or at least, there was no difference among Major League pitchers in the effect they had - on whether balls in play become outs. Strikeouts, walks and home runs (the so-called "Three True Outcomes") are the pitcher vs. the hitter, mano a mano, but on average, BABIP (batting average on balls in play, the flip side of DER) shows no tendency to be consistent year to year among individual pitchers; other statistical indicators also strongly suggest that a pitcher's BABIP tends to be mostly a combination of team defense and luck. The simple way of expressing McCracken's insight is that it's the defense rather than the pitcher that determines how many balls in play become outs.

As with most groundbreaking insights, further research has added some caveats to McCracken's theory. The first one, which he observed from the beginning, was that knuckleballers tend as a group to have lower than average BABIP, and thus are something of an exception to the rule. I haven't absorbed all the further studies, but there are reasons to suspect that other classes of pitchers may have a modest advantage in the battle against BABIP, including elite relievers (Troy Percival, Armando Benitez, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman and Keith Foulke all seemed to have much lower career BABIP than their circumstances would suggest) and possibly pitchers who throw a huge number of breaking balls (we'll discuss Andy Messersmith a bit below).

Also, McCracken's research, and most of the following research, looked at the conditions of modern baseball (at the time, Retrosheet and Baseball Prospectus' database only went back to the mid-1950s). It's entirely possible that pitchers had greater influence on BABIP/DER in the era before 1920, or further back, when there were pitchers who had consistent success even in the era when most plate appearances resulted in a ball in play and thus the pitcher had little opportunity to set himself apart from his peers by success in the Three True Outcomes. As I explained in this 2001 essay, the playing conditions were greatly different in 19th century baseball in particular, and I'd be hesitant without data on that era to just assume that the pitcher's effect on balls in play was as minimal then as it is now.

Finally, of course, as with other statistical measures, there are park effects. We all know that different parks are more or less favorable for hitters, and of the components of that, park effects on home runs are significant, and parks can effect walks and strikeouts as well. (Less so for baserunning, in most cases). Balls in play are no exception, and I don't have data handy on how park effects specifically affect balls in play over time besides the ability to notice some trends (for example, the Polo Grounds for many years was a great home run park but not a great hitters' park; I assume DER there tended to be high) and a few specific examples where I dug into the numbers we have. So bear in mind that the numbers set out below are not park-adjusted.

Key to the Charts

BIP%: Percentage of plate appearances resulting in a ball in play (i.e.,Plate Appearances minus homers, walks and strikeouts). Since I used league batting rather than pitching data for this, there may be a slight discrepancy for the period since the start of interleague play in 1997.

NL/AL etc.: Under the league name I have the league's DER for that season.

High/Low: The team with the league's highest and lowest DERs. I used Baseball-Reference.com's team abbreviations.

DER: That team's DER

High%/Low%: Team DER divided by the league average. This is the key number I use to identify the best and worst defensive teams, so we can see who were the best and worst defensive teams relative to the league average. As usual, I'm not using any math here more complicated than simple arithmetic and basic algebra.

Also, where I compute "rough" estimates of BABIP for pre-1950 pitchers I used the basic formula of (H-HR)/((IP*3)+H-HR-K)

The 1870s

Talent levels in the 1870s were especially uneven, as the first organized league - the National Association - began play in 1871 just two years after the debut of the first-ever professional team. Schedules were short (20 games in 1871, in the 60s by decade's end), fielders didn't wear gloves, playing surfaces were ungroomed and in some cases effectively without fences, and with nine balls for a walk and longballs unheard of, nearly every plate appearance resulted in a ball in play - the 1872 season's 96.5% rate is the highest in the game's history, and 1879 was the last season above 90%.

As you can see, defenses improved dramatically over this period, in part no doubt as professional pitchers and fielders learned their craft and more of the nation's best ballplayers gathered into the National Association and later the NL. But errors were a big chunk of the poor defense of the era - in each of the NL’s first five seasons, there were more unearned runs than earned runs scored, and it wasn't until 1906 that the average number of unearned runs would drop below 1 per game.

The most successful defensive team of the era was the 1876 St. Louis "Brown Stockings" team (not precisely the same organization as the Cardinals), the only Major League team ever to be 10% better than its league in DER. Starting pitcher George "Grin" Bradley struck out 1.6 men per 9 innings but led the league with a 1.23 ERA (the team also allowed the league's fewest runs, although their 2.36 unearned runs per 9 innings was only third-best in the league) while throwing all but four of the team's innings. A rough estimate of the BABIP against Bradley is .258 in 1875, .224 in 1876, but .285 after he changed teams the next year, when his ERA nearly tripled, and .267 for his career. Which at least seems consistent with the notion that Bradley's defense was doing most of the work.

Note that the Philadelphia Athletics of 1873-74, featuring Cap Anson and Ezra Sutton in their infield, made the only repeat appearance on the decade's leaderboard (Anson, in his early 20s, played multiple positions including short and third, while Sutton was beginning a long career as a third baseman and shortstop).

The worst defensive team of all time? I hate to give you such an underwhelming answer, but by a wide margin it's the 1873 Baltimore Marylands, who folded after just 6 winless games and almost none of whose players appeared in the big leagues again. The hapless Marylands allowed 144 runs in 6 games (24 per game), only 48 of which were earned; in addition to hideous defense their pitchers didn't strike out a single batter. (The offense was no better, as a team batting average of .156 with only one extra base hit and no walks attest). When you think of the level of competition in those early years, think of the Marylands.

National Association-National League

	BIP%	NA	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1871	94.5%	586	NYU	608	103.75%	TRO	548	93.52%
1872	96.5%	589	BOS	647	109.85%	OLY	510	86.59%
1873	96.2%	578	ATH	613	106.06%	MAR	458	79.24%
1874	96.7%	589	ATH	629	106.79%	BAL	552	93.72%
1875	96.4%	619	HAR	663	107.11%	WAS	538	86.91%
	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1876	95.3%	626	STL	698	111.50%	CIN	569	90.89%
1877	92.2%	623	HAR	642	103.05%	CIN	561	90.05%
1878	89.5%	628	CIN	638	101.59%	MLG	615	97.93%
1879	90.2%	632	BUF	659	104.27%	TRO	599	94.78%

The 1880s

The game gradually professionalized in the 1880s, but not without a great many bumps along the way. The Union Association of 1884 was only barely a major league (four teams, including Wilmington, folded after playing less than a quarter of the schedule), but diluted the talent level of the two major leagues. The 4-ball/three-strike count wasn't standardized until 1889, after a gradual decline in the number of balls for a walk and a one-year experiment in 1887 with four strikes for a strikeout; DERs rose sharply after the three-strike rule was restored. The schedule topped 100 games for the first time in 1884, and had reached 135 by 1888. The color line was established in the wake of the failure of Reconstruction (which effectively ended in 1877), after only a few black players had taken the field. The first gloves were becoming commonly used by decade's end.

Anson's 1882 White Stockings (now Cubs) and the 1882 Red Stockings (now Reds) became the first pennant-winning teams to lead the league in DER since the founding of the National League (in the NA, only the 1872 Boston team had done so); four teams would do so in each of the two leagues in ten years, plus the Union Association champs. Bid McPhee, enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2000 largely for his defense, anchored the Red Stockings teams that led the league three times in their first six seasons in the league, and their 1882 and 1883 DERs were the most dominant of the decade outside the UA, but the mid-decade St. Louis Browns (now Cardinals) juggernaut also emerged as a defensive powerhouse. The woebegotten 1883 Philadelphia Quakers were the decade's worst defensive team. The NL's most successful defensive squad? The 1884 Providence Grays, much to the benefit of Old Hoss Radbourn, who had his famous 59-12, 1.38 ERA season. Radbourn also struck out 441 batters in 678.1 innings, so he did his share as well, and by a rough calculation the opposing BABIP of .242 - while a career best - wasn't hugely out of line with his career .271 mark. Lucky and good is a good combination.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1880	88.8%	649	PRO	681	104.93%	BUF	615	94.76%
1881	88.6%	641	CHC	664	103.59%	BUF	613	95.63%
1882	87.4%	641	CHC	667	104.06%	WOR	590	92.04%
1883	86.3%	617	CLV	651	105.51%	PHI	553	89.63%
1884	81.2%	633	PRO	678	107.11%	DTN	611	96.52%
1885	83.8%	651	NYG	697	107.07%	BUF	613	94.16%
1886	81.1%	644	PHI	674	104.66%	KCN	602	93.48%
1887	84.7%	647	DTN	663	102.47%	WHS	635	98.15%
1888	83.9%	671	NYG	694	103.43%	IND	659	98.21%
1889	82.0%	650	CLV	673	103.54%	WHS	622	95.69%

American Association

	BIP%	AA	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1882	89.3%	639	CIN	692	108.29%	BAL	599	93.74%
1883	87.5%	631	CIN	688	109.03%	PIT	591	93.66%
1884	83.7%	640	LOU	670	104.69%	WAS	580	90.63%
1885	84.5%	649	STL	679	104.62%	PHA	623	95.99%
1886	81.0%	643	STL	667	103.73%	PHA	625	97.20%
1887	84.5%	630	CIN	658	104.44%	NYP	595	94.44%
1888	82.8%	662	STL	702	106.04%	LOU	626	94.56%
1889	81.0%	640	BRO	665	103.91%	LOU	604	94.38%

Union Association

	BIP%	UA	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1884	80.7%	591	SLM	644	108.97%	WIL	539	91.20%

The 1890s

The NL achieved dominance after the Players League war. The modern era of pitching arrived in 1893 when the mound was moved back from 50 feet to its current 60 feet 6 inches; the percentage of balls in play spiked as strikeouts became almost non-existent, while DERs plunged in 1894 and 1895, suggesting more hard-hit balls off pitchers struggling to adjust to the new distance. The 1890 Pirates were the decade's worst defensive team, the 1895 Baltimore Orioles (with extra balls hidden in the long grass of the outfield among their notorious tricks) the best, although the late-decade Beaneaters (now Braves, featuring Hall of Famers Hugh Duffy and Billy Hamilton in the outfield, Jimmy Collins at third, and Kid Nichols as the staff ace) were consistently dominant and would remain so through 1901. (Collins left in 1901, Duffy the previous year, but Nichols, Hamilton and infield anchors Herman Long, Bobby Lowe and Fred Tenney were there the whole time; Long and Nichols had also been on the 1891 team). Four teams had the NL's best record while leading the league in DER, three of them Beaneaters teams.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1890	81.8%	663	CHC	696	104.98%	PIT	598	90.20%
1891	82.1%	665	BSN	677	101.80%	CLV	645	96.99%
1892	82.2%	672	CLV	697	103.72%	BLN	625	93.01%
1893	84.4%	654	PIT	673	102.91%	WHS	614	93.88%
1894	84.9%	626	NYG	651	103.99%	WHS	601	96.01%
1895	85.5%	637	BLN	677	106.28%	LOU	606	95.13%
1896	85.9%	649	CIN	673	103.70%	WHS	625	96.30%
1897	86.0%	648	BSN	679	104.78%	STL	618	95.37%
1898	86.2%	669	BSN	708	105.83%	WHS	633	94.62%
1899	86.9%	660	BSN	699	105.91%	CLV	610	92.42%

American Association

	BIP%	AA	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1890	80.2%	652	COL	692	106.13%	PHA	609	93.40%
1891	80.4%	653	COL	677	103.68%	WAS	605	92.65%

Players League

	BIP%	PL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1890	82.6%	636	NYI	655	102.99%	BUF	612	96.23%

The 1900s

The foul-strike rule, adopted in the NL in 1901 and the AL in 1903, brought back the strikeout and contributed, along with better gloves and more "small ball," to rising DERs, as the NL in 1907 became the first league ever to turn 70% of balls in play into outs, rising to 71.4% in 1908, a level that would not be matched again until 1942. Schedules also started to be standardized in 1904, settling around 154 games after a decade mostly in the high 120s.

Surprisingly, defense was not the essential element for many of the pennant winners of the Dead Ball Era's first decade - only one AL pennant winner (the 1903 Red Sox, featuring Jimmy Collins yet again) led the league, and only two NL pennant winners. That being said, the Cubs of the Tinker-Evers-Chance era have as good an argument as anyone to be the dominant defensive team of all time. They led the NL in DER eight times in nine years, as well as finishing a close second (at 726, 101.68% of the league) the ninth of those, and second again in 1912. In 1906, on the way to a 116-36 record, they became the first of five post-1900 teams to beat the league average by 5% or more, and their 736 DER bested the second-place Phillies by 29 points and would not be topped (in raw terms) for 62 years, by men using vastly superior equipment. It's possible there was a park factor at work, although Baseball-Reference.com lists West Side Park (where the Cubs played until Wrigley opened in 1916) as if anything a hitters park until late in the decade; in 1906, the Cubs combined to score and allow 7.24 runs per game at home, 7.03 on the road, with the defense in particular allowing 2.22 runs per game on the road compared to 2.78 at West Side Park. Was it the pitchers? By my rough estimate, the BABIPs against four or the five pitchers on that staff to throw 1000 or more innings as Cubs between 1903 and 1912 -Three Finger Brown, Carl Lundgren, Orval Overall, and Jack Pfiester - varied between .237 and .241 compared to a team average of .241 for all pitchers to throw at least 200 innings on the team over those years, with only one such pitcher above .254. Only Ed Reulbach, at .230, seems to have stood out a bit. That suggests that the team's defense was the predominant factor. The same BABIP figure for the rival Giants, a good but more normal defensive team, was .259 - the 19-point advantage on balls in play for Brown over Christy Mathewson is almost certainly the main explanation for why Brown's ERA was better (1.75 to 1.90) over those years, although of course Brown was nonetheless a great pitcher.

Best AL defensive team? The 1901 Red Sox, another Jimmy Collins squad. Worst team of the decade? The unraveling 1902 Baltimore Orioles, who were deserted by John McGraw in mid-season and relocated to New York (now the Yankees) the following spring (like the prior year's Milwaukee franchise - there's a long history of teams getting folded or moved after cellar-dwelling DERs, as terrible defense is often a byproduct of organizational failure).

Also, note the atrocious showings by the late-decade Washington Senators, the team on which Walter Johnson broke in, yet another way in which Johnson's early career was plagued by bad teams. Johnson would bear some closer study - a quick look suggests that his BABIPs may have been better than his teams' for much of his career, as if he needed more advantages on top of leading the AL in K/BB ratio nine times, K/9 seven times, fewest BB/9 twice and fewest HR/9 three times (a favorite stat: Johnson in 1918-19 threw 616.1 innings and allowed just two home runs, both of them by Babe Ruth). His BABIP seems to have hit a career low of .219 in 1913 at the same time as his career high 6.39 K/BB ratio, another example of perhaps being both lucky and good, or perhaps there being a correlation between the two.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1900	86.3%	661	BSN	691	104.54%	NYG	637	96.37%
1901	83.3%	664	BSN	685	103.16%	CIN	640	96.39%
1902	84.3%	674	BRO	696	103.26%	STL	648	96.14%
1903	83.5%	664	CHC	681	102.56%	STL	647	97.44%
1904	83.7%	688	CHC	709	103.05%	PHI	658	95.64%
1905	82.9%	683	CHC	716	104.83%	BRO	649	95.02%
1906	82.0%	698	CHC	736	105.44%	BSN	670	95.99%
1907	82.8%	702	CHC	730	103.99%	BSN	685	97.58%
1908	83.7%	714	PIT	730	102.24%	STL	698	97.76%
1909	82.2%	698	CHC	721	103.30%	BSN	680	97.42%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1901	86.4%	658	BOS	684	103.95%	MLA	647	98.33%
1902	86.2%	671	BOS	686	102.24%	BLA	636	94.78%
1903	83.8%	680	BOS	695	102.21%	WSH	668	98.24%
1904	82.9%	693	CHW	716	103.32%	WSH	668	96.39%
1905	81.8%	697	CHW	721	103.44%	NYY	688	98.71%
1906	83.3%	692	CLE	719	103.90%	WSH	672	97.11%
1907	83.7%	693	BOS	710	102.45%	WSH	666	96.10%
1908	82.7%	700	CHW	719	102.71%	NYY	680	97.14%
1909	82.3%	695	PHA	717	103.17%	SLB	676	97.27%

The 1910s

Defense had the upper hand in the teens, with DERs regularly topping 70% leaguewide in the second half of the decade, especially in the NL. If top defensive teams winning the pennant were a rarity in the prior decade, they became routine in the teens - five times in the NL, five in the AL. The Red Sox were the decade's dominant team in the AL both defensively and overall, and continued to lead the league even after the departure in 1916 of Tris Speaker. (Oddly, the Red Sox went from the best DER in the AL in 1912 to the worst in 1913 and back to the best in 1914; more on that below.) Meanwhile, the NL's revolving door of pennant winners (and World Series doormats) from 1915-19 were generally whoever handled the balls in play best. Yet most of those NL teams didn't beat the league average by all that much, and the best single-season showing was the 1919 Yankees. The worst, unsurprisingly, was the post-fire-sale 1915 A's (with a fossilized 40-year-old Nap Lajoie at second and their best remaining player, catcher Wally Schang, playing out of position at third), although the doormat 1911 Braves weren't far behind.

The Cubs' defense stopped being dominant with the 1913 departure of Joe Tinker, who went on to anchor the Federal League's best defense, while Johnny Evers was part of lifting those Braves out of their 1911-12 defensive funk to a slightly above average defensive team in 1914 (they'd been below average in 1913 - that said, I'd expected the 1914 Miracle Braves to be one of the teams that had a huge year defensively, and even with Evers and Rabbit Maranville, they didn't).

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1910	81.4%	688	CHC	708	102.91%	STL	673	97.82%
1911	80.1%	684	CHC	698	102.05%	BSN	649	94.88%
1912	81.2%	679	PIT	703	103.53%	BSN	659	97.05%
1913	81.8%	691	NYG	702	101.59%	CIN	684	98.99%
1914	81.5%	698	PIT	712	102.01%	PHI	666	95.42%
1915	82.1%	704	PHI	715	101.56%	NYG	687	97.59%
1916	82.3%	704	BRO	719	102.13%	STL	684	97.16%
1917	83.2%	704	NYG	723	102.70%	CHC	691	98.15%
1918	85.2%	707	NYG	723	102.26%	BSN	695	98.30%
1919	85.2%	705	CIN	729	103.40%	PHI	672	95.32%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1910	81.7%	692	PHA	713	103.03%	SLB	663	95.81%
1911	80.6%	662	CHW	675	101.96%	WSH	655	98.94%
1912	80.5%	666	BOS	683	102.55%	NYY	640	96.10%
1913	81.1%	685	PHA	701	102.34%	BOS	670	97.81%
1914	80.2%	692	BOS	709	102.46%	CLE	662	95.66%
1915	80.1%	693	BOS	712	102.74%	PHA	654	94.37%
1916	80.9%	698	BOS	713	102.15%	PHA	668	95.70%
1917	82.4%	704	BOS	724	102.84%	PHA	687	97.59%
1918	83.5%	705	BOS	729	103.40%	DET	694	98.44%
1919	83.1%	689	NYY	715	103.77%	PHA	661	95.94%

Federal League

	BIP%	FL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1914	80.7%	679	CHI	711	104.71%	SLM	667	98.23%
1915	81.9%	694	CHI	708	102.02%	BAL	660	95.10%

The 1920s

Lower strikeout rates with the lively ball's arrival were probably the largest factor in the sudden increase in scoring in the Twenties, as even the gradual arrival of home run hitters and a leaguewide rise in walks couldn't stop the upward march of the percentage of balls in play. But DERs dropped a good 15 points as well.

Defense was slightly more the hallmark of AL than NL pennant winners in the Twenties - six in the AL, four in the NL. Naturally the 1927 Yankees were the best in the league at this, too, their fifth league lead in nine years. And Walter Johnson finally got some real defensive support when the Senators won their two pennants in 1924-25, dropping Johnson's BABIP from .280 to .248 in 1924.

As discussed in the next decade, you have to figure a significant park effect was at work in the fact that the Phillies were dead last in the NL in DER 14 times in their last 17 full seasons in the Baker Bowl, including the NL's worst showing of the decade in 1926. Then again, nearly all of those Phillies teams were terrible teams, with a collective .383 winning percentage and only one winning record, in 1932 when their DER was 98.5% of the league average. And the Phillies had led the league in DER behind Grover Alexander in 1915.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1920	85.3%	693	CIN	708	102.16%	STL	678	97.84%
1921	85.6%	680	PIT	696	102.35%	PHI	658	96.76%
1922	84.7%	677	NYG	700	103.40%	STL	663	97.93%
1923	84.5%	681	CHC	700	102.79%	PHI	651	95.59%
1924	84.8%	687	PIT	704	102.47%	PHI	665	96.80%
1925	84.3%	676	CIN	689	101.92%	PHI	659	97.49%
1926	84.6%	689	STL	707	102.61%	PHI	656	95.21%
1927	84.4%	687	PIT	705	102.62%	PHI	663	96.51%
1928	83.6%	693	STL	707	102.02%	PHI	666	96.10%
1929	83.1%	680	PIT	692	101.76%	PHI	662	97.35%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1920	83.7%	677	NYY	689	101.77%	PHA	656	96.90%
1921	83.5%	674	BOS	683	101.34%	PHA	666	98.81%
1922	83.6%	687	NYY	707	102.91%	CLE	669	97.38%
1923	83.1%	686	NYY	709	103.35%	WSH	673	98.10%
1924	83.9%	682	WSH	709	103.96%	CHW	666	97.65%
1925	83.3%	679	WSH	689	101.47%	BOS	662	97.50%
1926	83.2%	689	CLE	702	101.89%	DET	677	98.26%
1927	83.6%	684	NYY	701	102.49%	SLB	666	97.37%
1928	83.2%	687	PHA	700	101.89%	CLE	665	96.80%
1929	83.0%	687	PHA	703	102.33%	DET	664	96.65%

The 1930s

1935 saw the arrival of night baseball, which would eventually be a factor in bringing back strikeout rates, as would the growth of relief pitching, still taking its first baby steps in the Thirties; between those factors and more home runs, the AL in 1937 became the first major league in which less than 80% of plate appearances resulted in a ball in play, after being above 83% in the AL and 84% in the NL for much of the Twenties. Six AL pennant winners had the league's best DER, compared to just two in the NL.

The 30s were the best and worst of times. The Phillies hit their nadir in 1930, at 631 the worst raw DER since 1900 (the 1911 Braves being the only other team since 1906 to finish below 650), the worst relative to the league since the ill-fated 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the only team lower than 95% of the league average since the 1915 A's. Not for nothing did they post a modern-record 6.71 team ERA, allow 7.69 runs per game, and lose nearly two-thirds of their games even with Lefty O'Doul batting .383/.453/.604 and scoring 122 runs and Chuck Klein (probably the most park-created of all Hall of Famers) batting .386/.436/.687 with 158 runs scored and 170 RBI. Then again, they also had the league's worst K/BB ratio and allowed the league's most homers, so it wasn't all the defense's fault. And the Phillies left the Baker Bowl for good at the end of June 1938, and still finished last in DER in 1938 and 1941 plus three more times in the mid-1940s.

In the AL, the late-30s St. Louis Browns, presumably despite Harlond Clift at third, were the league's worst, hitting bottom in 1939. Also in St. Louis, if you're curious, the 1934 "Gashouse Gang" Cardinals team was league-average.

On the positive end, we have the 1900s Cubs' top competition for the title of the best defensive team of all time, the 1939 Yankees, the team that Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein (measuring by runs scored and allowed relative to the league) marked as the greatest team of all time in "Baseball Dynasties," noting that they led the league in runs scored and fewest runs allowed four years in a row. So it's not surprising to encounter them here. The Yankees' DER was the furthest above their league of any team since 1885, and their 730 DER led the league by 35 points. This was part of a string of six straight seasons and 12 in 13 years when they had the league's most successful defense, starting in Babe Ruth's last year two years before the arrival of Joe DiMaggio and running clear through World War II. While a number of players appeared on many of those teams (DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Frank Crosetti, Red Rolfe, Joe Gordon), the only constants were manager Joe McCarthy and catcher Bill Dickey. (Both had also been on the 1933 team that was last in the AL in DER before cutting back the Babe's playing time and putting Earle Combs and Joe Sewell, both 34, out to pasture). You have to give McCarthy some of the credit for the Yankees' consistent defensive excellence, if only in how he chose to distribute playing time.

That said, a significant park effect can't be discounted here. Yankee Stadium was always a pitcher's park, and seems to have been a particularly extreme one in 1939: unlike for the Cubs, we have home/road detailed splits for the 1939 Yankees, which show that Yankee hitters had a BABIP of .273 at home, .315 on the road, while Yankee opponents had a BABIP of .248 at home, .267 on the road - combined, .260 at home, .292 on the road. I haven't had time to run the splits for the Yankees' whole run in that period - this essay took up quite enough of my time, and it would be a worthwhile project for someone else to carry on further - but even on the basis of the huge split for 1939, as remarkable as the Yankees' defensive performance was in the McCarthy era, it has to be taken with the same grain of salt as the Baker Bowl era Phillies. (The 1930 Phillies' Home/Road BABIP splits were .352/.300 for their offense, .365/.341 for their pitching staff, and a combined line of .358/.321 - a 36-point spread)

Speaking of managers, Walter Johnson may not have had great defenses as a pitcher, but as a manager he did better, skippering the Senators to two league-best DERs in four years from 1929-32. And the 1938 Braves became the first Casey Stengel-managed team to lead the league in DER, albeit a squad he inherited from Bill McKechnie with the decade's best DER in the NL in 1937.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1930	82.8%	669	BRO	693	103.59%	PHI	631	94.32%
1931	83.4%	687	NYG	706	102.77%	PHI	666	96.94%
1932	84.0%	691	PIT	702	101.59%	STL	673	97.40%
1933	85.1%	702	NYG	719	102.42%	PHI	682	97.15%
1934	82.9%	685	NYG	704	102.77%	CIN	666	97.23%
1935	83.2%	686	NYG	707	103.06%	PHI	667	97.23%
1936	82.7%	684	CHC	698	102.05%	PHI	666	97.37%
1937	81.3%	689	BSN	714	103.63%	PHI	670	97.24%
1938	82.1%	697	BSN	711	102.01%	PHI	675	96.84%
1939	81.7%	695	CIN	708	101.87%	PIT	682	98.13%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1930	82.0%	678	WSH	702	103.54%	CLE	661	97.49%
1931	82.0%	683	PHA	708	103.66%	SLB	667	97.66%
1932	81.2%	688	WSH	703	102.18%	CHW	674	97.97%
1933	81.5%	694	WSH	709	102.16%	NYY	682	98.27%
1934	80.2%	684	NYY	703	102.78%	CHW	677	98.98%
1935	81.2%	687	NYY	713	103.78%	WSH	668	97.23%
1936	80.5%	676	NYY	690	102.07%	SLB	657	97.19%
1937	79.5%	683	NYY	697	102.05%	SLB	658	96.34%
1938	79.2%	685	NYY	694	101.31%	SLB	671	97.96%
1939	79.9%	687	NYY	730	106.26%	SLB	660	96.07%

The 1940s

In the 1940s, change was in the winds. The war decimated MLB's talent level and introduced inferior baseballs (due to wartime shortages) that traveled poorly when hit. DERs rose back above 70% even before the war in the NL, and in 1942 in the AL. After the war, integration followed and the game was off to the races, while night baseball really came into its own.

In the NL, defense was king - seven pennant winners led the league in DER in nine years between 1939-47, plus the 104-win second-place 1942 Dodgers; four pennant winners led the AL, but three of those were the 1941-43 Yankees. The strongest defensive teams of the decade were McKechnie's 1940 Reds and Lou Boudreau's 1948 Indians (a team famous for its outstanding infield of Boudreau, Ken Keltner, Joe Gordon and Eddie Robinson), the weakest the 1940 Pirates and 1942 Senators (the difference between the Senators of the mid-40s and the Indians of the 50s explains a lot about Early Wynn's career). The chicken-egg question remains regarding good defenses and successful managers, as Leo Durocher's arrival in Brooklyn in 1939 and Billy Southworth's in St. Louis in 1940 were followed within a few years by the construction of superior defensive teams.

The 1947 Reds were the third and last team to go from first to last in the league in DER in a single season, after the 1913 Red Sox and 1880 Buffalo Bisons:

Team	Years	DER1	DER2	Change	Change %
BUF	1879-80	659	615	-44	93.3%
CIN	1946-47	716	693	-23	96.8%
BOS	1912-13	683	670	-13	98.1%

The Bisons and their ace pitcher, Hall of Famer Pud Galvin, hail from baseball's ancient past, and the Red Sox were a bit of a fluke, given the small size of their decline and their rapid rebound the following year. What of the 1947 Reds? 1946 was the last season of McKechnie's career, and McKechnie was notoriously defense-obsessed. The team gave a lot more playing time to 30-year-old shortstop Eddie Miller, outfielder Frank Baumholtz and noodle-armed 35-year-old left fielder Augie Galan. Sidearmer Ewell Blackwell had his big breakthrough season in 1947, improving his K/BB from 1.27 to a league-leading 2.03, but saw his ERA slip slightly from 2.45 to 2.47, while veterans Johnny Vander Meer and Bucky Walters got completely wiped out by the defensive collapse.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1940	81.5%	701	CIN	730	104.14%	PIT	676	96.43%
1941	80.9%	704	BRO	732	103.98%	PHI	683	97.02%
1942	81.2%	716	BRO	734	102.51%	CHC	699	97.63%
1943	82.1%	707	STL	719	101.70%	NYG	691	97.74%
1944	82.3%	707	STL	733	103.68%	CHC	689	97.45%
1945	82.1%	701	CHC	718	102.43%	PHI	674	96.15%
1946	80.2%	709	CIN	716	100.99%	PHI	697	98.31%
1947	79.3%	703	BRO	720	102.42%	CIN	693	98.58%
1948	79.0%	704	BSN	714	101.42%	PHI	694	98.58%
1949	79.3%	707	NYG	722	102.12%	CHC	684	96.75%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1940	79.1%	691	CHW	715	103.47%	WSH	675	97.68%
1941	79.7%	698	NYY	714	102.29%	WSH	680	97.42%
1942	80.9%	706	NYY	721	102.12%	WSH	676	95.75%
1943	80.5%	714	NYY	725	101.54%	SLB	703	98.46%
1944	81.9%	702	NYY	712	101.42%	WSH	692	98.58%
1945	81.3%	707	NYY	716	101.27%	CHW	692	97.88%
1946	78.4%	703	NYY	715	101.71%	SLB	690	98.15%
1947	78.9%	712	CLE	734	103.09%	WSH	697	97.89%
1948	78.8%	704	CLE	731	103.84%	SLB	685	97.30%
1949	77.7%	707	CLE	724	102.40%	SLB	680	96.18%

Part II here.

Part I here.

The 1950s

Baseball started moving west with the Braves' move to Milwaukee in 1953, and the resulting shakeup ended the stranglehold of old, mostly smaller ballparks in the East. High walk rates, more power hitters and a few more strikeouts meant that balls in play rates were dropping, while defenses got stingier - the 71.6% of balls in play turned into outs in the NL in 1956 remains the league record.

I've written before about the advantage Casey Stengel's Yankees got from their defense and how it played into the superior performance of pitchers in pinstripes. But it was the Indians who were the true defensive juggernaut of that era, leading the AL seven times in the decade between 1947-56. The AL was truly defensively stratified in those years, with the upper tier of the Yankees, Indians and White Sox at the top and weak sisters like the Browns, Senators, A's and Tigers at the bottom. Park effects were part of that picture for the Yankees - for example, in 1955 the Yankees and their opponents had a BABIP of .265 at home, .278 on the road, compared to .272 at home, .269 on the road for the 1954 Indians.

The 111-win Indians were the best defensive team of the decade (the 1909 Pirates, who finished one point behind the Cubs, are the only team to win 110 games in a season without leading the league in DER), Durocher's 1950 Giants the best NL team, the 1955 Pirates and 1950 Browns the worst; the Pirates were perennially hapless. Four pennant-winning teams in each league led the league in DER, although as I've noted the Yankees often finished second or third in DER while winning the pennant, and the 1953 Dodgers and 1957 Braves just narrrowly missed the league lead.

I'd expected the Ashburn-era Phillies to lead the league more than once; the strangest league leaders were the 1952 Cubs, an also-ran team that featured one of the more plodding sluggers (Hank Sauer) ever to win the MVP.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1950	77.7%	707	NYG	729	103.11%	CHC	693	98.02%
1951	78.9%	711	NYG	721	101.41%	PIT	697	98.03%
1952	78.1%	713	CHC	723	101.40%	PIT	703	98.60%
1953	77.5%	702	MIL	715	101.85%	PIT	687	97.86%
1954	77.8%	707	NYG	722	102.12%	PIT	687	97.17%
1955	76.8%	714	PHI	728	101.96%	PIT	688	96.36%
1956	76.8%	716	BRO	730	101.96%	PIT	702	98.04%
1957	76.6%	706	BRO	717	101.56%	CHC	698	98.87%
1958	75.8%	703	MLN	721	102.56%	LAD	693	98.58%
1959	75.4%	701	CHC	714	101.85%	STL	685	97.72%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1950	77.6%	700	CLE	721	103.00%	SLB	676	96.57%
1951	78.6%	706	CLE	720	101.98%	SLB	686	97.17%
1952	77.9%	713	CHW	723	101.40%	DET	700	98.18%
1953	78.5%	706	CHW	720	101.98%	DET	682	96.60%
1954	77.9%	711	CLE	735	103.38%	PHA	689	96.91%
1955	76.7%	710	NYY	733	103.24%	WSH	689	97.04%
1956	75.3%	705	CLE	722	102.41%	WSH	683	96.88%
1957	76.6%	713	NYY	727	101.96%	WSH	694	97.34%
1958	76.2%	712	NYY	726	101.97%	WSH	697	97.89%
1959	76.0%	712	CLE	730	102.53%	KCA	691	97.05%

The 1960s

Rising strikeout rates, with the onset of expansion, new pitchers' parks in LA and Houston, and the expansion of the strike zone in 1963, are a major part of the story of pitching dominance in the Sixties; the AL in 1961, the year of Maris and Mantle, became the first league to see balls in play drop below 75% of plate appearances, and by 1964 it was down to 72.9%, the lowest it would be until 1987. Unsurprisingly, that started to loosen the relationship between defense and success - only three NL pennant winners led the league in DER, four in the AL, and the 1967 Twins came within a game of becoming the first team to finish first while being last in the league in DER.

Meanwhile, the story on balls in play showed a real split between the leagues: DERs actually declined in the NL, while reaching historic highs in the AL. The 724 DER in the AL in 1968 is the highest in Major League history, and the 743 figure by the 1969 Orioles is the highest ever recorded by a team. That Brooks Robinson-Mark Belanger-Davey Johnson infield and Paul Blair-led outfield really was impenetrable, and even adjusted for the league was the best of the decade, powering the O's to 109 wins. (Home/road split: .275 at home, .278 on the road).

The Dodgers of the Sixties did well on balls in play, even as they dominated the pitcher-controlled aspects of defense (if I recall correctly, the 1966 Dodgers still hold the team K/BB ratio record).

The 1962 Mets, surprisingly, did not have the league's worst DER (unlike the 1969 Seattle Pilots), finishing a point above the Astros; the 1969 Mets did lead the league (in fact, they led three years in a row from 1968-70), but other surprise teams of the decade did not - the 1967 Red Sox were just below the league average at 715, and the 1960 Pirates were also below average. Probably no team in this sample surprised me more with their poor defensive stats than the Pirates of the 1960s, finishing last in DER in 1961 and 1964 despite a lineup stocked with legendary defensive players like Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente and Bill Virdon as well as other respected glove men like Dick Schofield Sr. The other surprise, more on which later, was the persistent poor performance of the Astros.

The Yankee dynasty's collapse was reflected defensively, as the Yankees were second in DER in 1964 (at 726), but ninth in 1965 at 707.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1960	75.0%	703	LAD	714	101.56%	PHI	694	98.72%
1961	75.0%	699	MLN	721	103.15%	PIT	683	97.71%
1962	74.7%	695	SFG	710	102.16%	HOU	680	97.84%
1963	74.8%	706	MLN	721	102.12%	NYM	694	98.30%
1964	75.7%	698	LAD	709	101.58%	PIT	682	97.71%
1965	74.5%	704	LAD	727	103.27%	PHI	687	97.59%
1966	75.4%	699	STL	712	101.86%	HOU	687	98.28%
1967	75.1%	703	SFG	719	102.28%	HOU	683	97.16%
1968	75.8%	707	NYM	719	101.70%	HOU	690	97.60%
1969	73.6%	701	NYM	729	103.99%	HOU	683	97.43%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1960	75.8%	712	NYY	732	102.81%	BOS	688	96.63%
1961	74.7%	708	BAL	731	103.25%	KCA	689	97.32%
1962	74.7%	710	NYY	719	101.27%	LAA	702	98.87%
1963	74.4%	713	NYY	725	101.68%	WSA	701	98.32%
1964	72.9%	711	CHW	733	103.09%	BOS	683	96.06%
1965	73.3%	715	CHW	728	101.82%	BOS	692	96.78%
1966	73.9%	717	CHW	728	101.53%	BOS	704	98.19%
1967	73.4%	718	CHW	735	102.37%	MIN	704	98.05%
1968	74.0%	724	BAL	740	102.21%	WSA	702	96.96%
1969	73.7%	714	BAL	743	104.06%	SEP	691	96.78%

The 1970s

In the 1970s, even after the arrival of the DH, AL teams with top defenses tended to finish first in their divisions - 8 times in 11 years from 1969-79. In the NL, it was a different story, as teams like the Big Red Machine and the late-70s Pirates seemed often to lead the league in years other than the years those same teams finished first. The Dodgers led the league in DER four times between 1972 and 1978, and won the division the three years they didn't.

You've met two of the five teams since 1900 to better the league average in DER by 5% or more, the 1906 Cubs and 1939 Yankees, both great teams that left the rest of their league in the dust. But the third team was one left in the dust by another juggernaut: the 1975 Dodgers, who led the league in DER by 20 points over the 108-win Reds, while finishing 20 games behind them (it didn't help that the Dodgers underperformed their Pythagorean record by 7 games). Oddly, the very best Dodger defense came in a season when Bill Russell missed a good deal of time, but the then-youthful infield of Garvey, Lopes and Cey was otherwise tremendously durable, while 33-year-old Jimmie Wynn anchored the outfield defense (Wynn had also played on those late-60s Astros teams that perennially finished last in DER; go figure). Park effect? The Dodgers and their opponents combined for a .268 BABIP at home, .276 on the road, so the park seems to have had something to do with it. What about a pitching staff effect? Knuckleballer Charlie Hough had the team's lowest BABIP (.219), but Hough threw only 61 innings. 321 innings were thrown by curveballer Andy Messersmith, and there may be something to that - pitcher BABIP are available since 1950, and Messersmith has the lowest career BABIP of any pitcher with 2000 or more career innings at .243 (rounding out the top 10, he's followed by Catfish Hunter at .246, Hoyt Wilhelm at .250, Jim Palmer at .251, Hough at .253, Mudcat Grant at .258, Koufax at .259, Early Wynn at .260, and Tom Seaver and Warren Spahn at .262). The fact that that persisted across three teams (Angels, Dodgers and Braves) before he broke down in 1977 and that only Hunter's even close to him suggests that Messersmith may have had some ability in that area. On the other hand, you have knuckle-curve specialist Burt Hooton, making the case for it being the team: Hooton's BABIPs with the Cubs from 1972-94 were .278, .303 and .322, and .400 in the early going in 1975; after arriving with the Dodgers it dropped to .236, and was .253 over the next three seasons. Whether that's the defense or the park, it's evident that Hooton's sudden improvement was due to the environment he pitched in.

The best AL defense of the decade was the Orioles again in 1973 (featuring much of the same cast, but this time with Bobby Grich at second); Earl Weaver's defenses remained outstanding for years, as did Billy Martin's when he arrived in New York (and brought in Paul Blair, among others). The worst were the 1974 Cubs and 1970 White Sox. Those Cubs featured Bill Madlock at third, 31 year old Don Kessinger at short, and an outfield of three guys who later became professional pinch hitters (Rick Monday, Jose Cardenal and Jerry Morales) and a DH at first (Andre Thornton). That said, BABIPs were higher at home - .312 at home, .296 on the road - so even aside from the home run ball, the park likely exaggerated the Cubs's defensive failings in that era. Not for nothing did Rick Reuschel retire with a career BABIP of .294.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1970	73.3%	697	NYM	721	103.44%	STL	686	98.42%
1971	75.6%	706	CIN	727	102.97%	STL	689	97.59%
1972	74.7%	707	LAD	721	101.98%	HOU	695	98.30%
1973	75.1%	704	LAD	729	103.55%	CHC	687	97.59%
1974	75.9%	702	ATL	720	102.56%	CHC	672	95.73%
1975	76.3%	700	LAD	737	105.29%	CHC	673	96.14%
1976	77.0%	704	LAD	723	102.70%	SFG	691	98.15%
1977	75.2%	698	PIT	711	101.86%	ATL	677	96.99%
1978	76.2%	706	MON	718	101.70%	CIN	697	98.73%
1979	76.3%	700	HOU	719	102.71%	CHC	680	97.14%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1970	73.7%	710	OAK	728	102.54%	CHW	684	96.34%
1971	74.8%	714	OAK	730	102.24%	CHW	701	98.18%
1972	75.3%	718	BAL	740	103.06%	BOS	699	97.35%
1973	75.7%	701	BAL	731	104.28%	TEX	683	97.43%
1974	77.0%	702	BAL	716	101.99%	MIN	691	98.43%
1975	76.1%	703	BAL	731	103.98%	DET	683	97.16%
1976	77.7%	705	NYY	729	103.40%	CHW	693	98.30%
1977	76.3%	698	NYY	714	102.29%	CHW	682	97.71%
1978	77.7%	706	NYY	723	102.41%	TOR	690	97.73%
1979	77.4%	700	BAL	727	103.86%	OAK	678	96.86%

The 1980s

DERs in the AL finally dropped back in line with the NL by the late 70s, and the two leagues have mostly remained even since then. Balls in play percentages dropped in 1986, perhaps reflecting the rise in strikeouts occasioned by, among other things, the popularity of the split finger fastball and the increasing specialization of bullpens.

Best defensive team of the 80s: the Billyball A's of 1980. In the NL: the far less remembered 1982 Padres. Worst: the 1981 Indians and 1984 Giants. The Whitaker-Trammell-Chet Lemon Tigers also stand out, although they are not as remembered as a defensive unit (but see the career of Walt Terrell). Their DER was also 713 when they had their big year in 1984, 705 in 1987.

The 1980s might be the decade that defense mattered least. Only two teams, the 1985 Blue Jays and 1989 A's, finished first while leading the league in DER; the 1982 Giants came within two games of being the first team to finish first while being last in the league in DER, and a year later the "Wheeze Kids" Phillies turned the trick, remaining to this day the only team to be first in the standings and last in DER (the league hit .286 on BABIP against Cy Young winner John Denny, .329 against Steve Carlton). Those two teams had two things in common - an aging lineup (which for the Giants included Darrell Evans and Reggie Smith, the Phillies Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Gary Maddox, Mike Schmidt and Gary Matthews) and specifically, Joe Morgan at second base. I have to wonder about Morgan - it's not a surprise that he would be found on poor defensive teams as his bat kept a decaying glove in the lineup in his late 30s (don't forget, these were still good teams), but the Reds' only league lead in DER in the 70s was in 1971, the year before Morgan's arrival, and the Astros had routinely finished last during his years as their second baseman in the 60s. Could all be a coincidence, as Morgan's defensive stats seem to suggest he was a fine glove man in his prime, but it bears closer examination.

The 1989 Yankees became the first Yankees team to finish last in the league in DER since 1933. The Mets finished second in the NL in DER in 1985, third in 1986. The Red Sox at 686 were below average in 1986, but at least not in the cellar as they were in 1985 and 1987.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1980	77.0%	700	LAD	715	102.14%	CHC	680	97.14%
1981	77.2%	704	HOU	721	102.41%	CHC	686	97.44%
1982	76.3%	701	SDP	725	103.42%	SFG	688	98.15%
1983	74.9%	702	HOU	718	102.28%	PHI	685	97.58%
1984	75.1%	698	SDP	721	103.30%	SFG	676	96.85%
1985	75.0%	706	STL	718	101.70%	ATL	691	97.88%
1986	73.3%	700	HOU	721	103.00%	CHC	678	96.86%
1987	73.1%	696	PIT	711	102.16%	CHC	677	97.27%
1988	75.3%	708	CIN	723	102.12%	ATL	692	97.74%
1989	74.3%	709	SFG	725	102.26%	PHI	699	98.59%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1980	77.7%	698	OAK	727	104.15%	TEX	676	96.85%
1981	77.6%	711	DET	740	104.08%	CLE	678	95.36%
1982	76.6%	704	DET	725	102.98%	CHW	688	97.73%
1983	77.0%	699	DET	726	103.86%	CAL	683	97.71%
1984	76.1%	699	BAL	715	102.29%	SEA	683	97.71%
1985	75.2%	703	TOR	724	102.99%	BOS	690	98.15%
1986	73.5%	699	DET	719	102.86%	SEA	670	95.85%
1987	72.7%	697	CHW	714	102.44%	BOS	674	96.70%
1988	75.1%	702	DET	718	102.28%	CLE	692	98.58%
1989	75.3%	698	OAK	715	102.44%	NYY	683	97.85%

The 1990s

DERs dropped sharply in 1993, inaugurating the era of...well, the Steroids Era, if you prefer. Or in the NL, perhaps the Mile High/Coors era. There were also ever fewer balls in play, with more and more homers, strikeouts and walks. Four NL teams finished first in DER and first in their division, three AL teams including the 1998 Yankees (the only Jeter-era Yankees team to finish either first or last in DER).

The worst defensive teams of the decade were the 1999 Rockies and 1997 A's (the start of the "Moneyball" era - the A's often fielded Jason Giambi and Matt Stairs in the outfield corners - although the winning A's teams of a few years later would be above-average defensively, leading the AL in 2005). The Rockies' home/road splits were so vast - .374 at home, .306 on the road in 1999 - that it's almost impossible to evaluate their defense as such.

The 1990s also brought us the fourth of the five great defensive teams, the 1999 Reds, who led the league by a margin of 17 points over the Mets on the way to losing a one-game playoff for the wild card when their bats were stifled by Al Leiter. That Reds team is not recalled as widely as a great defense - it was the Mets that year who got the Sports Illustrated cover asking if they had the best infield ever - but with Barry Larkin, Mike Cameron and Pokey Reese, they had an outstanding defensive unit. Their home/road splits - .306 at home, .312 on the road - suggest that they did it without a huge amount of help from their home park.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1990	74.4%	701	MON	713	101.71%	ATL	676	96.43%
1991	74.0%	706	ATL	714	101.13%	NYM	689	97.59%
1992	74.8%	705	CHC	716	101.56%	LAD	685	97.16%
1993	74.2%	692	ATL	711	102.75%	COL	664	95.95%
1994	72.8%	688	SFG	707	102.76%	COL	664	96.51%
1995	71.9%	688	CIN	699	101.60%	PIT	669	97.24%
1996	71.5%	687	STL	706	102.77%	HOU	667	97.09%
1997	71.2%	688	LAD	706	102.62%	COL	667	96.95%
1998	71.3%	689	ARI	704	102.18%	FLA	669	97.10%
1999	70.7%	687	CIN	722	105.09%	COL	659	95.92%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
1990	74.4%	699	OAK	732	104.72%	CAL	681	97.42%
1991	74.1%	699	CHW	728	104.15%	CLE	678	97.00%
1992	75.0%	702	MIL	725	103.28%	TEX	680	96.87%
1993	73.7%	693	BAL	704	101.59%	MIN	679	97.98%
1994	72.3%	687	BAL	706	102.77%	SEA	669	97.38%
1995	72.3%	690	BAL	716	103.77%	DET	672	97.39%
1996	71.7%	683	MIN	694	101.61%	BOS	665	97.36%
1997	71.6%	684	BAL	699	102.19%	OAK	660	96.49%
1998	72.0%	686	NYY	708	103.21%	TEX	668	97.38%
1999	71.8%	683	ANA	699	102.34%	TBD	661	96.78%

The 2000s

Is defense the new market inefficiency? Maybe in the National League, as eight first-place teams led the league in DER between 2000 and 2010 compared to three in the AL (plus the 2002 Angels, who didn't finish first but did win 99 games and the World Series). Even with BIP percentages dropping, marginal advantages in defense can still help make a division winner.

Worst DERs of the decade: the 2007 Rays and Marlins, both scraping just above 650. Best in the NL: the 2009 Dodgers. And the fifth and final team to beat the league by 5% or more - indeed, second only to the 1939 Yankees at 105.52% - the 2001 Mariners, who tied the 1906 Cubs' record of 116 regular season wins. The Mariners featured Ichiro, John Olerud, Bret Boone, Carlos Guillen, and yes, Mike Cameron in center again. They got some help from Safeco (home/road split of .300/.322), where they led the AL again in 2003 (Cameron's last year there) and 2004.

Then there's the 2007-08 Rays. As I noted before the 2008 season, Baseball Prospectus' optimistic PECOTA projection for the Rays required them to massively improve on their MLB-worst team defense; as I noted that October, they did just that, to the point where nearly the entire turnaround to a pennant-winning team was a function of becoming the MLB's best defensive team in one year. This made them just the ninth team ever to go worst-to-first in their league in DER in one year (other unsurprising names on that list include the Billyball A's and the 1991 Braves), and aside from a team from 1878, Tampa's defensive improvement was the largest leap of any of those teams, a 56-point or 8.6% improvement, which made their pitching staff much better without changing its personnel. The Rays did this returning five regulars - Carl Crawford, BJ Upton, Akinori Iwamura, Carlos Pena and Dioner Navarro - although Upton in 2007 was still learning center field as a new position, and Iwamura moved from third to second in 2008. Adding Evan Longoria and Jason Bartlett, plus clearing out some less mobile players and letting the incumbents settle in, led to a historic turnaround:

Team	Years	DER1	DER2	Change	Change %
CIN	1877-78	561	638	77	113.7%
TBR	2007-08	652	708	56	108.6%
CLV	1891-92	645	697	52	108.1%
PHI	1914-15	666	715	49	107.4%
OAK	1979-80	678	727	49	107.2%
BOS	1913-14	670	709	39	105.8%
ATL	1990-91	676	714	38	105.6%
WSH	1923-24	673	709	36	105.3%
NYY	1933-34	682	703	21	103.1%

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
2000	70.3%	689	CIN	702	101.89%	MON	672	97.53%
2001	70.4%	693	ARI	703	101.44%	MON	682	98.41%
2002	71.2%	695	LAD	716	103.02%	SDP	675	97.12%
2003	71.6%	694	SFG	710	102.31%	COL	678	97.69%
2004	71.2%	693	LAD	711	102.60%	COL	677	97.69%
2005	72.0%	693	HOU	705	101.73%	COL	670	96.68%
2006	71.2%	690	SDP	710	102.90%	PIT	674	97.68%
2007	71.5%	688	CHC	704	102.33%	FLA	659	95.78%
2008	70.5%	689	CHC	703	102.03%	CIN	671	97.39%
2009	70.2%	692	LAD	713	103.03%	HOU	677	97.83%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
2000	71.7%	684	ANA	699	102.19%	TEX	667	97.51%
2001	72.3%	689	SEA	727	105.52%	CLE	670	97.24%
2002	72.4%	695	ANA	718	103.31%	CLE	674	96.98%
2003	73.2%	694	SEA	721	103.89%	TEX	674	97.12%
2004	72.1%	689	SEA	699	101.45%	KCR	674	97.82%
2005	73.5%	694	OAK	715	103.03%	KCR	666	95.97%
2006	72.6%	685	DET	701	102.34%	TBD	671	97.96%
2007	72.1%	684	BOS	704	102.92%	TBD	652	95.32%
2008	71.9%	688	TBR	708	102.91%	TEX	666	96.80%
2009	70.8%	688	SEA	712	103.49%	KCR	675	98.11%

The 2010s

History continues to march on: the NL in 2010 became the first league in baseball history to have less than 70% of all plate appearances result in a ball put in play.

2011 stats are through May 31, 2011. DERs can be volatile in-season; I noted a few weeks ago that the Astros were at 648, 633 around the beginning of May, which would have set them on pace as the first defensive team since the 1930 Phillies to finish below 650, but since replacing Angel Sanchez with Clint Barmes they've been on an upward trajectory, and are no longer even last in their division. As you can see, the Cubs are having a terrible defensive year, while the Braves and those Rays again (even sans Carl Crawford and Jason Bartlett) are flying high. The AL (unlike the NL) is above 700 this season, the first time either league has cracked 700 since 1992.

National League

	BIP%	NL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
2010	69.7%	689	SFG	707	102.61%	PIT	671	97.39%
2011	70.2%	695	ATL	716	103.02%	CHC	665	95.68%

American League

	BIP%	AL	High	DER	High %	Low	DER	Low %
2010	71.4%	694	OAK	711	102.45%	KCR	679	97.84%
2011	71.6%	702	TBR	723	102.99%	CHW	691	98.43%

Part I here.

Part 6 of my very-belated preseason previews is the NL Central (last as always); this is the sixth and last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West, NL East.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Milwaukee Brewers

Raw EWSL: 220.00 (87 W)
Adjusted: 232.93 (91 W)
Age-Adj.: 223.33 (88 W)
WS Age: 28.94
2011 W-L: 88-74

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Jonathan Lucroy*	2	5
1B	27	Prince Fielder	27	28
2B	28	Rickie Weeks	20	20
SS	29	Yuniesky Betancourt	10	10
3B	28	Casey McGehee	17	21
RF	29	Corey Hart	15	14
CF	25	Carlos Gomez	6	7
LF	27	Ryan Braun	28	29
C2	33	Wil Nieves	3	3
INF	40	Craig Counsell	9	5
OF	30	Nyjer Morgan	10	9
12	35	Mark Kotsay	5	4
13	30	Jeremy Reed	1	1
SP1	27	Zack Greinke	17	15
SP2	25	Yovanni Gallardo	9	10
SP3	29	Shaun Marcum	9	8
SP4	34	Randy Wolf	10	8
SP5	29	Chris Narveson#	4	4
RP1	28	John Axford*	6	10
RP2	29	Kameron Loe	3	2
RP3	41	Takashi Saito	6	4
RP4	30	Sergio Mitre	2	1
RP5	23	Zack Braddock*	2	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. Greinke's missed some time, but then EWSL probably underrates Gallardo and Marcum due to injury risks.

Also on Hand: Position players - George Kottaras, Brandon Boggs, Erick Almonte.

Pitchers - Brandon Kintzler, Sean Green, Marco Estrada, Mitch Stetter, LaTroy Hawkins.

Analysis: Just look at the ages of the Brewers' starting lineup to see why EWSL rates them the class of the division - having a whole bunch of guys right in their prime is sometimes more important than having the most talent in the abstract.

Cincinnati Reds

Raw EWSL: 214.17 (85 W)
Adjusted: 230.53 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 219.32 (86 W)
WS Age: 29.42
2011 W-L: 86-76

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Ramon Hernandez	12	9
1B	27	Joey Votto	28	29
2B	30	Brandon Phillips	19	17
SS	28	Paul Janish#	6	7
3B	36	Scott Rolen	17	12
RF	24	Jay Bruce	12	16
CF	26	Drew Stubbs#	11	14
LF	30	Jonny Gomes	13	11
C2	30	Ryan Hanigan	10	9
INF	37	Miguel Cairo	3	2
OF	30	Fred Lewis	10	9
12	35	Edgar Renteria	8	6
13	27	Jeremy Hermida	8	8
SP1	34	Bronson Arroyo	13	11
SP2	27	Ednison Volquez	5	4
SP3	25	Johnny Cueto	9	10
SP4	24	Travis Wood*	3	7
SP5	25	Homer Bailey	4	5
RP1	36	Francisco Cordero	11	10
RP2	23	Aroldis Chapman+	1	5
RP3	26	Logan Ondreysuk*	3	5
RP4	29	Nick Masset	8	6
RP5	23	Mike Leake*	4	8

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Chris Heisey, Juan Francisco, Yonder Alonso, Chris Valaika.

Pitchers - Jordan Smith, Bill Bray, Matt Maloney, Carlos Fisher.

Analysis: The Reds' starting rotation remains unsettled, but there's definitely pitching talent there.

Francisco Cordero is now second on the active saves list - he's never really been a spectacular closer, but his low HR rate more than anything else, especially in the parks he's worked in, has kept him steady year in and year out.

St. Louis Cardinals

Raw EWSL: 224.33 (88 W)
Adjusted: 239.50 (93 W)
Age-Adj.: 217.52 (86 W)
WS Age: 30.70
2011 W-L: 86-76

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Yadier Molina	18	18
1B	31	Albert Pujols	35	29
2B	31	Skip Schumaker	16	13
SS	31	Ryan Theriot	14	12
3B	28	David Freese#	4	5
RF	35	Lance Berkman	20	15
CF	24	Colby Rasmus#	13	20
LF	31	Matt Holliday	24	21
C2	31	Gerald Laird	9	8
INF	33	Nick Punto	8	7
OF	26	John Jay*	4	9
12	26	Allen Craig*	1	2
13	27	Tyler Greene#	1	1
SP1	36	Chris Carpenter	14	12
SP2	24	Jaime Garcia*	6	14
SP3	33	Jake Westbrook	5	4
SP4	32	Kyle Lohse	3	2
SP5	27	Kyle McClellan	7	6
RP1	27	Mitchell Boggs	3	2
RP2	29	Jason Motte#	4	4
RP3	26	Fernando Salas*	1	1
RP4	40	Miguel Batista	4	3
RP5	38	Ryan Franklin	11	9

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Daniel Descalso, Mark Hamilton.

Pitchers - Adam Wainwright (out for the season), Eduardo Sanchez, Brian Tallet, Bryan Augenstein.

Analysis: The current division leaders, still hoping they can outrun the loss of Wainwright. Pujols' slow start this season is yet another reminder of the pitiless march of age, but Tony LaRussa still always manages to find some veterans - so far, Lance Berkman - who buck that trend long enough to contribute. Meanwhile, Matt Holliday has been worth every penny of his enormous salary. I was high on David Freese before the season, but he's yet to prove he can make it through a full season.

The weak point, by EWSL, is the bullpen, so if LaRussa and Duncan can work some magic in getting more out of an unimpressive assortment, the Cards could continue overachieve.

Chicago Cubs

Raw EWSL: 204.50 (81 W)
Adjusted: 229.37 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 213.68 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.91
2011 W-L: 84-78

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Geovany Soto	14	14
1B	33	Carlos Pena	17	15
2B	25	Darwin Barney+	1	11
SS	21	Starlin Castro*	6	15
3B	33	Aramis Ramirez	16	14
RF	34	Kosuke Fukudome	15	13
CF	33	Marlon Byrd	18	16
LF	35	Alfonso Soriano	14	10
C2	30	Jeff Baker	6	5
INF	25	Blake DeWitt	10	12
OF	34	Reed Johnson	5	4
12	25	Tyler Colvin*	5	11
13	32	Koyie Hill	4	3
SP1	34	Ryan Dempster	13	11
SP2	27	Matt Garza	11	10
SP3	30	Carlos Zambrano	12	10
SP4	28	Randy Wells#	9	10
SP5	24	Andrew Cashner*	1	2
RP1	28	Carlos Marmol	13	13
RP2	28	Sean Marshall	7	7
RP3	34	Kerry Wood	6	5
RP4	32	John Grabow	3	3
RP5	23	Casey Coleman*	2	3

Subjective Adjustments: None, although obviously the injuries to Wells and Cashner have been costly.

Also on Hand: Pitchers - Marcos Mateo, Jeff Samardzjia, James Russell, Justin Berg, Jeff Stevens.

Analysis: The Cubs are not a bad team, and they're good enough to swipe a title in a weak division with a few breaks (a harder thing to swing when the division has six teams) but - not to harp on age again here - they're a rebuilding team. Seriously: EWSL rates Marlon Byrd as their best player, once you apply the age adjustments. (Byrd may still be a solid glove but compared to the other center fielders in this division he's in awfully fast company).

Thus far, they've been laboring without Wells and Cashner, both injured.

Houston Astros

Raw EWSL: 172.00 (71 W)
Adjusted: 191.31 (77 W)
Age-Adj.: 172.28 (71 W)
WS Age: 30.10
2011 W-L: 71-91

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Humberto Quintero	5	4
1B	24	Brett Wallace*	1	1
2B	31	Bill Hall	8	7
SS	27	Angel Sanchez*	4	7
3B	26	Chris Johnson*	8	16
RF	28	Hunter Pence	19	20
CF	28	Michael Bourn	18	18
LF	35	Carlos Lee	17	13
C2	27	JR Towles	1	1
INF	32	Clint Barmes	11	9
OF	35	Jason Michaels	5	4
12	31	Jeff Keppinger	14	12
13	33	Joe Inglett	5	4
SP1	30	Brett Myers	11	9
SP2	32	Wandy Rodriguez	12	10
SP3	28	JA Happ#	8	9
SP4	26	Bud Norris#	3	3
SP5	37	Nelson Figueroa	6	5
RP1	31	Brandon Lyon	12	9
RP2	26	Mark Melancon*	1	2
RP3	31	Jeff Fluchino#	3	3
RP4	25	Enerio Del Rosario+	1	4
RP5	25	Fernando Abad*	1	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jason Bourgeois, Matt Downs, Brian Bogusovic.

Pitchers - Aneury Rodriguez, Wilton Lopez, Jose Valdez.

Analysis: The Astros' Defensive Efficiency Rating, at this writing, is .648. No team has finished a full season below .650 since the 1930 Phillies (the 2007 Rays were the closest in recent decades, at .652 - which they followed with a historic one-season improvement to the best in MLB in 2008 - although the Cubs also had some appalling defenses in the 70s). Unless they can fix the infield (Johnson and Sanchez have been horribly error-prone, contributing to the low DER), it's gonna be a long season for the Houston pitching staff.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Raw EWSL: 136.83 (59 W)
Adjusted: 165.50 (68 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.48 (74 W)
Subj. Adj.: 176.48 (72 W)
WS Age: 27.75
2011 W-L: 72-90

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Chris Snyder	8	7
1B	34	Lyle Overbay	14	12
2B	25	Neil Walker*	8	19
SS	28	Ronny Cedeno	8	8
3B	24	Pedro Alvarez*	7	18
RF	30	Garrett Jones#	10	11
CF	24	Andrew McCutchen#	17	26
LF	22	Jose Tabata*	7	27
C2	30	Ryan Doumit	9	8
INF	26	Brandon Wood	1	1
OF	33	Matt Diaz	8	7
12	28	Steven Pearce	2	2
13	26	Xavier Paul*	0	0
SP1	30	Kevin Corriea	3	3
SP2	29	Paul Maholm	6	5
SP3	27	Charlie Morton	1	1
SP4	28	Ross Ohlendorf	6	5
SP5	28	Jeff Karstens	2	2
RP1	29	Joel Hanrahan	6	5
RP2	28	Evan Meek#	6	7
RP3	30	Jose Veras	4	3
RP4	34	Joe Beimel	5	4
RP5	28	Daniel McCutchen#	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: I cut Tabata from 27 to 22; the projected leap based solely on his age just looks too steep. Absent that, the Bucs would have ranked ahead of the Astros. No others, although Ohlendorf has been out of action for a while, with James McDonald filling his slot in the rotation.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jason Jaramillo, John Bowker, Josh Rodriguez.

Pitchers - James McDonald, Chris Resop, Michael Crotta, Garrett Olson, Danny Moskos.

Analysis: You know the perennial Pirates storylines; this year, it's back to letting the kids play and build on their good starts. Optimism will only set in when we see proof the kids will not just develop but develop in Pittsburgh.

And the pitching still stinks, so even a surprise by the offense won't deliver any glass slippers to PNC Park.

Read More »

Jose Reyes has 11 doubles and 6 triples through 34 games this season - totals that, if he kept this pace all season, would leave him with 52 doubles and 29 triples. How unprecedented is that? One way to look at it is that nobody's ever hit 50 doubles and 25 triples in the same season. Another is that Reyes projects to get - even before you factor in steals (he's also on pace for 57 of those) - 110 extra bases just from doubles and triples. That would break the (admittedly obscure) record of 96 by Shoeless Joe Jackson going away; only 9 players have notched as many as 90 in a season, and only one of them (Stan Musial in 1946) in post-World War II era baseball. I included Curtis Granderson's 2007, the closest modern season, for comparison. Note that one of the guys on this list, Tip O'Neill of the old St. Louis Browns of the American Association, managed this in a 138-game schedule; he also batted .435. Relatedly, 1887 was the only year in the history of the majors when it took four strikes to notch a strikeout.

Player	Year	2B	3B	PA	ExB
Jose Reyes (proj.)	2011	52	29	772	110
Shoeless Joe Jackson	1912	44	26	653	96
Kiki Cuyler	1925	43	26	700	95
Ty Cobb	1911	47	24	654	95
Adam Comorosky	1930	47	23	685	93
Ty Cobb	1917	44	24	669	92
Chief Wilson	1912	19	36	643	91
Stan Musial	1946	50	20	702	90
Joe Medwick	1936	64	13	677	90
Tip O'Neill	1887	52	19	572	90
Curtis Granderson	2007	38	23	676	84

Talk about your salary drives. Whatever other complaints Mets fans have this year, lack of a Grade A performance by Reyes hasn't been one of them.

Part 5 of my very-belated preseason previews is the NL East; this is the fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Atlanta Braves

Raw EWSL: 190.33 (77 W)
Adjusted: 232.78 (91 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.45 (88 W)
Subj. Adj.: 221.45 (87 W)
WS Age: 29.18
2011 W-L: 87-75

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Brian McCann	19	20
1B	21	Freddie Freeman+	0	11
2B	31	Dan Uggla	22	19
SS	34	Alex Gonzalez	12	10
3B	39	Chipper Jones	17	13
RF	21	Jason Heyward*	12	28
CF	29	Nate McLouth	12	12
LF	27	Martin Prado	17	17
C2	34	David Ross	6	5
INF	33	Eric Hinske	7	6
OF	28	Matt Young+	0	4
12	31	Brooks Conrad*	4	7
13	28	Joe Mather	1	1
SP1	35	Tim Hudson	13	10
SP2	24	Tommy Hanson#	9	13
SP3	25	Jair Jurrjens	10	11
SP4	38	Derek Lowe	11	9
SP5	24	Brandon Beachy	0	4
RP1	23	Craig Kimbrel*	2	5
RP2	26	Johnny Venters*	5	10
RP3	26	Eric O'Flaherty	4	4
RP4	34	Scott Linebrink	3	3
RP5	34	George Sherrill	6	4

Subjective Adjustments: I docked Martin Prado 2 Win Shares (dropping him from 17 to 15), which is a very conservative estimate of his reduced defensive value on moving to left field - I'd have docked him further but his ability to slide back into the middle infield remains valuable and could yet be called upon by the Braves. Also docked Freddie Freeman 1 Win Share, as his youth, limited minor league track record and slow start raise at least some questions about his value. But I didn't want to tinker too much here.

Although Beachy looks for now like he should comfortably exceed 4 WS, you can never count your chickens with rookie starting pitchers.

Also on Hand: Position players - Brandon Hicks, JC Bosan, Jordan Schafer.

Pitchers - Peter Moylan, Kris Medlen, Rodrigo Lopez, Cristhian Martinez (I swear some of these guys' names are misspelled with malice aforethought), Cory Gearin, Jairo Asencio, Mike Minor.

Analysis: Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are that the Braves rate ahead of the Phillies, especially when you consider that EWSL has the Phillies as a 101-win team before applying the age adjustments. I take it with a grain of salt, though; the margin isn't large, and it's not hard to see how, say, Brooks Conrad could contribute less this year or Jason Heyward could fail to take The Leap (even the great ones don't always move in straight lines), in addition to the issues noted with Prado and Freeman. But as discussed below, the ranking says more about the Phillies than it does about the Braves.

Philadelphia Phillies

Raw EWSL: 264.17 (101 W)
Adjusted: 264.43 (101 W)
Age-Adj.: 215.86 (85 W)
WS Age: 32.48
2011 W-L: 85-77

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Carlos Ruiz	15	12
1B	31	Ryan Howard	23	19
2B	32	Chase Utley	28	22
SS	32	Jimmy Rollins	17	14
3B	35	Placido Polanco	18	13
RF	29	Ben Francisco	7	7
CF	30	Shane Victorino	22	20
LF	39	Raul Ibanez	19	14
C2	34	Brian Schneider	5	4
INF	33	Wilson Valdez	5	4
OF	35	Ross Gload	5	3
12	32	Pete Orr	1	1
13	27	John Mayberry#	1	1
SP1	34	Roy Halladay	23	19
SP2	32	Cliff Lee	18	14
SP3	33	Roy Oswalt	15	10
SP4	27	Cole Hamels	14	13
SP5	30	Joe Blanton	7	6
RP1	34	Brad Lidge	7	5
RP2	39	Jose Contreras	6	5
RP3	30	Ryan Madson	9	7
RP4	33	Danys Baez	2	1
RP5	27	Antonio Bastardo#	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: None. I might have had some issues regarding how to value Domonic Brown, but for now, since Brown has zero value based on his prior major league experience and isn't available to play right now, I'm just treating him like any other prospect not yet on the roster.

Also on Hand: Position players - Domonic Brown, Dane Sardinha, Josh Barfield, Brian Bocock.

Pitchers - JC Romero, Kyle Kendrick, David Herndon, Scott Mathieson, Michael Stutts, Mike Zajuski, Vance Worley. Note that the gap with the Braves disappears if you replace Bastardo on the 23-man roster with Romero.

Analysis: It's not quite "The Devil and Joe Morgan" - Bill James' memorable essay on how the 1983 "Wheeze Kids" Phillies confronted an aging roster not by rebuilding but by bringing in even more, even older players to squeeze out one last championship - as this Phillies team's key players aren't as old as, say, the Hated Yankees' and the main import, Cliff Lee, is hardly decrepit at 32. But age is everywhere up and down this roster, and its grim companion - injuries - has already taken a toll on Chase Utley and Brad Lidge. Meanwhile, ill fortune has struck in other ways - besides the injury to young Brown, Roy Oswalt has left the team for an indeterminate amount of time to deal with an undisclosed personal issue (which could be anything, whether it's an issue with Oswalt or his family - we just can't know how serious it is or how long he'll be away).

I still see the Phillies as the team to beat in this division, assuming Oswalt's not out for long; their starting pitching is fearsome, and the offense, if no longer terrifying, remains deep. But aging teams have a way sometimes of falling short of their name-brand value.

Florida Marlins

Raw EWSL: 170.67 (70 W)
Adjusted: 198.16 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 195.68 (78 W)
WS Age: 27.47
2011 W-L: 78-84

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	John Buck	12	11
1B	27	Gaby Sanchez*	9	18
2B	29	Omar Infante	13	13
SS	27	Hanley Ramirez	28	29
3B	26	Emilio Bonifacio	5	6
RF	21	Mike Stanton*	7	16
CF	26	Chris Coghlan	11	14
LF	23	Logan Morrison*	5	11
C2	27	Brett Hayes*	1	2
INF	32	Greg Dobbs	3	2
OF	26	Scott Cousins+	1	4
12	35	Wes Helms	6	4
13	28	Donnie Murphy	2	2
SP1	27	Josh Johnson	15	14
SP2	27	Anibal Sanchez	7	7
SP3	28	Ricky Nolasco	8	7
SP4	34	Javier Vazquez	10	8
SP5	24	Chris Volstad	6	6
RP1	27	Leo Nunez	9	8
RP2	31	Clay Hensley	6	4
RP3	27	Edward Mujica	3	3
RP4	25	Ryan Webb#	2	3
RP5	32	Brian Sanches#	5	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Osvaldo Martinez, Bryan Petersen, John Baker (injured).

Pitchers - Randy Choate, Michael Dunn, Burke Badenhop.

Analysis: The Marlins are off to an odd start, 19-10 entering today's action even with their star, Hanley Ramirez, off to his second straight terrible start, .198/.308/.277, and a few other early problems - Infante's not hitting, Morrison's on the DL, and perhaps more predictably, Vazquez and Volstad have been horrible. Does this bode well for them? Maybe. Certainly Josh Johnson just keeps getting better - he's now 36-12 with a 2.78 ERA since his return in 2008, and in his last 224.2 IP his line is awe-inspiring: 2.04 ERA, 6.9 H/9, 0.3 HR/9, 2.4 BB/9, 9.0 K/9. And the development of Sanchez and the young outfield is encouraging - Stanton now has 27 HR and a .511 career slugging average in 126 career games, Sanchez has a career line of .281/.350/.458, Morrison .291/.397/.482 as a doubles-and-walks machine after posting OBPs of .402, .408 and .424 from age 20-22 in the minors. But recent history suggests that this team may have trouble keeping the rotation healthy (and perhaps the outfield as well). That and their perennially questionable defense will be the main question marks.

New York Mets

Raw EWSL: 176.83 (72 W)
Adjusted: 198.93 (80 W)
Age-Adj.: 192.38 (77 W)
WS Age: 29.32
2011 W-L: 77-85

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Josh Thole*	5	10
1B	24	Ike Davis*	8	21
2B	26	Daniel Murphy	4	5
SS	28	Jose Reyes	15	16
3B	28	David Wright	23	24
RF	34	Carlos Beltran	14	12
CF	29	Angel Pagan	16	15
LF	32	Jason Bay	19	15
C2	28	Mike Nickeas+	0	4
INF	26	Justin Turner+	0	4
OF	31	Scott Hairston	9	7
12	33	Willie Harris	7	6
13	30	Ronnie Paulino	7	6
SP1	27	Mike Pelfrey	9	8
SP2	36	RA Dickey	9	8
SP3	24	Jonathan Niese*	3	7
SP4	32	Chris Young	3	2
SP5	32	Chris Capuano	2	1
RP1	29	Francisco Rodriguez	12	10
RP2	26	Bobby Parnell#	2	3
RP3	29	Taylor Buchholz	2	2
RP4	34	DJ Carrasco	5	4
RP5	37	Tim Byrdak	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jason Pridie, Lucas Duda, Chin-Lung Hu. Brad Emaus opened the season as the everyday 2B but, being a Rule V pick, left the organization when he was sent down.

Pitchers - Johan Santana, who is unlikely enough to return this season as to not be worth inclusion. Jason Isringhausen, Dillon Gee, Pedro Beato (one of the team's few effective relievers so far but currently disabled), Pat Misch, Ryota Igarashi.

I've rated Parnell with the big club, although after early struggles he got shipped back to AAA. I'll be surprised if he's not back soon.

Analysis: I could, and probably should soon separately, write a lot more about these Mets, but I'll try to be brief here in the interests of getting this post done. In addition to time constraints, one of the sad realities of my blogging life is the number of subjects I can't really write about due to possible overlaps with my job, and now that has even invaded the core of my baseball blogging, as the Mets' financial mess is too tied up with the world of Madoff and my practice specialty - securities litigation - for me to address freely except in the most general terms.

I've been saying all year that I think this is a .500 team, which in the context of the prevailing mood among Mets fans makes me decidedly bullish. The starting rotation has been the biggest threat to that so far (we already knew the bullpen would be a mess).

The biggest variable, in terms of both upside and downside, is the outfield, which now includes as well Angel Pagan, who got off to a terrible start before getting hurt. Here's Carlos Beltran, 2001-2010: .283/.366/.509 2011, entering today's action: .294/.379/.520 - he's the same hitter (his 148 OPS+ would be the second-best of his career after his 2006 season), just not the same fielder and baserunner he was before the knee injury. With his contract up at season's end, Beltran could be traded to a contender later in the season if he is willing to go. (Jose Reyes might too, but I can't really analyze the wisdom of that without getting into the team's finances).
As for Bay, the Mets spent half as much on him as the Cardinals spent on Matt Holliday, and right now would kill for half of Holliday's production; his .258/.344/.399 line with 7 homers in 445 plate appearances suggests more than just an adjustment period, after leaving Boston after his age 30 season. The most encouraging sign has been the development of Ike Davis into something like the kind of slugger you need at first base. Unless you count Rico Brogna, the only home-grown power-hitting first baseman in club history is John Milner.

Washington Nationals

Raw EWSL: 154.17 (65 W)
Adjusted: 166.37 (69 W)
Age-Adj.: 154.41 (65 W)
WS Age: 30.05
2011 W-L: 65-97

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Wilson Ramos*	2	4
1B	31	Adam LaRoche	16	14
2B	24	Danny Espinosa*	2	5
SS	25	Ian Desmond*	6	13
3B	26	Ryan Zimmerman	20	22
RF	32	Jayson Werth	23	18
CF	31	Rick Ankiel	6	5
LF	29	Mike Morse	5	5
C2	39	Ivan Rodriguez	8	6
INF	35	Jerry Hairston	11	8
OF	30	Laynce Nix	4	4
12	43	Matt Stairs	4	2
13	35	Alex Cora	4	3
SP1	36	Livan Hernandez	7	6
SP2	25	Jordan Zimmerman#	2	2
SP3	26	John Lannan	7	7
SP4	32	Jason Marquis	6	5
SP5	28	Tom Gorzelanny	4	4
RP1	23	Drew Storen*	3	6
RP2	26	Tyler Clippard#	6	8
RP3	28	Sean Burnett	6	5
RP4	31	Doug Slaten	2	1
RP5	30	Todd Coffey	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jesus Flores (injured), Roger Bernadina, Brian Bixler.

Pitchers - Steven Strasburg (injured, as you know), Chien-Ming Wang, Chad Gaudin, Brian Broderick, Collin Balester, Henry Rodriguez, Yunieski Maya.

Analysis: If you can explain the Phillies' decisions as a desperate rage against the dying of the light and the Mets' as the external symptoms of the team's financial situation, the Nationals' behavior seems to manifest a sort of organization-wide post-traumatic stress disorder following Steven Strasburg's injury, as if the team just said "to hell with having a plan," let Adam Dunn walk, blew through some money on mid-career mid-market free agents (Adam LaRoche, Jayson Werth), patched holes with slapdash additions like Rick Ankiel and Tom Gorzelanny, and then sat back and declared, "ah, that'll do" and went out to go on a bender. Another way of putting it is that the Nationals figured there was really no plan that could get them to a successful 2011, and decided to just throw a coat of paint over the team to avoid looking like they were giving up completely. But the real rebuilding will be on hold until 2012.

Read More »

Part 4 of my very-belated preseason previews is the NL West; this is the fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West, AL East & AL Central.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

World Champion San Francisco Giants

Raw EWSL: 239.17 (96 W)
Adjusted: 264.00 (101 W)
Age-Adj.: 248.71 (96 W)
WS Age: 29.59
2011 W-L: 96-66

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Buster Posey*	10	26
1B	23	Brandon Belt+	0	11
2B	33	Freddy Sanchez	13	11
SS	37	Miguel Tejada	19	12
3B	24	Pablo Sandoval	15	19
RF	34	Aubrey Huff	20	17
CF	33	Aaron Rowand	11	9
LF	34	Pat Burrell	12	11
C2	31	Eli Whiteside#	2	2
INF	31	Mike Fontenot	8	7
OF	33	Andres Torres#	14	12
12	27	Nate Schierholtz	6	6
13	30	Cody Ross	15	13
SP1	27	Tim Lincecum	19	17
SP2	26	Matt Cain	17	18
SP3	28	Jonathan Sanchez	10	10
SP4	21	Madison Bumgarner*	4	10
SP5	33	Barry Zito	8	5
RP1	29	Brian Wilson	15	13
RP2	28	Sergio Romo	6	6
RP3	37	Guillermo Mota	3	2
RP4	32	Jeremy Affeldt	6	5
RP5	29	Ramon Ramirez	8	7

Subjective Adjustments: None. I could downgrade Brandon Belt, who's already lost his job and been demoted, and/or cut the points the Giants get for having all those outfielder on the bench, but (1) I still expect Belt to return and contribute a good deal (he's a tremendous across-the-board talent) and (2) the early stumble of a highly talented rookie is why it comes in handy to have the depth to just slide Huff to first base and give more playing time to the outfielders.

Also on Hand: Position players - Mark DeRosa, Darren Ford.

Pitchers - Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez, Dan Runzler.

Analysis: The Giants as always have an aging lineup, although if Belt returns and Sandoval continues his return to form, they actually for once could have a core of guys under 30 who can hit - and that, plus the sheer number of veterans with some gas left in the tank, makes them formidable. The pitching staff remains their strength.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Raw EWSL: 242.67 (94 W)
Adjusted: 246.93 (96 W)
Age-Adj.: 221.49 (87 W)
WS Age: 30.47
2011 W-L: 87-75

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Rod Barajas	12	9
1B	27	James Loney	17	18
2B	31	Juan Uribe	14	12
SS	36	Jamey Carroll	11	8
3B	37	Casey Blake	16	10
RF	29	Andre Ethier	22	21
CF	26	Matt Kemp	19	21
LF	28	Tony Gwynn jr.	7	7
C2	27	Dioner Navarro	6	6
INF	34	Aaron Miles	4	3
OF	34	Marcus Thames	6	5
12	33	Rafael Furcal	17	14
13	23	Jerry Sands+	0	4
SP1	23	Clayton Kershaw	12	14
SP2	26	Chad Billingsley	11	12
SP3	36	Hiroki Kuroda	9	8
SP4	35	Ted Lilly	12	9
SP5	31	Jon Garland	11	9
RP1	27	Jonathan Broxton	10	9
RP2	32	Matt Guerrier	8	6
RP3	29	Hong-Chih Kuo	10	9
RP4	33	Vicente Padilla	7	5
RP5	28	Blake Hawksworth#	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None. I don't really need a subjective adjustment to reflect the annual recurrence of Rafael Furcal getting hurt.

Also on Hand: Position players - Xavier Paul, AJ Ellis.

Pitchers - Mike MacDougal, who like Jeff Francouer has compiled quite a track record of using good first impressions to sucker a new employer; Kenley Jansen, Ramon Troncoso, Lance Cormier.

Analysis: Kemp (.378/.460/.612), Ethier (.380/.451/.560) and Blake (.321/.446/.509) have been off to a strong start - indeed, two days ago, Kemp & Ethier had identical batting and OBP lines - 108 PA, 95 AB, 36 H, 13 BB, .379/.454. Kemp has slowed a bit on the bases after stealing 8 bases in the season's first 13 games. And Kershaw has shown flashes of intense brilliance, albeit amidst some of his usual inconsistency, while the defense has been the majors' best (a .739 DER against balls in play, which is higher than sustainable for a full season). But the Dodgers have yet to pull much together around the front-line talent. Really, this team needs a bust-out year from Kershaw and Kemp supported by big years from Ethier and Billingsley to contend.

Colorado Rockies

Raw EWSL: 204.83 (82 W)
Adjusted: 215.33 (85 W)
Age-Adj.: 207.14 (82 W)
WS Age: 28.68
2011 W-L: 82-80

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Chris Iannetta	8	8
1B	37	Todd Helton	13	8
2B	26	Jonathan Herrera*	3	6
SS	26	Troy Tulowitzki	22	24
3B	27	Jose Lopez	11	11
RF	28	Seth Smith	10	10
CF	25	Dexter Fowler#	12	17
LF	25	Carlos Gonzalez	17	20
C2	28	Jose Morales#	2	2
INF	33	Ty Wigginton	8	7
OF	31	Ryan Spilborghs	8	7
12	26	Ian Stewart	9	10
13	40	Jason Giambi	8	4
SP1	27	Ubaldo Jimenez	19	17
SP2	30	Jorge De La Rosa	9	7
SP3	28	Jason Hammel	8	7
SP4	23	Jhoulys Chacin*	5	11
SP5	32	Aaron Cook	8	6
RP1	27	Huston Street	11	10
RP2	36	Rafael Betancourt	7	6
RP3	31	Matt Belisle	6	5
RP4	31	Matt Lindstrom	4	3
RP5	25	Esmil Rogers*	0	0

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Quite a lot of familiar faces hanging around for what could be a last chance - Alfredo Amezaga, Mike Jacobs, Willy Taveras, Josh Fields.

Pitchers - Franklin Morales, Matt Reynolds, Felipe Paulino, Matt Daley.

Analysis: Historically, as Troy Tulowitzki goes, so go the Rockies, and this season's been no exception - Carlos Gonzalez is hitting an anemic .214/.269/.286, Ubaldo Jimenez is winless and disabled with a 6.75 ERA, Cook hasn't pitched yet, and Jose Lopez has been the anti-Babe Ruth, batting .143/.169/.254 (OPS+ of 7, yet his OPS is double Ian Stewart's), the team batting average is .239, but backed by Tulo's blistering .326/.416/.674 start, the Rox are an MLB-leading 16-7. Obviously some good hitting from others in the lineup and some great bullpen help has helped. I'd bet on Colorado to exceed EWSL's 82-win estimate, but there are some real holes to be patched (especially third base and in the starting rotation) if this team is going to make a serious run at the Giants.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Raw EWSL: 164.33 (68 W)
Adjusted: 185.30 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.35 (74 W)
WS Age: 28.82
2011 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Miguel Montero	10	10
1B	28	Juan Miranda+	1	11
2B	29	Kelly Johnson	16	15
SS	28	Stephen Drew	19	19
3B	30	Ryan Roberts#	3	3
RF	23	Justin Upton	15	18
CF	27	Chris Young	15	16
LF	24	Gerardo Parra#	6	9
C2	39	Henry Blanco	4	3
INF	39	Melvin Mora	10	7
OF	35	Russell Branyan	10	7
12	32	Xavier Nady	6	5
13	33	Willie Bloomquist	5	4
SP1	30	Joe Saunders	10	8
SP2	24	Daniel Hudson*	5	10
SP3	26	Ian Kennedy	6	6
SP4	29	Armando Galarraga	6	5
SP5	25	Barry Enright*	3	7
RP1	34	JJ Putz	5	4
RP2	27	Juan Gutierrez#	4	4
RP3	32	Aaron Heilman	4	3
RP4	26	David Hernandez#	4	5
RP5	27	Esmerling Vazquez#	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Josh Wilson, Geoff Blum.

Pitchers - Zach Duke and the "no-names" bullpen - Joe Paterson, Sam Demel, Joshua Collmenter, Kameron Mickolio.

Analysis: I think I've internalized for too long the parity of the NL West, so it's hard to look at the poor condition of Arizona and San Diego without mentally downgrading the whole division. But it's normal for good divisions to have good teams and bad teams.

Arizona's hitters have been overrated for a while due to the ballpark, and its pitching has never really recovered from the collapse of Brandon Webb. The team is starting to rebuild a little better, but it may take some time.

This bench has quite a collection of guys you didn't think would still be playing at this age.

San Diego Padres

Raw EWSL: 189.83 (77 W)
Adjusted: 197.40 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.00 (74 W)
WS Age: 29.49
2011 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Nick Hundley	9	9
1B	32	Brad Hawpe	12	9
2B	33	Orlando Hudson	17	14
SS	31	Jason Bartlett	18	15
3B	27	Chase Headley	14	14
RF	28	Will Venable	11	11
CF	24	Cameron Maybin#	5	7
LF	32	Ryan Ludwick	19	15
C2	28	Rob Johnson#	5	6
INF	29	Jorge Cantu	13	13
OF	30	Chris Denorfia	5	5
12	24	Kyle Blanks#	3	4
13	28	Alberto Gonzalez	3	3
SP1	27	Clayton Richard	8	7
SP2	23	Matt Latos#	7	9
SP3	33	Aaron Harang	4	3
SP4	29	Tim Stauffer#	6	6
SP5	29	Dustin Moseley	1	1
RP1	33	Heath Bell	13	9
RP2	27	Luke Gregerson#	6	7
RP3	32	Mike Adams	8	6
RP4	25	Ernesto Frieri*	2	4
RP5	32	Chad Qualls	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Eric Patterson, Cedric Hunter. I think it's safe by now to conclude that Patterson's .373 OBP in 2009 was a fluke.

Pitchers - Pat Neshek, Cory Luebke, Wade LeBlanc.

Analysis: Here we have a one-man team when the one man leaves. The Pads have stitched together some adequate veterans - the double-play combination should help the pitching staff. But there's no core here you can build anything around in the foreseeable future.

There's hardly a more under-heralded player in baseball right now than Ernesto Frieri, who has to make Heath Bell expendable, as good as Bell is. Between them, Bell, Frieri and Adams have a 1.78 ERA since 2009 - 2.24 if you include Gregerson, who has similar numbers except that he's more homer-prone than the other three. The overall line for the four since 2009: 6.18 H/9, 0.41 HR/9, 3.04 BB/9, and 10.40 K/9. Even considering the pitcher-friendly expanses of Pecto, that's something else. Frieri currently sports a ridiculous 1.50 career ERA and 11.4 career K/9, and in the early going thus far he's cut his walks in half from 2010.

Read More »

Part 3 of my preseason "previews" is the AL Central; this is the third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West & AL East.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Chicago White Sox

Raw EWSL: 238.17 (93 W)
Adjusted: 253.34 (98 W)
Age-Adj.: 230.98 (90 W)
WS Age: 30.05
2011 W-L: 90-72

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	AJ Pierzynski	11	9
1B	35	Paul Konerko	22	16
2B	24	Gordon Beckham#	10	15
SS	29	Alexei Ramirez	18	17
3B	24	Brent Morel+	0	11
RF	28	Carlos Quentin	14	14
CF	30	Alex Rios	16	14
LF	33	Juan Pierre	13	11
DH	31	Adam Dunn	21	17
C2	35	Ramon Castro	5	4
INF	29	Mark Teahen	6	6
OF	26	Lastings Milledge	8	9
13	44	Omar Vizquel	6	3
SP1	26	John Danks	16	17
SP2	32	Mark Buehrle	14	11
SP3	28	Gavin Floyd	13	12
SP4	27	Edwin Jackson	12	11
SP5	30	Jake Peavy	7	6
RP1	34	Matt Thornton	12	9
RP2	22	Chris Sale*	3	6
RP3	29	Jesse Crain	5	4
RP4	29	Tony Pena	5	4
RP5	33	Will Ohman	3	2

Subjective Adjustments: None. As the minimal age adjustments indicate, this is the most established-talent, set-lineup team in the division. Milledge, however, is presently in AAA.

Also on Hand: Position players - Brent Lillibridge, Dayan Vicideo, Tyler Flowers.

Pitchers - Sergio Santos, Jeff Gray, Phil Humber, Gregory Infante.

Analysis: The White Sox are back again with a power-backed lineup and their characteristically stolid starting rotation. If the older guys in the lineup (Konerko, Pierzynski) don't break down, they should be in the hunt all year, but they're unlikely to blow the doors off the division.

Minnesota Twins

Raw EWSL: 216.17 (85 W)
Adjusted: 236.87 (92 W)
Age-Adj.: 222.85 (88 W)
Subj. Adj.: 219.85 (87 W)
WS Age: 29.13
2011 W-L: 87-75

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Joe Mauer	29	30
1B	30	Justin Morneau	19	17
2B	26	Tsuyoshi Niskioka+	0	11
SS	26	Alexi Casilla	6	6
3B	26	Danny Valencia*	6	13
RF	29	Jason Kubel	14	14
CF	27	Denard Span	20	20
LF	25	Delmon Young	16	19
DH	40	Jim Thome	14	7
C2	27	Drew Butera*	2	3
INF	29	Matt Tolbert	4	4
OF	32	Michael Cuddyer	14	11
13	30	Jason Repko	1	1
SP1	27	Francisco Liriano	8	8
SP2	35	Carl Pavano	10	8
SP3	28	Brian Duensing#	9	10
SP4	29	Scott Baker	10	9
SP5	29	Nick Blackburn	7	6
RP1	36	Joe Nathan	8	7
RP2	27	Matt Capps	8	8
RP3	26	Jose Mijares#	4	5
RP4	27	Kevin Slowey	7	7
RP5	26	Jeff Manship#	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: I docked Nishioka 3 Win Shares for his early season leg fracture, cutting him down to 8.

Also on Hand: Position players - Ben Revere, Luke Hughes.

Pitchers - Glen Perkins, Anthony Slama, Dusty Hughes.

Analysis: Slowey, Baker and Blackurn have all seen their stock fall, and Liriano's off to a bad start. Morneau's healthy but not hitting yet, and Mauer's not healthy. And I didn't realize how old Nathan is. And can Thome repeat last year's rejuvenation? A lot of question marks here.

Detroit Tigers

Raw EWSL: 190.33 (77 W)
Adjusted: 222.86 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 213.96 (85 W)
WS Age: 28.97
2011 W-L: 85-77

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Alex Avila#	5	7
1B	28	Miguel Cabrera	27	27
2B	28	Will Rhymes*	3	6
SS	29	Jhonny Peralta	15	14
3B	34	Brandon Inge	13	11
RF	37	Magglio Ordonez	13	8
CF	24	Austin Jackson*	9	23
LF	30	Ryan Raburn	9	8
DH	32	Victor Martinez	17	13
C2	26	Casper Wells*	2	4
INF	31	Don Kelly*	3	4
OF	26	Brennan Boesch*	6	12
13	35	Carlos Guillen	7	5
SP1	28	Justin Verlander	17	16
SP2	26	Max Scherzer	10	11
SP3	22	Rick Porcello#	7	11
SP4	33	Brad Penny	4	3
SP5	28	Phil Coke	5	5
RP1	31	Jose Valverde	11	9
RP2	33	Joaquin Benoit	5	3
RP3	24	Brayan Villereal+	0	5
RP4	24	Ryan Perry#	4	5
RP5	33	Brad Thomas*	3	4

Subjective Adjustments: None, although Guillen seems unlikely to contribute much. Casper Wells is obviously not a backup catcher; that's Victor Martinez, so I just threw Wells into that roster slot. As did the Tigers.

Also on Hand: Position players - Scott Sizemore.

Pitchers - Joel Zumaya, who is facing the dreaded Dr. Andrews. Daniel Schlereth, Enrique Gonzalez.

Analysis: I'm not that high on the Tigers this season. Cabrera seems unlikely to repeat last year's trouble-free season, Peralta is a serious defensive question mark, and Porcello, the back of the rotation and the bullpen are wobbly. On the upside, maybe this will be the year Scherzer puts it all together.

Cleveland Indians

Raw EWSL: 136.50 (59 W)
Adjusted: 152.40 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 152.39 (64 W)
WS Age: 28.20
2011 W-L: 64-98

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Carlos Santana*	4	8
1B	26	Matt LaPorta#	4	5
2B	36	Orlando Cabrera	12	9
SS	25	Asdrubal Cabrera	13	15
3B	31	Jack Hannahan	2	2
RF	28	Shin-Soo Choo	24	24
CF	28	Grady Sizemore	9	9
LF	24	Michael Brantley#	4	5
DH	34	Travis Hafner	9	7
C2	25	Lou Marson*	3	6
INF	26	Jason Donald*	3	6
OF	31	Austin Kearns	6	5
13	31	Shelley Duncan	3	3
SP1	27	Fausto Carmona	7	6
SP2	26	Justin Masterson	5	6
SP3	24	Carlos Carrasco#	2	2
SP4	27	Mitch Talbot*	3	5
SP5	26	Josh Tomlin*	2	4
RP1	25	Chris Perez	8	9
RP2	27	Tony Sipp#	3	3
RP3	29	Rafael Perez	4	4
RP4	33	Chad Durbin	5	3
RP5	27	Joe Smith	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Travis Buck, Trevor Crowe (on the 60-day DL at present), Adam Everett, Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis. Donald is also on the DL.

Pitchers - Vinnie Pestano, Justin Germano, Frank Herrmann, Alex White, Jeanmar Gomez.

Analysis: It's obviously easier to say this after their 11-4 start, but there are plenty of places for the Indians to improve on their EWSL, from a recovery by Sizemore (I'm skeptical, since he had the Carlos Beltran surgery, but he's younger than Beltran) to guys like Santana and LaPorta providing a full season's production to the young pitchers stepping up. But in the early season enthusiasm, don't lose sight of how far this team has to come from its proven, established major league performance levels if it's going to have a winning record.

Kansas City Royals

Raw EWSL: 129.83 (57 W)
Adjusted: 139.90 (60 W)
Age-Adj.: 139.02 (60 W)
Subj. Adj: 142.02 (61 W)
WS Age: 27.74
2011 W-L: 61-101

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Jason Kendall	10	6
1B	27	Kila Ka'aihue*	1	1
2B	27	Chris Getz#	5	7
SS	24	Alcides Escobar#	7	11
3B	29	Wilson Betemit	6	6
RF	27	Jeff Francouer	7	8
CF	26	Melky Cabrera	10	10
LF	27	Alex Gordon	5	5
DH	25	Billy Butler	17	21
C2	35	Matt Treanor	2	2
INF	30	Mike Aviles	9	8
OF	29	Mitch Maier	9	8
13	29	Brayan Pena	3	3
SP1	27	Kyle Davies	5	4
SP2	30	Jeff Francis	3	2
SP3	27	Luke Hochevar	3	3
SP4	34	Bruce Chen	5	4
SP5	24	Vin Mazzaro#	3	4
RP1	27	Joakim Soria	14	13
RP2	29	Robinson Tejeda	5	4
RP3	23	Sean O'Sullivan#	2	2
RP4	21	Tim Collins+	0	5
RP5	25	Blake Wood*	1	2

Subjective Adjustments: I marked up Kila Ka'aihue from 1 to 4 Win Shares, which is probably pretty conservative for a guy who failed miserably last year, but he should get a much longer audition this season.

Also on Hand: Position players - Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas - basically, the next generation of prospects.

Pitchers - Kanekoa Texeira, Jeremy Jeffress, Nathan Adcock, Jesse Chavez, Gregory Holland, Aaron Crow, Mike Montgomery.

Analysis: Like the Indians and the AL East's weak sisters, the Royals have started well, and combined with the good reputation of the prospects on the way, that suggests that this division may end up more compressed than the EWSL standings suggest. But there's no better antidote to optimism about the Royals than looking at the people they're actually counting on for at bats and innings. It's still a long way out of that hole.

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Part 2 of my preseason previews is the AL East; this is the second of six division "previews," using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior preview: AL West.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Boston Red Sox

Raw EWSL: 278.00 (106 W)
Adjusted: 280.43 (107 W)
Age-Adj.: 246.27 (95 W)
WS Age: 30.60
2011 W-L: 95-67

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	J.Saltalamacchia	3	3
1B	29	Adrian Gonzalez	33	32
2B	27	Dustin Pedroia	18	19
SS	35	Marco Scutaro	17	13
3B	32	Kevin Youkilis	23	19
RF	35	JD Drew	15	11
CF	27	Jacoby Ellsbury	10	11
LF	29	Carl Crawford	24	23
DH	35	David Ortiz	15	11
C2	39	Jason Varitek	5	4
INF	27	Jed Lowrie	6	6
OF	38	Mike Cameron	11	7
13	32	Darnell McDonald#	5	5
SP1	27	Jon Lester	17	16
SP2	26	Clay Buchholz	11	12
SP3	31	Josh Beckett	8	6
SP4	32	John Lackey	12	9
SP5	30	Daisuke Matsuzaka	7	6
RP1	30	Jon Papelbon	13	10
RP2	26	Daniel Bard*	7	9
RP3	33	Dan Wheeler	6	4
RP4	30	Bobby Jenks	8	7
RP5	28	Alfredo Aceves	4	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Pitchers - Tim Wakefield, Dennys Reyes, Matt Albers, Hideki Okajima.

Analysis: EWSL is not as insanely bullish on the Red Sox as last season, and there are some warning signs to be had in the number of 35-year-olds in the lineup. That said, I'm not about to hit the panic button on these guys just from a rough start.

The Hated Yankees

Raw EWSL: 263.83 (101 W)
Adjusted: 266.73 (102 W)
Age-Adj.: 233.73 (91 W)
WS Age: 31.55
2011 W-L: 91-71

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Russell Martin	13	13
1B	31	Mark Teixeira	25	21
2B	28	Robinson Cano	25	25
SS	37	Derek Jeter	22	14
3B	35	Alex Rodriguez	22	16
RF	30	Nick Swisher	19	17
CF	30	Curtis Granderson	18	16
LF	27	Brett Gardner	12	12
DH	39	Jorge Posada	12	9
C2	25	Francisco Cervelli#	5	7
INF	33	Eric Chavez	1	0
OF	34	Andruw Jones	7	6
13	24	Eduardo Nunez*	1	3
SP1	30	CC Sabathia	19	16
SP2	25	Phil Hughes	9	10
SP3	34	AJ Burnett	8	7
SP4	24	Ivan Nova*	1	2
SP5	35	Freddy Garcia	6	5
RP1	41	Mariano Rivera	15	11
RP2	31	Rafael Soriano	11	9
RP3	26	David Robertson	3	4
RP4	25	Joba Chamberlain	6	7
RP5	26	Boone Logan	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Ramiro Pena, Jesus Montero, Gustavo Molina.

Pitchers - Pedro Feliciano, who I pulled out of the lineup at the last minute on the news that he may need surgery; Feliciano averaged 89 appearances a year the past three seasons, so it's not that shocking that he finally broke. Also Bartolo Colon, Luis Ayala, and David Phelps.

Analysis: Another mark of the AL East leaders' softening compared to the past few years, the Hated Yankees are sorely lacking in starting pitching depth (are we taking bets on when Joba ends up getting pressed into starting again?) and face the perennial problem of age at key spots in the lineup without real everyday options if the old guys break down (other than subbing Montero or Andruw Jones for Posada). Yet the poor starts by Boston and Tampa and an unaccustomed early awakening by Tex have things looking up for the Bombers. And of course, with the Hated Yankees what matters is frontline talent, because you can never rule out major in-season acquisitions to plug any holes.

Tampa Bay Rays

Raw EWSL: 185.50 (75 W)
Adjusted: 206.20 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 202.95 (81 W)
WS Age: 28.30
2011 W-L: 81-81

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	John Jaso*	8	17
1B	31	Dan Johnson	2	2
2B	30	Ben Zobrist	21	19
SS	25	Reid Brignac#	6	8
3B	25	Evan Longoria	25	31
RF	26	Matt Joyce	6	7
CF	26	BJ Upton	17	18
LF	37	Johnny Damon	17	11
DH	28	Casey Kotchman	9	9
C2	31	Kelly Shoppach	7	6
INF	26	Sean Rodriguez	5	5
OF	29	Sam Fuld#	2	2
13	31	Felipe Lopez	14	12
SP1	25	David Price#	11	14
SP2	29	James Shields	8	7
SP3	28	Jeff Niemann#	8	8
SP4	25	Wade Davis#	5	6
SP5	24	Jeremy Hellickson*	2	3
RP1	35	Kyle Farnsworth	4	3
RP2	24	Jacob McGee+	0	5
RP3	35	Joel Peralta	3	2
RP4	28	Andy Sonnanstine	3	3
RP5	28	JP Howell	6	5

Subjective Adjustments: None, although I expect Johnson to contribute a good deal more than 2 WS.

Also on Hand: Position players - Elliott Johnson, Desmond Jennings (Kotchman has been called up in the short term to take Manny Ramirez' place, but expect Jennings later in the year), Robinson Chirinos.

Pitchers - Juan Cruz, Cesar Ramos, Adam Russell, Mike Ekstrom, Matt Moore.

Analysis: Having sprung directly from perennial doormat status to the heights of contention, mediocrity will be unaccustomed to Rays fans, but welcome to the 1970-72 Mets. I have faith that this organization will get more out of the bullpen than estimated here and make some useful adjustments on the fly, but their poor start and the loss of Manny underlines what already looked like a season of grappling with the loss of Carl Crawford and Matt Garza and figuring out how to get the next generation of youth to market. Alternatively, with both Toronto and Baltimore improved, it would not take a lot of additional bad breaks to drop them back to the cellar.

Hellickson's a great talent, but remember that Price took a while to develop and Davis is still working on it. Young pitchers will break your heart.

Baltimore Orioles

Raw EWSL: 197.00 (79 W)
Adjusted: 205.60 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 195.24 (78 W)
WS Age: 29.79
2011 W-L: 78-84

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Matt Wieters#	9	13
1B	35	Derrek Lee	17	13
2B	33	Brian Roberts	14	12
SS	28	JJ Hardy	10	11
3B	27	Mark Reynolds	18	18
RF	27	Nick Markakis	20	21
CF	25	Adam Jones	13	16
LF	33	Luke Scott	13	11
DH	36	Vladimir Guerrero	15	11
C2	28	Jake Fox#	3	3
INF	31	Cesar Izturis	7	6
OF	26	Felix Pie	5	5
13	27	Robert Andino	1	1
SP1	24	Brian Matusz#	6	8
SP2	32	Jeremy Guthrie	12	9
SP3	25	Jake Arrieta*	3	6
SP4	25	Brad Bergesen#	6	8
SP5	23	Chris Tillman*	1	2
RP1	33	Kevin Gregg	9	6
RP2	33	Mike Gonzalez	5	4
RP3	36	Koji Uehara*	6	6
RP4	29	Jeremy Accardo	1	1
RP5	28	Jim Johnson	5	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Nolan Reimold, Josh Bell, Craig Tatum.

Pitchers - Zachary Britton (currently subbing for Matusz in the rotation), Justin Duchscherer, Jason Berker, Josh Rupe.

Analysis: The Orioles, by contrast, seem to have picked themselves up off the floor, notwithstanding the fact that as of yet they still seem to be building a team that shoots for .500 rather than first place (a big leap forward by Wieters, Jones and/or the young pitchers could change that). Whether Markakis can restart his arc of improvement, Lee can keep up his late-season hitting for the Braves, Guerrero can squeeze out one more solid year and Reynolds can cut his whiffs down enough to hit .230 will be the short-term questions.

Toronto Blue Jays

Raw EWSL: 186.87 (75 W)
Adjusted: 205.91 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 191.82 (77 W)
WS Age: 29.41
2011 W-L: 77-85

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	JP Arencibia+	1	11
1B	27	Adam Lind	13	13
2B	29	Aaron Hill	15	15
SS	28	Yunel Escobar	17	17
3B	28	Edwin Encarnacion	8	8
RF	30	Jose Bautista	20	18
CF	30	Rajai Davis	12	11
LF	23	Travis Snider#	6	8
DH	32	Juan Rivera	11	9
C2	36	Jose Molina	5	4
INF	36	John McDonald	4	3
OF	35	Scott Podsednik	13	9
13	28	Jayson Nix#	5	6
SP1	26	Ricky Romero#	10	13
SP2	26	Brandon Morrow	6	6
SP3	24	Brett Cecil#	6	8
SP4	23	Kyle Drabek+	0	4
SP5	26	Jesse Litsch	2	2
RP1	31	Frank Francisco	7	5
RP2	32	Jon Rauch	8	7
RP3	37	Octavio Dotel	6	5
RP4	33	Jason Frasor	6	4
RP5	35	Shawn Camp	6	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Corey Patterson, Brett Lawrie, Mike McCoy.

Pitchers - Carlos Villanueva, Jo-Jo Reyes (who's currently in Morrow's spot in the rotation), David Purcey, Marc Rzepcynski.

Analysis: If you were painting a portrait of a team that could potentially take a big leap forward, you'd get something like the Blue Jays: a couple of young-ish players coming off disappointing years (Lind, Hill, Snider, Escobar), a young, power-pitching rotation and a veteran bullpen. How far that takes them is another issue, since third place is usually the Jays' target at this point.

Through 12 games, Toronto's pitching staff is on pace for 1363 strikeouts even without having activated Morrow (who struck out 10.9 K/9 last year, better than MLB leader Tim Lincecum, and may be returning soon from an inflamed elbow), which would break the 2001 Yankees' AL record by a margin of almost 100.

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Just some numbers for fun. Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings remains the all-time champion in getting hit by pitches - playing his whole career in the days before helmets, Jennings was hit by pitches in 5.1% of his plate appearances, accounting for 13.3% of his times on base (counting hits, walks and HBP). Burt Solomon, in his book Hit Em Where They Ain't (a good read about the 1890s Orioles) recounts that Jennings was actually terrified to crowd the plate, but trained in the offseason by having John McGraw throw balls at his head constantly until he was able to stand in without flinching.

Among players who lasted long enough to get drilled with 100 pittches, nobody else comes close to that 5.1% figure, but the 1890s were a violent time in the game. Counting only players since 1900 with 100 or more HBP, here's the top 15 measured by HBP as a percentage of times on base:

Jason LaRue (the modern champ at 11%)
Ron Hunt
Reed Johnson
Fernando Vina
Don Baylor
Jason Kendall
Aaron Rowand
Steve Evans
Chase Utley
Art Fletcher
David Eckstein
Jose Guillen
Frank Chance
Damion Easley
Minnie Minoso

Craig Biggio just misses the list, at #16. I was surprised to see Utley (at 7.6%) that high.

So, my blogging time has been sorely constrained by family and other circumstances this year, but for the record I intend to get posted the numbers behind my annual divisional previews, even if the season's underway and I can't contribute the same level of analysis as usual.

So, Part 1 of my preseason previews is the AL West; this is the first of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Texas Rangers
Raw EWSL: 226.17 (89 W)
Adjusted: 247.63 (96 W)
Age-Adj.: 248.05 (96 W)
Subj. Adj.: 240.05 (93 W)
WS Age: 29.27
2011 W-L: 93-63

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Yorvit Torrealba	10	8
1B	25	Mitch Moreland*	3	7
2B	29	Ian Kinsler	19	18
SS	22	Elvis Andrus#	16	36
3B	32	Adrian Beltre	19	15
RF	30	Nelson Cruz	16	14
CF	25	Julio Borbon#	7	10
LF	30	Josh Hamilton	23	21
DH	34	Michael Young	17	15
C2	29	Mike Napoli	11	11
INF	27	Andres Blanco#	3	3
OF	29	David Murphy	13	13
13	25	Chris Davis	4	5
SP1	30	CJ Wilson	12	10
SP2	31	Colby Lewis*	7	10
SP3	24	Tommy Hunter#	8	11
SP4	24	Derek Holland#	2	3
SP5	32	Brandon Webb	4	3
RP1	23	Naftali Feliz#	10	13
RP2	27	Alexi Ogando*	3	5
RP3	28	Darren O'Day	8	7
RP4	41	Arthur Rhodes	7	5
RP5	40	Darren Oliver	8	5

Subjective Adjustments: As noted last season, primary reason why I added subjective adjustments was what I think of as the Khalil Greene problem, since he's one of the first (but not the last) second-year shortstops to exhibit it: EWSL assesses a very young hitter as having a lot of rapid room for growth, but as a result it tends to overvalue second- and even third-year hitters who are (1) under age 25 and (2) have a disproportionate amount of their value in their gloves. Nobody improves that much defensively from a good start in one year. Last year, EWSL had Elvis Andrus jumping up from 17 to 21 Win Shares, which I trimmed back to 19. He actually earned 20, so the slight adjustment sort of split the difference. This year, at age 22, EWSL assumes that he'll leap forward to 36 Win Shares, and while a significant improvement at the plate is indeed a real possibility for Andrus (who slugged .301 last year), that's just ridiculous, so I used the subjective adjustment to cut him back 8 to 28.

I rated Lewis as a rookie last season, since his pre-Japan stats no longer seem relevant to his current prospects.

Also on Hand: Position players - Craig Gentry. The Rangers have not used much depth thus far, playing only 12 non-pitchers.

Pitchers - Matt Harrison, Mark Lowe, Masin Tobin, Pedro Strop, Scott Feldman, David Bush, Michael Kirkman. Harrison's currently in the rotation subbing for Hunter, and Lowe has seen significant action in the pen.

Analysis: EWSL can be a leading indicator with the decay of old teams or the gradual growth of young lineups, but by definition it's a trailing indicator when a team has a bunch of people take big leaps forward, especially pitchers, and thus the Rangers appear a year later as a much stronger team. The Rangers have live arms and bullpen depth, and hope to replay last season's success in finding good roles for everyone on the staff. I join the general consensus that the future is much brighter for Derek Holland's power arm than Tommy Hunter, currently on the DL, despite Hunter's greater success last season.

The Angels

Raw EWSL: 217.33 (86 W)
Adjusted: 237.37 (92 W)
Age-Adj.: 211.48 (84 W)
WS Age: 30.43
2011 W-L: 84-78

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Jeff Mathis	4	4
1B	25	Mark Trumbo+	0	11
2B	27	Howie Kendrick	17	18
SS	27	Erick Aybar	14	14
3B	30	Macier Izturis	11	10
RF	35	Torii Hunter	22	16
CF	24	Peter Bourjous*	2	4
LF	32	Vernon Wells	16	12
DH	37	Bobby Abreu	21	14
C2	28	Bobby Wilson*	2	3
INF	28	Alberto Callaspo	12	12
OF	30	Reggie Willits	2	2
13	28	Kendry Morales	12	12
SP1	28	Jered Weaver	17	16
SP2	30	Danny Haren	17	14
SP3	28	Ervin Santana	12	11
SP4	32	Joel Pineiro	10	8
SP5	27	Scott Kazmir	4	4
RP1	23	Jordan Walden*	1	2
RP2	34	Fernando Rodney	7	6
RP3	35	Scott Downs	8	6
RP4	36	Hisanori Takahashi*	5	8
RP5	26	Kevin Jepsen	4	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Hank Conger is probably going to win a bigger share in the long run of the catching job than Wilson or possibly Mathis due to his bat, but for EWSL purposes it doesn't really matter. Brandon Wood, still struggling with the bat and currently subbing for the injured Aybar. Outfield prospect Mike Trout.

Pitchers - Jason Bulger, Rich Thompson, Michael Kohn, Matt Palmer, Tyler Chatwood.

Analysis: EWSL may overrate the Angels for having depth of everyday players like Morales and Callaspo, but Morales' 2010 pretty well illustrated why that depth is needed. This team is a classic Scioscia team, a lot of guys in their prime who play both sides of the ball soldily, not a real dominant hitter in the lineup.

For fantasy players, Rodney illustrates yet again why you don't draft bad pitchers just because they have closer jobs; they often lose them immediately as a result of being bad pitchers.

Oakland A's

Raw EWSL: 217.83 (86 W)
Adjusted: 225.97 (89 W)
Age-Adj.: 211.31 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.17
2011 W-L: 84-78

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Kurt Suzuki	14	14
1B	25	Daric Barton	14	17
2B	34	Mark Ellis	15	13
SS	27	Cliff Pennington#	12	15
3B	29	Kevin Kouzmanoff	11	11
RF	31	David DeJesus	15	12
CF	31	Coco Crisp	10	9
LF	32	Josh Willingham	13	10
DH	37	Hideki Matsui	18	11
C2	29	Landon Powell#	3	3
INF	29	Conor Jackson	5	5
OF	26	Ryan Sweeney	10	11
13	27	Andy LaRoche	5	6
SP1	23	Brett Anderson#	7	10
SP2	23	Trevor Cahill#	10	14
SP3	27	Dallas Braden	9	8
SP4	25	Gio Gonzalez	8	9
SP5	27	Brandon McCarthy	2	2
RP1	27	Andrew Bailey#	11	12
RP2	35	Brian Fuentes	10	7
RP3	33	Grant Balfour	7	5
RP4	31	Brad Ziegler	7	5
RP5	27	Jerry Blevins	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Chris Carter, Adam Rosales, Eric Sogard. Jackson's an outfielder now, but I listed him in infield.

Pitchers - Michael Wuertz, Rich Harden, Joey Devine, Craig Breslow, Tyson Ross, Josh Outman. It's a deep pen, like those of Texas and the Angels.

Analysis: Moneyball seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? A common theme on the West Coast: the Oakland Mausoleum is such a pitchers' park that it's tempting to overstate how promising the A's young pitchers are and how punchless their offense is, but this is a pitching and defense team no matter how you slice it.

Seattle Mariners

Raw EWSL: 181.33 (74 W)
Adjusted: 197.27 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 178.64 (73 W)
WS Age: 30.29
2011 W-L: 73-89

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Miguel Olivo	10	8
1B	24	Justin Smoak*	4	9
2B	33	Jack Wilson	6	5
SS	29	Brendan Ryan	9	9
3B	33	Chone Figgins	16	14
RF	37	Ichiro Suzuki	24	15
CF	28	Franklin Guitierrez	15	15
LF	33	Milton Bradley	8	7
DH	32	Jack Cust	14	11
C2	27	Adam Moore*	2	3
INF	35	Adam Kennedy	11	8
OF	31	Ryan Langerhans	2	2
13	24	Michael Saunders#	3	5
SP1	25	Felix Hernandez	22	25
SP2	28	Jason Vargas	6	6
SP3	27	Doug Fister#	5	5
SP4	22	Michael Pineda+	0	4
SP5	32	Erik Bedard	4	3
RP1	29	David Aardsma	10	8
RP2	28	Brandon League	6	5
RP3	29	Chris Ray	3	2
RP4	36	Jamey Wright	3	3
RP5	26	Joshua Lueke+	0	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Luis Rodriguez, Josh Bard, Dustin Ackley, Mike Carp.

Pitchers - Manny Delcarmen, David Pauley, Cesar Jimenez, Nate Robertson.

Analysis: This is what it looks like when you bet the ranch on winning a weak division and you fail. The Mariners are stuck winding down a team that has little short-term upside (although Smoak and Pineda could still have real upside) and a bunch of veterans who never contributed much in Seattle and have minimal trade value. Watching Ichiro and King Felix will be the main source of entertainment in Seattle for a while.

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Here's the other necessary preliminary before launching my division previews powered by Established Win Shares Levels (originally explained here): before we get to rolling out the 2011 EWSLs, I have to update the age adjustments and rookie values I use each year. These are based on the data I have gathered over the past seven seasons, and so with each passing year, one would hope they become progressively more stable and useful in evaluating the established talent base on hand for each team entering each season. As a reminder: EWSL is not a prediction system. It's a way of assessing the resources on hand.

I'll skip some more of the usual preliminaries (see last year's post) and get right to the charts:

Non-Pitchers 2010 and 2004-2010:

2010					Total
Age	#	WS	EWSL	%	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	1	20	17	1.176	6	72	59.0	1.220
22	2	22	19	1.158	28	436	226.9	1.922
23	12	118	110	1.073	67	812	670.5	1.211
24	16	210	148	1.419	115	1502	1162.3	1.292
25	22	178	186	0.957	173	2022	1668.4	1.212
26	39	424	465	0.912	213	2414	2244.7	1.075
27	43	488	476	1.025	234	2605	2501.8	1.041
28	29	342	336	1.018	239	2798	2745.5	1.019
29	35	397	360	1.103	224	2660	2753.5	0.966
30	32	340	397	0.856	230	2581	2878.2	0.897
31	24	296	340	0.871	209	2196	2591.0	0.848
32	25	225	287	0.784	196	1903	2386.8	0.797
33	18	209	186	1.124	165	1728	1982.8	0.872
34	30	323	369	0.875	146	1498	1740.3	0.861
35	14	94	147	0.639	122	1025	1387.7	0.739
36	14	162	226	0.717	90	862	1153.8	0.747
37	2	11	25	0.440	64	520	814.3	0.639
38	10	78	123	0.634	49	394	576.5	0.683
39	5	29	45	0.644	32	309	406.8	0.760
40+	5	19	34	0.559	38	261	482.7	0.541
	378	3985	4296	0.928	2640	28598	30433.5	0.940

Pitchers 2010 and 2004-2010:

2010					Total
Age	#	WS	EWSL	%	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	1	5	13	0.385	10	73	56.0	1.304
22	6	69	33	2.091	33	265	206.6	1.283
23	6	46	32	1.438	62	462	405.8	1.139
24	13	111	89	1.247	104	756	661.4	1.143
25	21	161	126	1.278	163	1162	1036.4	1.121
26	40	306	288	1.063	204	1386	1290.2	1.074
27	36	210	242	0.868	192	1248	1373.6	0.909
28	27	157	184	0.853	189	1279	1362.3	0.939
29	22	148	192	0.771	177	1147	1341.3	0.855
30	14	71	97	0.732	170	1021	1220.4	0.837
31	28	151	243	0.621	160	963	1226.5	0.785
32	16	93	108	0.861	120	742	945.5	0.785
33	17	125	153	0.817	99	559	786.3	0.711
34	13	89	85	1.047	83	462	570.6	0.810
35	9	72	63	1.143	61	307	406.2	0.756
36	5	13	23	0.565	51	277	315.2	0.879
37	5	23	34	0.676	42	263	325.3	0.808
38	5	35	29	1.207	42	282	339.0	0.832
39	2	11	13	0.846	29	208	241.3	0.862
40+	6	33	58	0.569	68	463	652.3	0.710
	292	1929	2105	0.916	2059	13325	14762.1	0.903

A couple of the older-age cohorts did well, which of course is partly attributable to small sample sizes - the 33-year-old hitters had a great year, led by Aubrey Huff, Alex Gonzalez and Mark Ellis as well as better bounce-backs than projected from Travis Hafner, Troy Glaus and AJ Pierzynski. The 34-year-old pitchers were bouyed by Tim Hudson and Carl Pavano, the 35-year-olds by Hiroki Kuroda, Koji Uehara, Livan Hernandez (whose actual age remains indeterminate) and the healthy-again Chris Carpenter, and the 38 year old pitchers were carried single-handedly by Billy Wagner.

On the other hand, it was a brutally tough year for some of the age brackets here, especially the 35-and-over hitters. And as you can see, not every age cohort is uniform - the 35 year old hitters were a fairly weak group, compared to the star-studded 36-year-olds, but both lost a whole bunch of value.

The real patterns can be found in the multi-year results. What has interested me the past few years is whether there is an actual change in aging patterns since baseball started cracking down on steroids - suspensions (full list here) began in 2005 and enforcement began in earnest in 2006, but I didn't start noticing a change in the trends until after the 2008 season. So I gathered the 2004-07 results against the 2008-10 results...the comparison was somewhat inconclusive on its face, so I won't bother you with the numbers, but I noticed something that is - on reflection - not that surprising: when comparing the 2004-07 sample to the 2008-10 sample, the proportionally smaller (per-year) group tended to do better. In other words, for example, the 30-year-old hiters held 86.2% of their value in 2004-07 compared to 95.9% in 2008-10, but 30-year-olds made up 9.58% of the hitters in the earlier group and 7.53% in the later group.

When I backed the numbers out, I noticed that (excluding rookies), 23-28 year olds made up 36.88% of the hitters in my preseason depth charts in 2004-07, compared to 42.92% in 2008-10, while the proportion of 35-and-up hitters dropped off from 16.47% to 12.9%. Among the pitchers, the proportion of pitchers age 27 and under rose from 34.97% to 40.46% over the same period, while pitchers age 34 and up dropped from 19.59% to 16.46%. Put simply, as we move away from the steroid age, fewer older players are hanging on at the margins. The results are not so dramatic as to compel me to draw a conclusion, but they certainly suggest that if we're looking for a shift in aging patterns, it may crop up less in the arc of player performance than in what we don't see - more guys losing jobs or hanging it up, perhaps due to injury, who might have found ways before to prolong their productive years.

Anyway, we wrap up with the rookie adjustments, which don't really require much comment:

Rookies

Type of Player	# in 2010	WS in 2010	# 2004-10	WS 2004-10	Rate
Everyday Players	8	82	66	711	10.77
Bench Players (Under 30)	4	2	66	253	3.83
Bench Players (Age 30+)	0	0	4	3	0.75
Rotation Starters	4	25	32	138	4.31
Relief Pitchers	3	10	18	96	5.33
TOTAL	19	119	186	1201	6.46

My annual division roundups, using Established Win Shares Levels (explained at the beginning and end of this post), are disastrously overdue, part of the general fallout of difficult personal times - between wrapping up my brother's estate following his sudden death in November and my dad's severe (and not unrelated) decline in health since the end of 2010, I've been up to my eyeballs in everything but time to spend on my job, family and blogging. Naturally, my baseball blog posts take the brunt of that - it's one thing to write about politics or music, since most of the time that takes is the writing time, but most of my baseball stuff requires a lot more investment of time crunching numbers.

That said, in the next few weeks I intend to get the EWSL "previews" done, maybe more of them than usual after Opening Day, if for no other reason than continuity in what is now a long-running project - the 2010 numbers are all in the spreadsheets now. To kick that off, here is the annual chart breaking down how the 2010 EWSL previews compared to each team's actual results (see prior charts for 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005).

Key for the chart, by columns:

EWSL: Each team's "projected" 2010 wins by EWSL.

Wins: Actual 2010 wins.

Team Age: Weighted average age of each team's preseason 23-man "roster" weighted by raw EWSL.

2010 WS: Win Shares earned in 2010 by those 23 players, expressed in Wins (WS/3).

W +/-: The number of wins by which 2010 WS exceeded - or fell short of - EWSL. Basically, if EWSL is the expected baseline for each player's performance, this column tells you which teams did better or worse than could be projected from the talent of the 23 players on hand that I included in the preview. Since the main purpose of this exercise is to evaluate how well EWSL fared as a predictor of team performance (as I've noted repeatedly, it's not actually a prediction system, just a fairly rough way of evaluating talent on hand), I've ranked the chart by this column.

Rest: The number of wins (WS/3) earned by players on that team who were not in the preseason previews. Basically, this column tells you how much each team got out of players who weren't on my preseason radar, either because I guessed wrong who would make up the depth chart or because they brought people in by trade, from the minors or elsewhere who ended up being significant contributors. My 2010 EWSL "wins" worked from an assumption that the average team would earn about 13 wins from the rest of the roster, so you have to bear that average in mind when comparing this column to expected results.

Here are the results:

Team	EWSL	Wins	Team Age	2010 WS	W +/-	Rest
CIN	71	91	30.1	93	22	11
TOR	64	85	29.4	86	21	12
SD	70	90	29.1	85	15	18
CHW	81	88	30.0	94	13	7
ATL	84	91	29.9	93	9	11
STL	84	86	29.8	89	5	10
NYY	97	95	31.9	100	4	8
PHI	96	97	31.8	99	3	11
CHC	81	75	30.7	84	3	4
TEX	80	90	28.3	83	3	20
OAK	79	81	27.9	81	3	13
HOU	74	76	31.6	76	3	13
TB	93	96	28.3	94	1	15
SF	83	92	29.9	82	0	23
ANA	83	80	30.1	82	-2	11
MIN	94	94	29.0	92	-2	15
WAS	70	69	29.5	66	-3	16
CLE	66	69	27.5	62	-4	20
MIL	81	77	30.0	76	-5	14
COL	88	83	29.5	82	-5	14
LA	90	80	30.5	83	-6	10
DET	81	81	29.2	75	-6	19
BAL	74	66	29.6	67	-7	12
KC	74	67	28.7	66	-8	14
FLA	83	80	27.3	75	-8	18
PIT	61	57	28.1	50	-11	20
BOS	102	89	31.1	89	-13	13
NYM	85	79	29.8	71	-13	21
AZ	89	65	27.6	71	-18	7
SEA	86	61	29.9	58	-28	16

A few notes:

-As usual, EWSL did about what you'd expect: it got half the teams within 5 wins of the results for their rosters, was way, way off on a handful at either end, and didn't really have any way of projecting what teams would add to their preseason depth charts.

-The Reds, Blue Jays, Padres and White Sox easily outstripped every other team in getting more from the players on their preseason depth charts than you'd expect. The Mariners and D-Backs fell the furthest short (EWSL had the Mariners as a first-place team, which is about the largest possible error, and Arizona as a strong second). The Mets, even with some fairly tempered expectations, also fell pretty far short, thanks to getting a lot less than projected from Beltran, Castillo, Francouer and (ugh) Mike Jacobs.

-The Mets were, however, second only to the Giants in finding help from unexpected quarters, in the Mets' case the youth movement led by Ike Davis and the scrap heap brigade led by RA Dickey. The Giants came in almost exactly where EWSL had the 23 guys on their depth chart; their surprising run to World Champions was driven by additions/promotions like Buster Posey, Pat Burrell, Madison Bumgarner, and Santiago Casilla). The A's, for once, were not leaders in getting extra help. The Cubs, White Sox, Yankees and D-Backs got almost nothing from anybody but the people on their preseason depth charts (other than Arizona, this was an unsurprising byproduct of having a roster already full of older established players with a firm grip on their jobs and a settled bench and bullpen - the three oldest teams, the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies, all relied heavily on the people who started the season with a job).

-MLB-wide, teams earned 1247 Win Shares, or 41.57 per team, from the rest of their rosters. Results year-by-year since I started tracking results at a team level:

2005: 1067 (35.57)
2006: 1143 (38.10)
2007: 1260 (42.00)
2008: 1226 (40.87)
2009: 1221 (40.70)
2010: 1247 (41.57)
Total: 7164 (39.80)

That may partly reflect that I've gotten worse over the years at projecting teams' core rosters, but on the whole, it does indicate at least some sort of rising trend from 2007 on in teams getting slightly more from second-line players, prospects and trade acquisitions than from their Opening Day rosters.

It seems like the past year or two we suddenly have fewer guys having big years with the bat after age 35. How true is that?

Here's one back of the envelope look: players age 35 and up having an OPS+ of 140 or higher (minimum 300 plate appearances, which isn't that much). 140 is a pretty high bar to cover only really outstanding seasons, and of course it's not the same as looking at who improved after age 35, which I did in this post on Barry Bonds' unprecedented improvement after 35. But it's another cut on the data to add to the picture.

Let's look first by decade at the number of players having such seasons:

1870s: 1
1880s: 7
1890s: 4
1900s: 3

1885 is the only season in the first four decades with more than one player qualifying. Not surprising that it starts out low - seasons were shorter before the mid-1880s, life expectancies were much shorter, and since professional baseball only began in 1869, you'd expect there to be few guys in their late 30s in the 1870s but a few of the founding generation hanging on a decade later.

1910s: 8
1920s: 14

Bill James has noted the spike in veterans in the 1920s and early 1930s as a symptom of the game's upswing in prosperity motivating more guys to work harder at staying in the game longer. And so we see 3 in 1911, 2 in 1912, only two more in the 1913-21 period, but then 3 in 1923, 3 in 1924, and 5 in 1925 before guys like Cobb and Speaker got too old.

1930s: 10

2 each in 1930, 1931 & 1932. Babe Ruth turned 35 in 1930.

1940s: 11

The war: 3 in 1944, 2 in 1945, then 2 in 1948.

1950s: 15

A steady 2 a year in 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958. Ted Williams turned 35 in 1954, Stan Musial in 1956.

1960s: 6

You'd expect a bunch more than that with expansion, but the expanded strike zone among other things may have worked against older hitters. Only season with 2 was 1968 (Mays & Mantle).

1970s: 20

Boom. 2 in 1970, 6 in 1971, 2 in 1972, 3 in 1973, 2 each in 1974, 1975 & 1976, then just one between 1977-79. The 6 in 1971 remains the all-time high: Aaron, Mays, Frank Robinson, Clemente, Kaline and Norm Cash. Cash is the only one who looks out of place, but his career OPS+ was 139.

1980s: 16

None in the strike season, but 5 in 1982, 2 each in 1983, 1984, 1987 & 1988.

1990s: 13
2000s: 32

Just one between 1989-92, 5 between 1993 and 1996 (including 2 in 1995), but then we start to see the uptick: 3 in 1998, 4 in 1999, 5 in 2000, 4 in 2001, 3 in 2002, 4 in 2003, 5 in 2004, 1 in 2005, 3 in 2006, 4 in 2007, before petering out to 2 in 2008, 1 in 2009, and just one (Scott Rolen) at last check this year, although the season's not over yet (Jim Thome, who's already counted here for 2006 & 2007, is at a 160 OPS+ in 257 plate appearances and is playing pretty regularly).

Do we attribute all that to steroids? Certainly weight training and sports medicine are helping players age better, plus we had waves of expansion in 1993 and 1998, plus historically we seem to get more veteran hitters taking flight during good offensive times than bad. But the sharp uptick in the 1998-2007 period (35 guys in a decade) followed by the recent dropoff doesn't seem like it can be explained entirely by one or two outlying hitters or those other factors.

I'm not offering this as a systematic study of the issue, just another way of quantifying what we've all observed.

Following up on my earlier post on High Quality Starts, here's the rest of the post: a look at HQS as a percentage of starts, as well as a percentage of wins (unsurprisingly, for good pitchers these constitute an outsize component of wins).

Now, read this chart with caution. First of all, guys who spent a lot of years in relief will have relief wins - Kenny Rogers is last on the list with HQS representing just 37.9% of his wins, and while that accurately reflects that Rogers generally needed help to win, it's a little exaggerated by his time as a reliever. Then again, Sandy Koufax tops the list with 73.3% of his wins being HQS, despite having worked heavily in relief for much of the late 1950s.

Second, here is where you really see the differences in era - Koufax and Rogers are pretty much at the far poles here, but there's a very large difference between the Sixties and the 00s, between Dodger Stadium and Arlington.

Third, bear in mind that some guys here - e.g., Pete Alexander - pitched parts of their careers before 1920 (1920 was the last year of Alexander's prime).

That said, I tip my hat to the guy who topped even Koufax for percentage of his starts that were HQS: Jim Palmer, who came the closest to notching a HQS in half his career starts. And the guy who was the first real surprise among the immortals atop the list, Mel Stottlemyre. Maddux rated lower than I'd expected, but he did start a huge number of games, many of them late in his career after he'd stopped really being Greg Maddux.

Note the list of 200-game winners who turned in a High Quality Start in less than a third of their career starts: Jamie Moyer, Jesse Haines, David Wells, Herb Pennock (not counting the 61 starts Pennock made before 1920), Bobo Newsom, Andy Pettitte, Red Ruffing, Mel Harder, Burleigh Grimes, Ted Lyons, Waite Hoyt, Charlie Hough, Charlie Root, Jim Kaat, Chuck Finley, Joe Niekro and Jerry Reuss. Mostly this is a list of bad Hall of Famers, but other than Kaat (who has no business in a Hall discussion despite a high career win total), Niekro and Reuss, they're also all from high-scoring eras. I'll have to revisit later the question of Pettitte as a deserving Hall of Famer.

(Tommy John and Bert Blyleven both come in the 36% area).

Chart below the fold.

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We all know the definition of a "quality start": 6 or more innings, 3 earned runs or less. While the run scoring environments and expectations about pitcher workloads have changed over the years, a pitcher who throws a quality start - even the bare minimum 3-in-6 - at least has given his team, in most circumstances, a fighting chance to win.

Baseball-Reference.com now has pitcher-game data going back to 1920, and I thought it would be interesting to raise the bar to high quality starts: games where the starter had earned a win with ordinary offensive and bullpen support. I picked 7 innings, 2 runs (earned or otherwise) or less. Throughout the lively ball era, that's generally been a good day's work for a starter, and we assume that a starter who does that will almost always take home a W, or has been the victim of hard luck if he doesn't.

Through Wednesday's action, 188 pitchers have thrown 100 or more High Quality Starts since 1920; 22 of those have thrown 200 HQS, 10 have thrown 250, and only two have thrown as many as 300 High Quality Starts. A full chart is below the fold. Some of the breakdowns may surprise you. The two pitchers to throw 300 High Quality Starts? #2 is unsurprising, Roger Clemens with 308. #1? Don Sutton, 310 of them. Sure, he was never dominant, he pitched in an ideal pitcher's park in a great time for pitchers, and he had a cheesy perm, but 310 times he went to the hill and earned a win, more than any other modern pitcher. If that doesn't explain for you why he's in the Hall of Fame, I'm not sure what will.

Only three eligible pitchers have thrown 200 or more HQS and are not in the Hall of Fame: Tommy John (257), Bert Blyleven (248) and Frank Tanana (204); Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, Glavine, and Mussina aren't eligible yet. Honestly, I had expected the breakdowns here to feature Blyleven more prominently as a hard-luck guy, but he doesn't especially stick out. Still, 248 HQS is a heckuva credential. I'm marginally more impressed with John's Hall of Fame case from looking at these breakdowns, but still not sold on him. Dizzy Dean, whose career is sort of the mile marker for the shortest career you can have as a Hall of Fame starting pitcher, notched exactly 100 HQS, winning 91 of them out of his 230 career starts and 150 career wins (12 of Dean's career wins were in relief).

The largest number of wins from HQS? Warren Spahn, 249. Spahn is, not coincidentally, the only man in that time period to throw 200 complete games in which he allowed 2 runs or less, a staggering 266 of them, in which he went 242-24. You hang on that long in a well-pitched game, sooner or later either Hank Aaron or Eddie Mathews is going to bail you out.

The pitcher with the largest number of High Quality Starts in which he didn't earn a win? Greg Maddux, with 92, followed by Sutton (89), Nolan Ryan (82), Tom Seaver (78), John (76), and Clemens (74). If you pencil in a W for each of the times Maddux threw a HQS and got jobbed, you get 447 career wins. (Clemens would sit at 428, Sutton at 413, Spahn and Ryan at 406 each. Walter Johnson would have 433 and Grover Alexander 399 just if you added their HQS without a win from 1920 on).

The most losses in HQS? Robin Roberts with 45, followed by Ryan (41), Seaver and Gaylord Perry (40 each).

The pitcher most likely to notch a W when throwing a HQS? Lefty Gomez (93.5%), which makes sense when you have Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey and either Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio hitting behind you; most of the top 10 is from the 1930s. Least likely? Slow-working Steve Trachsel (60.8%), followed by Ron Darling. The average pitcher among this sample won 75.4% of his HQS.

Most likely to lose a HQS? Dolf Luque (28.2%; Luque, the pride of Havana and my high school Spanish teacher's favorite pitcher, was 76-31 with an 0.98 ERA in 110 HQS); least likely, Tim Hudson (2.8%). The average was 11.9%. Hudson's record in his HQS? 142 starts, 104 wins, 4 losses, 34 no decisions. Probably the biggest factor for Hudson was just that a lot of his HQS came in the really high scoring early part of the last decade, but also it may help that even at his best, Hudson - when he was surrounded by Zito & Mulder - was rarely a guy that either team would rejigger their rotation around, so I suspect he never faced a disproportionate number of aces the way a Maddux or a Randy Johnson or a Koufax or a Seaver or a Whitey Ford (especially Ford) did. Note that the top 10 least likely to lose a HQS include David Wells, Gomez, Ron Guidry, Mike Mussina, CC Sabathia, and Eddie Lopat. I think you can see a trend. But #3 is Mike Hampton.

Most likely to get a no decision? Darling (24.8%), who of course was famous for this with the Mets (that's how Roger McDowell won 14 games in 1986 and Jesse Orosco 8). Least likely? Bob Lemon (0.7%), followed by Gomez and his teammate Red Ruffing. Perhaps not coincidentally, Lemon and Ruffing were both excellent hitting pitchers. The average? 12.7%.

The average for the sample is 8.41 IP per HQS, and a complete game in 57.3% of those; the latter in particular has declined sharply over time. Four early pitchers (Bucky Walters, George Uhle, Lefty Grove and Ted Lyons) averaged over 9 innings per HQS, while Johan Santana at 7.49 is the only pitcher below 7.5, and he'd be at 7.5 if you included yesterday. Uhle, a 1920s workhorse, also tops the field by completing 98% of his HQS; Santana at 9% is the only guy below 14%.

The best ERA in his HQS? Juan Marichal, 0.87. Worst? Brad Radke, 1.46. I didn't run an average but it's probably around 1.10.

Seven pitchers have thrown 10 or more HQS in the postseason since 1903: John Smoltz (14), Tom Glavine (14), Curt Schilling (13), Greg Maddux (13), Andy Pettitte (12), Orel Hershiser (10), and Whitey Ford (10). It says something about the modern postseason that Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux each have just one World Series ring to show for all those outstanding postseason starts.

I'll have a followup post looking further at HQS numbers. The full chart is below the fold.

Read More »

If the season ended today, Ubaldo Jimenez would qualify for the ERA title with an 0.78 ERA. Pitching in Coors Field. Only three men in baseball history have thrown more innings in a season than Jimenez has already thrown (80.1) and finished with an ERA below 1.00: Dutch Leonard (0.96 ERA in 224.2 IP in 1914), Hall of Famer Tim Keefe (0.86 ERA in 105 innings as a rookie in 1880), and the immortal Ferdie Schupp (0.90 ERA in 140.1 innings as a swing man in 1916; more on the 1916 Giants here).

That's impressive, even with the caveat that one bad outing could double his ERA in a hurry. But even more impressive is the fact that Jimenez hasn't allowed an unearned run this season. Which puts him on pace for an even more exclusive club: if the season ended today, he'd be the only man ever to qualify for an ERA title allowing less than 1 run per 9 innings. Indeed, Rob Murphy in 1986 (50.1 IP, 0.72 ERA, no unearned runs) holds the current record for most innings in a season with a RA (ERA, but including unearned runs) below 1.00.

Here's the complete list of guys who qualified for an ERA title with an RA below 2.00, including at present both Jimenez and Jaime Garcia:

Player	Year	Age	ERA	RA	IP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
Ubaldo Jimenez	2010	26	0.78	0.78	80.3	5.15	0.11	2.91	7.84
Dutch Leonard	1914	22	0.96	1.36	224.7	5.57	0.12	2.40	7.05
Bob Gibson	1968	32	1.12	1.45	304.7	5.85	0.32	1.83	7.92
Walter Johnson	1913	25	1.14	1.46	346.0	6.03	0.23	0.99	6.32
Dwight Gooden	1985	20	1.53	1.66	276.7	6.44	0.42	2.24	8.72
Greg Maddux	1995	29	1.63	1.67	209.7	6.31	0.34	0.99	7.77
Jaime Garcia	2010	23	1.32	1.76	61.3	6.75	0.15	3.96	7.48
Dean Chance	1964	23	1.65	1.81	278.3	6.27	0.23	2.78	6.69
Mordecai Brown	1906	29	1.04	1.82	277.3	6.43	0.03	1.98	4.67
Pedro Martinez	2000	28	1.74	1.82	217.0	5.31	0.71	1.33	11.78
Carl Lundgren	1907	27	1.17	1.83	207.0	5.65	0.00	4.00	3.65
Smoky Joe Wood	1915	25	1.49	1.83	157.3	6.86	0.06	2.52	3.60
Mordecai Brown	1908	31	1.47	1.84	312.3	6.17	0.03	1.41	3.54
Luis Tiant	1968	27	1.60	1.85	258.3	5.30	0.56	2.54	9.20
Fred Toney	1915	26	1.58	1.86	222.7	6.47	0.04	2.95	4.37
Christy Mathewson	1909	28	1.14	1.86	275.3	6.28	0.07	1.18	4.87
Jack Coombs	1910	27	1.30	1.89	353.0	6.32	0.00	2.93	5.71
Tom Seaver	1971	26	1.76	1.92	286.3	6.60	0.57	1.92	9.08
Doc White	1906	27	1.52	1.93	219.3	6.57	0.08	1.56	3.90
Pete Alexander	1919	32	1.72	1.95	235.0	6.89	0.11	1.46	4.63
Christy Mathewson	1908	27	1.43	1.96	390.7	6.47	0.12	0.97	5.97
Walter Johnson	1918	30	1.27	1.96	326.0	6.65	0.06	1.93	4.47
Greg Maddux	1994	28	1.56	1.96	202.0	6.68	0.18	1.38	6.95
Sandy Koufax	1963	27	1.88	1.97	311.0	6.19	0.52	1.68	8.86
Mordecai Brown	1907	30	1.39	1.97	233.0	6.95	0.08	1.55	4.13
Eddie Cicotte	1917	33	1.53	1.97	346.7	6.39	0.05	1.82	3.89
Sandy Koufax	1964	28	1.74	1.98	223.0	6.22	0.52	2.14	9.00

When you look at the RA column, it really underlines how historically amazing Leonard, Gibson and Walter Johnson were in their peak seasons. (Henry Thomas, in his excellent bio of Johnson, notes that Johnson got beat up the last day of the season in what was then a common practice of playing essentially a 'joke' game with guys playing out of position and whatnot). Gooden and Maddux, too. And of course, Pedro in 2000 and Maddux in 1994-95 are especially impressive when you consider the context they pitched in. (Fun facts about Pedro in 2000: one, the league allowed 5.28 runs/game; two, he had an 0.99 ERA through June 14; three, he was only 6-5 at home despite a 1.84 home ERA; four, 23 of the 44 runs scored off him were on home runs - he allowed 9.95 runs/9 on homers and 0.87 runs/9 otherwise). But if by some stroke of good fortune Jimenez was able to keep this up all year, he'd go straight to the head of the class for the best-pitched season ever (setting aside the debate over how heavily to weight workloads compared to a guy like Johnson).

Tyler Clippard leads the major leagues in innings by a reliever with 25; he's on a pace to throw 115.2 innings this year, all in relief. Manuel Corpas is #2, and on pace for 111. In the AL, nobody is on pace to crack 100 innings solely in relief - Joel Zumaya is on pace for 98.2 innings in relief.

With deeper bullpens, even in the face of declining innings by starters, the 100-inning reliever has become an ever-rarer species. Looking decade-by-decade just at guys who cracked 100 innings without starting a single game (thus skipping over the guys who pass 100 relief innings plus a few starts), we see the rise and fall of the 100-inning reliever (and why Mike Marshall will almost certainly remain the only man to pass 200 innings in relief in a season):

1930s: 3
1940s: 8
1950s: 15
1960s: 67
1970s: 100
1980s: 115
1990s: 29
2000s: 6

The first guy to do it was Clint Brown in 1937, the last Scott Proctor in 2006 (what's with guys named Scott? The last before him was Scot Shields, and the last to do it more than once was Scott Sullivan in 1999, 2000 & 2001), so we've already passed three straight seasons without a 100-inning reliever. And the guys on pace in mid-May to just clear 100 are usually not great bets to keep that up all year.

As with many pitcher-usage issues, there are good reasons why innings have been declining (see my history of pitcher workloads), but no particular reason to think that managers are currently striking the right balance between avoiding injury risks and handing too many innings to second- and third-tier pitchers. Mariano Rivera and Derek Lowe both survived 100-inning relief seasons without doing any great damage to their arms. But the game continues to move in that direction regardless of whether anybody is analyzing whether it makes sense.

Speaking of the Baseball-Reference.com splits, one of the more interesting cases is Mel Ott. As is well-known, Ott has the biggest home-field advantage in the 500 home run club, having hit 323 of his career homers at home, just 188 on the road; the short porches in the Polo Grounds, especially in right field, were an inviting enough target to help convert the diminutive (5'9", 170-lb) Ott into the only man in the first 88 years of National League history to crack the 500 home run barrier (at his retirement, Ott was the NL home run king by a margin of 211 homers over Chuck Klein). But as Bill James has pointed out, while the Polo Grounds was a great home run park, it was actually not a hitter's park at all, so Ott's accomplishments aren't to be devalued by virtue of the park.

We now have the data to back that up, at least for 1926-39, covering Ott from age 17-30, including the bulk of his prime (Ott hit 30 homers in a season only once after age 30). Ott in those years hit 211 homers at the Polo Grounds, 158 on the road (this does mean the split got wider as he aged - 112 more homers at home to 30* on the road). But he batted .297/.418/.553 at home, compared to .331/.421/.563 on the road, thanks in good part to hitting nearly twice as many doubles in the more normal-shaped parks around the league (235 to 124). The extreme example is 1930-31, when Ott hit 41 homers and drew 108 walks at home, compared to 13 homers and 77 walks on the road; yet, his overall line was .297/.419/.588 with 116 Runs and 121 RBI at the Polo Grounds, .345/.422/.537 with 110 Runs and 113 RBI on the road - nearly the same player in terms of value, but a completely differently-shaped batting line.

Let me illustrate this with a chart showing Ott's percentages, batting average on balls in play, and doubles, triples, homers, walks, strikeouts, runs and RBI per 600 at bats at the Polo Grounds and in each of the other NL parks (I'm leaving out here Shibe Park, where the Phillies moved in 1938, presumably one of the causes for Ott's homers drying up on the road after age 30):

Park	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	BABIP	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	R	RBI
NYG-Polo Grounds	3783	.297	.418	.553	.272	24	4	41	121	53	124	128
CIN-Crosley Fld	571	.307	.364	.458	.321	46	8	9	52	46	74	106
PIT-Forbes Fld	606	.323	.434	.549	.313	43	8	25	113	37	124	141
STL-Sportsman Pk	589	.305	.404	.527	.300	28	6	31	95	64	117	118
CHC-Wrigley Fld	572	.345	.423	.621	.341	35	7	39	77	68	119	132
BRO-Ebbets Fld	554	.304	.395	.518	.304	44	6	24	91	55	108	101
PHI-Baker Bowl	557	.415	.508	.774	.388	48	5	52	108	40	181	209
BSN-Braves Fld	517	.330	.426	.531	.336	46	12	16	96	42	128	86

As you can see, Ott was scarcely a home run hitter at all in Boston and Cincinnati, whereas his ability to get hits on balls in play was severely constrained at home. And, like Chuck Klein and pretty much everybody else, he was a holy terror at the Baker Bowl.

Here, just for comparison purposes, is how Ott hit team-by-team against each opponent when batting at home. As you can see, some 'park' effects could be the pitching staffs - for example, the Reds' control-oriented staff was less apt to walk Ott in either venue - while, say, Ott's home runs against the Braves and Pirates were clearly held down only by their home parks, his ability to get hits on balls in play was the same against the Pirates wherever he played:

Home Opponent	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	BABIP	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	R	RBI
Cincinnati Reds	545	.290	.387	.539	.263	20	5	40	96	50	119	134
Pittsburgh Pirates	567	.340	.464	.621	.310	22	0	49	134	50	141	143
St. Louis Cardinals	538	.300	.413	.493	.286	18	3	31	119	50	109	105
Chicago Cubs	563	.268	.366	.509	.253	26	6	35	94	68	99	108
Brooklyn Dodgers	499	.288	.411	.532	.268	31	3	37	127	56	132	121
Philadelphia Phillies	551	.287	.430	.547	.257	29	6	39	146	40	130	145
Boston Braves	520	.310	.433	.636	.267	21	4	55	132	55	143	138

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Baseball-Reference.com has in recent months been expanding the years for which it has data, and I've been having some fun with the splits for older ballplayers - the breakdowns are now available for 1952-present and 1920-39. Here's a few fun ones.

Don't Get Jackie Mad

Today being Jackie Robinson Day, it's worth recalling that the Cardinals were tough on Jackie at the beginning of his career, being the most Southern team in the NL. From 1952-56 (the last five years of his career, the only ones for which we have data), Robinson hit .337/.424/.498 against the Cards.

On a related note, my dad dug up some newspaper accounts of the April 15, 1947 Boston Braves-Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field that saw Robinson make his debut and score the winning run. The newspapers did not treat Jackie as the big news story, possibly out of a desire to keep his debut low-key, possibly because off-field controversies were not seen in those days as ideal fodder for beat writers, and in some cases possibly because the writers may not all have been on his side. The big story, as you can see from the box score, was a big game by the hoped-for star of that ultimately pennant-winning Dodgers team, Pete Reiser.

Reiser was the same age as Jackie Robinson (28), and both had missed prime years in the military service, but while Robinson was a rookie, Reiser's best years turned out to be already behind him. He'd hit OK in his return from the service in 1946, batting .277/.361/.428 (122 OPS+; it was a low-scoring season, with fresh pitching arms facing off against rusty hitters as everyone returned from multi-year layoffs and tried to get their timing back) and leading the league in steals with 34, but also missing 32 games and falling far short of his 1941-42 form (.328/.392/.513, 155 OPS+). Reiser ended up having his last really good year in 1947, batting .309/.415/.418 (the Dodgers had three players with OBPs between .414 and .415, and counting their top 3 bench players had 10 players slugging between .410 and Arky Vaughan's team-leading.444) but missing another 44 games.

Lefty Grove, Closer

I also used the splits to break down Lefty Grove's performance as a starter and as a reliever over the five years that both he and the A's were at their peak (1929-33, although there's some fun stuff in the game logs I could use to revisit my account of the 1928 pennant race, including Grove going 14-0 with a 1.43 ERA and 3 saves between June 29 and September 7, 1928 to get the A's caught up with the Yankees).

Anyway, here is Grove as a starter and a reliever, 1929-33:

Starter: 157 starts, 116 CG (102 of his 110 wins as a starter were CGs, and 14 of his 26 losses), 1268.1 IP (more than 8 IP/start), 110-26 W-L (.809; Grove won more than 70% of the games he started), 2.80 ERA, 8.7 H/9, 0.3 HR/9, 2.3 BB/9, 5.3 K/9.

Reliever: 65 G, 153.1 IP (2.35 IP/G in relief; these were not short outings), 18-7, 31 SV (86% of his relief appearances were a decision or a save), 1.70 ERA, 7.3 H/9, 0.2 HR/9, 2.8 BB/9, 6.8 K/9 (note - a trend I noticed with a number of pitchers of that era, unsurprisingly - a markedly higher K rate in relief. Besides night baseball, lighter bats, an increased focus on power hitting, reduced stigma from striking out, and an increase in the variety of breaking pitches, the increased use of relievers and fewer tired starters has definitely driven the rising K rates from the 1920s to today)

Chuck Klein, Home Boy

You probably knew that Chuck Klein benefitted from playing in the tiny Baker Bowl in his prime years. But how much? In his five full seasons in his first go-round with the Phillies (also 1929-33), Klein batted a ridiculous .424/.470/.772 at home, .294/.352/.501 on the road. His career line at the Baker Bowl: .395/.448/.705, compared to .253/.319/.386 at the Polo Grounds, .244/.294/.335 at Braves Field, .276/.316/.451 at Crosley Field and even .284/.354/.487 at Wrigley. Klein is perhaps more a creation of his home park even than Dante Bichette or Vinny Castilla.

The Babe's Hot Hand

We think of Babe Ruth as an immediate success with the Yankees, but he actually had quite a rough start in 1920, given the fanfare that accompanied his arrival, his breaking of the home run record the prior year and continuing controversy at the time over whether it was really advisable for him to stop pitching altogether to play every day. On May 9, 20 games into the season, Ruth was batting .210/.290/.371 with just 2 homers, 8 runs scored, 10 RBI and on a pace to strike out over 100 times, a then-unheard-of figure; the Yankees were 8-10 in games Ruth had appeared in. What followed, of course, was the 25-year-old Ruth putting on the most sustained, ridiculous hitting display in the game's history, batting .403/.564/.924 the rest of the way; in 124 games he scored 150 runs, hit 52 homers and drew 143 walks, and the Yankees went 80-44 in those games.

Part 6 of my preseason previews is the NL Central; this is the sixth and last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. (As usual, the large and depressing NL Central brings up the rear; I almost never seem to get to the NLC until after Opening Day). Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West, NL East.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

St. Louis Cardinals

Raw EWSL: 214.50 (85 W)
Adjusted: 231.22 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 212.35 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.79
2010 W-L: 84-78

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Yadier Molina	17	18
1B	30	Albert Pujols	36	33
2B	30	Felipe Lopez	17	15
SS	28	Brendan Ryan	9	9
3B	27	David Freese*	1	1
RF	31	Ryan Ludwick	19	16
CF	23	Colby Rasmus*	7	16
LF	30	Matt Holliday	24	22
C2	36	Jason LaRue	2	2
INF	30	Skip Schumaker	16	14
OF	27	Joe Mather#	1	2
12	25	Allen Craig+	0	4
13	28	Nick Stvinoha*	1	1
SP1	28	Adam Wainwright	16	16
SP2	35	Chris Carpenter	11	7
SP3	32	Brad Penny	7	5
SP4	31	Kyle Lohse	7	6
SP5	23	Jaime Garcia+	0	4
RP1	37	Ryan Franklin	11	9
RP2	37	Trever Miller	4	4
RP3	26	Kyle McClellan#	4	6
RP4	28	Jason Motte*	2	2
RP5	33	Dennys Reyes	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None, but obviously Freese will either exceed 1 Win Share or lose his grip on anything like an everyday job. But bear in mind the eccentric nature of "everyday" under LaRussa, given the flexibility of Lopez and Shumaker in roaming the infield. Rasmus, by contrast, is appropriately projected to take a step forward this season.

Also on Hand: Position players - Tyler Greene.

Pitchers - The perennially rehabbing Rich Hill, Blake Hawksworth.

Analysis: By LaRussa standards, this is a youth movement, as the Cards are still breaking in Rasmus (career .277/.366/.485 in the minors, all at age 21 or younger), Freese (career .308/.384/.532 in the minors, including .304/.363/.542 in 735 plate appearances at AAA) and Craig (career .306/.366/.513 in the minors, including .322/.374/.547 last season in a full year at AAA), while deploying prime talents like Pujols, Holliday, Wainwright, Molina, and Lopez. The Cards remain the class of a weak division but potentially face competition from the Brewers and Cubs.

Pujols should be due for his first career off year somewhere between 2010 and 2012, but thus far this season he's at .375/.444/.875, so don't bet the ranch against him just yet.

Milwaukee Brewers

Raw EWSL: 199.83 (80 W)
Adjusted: 211.27 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 203.30 (81 W)
WS Age: 30.00
2010 W-L: 81-81

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	39	Gregg Zaun	8	6
1B	26	Prince Fielder	30	34
2B	27	Rickie Weeks	11	12
SS	23	Alcides Escobar*	2	5
3B	27	Casey McGeehee*	9	18
RF	40	Jim Edmonds	5	3
CF	24	Carlos Gomez	8	10
LF	26	Ryan Braun	29	33
C2	27	George Kottaros*	1	1
INF	39	Craig Counsell	11	8
OF	28	Corey Hart	13	14
12	32	Jody Gerut	5	4
13	32	Joe Inglett	5	4
SP1	24	Yovanni Gallardo	7	8
SP2	33	Randy Wolf	10	7
SP3	34	Doug Davis	9	7
SP4	30	Dave Bush	4	3
SP5	35	Jeff Suppan	4	3
RP1	42	Trevor Hoffman	10	7
RP2	29	Todd Coffey	4	3
RP3	37	LaTroy Hawkins	8	6
RP4	29	Mitch Stetter#	3	3
RP5	26	Carlos Villanueva	4	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Mat Gamel, Norris Hoppes, Luis Cruz.

Pitchers - David Riske (on the DL), Claudio Vargas, Manny Parra.

Analysis: As with so many teams, the pitching staff is the big question mark for the Brewers, who aside from Gallardo have largely loaded up with the sorts of veteran arms one settles for at small-market prices, which in turn puts a premium on their defense (most of the veteran arms throw a lot of strikes, but few are high-K pitchers), which in turn is one reason why they need Carlos Gomez and have to hope for good glovework from erratic-at-best fielders like Weeks, Braun and McGeehee. I'd be worried about Edmonds running into Gomez, though.

A big offensive key will be getting Hart to avoid a repeat of his underachieving 2009 while getting McGeehee, who had never hit well in the minors (.279/.332/.409 over six seasons and more than 2,800 plate appearances, including three full years trying to master AAA pitching), to repeat his seriously overachieving .301/.360/.499 line.

Alcides Escobar (I do love the Latin American guys with classical-allusion names like Escobar and Asdrubal Cabrera) has thus far lived up to his minor league rep as a high-average, little-else hitter, but he's young yet; he's still working on translating his minor league success as a base thief.

Chicago Cubs

Raw EWSL: 215.67 (85 W)
Adjusted: 234.51 (91 W)
Age-Adj.: 202.57 (81 W)
WS Age: 30.74
2010 W-L: 81-81

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Geovany Soto#	12	14
1B	34	Derek Lee	21	18
2B	30	Mike Fontenot	8	8
SS	30	Ryan Theriot	16	14
3B	32	Aramis Ramirez	19	15
RF	33	Kusuke Fukudome#	14	14
CF	32	Marlon Byrd	16	13
LF	34	Alfonso Soriano	14	12
C2	31	Koyie Hill	4	3
INF	29	Jeff Baker	6	6
OF	31	Xavier Nady	8	7
12	30	Chad Tracy	4	3
13	24	Tyler Colvin+	0	4
SP1	29	Carlos Zambrano	13	11
SP2	33	Ryan Dempster	13	9
SP3	34	Ted Lilly	14	10
SP4	27	Tom Gorzelanny	3	3
SP5	27	Randy Wells*	7	12
RP1	27	Carlos Marmol	11	10
RP2	27	Sean Marshall	5	4
RP3	31	John Grabow	6	5
RP4	26	Esmailin Caridad+	2	6
RP5	31	Carlos Silva	2	2

Subjective Adjustments:

Also on Hand: Position players - Micah Hoffpauir.

Pitchers - Jeff Samardzjia, Justin Berg, James Russell. Angel Guzman is out for the season.

Analysis: The Cubs, as you can see, are functionally tied in the EWSL analysis with the Brewers. They're actually the strongest team in the division before applying the age adjustments, so expect people to want more from their roster "on paper" than they can deliver. Even some of the younger guys like Zambrano are showing their mileage. The great disappointment here is Soto, who is batting .091 and already at risk of losing playing time, having lost his power last season to shoulder troubles.

Using the age adjustments I had at the time, when the Cubs signed Soriano in November 2006 for 8 years and $136 million ($17 million/year), I rough-estimated that if he followed a predictable aging pattern, Soriano would be worth 13 Win Shares per year for the life of the deal, which obviously was a pretty grim assessment at the time. Three years in, he's averaged 15 WS per year so far and age-projects for 12 in 2010; looks like I may have been optimistic.

Wells was something of a low-key pleasant surprise last year, finishing with the 10th-best ERA in the league (6th best if you park-adjust), although he's had great control records and good K and HR numbers throghout the minors. I'm sure Toronto, which returned him to the Cubs after a Rule V claim in 2008, could use him back.

Houston Astros

Raw EWSL: 190.67 (77 W)
Adjusted: 206.51 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.60 (74 W)
WS Age: 31.58
2010 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	JR Towles	1	1
1B	34	Lance Berkman	27	23
2B	34	Kaz Matsui	14	12
SS	27	Tommy Manzella+	0	11
3B	35	Pedro Feliz	14	10
RF	27	Hunter Pence	18	19
CF	27	Michael Bourn	15	15
LF	34	Carlos Lee	20	17
C2	30	Humberto Quintero	3	3
INF	30	Jeff Keppinger	7	7
OF	34	Jason Michaels	5	4
12	37	Geoff Blum	8	5
13	30	Cory Sullivan	3	2
SP1	32	Roy Oswalt	13	10
SP2	31	Wandy Rodriguez	12	10
SP3	29	Brett Myers	5	5
SP4	25	Bud Norris*	2	3
SP5	26	Felipe Paulino*	0	0
RP1	30	Matt Lindstrom	4	3
RP2	30	Brandon Lyon	9	8
RP3	30	Jeff Fulchino*	4	6
RP4	36	Tim Byrdak	5	4
RP5	38	Brian Moehler	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Pitchers - Chris Sampson, Samuel Gervacio, Yorman Bazardo, Wilton Lopez.

Analysis: The Astros may not be as bad as their 0-6 record, but they're pretty bad. Adding insult to grinding mediocrity, they're the second-oldest team in the majors by weighted average EWSL, behind only the Yankees. And the Yankees have a reason to be old. In fact, four of the nine teams with an EWSL age of 30 or older are in the NL Central; no other division has more than two (the AL Central has none). If you're looking for a winning business model for fielding a quality team in small markets in hard times, this division is not where you shoud look. In Houston's case, the primary culprits are the team's dependence on Berkman, Lee and Oswalt; this team should probably tear it up, deal the three of them along with Matsui, Feliz, and spare parts like Moehler and Blum if they can (as they did in jettisoning Miguel Tejada), and start over. Older players are harder to keep healthy (Berkman hasn't played yet in 2010) and harder to keep motivated when they're playing pointless games. Jeff Bagwell's not walking through that door, Craig Biggio's not walking through that door, and if they did, they'd be old and gray.

Paulino earned his zero Win Shares last year by giving up 1.8 HR/9 and getting pounded for 11.6 Hits/9, but 3.4 BB/9 and 8/6 K/9 indicate a sign of a guy who might be able to contribute; he didn't have longball issues in the minors, but of course he wasn't pitching in Minute Maid to big-league hitters (then again, look at his home run log and you see a lot of guys like Jay Bruce and Corey Hart and Elvis Andrus, not Pujols and Braun).

It would be hard to fail more completely as a major league hitter than JR Towles, who has batted .299/.390/.473 in the minors and debuted with a 14-game, .375/.432/.575 cup of coffee in 2007, and then went on to faceplant to the tune of .144/.238/.268 in 283 plate appearances since 2008. The Astros, however, really have nothing better to do than wait and see if Towles can come around and recapture the brief glory days of Mitch Meluskey.

Cincinnati Reds

Raw EWSL: 174.00 (71 W)
Adjusted: 189.11 (76 W)
Age-Adj.: 173.02 (71 W)
WS Age: 30.12
2010 W-L: 71-91

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Ramon Hernandez	11	9
1B	26	Joey Votto	19	21
2B	29	Brandon Phillips	19	18
SS	35	Orlando Cabrera	18	13
3B	35	Scott Rolen	14	11
RF	23	Jay Bruce#	7	10
CF	25	Drew Stubbs*	3	6
LF	29	Jonny Gomes	7	7
C2	29	Ryan Hanigan#	6	6
INF	27	Paul Janish*	2	4
OF	28	Chris Dickerson#	5	6
12	29	Laynce Nix	3	3
13	36	Miguel Cairo	2	2
SP1	32	Aaron Harang	8	6
SP2	33	Bronson Arroyo	12	8
SP3	24	Johnny Cueto#	6	7
SP4	24	Homer Bailey	3	3
SP5	22	Mike Leake+	0	4
RP1	35	Francisco Cordero	12	8
RP2	28	Nick Masset	6	6
RP3	25	Danny Herrera*	3	6
RP4	40	Arthur Rhodes	6	4
RP5	27	Micah Owings	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Wladimir Balentien, Aaron Miles.

Pitchers - Aroldis Chapman, the latest in a long list of hyped Reds prospects. Jared Burton, Mike Lincoln, Travis Wood. Also Jose Arredondo and Ednison Volquez, neither of whom is expected to pitch after Tommy John surgery.

Analysis: The Reds have a stable infield, but everything else is either a crapshoot or just crap. Stubbs seems like a Gary Pettis type player, but maybe with more power in this park. Leake recently became the rare first-round draft pick to debut directly in the majors without minor league seasoning; he had a great college career, but pitching in this bandbox has traumatized plenty of young pitchers. There's still hope that Cueto and Bailey could become a 1-2 punch, but progress has been slow.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Raw EWSL: 118.67 (53 W)
Adjusted: 144.49 (61 W)
Age-Adj.: 142.55 (61 W)
WS Age: 28.11
2010 W-L: 61-101

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Ryan Doumit	10	9
1B	26	Jeff Clement#	1	1
2B	31	Akinori Iwamura	12	10
SS	27	Ronny Cedeno	5	6
3B	26	Andy LaRoche	7	8
RF	29	Garrett Jones*	5	9
CF	23	Andrew McCutchen*	9	22
LF	25	Lastings Milledge	7	8
C2	27	Jason Jaramillo*	1	2
INF	30	Bobby Crosby	5	5
OF	31	Ryan Church	10	8
12	28	Delwyn Young#	5	5
13	26	John Raynor+	0	4
SP1	27	Zach Duke	7	7
SP2	28	Paul Maholm	8	7
SP3	27	Ross Ohlendorf#	6	6
SP4	26	Charlie Morton#	2	3
SP5	27	Daniel McCutchen+	1	4
RP1	36	Octavio Dotel	6	5
RP2	28	Joel Hanrahan	4	4
RP3	38	Brendan Donnelly	2	2
RP4	27	Evan Meek*	2	4
RP5	33	DJ Carrasco	5	3

Subjective Adjustments:

Also on Hand: Position players - Brandon Moss. The Padres didn't get equal value from Brian Giles when they traded Jason Bay to get him, but of the four teams to deal away Bay, they were the only ones who didn't get completely ripped off. The sad spectacle of Moss and Craig Hansen giving Pittsburgh essentially nothing from the deal that sent Bay to the Red Sox and Manny to LA has just been the icing on the cake for this franchise.

Pitchers - Hayden Penn, Javier Lopez, Jack Taschner, Hansen (on the DL).

Analysis: Not every major league franchise rates a profile in Failure Magazine, but the Pirates are unique; last season they displaced the 1933-48 Phillies' record for the most consecutive losing seasons in major professional team sports history by notching their 17th consecutive losing record. Indeed, only twice since Barry Bonds' departure as a free agent following NL East-winning seasons of 95, 98 and 96 wins in 1990-92 have the Bucs topped 75 wins in a season, topping out at 79 in 1997. Not coincidentally, in terms of both cause and effect, the Pirates' 11th place finish in the NL in attendance in 2001 - the year they opened PNC Park - is the only time in that period that they finished higher than 12th or drew 2 million fans. 1962, when they still played in Forbes Field, was the last time the Pirates finished in the top 4 in the league in attendance, and they've led the league only once, with the 1925 World Champions. Even the 1908 Pirates, finishing a game out of first place in the NL's most legendary pennant race and with Honus Wagner having his greatest season, finished fifth in attendance.

All of this is a way of saying that the monotony of the Pirates' condition is such that really any discussion of their present roster is almost pointless; it is long past time to move this franchise. I feel for the Pirates fans; this is a venerable franchise, tracing its Pittsburgh roots back to 1882 and having played continuously in the same city in the National League since 1891. And I don't buy the idea that the game's economic structure is fundamentally broken; the Pirates and Royals are the only two teams that plainly can't be saved. Nor is contraction the answer, since the union won't allow it and the owners would just turn around and re-expand at the next available opportunity. No, the Pirates have to move on to a better market, and bid a fond, wistful farewell to a city that hasn't been able to support them for a very long time.

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If you're wondering what I was working on lately besides the division previews, my fifth annual Hall of Fame column is up today at The Hardball Times, and it's on the third basemen.

UPDATE: I'll have to post the full tables here when I get a chance, the plate appearance figures are crucial to the column, and it looks like the editors at THT removed them to save space. They took out the steals, caught stealing and GIDP data, too. Urk.

Charts below the fold:

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Just in time for Opening Day: Part 5 of my preseason previews is the NL East; this is the fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies

Raw EWSL: 285.67 (108 W)
Adjusted: 293.93 (111 W)
Age-Adj.: 248.82 (96 W)
WS Age: 31.17
2010 W-L: 96-66

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Carlos Ruiz	11	9
1B	30	Ryan Howard	25	23
2B	31	Chase Utley	31	26
SS	31	Jimmy Rollins	22	19
3B	34	Placido Polanco	20	17
RF	31	Jayson Werth	21	18
CF	29	Shane Victorino	20	18
LF	38	Raul Ibanez	19	13
C2	33	Brian Schneider	7	6
INF	31	Greg Dobbs	5	4
OF	28	Ben Francisco#	8	10
12	38	Juan Castro	2	1
13	34	Ross Gload	5	4
SP1	33	Roy Halladay	21	14
SP2	26	Cole Hamels	14	15
SP3	29	Joe Blanton	10	9
SP4	27	JA Happ*	15	14
SP5	47	Jamie Moyer	9	6
RP1	33	Brad Lidge	7	5
RP2	29	Ryan Madson	9	7
RP3	32	Chad Durbin	5	4
RP4	38	Jose Contreras	5	4
RP5	34	JC Romero	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. As has been the case for a few years now, the Phillies have few players whose value isn't established. That said, Joe Blanton being out 3-6 weeks and Brad Lidge and JC Romero opening the season on the DL mean that their EWSL may be slightly aggressive.

Also on Hand: Position players - None expected to contribute.

Pitchers - Danys Baez, who should sub early for Lidge and Romero; Antonio Bastardo and Kyle Kendrick.

Analysis: The Phillies, like the Tigers of the 80s, have a core (aside from Hamels) that's all around the same age, so as I've been noting for a few years now their window is limited - but there is a time when you have to take a team with two pennants and a World Championship, ride it as far as it will go and live with the downfall that follows. (Heck, the Yankees are still riding Jeter, Posada and Rivera, who apparently last night became the first trio of teammates in the history of the major pro sports to spend a 16th consecutive season together). For now, the team's good enough that there's no point in worrying about the core passing 30.

Aside from the freak abdominal injury, the Halladay for Lee deal remains controversial, but Halladay should benefit from coming to the NL, and he helps balance an overly lefty-heavy rotation. I would not bet against a big bounce-back year for Hamels.

New York Mets

Raw EWSL: 213.67 (84 W)
Adjusted: 230.07 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 214.40 (85 W)
WS Age: 29.79
2010 W-L: 85-77

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Rod Barajas	10	8
1B	25	Daniel Murphy#	7	10
2B	34	Luis Castillo	13	11
SS	27	Jose Reyes	16	17
3B	27	David Wright	25	26
RF	26	Jeff Francouer	10	11
CF	33	Carlos Beltran	21	18
LF	31	Jason Bay	25	21
C2	38	Henry Blanco	4	3
INF	29	Mike Jacobs	8	8
OF	28	Angel Pagan	8	8
12	35	Fernando Tatis	8	6
13	34	Alex Cora	5	4
SP1	31	Johan Santana	17	14
SP2	26	Mike Pelfrey	6	7
SP3	29	John Maine	6	5
SP4	28	Oliver Perez	5	5
SP5	23	Jonathon Niese+	1	4
RP1	28	Francisco Rodriguez	13	12
RP2	33	Pedro Feliciano	6	4
RP3	20	Jennry Mejia+	0	6
RP4	35	Hisanori Takahashi+	0	6
RP5	27	Fernando Nieve	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None; I would have adjusted Beltran and Reyes downward for their injuries, but both are already valued on the basis of missing a huge amount of time last season, and Reyes is expected back early anyway. Murphy joins them on the DL to open the season.

Also on Hand: Position players - A cast of thousands, and they'll be needed. Gary Matthews jr., Frank Catalanotto, Ike Davis, Nick Evans, Omir Santos, Josh Thole, Ruben Tejada, Wilmer Flores, Fernando Martinez, Russ Adams.

Tejada's been rushed to the Opening Day roster, but he's a 20-year-old who hit .289/.351/.381 last year in AA; he's obviously not ready to hit major league pitching.

Pitchers - Kelvim Escobar, Bobby Parnell, Pat Misch, Sean Green, Kiko Calero, Nelson Figueroa.

Analysis: Mind you, I tried to play it conservative with the Mets, not listing established players like Matthews, Escobar, Calero, and Catalanotto (of whom Matthews and Catalanotto are on the roster, and Matthews in today's lineup), and they're still second. That's a testimony to how much established talent is still on hand here, even with all the injuries, as well as the mediocrity of the Phillies' competition.

EWSL's standard rookie-reliever adjustment could be optimistic about the two new guys. Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya are definitely going out on a limb using untested pitchers like Mejia and Takahashi over Green, Parnell and Calero, but it's not as if Green and Parnell set the world on fire last season. Mejia's walked almost 4 men per 9 innings in the low minors, which makes me skeptical of him.

Pelfrey, Maine and Perez remain the biggest variables here. Pelfrey needs to have a little better luck on balls in play and keep his walk and homer rates low. Perez needs to get his velocity back. Maine is probably the best bet of the three for quality, but the most dubious in terms of durability; this may be his last chance to establish himself as being able to carry a full rotation starter's workload, especially given how many pitches he throws per inning.

Murphy's injury may not be a bad thing, with a Jacobs/Tatis platoon likely to produce some power, at least. Jacobs had a horrific year last season, but his career slugging percentage against right-handed pitching is .505; while that's the sum total of his value as a major leaguer, if he can put up those kinds of numbers that could be a productive platoon. Murphy, by contrast, has 14 homers and 56 walks in 707 career plate appearances; even with great doubles power (47 career doubles, 7 career triples), Murphy - like Rico Brogna before him - needs to hit over .300 to be of any use as a first baseman with those numbers and glovework that's not spectacular.

I'll reiterate quickly my views on the rest. Bay, of course, is a quality acquisition, assuming he has no concealed injury risks. Francouer, I still hope, can have a Joe Guillen-like prime in which he's briefly able to have his natural talent overcome his impatience for a couple years, but he's still basically a hacker whose only reliable skill is his throwing arm. Josh Thole should be the starting catcher, and hopefully will be once he establishes himself in AAA. Blanco and Barajas are both decent enough weak-hitting veteran backup catcher types, but combining the two doesn't accomplish much.

And hopefully, Wright's first-inning homer today is a good sign. I think he was pressing last year after Beltran went down, and don't see any reason why his power numbers should continue to lag.

Atlanta Braves

Raw EWSL: 202.67 (81 W)
Adjusted: 226.01 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 213.89 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.89
2010 W-L: 84-78

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Brian McCann	19	20
1B	33	Troy Glaus	9	8
2B	26	Martin Prado	9	10
SS	27	Yunel Escobar	18	19
3B	38	Chipper Jones	22	15
RF	20	Jason Heyward+	0	11
CF	28	Nate McLouth	19	20
LF	25	Melky Cabrera	11	13
C2	33	Dave Ross	6	5
INF	32	Eric Hinske	6	5
OF	32	Matt Diaz	10	8
12	28	Omar Infante	7	7
13	30	Joe Thurston*	3	5
SP1	24	Jair Jurrjens	13	14
SP2	37	Derek Lowe	11	9
SP3	23	Tommy Hanson*	5	11
SP4	34	Tim Hudson	8	6
SP5	34	Kenshin Kawakami*	4	5
RP1	38	Billy Wagner	6	5
RP2	40	Takahasi Saito	9	6
RP3	31	Peter Moylan	5	4
RP4	25	Eric O'Flaherty	3	3
RP5	24	Kris Medlen*	2	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jordan Schafer, last year's failed rookie experiment.

Pitchers - Jo-Jo Reyes, Scott Proctor.

Analysis: 13 Hall of Fame outfielders have had 400 or more plate appearances as rookies at age 22 or younger; their average season was .302/.362/.467 with 85 Runs, 76 RBI, 14 homers and 10 steals. The best modern ones of the bunch - Ted Williams, Frank Robinson and Joe DiMaggio. Not included in that group - Mickey Mantle, who hit .267/.349/.443 in 386 plate appearances as a 19-year-old rookie, Barry Bonds (age 21, .223/.330/.416); Ken Griffey (age 19, .264/.329/.420); Manny Ramirez (age 22, .269/.357/.521 in a strike-shortened season). All of which is to say, keep your expectations in check for Jason Heyward - maybe he'll be as great at age 20 as Williams, Robinson, Ty Cobb, A-Rod, Mel Ott, Mantle, or Kaline, but Williams and Robinson are the only ones of those guys who were making their first trip around the league. More likely, even if he's Cooperstown-bound, is something more like Mantle at 19.

The Braves have a regular UN going - Saito and Kawakami from Japan, Jurrjens from Curacao, Moylan from Australia, Escobar from Cuba, Prado and Infante from Venezuela, Melky from the Dominican.

Undoubtedly, the biggest problem Atlanta faces, even with a possibly healthy Hudson, a full season from Hanson, and the veteran imports in the pen, is replacing the productivity of Javier Vazquez (219.1 IP, 2.87 ERA), Rafael Soriano (75.2 IP in 77 games, 2.97 ERA), and Mike Gonzalez (74.1 IP in 80 games, 2.42 ERA); over 369.1 IP those three combined to strike out 430 batters (10.48 per 9 IP), walk 104 (2.53 per 9), allow 33 homers (0.80 per 9) and surrender just 290 hits (7.07 per 9).

Florida Marlins

Raw EWSL: 170.33 (70 W)
Adjusted: 204.11 (81 W)
Age-Adj.: 209.92 (83 W)
WS Age: 27.35
2010 W-L: 83-79

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	John Baker#	10	11
1B	26	Gaby Sanchez+	0	11
2B	30	Dan Uggla	20	18
SS	26	Hanley Ramirez	32	36
3B	28	Jorge Cantu	15	15
RF	29	Cody Ross	15	14
CF	23	Cameron Maybin*	2	2
LF	25	Chris Coghlan*	11	26
C2	29	Ronny Paulino	7	6
INF	25	Emilio Bonifacio#	4	6
OF	29	Brian Barden	1	0
12	34	Wes Helms	5	4
13	27	Brett Carroll*	3	5
SP1	26	Josh Johnson	12	12
SP2	26	Anibal Sanchez	3	3
SP3	27	Ricky Nolasco	8	7
SP4	23	Chris Volstad#	4	6
SP5	32	Nate Robertson	3	2
RP1	26	Leo Nunez	7	7
RP2	27	Reynel Pinto	4	4
RP3	28	Dan Meyer*	3	6
RP4	31	Brian Sanches*	3	5
RP5	27	Burke Badenhop#	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None, but I'd bet on Maybin to beat his EWSL, as well as Anibal Sanchez, if healthy. Brian Sanches starts the season on the DL with a hamstring issue.

Also on Hand: Position players - Mike Lamb

Pitchers - Clay Hensley, Rick Vanden Hurk, Andrew Miller, Jose Veras.

Analysis: The youngest team by Win Shares age in the five divisions I've reviewed so far, the Marlins are the Brazil of baseball: the team of the future and always will be. Well, except that they do have two World Championship flags with teams that acquired veterans in a timely fashion...but this is not such a team, unless they make some big strikes at the trade deadline - these Marlins are yet another young-talent outfit. And as per usual of late, recent pitching injuries are the main source of uncertainty.

As always, a downside to doing these previews in serial format is having at least one guy every year who shows up twice, in this case Nate Robertson, penciled out of the Detroit rotation and into Florida's.

Washington Nationals

Raw EWSL: 165.67 (68 W)
Adjusted: 179.84 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 170.07 (70 W)
WS Age: 29.53
2010 W-L: 70-92

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	38	Ivan Rodriguez	8	6
1B	30	Adam Dunn	22	20
2B	34	Adam Kennedy	12	10
SS	24	Ian Desmond+	1	11
3B	25	Ryan Zimmerman	17	21
RF	32	Willie Harris	9	7
CF	29	Nyjer Morgan	9	9
LF	31	Josh Willingham	13	11
C2	25	Jesus Flores	6	7
INF	32	Cristian Guzman	12	10
OF	28	Willie Taveras	6	6
12	28	Mike Morse	1	1
13	27	Alberto Gonzalez#	4	4
SP1	25	John Lannan	8	9
SP2	31	Jason Marquis	12	9
SP3	35	Livan Hernandez	4	3
SP4	26	Craig Stammen*	2	3
SP5	27	Garrett Mock#	1	1
RP1	26	Matt Capps	6	6
RP2	28	Jason Bergmann	3	2
RP3	25	Tyler Clippard*	3	6
RP4	28	Brian Bruney	4	4
RP5	39	Miguel Batista	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None. I take no legal responsibility for the accuracy of Livan Hernandez' reported age.

Also on Hand: Position players - Justin Maxwell, Wil Nieves, Chris Coste, Eric Bruntlett.

Pitchers - As always, plenty of arms indistinguishable (at least) with the guys being trotted out. Stephen Strasburg is supposed to be the next Dwight Gooden if not the next Walter Johnson; I buy him as the next big thing, but as with Heyward the record of rookie pitchers gives some caution - Strasburg's unlikely to have a better career than Roger Clemens or Greg Maddux, who had rookie ERAs of 4.32 and 5.61, respectively. Also the rehabbing Jordan Zimmerman and Chien-Ming Wang, Scott Olsen, Tyler Walker, Sean Burnett, Doug Slaten, and Shairon Martis. Ron Villone was cut recently.

Analysis: For a team that's supposed to be rebuilding, there's a surprisingly small number of un-established players here until Strasburg descends from the clouds, although with the addition of veterans like Kennedy, the Nats should at least not match last season's 103-loss fiasco. How sad is the pitching staff? Aside from Strasburg, who will probably be mentioned in almost every sentence written about this team this year, Baseball Prospectus projects Jason Marquis to lead the staff with 90 strikeouts.

Aside from Strasburg, the other rookie on the radar here is Desmond, who looks like a prospect if you look at his 2009: he batted .306/.372/.494 in 189 plate appearances at AA, .354/.428/.461 in 205 PA at AAA, and .280/.318/.561 in 89 PA for the Nats. Unfortunately, even including those numbers, his career minor league line is .259/.326/.388.

As with Mark DeRosa in San Francisco, Willie Harris starting in an outfield corner is diagnostic. Strasburg can't arrive soon enough.

Ivan Rodriguez is fading fast; at age 38, he's clearly on hand mainly to provide a veteran to work with Strasburg. He's batted .278/.304/.418 the last five seasons, and the Nats will be thrilled if he can match even that after last year's .249/.280/.384. Even Pudge's legendary arm is not quite what it was; the past three years, he's caught 31%, 32% and 35% of opposing base thieves, allowing 47, 52 and 41 steals - still good numbers, but down from catching at least 48% of opposing baserunners 9 of the prior 12 years and the first time he'd allowed more than 40 steals in a season since 1996, when he caught a career-high 1223.1 innings. Can he keep an everyday job for three more years? He has 2,711 hits, and two more years of about a hundred hits a year (he's averaged 108 the past two) would get him close enough to possibly reach 3,000 by hanging on as a backup. How amazing would that be? Ted Simmons, with 2,472 hits, is a distant second among players to spend at least half their career games at catcher, but Pudge has caught 96% of his career games - Jason Kendall, with 2,084 hits, is the only other catcher with 2,000 hits to catch 90% of his career games.

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Part 4 of my preseason previews is the NL West; this is the fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Los Angeles Dodgers

Raw EWSL: 242.67 (94 W)
Adjusted: 250.60 (97 W)
Age-Adj.: 230.19 (90 W)
WS Age: 30.48
2010 W-L: 90-72

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Russell Martin	18	19
1B	26	James Loney	16	18
2B	24	Blake DeWitt#	4	6
SS	32	Rafael Furcal	14	11
3B	36	Casey Blake	17	13
RF	28	Andre Ethier	20	21
CF	25	Matt Kemp	21	26
LF	38	Manny Ramirez	22	15
C2	41	Brad Ausmus	5	3
INF	35	Ronnie Belliard	10	7
OF	38	Garret Anderson	12	8
12	33	Reed Johnson	6	5
13	35	Jamey Carroll	8	6
SP1	25	Chad Billingsley	12	13
SP2	22	Clayton Kershaw#	8	10
SP3	32	Vicente Padilla	7	5
SP4	35	Hiroki Kuroda#	7	5
SP5	37	Ramon Ortiz	0	0
RP1	26	Jonathan Broxton	13	14
RP2	33	George Sherrill	10	7
RP3	27	Ramon Trancoso#	5	5
RP4	27	Ronald Belisario*	4	6
RP5	28	Hong-Chih Kuo	5	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Nick Green. Jason Repko was cut, and Brian Giles retired.

Pitchers - Charlie Haeger is in the long-term mix for fifth starter. Jeff Weaver appears to be on the Opening Day roster. Russ Ortiz joined Ramon in this spring's Night of the Living Ortiz spectacle. Also James McDonald, Carlos Montaserios, Justin Miller, Luis Ayala, Josh Towers and Cory Wade. Fifth starter candidate Eric Stults was sold to the Hiroshima Carp.

Analysis: The NL West is not baseball's strongest division, but it remains its most competitive, with no dominant team and four of five primed to battle for first place. That said, the Dodgers should still be the strongest of the five, with a talented outfield, two possible rotation anchors, a good bullpen and the steady leadership of Joe Torre.

Age keeps coming up here, age and what it does and doesn't mean. EWSL values three Dodgers (Martin, Loney and Billingsley) as improving young players, not the worn-down veterans or they looked to be at times last season. It's easy to forget that Martin's still just 27 and Billingsley only 25. Billingsley's probably the most crucial Dodger - Kershaw continues to improve but may not quite be ready for center stage and a full #1 workload at age 22, so keeping him as the #2 man will be valuable. Martin, by contrast, looks unlikely to recover his past offensive glories. Manny's age matters too, as he showed it at times last year, batting a most un-Manny-ish .251/.378/.431 from July 24 through the season's end. At 38, the end of his years as a dominating slugger may be at hand, although he's likely to remain a dangerous bat. Blake's age (36) suggests that he's unlikely to sustain last year's pace, although his big improvement was in walks, an area where older players tend to retain improvements. And the bench is geriatric even by the standards of Joe Torre benches (assuming Belliard doesn't end up as the starting 2B; that situation remains unstable).

Kuo starts the year on the DL. It's anybody's guess whether the fifth starter will end up being Ortiz, the other Ortiz, Weaver, Haeger, or somebody else (Kuo's probably not returning to starting).

UPDATE: Haeger wins the 5th starter job. If we add him in for Ortiz, it won't change the EWSL picture much; he's 25 but has been kicking around the majors for four years now in small doses. His control remains iffy.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Raw EWSL: 194.50 (78 W)
Adjusted: 212.27 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 226.73 (89 W)
WS Age: 27.63
2010 W-L: 89-73

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Miguel Montero	8	9
1B	30	Adam LaRoche	17	15
2B	28	Kelly Johnson	13	13
SS	27	Stephen Drew	18	18
3B	26	Mark Reynolds	18	20
RF	22	Justin Upton#	12	29
CF	26	Chris Young	12	13
LF	28	Conor Jackson	8	8
C2	29	Chris Snyder	9	9
INF	29	Ryan Roberts*	4	8
OF	23	Gerardo Parra*	5	11
12	35	Augie Ojeda	5	4
13	25	Tony Abreu	1	1
SP1	29	Dan Haren	19	17
SP2	31	Brandon Webb	11	9
SP3	26	Edwin Jackson	12	13
SP4	25	Ian Kennedy	0	0
SP5	26	Billy Buckner	1	1
RP1	31	Chad Qualls	9	8
RP2	26	Juan Gutierrez*	4	9
RP3	26	Clay Zavada*	2	4
RP4	26	Esmerling Vasquez*	2	3
RP5	36	Bob Howry	5	5

Subjective Adjustments: None - obviously Upton's age adjustment is fairly aggressive, but he batted .300/.366/.532 as a 21-year-old last season, and earned 19 Win Shares in 138 games; 29 this season is not an especially unusual target.

Also on Hand: Position players - Brandon Allen, Cole Gillespie, Drew Macias, Rusty Ryal.

Pitchers - Aaron Heilman, Kris Benson, Kevin Mulvey, as well as some non-ex-Mets: Rodrigo Lopez, Blaine Boyer, Leo Rosales.

Analysis: If Chad Billingsley is the most critical Dodger, Brandon Webb may be the most critical player in the whole NL West. A healthy Webb would give the D-Backs a formidable 1-2 punch, and combined with the solid Edwin Jackson as the third starter, give Arizona's offense a lot of chances to win. But as of now, Webb hasn't thrown since early March and is expected to miss at least the season's first month, which makes you wonder how long he'll be out and what he'll be like when he returns. That bumps Jackson to the #2 spot, and he's miscast as a #2 starter despite a good ERA last season in a less challenging ballpark (albeit in a tougher division), and after Jackson you have the deluge Arizona can't compete unless it gets at least half a season's worth of something resembling the old Brandon Webb. I have to figure that Webb's health was a driving force behind the otherwise inexplicable deal that brought in Jackson in exchange for Max Scherzer - Jackson doesn't have Scherzer's A-list talent (granted, that talent only got him a 9-15 career record in Arizona), but he's started 95 games and tossed 558.1 regular season innings the last three seasons, whereas Scherzer retains a reputation for being brittle. That may have been more risk than this staff could absorb. As for Jackson, his main risk is whether he can retain the improvements in his control that saw his walks per 9 innings drop from 4.9 to 3.8 to 2.9 the past three years.

Of course, a big part of last year's 92-loss fiasco was the offense managing to finish 8th in the NL in runs scored despite playing in a high-altitude bandbox that inflates everyone's offensive numbers. LaRoche and the continued development of Upton should help that (Arizona first basemen last year hit an appalling .229/.321/.398, to go with .219/.293/.379 from their center fielders, mainly Young; Upton was their only outfielder with any punch). They'll also need better years from Young and Drew and a return to the land of the living by Conor Jackson and Kelly Johnson; the latter steps in for Felipe Lopez, one of the team's few bright spots last year.

Mark Reynolds should be a steady power source after 2009's breakout, and could be devastating if he could cut his strikeouts to the 160-170 range some year; he's whiffed 427 times the past two seasons. I wouldn't hold my breath, but it's the sort of thing he could pull off once.

Colorado Rockies

Raw EWSL: 218.00 (86 W)
Adjusted: 231.77 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.05 (88 W)
WS Age: 29.45
2010 W-L: 88-74

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Chris Iannetta	12	12
1B	36	Todd Helton	18	13
2B	31	Clint Barmes	11	9
SS	25	Troy Tulowitzki	19	24
3B	25	Ian Stewart#	9	13
RF	31	Brad Hawpe	18	15
CF	24	Dexter Fowler*	8	19
LF	24	Carlos Gonzalez#	7	10
C2	31	Miguel Olivo	8	7
INF	38	Melvin Mora	11	8
OF	27	Seth Smith#	8	10
12	39	Jason Giambi	9	7
13	30	Ryan Spilborghs	8	7
SP1	26	Ubaldo Jimenez	14	15
SP2	31	Aaron Cook	12	10
SP3	29	Jeff Francis	4	3
SP4	29	Jorge De La Rosa	8	7
SP5	27	Jason Hammel	6	6
RP1	26	Huston Street	13	13
RP2	35	Rafael Betancourt	8	5
RP3	28	Matt Daley*	2	4
RP4	24	Franklin Morales	3	3
RP5	33	Joe Beimel	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Eric Young and Omar Quintanilla compete with Mora for the reserve infield role.

Pitchers - Manuel Corpas and Taylor Buchholz still fighting to get all the way back. Greg Smith, Matt Belisle, Tim Redding, Randy Flores, Justin Speier.

Analysis: The Rox have their own returning-injured-ace issue with Jeff Francis. Jimenez seems to have taken the ace reins; although I remain skeptical of the long-term prospects of any starter who carries the burden of Coors, he did finish second in club history in ERA and strikeouts last year (his 198 Ks second only to 210 by Pedro Astacio in 1999), and set a club record for fewest hits/9. He's a quality starter.

I was baffled last season why so many outlets were prematurely burying Huston Street, who rebounded well in 2009 (including a 70/13 K/BB ratio and a 1.71 road ERA), but Street has been shut down repeatedly this spring with shoulder stiffness, which may unsettle the bullpen.

He may not be the question mark that Billingsley or Webb or Francis is, but how critical has Tulowitzki been to the Rockies over his career? Since his arrival in August 2006, Tulowitzki has had an OPS above 750 in a month 10 times, and below 750 (or didn't play) 10 times. The Rockies' record in the ten good months? 164-109 (.601), with a winning record in 9 of the 10 months. Their record in his ten bad months? 117-154 (.432), with a losing record in 8 of the 10 months. Last season, the Rockies caught fire on June 4, turning from a 20-32 record, 15 1/2 games out of first place, to go 52-36 and pulling within a game of the Dodgers through October 2 before dropping the last two to LA and settling for the wild card. Tulowitzki's season went the same way: batting an anemic .216/.306/.377 on June 6, he tore the league up to the tune of .336/.414/.637 with 27 homers in 101 games through October 2, before going 0-for-4 against Kershaw and the Dodgers bullpen on October 3 and sitting out the final game. Still only 25, he'll have a chance this season to add the missing consistency that is the only thing holding Colorado's indispenable man back from superstardom.

San Francisco Giants

Raw EWSL: 220.83 (87 W)
Adjusted: 226.57 (89 W)
Age-Adj.: 209.10 (83 W)
WS Age: 29.86
2010 W-L: 83-79

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Ben Molina	15	11
1B	33	Aubrey Huff	13	11
2B	32	Freddy Sanchez	14	11
SS	34	Edgar Renteria	12	10
3B	23	Pablo Sandoval#	16	23
RF	26	Nate Schierholtz	5	6
CF	32	Aaron Rowand	16	13
LF	35	Mark DeRosa	17	13
C2	30	Eli Whiteside*	2	3
INF	30	Juan Uribe	12	11
OF	32	Andres Torres	4	3
12	25	Emmanuel Burriss#	2	3
13	29	Fred Lewis	9	8
SP1	26	Tim Lincecum	21	22
SP2	25	Matt Cain	17	18
SP3	32	Barry Zito	8	6
SP4	27	Jonathan Sanchez	6	5
SP5	31	Todd Wellemeyer	5	4
RP1	28	Brian Wilson	11	11
RP2	31	Jeremy Affeldt	8	6
RP3	30	Brandon Medders	4	4
RP4	36	Guillermo Mota	4	3
RP5	27	Sergio Romo#	3	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Travis Ishikawa, Buster Posey, Eugenio Velez, John Bowker.

Pitchers - Alex Hinshaw, Danny Bautista, Kevin Cameron, Byung Hyun Kim (who came out of retirement), and Santiago Casilla, who's been approaching triple digits this spring.

Hot prospect Madison Bumgarner is one of the people on the cover of this year's Baseball Prospectus, asking if he's the next Lincecum. The book overall isn't quite as hyped on Bumgarner, but even so. Obviously Bumgarner's a talented guy, and at first glance his numbers are eye-popping: 27-5 with a 1.65 ERA in 283 professional innings, an ERA below 2.00 at each of his four stops, including 10 innings in the big leagues. His walk and home run rates are microscopic. You do that at any level as a teenager, you're a serious prospect. But I also know he's 20 years old and has pitched a grand total of 117 innings above A ball, in which he has struck out 79 batters, just over 6 per 9 innings. I'm guessing that a guy who's barely striking out 6 men per 9 in AA isn't quite ready to take the majors by storm in 2010 (his K/BB was 164/21 in 141.2 innings in the Sally League, so he's not a low-K pitcher). Adjust your short-term expectations accordingly.

Analysis: One of the joys of looking at your favorite team's roster before the season is imagining what the team will look like if everything breaks right, if the guys with injuries get healthy, the guys with potential put it all together, the guys who are inconsistent get in a groove. For most teams in a given season, that daydream falls apart once the harsh reality of the season sets in, but there are always a few teams for whom most of the pieces fall into place.

Giants fans can't do much of that with this team, especially the non-pitchers. What room for growth is there? Who's going to blossom on this team? Most of the lineup is old (seriously: a 35-year-old second baseman in left field?), the rest aside from Sandoval has little potential, and Sandoval was pretty close to maxed out in 2009. The pitching staff, while much more talented, has mostly put it all together (or in Zito's case come as far back as he's gonna come), the main exception being Sanchez, who has struck out more than a batter per inning for his career while allowing less than 1 homer per 9, but has been held back by consistently poor control.

All this is another way of saying that the Giants will be fortunate indeed to match the 88 wins of last season. Their pitching should keep them in the hunt, but they're the least likely of the four contenders to close the deal.

San Diego Padres

Raw EWSL: 160.50 (67 W)
Adjusted: 179.10 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 171.49 (70 W)
WS Age: 29.14
2010 W-L: 70-92

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Nick Hundley#	6	8
1B	28	Adrian Gonzalez	29	30
2B	35	David Eckstein	13	10
SS	23	Everth Cabrera*	7	17
3B	26	Chase Headley#	9	13
RF	27	Will Venable#	5	6
CF	30	Scott Hairston	11	10
LF	23	Kyle Blanks*	3	6
C2	31	Yorvit Torrealba	7	6
INF	32	Oscar Salazar	5	4
OF	34	Jerry Hairston jr.	8	7
12	27	Tony Gwynn jr.	7	7
13	42	Matt Stairs	6	3
SP1	31	Chris Young	4	3
SP2	30	Jon Garland	10	9
SP3	29	Kevin Correia	5	5
SP4	26	Clayton Richard#	4	5
SP5	22	Mat Latos*	1	1
RP1	32	Heath Bell	10	8
RP2	26	Luke Gregerson*	3	5
RP3	31	Mike Adams	5	4
RP4	26	Edward Mujica#	2	3
RP5	28	Joe Thatcher	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Josh Barfield, Eric Munson, Aaron Cunningham.

Pitchers - Sean Gallagher, Adam Russell.

Analysis: The Padres don't have the Giants' problem, but they do have a fairly narrow foundation to rebuild upon, at least so far, and it will get a lot narrower if they deal Gonzalez or Bell. (I assume Young will be dealt if he's able to recapture his 2006-07 form)

The mountainous Kyle Blanks showed some real pop last season (.250/.355/.514 in 172 plate appearances at age 22 after a .304/.393/.505 minor league career); the Pads hope the outfielder, listed at 6'6" 285, isn't the next Ken Harvey.

Mike Adams, who basically disappeared off the map due to injuries and ineffectiveness after being penciled in as the Brewers closer entering 2005, throwing just 15.2 big league innings over a three-year stretch, has had an amazing revival in San Diego, a 1.85 ERA and 10.5 K/9 the past two seasons, including an 0.73 ERA and just one home run allowed last season.

Read More »

Part 3 of my preseason previews is the AL Central; this is the third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior previews: the AL West & AL East.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Minnesota Twins

Raw EWSL: 241.50 (94 W)
Adjusted: 252.03 (97 W)
Age-Adj.: 243.37 (94 W)
WS Age: 29.05
2010 W-L: 94-68

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Joe Mauer	30	31
1B	29	Justin Morneau	21	20
2B	32	Orlando Hudson	19	15
SS	27	JJ Hardy	13	13
3B	29	Brendan Harris	9	9
RF	31	Michael Cuddyer	14	11
CF	26	Denard Span#	16	21
LF	24	Delmon Young	11	14
DH	28	Jason Kubel	16	16
C2	27	Jose Morales*	2	4
INF	32	Nick Punto	10	8
OF	25	Alexi Casilla	5	6
13	39	Jim Thome	15	11
SP1	28	Scott Baker	12	11
SP2	28	Nick Blackburn#	9	11
SP3	26	Kevin Slowey	6	7
SP4	26	Francisco Liriano	2	3
SP5	34	Carl Pavano	4	3
RP1	31	Jon Rauch	8	7
RP2	31	Matt Guerrier	8	6
RP3	25	Jose Mijares*	4	9
RP4	28	Jesse Crain	4	3
RP5	34	Clay Condrey	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None, but given Justin Morneau's usual durability, unless Jason Kubel spends a good deal of time hurt or in the field, Jim Thome's not going to approach 11 Win Shares.

Also on Hand: Position players - Matt Tolbert, Jacque Jones, Ben Revere. Revere, a 22-year-old center fielder, may not make an appearance for a while, but he's a career .337/.396/.430 hitter in the minors, where he averaged 70 stolen bases per 162 games. That's all A ball and lower, so don't get too excited just yet, but a guy who can hit .379/.433/.497 and steal 44 bases in 83 games at age 20, as Revere did in Class A Beloit in 2008, is one to watch. Revere has hit .325 this spring in big league camp, but is headed for AA to work on his defense, which reading between the lines suggests that he'll end up as a left fielder.

Pitchers - Pat Neshek, Glen Perkins, Ron Mahay, Brian Duensing, Bobby Keppel, Anthony Swarzak, Rob Delaney. Also Joe Nathan, of course, but Nathan's having Tommy John surgery today, so Opening Day 2011 is an optimistic timetable.

Analysis: Despite the costly loss of Nathan, which likely leaves the closer job either in Rauch's hands or a combination of Rauch and Guerrier, the Twins remain the class of the field due mainly to Mauer and a solid infield. I already had Mauer approaching historic levels as a two-way catcher when I wrote my Hall of Fame catchers column in February 2009, and that was before he led the AL in batting, slugging and OBP. Fact: Mauer has now had 600 plate appearances in a season three times, and won the batting title all three. Fact: No other AL catcher has ever won a batting title; Mauer has as many as all NL catchers combined (Deacon White did win the 1875 National Association title as a catcher, and White and King Kelly won batting titles while doing some part-time catching in 1877, 1884 & 1886). But Mauer caught only 26% of opposing baserunners last season, by far a career low; like some of the other great catchers, he may end up with his best offensive and defensive seasons a little mismatched.

Delmon Young's progress remains agonizingly slow, but guys like him have been known to creep forward with little apparent improvement and then suddenly kick up to another level; he's still only 24, and I'd wait to see his 2010, 2011 and maybe 2012 before writing him off as a potential star. But the slow pace of Young's improvement, combined with Denard Span's success and Revere's potential, probably contributed to the decision to cut bait on also waiting for Carlos Gomez to progress, even if it meant losing the last tangible tie to the Santana trade. Anyway, adding Hudson and the offensively erratic Hardy should stabilize the infield.

The big question, as is so often true, is the rotation. Liriano has struggled badly enough that there's been talk of converting him to relief, and don't be surprised if that possibility is explored with Nathan out; Duensing could end up replacing him in the rotation. Assuming the old Liriano doesn't resurface, Baker and Slowey should be the anchors. Slowey posted a 5:1 K/BB ratio last season, but coughed up as many homers as walks, and was shut down after July 3 to have surgery on bone chips in his wrist; in Slowey's last two starts with the injury he surrendered 11 runs and 3 homers in 6 innings, ballooning his ERA from 4.04 to 4.86. Slowey's 0.56 spring ERA suggests he may be all the way back. Blackburn, like Baker and Slowey, has amazing control - the Twinkies and the Cardinals were the only major league teams to walk fewer than 3 men per 9 innings last year - but with his low K rate will depend more on the defense, and thus should benefit most from the arrival of the O-Dog.

Punto and Harris are still grappling over who gets to give away the third base job to the other; Casilla, who I have listed here as an outfielder solely because there was no room to list him as something else, is competing with Tolbert for the backup infield job.

Rauch currently holds the single-season record for most saves (18) by a pitcher who is taller than 6'10". Because you needed to know that.

Chicago White Sox

Raw EWSL: 213.17 (84 W)
Adjusted: 224.53 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 204.31 (81 W)
WS Age: 29.95
2010 W-L: 81-81

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	33	AJ Pierzynski	9	8
1B	34	Paul Konerko	15	13
2B	23	Gordon Beckham*	6	15
SS	28	Alexei Ramirez#	14	17
3B	28	Mark Teahen	11	11
RF	27	Carlos Quentin	13	13
CF	29	Alex Rios	16	15
LF	32	Juan Pierre	11	9
DH	33	Andruw Jones	6	5
C2	34	Ramon Castro	5	4
INF	43	Omar Vizquel	7	4
OF	34	Mark Kotsay	6	5
13	27	Jayson Nix*	3	6
SP1	29	Jake Peavy	11	9
SP2	31	Mark Buehrle	16	13
SP3	25	John Danks	14	16
SP4	27	Gavin Floyd	12	11
SP5	34	Freddy Garcia	3	2
RP1	29	Bobby Jenks	11	10
RP2	33	Matt Thornton	10	7
RP3	33	Scott Linebrink	4	3
RP4	28	Tony Pena	7	7
RP5	33	JJ Putz	6	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Brent Lillibridge, who had a horrible 2009. Alejandro de Aza. 24-year-old catcher Tyler Flowers, who improved his career minor league batting line to .293/.406/.495 last season, handled AAA pitching just fine, and got a quick cup of the big league coffee in September. Kenny Williams seems more concerned with Flowers batting .188 in that 10-game trial...I expect him to take over for Pierzynski at some point, but that could be next year unless Pierzynski gets dealt in July.

Pitchers - Sergio Santos, Greg Aquino, Randy Williams, Daniel Hudson, Carlos Torres, Freddy Dolsi, Scott Elarton.

Analysis: As has been the case for a few years now, I'm a little unclear on what the White Sox think they are doing, other than just muddling through in a weak division. On the upside, the double play combination is young and talented, the power hitters are still sort of in their prime other than Jones, the top 4 in their rotation should - if Peavy's healthy - stand up well to anybody but the Red Sox, the bullpen's fairly deep, and as noted there seems to be an orderly succession plan behind the plate. On the downside, Pierre is likely to return to being an offensive millstone and is ill-suited to a power park like whatever they're calling Comiskey these days, and there are serious perennial questions about the attitudes of Quentin, Rios and Jones - if you could give one of those guys Pierre's attitude, you'd be in much better shape (I'm not clear on why Rios is seen as the center fielder here over Pierre). The Jones signing is a gamble, but when you acquire a DH who is 33, overweight and has hit .207/.304/.393 the past three seasons, you need a better Plan B than ... Mark Kotsay? Please tell me they're never gonna wake up one morning with Vizquel as the starting DH.

On balance this looks like a team that can make a run at the division if the Twins stumble and things break well with the rotation (including Garcia, who has a lot to prove after three seasons lost to injury) and the outfield.

Detroit Tigers

Raw EWSL: 180.17 (73 W)
Adjusted: 213.91 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 204.25 (81 W)
Subj. Adj.: 201.25 (80 W)
WS Age: 29.20
2010 W-L: 80-82

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Gerald Laird	12	11
1B	27	Miguel Cabrera	24	25
2B	25	Scott Sizemore+	0	11
SS	33	Adam Everett	5	4
3B	33	Brandon Inge	12	10
RF	36	Magglio Ordonez	18	13
CF	23	Austin Jackson+	0	11
LF	36	Johnny Damon	21	16
DH	34	Carlos Guillen	11	9
C2	23	Alex Avila*	2	4
INF	30	Ramon Santiago	6	5
OF	29	Ryan Raburn	6	6
13	26	Clete Thomas#	5	6
SP1	27	Justin Verlander	16	15
SP2	21	Rick Porcello*	13	21
SP3	25	Max Scherzer#	6	8
SP4	27	Jeremy Bonderman	3	2
SP5	32	Nate Robertson	3	2
RP1	30	Jose Valverde	13	11
RP2	25	Joel Zumaya	2	2
RP3	32	Bobby Seay	5	4
RP4	28	Zach Miner	7	6
RP5	23	Ryan Perry*	2	4

Subjective Adjustments: The 1.581 multiplier for pitchers age 21 and under is based on a sample of 9 seasons, two of them Felix Hernandez and most of them guys who had not, as Rick Porcello did last year, started 31 games in the majors. Projecting him to leap to 21 Win Shares seemed unrealistic even for optimists about Porcello, who after all struck out only 89 batters last year. I trimmed him down -3 to 18.

Overall, the Tigers are heavily dependent on guys without an established profile; they're the only team in the AL starting two pure rookies (Scott Sizemore and Austin Jackson).

Also on Hand: Position players - Jeff Larish.

Pitchers - Dontrelle Willis, who's had a great spring and isn't out of contention for a rotation slot just yet. Armando Galarraga, deposed from the rotation but still hanging around. Fu-Te Ni, Phil Coke, Daniel Schlereth, Eddie Bonine.

Analysis: The Tigers' question marks start with replacing Curtis Granderson, especially defensively. Jackson is currently penciled in as the heir, although they could still go with Clete Thomas. Sizemore is actually the better hitter at this stage than Jackson (.308/.389/.500 between AA and AAA last season; Jackson's career slugging percentage in the minors is .410), but is two years older, and second basemen with questionable gloves are not always the most likely guys to develop as hitters.

Cabrera is reportedly sobered up and slimmed down; we'll see how much that matters and how long it lasts. My guess is that it's not going to affect his hitting much, but of course being in shape and not hung over is likely to help his baserunning, defense and long-term durability. In a way, it seems almost quaint to see a player whose issue is alcohol.

Much of the rest of the offense is creaky, nonexistent (Everett) and/or likely to struggle in Detroit (Damon).

The pitching staff could be impressive if Scherzer finally has a healthy season and Zumaya holds up. Bonderman's ceiling now looks a lot lower than it once did. And getting Dontrelle back on track could help.

Kansas City Royals

Raw EWSL: 179.00 (73 W)
Adjusted: 185.47 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 182.74 (74 W)
WS Age: 28.74
2010 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Jason Kendall	12	9
1B	24	Billy Butler	13	16
2B	26	Chris Getz*	5	11
SS	28	Yuniesky Betancourt	10	10
3B	26	Alex Gordon	8	9
RF	30	David DeJesus	18	16
CF	30	Rick Ankiel	8	7
LF	34	Scott Podsednik	8	7
DH	34	Jose Guillen	8	7
C2	28	Brayan Pena	1	1
INF	27	Alberto Callaspo	11	11
OF	27	Josh Fields	4	4
13	29	Mike Aviles#	7	8
SP1	26	Zack Greinke	20	21
SP2	31	Gil Meche	9	8
SP3	26	Luke Hochevar#	2	2
SP4	28	Robinson Tejeda	4	4
SP5	29	Brian Bannister	6	5
RP1	26	Joakim Soria	14	15
RP2	31	Juan Cruz	4	3
RP3	34	Kyle Farnsworth	3	2
RP4	26	Kyle Davies	5	5
RP5	30	Roman Colon	2	1

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Mitch Maier, last year a frequent starter in the outfield. Wilson Betemit, Willie Bloomquist, Brian Anderson, Vance Wilson.

Pitchers - Where to begin? Bruce Chen (yes, that Bruce Chen), Jorge Campillo, Phil Humber, Brad Thompson, Victor Marte, Josh Rupe, Matt Herges, 37-year-old Yasuhiko Yabuta (who actually pitched much better in his second crack at American minor leaguers in 2009), Rule V pickup Edgar Osuna, Bryan Bullington.

Analysis: A little hope, but not much. Donald Zachary Greinke was so good in so many ways last year that he has to be considered an elite pitcher and not a one-year fluke, but even the elite don't repeat seasons like that. Gordon, once a hyped "next George Brett" by the same people who used the same tag on Hank Blalock, starts the season on the DL, which puts Callaspo at third. Butler is the trendy pick for a breakout, and for good reason: from June 10 to the end of the season he batted .312/.374/.526 with 34 doubles in 101 games, including a blistering stretch of .346/.418/.596 with 45 RBI in 53 games from August 4 to September 30. That may be partly a matter of being a second-half hittter, but it does seem that Butler's making real progress. He also had ridiculous home/road splits: .362/.415/.612 in KC, .240/.307/.372 on the road. Getz had a .324 OBP last year as a rookie, and should improve enough on that to actually be useful.

Then, there's the ugly side, the guys who have neither present nor future. The acquisition of Podsednik is like the White Sox acquisition of Pierre: cheered by Roto players but mostly an investment in a season that's unlikely to be repeated. Both guys remain useful fourth outfiielders miscast as starting corner outfielders. The Royals remain desperate enough for starting pitching that they've considered using Kyle Farnsworth in the rotation. Kendall is durable and ends their experiment with sub-.300 OBPs behind the plate, but he's old, slow, punchless and can't throw. Betancourt's only 27 and has been declining for two years now (from a peak when his OBP was .308). Guillen remains a 34-year-old headache who's been paid $24 million the past two years to bat .257/.305/.415 and block Butler from DHing. Expectations should be limited accordingly.

Maybe they should get Dontrelle; he could probably use some advice in coming back from anxiety problems from Greinke and Ankiel.

Cleveland Indians

Raw EWSL: 133.00 (57 W)
Adjusted: 153.64 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 158.73 (66 W)
WS Age: 27.48
2010 W-L: 66-96

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Lou Marson+	1	11
1B	34	Russell Branyan	10	8
2B	24	Luis Valbuena*	3	8
SS	24	Asdrubal Cabrera	14	18
3B	28	Jhonny Peralta	15	15
RF	27	Shin-Soo Choo	17	18
CF	27	Grady Sizemore	20	21
LF	23	Michael Brantley*	2	4
DH	33	Travis Hafner	7	6
C2	39	Mike Redmond	3	3
INF	25	Matt LaPorta*	2	4
OF	26	Trevor Crowe	1	2
13	26	Andy Marte	2	2
SP1	32	Jake Westbrook	3	2
SP2	26	Fausto Carmona	5	5
SP3	25	Justin Masterson#	5	6
SP4	25	Aaron Laffey	4	5
SP5	25	David Huff*	2	3
RP1	33	Kerry Wood	7	5
RP2	28	Rafael Perez	4	4
RP3	26	Joe Smith	4	4
RP4	26	Tony Sipp*	2	3
RP5	27	Jeremy Sowers	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None, but Brantley and LaPorta should produce more than that with more playing time (LaPorta may be platooned with Branyan).

Also on Hand: Position players - Anderson Hernandez, Austin Kearns, Mark Grudzeilanek, Brian Bixler, Chris Gimenez, and smooth catching prospect Carlos Santana.

Pitchers - Chris Perez, Jensen Lewis, Scott Lewis, Anthony Reyes, Tom Mastny, Hector Rondon, Carlos Carrasco, Mitch Talbot. Carrasco and Talbot are seen as in the rotation mix not far down the road.

Analysis: I see Baseball Prospectus has the Indians at 79-83. I get where some of the difference comes from: BP, as it often is with unproven players, is bullish on Masterson and LaPorta and has Brantley, Hafner and Westbrook valued relatively more than EWSL does. I'm not going to argue methods here - EWSL isn't a fine-tuned system like PECOTA, but its blunter approach can be summarized as: show me. Because to meet their PECOTA projections, all of those guys will have to do more in the majors than they've established as a baseline the past three seasons in the majors.

On a gut level, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, most divisions end up with a doormat, and the Indians have the look of a team with a complete mess of a starting rotation and an uneven offense beyond Sizemore and Choo. On the other hand, this division isn't overflowing with the kind of tough competition that hangs a 3-15 record on a team in one or more of its head-to-head matchups. Consider: the Indians last year went 4-14 vs Detroit but 16-20 against the Twins and White Sox; the Royals were 6-12 last year against the Twins but 17-19 against the other two. By contrast, the Orioles last year were 15-39 against NY, Boston and Tampa (including 7-29 against the top two) and the Blue Jays were 17-37 against the trio. Cleveland must look at the Blue Jays and think, there but for the grace of God...speaking of which, one major similarity this team has to Toronto is the destructive effects of a huge contract for a declining player in a collapsing economy, although Hafner's deal is not nearly the long-term millstone that Vernon Wells' is.

POSTSCRIPT: If you're wondering, the AL records, with all adjustments factored in, add up to an average of 82 wins per team, which is actually fairly consistent with the AL's aggregate record in the age of interleague play.

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Part 2 of my preseason previews is the AL East; this is the second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Prior preview: the AL West.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Boston Red Sox

Raw EWSL: 296.33 (112 W)
Adjusted: 298.90 (113 W)
Age-Adj.: 266.84 (102 W)
WS Age: 31.10
2010 W-L: 102-60

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Victor Martinez	18	15
1B	31	Kevin Youkilis	26	22
2B	26	Dustin Pedroia	24	26
SS	34	Marco Scutaro	17	14
3B	31	Adrian Beltre	12	10
RF	34	JD Drew	16	14
CF	37	Mike Cameron	18	11
LF	26	Jacoby Ellsbury	17	19
DH	34	David Ortiz	15	13
C2	38	Jason Varitek	9	6
INF	36	Mike Lowell	14	11
OF	26	Jeremy Hermida	12	13
13	26	Jed Lowrie#	3	4
SP1	30	Josh Beckett	15	12
SP2	26	Jon Lester	15	16
SP3	31	John Lackey	14	11
SP4	25	Clay Buchholz	4	4
SP5	29	Daisuke Matsuzaka	8	7
RP1	29	Jon Papelbon	15	13
RP2	34	Hideki Okajima	8	6
RP3	28	Ramon Ramirez	7	6
RP4	25	Daniel Bard*	2	4
RP5	43	Tim Wakefield	9	7

Subjective Adjustments: None, but bear in mind that EWSL is valuing Lowell, Varitek and Hermida based on being everyday players in 2009, Lowrie in light of extensive playing time in 2008. That's not irrational - teams with that kind of depth often end up needing it, especially Hermida when you consider the injury histories of Drew and Cameron. But in the end, there won't be at bats enough for all of them.

Also on Hand: Position players - Bill Hall (another recently deposed regular!), Josh Reddick, Tug Hulett.

Pitchers - Manny Delcarmen, Joe Nelson, Boof Bonser, Kason Gabbard, Dustin Richardson, Brian Shouse, Fabio Castro, Michael Bowden.

Analysis: This Red Sox team doesn't look offensively strong enough to me to be a real 100-win team, but they and the Yankees are doubtless the strongest teams in the game by a healthy margin, in Boston's case due to their depth, pitching and defense. The rotation has some question marks, especially Matsuzaka and the durability of Lackey, but as with the rest of the roster there are fallbacks. Maybe the biggest vulnerable keystone is Mike Cameron, the oldest guy in the starting lineup and a key to improving Boston's outfield defense; a Drew-Ellsbury-Hermida outfield is not nearly as solid afield.

EWSL recognizes that Lester is really the star of the pitching staff now, and without the tougher road of pitching in Fenway in the AL East, he might be right there with Lincecum, Greinke, King Felix, Santana and maybe Halladay and Sabathia as the game's very best pitchers; as it is, he's at least in the next tier with Verlander, Lee, Wainwright, Haren and Carpenter. But of course Beckett remains the big-game ace.

I remain...I think the proper word is incredulous, rather than skeptical, at Scutaro as a major league everyday shortstop at age 34, but he's built up to this gradually, he's a solid enough bat and defensively the Sawx have Beltre and Pedroia to help cover his sides.

The Defending World Champion Hated Yankees

Raw EWSL: 283.67 (108 W)
Adjusted: 289.60 (110 W)
Age-Adj.: 250.32 (97 W)
WS Age: 31.92
2010 W-L: 97-65

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	38	Jorge Posada	15	11
1B	30	Mark Teixeira	27	24
2B	27	Robinson Cano	17	17
SS	36	Derek Jeter	24	18
3B	34	Alex Rodriguez	25	22
RF	29	Nick Swisher	16	15
CF	29	Curtis Granderson	21	20
LF	26	Brett Gardner#	6	7
DH	31	Nick Johnson	10	9
C2	24	Francisco Cervelli*	2	4
INF	24	Ramiro Pena*	2	5
OF	36	Randy Winn	17	13
13	33	Marcus Thames	5	5
SP1	29	CC Sabathia	21	18
SP2	33	AJ Burnett	13	9
SP3	38	Andy Pettitte	11	9
SP4	33	Javier Vazquez	15	10
SP5	24	Phil Hughes	6	6
RP1	40	Mariano Rivera	16	12
RP2	24	Joba Chamberlain	8	8
RP3	35	Damaso Marte	3	2
RP4	27	Alfredo Aceves#	5	5
RP5	25	David Robertson#	2	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. Winn has the same issue as some of the Red Sox bench, but he's sharing time with Gardner, and while 20 Win Shares seems optimistic for the pair, it's not crazy. Also, the Yankees will need bench depth (both Winn and Marcus Thames) with Nick Johnson in the starting lineup.

Also on Hand: Position players - Mike Rivera, Kevin Russo, Jamie Hoffman.

Pitchers - Jonathan Albaladejo, Chan Ho Park, Sergio Mitre, Kei Igawa, Boone Logan, Royce Ring. Chad Gaudin was released this morning.

Analysis: At every turn, the Yankees have a stronger offense and more impressive-looking frontline talent than the Sox, but they're also older (except in center field) and subject to more uncertainties.

Hughes was named the fifth starter today, sending Joba back to the bullpen. Your guess is as good as mine how long either of those assignments will last, although at some point the Yankees need to make a long-term commitment what they're doing with those two guys. I think the die has been cast now to try Hughes as far as he will go as a rotation starter, but Joba is more enigmatic. He may even need a change of scenery.

A-Rod's streak of consecutive 100-Run/100-RBI seasons ended last year at 11, second only to Lou Gehrig's 13. In 14 major league seasons, he's either driven in 100 runs, scored 100 runs, or (12 times) both, every year.

The re-signing of Joe Mauer in Minnesota, the aging and injuries to A-Rod, and the continuing uncertainty around Joba means that there remains no heir apparent to Rivera, Jeter or Posada. When those guys go, this may be a more different team than anyone now envisions.

Tampa Bay Rays

Raw EWSL: 227.83 (89 W)
Adjusted: 241.67 (94 W)
Age-Adj.: 238.37 (93 W)
WS Age: 28.31
2010 W-L: 93-69

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Dioner Navarro	9	10
1B	32	Carlos Pena	21	16
2B	29	Ben Zobrist	16	15
SS	30	Jason Bartlett	19	17
3B	24	Evan Longoria#	18	28
RF	25	Matt Joyce#	3	4
CF	25	BJ Upton	18	22
LF	28	Carl Crawford	17	17
DH	33	Pat Burrell	13	11
C2	30	Kelly Shoppach	9	8
INF	27	Willy Aybar	6	6
OF	34	Gabe Kapler	5	4
13	29	Hank Blalock	6	6
SP1	28	James Shields	13	12
SP2	26	Matt Garza	11	11
SP3	27	Jeff Niemann*	6	11
SP4	24	David Price*	3	7
SP5	24	Wade Davis*	1	2
RP1	30	Rafael Soriano	8	7
RP2	32	Dan Wheeler	8	6
RP3	27	JP Howell	9	8
RP4	32	Grant Balfour	6	5
RP5	27	Andy Sonnanstine	4	4

Subjective Adjustments: None, but Matt Joyce and Wade Davis, if healthy all year, should well exceed their previously established major league performance.

Also on Hand: Position players - Perennial SS prospect Reid Brignac, Desmond Jennings (who is supposed to be Carl Crawford 2.0, although at the same age, Crawford was entering his fourth season as a major league regular), Sean Rodriguez.

Pitchers - Randy Choate, Joaquin Benoit, Lance Cormier, Winston Abreu, Dale Thayer. Abreu's an interesting "prospect" case: a 33-year-old Dominican who entered the Atlanta system in 1994 (before Chipper Jones' first season as a regular), he's crapped out in brief major league trials (7.31 ERA in 44.1 innings for four teams over three seasons), has pitched in Mexico and Japan - but since 2006, he's thrown 168.2 innings at AAA with a 1.93 ERA and eye-popping peripherals: 5.40 H/9, 0.54 HR/9, 3.00 BB/9, 12.68 K/9.

Analysis: The Brewers had a wonderful collection of talent in the 1978-83 period, but somehow they only put together the one magical pennant (plus a postseason appearance in the scrambled season of 1981). Somehow, they often ended up third. Will that be the fate of these Rays? The good news is, there still seems to be a fair amount of potential upside/bounce-back here. Their Win Shares age marks them as the youngest team in the division (if Baltimore is hoping to rebuild to where the Rays are now, they need to build back in time). BJ Upton, David Price, Pat Burrell, Dioner Navarro and Andy Sonnanstine could hardly have had more disappointing seasons in 2009, and James Shields was off his game as well; Price and Wade Davis could potentially arrive in a hurry. On the other hand, a Navarro-like dropoff could easily plague the three Rays who played massively above expectations last season: Ben Zobrist, Jason Bartlett and Jeff Neimann (Zobrist Win Shares the last three seasons: 1, 8, 27). Check out how Tampa's infield, powered by Zobrist and Bartlett, stacked up last season against their division rivals:

Average starting infielder, 2009:

Tm	PA	Avg	OBP	Slg	R	RBI	SB	CS	GDP
TB	602	0.282	0.377	0.524	93	93	15	4	11
NYY	658	0.310	0.384	0.519	98	93	13	4	17
BOS	524	0.288	0.364	0.468	76	69	8	4	16

(Poor Nick Green has the honor of dragging down the Red Sox. Note the low GIDP total for the Rays despite Longoria hitting into 27 despite batting third behind Crawford all year, mostly with Upton or Bartlett leading off - that high a total suggests that it's in the team's interests for Crawford in particular to run more ahead of him to avoid that this year, although as it is he ran 76 times last season). Niemann is perhaps unfairly lumped in that group, as he had a fine minor league record, and his signature skill (a low HR rate) has persisted at every level; if he can bump up his K rate even a little from 6.2 K/9 last season (it was 9.1 for his minor league career), he could be a star.

Boy, this division has some 24-year-old pitchers, doesn't it?

Navarro sounds as if he'll be reasonably ready to start the season despite a horrific spring training collision with Jacque Jones, who's fighting tooth and nail for a roster spot on the Twins.

Baltimore Orioles

Raw EWSL: 171.50 (70 W)
Adjusted: 193.50 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.93 (74 W)
WS Age: 29.61
2010 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Matt Wieters*	5	11
1B	30	Garrett Atkins	11	10
2B	32	Brian Roberts	20	16
SS	30	Cesar Izturis	8	7
3B	36	Miguel Tejada	18	14
RF	26	Nick Markakis	19	21
CF	24	Adam Jones#	10	15
LF	26	Nolan Reimold*	5	11
DH	32	Luke Scott	11	9
C2	35	Chad Moeller	2	1
INF	32	Ty Wigginton	9	7
OF	25	Felix Pie	4	5
13	26	Robert Andino#	2	2
SP1	35	Kevin Millwood	10	7
SP2	31	Jeremy Guthrie	10	8
SP3	24	Brad Bergesen*	5	10
SP4	23	Brian Matusz*	2	3
SP5	22	Chris Tillman*	1	2
RP1	32	Mike Gonzalez	6	5
RP2	27	Jim Johnson	6	7
RP3	27	Cla Meredith	4	4
RP4	35	Koji Uehara*	2	3
RP5	36	Mark Hendrickson	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jeff Salazar, Lou Montanez, Michael Aubrey.

Pitchers - Matt Albers, Dennis Sarfate, Alfredo Simon, Will Ohman.

Analysis: In another division, I'd be guardedly optimistic; the Orioles finally seem to be getting their rotation together, their outfield is reasonably young and talented, Wieters still looks like an eventual superstar if not the immediate one everybody predicted last season, and the infield and bullpen are at least anchored mostly by competent veterans (Gonzalez, like Soriano with the Rays, was heisted from a Braves franchise disproportionately disgusted with its bullpen help). Granted, there are trouble signs: Millwood has been terrible this spring, Markakis could just as easily turn into Ben Grieve rather than Carl Yastrzemski, Reimold may not repeat last season's pleasant surprise, and any of the trio of Matusz, Bergesen, and Tillman could easily go the way of so many promising young pitchers. But the main problem the Orioles face is 54 games on their schedule with the Beasts of the East.

I swear, I will spend the next several years muttering "e before i spells Greinke, i before e spells Wieters."

Tejada has averaged 27 GIDP per year the past four seasons, leading the league five times in six years; he hasn't yet cracked Jim Rice's surprisingly durable single-season record of 36.

Luke Scott's Win Shares the past three seasons: 11, 11, 11. That's an established performance level.

Toronto Blue Jays

Raw EWSL: 150.50 (63 W)
Adjusted: 160.50 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 153.81 (64 W)
WS Age: 29.39
2010 W-L: 64-98

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	John Buck	7	6
1B	33	Lyle Overbay	12	10
2B	28	Aaron Hill	18	18
SS	33	Alex Gonzalez	6	5
3B	27	Edwin Encarnacion	10	11
RF	29	Jose Bautista	8	7
CF	31	Vernon Wells	12	10
LF	22	Travis Snider*	3	8
DH	26	Adam Lind	14	16
C2	35	Jose Molina	6	4
INF	35	John McDonald	3	2
OF	29	Jeremy Reed	2	2
13	32	Randy Ruiz*	2	2
SP1	25	Ricky Romero*	5	11
SP2	28	Shaun Marcum	6	5
SP3	30	Scott Richmond*	2	3
SP4	25	Brandon Morrow	5	6
SP5	24	Marc Rzepcynski*	2	5
RP1	32	Jason Frasor	6	5
RP2	34	Scott Downs	8	6
RP3	28	Jeremy Accardo	3	3
RP4	32	Kevin Gregg	9	7
RP5	34	Shawn Camp	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. This is all there is, folks. But Snider should beat 8 WS if he's in the lineup all year.

Also on Hand: Position players - Raul Chavez, Joey Gathright, Jorge Padilla, Jarrett Hoffpauir.

Pitchers - Plenty of about the same quality as the guys listed above: Brian Tallet, Brett Cecil, Dana Eveland, David Purcey, Jesse Carlson, Dustin McGowan, Jesse Litsch.

Analysis: 2010 marketing slogan: "Hey, we already paid them." Marcum, who did not throw a pitch last season, has been named to start Opening Day, replacing the departed (liberated?) Roy Halladay. The Yankees, Sox and Rays may be tough places to break in as a young starting pitcher given the pressures, but Baltimore and Toronto are even less enviable, especially Toronto without Millwood: the youngsters (in Richmond's case, not even young) have to carry the front of the rotation on top of facing all those tough opponents.

The Jays aren't so desperately under-talented - there's at least a plausible gap-filler at most every position, and the bullpen's deep enough in decent arms that they should eventually be able to figure out which ones are going to pitch well this year - but in this division, with so little front-line talent and an unproven rotation, I'll be surprised if they avoid 100 losses.

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Part 1 of my preseason previews is the AL West; this is the first of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I'd suggest you check out the explanations first if you're new to these previews. I've also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.

Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)

Seattle Mariners

Raw EWSL: 225.00 (88 W)
Adjusted: 241.34 (94 W)
Age-Adj.: 218.33 (86 W)
Subj. Adj: 216.33 (85 W)
WS Age: 29.94
2010 W-L: 85-77

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Adam Moore+	1	11
1B	27	Casey Kotchman	12	13
2B	26	Jose Lopez	14	15
SS	32	Jack Wilson	10	8
3B	32	Chone Figgins	21	16
RF	36	Ichiro Suzuki	26	19
CF	27	Franklin Gutierrez	13	14
LF	32	Milton Bradley	14	11
DH	40	Ken Griffey jr	11	6
C2	27	Rob Johnson*	5	9
INF	29	Ryan Garko	13	12
OF	30	Ryan Langerhans	3	3
13	34	Eric Byrnes	6	5
SP1	24	Felix Hernandez	20	22
SP2	31	Cliff Lee	17	14
SP3	31	Erik Bedard	9	7
SP4	28	Ian Snell	5	5
SP5	27	Ryan Rowland-Smith	7	6
RP1	28	David Aardsma	9	8
RP2	27	Mark Lowe	4	4
RP3	29	Sean White	4	4
RP4	27	Brandon League	3	3
RP5	26	Shawn Kelley*	2	3

Subjective Adjustments: As I did last season, I'm trying to be very sparing with introducing purely subjective adjustments into what is intended to be an objective system, but sometimes you have to have a sanity check. I'm docking 2 Win Shares from Adam Moore, the Mariners' rookie catcher, because I can't quite value the combination of him and weak-hitting #2 catcher Rob Johnson as being cumulatively worth 20 Win Shares, and given the choice between the two, I prefer to dock the guy who is less proven. That said, Moore's career line in the minors is .301/.369/.483; even factoring in the very large adjustment from a Class A hitters' haven like High Desert to Safeco, that suggests a guy who will bring noticeably more pop than the punchless Johnson.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jack Hannahan, Matt Tuiasosopo, Corey Patterson, Mike Sweeney, Mike Carp, Josh Bard, Michael Saunders.

Pitchers - Luke French, Jason Vargas, Yusmiero Petit, Garrett Olson, Kanekoa Texeira, Randy Messenger, Ryan Feierabend. French appears to be the favorite to take Bedard's rotation slot until when and if Bedard is ever ready to pitch, and with Cliff Lee starting the season shelved with an abdominal strain, the staff may need to dig deeper than that. French put in three very undistinguished seasons in the Tigers' system before reeling off 13 excellent starts at AAA Toledo last year, posting a 2.98 ERA and improving his K/BB ratio to 3.6 from 1.47, earning him a promotion. He had a 3.38 ERA but weak peripherals with Detroit before arriving in Seattle, where he surrendered a ghastly 2.1 homers per 9 innings in 38 innings of work. So, French should be regarded as a work in progress.

Analysis: Probably no team moved as aggressively or with as clear a plan in mind in the offseason as the Mariners, a franchise adrift for much of the past 6 years despite occasional youth movements and spurts at overachieving contention-like records (last season's 85 wins exceeded their Pythagorean record - i.e., their record as predicted from runs scored and allowed - by 10 games). The reason was obvious: they saw an opportunity and a limited window to grab it. The opportunity came in the form of the Angels' free agency losses - John Lackey, Chone Figgins, Vlad Guerrero, on the heels of last year's losses of Francisco Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Jon Garland and Garret Anderson. It's cold comfort to Angels fans that many of those guys were declining commodities unlikely to match their prior production in Anaheim; the point was that that prior production will be hard to replace, leaving the team that dominated this division to the tune of five division titles in six years suddenly vulnerable. At the same time, with star Ichiro Suzuki now 36 and Felix Hernandez subject to the usual concerns about how long a very young pitcher can stay on top before he breaks down, the team had a sense of urgency about seizing this opportunity.

The Mariners' plan wasn't brilliant, but you can accomplish quite a lot just by knowing what you want to do and sticking with it. They snagged Figgins from the Angels, which killed two birds with one stone, depriving the Angels of his services and importing a slap hitter more suited to Safeco than departing underachieving slugger Adrian Beltre. Even if Figgins can't sustain his improvement in walks last season, he'll be a solid addition in the short run. Casey Kotchman was brought in to soften the blow of Russell Branyan's departure, and while Kotchman is a fairly punchless hitter, he's just hitting age 27 and he and Milton Bradley are both guys who similarly don't depend on the home run for their offensive value (Kotchman may end up platooned with Ryan Garko at first). Ditto for stretch-drive acquisition Jack Wilson at short and scrap heap claim Eric Byrnes.

On the pitching side, bringing in Cliff Lee was part of a larger project (along with last season's addition of Ian Snell) to prop up the Mariners' low team strikeout rate (only Felix Hernandez notched more than 90 Ks last season), rendering them less dependent on repeating last season's AL-best-by-a-wide-margin .712 Defensive Efficiency Rate, and enable the team to re-sign the rehabbing Erik Bedard without having to bank on him as the #2 starter.

Not everything fit the pattern, of course; the team re-upped 40-year-old Ken Griffey jr. to DH (assuming Bradley can play left), after Griffey hit .214, albeit with a really freaky home-road split in which he mauled opposing pitchers at Safeco but was utterly helpless on the road. But Griffey is apparently supposed to provide veteran leadership. If he falls on his face in a "Willie Mays, 1973" way, the Mariners don't have a ton of hitting depth to cover the LF/DH spots, especially if Bradley is, as usual, frequently unavailable. Griffey is the most extreme example of a division-wide trend: the average AL West DH is 36 years old this season.

Clearing 90 wins by more than a hair will be an uphill battle for Seattle unless Lee, Bedard, and Snell suddenly all get healthy and back to top form at once - like the rest of this division, the Mariners are out of the wild card race before the season starts, when you look at the AL East - but this team has definitely made the moves necessary to swipe a division title if one can be had in the high 80s.

The Angels

Raw EWSL: 221.17 (87 W)
Adjusted: 230.68 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 210.64 (83 W)
WS Age: 30.12
2010 W-L: 83-79

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Mike Napoli	10	11
1B	27	Kendry Morales	12	12
2B	26	Howie Kendrick	14	16
SS	26	Erick Aybar	15	17
3B	25	Brandon Wood#	1	1
RF	36	Bobby Abreu	22	16
CF	34	Torii Hunter	21	18
LF	31	Juan Rivera	10	8
DH	36	Hideki Matsui	15	11
C2	27	Jeff Mathis	5	5
INF	29	Macier Izturis	15	14
OF	29	Reggie Willits	3	3
13	27	Freddy Sandoval+	0	4
SP1	27	Jered Weaver	14	13
SP2	26	Scott Kazmir	9	10
SP3	27	Ervin Santana	10	9
SP4	31	Joel Pineiro	8	7
SP5	29	Joe Saunders	13	11
RP1	34	Brian Fuentes	10	8
RP2	33	Fernando Rodney	7	5
RP3	30	Brian Stokes	3	3
RP4	31	Jason Bulger*	4	6
RP5	25	Kevin Jepsen*	2	4

Subjective Adjustments: None, although I expect Brandon Wood to finally establish himself as a reputable major league hitter after cracking 160 home runs in a long minor league career that saw him bat .272/.338/.497, .296/.375/.595, and .293/.353/.557 over the past three full seasons at AAA. Also, one assumes that Kendry Morales will do better than 12 Win Shares, but I don't argue with EWSL's bias against guys like Wood and Morales whose recent history still includes flopping in extended trials against big-league competition.

Also on Hand: Position players - Robb Quinlan.

Pitchers - Scot Shields, Sean O'Sullivan. The stability of the Angels, even with all the free agent losses, is reflected in how few battles for roster spots and starting jobs they have this spring; if everybody's healthy, you'll know who their players are.

Analysis: Mike Scioscia also knows what he's doing, though I'm starting to worry he's suffering from Gene Mauch/Buck Rogers Syndrome, where the ownership assumes he can keep winning without having to supply him with quality players. Notice, as is often the case with the Angels, the focus on prime talent: the roster above includes two 25-year-olds, three 26-year-olds, five 27-year-olds, a 28-year-old, and three 29-year-olds - more than half the roster in that age cohort, and except for the outfield (where Abreu's age remains a concern) the age is mostly concentrated in the bullpen. That's a similar distribution to the one I noted in the 2002 World Champs.

That said, the Angels' fate will rest with the health of their starting rotation, especially the power pitchers. Kazmir needs to rebound, and recent reports are not optimistic about Ervin Santana. And I remain skeptical that Pineiro can keep his walk and home run rates sufficiently microscopic to survive his inability to strike anybody out. If Weaver and Saunders end up as this team's 1-2 starters, they're in trouble and could easily sink below .500.

Texas Rangers
Raw EWSL: 181.67 (74 W)
Adjusted: 203.30 (81 W)
Age-Adj.: 201.73 (80 W)
Subj. Adj.: 199.73 (80 W)
WS Age: 28.27
2010 W-L: 79-83

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Jarrod Saltalamacchia	6	7
1B	24	Chris Davis#	6	9
2B	28	Ian Kinsler	23	23
SS	21	Elvis Andrus*	9	21
3B	33	Michael Young	19	16
RF	29	Nelson Cruz	11	10
CF	24	Julio Borbon*	3	6
LF	29	Josh Hamilton	16	15
DH	35	Vladimir Guerrero	16	12
C2	26	Taylor Teagarden*	3	3
INF	25	Joaquin Arias#	1	1
OF	28	David Murphy	10	10
13	32	Endy Chavez	3	3
SP1	27	Scott Feldman	9	8
SP2	28	Rich Harden	9	9
SP3	23	Tommy Hunter*	4	9
SP4	26	Brandon McCarthy	3	4
SP5	23	Derek Holland*	1	2
RP1	30	Frank Francisco	7	6
RP2	29	CJ Wilson	8	7
RP3	27	Darren O'Day#	5	6
RP4	39	Darren Oliver	8	7
RP5	22	Naftali Feliz*	3	7

Subjective Adjustments: A primary reason why I added subjective adjustments was what I think of as the Khalil Greene problem, since he's one of the first (but not the last) second-year shortstops to exhibit it: EWSL assesses a very young hitter as having a lot of rapid room for growth, but as a result it tends to overvalue second-year hitters who are (1) under age 25 and (2) have a disproportionate amount of their value in their gloves. Nobody improves that much defensively from a good start in one year. So, rather than 21 Win Shares, I've trimmed back Elvis Andrus by 2 Win Shares to 19, which is still +2 from last year's total of 17.

Also on Hand: Position players - Esteban German, Max Ramirez, Brandon Boggs, Toby Hall. Ramirez is the third of Texas' troika of hugely hyped young catchers, but he had a .234/.323/.336 train wreck of a season at AAA last year, and with Saltalamacchia and Teagarden scuffling at the major league level, suddenly nobody's talking about this as the second coming of the Giants' McCovey vs Cepeda problem.

Pitchers - Colby Lewis (who's been in Japan and may end up in the rotation), sometime closer Chris Ray, Edwar Ramirez, Matt Harrison, Dustin Nippert, Doug Mathis.

Analysis: The story has been the same for years: the sun is rise, the sun is set, and there's no pitching in Texas yet. Have we finally turned a corner? Certainly, this team's pitching doesn't present the ghastly hue that doomed past Rangers squads to the cellar. Last season's 4.57 team ERA was actually better than the league average, especially when adjusted for the park. Scott Feldman's one-season improvement suggests a guy who can serve as an innings-eater (though 0.9 HR, 3.1 BB & 5.4 K/9 are decent numbers, but don't foretell much more room for growth, esepcially after two seasons of being pounded). Whether he stays in middle relief or becomes a Joba Rules-style starter, Naftali Feliz has an enormous upside as a power pitcher. Young control/groundball starter Tommy Hunter had a good ERA last season, while Derek Holland, who struggled, struck out more than twice as many as he walked (7.0 K, 3.1 BB, but a frightening 1.7 HR/9) following a fairly spectacular tour through the minor leagues (career rates of 0.4 HR, 2.6 BB, 9.9 K, albeit mostly in A ball). Rich Harden - who's only a year older than Feldman - is on hand, bringing the same gambler's chance to Texas that Bedard and Snell bring to Seattle, Kazmir and Santana to Anaheim, and Ben Sheets and Justin Duchscherer to Oakland. For once, there's some hope. But in the short run, the pitching will have an uphill battle to match last season with the departure of staff ace Kevin Millwood, the dependence on young pitchers and potentially erratic setup men and the mercurial Harden.

(UPDATE: It currently looks like the Rangers will be trying CJ Wilson in the rotation and McCarthy in the bullpen, but we'll see how long that experiment lasts.)

The offense was more unreliable last season. Kinsler's 30-30 numbers made Roto fans happy, but a .253 batting average just isn't enough in a park like Texas. Andrus was adequate and promising, but still isn't an offensive plus. Davis needs to arrest his strike zone problems before his career vanishes. And one of the catchers needs to step up.

Vlad Guerrero was a good gamble - he fell off last season and could be almost done, but guys with his talent and track record have been known to bust out with one last gasp around this age, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see him notch a season like Andres Galarraga's first year in Atlanta, Juan Gonzalez' first year in Cleveland, Frank Thomas' first year in Oakland, or Gary Gaetti's 1995 with Kansas City.

Oakland A's

Raw EWSL: 168.67 (69 W)
Adjusted: 196.13 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 196.19 (79 W)
WS Age: 27.90
2010 W-L: 79-83

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Kurt Suzuki	15	17
1B	24	Daric Barton#	7	9
2B	33	Mark Ellis	13	11
SS	26	Cliff Pennington*	5	6
3B	28	Kevin Kouzmanoff	15	15
RF	25	Ryan Sweeney#	10	15
CF	30	Coco Crisp	8	8
LF	29	Rajai Davis	9	9
DH	31	Jack Cust	16	13
C2	28	Landon Powell*	3	5
INF	27	Jake Fox*	3	6
OF	30	Gabe Gross	8	7
13	27	Eric Patterson*	2	3
SP1	31	Ben Sheets	7	6
SP2	32	Justin Duchscherer	5	3
SP3	22	Brett Anderson*	4	9
SP4	26	Dallas Braden	5	6
SP5	22	Trevor Cahill*	4	8
RP1	26	Andrew Bailey*	9	18
RP2	30	Brad Ziegler#	8	8
RP3	31	Michael Wuertz	7	6
RP4	29	Craig Breslow	5	4
RP5	26	Joey Devine#	3	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Travis Buck, a supposedly healthy Eric Chavez.

Pitchers - Gio Gonzalez, Vin Mazzaro, Lenny DiNardo, Brett Tomko, Jerry Blevins, Clayton Mortenson. Also Josh Outman, the obligatory Tommy John rehab case.

Analysis: Sure, Billy Beane's vaunted "Moneyball" savvy and bargain-hunting skills are widely revered. Sure, he's spun silk from a sow's ear repeatedly with Chad Bradford- and Scott Hatteberg-style scrap heap finds. Sure, every year when I do my post-season EWSL wrapups, the A's are at or near the top of the list of teams getting the most Win Shares from guys not even on their preseason 23-man lineup, attesting to Beane's ongoing ability to retool his teams on the fly.

But look back at the glory days of Beane's A's and you'll notice something else: Jason Giambi won the MVP Award in 2000 and was the runnerup the following year, batting .338/.476/.653 over those two seasons; Miguel Tejada won the award in 2002 and averaged 30 HR and 116 RBI from 2000-2003. Barry Zito won the Cy Young Award in 2002, going 23-5. Ben Grieve was Rookie of the Year in 1998, Bobby Crosby in 2004, Huston Street in 2005. Tim Hudson went 20-6 in 2000, and finished 2d, 4th and 6th in the Cy Young balloting over a four-year period. Mark Mulder had 21- and 19-win seasons back to back, finishing second in the Cy Young balloting in 2001. Eric Chavez averaged 100 RBI per year from 2001-2005. In short: the A's had stars, big ones, most of them homegrown along with star-level seasons from acquisitions like Jermaine Dye, Matt Stairs and John Jaha.

That's what's missing now from a team whose best everyday player is...Kevin Kouzmanoff? Kurt Suzuki? Ryan Sweeney? Rajai Davis? Ugh. You can hold together a battleship with duct tape, but you need a battleship first.

The A's have the usual array of young pitchers, granting that none of the starters are blazing from the minor league gate as Hudson and Zito did, and Sheets and Duchscherer are rolls of the dice. The bullpen could be outstanding, but beware of their various aches and pains: Bailey was a great surprise last season but spring soreness could portend a guy who takes a step back after flying too close to the sun for a year, and Breslow and Devine are also various shades of banged up. I expect Beane to press enough buttons to keep Oakland around .500, but for more than that, they need to wish upon a star.

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Continuing my warmup posts on Established Win Shares Levels, since I have kept you all waiting for the team previews, here's how the method, with the updated 2010 age adjustments, values the top 10 players (actually twelve, as I'm listing the guys who are essentially tied at 26 EWSL) in the game in terms of established performance level adjusted by age. EWSL is explained here. Chart below the fold.

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It's time once again, however belatedly, for my annual division previews using Established Win Shares Levels, which are explained here. Before we get to rolling out the 2010 EWSLs, I have to update the age adjustments and rookie values I use each year. These are based on the data I have gathered over the past six seasons, and so with each passing year, one would hope they become progressively more stable and useful in evaluating the established talent base on hand for each team entering each season. As a reminder: EWSL is not a prediction system. It's a way of assessing the resources on hand. Time, chance, and mid-season replacements happen to all.

First up is the age adjustments; I've reformatted the table a bit from year to year. See my writeups on the age adjustments following the 2004 season - also here - 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 seasons. Here's the 2009 age adjustments (i.e, how each age of non-pitcher or pitcher stacked up to their un-age-adjusted EWSL), and the totals for 2004-09 - in some ways, if you study these sorts of things, the numbers accumulated over this many seasons become interesting in themselves:

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Further to the process of looking back at 2009's Established Win Shares Levels reports in preparation for 2010, here's how the 2009 teams stacked up. The first column is the number of EWSL by team (recall that my preseason reports collect only 23 players, so I'm always going to be a little short); the second is the number of win shares earned by those 23 players in 2009 (whether on that team or not); the third is the difference between the two; fourth is team wins; fifth is the total number of WS for the team's players minus those earned by the 23 guys I identified before the season; the last column is total team WS minus EWSL.

Team	EWSL	2009 WS	Diff	Wins	Rest	WS-EWSL
COL	182.72	240	57.28	92	36	93.28
TEX	170.72	213	42.28	87	48	90.28
SEA	165.29	187	21.71	85	68	89.71
STL	185.89	226	40.11	91	47	87.11
SF	178.62	234	55.38	88	30	85.38
FLA	183.67	201	17.33	87	60	77.33
SD	153.21	176	22.79	75	49	71.79
CIN	174.65	176	1.35	78	58	59.35
ANA	235.95	258	22.05	97	33	55.05
CHW	180.15	183	2.85	79	54	56.85
NYY	253.86	266	12.14	103	43	55.14
PHI	224.46	235	10.54	93	44	54.54
DET	206.60	223	16.40	86	35	51.40
LA	234.49	238	3.51	95	47	50.51
PIT	136.16	159	22.84	62	27	49.84
ATL	208.39	218	9.61	86	40	49.61
HOU	181.56	202	20.44	74	20	40.44
TOR	190.57	193	2.43	75	32	34.43
BOS	252.87	250	-2.87	95	35	32.13
CHC	217.59	196	-21.59	83	53	31.41
OAK	194.97	158	-37.44	75	67	30.03
MIN	233.23	219	-14.23	87	42	27.77
MIL	212.57	199	-13.57	80	41	27.43
BAL	175.94	148	-27.94	64	44	16.06
TB	244.84	225	-19.84	84	27	7.16
WAS	177.61	150	-27.61	59	27	-0.61
KC	201.52	164	-37.52	65	31	-6.52
AZ	216.61	187	-29.61	70	23	-6.61
CLE	220.62	189	-31.62	65	6	-25.62
NYM	240.03	156	-84.03	70	54	-30.03
Avg	201.18	202	1.12	81	41	41.82

Unsurprising that the Mets were the biggest underachievers. Also unsurprising that the A's were near the top, as happens nearly every year, in Win Shares earned by players not on the preseason depth chart, topped only by the Mariners.

Part 6 of my preseason previews is the NL Central; this is the last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold. Prior previews: AL Central and AL West, AL East, NL East, NL West.

I'll be frank: as often happens, I'm a bit at the end of my tether and pushing to get done after the season starts when I get to the NL Central, baseball's largest division and the one with the most lost ships. The numbers are all here, but some of the commentary may be a bit abbreviated.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

Chicago Cubs

Raw EWSL: 226.00 (75 W)
Adjusted: 245.11 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 217.59 (73 W)
2009 W-L: 85-77

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Geovany Soto*	12	24
1B	33	Derrek Lee	16	13
2B	29	Mike Fontenot#	8	7
SS	29	Ryan Theriot	13	12
3B	31	Aramis Ramirez	23	19
RF	31	Milton Bradley	15	13
CF	32	Kosuke Fukudome*	8	12
LF	33	Alfonso Soriano	19	16
C2	30	Koyie Hill	0	0
INF	32	Aaron Miles	10	8
OF	32	Reed Johnson	10	8
12	28	Joey Gathright	6	6
13	29	Micah Hoffpauir+	2	4
SP1	28	Carlos Zambrano	16	16
SP2	27	Rich Harden	9	9
SP3	33	Ted Lilly	13	9
SP4	32	Ryan Dempster	13	9
SP5	26	Sean Marshall	4	5
RP1	31	Kevin Gregg	10	8
RP2	26	Carlos Marmol	10	11
RP3	29	Neal Cotts	2	1
RP4	34	Luis Vizcaino	4	3
RP5	30	Aaron Heilman	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - So Taguchi. Esteban German was cut and headed for the Rangers.

Pitchers - Relievers Angel Guzman and David Patton, starting prospect Jeff Samardzija. Chad Gaudin was cut and has caught on with the Padres.

Analysis: The Cubs are the favorites in the NL Central; they're not any more an overpowering one than the Dodgers, but they're a good, solid team and nobody else in the division has a proven basis for being considered one. As usual, the health of Rich Harden will be a significant factor - Harden's still only 27, but has the medical history of a 37-year-old. Soto's recent banged-up status is also a concern; catchers have that and thus far it may just be routine, but he's such a valuable commodity the Cubs would be in trouble if he ends up with one of those lost seasons that happen to catchers sometimes.

Milwaukee Brewers

Raw EWSL: 205.00 (68 W)
Adjusted: 217.72 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 212.57 (71 W)
2009 W-L: 84-78

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Jason Kendall	16	11
1B	25	Prince Fielder	23	28
2B	26	Rickie Weeks	14	16
SS	26	JJ Hardy	17	19
3B	29	Bill Hall	11	10
RF	27	Corey Hart	16	17
CF	36	Mike Cameron	19	15
LF	25	Ryan Braun*	19	28
C2	32	Mike Rivera	3	2
INF	38	Craig Counsell	7	5
OF	29	Chris Duffy	3	2
12	26	Casey McGeehee	0	4
13	26	Brad Nelson+	0	4
SP1	23	Yovanni Gallardo#	4	5
SP2	34	Jeff Suppan	8	5
SP3	26	Manny Parra#	5	6
SP4	29	David Bush	8	7
SP5	34	Braden Looper	9	6
RP1	41	Trevor Hoffman	10	7
RP2	25	Carlos Villanueva	6	7
RP3	28	Seth McClung	4	4
RP4	28	Todd Coffey	2	2
RP5	30	Jorge Julio	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None, but Gallardo is a heckuva pitcher and if healthy should blow by that EWSL. I didn't ding Hoffman, since his EWSL incorporates the injury woes of fortysomething pitchers.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Tony Gwynn jr.

Pitchers - David Riske, Mitch Stetter, Wes Littleton, Chris Capuano, and Chase Wright.

Analysis: The Brewers return the same lineup and should score runs in bunches with all that power, but the pitching staff has been decimated by the departure of Sheets and Sabathia and the failure of Capuano. Suppan's K rate was in decay last season, and through 2 starts so far he has 7 BB, 2 K and a 12.91 ERA in 7.2 IP. It's possible that a healthy Gallardo could be an ace, and it's possible that they'll find the money to bring Sheets back in midseason, but on the whole this team just doesn't have the arms.

When I mentioned the National League's oversupply of failed Mets relievers, I forgot to note the Brew Crew with Looper and Julio. They should make Willie Randolph feel right at home.

St. Louis Cardinals

Raw EWSL: 181.67 (61 W)
Adjusted: 201.84 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 185.89 (62 W)
2009 W-L: 75-87

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Yadier Molina	13	15
1B	29	Albert Pujols	34	32
2B	29	Skip Schumaker#	10	12
SS	29	Khalil Greene	11	10
3B	26	David Freese+	0	4
RF	30	Ryan Ludwick	15	13
CF	29	Rick Ankiel#	9	10
LF	28	Chris Duncan	10	10
C2	35	Jason LaRue	4	2
INF	32	Troy Glaus	17	14
OF	22	Colby Rasmus+	0	4
12	28	Brian Barden#	0	4
13	27	Brendan Ryan#	3	3
SP1	27	Adam Wainwright	11	11
SP2	30	Kyle Lohse	10	8
SP3	30	Joel Pineiro	3	3
SP4	30	Todd Wellemeyer	8	7
SP5	34	Chris Carpenter	4	2
RP1	27	Jason Motte+	1	6
RP2	27	Brad Thompson	4	3
RP3	36	Ryan Franklin	7	6
RP4	32	Dennis Reyes	5	4
RP5	36	Trever Miller	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. The 3B situation is in flux pending Glaus' return, which may take months; I have Freese listed as the starter but graded as a bench player rather than take the WS out of Glaus, and anyway Joe Thurston is battling Freese for the playing time. Carpenter's injury is in line with his recent history, so no adjustment needed.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Thurston, Joe Mather, Brian Barton. Mather and Rasmus are the team's outfielders of the future, but only if they can get rid of the current outfield.

Pitchers - Kyle McClellan, who's been perhaps their best reliever in the early going, Josh Kinney, and Royce Ring.

Analysis: The Cards have started hot, and this team often has people who surprise me - two of the three outfielders (Duncan and Ludwick) have picked up where Ankiel and Ludwick left off last year. I'd warn that Pujols is reaching the age where guys as good as him start to be less consistently awesome every single year, but he hasn't looked thus far like this will be the year he gets his first taste of kryptonite. He'll be the best player in the game until someone wrests the title from him (although EWSL does rate Hanley Ramirez above him due to his youth).

Greene is an offensive enigma. Entering last season, while his overall numbers were poor because he hit so badly in San Diego, he had a career road batting line of .280/.338/.515, but he batted .212/.225/.317 on the road last season and has hit .158/.158/.316 on the road in the early going this year. He'll run out of excuses if he repeats last year's road performance.

Houston Astros

Raw EWSL: 210.50 (70 W)
Adjusted: 214.57 (72 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.56 (61 W)
2009 W-L: 73-89

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Ivan Rodriguez	14	9
1B	33	Lance Berkman	31	26
2B	33	Kaz Matsui	12	10
SS	35	Miguel Tejada	16	11
3B	36	Geoff Blum	9	7
RF	26	Hunter Pence#	16	21
CF	26	Michael Bourn#	5	7
LF	33	Carlos Lee	22	18
C2	29	Humberto Quintero	2	2
INF	29	Jeff Keppinger	8	8
OF	33	Jason Michaels	7	6
12	35	Darin Erstad	6	4
13	31	Jason Smith	1	1
SP1	31	Roy Oswalt	17	15
SP2	30	Wandy Rodriguez	7	6
SP3	36	Mike Hampton	2	1
SP4	37	Brian Moehler	5	4
SP5	35	Russ Ortiz	1	0
RP1	29	Jose Valverde	12	11
RP2	32	Geoff Geary	6	5
RP3	35	Tim Byrdak	3	2
RP4	36	LaTroy Hawkins	5	5
RP5	31	Chris Sampson	6	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Catching prospect JR Towles, who suffered a colossal (.137/.250/.253) wipeout last year, and outfield nomad Reggie Abercrombie. Aaron Boone was slated to play but will miss the season following heart surgery.

Pitchers - Doug Brocail started off in the pen but hit the DL after early ineffectiveness. Wesley Wright and Clay Hensley will be in the pen, and Brandon Backe's still trying to get back where he was. Jeff Fulchino and Jose Capellan are also on hand.

Analysis: The Astros were surprisingly competitive in 2008, but they were 9 games above their Pythagorean record, their team is old, and frankly they are fooling themselves if they think this roster is anything but spare parts to sell to contenders, or in the case of the back end of their rotation, guys who should have been put to pasture by now.

Lance Berkman had to win the 2008 "guy least likely to double his career high in steals while hardly ever getting caught" award. Berkman is basically Bob Horner if he'd stayed in shape, but he's a better athlete than Horner was even when young.

Cincinnati Reds

Raw EWSL: 156.67 (52 W)
Adjusted: 174.71 (58 W)
Age-Adj.: 174.65 (58 W)
2009 W-L: 71-91

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	33	Ramon Hernandez	13	11
1B	25	Joey Votto*	11	15
2B	28	Brandon Phillips	18	18
SS	32	Alex Gonzalez	5	4
3B	26	Edwin Encarnacion	15	17
RF	22	Jay Bruce*	4	14
CF	27	Willy Taveras	9	9
LF	33	Jerry Hairston jr	7	6
C2	28	Ryan Hanigan*	2	4
INF	26	Paul Janish+	1	4
OF	27	Chris Dickerson*	3	5
12	30	Darnell McDonald+	1	1
13	28	Laynce Nix	0	0
SP1	25	Edinson Volquez	9	10
SP2	31	Aaron Harang	12	10
SP3	32	Bronson Arroyo	12	9
SP4	23	Johnny Cueto*	3	6
SP5	26	Micah Owings#	5	7
RP1	34	Francisco Cordero	12	8
RP2	39	David Weathers	9	8
RP3	34	Mike Lincoln	2	1
RP4	39	Arthur Rhodes	4	3
RP5	28	Jared Burton#	5	6

Subjective Adjustments: None. I thought of knocking Jay Bruce up a few spots, but 22 year olds, even ones who are accurately projected as big stars, are never a sure thing to make that dramatic an improvement. And Volquez has been kicking around long enough that I wasn't at liberty to just disregard his pre-2008 performance.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Jonny Gomes, Jacque Jones and Norris Hopper; Daryle Ward got cut.

Pitchers - Relievers Bill Bray, Danny Herrera and Nick Masset, and starter Homer Bailey, who seems to have been reclassified pretty swiftly from the next Clemens to the next Schiraldi but is still young and hard-throwing enough that nobody's counting him out yet. If nothing else, Bailey will get the chance to break the reputations of a few more pitching coaches before he's through.

Analysis: The Reds will feel the loss of Dunn, and at least symbolically the loss of Griffey as well, but there remains enough young talent here to build on with Votto, Bruce, Volquez and Cueto; it's just that there are still a lot of holes as well. Dickerson is sharing time with Hairston in left. I'm not sure I see the point of employing Taveras to play in a bandbox - it was one thing to live with his slap hitting in Colorado, where at least the vast outfield requires a fleet center fielder.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Raw EWSL: 135.83 (45 W)
Adjusted: 142.68 (48 W)
Age-Adj.: 136.16 (45 W)
2009 W-L: 58-104

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Ryan Doumit	12	13
1B	29	Adam LaRoche	16	15
2B	31	Freddy Sanchez	16	14
SS	31	Jack Wilson	12	10
3B	25	AndyLaRoche#	2	2
RF	25	Brandon Moss*	3	6
CF	27	Nate McLouth	16	16
LF	28	Njyer Morgan#	3	3
C2	26	Jason Jaramillo+	0	4
INF	32	Ramon Vazquez	7	6
OF	32	Craig Monroe	5	4
12	31	Eric Hinske	7	6
13	25	Luis Cruz*	1	1
SP1	27	Ian Snell	6	6
SP2	26	Zach Duke	4	4
SP3	27	Paul Maholm	7	7
SP4	26	Ross Ohlendorf*	1	1
SP5	26	Jeff Karstens	1	1
RP1	25	Matt Capps	9	10
RP2	31	Tyler Yates	3	2
RP3	30	John Grabow	5	4
RP4	26	Sean Burnett	1	1
RP5	25	Craig Hansen	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: None. The Pirates are, however, a classic vacuum situation: there's a lot of young guys on hand who haven't established themselves, most of whom have failed in a half a season or so worth of playing time but haven't yet proven themselves failures. A few of those single-digit guys in the lineup are bound to find their sea legs enough to keep this team from being quite as bad as 104 losses, but they won't be able to keep them far from the cellar.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Cruz was listed by default, as he seems to have been less of a proven failure than Brian Bixler, also a shortstop. Also catcher Robinson Diaz and outfielder Andrew McCutchen.

Pitchers - Relievers Jesse Chavez and Donald Veal; starter Tom Gorzelanny is in AAA purgatory. Phil Dumatrait is injured.

Analysis: There's no sense blowing up a bad team in exchange for prospects if you're not gonna play the prospects, and so that's what the Pirates are doing: the younger LaRoche, Moss, Ohlendorf, Karstens, and Hansen are the bounty of various deals the last few seasons as Pirate veterans like Jason Bay and Xavier Nady were sent to contenders, and Pittsburgh means to find out if they can do the job. It's still a shame that a storied franchise playing in a beautiful new stadium can't support itself - the Pirates' winning percentage dating back to 1993, during which they've suffered 16 straight losing seasons, is .438, good for a 71-91 record over a 162 game season, and they haven't finished higher than 6th in the NL in attendance since 1972, not even when they won the World Series in 1979 or the three straight division titles in the Bonds/Bonilla/Van Slyke era. 2001, when they opened PNC Park, is the only time in franchise history they've averaged more than 26,000 fans per game, and 1990-91 were the only other years they cracked the 2 million mark. It's hard to paint the current rebuilding effort with much hope if there just isn't any reason to believe that the current club ownership thinks it could make more money by having a winning team.

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Part 5 of my preseason previews is the NL West; this is the fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold. Prior previews: AL Central and AL West, AL East, NL East.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

Los Angeles Dodgers

Raw EWSL: 232.67 (78 W)
Adjusted: 251.63 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 234.49 (78 W)
2009 W-L: 91-71

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Russell Martin	20	22
1B	25	James Loney#	13	18
2B	31	Orlando Husdon	19	16
SS	31	Rafael Furcal	14	11
3B	35	Casey Blake	15	10
RF	27	Andre Ethier	18	18
CF	24	Matt Kemp	13	17
LF	37	Manny Ramirez	25	16
C2	40	Brad Ausmus	8	4
INF	35	Doug Mientkiewicz	8	5
OF	31	Juan Pierre	11	9
12	37	Mark Loretta	11	7
13	23	Blake DeWitt*	6	12
SP1	24	Chad Billingsley	13	15
SP2	34	Hiroki Kuroda*	5	7
SP3	21	Clayton Kershaw*	3	7
SP4	32	Randy Wolf	6	4
SP5	36	Jason Schmidt	3	2
RP1	25	Jonathan Broxton	10	11
RP2	26	Cory Wade*	4	7
RP3	31	Will Ohman	4	3
RP4	35	Guillermo Mota	3	2
RP5	27	Hong-Chih Kuo	6	5

Subjective Adjustments: None; this team is pretty heavy on established talent.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Infielder Tony Abreu, outfielders Jason Repko and Delwyn Young, and catcher Danny Ardoin.

Pitchers - Claudio Vargas is on the 60-day DL. Joe Torre wants Jeff Weaver to take a crack as a reliever, but for now, Weaver and Shawn Estes are Isotopes. Also Ronald Belisario, Ramon Trancoso, and James McDonald.

Analysis: The Dodgers bear a pretty strong Joe Torre stamp by now, especially the antiquarian bench. 16 Win Shares still looks small for Manny after his colossal 2008 stretch run, but the history of 37-year-old hitters is ugly; even if he hits, there's the risk of injury. The Manny lovefest in LA has already been tarnished some by the offseason wrangling; it will be Torre's job to keep him happy for another year (you take one month at a time with Manny). Hudson, meanwhile, should upgrade the interior defense (especially if Furcal is healthy), helping offset an outfield defense with Kemp stretched in center and Manny in left. The pivotal guy for the offense, though, may be Loney, a lifetime .304 hitter who is about reaching the point where he'll either start hitting some home runs or never do it.

The rotation's combination of the young, wild Kershaw and the surgically rebuilt Wolf and Schmidt is naturally unstable, and will undoubtedly at some point tempt Torre to put Kuo back into a starter's role. Then again, the bullpen isn't that solid even when healthy.

The Dodgers are the natural favorite in the West, but age and injuries will be their trial.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Raw EWSL: 210.33 (70 W)
Adjusted: 222.03 (74 W)
Age-Adj.: 216.61 (72 W)
2009 W-L: 85-77

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Chris Snyder	14	14
1B	29	Chad Tracy	6	6
2B	29	Felipe Lopez	11	11
SS	26	Stephen Drew	17	19
3B	25	Mark Reynolds#	13	19
RF	21	Justin Upton*	4	8
CF	25	Chris Young#	14	19
LF	27	Conor Jackson	15	16
C2	25	Miguel Montero#	3	4
INF	34	Augie Ojeda	4	4
OF	33	Eric Byrnes	11	9
12	37	Tony Clark	3	2
13	25	Alex Romero*	1	1
SP1	30	Brandon Webb	21	18
SP2	28	Danny Haren	18	17
SP3	33	Doug Davis	9	6
SP4	29	Jon Garland	11	10
SP5	24	Max Scherzer*	2	5
RP1	30	Chad Qualls	10	9
RP2	30	Jon Rauch	9	8
RP3	27	Tony Pena	7	7
RP4	41	Tom Gordon	4	3
RP5	35	Scott Schoeneweis	4	2

Subjective Adjustments: None. Scherzer seems likely to do better than 5 Win Shares if he's healthy, but combine that with the uncertainty inherent in any young pitcher, and I'm leaving him as is. Webb's injury doesn't yet look bad enough for me to feel confident about downgrading him from 18.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Infielder/utilityman Ryan Roberts.

Pitchers - Relievers Doug Slaten, Billy Buckner and Juan Gutierrez and swingman Yusmiero Petit.

Analysis: You need three things to develop a young team into a powerhouse. One, you need a plan that identifies good young talent, commits to developing young players and slotting them into your lineup and pitching staff. Two, you need money - at least enough money to keep guys up through free agency and bring in the occasional complementary veteran. And three, you need luck - all the scouting in the world can't guarantee you'll land a major star.

The D-Backs have executed the first two parts of the plan: by a weighted average of their starting lineup by non-age-adjusted EWSL, they come in at an average age of 26.5, right on the sweet spot for a team coming into its own. They have multi-talented athletes, power threats, good gloves....but as of yet, when you let the park-effect air out (besides scoring 4.84 runs/game in 81 games at Chase Field last season, they scored 6.11 runs per game in their 9 road games at Coors, compared to 3.79 everywhere else), there are no stars in this lineup. And Reynolds, with his stone glove and outrageous K rate, isn't primed to become one, which leaves the D-Backs hoping either that (1) Drew or Young will have a big year or (2) Upton will mature into a star faster than his brother did.

Arizona seems a perfect illustration, however, of Bill James' "Devil's Theory of Ballparks," by which teams in good hitters' parks get complacent about mediocre hitters who put up big numbers, but develop outstanding pitching staffs because only the strong survive there (and vice versa for pitcher's parks). (The theory has exceptions, as an extreme location like Colorado simply destroys pitchers). Because what the D-Backs do have is - at least when healthy - a genuinely outstanding rotation. Scherzer, who throws nasty stuff in the high 90s, should make for a fearsome Big 3 when he comes off the DL tonight, assuming he can stay healthy and nothing is seriously wrong with Webb's shoulder. Haren in particular managed the difficult feat of setting a career high in K/9 and career lows in HR/9 and BB/9 while moving into high-scoring Chase.

Arizona's main asset last season was their superior ability to pound the NL West's three weak sisters: they went 8-10 head to head against the Dodgers, but picked up six games by going 36-18 against Colorado, San Francisco and San Diego (they were 15-3 against the Rox) compared to 30-24 by the Dodgers.

I expect Arizona, as usual, to hang in the division and wild card races to the end. The health question marks about their pitching, and the loss of Orlando Hudson's glove, are the main reasons to hesitate picking them as the favorites in the NL West.

Colorado Rockies

Raw EWSL: 170.67 (57 W)
Adjusted: 185.44 (62 W)
Age-Adj.: 182.72 (61 W)
2009 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Chris Iannetta#	10	14
1B	35	Todd Helton	15	10
2B	30	Clint Barmes	7	6
SS	24	Troy Tulowitzki#	13	19
3B	29	Garrett Atkins	16	15
RF	30	Brad Hawpe	17	15
CF	29	Ryan Spilborghs	8	7
LF	26	Seth Smith*	2	3
C2	30	Yorvit Torrealba	5	4
INF	24	Ian Stewart*	5	12
OF	23	Dexter Fowler+	0	4
12	28	Jeff Baker	4	4
13	27	Omar Quintanilla	2	2
SP1	30	Aaron Cook	13	11
SP2	25	Ubaldo Jimenez#	7	9
SP3	30	Jason Marquis	7	6
SP4	28	Jorge De La Rosa	4	4
SP5	23	Franklin Morales#	1	2
RP1	25	Huston Street	11	12
RP2	26	Manny Corpas	9	9
RP3	27	Taylor Buchholz	6	6
RP4	32	Jason Grilli	6	4
RP5	39	Alan Embree	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Outfielders Matt Murton, Carlos Gonzalez and Eric Young (that's Eric junior), and 1B Dan Ortmeier. Scott Podsednik was cut and signed with the White Sox.

Pitchers - Ace Jeff Francis is out for the season following shoulder surgery. Many options are on hand: starters Greg Smith, Josh Fogg, Jason Hammell, Greg Reynolds and Glendon Rusch, and relievers Matt Belisle and Ryan Speier. I didn't say they were all good options, but Smith at least deserves another chance in a big-league rotation after posting a 4.16 ERA in 32 starts with Oakland last year (although his peripheral numbers were not encouraging).

Analysis: The departure of Matt Holliday and the loss of Francis formalized the Rockies' return to full-time also-ran status, and Helton's advancing age and declining health and production (just 29 RBI last season) mark the end of an era in Colorado baseball. The lineup is weak, the rotation in shambles. Fowler and Stewart will probably end up playing a lot - Fowler's had more plate appearances than Seth Smith so far, and there's not going to be any reason not to let the kids play.

I understand why people think Huston Street was overrated in Oakland, and certainly his start this season (10.12 ERA through 3 appearances) is not encouraging, but I don't subscribe to the idea that a guy who entered the season with career averages of 0.6 HR/9, 2.6 BB/9 and 9.1 K/9 is a certain disaster waiting to happen or necessarily a bad pick over Corpas to close. Street's only 25, he should have more up his sleeve. That said, there have been concerns over both his and Corpas' velocity, and Street's not a guy who can lose a few miles off his heater and remain an elite reliever.

San Francisco Giants

Raw EWSL: 173.50 (58 W)
Adjusted: 188.93 (63 W)
Age-Adj.: 178.62 (60 W)
2009 W-L: 72-90

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Ben Molina	16	13
1B	25	Travis Ishikawa*	2	5
2B	24	Emanuel Burriss*	2	5
SS	33	Edgar Renteria	12	11
3B	22	Pablo Sandoval*	3	12
RF	35	Randy Winn	17	12
CF	31	Aaron Rowand	15	13
LF	28	Fred Lewis#	8	10
C2	37	Rich Aurilia	9	12
INF	29	Juan Uribe	12	11
OF	25	Nate Schierholtz#	2	3
12	27	Eugenio Velez*	2	4
13	31	Andres Torres	0	0
SP1	25	Tim Lincecum#	15	20
SP2	24	Matt Cain	13	15
SP3	26	Jonathan Sanchez#	3	4
SP4	45	Randy Johnson	9	6
SP5	31	Barry Zito	8	7
RP1	27	Brian Wilson	6	6
RP2	35	Bobby Howry	7	4
RP3	30	Jeremy Affeldt	5	4
RP4	29	Brandon Medders	2	2
RP5	26	Alex Hinshaw*	2	4

Subjective Adjustments: None. I could bump up Ishikawa on the same theory as I used to bump up Ortmeier last season, but that didn't work out so well.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Steve Holm is the #2 catcher, but has been sent down, so Sandoval will back up Molina. That's why I listed Aurilia as the backup catcher, since he will likely sub for Sandoval at third when Sandoval catches. I'm not sure I've seen a team carry only one catcher and use the backup to play everyday at another position before (maybe the Yankees when they used Elston Howard in left, before they got Johnny Blanchard). Also Kevin Frandsen.

Pitchers - Noah Lowry, still struggling to reclaim his past form; Joe Martinez, who is injured; and Justin Miller and his armful of tattoos.

Analysis: The Giants are probably a year away from getting a handle on whether any of their youngsters are going to be productive regulars, but at least they now have some. On the other hand, with a heavy investment in starting pitching, they have made the defensible decision to rest on veterans in the key defensive slots at C, SS and CF (perhaps less defensible in Renteria's case, as his glove is somewhat shaky at this stage). Progress by Sanchez in throwing some strikes and/or a return to form by Lowry would be a big help.

If you are wondering, Nolan Ryan at Johnson's age - 45 - remained effective and a power pitcher, but saw his K rate drop from 10.56 to 8.98. Johnson's throwing well thus far, and while his durability is dubious at best, he seems to have recovered his strikeout rates from their dropoff with the Yankees.

San Diego Padres

Raw EWSL: 145.50(49 W)
Adjusted: 170.47 (57 W)
Age-Adj.: 159.34 (53 W)
2009 W-L: 66-96

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Nick Hundley*	2	4
1B	27	Adrian Gonzalez	23	24
2B	34	David Eckstein	10	9
SS	29	Luis Rodriguez	3	2
3B	27	Kevin Kouzmanoff#	12	15
RF	38	Brian Giles	19	14
CF	31	Jody Gerut	7	5
LF	25	Chase Headley*	4	10
C2	37	Henry Blanco	3	2
INF	31	Edgar Gonzalez*	4	6
OF	29	Scott Hairston	7	6
12	36	Cliff Floyd	7	5
13	22	Everth Cabrera+	0	4
SP1	28	Jake Peavy	16	15
SP2	30	Chris Young	9	7
SP3	29	Cha Seung Baek#	4	3
SP4	28	Kevin Correia	4	4
SP5	32	Walter Silva+	0	4
RP1	31	Heath Bell	8	6
RP2	26	Cla Meredith	5	5
RP3	25	Edward Mujica*	0	0
RP4	25	Luke Gregerson+	0	6
RP5	29	Duaner Sanchez	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Perennial journeyman outfielder Emil Brown.

Pitchers - Starters Shawn Hill and Mark Prior, although Prior is way, way off anybody's radar to pitch again soon. Reliever Mike Adams, who is injured. Also Edwin Moreno and Eulogio De La Cruz.

Analysis: The Padres win this year's award, usually going to the Marlins, for most players I had to add to the spreadsheets for the first time; it's practically half the roster, as only 8 players return from last season's Padres depth chart. The Mets announcers last night quoted Bud Black as saying that the Padres' bullpen would change as other teams released people, which pretty much speaks for itself. Don't be fooled by the 6-2 start, this team has a lot of holes and comparatively few strengths. Hundley, if you are wondering, is no relation to Todd and Randy; he just happens to be a weak-hitting catcher named Hundley.

If nothing else, the Mets can feel good about having distributed their failed relievers across the NL - Mota in LA, Schoeneweis in Arizona, Sanchez in SD, Heilman in Chicago, Jorge Sosa in Washington. Of course, if watching Sanchez and Bell last night is any indication, those guys will be lights out against the Mets.

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Part 4 of my preseason previews is the NL East; this is the fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold. Prior previews: AL Central and AL West, AL East.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

New York Mets

Raw EWSL: 254.67 (85 W)
Adjusted: 264.84 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 240.03 (80 W)
2009 W-L: 93-69

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Brian Schneider	10	8
1B	37	Carlos Delgado	20	13
2B	33	Luis Castillo	12	10
SS	26	Jose Reyes	27	30
3B	26	David Wright	30	34
RF	30	Ryan Church	12	10
CF	32	Carlos Beltran	29	23
LF	24	Daniel Murphy*	3	8
C2	33	Ramon Castro	5	4
INF	33	Alex Cora	5	4
OF	34	Fernando Tatis	7	6
12	40	Gary Sheffield	9	5
13	28	Jeremy Reed	2	2
SP1	30	Johan Santana	20	17
SP2	25	Mike Pelfrey	8	8
SP3	28	John Maine	8	8
SP4	27	Oliver Perez	7	7
SP5	34	Livan Hernandez	7	4
RP1	27	Francisco Rodriguez	16	15
RP2	32	JJ Putz	12	9
RP3	32	Pedro Feliciano	5	4
RP4	30	Sean Green	4	3
RP5	24	Bobby Parnell+	0	6

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Utilityman/pinch hitter Marlon Anderson is clinging to the last roster spot for now; he will probably be moving soon into a role as a third base coach. Nick Evans was the odd man out in the outfield corners but remains a promising if unspectacular prospect. Angel Pagan, now long-forgotten after last year's hot start, will return to the outfield mix when he returns from injury, but continues to lack any significant skills. Robinson Cancel is the third catcher when he finds space on the roster, as he will do whenever Castro is on the DL. Fernando Martinez remains a heralded prospect but has yet to put up numbers commensurate with that status and is unlikely to get more than a late-season cup of tea; perhaps he'll still end up a superstar, but perhaps he should have been traded while his reputation was sky-high.

Pitchers - Billy Wagner is out for most or all of the season, but the bullpen could really be impressive if he makes it back by September, as has not yet been ruled out. Darren O'Day is currently in the pen. Jon Niese will likely claim the fifth starter job eventually; rehabbing Freddy Garcia and organizational fodder Nelson Figueroa and Casey Fossum are also candidates. Other pitchers in the mix include reliever Brian Stokes, swing man Tim Redding (also on the DL) and starter Brandon Knight. Orlando Hernandez remains unsigned at last check; I've lost track of whether he's trying to pitch this season, but it won't be with the Mets; the same goes for Matt Wise. A return of Pedro Martinez hasn't been ruled out - Omar still loves him - but seems unlikely.

Analysis: This Mets team is no juggernaut, but it could well be enough to take the division despite the weak links at second base, catcher and the outfield corners, due to the powerful frontline talent that if anything has gotten younger the past two years as K-Rod, Santana and Pelfrey have replaced Wagner, Pedro and Glavine. The bullpen should be improved, although as I have noted repeatedly, K-Rod's workload and declining K rate and Putz's health are both risks. But this team will ultimately rise or fall on its starting pitching; the front four starters all have their risk factors but they all have upsides too, albeit in Santana's case his upside is doing the same thing again. Santana's gradual transition to a control pitcher is a concern, as are Pelfrey's big jump-up in innings last season and still low K rate. Perez might flop or bust out or pretty much anywhere in between. But the most pivotal of all is Maine, who showed flashes of real star potential in late 2006 and much of 2007, but faded down the stretch in 2007 (other than his sensational start the next to last day of the season) and was sufficiently hobbled by injury last year to raise questions about whether he's cut out to be a starter at all. If Maine fails to make 30 starts this season, his days as a starting pitcher may be numbered.

Let's compare two starters in 2008:

Age	IP/G	ERA	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
36	5.45	5.61	10.49	1.57	3.63	7.18
33	5.81	6.05	12.85	1.25	2.15	3.35

The first, of course, is Pedro Martinez; the second is Livan Hernandez (who may or may not actually be 34 years old now). Livan allowed 257 hits in 180 innings in 2008; among pitchers to qualify for the ERA title, that's the third-highest hits/innings ratio since 1900, and the top two pitched in the Baker Bowl in the 1930s. Neither was effective in 2008, but looking at those lines I'd take Pedro's still-respectable K numbers and K/BB ratio (and velocity and ability to change speeds) over Livan's superior control and less gruesome HR numbers. The Mets have their reasons for preferring Livan - partly his durability and mostly his lower salary demands - but it would be hard to justify preferring Livan as a baseball decision.

Sometimes, players have a clear trendline pointing one way or another, but Carlos Delgado is all ways at once. On the one hand, he's 37 and coming off a year of dramatic improvement, so you would expect a serious dropoff; on the other, he's leaving a park that just murdered him (Delgado batted .237/.337/.458 for his career at Shea Stadium, although he did hit 21 homers at home last year), and he tore the cover off the ball after getting healthy again after a string of nagging injuries. My hope is that Delgado will take a slow decline from where he was the last four months of last season, which might mean, say, 28 HR and a .340 OBP. Delgado has started hot, but then last season he batted .375/.423/.542 the first six games before falling into a funk and being useless through the end of May.

In addition to keeping Putz healthy, the hard-throwing Parnell - still a work in progress - may become important, given that Feliciano and especially Green have had problems with overwork in recent years. The Mets will simply need to avoid having those guys throw 75+ appearances.

World Champion Philadelphia Phillies

Raw EWSL: 260.50 (87 W)
Adjusted: 261.63 (87 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.46 (75 W)
2009 W-L: 88-74

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Carlos Ruiz#	8	8
1B	29	Ryan Howard	26	24
2B	30	Chase Utley	29	25
SS	30	Jimmy Rollins	26	22
3B	34	Pedro Feliz	10	9
RF	30	Jayson Werth	13	11
CF	28	Shane Victorino	16	16
LF	37	Raul Ibanez	22	15
C2	36	Chris Coste	7	5
INF	31	Eric Bruntlett	4	3
OF	41	Matt Stairs	9	5
12	30	Greg Dobbs	7	6
13	35	Miguel Cairo	4	3
SP1	25	Cole Hamels	15	17
SP2	28	Brett Myers	9	8
SP3	28	Joe Blanton	10	9
SP4	46	Jamie Moyer	11	8
SP5	36	Chan Ho Park	4	3
RP1	32	Brad Lidge	12	9
RP2	31	Chad Durbin	6	5
RP3	28	Ryan Madson	6	6
RP4	33	Clay Condrey	4	3
RP5	33	JC Romero	6	4

Subjective Adjustments: None; as befits a defending World Champion, the Phillies are relying entirely on established players.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Infielder Pablo Ozuna, outfielder Jason Ellison, and John Mayberry jr. Marcus Giles, in camp with the Phillies, did not make the team and appears to be finished.

Pitchers - Relievers Gary Majewski and Scott Eyre; starter Kyle Kendrick is in the minors; also JA Happ and Jack Taschner.

Analysis: The Phillies had to win when they did - this is not yet an old team, and the window of opportunity probably has a good two more years left in it, but there's little room for improvement left, as Hamels is the only player listed here under age 28 (Moyer was 28 in 1991). The Phillies' bullpen was their surprising strength last season; how that holds up will have a lot to do with their ability to repeat as division champs, let alone in the playoffs. As for the rotation, you'd love to have five of Hamels, but beyond him, the question is what kind of pitcher thrives in a bandbox like Citizens Bank. You'd assume that the pinpoint control of Moyer and Blanton has been their success - make the homers solo shots - but actually Hamels walked many fewer batters, whereas Moyer allowed the rotation's fewest longballs - 0.9 per 9 innings, his lowest average in five years and only the second time in the past decade he's allowed fewer than a homer per 9. That seems unlikely to continue; his groundball percentage was up last year, but mostly he allowed far fewer homers per fly ball, some of which is just luck. In fact, among current Phils who have thrown at least 50 innings at Citizens Bank, Moyer has the worst career ERA there:

Pitcher	W	L	IP	ERA	HR9	BB9	K9
Chad Durbin	1	1	53.2	2.01	0.50	3.52	6.37
J.C. Romero	2	2	51.2	2.26	0.52	5.23	8.71
Clay Condrey	9	0	77.0	3.16	0.47	2.10	6.08
Cole Hamels	20	12	259.2	3.29	1.32	2.11	8.15
Brett Myers	27	25	430.0	4.08	1.51	2.60	8.23
Kyle Kendrick	12	5	143.0	4.22	1.32	2.64	4.22
Ryan Madson	19	12	222.1	4.29	1.05	2.67	6.68
Jamie Moyer	16	9	206.2	4.66	1.61	2.53	5.66

Atlanta Braves

Raw EWSL: 196.33 (65 W)
Adjusted: 222.90 (74 W)
Age-Adj.: 208.93 (69 W)
2009 W-L: 82-80

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Brian McCann	18	22
1B	26	Casey Kotchman	12	14
2B	27	Kelly Johnson	16	17
SS	26	Yuniel Escobar#	11	14
3B	37	Chipper Jones	24	15
RF	25	Jeff Francouer	12	14
CF	22	Jordan Schafer+	0	11
LF	37	Garret Anderson	16	11
C2	32	Dave Ross	7	6
INF	27	Omar Infante	7	7
OF	31	Matt Diaz	5	4
12	25	Martin Prado	5	6
13	36	Greg Norton	6	5
SP1	36	Derek Lowe	14	12
SP2	32	Javier Vazquez	13	10
SP3	23	Jair Jurrjens#	6	8
SP4	33	Kenshin Kawakami+	0	4
SP5	43	Tom Glavine	6	4
RP1	31	Mike Gonzalez	4	4
RP2	29	Rafael Soriano	5	5
RP3	24	Eric O'Flaherty#	1	2
RP4	30	Peter Moylan#	4	4
RP5	30	Jorge Campillo*	5	8

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Clint Sammons is the third catcher. Nobody else appears immediately on the horizon, but young players seem to shoot pretty quickly through the Atlanta system to arrive in time to help out the big club in mid-season.

Pitchers - Tim Hudson could be back from Tommy John surgery by August, which would help. Other available arms include Blaine Boyer, JoJo Reyes, Buddy Carlyle, Boone Logan, Jeff Bennett, and Charlie Morton.

Analysis: Speaking of pitchers with diametrically opposite styles, it would be hard to find teammates more specially designed for opposite circumstances than Lowe, Mr. Groundball, and Vazquez, Mr. Flyball. The revamped veteran-heavy rotation was a necessity for the Braves, who have had their starting staff unravel in recent years and don't have young arms ready to carry the load besides Jurrjens.

This isn't exactly a contending team - the Braves aren't a bad team, but they'll need the Mets and Phillies to stumble badly to be a serious player in the race. It's not quite a rebuilding team either - McCann is a young star, Jurrjens could be, Schafer may be in a few years (he's supposed to be a multi-tool type, he's still very young, and I know the Braves have a lot of pitcher's parks in their system, but he's also a career .270/.339/.447 hitter in the minors who's never hit more than 15 homers in a season and hasn't played above AA before); Francouer could still find his way, but he regressed so badly last season he's lucky to have a job at all. Kotchman, Johnson and Escobar are all solid players just hitting their primes, though none have star potential. The Gonzalez-Soriano 1-2 punch in the pen never seems to end up as impressive as it should be, although Gonzalez' bizarre rocking motion does appear to have added an additional level of deception to an effective reliever. Campillo actually had the staff's best K/BB ratio last season and should get an extended look somewhere on the staff.

The third basemen are next up in my annual "Path to Cooperstown" series, and I intend to get a serous look at where Chipper stacks up against the best third basemen of all time, updating this from before the 2001 season, but I'm thinking he may well be in the top five by now, jockeying for position with Brett and Boggs, a bit ahead of Brooks Robinson and Pie Traynor and behind Schmidt and Eddie Mathews.

Florida Marlins

Raw EWSL: 151.50 (51 W)
Adjusted: 174.59 (58 W)
Age-Adj.: 183.67 (61 W)
Subj. Adj.: 187.67 (63 W)
2009 W-L: 75-87

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	John Baker*	5	9
1B	27	Jorge Cantu	11	11
2B	29	Dan Uggla	21	20
SS	25	Hanley Ramirez	29	36
3B	24	Emilio Bonifacio*	1	7
RF	28	Cody Ross	12	13
CF	22	Cameron Maybin+	2	11
LF	25	Jeremy Hermida	12	15
C2	28	Ronny Paulino	7	7
INF	31	Alfredo Amezaga	7	6
OF	26	Brett Carroll+	0	4
12	33	Wes Helms	5	4
13	33	Ross Gload	6	5
SP1	25	Josh Johnson	5	6
SP2	26	Ricky Nolasco	8	8
SP3	25	Anibal Sanchez	2	2
SP4	22	Chris Volstad*	4	8
SP5	24	Andrew Miller#	1	1
RP1	29	Matt Lindstrom#	5	5
RP2	26	Reynel Pinto	3	3
RP3	26	Logan Kensing	3	3
RP4	25	Leo Nunez	4	4
RP5	34	Kiko Calero	2	1

Subjective Adjustments: I added +4 to Bonifacio, who is rated on a fairly small major league sample here but seems to have the third base job in hand.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - 1B Gaby Sanchez is in AAA. Dallas McPherson wins the "what does a guy have to do?" award for being released this spring after keeping his back healthy all year and smashing 42 homers in 448 at bats at AAA (along with a .379 OBP). McPherson's still an injury risk who strikes out a ton, but he's only 28 and has legitimate power, so he figures to catch on somewhere.

Pitchers - Rick VandenHurk, Dan Meyer and Hayden Penn are all hoping to turn things around after falling from grace as starting pitching prospects. Scott Proctor is also in the bullpen.

Analysis: As usual, EWSL is pretty much at a loss in dealing with the Marlins, since "established major leaguer" generally translates into "former Marlin." The rotation is very young and regrouping from injury, a bad combination if you want to try to rely on major league track records. Maybin has tools to burn but is still extremely raw. This looks like a team that will jostle with the Braves for third, but with this much youth on hand, you never know. The Marlins have continued to get more mobile and athletic, which has to help them consolidate the gains in team defense that followed the departure of Miguel Cabrera.

Volstad's ERA was very impressive last season, but 3.8 BB and 5.5 K per 9 are not a good mix; unless he can keep his HR/9 rate down near last season's microscopic 0.3 per 9, he'll have problems, and even then he still needs work on his control. Nolasco's K numbers are much more impressive. Bonifacio has made a lot of early noise, but didn't hit a lick for the Nationals last season and has a career .285/.341/.362 line in the minors. Hermida, of course, continues to disappoint - he's got JD Drew's durability without the same kind of production - but at 25, he is still young enough that we should not be surprised if he takes a huge leap forward at some point.

The perils of not doing previews all at once: sharp-eyed observers will notice that the NL East preview includes two players (Sheffield and Gload) who were also featured in my AL Central preview.

Washington Nationals

Raw EWSL: 164.33 (55 W)
Adjusted: 178.93 (60 W)
Age-Adj.: 177.61 (59 W)
2009 W-L: 72-90

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Jesus Flores#	7	10
1B	30	Nick Johnson	6	5
2B	26	Anderson Hernandez*	2	5
SS	31	Cristian Guzman	12	10
3B	24	Ryan Zimmerman	15	20
RF	29	Austin Kearns	11	10
CF	24	Lastings Milledge	8	11
LF	29	Adam Dunn	20	18
C2	31	Wil Nieves	2	2
INF	34	Ron Belliard	12	11
OF	25	Elijah Dukes#	5	8
12	30	Josh Willingham	15	13
13	31	Willie Harris	8	7
SP1	24	John Lannan*	5	7
SP2	25	Scott Olsen	6	7
SP3	28	Daniel Cabrera	6	6
SP4	22	Shairon Martis+	0	4
SP5	23	Jordan Zimmerman+	0	4
RP1	27	Joel Hanrahan*	4	5
RP2	31	Saul Rivera	6	5
RP3	32	Joe Beimel	7	5
RP4	31	Jesus Colome	3	3
RP5	27	Jason Bergmann	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. Anderson Hernandez isn't rated on anything like a full season's worth of work, but I remain unconvinced that he can hit enough to play every day, despite his outstanding glovework (he's also on the DL to start the season). Nick Johnson, of course, will be worth a lot more than 5 WS if he's healthy, but that's as big an "if" as there is in the game.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Dmitri Young is still on the DL with a bad back and an uncertain timetable. Catcher Josh Bard and disappointing outfielders Ryan Langerhans and Corey Patterson are at AAA if needed. Wily Mo Pena has been given his walking papers.

Pitchers - Wil Ledezma, Gustavo Chacin, Steven Shell, Mike Hinckley, Julian Tavarez and Matt Chico; Chico is rehabbing from the unbiquitous Tommy John surgery.

Analysis: Hope and Change may be the buzzwords in political Washington, but both are in short supply for the capital's baseball team, which brings to mind words from the financial press these days instead. 14th among the 16 NL teams runs scored in 2008, 15th in runs allowed, just below average in defensive efficiency (and 15th in fielding percentage), 15th in homers, 13th in batting average, 13th in pitcher strikeouts, the Nationals needed to repair everything about their team, and while the addition of Adam Dunn addresses one of those needs - home run power - and there are causes for optimism regarding individual players (Jesus Flores showcased some doubles power early last season before fading in the second half, and Milledge as usual showed flashes), the failure to assemble a starting rotation leaves the Nats perennially in a hole that only a powerhouse offense - which they obviously lack - could get them out of. Importing Cabrera, the poor man's Bobby Witt, is just a symptom of the desperate need for stability. Ryan Zimmerman, of course, has been the biggest disappointment; it's no longer reasonable to project him as a guy who will go head-to-head against David Wright, but they need him to step up and become the team's go-to guy. It also doesn't help that a combination of inconsistency and lunacy has sent Dukes back to the bench yet again, given his talents. 2009 is unlikely to be as grim as 2008, although I suspect that the 72-win estimate above is the high end of what is realistic.

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Part 3 of my preseason previews is the AL East; this is the third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold. Prior previews: the AL Central and AL West.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

The Hated Yankees

Raw EWSL: 283.00 (94 W)
Adjusted: 288.43 (96 W)
Age-Adj.: 253.86 (85 W)
2009 W-L: 98-64

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Jorge Posada	15	10
1B	29	Mark Teixeira	26	24
2B	26	Robinson Cano	16	18
SS	35	Derek Jeter	22	16
3B	33	Alex Rodriguez	28	23
RF	30	Xavier Nady	15	13
CF	25	Brett Gardner	2	4
LF	35	Hideki Matsui	11	8
DH	35	Johnny Damon	20	14
C2	32	Jose Molina	7	6
INF	33	Cody Ransom	2	2
OF	28	Nick Swisher	15	16
13	24	Melky Cabrera	9	11
SP1	28	CC Sabathia	22	22
SP2	32	AJ Burnett	12	9
SP3	29	Chien-Ming Wang	11	10
SP4	37	Andy Pettitte	11	10
SP5	23	Joba Chamberlain#	7	9
RP1	39	Mariano Rivera	17	15
RP2	34	Damaso Marte	5	4
RP3	28	Edwar Ramirez#	3	3
RP4	28	Jose Veras*	3	5
RP5	27	Brian Bruney	4	4

Subjective Adjustments: None; I had considered downgrading A-Rod for his injury, but the age adjustment hacks off 5 Win Shares, and that's probably a built-in adjustment for the scope of the injury (assuming A-Rod is something like the old A-Rod when he returns; if he's not, things will get ugly in a hurry).

The Yankees get a boost for having two outfielders on the bench (Swisher and Melky) who are rated largely on the basis of regular playing time, but that just offsets Gardner and Matsui, who are not.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - The Yankees' bench is stronger than it has been in some time, but the next level down is still pretty sad; other than Shelley Duncan, the people immediately on hand are non-hitting catcher Kevin Cash and Royals castoff Angel Berroa. 22-year-old OF prospect Austin Jackson appears to be a year away from being ready to help at the big league level.

Pitchers - Here, there is more depth. Phil Hughes will likely step in if one of the rotation starters gets hurt (a pretty good bet with the likes of Burnett and Joba), and there's also Brett Tomko, Ian Kennedy and Kei Igawa, although the latter two are in very bad odor. Also relievers Jonathan Abadejo, Phil Coke and Alfredo Aceves. Darrell Rasner signed with a team in Japan.

Analysis: The Yankees seem more vulnerable offensively than they have in years, with the injury to A-Rod and Father Time chasing down Jeter, Posada, Damon and Matsui. But EWSL says they are still the team to beat in this division, thanks very largely to the acquisitions of Teixeira and Sabathia (see here if you missed my look back at the Yankee's pitching acquisitions of the last 35 years). I'm not sure I'd go that far, but this team has excellent starting pitching, few holes and a fair amount of redundancy built in; they're going to be formidable.

This is (other than Wang) a very high-strikeout staff, maybe even one that could challenge the 2001 Yankees' AL record for strikeouts (1266). Andy Pettitte, at 7 K/9, was above his career average last season and higher than in any of the Yankees' championship seasons, and Sabathia, Burnett and Joba combined to strike out 600 batters in 574.2 innings last season, 9.4 per 9 innings. Of course, they will still need defense. The Yankees, as so often has been the case in the past decade (and in contrast to days of yore) were third from the bottom of the AL in defensive efficiency. With many of the same fielders returning, aside from a distinct upgrade at first, the pressure will be on the light-hitting speedster Brett Gardner (the poor man's Jacoby Ellsbury) to provide a boost with the glove. Gardner is a kind of light, fast player the Yankees haven't had much lately - Derek Jeter in 2006 is the only Yankee in the last five years to steal 30 bases in a season; Chuck Knoblauch in 2001 and Tony Womack in 2005 are the only Yankees since 1995 to steal 20 or more bases without hitting double figures in home runs.

Somehow, though, the story of the Yankees' year seems destined to be Alex Rodriguez. Your guess of how he will perform when he returns is as good as mine. With Cody Ransom handling third base in his absence, the pressure will mount daily to get A-Rod's bat back in the lineup no matter how unpopular he is.

Boston Red Sox

Raw EWSL: 258.00 (86 W)
Adjusted: 274.51 (92 W)
Age-Adj.: 252.87 (84 W)
2009 W-L: 97-65

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Jason Varitek	10	6
1B	30	Kevin Youkilis	24	21
2B	25	Dustin Pedroia#	19	28
SS	33	Julio Lugo	7	6
3B	35	Mike Lowell	16	11
RF	33	JD Drew	15	13
CF	25	Jacoby Ellsbury#	10	15
LF	30	Jason Bay	20	17
DH	33	David Ortiz	21	18
C2	26	George Kottaras+	0	4
INF	25	Jed Lowrie*	4	9
OF	27	Rocco Baldelli	4	4
13	33	Mark Kotsay	7	6
SP1	29	Josh Beckett	13	12
SP2	28	Daisuke Matsuzaka#	12	14
SP3	25	Jon Lester	11	12
SP4	42	Tim Wakefield	10	7
SP5	31	Brad Penny	9	7
RP1	28	Jon Papelbon	16	15
RP2	33	Hideki Okajima#	8	6
RP3	27	Manny Delcarmen	6	6
RP4	39	Takashi Saito	13	12
RP5	31	Javier Lopez	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Infielder Nick Green, and outfielders Cris Carter, Paul McAnulty and Chip Ambres. The Brad Wilkerson experiment seems to have run its course; Wilkerson was once a multi-tool player, but too many disappointing seasons have left him at what looks like the end of the line at 32.

Pitchers - The Red Sox have an embarrassment of pitching riches, even taking account of the traditional baseball maxim that you can never have too much pitching, and if you do you'll end up needing it all. I didn't even have room to list reliever Ramon Ramirez, the bounty of the Coco Crisp deal who had an outstanding year for the Royals last season, or Justin Masterson. The Sox hope to get John Smoltz to return around June, and presumably they'll make room for him somewhere. Clay Buchholz was a hotter property than Lester this time last year; Buchholz had a 2.52 ERA this spring (0.46 until his last spring outing), he struck out 8.5 men per 9 last season and had a 2.47 ERA while striking out a batter per inning at Pawtucket last season; none of that was enough to avoid getting sent back to AAA this year, but for a 24-year-old pitcher with his credentials and stuff, 76 innings of poor control and too many longballs last season should not be enough to give up on him as a prospect.

Analysis: The Sawx remain a deep team with few real holes and lots of pitching depth, albeit without a proven front-line regular-season ace (yes, I know about Lester's and Matsuzaka's big years last season and Beckett's 2007 and postseason glories). The offense should be OK as long as Jason Bay doesn't revert to 2007 form, even assuming some return to earth from Pedroia, but the man in the spotlight will be David Ortiz. Ortiz remained productive last season, but 2007's falloff in homers amid an otherwise outstanding season followed by 2008's distinctly declining production for a guy who - while better-conditioned - has the build of a Mo Vaughn or a George Scott raises the question of whether he'll be following a similar mid-30s fade or whether last year was just the kind of off year that signals a guy moving out of his prime but not necessarily sledding straight downhill.

Baldelli should get his chance to seize the fourth outfielder role before Kotsay returns from injury.

Tampa Bay Rays

Raw EWSL: 210.33 (70 W)
Adjusted: 238.52 (80 W)
Age-Adj.: 244.84 (82 W)
2008 W-L: 95-67

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Dioner Navarro	11	14
1B	31	Carlos Pena	20	17
2B	30	Akinori Iwamura#	15	16
SS	29	Jason Bartlett	15	14
3B	23	Evan Longoria*	10	24
RF	29	Gabe Gross	8	7
CF	24	BJ Upton	19	25
LF	27	Carl Crawford	16	16
DH	32	Pat Burrell	19	16
C2	28	Shawn Riggans*	2	4
INF	26	Willy Aybar	4	5
OF	24	Matt Joyce*	3	8
13	28	Ben Zobrist	5	5
SP1	25	Scott Kazmir	13	14
SP2	27	James Shields	13	12
SP3	25	Matt Garza	8	8
SP4	26	Andy Sonnanstine#	6	8
SP5	23	David Price	1	4
RP1	39	Troy Percival	4	4
RP2	31	Dan Wheeler	9	8
RP3	26	JP Howell	6	6
RP4	31	Grant Balfour	6	5
RP5	26	Jeff Niemann+	0	6

Subjective Adjustments: None; I could rate Niemann as a starter and Price as a reliever, but it doesn't really matter. Niemann will open as the fifth starter following Jason Hammel's trade to Colorado, but Price will be in the rotation pretty quickly, I have to assume, and the Rays don't seem shy about sending Niemann to the pen.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Gabe Kapler in the outfield and Adam Kennedy in the infield provide insurance. SS prospect Reid Brignac is on hand, but will be pressed to make his move quickly on Bartlett by the specter of Tim Beckham, the last first pick in the draft the Rays are likely to have for a while. Outfielder Fernando Perez is out three months with a dislocated wrist. Morgan Ensberg was in camp but was cut.

Pitchers - Reliever Joe Nelson, who had a great year for the Marlins last season and veteran relievers Jason Isringhausen, Chad Bradford, Brian Shouse and Lance Cormier provide depth.

Analysis: EWSL rates the Rays pretty highly when you factor in all the adjustments, but it's unsurprising that any rating based on established major league performance still shows they have to prove last year wasn't a fluke compared to the twin titans of this division. Of course, at the end of the day, it's unlikely that there will be three 95-win teams in the East no matter how solid they are; one of them will have to give.

I scoffed last season at Baseball Prospectus' projection that the Rays would cut their runs allowed from 944 to 713 in a single year, being unable to find any precedent for such an enormous percentage reduction in runs allowed by a single team in a single year and operating on the assumption that you never predict something that's never happened before. A year later, I still have yet to do a systematic study but I've also yet to locate another team with such a dramatic reduction - yet the Rays allowed 671 runs, accounting for almost the entirety of their improved record. As I've detailed on several occasions, that improvement was partly the young pitching but overwhelmingly the defense. There being really no precedent for this sort of thing, I remain guarded and skeptical at best about whether they can avoid a natural letdown from such a drastic leap forward in defense in a single season.

If you are looking for a sleeper on this suddenly under-the-microscope team, it would be Matt Joyce, who slugged .492 with the Tigers last season before being dealt for Edwin Jackson. Joyce may even get an audition in center when Upton's unavailable.

Toronto Blue Jays

Raw EWSL: 186.50 (62 W)
Adjusted: 211.64 (71 W)
Age-Adj.: 190.57 (64 W)
2009 W-L: 76-86

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	33	Rod Barajas	7	6
1B	32	Lyle Overbay	12	10
2B	27	Aaron Hill	12	12
SS	33	Marco Scutaro	12	10
3B	34	Scott Rolen	13	11
RF	28	Alex Rios	20	21
CF	30	Vernon Wells	17	14
LF	25	Adam Lind#	6	9
DH	21	Travis Snider+	2	11
C2	32	Michael Barrett	4	3
INF	34	John McDonald	4	3
OF	37	Kevin Millar	11	7
13	28	Jose Bautista	10	10
SP1	32	Roy Halladay	20	15
SP2	24	Jesse Litsch#	8	11
SP3	27	David Purcey*	1	1
SP4	24	Rickey Romero+	0	4
SP5	29	Scott Richmond+	1	4
RP1	33	BJ Ryan	8	6
RP2	33	Scott Downs	9	6
RP3	28	Jesse Carlson*	5	9
RP4	31	Brian Tallet	5	4
RP5	26	Brandon League	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Joe Inglett and Russ Adams in the infield, Buck Coats in the outfield and catching prospect Curtis Thigpen.

Pitchers - Dustin McGowan may or may not be out for the season; Shawn Marcum likely is. Others on hand include relievers Jason Frasor and Shawn Camp, as well as TJ Beam, Brad Mills, Brian Burres (a year removed from his unfortunate tenure in the Baltimore rotation), Casey Janssen, and Brett Cecil.

Analysis: Sometimes, a team that underachieves its Pythagorean projection is a candidate for a leap forward the next season on the grounds that bad luck evens out, but sometimes, as with the Jays (who fell 7 games under theirs last season), it's just a missed opportunity. The injuries to McGowan and Marcum and the departure of Burnett have left a shell-shocked remnant of the AL's best pitching staff last season (hey, you could look it up). Litsch, with a career average of 4.7 K/9, seems an unreliable second starter, and things get scarier after that (Purcey's an excellent prospect but as yet unproven). And beyond Lind and Snider, both unproven as well, there isn't a lot of future in their current lineup - Rios and Hill and in their primes, and the rest are 30 and up. Not that you'd be looking to dump a guy like Rios, but at this point he doesn't look like much to build a championship team around.

Baltimore Orioles

Raw EWSL: 160.50 (54 W)
Adjusted: 192.43 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 175.94 (59 W)
2008 W-L: 72-90

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Matt Wieters+	0	11
1B	32	Aubrey Huff	16	13
2B	31	Brian Roberts	20	16
SS	29	Cesar Izturis	7	6
3B	37	Melvin Mora	15	10
RF	25	Nick Markakis	20	25
CF	23	Adam Jones*	5	12
LF	24	Felix Pie#	3	4
DH	31	Luke Scott	11	9
C2	38	Gregg Zaun	8	6
INF	31	Ty Wigginton	13	11
OF	33	Ryan Freel	5	4
13	34	Chad Moeller	2	1
SP1	30	Jeremy Guthrie#	11	11
SP2	34	Koji Uehara	0	4
SP3	31	Adam Eaton	2	2
SP4	35	Mark Hendrickson	4	3
SP5	28	Alfredo Simon	0	4
RP1	32	George Sherrill	7	5
RP2	27	Chris Ray	4	4
RP3	26	Jim Johnson*	4	9
RP4	28	Dennis Sarfate*	3	4
RP5	37	Jamie Walker	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Newly-acquired infielder Robert Andino, catcher Robby Hammock, Luis Montanez and Donnie Murphy.

Pitchers - Rich Hill, who has fallen incredibly far in such a short time but will probably get another crack at a rotation gig once he's healthy, Danys Baez, Matt Albers and Radhames Liz.

Analysis: Another grim year in Baltimore, and like Toronto, while the Orioles don't look like they have a 100-loss kind of lineup, their weaknesses - especially a pitching staff that may rival the Rangers for the league's worst when you adjust for the park - will be brutally exposed playing New York, Boston and Tampa all year.

That said, there is some hope here - once Wieters gets promoted, you really do have a core of very young and at least possibly very good players in Wieters, Markakis, Jones and Pie (the latter two being crapshoots at this stage, but young and gifted enough to be worth hoping on). Hopefully for O's fans, they won't fall into delusions of adequacy again if the rotation opens with a few good weeks.

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Part 2 of my preseason previews is the AL West; this is the second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold. Prior preview: the AL Central.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

The Angels

Raw EWSL: 251.17 (84 W)
Adjusted: 259.00 (86 W)
Age-Adj.: 231.51 (77 W)
2009 W-L: 90-72

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Mike Napoli	10	11
1B	26	Kendry Morales	1	1
2B	25	Howie Kendrick	12	14
SS	25	Erick Aybar#	8	12
3B	31	Chone Figgins	16	13
RF	34	Vladimir Guerrero	25	17
CF	33	Torii Hunter	21	17
LF	35	Bobby Abreu	22	15
DH	30	Juan Rivera	5	5
C2	26	Jeff Mathis	4	5
INF	28	Macier Izturis	13	13
OF	34	Gary Matthews	12	10
13	28	Reggie Willits#	5	6
SP1	30	John Lackey	16	14
SP2	26	Jered Weaver	12	13
SP3	28	Joe Saunders	12	12
SP4	33	Kelvim Escobar	8	6
SP5	26	Ervin Santana	13	13
RP1	33	Brian Fuentes	11	8
RP2	25	Jose Arredondo*	6	12
RP3	33	Scot Shields	9	6
RP4	35	Justin Speier	4	3
RP5	38	Darren Oliver	7	6

Subjective Adjustments: None. Once again, there's nothing so off in the AL West I felt compelled to repair it. As usual, where some individual players came in lower than their projected playing time would suggest (here, Kendry Morales) the team also had guys sitting the bench who are rated on more playing time than they'll get (Matthews, Izturis), and rather than over-project Morales beyond what he's proven he can do, I'll just say "show me."

Also on Hand: Position players - 1B/3B Robb Quinlan and SS/3B Brandon Wood are the main non-pitchers, and Quinlan may actually stand to pick up some time if Morales isn't up to everyday productivity; with the flexibility of Figgins and Izturis, they give the Halos a lot of possible combinations.

Pitchers - Starters Dustin Moseley and Nick Adenhart are the likely fill-ins, and Jason Bulger and Shane Loux in the pen. Adenhart's minor league control numbers aren't as ghastly as his 13 walks in 12 innings last year with the Angels, but they're not good; Mosely had a 6.94 ERA at AAA to go with 6.79 in the AL, so while he throws strikes he's not fooling anyone. Bulger, by contrast, was just staggeringly dominant at Salt Lake, striking out - this is not a misprint - 75 batters in 43 innings (15.7 per 9) with an 0.63 ERA, and whiffing another 20 in 16 IP in the majors, albeit with even poorer control. Bulger, Loux and Moseley are all out of options.

The Salt Lake team, by the way, played .580 ball and won the Pacific Coast League.

Analysis: The Angels last season passed over the line from dominance to hegemony in the AL West, and nothing suggests that they are likely to surrender the crown this season even if Oakland returns to the neighborhood of the pennant race. With the departure of Mark Teixeira, K-Rod, Jon Garland and Garret Anderson, the Angels probably lost more free agent talent than anybody this offseason, yet they will probably end up with a slight upgrade by signing Bobby Abreu to replace Anderson (Abreu's a much better player, but he's also turning 35, a dangerous age for a guy who has already lost most of his power), they signed an adequate closer in Brian Fuentes, Garland will be replaced by the returning Escobar, and of course Tex was only here for half a season (he'll be replaced internally, by Morales). Despite that, the Angels are the picture of stability in a division of upheaval, with essentially everyone but Abreu and Fuentes a familiar face.

The main risk, of course, is the health of the starting pitching - Lackey, Escobar and Santana are all varying degrees of banged up at this stage - as well as whether Joe Saunders can avoid falling too far off from last season's career year. Really only the rotation could possibly give this division away. The team, as Angels teams this decade have tended to be, is about an ideal age mix, with an aging but not over the hill outfield and back of the bullpen mixed with a bevy of early/prime age players in the infield and rotation and at catcher.

Life, they say, is what happens while you're busy making other plans, and that's been the story of Juan Rivera's career and to some extent Escobar's and Weaver's as well - it's about time to start looking at them as the players they are, not who they might once have seemed likely to become. Morales and Wood are high on the list of guys who are running out of time to avoid the same fate. Morales now has a career line of .332/.373/.528 in the minors, most of it at AAA (albeit at high-altitude Salt Lake City), but just .249/.302/.408 in 407 big-league plate appearances. Wood's just 24, but he's smacked 128 homers the last four seasons (6 of them in the majors); while he flopped with the Angels last season, he also cut his strikeout rate at AAA. He needs a position; he seems to be regarded as a question mark at short, but his error rates in the minors at 3B are alarming.

Vlad Guerrero is and remains a great player, but his whole career trajectory has to be re-evaluated a bit since we found out he's a year older than he claimed.

Oakland A's

Raw EWSL: 172.50 (58 W)
Adjusted: 202.41 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 195.44 (65 W)
2009 W-L: 78-84

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Kurt Suzuki*	11	16
1B	38	Jason Giambi	13	9
2B	32	Mark Ellis	16	13
SS	34	Orlando Cabrera	21	18
3B	31	Eric Chavez	6	5
RF	25	Travis Buck#	6	9
CF	24	Ryan Sweeney*	6	16
LF	29	Matt Holliday	23	21
DH	30	Jack Cust	15	13
C2	27	Landon Powell+	0	4
INF	29	Bobby Crosby	8	7
OF	28	Rajai Davis#	4	5
13	23	Daric Barton*	6	12
SP1	31	Justin Duchscherer	9	7
SP2	25	Dana Eveland	4	4
SP3	23	Sean Gallagher*	1	2
SP4	23	Gio Gonzalez*	0	0
SP5	25	Dallas Braden	2	3
RP1	25	Joey Devine*	5	10
RP2	29	Brad Ziegler*	6	11
RP3	29	Santiago Casilla#	3	3
RP4	40	Russ Springer	7	5
RP5	30	Michael Wuertz	4	4

Subjective Adjustments: None. Barton, however, will struggle to get the playing time to meet his EWSL.

Also on Hand: Position players - Nomar Garciaparra is the biggest name, and will slot in wherever an extra hand is needed, especially if Chavez can't stay healthy; Jack Hannahan is still around, but was awful last year and likely not Oakland's next choice at third after Chavez (Barton is no longer considered a third baseman). Outfielder Chris Denorfia is around as well, and outfielders Eric Patterson and Aaron Cunningham behind him. Pitchers - Hot prospects Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson have been competing for rotation slots along with Josh Outman, and it now appears that Cahill will start the season's second game, with Duchscherer on the shelf with elbow surgery and Gonzalez having a rough spring. I rated them on the incumbents anyway, but it doesn't alter the numbers much. Jerry Blevins will be in the bullpen, and Andrew Brown is also on hand; both had ERAs in the low 3s last year.

Analysis: The A's perennially get more Win Shares from players I don't include in the preseason EWSL charts than almost anybody, and I have no doubt - especially if you look at the list above - that will happen again this year, and you can probably consider this closer to an 85-win than a 78-win roster. Of course, their young rotation could have substantial up- or down-side, especially a volatile power arm like Gonzalez or the highly touted Cahill and Anderson (although Gallagher may be the best bet for a step forward of the group). They'll probably end the season with a team more comparable to the Angels than they are on Opening Day, but even with the addition of Holliday's bat and Cabrera's glove, it will take quite a lot for this team to actually haul down the 24 1/2 game gap that separated them from the Angels last season.

Devine is seeing the dreaded Dr. Andrews, apparently leaving Ziegler to close (backed up by Casilla, who had a tough 2008). I believe Dr. Andrews gives a volume discount on former Braves pitchers.

Barton is hoping to avoid becoming the next Dan Johnson (the original finally gave up and signed to play in Japan); he'll probably be traded if he gets playing time and hits. Like Johnson, his timing is awful, as he's currently nursing a quad strain just when he was having a hot spring.

Fun fact from the Bill James goldmine: Duchscherer, the heir to Steve Karsay and Steve Ontiveros, narrowly missed having a 1-2-3 inning in half his innings last season.

Seattle Mariners

Raw EWSL: 173.00 (58 W)
Adjusted: 179.40 (60 W)
Age-Adj.: 164.92 (55 W)
2009 W-L: 68-94

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	33	Kenji Johjima	13	11
1B	33	Russ Branyan	5	4
2B	25	Jose Lopez	15	18
SS	27	Yuniesky Betancourt	13	13
3B	30	Adrian Beltre	15	13
RF	35	Ichiro Suzuki	25	17
CF	26	Franklin Gutierrez	5	5
LF	39	Ken Griffey jr	14	11
DH	29	Chris Shelton	2	2
C2	25	Jeff Clement*	2	4
INF	26	Ronny Cedeno	4	4
OF	31	Endy Chavez	5	4
13	27	Mike Morse	1	1
SP1	23	Felix Hernandez	13	13
SP2	30	Erik Bedard	11	9
SP3	26	Ryan Rowland-Smith#	5	7
SP4	34	Jarrod Washburn	7	5
SP5	30	Carlos Silva	4	3
RP1	24	Brendan Morrow#	5	7
RP2	27	Chad Cordero	5	5
RP3	26	Mark Lowe	1	1
RP4	29	Roy Corcoran*	4	6
RP5	27	Randy Messenger	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - 35-year-old Mike Sweeney has torn the cover off the ball this spring, and Don Wakamatsu speaks warmly of having him on the team, which seems to give him the inside track for the DH or platoon DH job, but Shelton's had an even better spring and I expect his relative youth and durability to win out sooner or later. Outfielder Wlademier Balentien, who was just lost last season at the plate, is the other guy likely to get significant playing time, as may Chris Burke, just picked up from Houston. Shortstop prospect Matt Tuiasasopo is also on hand, as is outfielder Mike Wilson, and Jamie Burke may yet reclaim the backup catcher slot.

Pitchers - Relievers Miguel Batista, David Aardsma and Sean White (Tyler Walker has been cut) as well as Jason Vargas, Garrett Olson and Cesar Jimenez.

Analysis: The Mariners have rid themselves of a lot of deadwood - admitting you have a problem is the first step - but there's not that much here to really build on as a long-term foundation besides King Felix and maybe Lopez, and Lopez is too free-swinging to be a star. In the short run, they're making do with cheap spare parts like Branyan, Shelton, Sweeney and the Ken Griffey nostalgia tour. They may yet have a dominant front end of the rotation with Hernandez and Bedard, but that didn't work out last season.

The Mariners' closer job has been an ongoing soap opera. Cordero should get a crack at the job, but he may not pitch before June, so in the interim they are going with just-now-converted starter Brandon Morrow, but Morrow may not be adjusted to close by Opening Day, so in the interim it could be Lowe, except that he's had the stuffings beaten out of him this spring. At one point, they were actually looking at Batista. Safeco will probably help the bullpen hang together, and there's a lot of guys there who can pitch a little, just no ace.

The defense, next to last (above Texas) in defensive efficiency last season, may be another story. The infield is basically the same aside from 1B. The M's have four center fielders, sort of, with Ichiro, Griffey, Endy and Gutierrez, so Gutierrez better be careful calling for balls, but of course Griffey doesn't move especially well anymore and may DH as much as he plays left.

Ichiro has been taking some rest after feeling light-headed, which is hopefully just jet lag. It's hard to believe that Ichiro's only four years younger than Griffey, having arrived in Seattle 12 years later and representing a different era of baseball in Seattle.

Clement has been talked about as a possibility as DH or starting catcher ahead of Johjima, but he was sent back to AAA for now amidst concern about his glove.

Texas Rangers
Raw EWSL: 158.00 (53 W)
Adjusted: 171.10 (57 W)
Age-Adj.: 162.51 (54 W)
2009 W-L: 67-95

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Jarrod Saltalamacchia#	5	7
1B	23	Chris Davis*	4	10
2B	27	Ian Kinsler	20	21
SS	20	Elvis Andrus+	0	11
3B	32	Michael Young	22	18
RF	28	Nelson Cruz	5	5
CF	28	Josh Hamilton#	17	21
LF	27	David Murphy#	7	9
DH	28	Hank Blalock	8	8
C2	25	Taylor Teagarden+	2	4
INF	35	Frank Catalanotto	7	5
OF	32	Andruw Jones	10	8
13	31	Marlon Byrd	11	9
SP1	34	Kevin Millwood	7	5
SP2	31	Vicente Padilla	7	6
SP3	26	Scott Feldman	3	3
SP4	25	Brandon McCarthy	2	3
SP5	23	Matt Harrison*	2	3
RP1	29	Frank Francisco	4	4
RP2	28	CJ Wilson	5	4
RP3	38	Eddie Guardado	4	3
RP4	31	Derrick Turnbow	2	2
RP5	27	Kason Gabbard	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None, but I am sorely tempted to downgrade Andrus, as discussed below.

Also on Hand: Position players - Slugging catching prospect Max Ramirez would garner more attention in another organization, but with Saltalamacchia and Teagarden on hand, there's a surplus of potential and a deficit of proven production at the position. With all Texas' needs, you have to figure at least one of them will be dealt by the deadline. Brandon Boggs is on hand in the outfield, Omar Vizquel, Joaquin Arias and German Duran are all poised to step in if Andrus fails.

Pitchers - The usual cast of thousands - high-ceiling prospect Neftali Feliz, and veterans Kris Benson, Joaquin Benoit (out with rotator cuff surgery), Jason Jennings, Dustin Nippert, Josh Rupe, and Warner Madrigal.

Analysis: The story of the Rangers, as always, starts and ends not with the AL's top-scoring offense in 2008 but with their appalling starting pitching, the reason they will be fighting the Mariners to stay out of the cellar. No help appears immediately on the way, although Feliz could be in the rotation later this year. The bullpen is more adequate, but nothing special. The Rangers were 14th of 14 teams last year in ERA and defensive efficiency, 13th in Ks, 12th in homers, 11th in walks; you can't blame all that on the park or the defense. Although, clearly some help would help: the average AL pitcher last season allowed 1.00 HR, 3.32 BB and 6.64 K/9; Kevin Millwood's averages were 0.96 HR, 2.61 BB and 6.67 K - better than average on all counts - but whereas the average AL pitcher gave up 9.19 hits per 9, Millwood allowed 11.74. Ouch.

Key to the defensive improvement will be Andrus, who has drawn raves for his glove this spring. Assuming the Rangers are committed to him, Andrus may be a decent fantasy baseball bet: he steals bases (94 in 244 games the last two seasons), plays short and plays in Texas. But realistically, I'll be shocked if he has an OPS+ above 80: the guy's 20 years old and slugged .367 in the Texas League last season. John Sickels notes that he's considered a good hitting prospect given his age, but that doesn't mean he's ready. And his defensive range better be good, because Andrus has averaged 45 errors per 162 games in the minor leagues. Rangers fans will need to be patient when he steps on his own blue suede shoes.

Saltalamacchia - the man who broke the box score - hasn't really repeated his stellar 2005 as a 20-year-old in A ball, raising memories of catching prospects like Javier Valentin and Robert Fick who just had a great year in the minors they could never live up to. With Teagarden and Ramirez on his heels, he'll have a short leash.

Davis, I'm a little leery of - yeah, great half-season run in the Kevin Maas style, but over his major and minor league careers he's averaged 47 walks and 172 K per 162 games to go with his averages of 42 HR and 44 doubles. The power is real, but so is Marcus Thames' (if we are still speaking of ex-Braves).

Frank Catalanotto, the king of the hot streak, has been a survivor and exceeded expectations many times before, but given his dependence on his batting average and dwindling defensive flexibility, he strikes me as exactly the kind of 35 year old who isn't on anybody's roster at 36.

Read More »

This year, I'm starting my preseason previews with the AL Central; this is the first of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

Minnesota Twins

Raw EWSL: 200.50 (67 W)
Adjusted: 228.28 (76 W)
Age-Adj.: 233.23 (78 W)
Subjective Adj.: 233.23 (78 W)
2009 W-L: 91-71

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Joe Mauer	27	31
1B	28	Justin Morneau	24	25
2B	24	Alexi Casilla#	5	7
SS	31	Nick Punto	9	7
3B	31	Joe Crede	10	8
RF	30	Michael Cuddyer	13	11
CF	23	Carlos Gomez#	7	11
LF	23	Delmon Young*	13	19
DH	27	Jason Kubel	10	11
C2	38	Mike Redmond	6	4
INF	28	Brendan Harris#	10	12
OF	25	Denard Span*	8	20
13	25	Jason Pridie	0	4
SP1	25	Francisco Liriano	5	5
SP2	25	Kevin Slowey#	6	8
SP3	27	Scott Baker	9	9
SP4	27	Nick Blackburn*	5	10
SP5	26	Glen Perkins#	4	5
RP1	34	Joe Nathan	17	11
RP2	27	Jesse Crain	4	3
RP3	30	Matt Guerrier	5	4
RP4	28	Craig Breslow*	3	6
RP5	31	Boof Bonser	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: None - I'm trying to be stingy with those - but clearly, 20 Win Shares from Denard Span and his sloppy pants is very aggressive for a guy who entered 2008 having never slugged higher than .369 in any stop in the minor leagues and appears to be starting the season without a fixed position in the outfield, although he's expected to end up with semi-regular playing time. That said, I'm not going to adjust downward a guy who only appeared in 93 games last year; he can lose a fair bit of productivity and make up for it with increased playing time.

Also on Hand: Position players - Infielders Brian Buscher and Matt Tolbert; Buscher was basically the everyday 3B for part of last season, and may yet get decent playing time if Crede's back gives out again.

Pitchers - Relievers R.A. Dickey, Luis Ayala, and Jose Mijares, and starters Phil Humber and Kevin Mulvey, both fruits of the Santana trade. Pat Neshek, so valuable the last few years, is out for the season with Tommy John surgery.

Analysis: As referenced in the comment above about Span, Ron Gardenhire's approach to playing time is a fluid one, and that's reflected in the distribution of Win Shares (and other statistical markers) among the Twins' non-pitchers. It may affect the catching corps as well: Joe Mauer is banged up already with a lower back strain, which is the kind of thing that can start the process of eating into his productivity around the edges even if he's only on the shelf for a few days. Redmond should start in his absence, although the Twins seem to be toying with Kubel behind the plate. It's premature to be overly worried about what could just be a week or two of early season stiffness, but with catchers you never know; it would be a shame if it ended up that Mauer, who should have been the AL MVP last season, had more of his best years already behind than ahead of him. (If you missed my look at the all-time great catchers, Part II of that series noted that Mauer has just a tremendous record by historical standards in throwing out base thieves).

The Twins' dependence on Mauer and the 34-year-old Nathan (along with Morneau, but as a 28-year-old slugging first baseman Morneau is as close to a sure thing as exists in the uncertain world of baseball) is a risk factor, but the major area for upside for the Twinkies - as well as the sort of downside that sends teams unexpectedly to the cellar - is their just-hitting-their-primes starting rotation. I think it's highly likely the rotation as a whole delivers more Win Shares than what's set out above; only Blackburn is really rated here as if he's a successful full-season starter. Liriano would surprise nobody if he won the Cy Young Award, ERA and/or strikeout titles this season, but his career high in innings is 167.2 as a minor leaguer and 121 in the major leagues - he needs to establish himself as capable of carrying the workload of a #1 starter. Then there's Slowey, who in his last 19 starts last season was 10-5 with a 3.24 ERA and averaged 1.0 HR, 1.3 walks and 7.2 K per 9 innings. If he can keep going at that rate, he too will be a top-of-the-line starter. Baker also has solid peripheral numbers, though he has struggled badly this spring. Blackburn, by contrast, has never struck out 100 batters at any level, so I'm skeptical of his viability going forward (ask Brian Bannister how that works out). On the whole, I think I'd much rather enter the season with this team than any other in the division, and EWSL appropriately rates them as the handy favorites.

On the everyday side, Gomez and Casilla should be an interesting bet for steals in fantasy baseball, but their value in the real world remains speculative (Bill James notes that Gomez laid down a MLB-high 66 bunts last year; Casilla at 37 was fourth). Delmon Young improved at the margins in a bunch of areas last year - upped his steals a bit, cut his GIDP a bit, cut his K/unintentional walk rate from 5.25 to 1 to 3.75 to 1 - and it's not that unusual for a very young hitter to follow an stagnate-then-explode growth pattern rather than steady improvement every season. That said, the drop in his doubles rate reduces some of the grounds for optimism about a big power breakout, while his dismal glovework raised the more immediate, short-term questions about whether he is helping the team while they wait for him to make the leap forward (the Baseball Prospectus article on the Twins argued that Young should be dealt, given that the Twins are contenders).

Cleveland Indians

Raw EWSL: 210.33 (70 W)
Adjusted: 225.56 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 220.62 (74 W)
2009 W-L: 86-76

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Victor Martinez	16	14
1B	28	Ryan Garko	13	13
2B	23	Asdrubal Cabrera#	8	13
SS	27	Jhonny Peralta	19	20
3B	34	Mark DeRosa	19	16
RF	26	Shin-Soo Choo	9	10
CF	26	Grady Sizemore	27	30
LF	27	Ben Francisco*	5	9
DH	32	Travis Hafner	10	8
C2	29	Kelly Shoppach	10	9
INF	34	Jamey Carroll	9	8
OF	35	David Dellucci	5	3
13	23	Luis Valbuena+	1	4
SP1	30	Cliff Lee	14	12
SP2	25	Fausto Carmona	9	10
SP3	27	Anthony Reyes	3	3
SP4	25	Scott Lewis+	2	4
SP5	24	Aaron Laffey#	3	4
RP1	32	Kerry Wood	7	5
RP2	25	Jensen Lewis#	4	6
RP3	27	Rafael Perez#	7	8
RP4	34	Rafael Betancourt	8	5
RP5	25	Joe Smith#	4	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Josh Barfield and Andy Marte, both of whom will probably get only one more chance to reclaim their status as potential everyday players; speedy 25-year-old outfielder Trevor Crowe, who is trying to catch on as a utilityman; slugging OF prospect Matt LaPorta, received in the Sabathia deal; 24-year-old 3B prospect Wes Hodges. Pitchers - Jake Westbrook, who may be back around midseason after Tommy John and hip surgeries; Carl Pavano; top prospect Adam Miller; Matt Herges; Japanese import and onetime Japan League ace closer Masahide Kobayashi, who was largely a flop last season despite a respectable 2.5-to-1 K/BB ratio (he had trouble with the longball); and Juan Salas.

Analysis: When you get past the shattered hopes of 2008 and the residue that remains (e.g., the ghost of Travis Hafner), there's actually some grounds for optimism in Cleveland. This remains a division for the taking if Minnesota's rotation unravels, and like the Twins, the Indians have some young pitchers with upside, like Scott Lewis and Reyes, as well as guys like Carmona and the two Rafaels who could bounce back from last season (granted, Cliff Lee's not going to repeat 2008). The Indians have announced Pavano, Scott Lewis, and Reyes in their rotation and sent down Laffey and Jeremy Sowers, but there's nothing less reliable in this world than Carl Pavano, so I rated them on the assumption that Laffey, the lesser of those two evils, will have to step in soon enough; Pavano would rate at essentially zero. If the Indians' training staff can keep both Pavano and Kerry Wood healthy all season, they should get a Nobel Prize or something.

Choo is penciled in for now in the Indians' plans, but he's 27 and owes the South Korean government two years of compulsory military service before age 30, and awaits word on whether he can get an exemption. There are not the greatest of outfield options at the big league level if he has to go serve his country, but I would assume LaPorta would get a crack sooner or later. Peralta's another guy whose value in the real world is a good deal less than to fantasy baseball owners: his defense is poor, his OBPs are uninspired, and he's hit into 57 double plays the past 3 seasons. Valbuena, a 23 year old second baseman, may get a crack at regular playing time, but aside from an out-of-nowhere power surge in 70 games at AA last season (which he was unable to duplicate at Tacoma), his minor league line is pretty unimpressive.

And of course, there's Sizemore, the American League's answer to David Wright: like Wright, he's a perennial MVP candidate already at age 26, and like Wright he's likely sooner or later to have a bust-out year that soars over even his already elevated standards. Baseball-reference.com identifies the most similar player through age 25 as Barry Bonds (Duke Snider is third, having been Sizemore's closest comp in earlier years).

Detroit Tigers

Raw EWSL: 220.00 (73 W)
Adjusted: 227.07 (76 W)
Age-Adj.: 206.60 (69 W)
2009 W-L: 82-80

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Gerald Laird	9	8
1B	26	Miguel Cabrera	25	29
2B	33	Placido Polanco	18	15
SS	32	Adam Everett	6	5
3B	32	Brandon Inge	12	10
RF	35	Magglio Ordonez	23	16
CF	28	Curtis Granderson	22	22
LF	33	Carlos Guillen	17	14
DH	40	Gary Sheffield	9	5
C2	33	Matt Treanor	5	4
INF	29	Ramon Santiago	4	4
OF	32	Marcus Thames	7	6
13	28	Ryan Raburn#	3	3
SP1	26	Justin Verlander	12	13
SP2	26	Jeremy Bonderman	7	7
SP3	27	Armando Galarraga*	7	12
SP4	25	Edwin Jackson	6	6
SP5	31	Nate Robertson	6	5
RP1	29	Brandon Lyon	8	7
RP2	32	Fernando Rodney	4	3
RP3	24	Joel Zumaya	4	4
RP4	31	Bobby Seay	4	3
RP5	27	Zach Miner	6	6

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Clete Thomas, who subbed adequately for Granderson in center field last season; 25 year old OF Brent Clevlen, coming off a .279/.358/.496 season at AAA Toledo; and 26-year-old 1B Jeff Larish, coming off a .250/.341/.477 season at Toledo. All three could likely step in and provide adequate production, much as the Twins were able to keep throwing rookies out there last season. Pitchers - Dontrelle Willis is still part of the eventual rotation mix unless the Tigers can find a greater fool for his contract, although he's unlikely to be in the Opening Day rotation, as is 20 year old super-prospect Rick Porcello, who pitched well but without a whole lot of strikeouts in his first go-round in pro ball last season. The mediocre K rate is nothing to worry about until we see another season from him, but it does suggest he's not big league ready. Also Juan Rincon, Clay Rapada, and Freddy Dolsi. Aquilino Lopez has been justifiably given the boot after a year in which he had good K/BB numbers and a 3.55 ERA, but let in 29 of 57 inherited runners and saw the Tigers lose two thirds of his appearances.

Analysis: By season's end, the Tigers and Indians looked like Germany and Russia circa 1919, two onetime adversaries reduced to rubble, shell shock and internal strife. While nobody as valuable as Sabathia has left Detroit, the Tigers' problems may be more intractable, with more, older players (Polanco, Guillen and Ordonez are all 33 and up and Sheffield may be finished) and more severe pitching injuries, especially to Bonderman and Zumaya. I'm more optimistic about Verlander, but the rotation remains questionable, and Brandon Lyon is not exactly the most reliable closer.

Maybe it's a coincidence that the Marlins' defense improved significantly, and the Tigers' decayed significantly, when Cabrera left Florida for Detroit. The revelation about Vlad Guerrero being a year older than he let on makes me wonder about guys like Cabrera who - great a hitter as he is - tend to get a very large boost by analysts for being so young.

Hard to believe Granderson's 28 already. He played at close to MVP candidate level after his return last season, but the Tigers never escaped the hole his injury caused, especially defensively.

Kansas City Royals

Raw EWSL: 185.83 (62 W)
Adjusted: 202.13 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 201.52 (67 W)
2009 W-L: 80-82

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Miguel Olivo	8	7
1B	28	Mike Jacobs	11	12
2B	26	Alberto Callaspo#	4	5
SS	28	Mike Aviles*	9	17
3B	25	Alex Gordon*	12	17
RF	33	Jose Guillen	12	10
CF	29	Coco Crisp	12	12
LF	29	David DeJesus	18	17
DH	23	Billy Butler#	6	10
C2	28	John Buck	8	8
INF	33	Ross Gload	6	5
OF	27	Mark Teahen	14	14
13	31	Willie Bloomquist	4	3
SP1	30	Gil Meche	13	11
SP2	25	Zack Greinke	11	12
SP3	25	Kyle Davies	4	4
SP4	28	Brian Bannister	5	5
SP5	25	Luke Hochevar*	2	3
RP1	25	Joakim Soria#	13	17
RP2	30	Juan Cruz	6	5
RP3	33	Kyle Farnsworth	3	2
RP4	38	Ron Mahay	6	5
RP5	29	Horacio Ramirez	2	1

Subjective Adjustments: None, but color me a skeptic on Aviles repeating 2008.

Also on Hand: Position players - Well, there's Ryan Shealy and Tony Pena, both refugees from the starting lineup, as well as catcher Brayan Pena (who has been stuck in AAA for four years) and outfielder Shane Costa. 25-year Hawaiian 1B Kila Ka'aihue is an enigma, batting .199/.303/.300 in AA in 2006, .248/.359/.435 between A and AA in 2007, then exploding for 38 homers and a .313/.453/.618 line at three levels, mostly AA, in 2008. Pitchers - As usual, a cast of thousands, including Robinson Tejeda (who could end up in the pen or the rotation), Sir Sidney Ponson (who actually stands a pretty decent chance of cracking the rotation), Brandon Duckworth, Joel Peralta, and John Bale.

Analysis: The Royals are still the Royals, so fourth place is something they aspire to. There remains a lot of upside in Gordon, Butler and Greinke, and it's too early to write off Hochevar after a bad rookie campaign, although based on his 4.35 career minor league ERA, the jury is still out on whether there was ever a rational basis to consider him something more than the next Dan Reichert or Jeremy Affeldt. Greinke, by contrast, is a pitcher, not just a thrower; on a team with more offensive and defensive support I'd be more willing to buy into the idea that he's on the verge of emerging as an elite pitcher, or rather of putting up numbers commensurate with that stature.

I have a feeling that Coco Crisp is going to have a much improved year with the bat. No, I don't precisely have a rational basis for that other than a lifetime of watching the shapes of players' careers. DeJesus remains the Lee Mazzilli of these Royals. It's hard to envision this team winning anything (defined as 85 or more games) so long as Guillen is in the clubhouse.

Chicago White Sox

Raw EWSL: 167.67 (56 W)
Adjusted: 197.80 (66 W)
Age-Adj.: 180.15 (60 W)
2009 W-L: 73-89

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	AJ Pierzynski	9	7
1B	33	Paul Konerko	14	12
2B	25	Chris Getz+	0	11
SS	27	Alexei Ramirez*	9	19
3B	26	Josh Fields#	4	5
RF	35	Jermaine Dye	16	11
CF	28	Jerry Owens#	2	2
LF	26	Carlos Quentin	14	16
DH	38	Jim Thome	20	14
C2	23	Tyler Flowers+	0	4
INF	27	Wilson Betemit	5	5
OF	31	DeWayne Wise	1	1
13	25	Brent Lillibridge+	1	4
SP1	30	Mark Buehrle	15	13
SP2	24	John Danks#	10	13
SP3	26	Gavin Floyd	8	9
SP4	37	Jose Contreras	7	6
SP5	25	Clayton Richard*	0	0
RP1	28	Bobby Jenks	14	14
RP2	35	Octavio Dotel	4	3
RP3	32	Scott Linebrink	6	4
RP4	32	Matt Thornton	8	5
RP5	32	Mike MacDougal	2	1

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jayson Nix, whose leg injury mostly left the 2B job to Getz; perennial disappointing CF Brian Anderson; Ben Broussard; and 33-year-old Crash Davis-style minor league catcher Corky Miller, and young SS Gordon Beckham. Pitchers - Bartolo Colon looks like he'll be in the starting rotation, but as with Pavano, I've rated the guy (Richard) likely to pick up the slack if Colon's not able to hitch up the plow every five days; the White Sox wouldn't rate much better if I rated Colon, who has amassed four Win Shares in the past three years. Then again, at least at the outset, Contreras may still be on the shelf. Jeffrey Marquez and Lance Broadway are also on hand. MacDougal is not a favorite of Ozzie Guillen, but his performance record still gives him the inside edge over those guys.

Analysis: EWSL and I were pretty down on the White Sox and wrong about it last year, and this year's prognosis is grimmer still; I don't actually see this as a last place team, but they do have real problems. Last year's improvement was driven by a bunch of breakout years from young players (Quentin, Danks, Floyd and Cuban import Ramirez); other than maybe the still gopher-prone Floyd, those guys look likely to be the real deal, but that doesn't mean they won't backslide some this season. It was also driven by the veteran power core, and another year of age on Thome, Dye and Konerko (also Pierzynski, Contreras and Dotel) is likely to catch up with them soon. The White Sox are likely to miss Orlando Cabrera's glove, and they still don't have a credible center fielder. That said, Fields could still provide some upside at 3B.

Flowers is 23 and hasn't played above A ball, and will start the season in the minors, and you never trust a guy the Braves let get away, but his career .291/.400/.488 line suggests potential, and it won't be surprising if the Sox give him the everyday job and deal AJ at some point.

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I'm short on time, so with only minimal comment I'll present the table comparing the 2008 Established Win Shares Levels to the teams' actual results, with the caveats noted in last year's writeup.

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It's time once again for my annual division previews using Established Win Shares Levels, which are explained here. Before we get to rolling out the 2009 EWSLs, I have to update the age adjustments and rookie values I use. These are based on the data I have gathered over the past five seasons, and so with each passing year, one would hope they become progressively more stable and useful (how accurate EWSL was in 2008 is another day's story, but of course as I always remind my readers, EWSL doesn't predict the future, it just provides a rough count of the talent on hand).

First up is the age adjustments; I've reformatted the table a bit from past years (see my writeups on the age adjustments following the 2004 season - also here - 2005, 2006 and 2007.

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Due to technical problems, I couldn't post the whole thing as one entry. Here's the conclusion.

As you can see from the top of the list, the Yankees have been far from uniformly unsuccessful with acquiring established veteran starting pitchers, and they've struck gold a bunch of times both with top-of-the-line acquisitions and with reclamation projects. But then, if you have a ton of money and you go in the market every year, you are bound to look like a genius now and then. And despite having, in the main, good baseball people working for them throughout most of this period, the Yankees have had flop after flop throughout every stage of the Steinbrenner years, from Gullett and Messersmith to Burns and Alexander to Hawkins and LaPoint to Mulholland and Rogers to Weaver, Pavano, Wright and Igawa. The collective Yield of the group, excluding the foreign pitchers, is 74.6%. The waste of dollars, of young talent in trade, of innings and run support to struggling starters, is enormous.

There are a variety of causes for this, and we generalize at our peril, as the Yankees have sometimes succeeded with the very same types of pitchers they failed with. Some of it, as with any team, is the unpredictable nature of pitching. Some is that having too much money to burn makes you sloppy. But we can generalize that the Yankees have made the same mistakes repeatedly over the years: they have too often put their faith in pitchers with major injury red flags; they have overpaid for guys coming off one good year; they have brought in too many veteran low-strikeout groundball pitchers, who are less consistent, have less of a margin for error, and are more dependent on their defense; and when they have brought in high-end power pitchers, too often they've been so old Father Time was bound to catch up with them eventually.

What does this mean for this year's crop? Sabathia looks like a good bet; he's up there with Hunter, Mussina, Cone, Clemens and Johnson among the best pitchers they have acquired, he's a power pitcher with a reasonably good health record and much younger than some of those guys. Burnett's also a power pitcher, but riskier, more like some of the failures; he's tended to get healthy only in his walk years. What is certain, it would seem, is that next year we'll be asking the same question about the next crop.

Hope springs eternal in baseball, and for the New York Yankees, with an aging offense, a lot of familiar faces gone and a steroid scandal swirling around the team's biggest star, a lot of those hopes ride on the shoulders of the team's two new free agent starting pitchers, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

Yankee fans have been down this road before.

Few things have been more constant in the Steinbrenner Era (dating back to George Steinbrenner's 1973 purchase of the team and continuing under his sons Hank & Hal) than the importation of established veteran starting pitchers. Since 1975, counting the importation of pitchers from Cuba and Japan, the Hated Yankees have brought in an established starting pitcher in the offseason 52 times in 35 seasons; only in five offseasons have they failed to do so in that period. Here is the list of those pitchers by year, along with their ages in their first season in pinstripes, how many seasons or parts of seasons they played with the Yankees, and how they were acquired:

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After I did my Hardball Times column on the post-1920 middle infielders in the Hall of Fame conversation, including the recently elected Joe Gordon - and you should go back and read the column if you expect to make sense of this post - I figured I'd like to check how the rough offensive "Rate" metric I was using stacks up to more sophisticated measurements that incorporate defense. With that in mind, I've pulled together in chart form for the long- and short-prime middle infielders a ranking by Win Shares per 162 team games for their prime years. To add to the picture I list their WS/162 for the non-prime seasons of their careers, which of course are highly variable (some guys get charged with "seasons" for a brief cup of coffee, like Alex Rodriguez in 1994 and 1995 or Rogers Hornsby spending the last 6 years of his career as a manager and part-time pinch hitter). Anyway, as you will see, the WS rankings match up fairly well with mine but naturally diverge in some cases, most obviously guys like Ozzie Smith who had a lot of defensive value.

Player	Age	Years	Seasons	WS	WS/162	Career WS	Rest	Rest Yrs	Avg WS	Rate
Rogers Hornsby	24-33	1920-29	9.51	362	38.07	502	140	12.12	11.55	186.7
Joe Morgan	25-33	1969-77	8.95	304	33.97	512	208	11.69	17.79	131.4
Arky Vaughan	21-29	1933-41	8.56	278	32.48	356	78	4.75	16.42	132.1
Craig Biggio	25-33	1991-99	8.57	269	31.39	428	159	11.00	14.45	127.3
Alex Rodriguez	20-27	1996-03	8.00	250	31.25	399	149	6.59	22.61	140.7
Ryne Sandberg	24-32	1984-92	9.00	260	28.89	346	86	6.36	13.52	116.3
Charlie Gehringer	25-35	1928-38	10.46	302	28.87	383	81	7.60	10.66	128.4
Lou Boudreau	22-30	1940-48	8.56	238	27.80	277	39	5.70	6.84	114.8
Cal Ripken	21-30	1982-91	10.00	273	27.30	427	154	10.23	15.05	121.9
Roberto Alomar	23-33	1991-01	10.57	281	26.58	375	94	6.00	15.67	113.4
Derek Jeter	24-33	1998-07	10.00	263	26.30	320	57	3.90	14.62	121.2
Vern Stephens	21-29	1942-50	8.56	225	26.29	265	40	5.70	7.02	111.3
Frankie Frisch	22-32	1921-31	10.46	274	26.20	366	92	7.52	12.23	106.3
Joe Cronin	23-34	1930-41	11.41	296	25.94	333	37	7.60	4.87	108.6
Jim Fregosi	21-28	1963-70	8.00	207	25.88	261	54	9.96	5.42	106.9
Jeff Kent	29-37	1997-05	9.00	232	25.78	339	107	7.59	14.10	116.6
Joe Sewell	22-29	1921-28	7.60	195	25.66	277	82	5.70	14.39	110.4
Billy Herman	25-33	1935-43	8.56	217	25.35	298	81	5.70	14.21	110.9
Barry Larkin	27-35	1991-99	8.57	217	25.32	347	130	10.00	13.00	101.3
Nellie Fox	23-32	1951-60	9.51	240	25.24	304	64	8.80	7.27	103.2
Pee Wee Reese	27-36	1946-55	9.51	237	24.92	314	77	5.70	13.51	100.8
Chuck Knoblauch	23-30	1992-99	7.57	188	24.83	231	43	4.00	10.75	110.9
Luke Appling	26/42	1933/49	14.26	354	24.82	378	24	4.75	5.05	100.3
Bobby Doerr	22/32	1940/50	9.51	232	24.40	281	49	3.80	12.89	107.7
Joe Gordon	23/34	1938/49	9.51	230	24.19	242	12	0.95	12.63	106.1
Bobby Grich	23-35	1972-84	12.67	296	23.36	329	33	4.00	8.25	99.5
Alan Trammell	22-32	1980-90	10.67	248	23.24	318	70	8.60	8.14	99.1
Lou Whitaker	26-35	1983-92	10.00	228	22.80	351	123	8.27	14.87	102.6
Ozzie Smith	30-37	1985-92	8.00	179	22.38	325	146	10.27	14.22	84.4
Tony Fernandez	23-31	1985-93	9.00	198	22.00	280	82	7.60	10.79	90.0
Tony Lazzeri	22-32	1926-36	10.46	230	21.99	252	22	2.85	7.72	105.6
Davey Concepcion	26-34	1974-82	8.67	189	21.80	269	80	9.95	8.04	85.9
Jay Bell	25-33	1991-99	8.57	183	21.35	245	62	9.00	6.89	99.5
Jim Gilliam	24-34	1953-63	10.60	219	20.66	247	28	3.00	9.33	84.3
Willie Randolph	21-32	1976-87	11.67	238	20.39	312	74	6.00	12.33	85.6
Bert Campaneris	23-34	1965-76	11.95	241	20.17	280	39	6.68	5.84	80.5
Ray Durham	26-34	1998-06	9.00	174	19.33	231	57	3.90	14.62	93.8
Davey Johnson	24-31	1967-74	8.00	147	18.38	171	24	5.00	4.80	86.7
Luis Aparicio	25-36	1959-70	11.85	212	17.89	293	81	5.80	13.97	76.2
Marty Marion	23-31	1941-49	8.56	153	17.87	177	24	3.80	6.32	66.8
Bill Mazeroski	20-31	1957-68	11.75	195	16.60	219	24	4.91	4.89	71.9
Frank White	27-36	1978-87	9.67	148	15.31	211	63	8.00	7.88	72.3

As you can see, Frisch, Cronin, Smith and Larkin - as befits their reputations - all go up the list by this measure, while Lazzeri, Whitaker, Bell and Durham go down (you will note, amusingly, that this puts Whitaker and Trammell together).

Two small data inconsistencies with the article, which was written after the 2006 season. One, I added Derek Jeter's 2007 (but not 2008) to complete his prime years; two, I adjusted Miguel Tejada's age.

Player	Age	Years	Seasons	WS	WS/162	Career WS	Rest	Rest Yrs	Avg WS	Rate
Jackie Robinson	29-33	1948-52	4.75	162	34.11	257	95	4.75	20.00	135.6
Robin Yount	24-28	1980-84	4.67	144	30.84	423	279	15.00	18.60	129.2
Ernie Banks	24-30	1955-61	6.65	194	29.17	332	138	11.90	11.60	135.3
Rod Carew	25-29	1971-75	4.95	129	26.06	384	255	13.68	18.64	120.7
Miguel Tejada	26-32	2000-06	7.00	182	26.00	239	57	5.00	11.40	115.9
Eddie Stanky	28-34	1945-51	6.65	164	24.66	191	27	3.80	7.11	98.2
Nomar Garciaparra	23-29	1997-03	7.00	169	24.14	218	49	6.00	8.17	109.4
Gil McDougald	23-29	1951-57	6.65	157	23.61	194	37	2.85	12.98	94.8
Dave Bancroft	29-35	1920-26	6.65	156	23.46	269	113	8.28	13.65	93.2
Maury Wills	27-33	1960-66	6.90	160	23.19	253	93	6.91	13.46	80.4
Phil Rizzuto	29-35	1946-52	6.65	154	23.16	231	77	5.70	13.51	87.0
Davey Lopes	28-34	1973-79	7.00	158	22.57	240	82	8.64	9.49	93.0
Alvin Dark	26-32	1948-54	6.65	150	22.56	226	76	6.65	11.43	96.8
Julio Franco	26-32	1985-91	7.00	155	22.14	280	125	15.70	7.96	105.3
Red Schoendienst	28-34	1951-57	6.65	147	22.11	262	115	11.51	9.99	97.3
Travis Jackson	22-27	1926-31	5.70	126	22.11	211	85	8.56	9.93	89.0
Cecil Travis	21-27	1935-41	6.65	146	21.95	169	23	4.75	4.84	96.8
Omar Vizquel	29-35	1996-02	7.00	119	17.00	267	148	12.59	11.76	82.4

As discussed in the article, Carew and Yount - like A-Rod - have other seasons that are "prime" but not as middle infielders (I looked at Carew's broader prime in the article on the tablesetters).

For one of the longer-term projects I've been working on, I've been going over the league-wide stolen base and caught stealing data at Baseball-Reference.com; I've been going back to the beginning of the Retrosheet era in 1956, since that's when the site has defensive stolen base data for individual catchers, although for the NL the site has league-wide figures back to 1951, and the AL to 1920.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the chart I put together for the 1956-2008 period, showing the number of games played, steals and caught stealings for each league, followed by the league-wide average of stolen base attempts per 162 team games and league-wide stolen base percentages.

Year	NL-G	NL-SB	NL-CS	NL-A/162	NL-SB%	AL-G	AL-SB	AL-CS	AL-A/162	AL-SB%
1956	1242	371	242	80	60.5%	1236	348	253	79	57.9%
1957	1238	399	254	85	61.1%	1232	368	304	88	54.8%
1958	1232	388	236	82	62.2%	1238	353	280	83	55.8%
1959	1240	439	271	93	61.8%	1236	414	235	85	63.8%
1960	1238	501	313	107	61.5%	1234	422	234	86	64.3%
1961	1238	468	288	99	61.9%	1622	578	311	89	65.0%
1962	1624	788	409	119	65.8%	1618	560	292	85	65.7%
1963	1622	684	493	118	58.1%	1616	552	270	82	67.2%
1964	1624	636	419	105	60.3%	1628	540	300	84	64.3%
1965	1626	745	429	117	63.5%	1620	704	357	106	66.4%
1966	1618	737	494	123	59.9%	1612	718	432	116	62.4%
1967	1620	694	470	116	59.6%	1620	679	470	115	59.1%
1968	1626	704	460	116	60.5%	1624	811	471	128	63.3%
1969	1946	817	548	114	59.9%	1946	1033	570	133	64.4%
1970	1942	1045	516	130	66.9%	1946	863	562	119	60.6%
1971	1944	900	492	116	64.7%	1932	865	547	118	61.3%
1972	1860	954	552	131	63.3%	1858	853	539	121	61.3%
1973	1942	976	552	127	63.9%	1944	1058	661	143	61.5%
1974	1944	1254	625	157	66.7%	1946	1234	758	166	61.9%
1975	1942	1176	558	145	67.8%	1926	1348	811	182	62.4%
1976	1944	1364	677	170	66.8%	1934	1690	867	214	66.1%
1977	1944	1555	843	200	64.8%	2262	1462	936	172	61.0%
1978	1942	1533	725	188	67.9%	2262	1471	892	169	62.3%
1979	1942	1486	767	188	66.0%	2256	1497	831	167	64.3%
1980	1946	1839	835	223	68.8%	2264	1455	775	160	65.2%
1981	1288	1108	543	208	67.1%	1500	913	557	159	62.1%
1982	1944	1782	822	217	68.4%	2270	1394	795	156	63.7%
1983	1948	1786	870	221	67.2%	2270	1539	749	163	67.3%
1984	1942	1728	773	209	69.1%	2268	1304	738	146	63.9%
1985	1942	1636	716	196	69.6%	2264	1461	715	156	67.1%
1986	1938	1842	858	226	68.2%	2268	1470	762	159	65.9%
1987	1942	1851	757	218	71.0%	2268	1734	772	179	69.2%
1988	1938	1789	729	210	71.0%	2262	1512	689	158	68.7%
1989	1946	1529	715	187	68.1%	2266	1587	726	165	68.6%
1990	1944	1787	727	210	71.1%	2266	1503	783	163	65.7%
1991	1940	1651	809	205	67.1%	2268	1469	758	159	66.0%
1992	1944	1560	741	192	67.8%	2268	1704	860	183	66.5%
1993	2270	1714	788	179	68.5%	2268	1549	872	173	64.0%
1994	1606	1141	529	168	68.3%	1594	1117	503	165	69.0%
1995	2014	1602	671	183	70.5%	2020	1331	586	154	69.4%
1996	2268	1785	709	178	71.6%	2266	1454	634	149	69.6%
1997	2268	1817	841	190	68.4%	2264	1491	723	158	67.3%
1998	2596	1609	751	147	68.2%	2268	1675	754	174	69.0%
1999	2591	1959	830	174	70.2%	2265	1462	689	154	68.0%
2000	2593	1627	736	148	68.9%	2265	1297	587	135	68.8%
2001	2592	1456	735	137	66.5%	2266	1647	673	166	71.0%
2002	2588	1514	703	139	68.3%	2264	1236	579	130	68.1%
2003	2590	1294	585	118	68.9%	2270	1279	547	130	70.0%
2004	2590	1336	527	117	71.7%	2266	1253	573	131	68.6%
2005	2594	1349	560	119	70.7%	2268	1216	509	123	70.5%
2006	2590	1515	610	133	71.3%	2268	1252	500	125	71.5%
2007	2594	1564	506	129	75.6%	2268	1354	496	132	73.2%
2008	2588	1482	547	127	73.0%	2268	1317	488	129	73.0%
TOTAL	103614	67266	32156	155	67.7%	105398	61396	31575	143	66.0%

A couple of conclusions:

1. You can see the rapid upward movements in steal attempts in the NL around 1962 (Maury Wills' big year) and 1974 (Lou Brock's), the AL much later in 1965-66 and then around 1974, and the big falloff around 2000 capping a longer-term decline (the NL's one-year spike in 1999 looks like just a fluke).

2. We're at something like a historic happy medium for stolen base attempts. Very low numbers of steal attempts generally mean that a lot of steal attempts are busted hit-and-runs, with a low success rate (the stolen base percentages of the 1950s bear this out), whereas very high numbers indicate a lot of high-risk running.

3. I think a good deal of the shift from the AL to the NL in big base stealing in the late 1970s was driven not just by the DH rule but by managers: Chuck Tanner moved to the NL in 1977, Whitey Herzog in 1980. Tanner in particular left his stamp on the AL in 1976, when he forgot his mother's admonition that if you make that steal sign on Opening Day it might freeze that way. The 1976 A's, on their way to their first failure to win the division in six years (helped along by the exodus of the Mustache Gang's stars) attempted an obscene 464 steals (the only other team in the league over 230 was Herzog's Royals at 322), albeit at an admirable 73.5% success rate. Don Baylor attempted 64 steals, Bill North 104, Sal Bando (!) 26, Phil Garner 48, Claudell Washington 57, Bert Campaneris 66, and the team's two full-time pinch runners, Matt Alexander and Larry Lintz, combined to attempt 69 steals while having only 33 plate appearances.

4. Stolen base percentages were growing steadily for much of the period, but have really entered a golden age only in the last 2-4 years - before 2004-05, it was rare for the AL to reach a 70% success rate, and the NL wasn't able to stay consistently above 70%; since then, we've seen the NL average spiral as high as 75.6%, with both leagues above 73% the past two seasons for the first time ever. The Mets and Phillies, led by Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, have been the leaders: in 2007-08, the Mets attempted an average of 210 steals per year with an 80.5% success rate, the Phillies an average of 159 steals with an 86.2% success rate.

It's an interesting question what the cause of this is. Probably the influence of sabermetrics is a part, especially since the growing popularity of Baseball Prospectus, the 2003 publication of Moneyball, the passing of generational torches and other events have helped focus managers' attention on not running themselves out of innings (a process accelerated by the post-1994 scoring/home run explosion that peaked in 1999-2000). I suspect that baserunners have gotten faster at a greater rate than catchers have been throwing harder. I don't think it's the pitchers; if anything, you hardly see the big leg kicks of the 1970s anymore. Looking around the league, it's hard to say that teams are really diminishing the priority they place on catchers who can throw, either (Piazza's not in the league anymore). I don't think equipment is a big factor, especially with artificial turf in declining usage, but better shoes may be incrementally aiding the baserunners.

Anyway, it's yet another reminder of how many different aspects of the game evolve over time, both in terms of strategy and in terms of outcomes.

Yesterday's start by Johan Santana reversed his usual pattern; whereas he has thus far, except for his beating at the hands of the Brewers, basically had stretches of dominance interrupted only by too-frequent home runs, yesterday he was laboring with a lot of men on base but muddled through to allow just a single run and leave with a lead the bullpen then gave away.

Now that we are 7 starts in to the Johan Santana Era, I thought it would be interesting to look back at the first 7 appearances by prior mid-career arrivals to the Mets rotation. I tried to limit this list to guys who were slotted comfortably into the rotation, and left off guys who were not yet established starters (other than Rick Reed), guys who were obvious reclamation projects (Pete Harnisch, Randy Jones, Don Cardwell, Ray Burris), guys who started off in the pen (George Stone posted an 0.60 ERA in 7 relief appearances in 1973 to force his way into the rotation), guys who went down for the year with injuries before making it through 7 starts (Vic Zambrano), guys who came straight from Japan (Masato Yoshii) and guys who started with the team in its expansion years. Here, in ascending order of ERA, you can see the great, the hideous, and everything in between (Seaver is listed here for his 1983 encore). One or two of these guys made a few relief appearances in here, but they all started at least 5 of the 7 games.

Pitcher	Age	Year	W-L	ERA	IP	H	HR	BB	K
Al Leiter	32	1998	3-2	1.39	45.1	36	0	16	41
Rick Reed	32	1997	3-2	1.50	48	35	3	5	32
Bob Ojeda	28	1986	5-1	1.70	42.1	36	2	10	27
Tom Seaver	38	1983	2-2	2.12	51	31	2	20	38
Bruce Berenyi	29	1984	4-3	2.70	43.1	40	3	18	29
Johan Santana	29	2008	3-2	2.91	46.1	35	7	12	47
Pedro Astacio	32	2002	5-2	2.94	49	44	7	11	40
Pedro Martinez	33	2005	4-1	3.06	50	25	3	9	63
Mickey Lolich	35	1976	2-4	3.14	43	46	2	11	39
Frank Viola	29	1989	2-4	3.18	51	41	2	14	42
Pat Zachry	25	1977	1-3	3.26	38.2	36	4	21	24
Armando Reynoso	31	1997	2-0	3.27	44	35	4	18	26
Hideo Nomo	29	1998	1-1	3.52	38.1	29	2	25	40
Tom Glavine	37	2003	4-2	3.64	42	44	4	13	22
Bret Saberhagen	28	1992	2-2	4.02	47	41	3	11	46
Mark Clark	28	1996	1-5	4.37	47.1	53	7	14	29
Orlando Hernandez	40	2006	2-4	4.89	38.2	39	6	12	30
Kevin Appier	33	2001	2-3	5.06	37.1	44	3	15	24
Mike Torrez	36	1983	1-3	5.16	29.2	31	1	16	13
Kris Benson	29	2004	3-3	5.49	41	46	6	13	24
Oliver Perez	24	2006	1-3	6.38	36.2	41	7	17	41
Mike Hampton	27	2000	2-4	6.52	38.2	41	2	36	19
Orel Hershiser	40	1999	2-4	6.62	35.1	41	0	22	18
Steve Trachsel	30	2001	1-5	7.05	37	50	9	11	25

I'm not sure you can generalize much here except to say that 7 games does not a season make - some of these guys stayed with the tone they set early, others saw their seasons turn around dramatically, whether for the better (Hampton, Trachsel) or for the worse (Astacio). Other notes:

*Note that the subsequent performance record of the guys who topped 49 innings is decidedly worse than the rest.

*Berenyi and Astacio were the only ones to get decisions in all 7 appearances.

*Yes, Santana's HR rate is bad. On the whole, Santana's had one of the better starts, but of course Viola was the only guy who arrived with comparable fanfare (Pedro and Saberhagen were surrounded by health questions from Day One).

*You forget quite how utterly dominant Pedro was in those early appearances.

*Remember that the league ERA has gone up a lot over the years; under the circumstances, the Mets were happier with El Duque on his arrival than they were with Lolich.

One of the interesting revelations about watching Johan Santana this season has been watching him hit. Pitchers, even ones who can swing the bat, usually have swings that are not that pretty to watch - they try to meet the ball, or take a butcher-boy approach to whacking it into the ground - but Santana's swing is relatively compact but with a sharp uppercut, a Mo Vaughn/David Oritz kind of swing, not at all what you expect from a pitcher who spent his whole career in the AL and isn't built like a burly first baseman.

And Santana's had decent results - he's batting .231/.286/.462 with 3 doubles in 13 at bats entering tonight's action, .250/.283/.386 in 46 career plate appearances, for a career OPS+ of 75, almost the level of a weak-hitting everyday catcher or shortstop.

The other reason this surprised me is that lefthanded power pitchers, in particular, have a fairly grisly track record at the plate. Some examples - bear in mind that you really need to work hard to get an OPS+ below zero; with 100 being the league average hitter, an OPS+ in the 20s is plenty bad (although by 2007, with pitchers falling further and further behind the average hitter, the NL OPS+ for pitchers was -3; in 1956 the Major League average for pitchers was 23) - I'm aware that not all these guys are known as power pitchers, but all of them were when they entered the league:

Pitcher	OPS+	Avg	OBP	SLG
Barry Zito	-46	.093	.111	.093
Al Leiter	-34	.085	.142	.102
Sandy Koufax	-26	.097	.145	.116
Bob Veale	-24	.114	.139	.129
Randy Johnson	-22	.127	.151	.156
David Wells	-22	.129	.148	.140
Jerry Koosman	-17	.119	.151	.141
Danny Jackson	-15	.126	.148	.164
Lefty Gomez	-7	.147	.194	.159
Al Downing	-5	.127	.169	.160
Vida Blue	-4	.104	.186	.145
Mickey Lolich	-2	.110	.215	.121
Sam McDowell	-2	.154	.171	.176
Mark Langston	-1	.152	.168	.185
Lefty Grove	6	.148	.209	.207
John Matlack	6	.129	.230	.136
Johnny Vander Meer	6	.152	.200	.180
Dave McNally	14	.133	.196	.201
Rube Marquard	17	.179	.207	.202
Carl Hubbell	18	.191	.212	.227
Steve Avery	18	.174	.194	.252
Billy Pierce	19	.184	.232	.203
Rube Waddell	25	.161	.197	.219
Ed Morris	26	.161	.193	.208

I included Waddell and Morris since they hale from an era when pitchers were expected to contribute more with the bat; Morris' presence shows that you can find this trend all the way back to the very first lefthanded pitcher to have a significant successful career (although his 1880s contemporaries Matt Kilroy and Toad Ramsey were much better hitters, with OPS+ of 72 and 42, respectively).

It's not all lefthanded power pitchers, of course; there's Babe Ruth, and there's also the following list of guys who ranged from dangerous hitters to fairly average hitting pitchers (Sabathia, like Santana, has limited hitting experience, just 39 plate appearances):

Pitcher	OPS+	Avg	OBP	SLG
CC Sabathia	90	.297	.316	.405
Tommy Byrne	77	.238	.286	.378
Dontrelle Willis	68	.234	.280	.359
Warren Spahn	43	.194	.234	.287
Hal Newhouser	36	.201	.267	.234
Steve Carlton	33	.201	.223	.259
Hippo Vaughn	33	.173	.232	.223
Fernando Valenzuela	30	.200	.205	.262
Whitey Ford	28	.173	.256	.200
Sid Fernandez	21	.182	.206	.223

(I remember Sid being a better hitter than that but he batted .080 after turning 30).

Even recognizing that this is more an anecdotal than a systematic study, I don't have a good single explanation here. Clearly some of these guys were not great athletes, but Koufax, for example, was an excellent basketball player; some of these guys are latter-day AL pitchers, but the pattern precedes them back to the early days and has continued in the NL. I suppose the ability to throw hard as a lefthander probably means most of these guys got identified as pitchers earlier in their baseball-playing youth than your typical stud athlete who plays a lot of SS and CF before settling into a single position; that seems to me the most likely reason.

This should be the last post from my preseason Established Win Shares (EWSL) division previews, and it's one I have been meaning to do in past years: a look at the amount of roster turnover. Each year, I identify 23 players who are projected to play roles for their team - 13 non-pitchers and 10 pitchers. That's not the whole Opening Day roster, but it pretty closely corresponds to the number of people who have something like a steady major league job, given the insecurity of life as a 12th pitcher or last man on the bench.

So, comparing the 2008 23-man rosters to the 2007 ones, how much turnover was there? 173 players were listed last season but not this year, an average of almost six per team. In percentage terms, 173 out of 690 - that's a 25% attrition rate in a single year even for guys who had made it all the way up the professional pyramid and shimmied up the greasy pole at the top to have one of those scarce jobs playing major league baseball. I'm not making any excuses for anyone when I say that you should remember figures like that the next time you read about ballplayers taking steroids, lying about their ages, corking their bats, scuffing the baseball, concealing injuries, or whatever other edge they think they need to get a big league job and contract and cling to it.

Not all these guys dropped out of the big leagues - some just slid from 10th pitcher to 11th, some are on the DL but could well be major contributors again by midseason, some are youngsters who got sent back for a little more minor league seasoning, some were guys I was just mistaken in thinking last year they'd have jobs. Some, in fact, are already back in a regular job a month later. The under-30 crowd in particular is dominated by injured pitchers. That said, the bulk of this list is guys who fell victim to the dog-eat-dog competition for scarce Major League jobs, most of whom will not return to that perch, and others of whom face an uphill battle in reclaiming those jobs from eager youngsters. In the main, they are a reminder that many more Major League careers end with a whimper than a bang.

The average age of the dropouts? 31.8. Average Win Shares earned show a pattern: 5.8 in 2005, 5.4 in 2006, 2.5 in 2007, with an age-adjusted EWSL of 3.4.

Here's the full list by age (sorted among age groups by declining EWSL) - each and every name on this list is a story of a guy who, at a minimum, started 2008 with less hope and optimism about his future than he did a year earlier:

Read More »

Now, lest I be accused of predicting the major leagues to finish above .500, I noticed that if you add up the W-L records in my preseason EWSL reports add up to have all of MLB over .500. The reason for that, of course, is as follows:

1. EWSL - by rating only 23 players per team, whereas the average team uses something like 35-40 players in a season - tends to underreport the total number of team wins.

2. To fix this in converting team EWSL to a W-L record this season I applied an average adjustment of plus 12.853 wins per team. That's the average number of wins you get from 1/3 of the average number of Win Shares per team earned in 2005-07 from players I didn't rate in a team's preseason 23-man EWSL roster.

That's a reasonable enough fudge factor, and I was doing one division at a time; but now that I have all 30 teams done, I need to rebalance the numbers to get them all out at .500. Also, I made two adjustments for roster changes between the writing of the previews and the start of the season: I replaced Kelvim Escobar, who is out for the season, with Dustin Moseley, thus dropping the Angels team EWSL from 250.31 to 247.08, and I replaced Reed Johnson (who got rated on both the Blue Jays and the Cubs) on Toronto's roster with John McDonald, dropping the Jays from 209.93 to 207.68. I stayed away from less drastic tinkering, but of course you can expect a downgrade on Detroit's full-season outlook, for example, from being without Curtis Granderson for the early part of the year (not that I'd blame his absence for everything that's gone wrong so far for the Tigers).

With those two adjustments made, we get a major league total of 6193.10 EWSL, which is enough for 68.81 wins per major league team. Now, there are two ways I could get that up to 81 wins per team - proportionally, as I did in 2005 and 2006, or by sticking with the straight addition per team approach. I'm using the latter because (1) historically, I have not observed any notable positive relationship between a team's preseason EWSL and how many WS it generates from players outside the 23-man roster and (2) adjusting proportionally gets us into some question-begging issues about the unbalanced schedule...I just don't want to get into that. So I'm now using a standard adjustment of plus 12.188 wins per team. Of course, for all that math it's an adjustment of less than half a win per team, so the end results here should not be all that dramatic.

Without further ado, here are the final standings according to EWSL:

NL EAST	W	L	GB
Mets	95	67
Phillies	87	75	8
Braves	80	82	15
Nationals	74	88	21
Marlins	66	96	29
NL CENTRAL	W	L	GB
Brewers	87	75
Astros	78	84	9
Cubs	78	84	9
Reds	77	85	10
Pirates	72	90	15
Cardinals	72	90	15
NL WEST	W	L	GB
Diamondbacks	92	70
Rockies	86	76	6
Dodgers	86	76	6
Padres	76	86	16
Giants	67	95	25

NL Wild Card: Phillies.

AL EAST	W	L	GB
Yankees	101	61
Red Sox	88	74	13
Blue Jays	81	81	20
Rays	71	91	30
Orioles	68	94	33
AL CENTRAL	W	L	GB
Tigers	101	61
Indians	97	65	4
Twins	83	79	18
White Sox	81	81	20
Royals	73	89	GB
AL WEST	W	L	GB
Angels	95	67
Mariners	86	76	9
Rangers	66	96	29
A's	66	96	29

AL Wild Card: Indians.

A few final notes, bearing in mind that in the division previews I already went through where I subjectively expect particular teams to depart from their EWSL baseline expectations. As noted in the divisional previews, EWSL is furthest out on a limb, compared to the general consensus among preseason analysts, in being pessimistic about the Red Sox, Cubs and Rays - the Cubs mainly because of their age, the Rays mainly because of their reliance on unproven youngsters, the Sox because of a mix of the two. The disadvantage of a system like EWSL that is not at all individualized is that it can't target the particular players who are likely to do a lot more than their prior major league accomplishments, as more refined systems like Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA system can. But prediction isn't an exact science anyway; in looking over where things stand entering a season, there's something to be said for considering the discipline of a remorselessly depersonalized system such as this one, which cautions that unproven youngsters should be valued as such until they show us otherwise, and that age cuts down everyone sooner or later. The early injury to Matt Garza is perhaps one indicator of the wisdom of this approach. That said, as an empirical-testing matter, I'll be interested to see whether EWSL turns out to be a better guide as a whole to the direction of those three teams.

The last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Today: the NL Central. Notes on the EWSL method are below the fold. Amazingly, for once I have finished all six divisions before the season is underway in earnest.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

Milwaukee Brewers

Raw EWSL: 195.83 (65 W)
Adjusted: 220.43 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.43 (75 W)
2008 W-L: 88-74

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Jason Kendall	14	12
1B	24	Prince Fielder#	19	29
2B	25	Rickie Weeks	12	15
SS	25	JJ Hardy	12	16
3B	28	Bill Hall	15	15
RF	26	Corey Hart#	12	17
CF	35	Mike Cameron	20	14
LF	24	Ryan Braun*	11	28
C2	31	Mike Rivera	1	1
INF	37	Craig Counsell	10	6
OF	25	Tony Gwynn jr.*	2	4
12	28	Gabe Gross	6	6
13	32	Gabe Kapler	1	1
SP1	29	Ben Sheets	9	8
SP2	22	Yovanni Gallardo*	5	11
SP3	33	Jeff Suppan	11	8
SP4	28	David Bush	8	8
SP5	24	Carlos Villanueva#	5	6
RP1	32	Eric Gagne	4	3
RP2	30	Derrick Turnbow	7	6
RP3	31	David Riske	6	5
RP4	36	Salomon Torres	6	6
RP5	25	Manny Parra*	1	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Eric Munson lost the initial backup catcher battle to Rivera, but may be back. OF Laynce Nix and Russell Branyan were in camp, as were 3B Abraham Nunez and young 2B Joe Dillon. Pitchers - Chris Capuano, who had hoped to see if better defense could help him recover from last year's catastrophic falloff, faces an uncertain prognosis and may yet need Tommy John surgery. Don't bank on him. The Brew Crew has also been sentenced, like Sysiphus, to the potential of Seth McClung and Guillermo Mota. Chris Spurling and 39-year-old Brian Shouse are other relief options.

Analysis: The status of preseason favorite in the NL Central is a desirable one but by no means prestigious. The Brewers won 83 games last year, a bunch of their key guys are young, they brought in some veterans like Cameron (once his suspension is up), Riske and Torres...they will compete, and somebody's gotta win this division.

The rotation is far from imposing in the absence of Capuano, who has to be a longshot to reclaim his old form even if he is able to muddle through. If Sheets somehow stays healthy and Gallardo makes no return trips to the DL (he's on it now, recovering from offseason knee surgery), they could have a good 1-2, but the rest aspires merely to adequacy. The guys with real upside here are Weeks and Braun, if they can somehow avoid wrecking the defense again, and also the potential for a revival by Hall and Gagne.

88 wins sounds about right. That could be enough.

Houston Astros

Raw EWSL: 202.17 (67 W)
Adjusted: 223.93 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 198.61 (66 W)
2008 W-L: 79-83

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	JR Towles+	2	12
1B	32	Lance Berkman	26	22
2B	32	Kaz Matsui	10	9
SS	32	Miguel Tejada	19	16
3B	30	Ty Wigginton	11	9
RF	25	Hunter Pence*	9	20
CF	25	Michael Bourn*	2	5
LF	32	Carlos Lee	21	18
C2	39	Brad Ausmus	8	7
INF	36	Mark Loretta	14	10
OF	34	Darin Erstad	5	5
12	34	Jose Cruz jr.	6	5
13	35	Geoff Blum	8	5
SP1	30	Roy Oswalt	19	16
SP2	30	Brandon Backe	4	3
SP3	29	Wandy Rodriguez	5	4
SP4	30	Shawn Chacon	5	4
SP5	30	Chris Sampson#	4	4
RP1	28	Jose Valverde	11	11
RP2	26	Oscar Villarreal	4	4
RP3	41	Doug Brocail	4	3
RP4	31	Geoff Geary	5	4
RP5	36	Brian Moehler	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - C Humberto Quintero, who had a good spring and presumably would step in if the Astros finally realize that Ausmus is finished; Tomas Perez, David Newhan, Reggie Abrecrombie, Victor Diaz. Pitchers - Wesley Wright, a wild young lefty with good K numbers but little experience above AA, made the roster; Mark McLemore, with similar numbers last year in Houston, didn't. Dave Borkowski, Chad Paronto and Mike DeJean are also around; Woody Williams was a late cut (a terrible spring at 41 after posting a 5.27 ERA will do that; Williams can still throw strikes but I suspect he just has nothing left).

Analysis: For the second year in a row, EWSL seems unaccountably optimistic about the Astros, but I suppose optimistic is a relative term, when a lineup with this many quality veterans, a solid closer and a major ace pitcher is still projected to finish below .500. The new but not improved rotation seems unlikely to be competitive beyond Oswalt, but you never know; maybe this will be the year Backe is finally healthy. The bullpen is totally rebuilt, but in some cases with less than the most consistent relievers. Valverde is solid, but the Win Shares system may overrate him just a bit because of the extreme number of close games the D-Backs led in last season (not that he doesn't deservie his share of the credit for that).

Geoff Blum is ailing, and it's not like he's Mike Schmidt when he is healthy. Matsui is too, but we won't get into that. Ausmus is the emergency infielder, and that about says it all.

Chicago Cubs

Raw EWSL: 185.83 (62 W)
Adjusted: 216.63 (72 W)
Age-Adj.: 196.25 (65 W)
2008 W-L: 78-84

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Geovany Soto+	2	12
1B	32	Derrek Lee	17	15
2B	33	Mark DeRosa	13	12
SS	28	Ryan Theriot#	8	9
3B	30	Aramis Ramirez	21	18
RF	31	Kosuke Fukudome+	0	12
CF	23	Felix Pie*	3	7
LF	32	Alfonso Soriano	15	14
C2	36	Henry Blanco	3	2
INF	25	Ronny Cedeno	3	3
OF	31	Reed Johnson	9	7
12	33	Daryle Ward	5	4
13	28	Mike Fontenot*	3	5
SP1	27	Carlos Zambrano	17	16
SP2	28	Rich Hill#	8	10
SP3	32	Ted Lilly	12	8
SP4	29	Jason Marquis	7	6
SP5	31	Ryan Dempster	8	7
RP1	31	Kerry Wood	2	2
RP2	25	Carlos Marmol#	6	8
RP3	34	Bobby Howry	10	7
RP4	29	Michael Wuertz	5	5
RP5	36	Scott Eyre	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None. Felix Pie hit too poorly last season to deserve any sort of bump until he proves himself.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Alex Cintron lost out on the middle infield reserve job. Matt Murton will almost certainly be traded unless there's an injury that presses him into service very soon. 2B Eric Patterson is also on hand. Pitchers - The Cubs have them in reserve if needed - Neal Cotts, Jon Lieber, Sean Marshall and Carmen Pignatiello.

Analysis: Why is EWSL so down on the Cubs, when everyone else in the universe seems to have ceded them this division? Age is a big factor: the age adjustments take a big bite out of 30-and-up players like Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Howry, and Lilly, and those add up. Nobody on the team rates more than 18 EWSL; Arizona, Toronto and the White Sox are the only other teams with pretensions at contending that don't have a 20 EWSL player, and the D-Backs are deep in young talent and pitching, in ways the Cubs aren't, while I'm less than impressed with the other two. Some guys may be underrated here; Marmol, like Fausto Carmona, is rated in part on his dismal 2006, since I can't and won't just make it magically vanish, but Marmol in particular seems likely to come closer to last year's 11 WS than to the projected 8, just as Derrek Lee does seem likely to stay healthy enough to turn out 20 WS, as his 2006 injury was a fluke. The main upside here is in players who are unproven or a crapshoot - Wood, Soto, Pie and Fukudome. But EWSL is designed to deliver the bad news: by banking on each of them, the Cubs are banking on hope of something that has not happened at the Major League level before. I can see expecting the Cubs to outpace their EWSL record by several game; I can't see projecting this team as likely to cruise to 90+ wins, even with a boatload of games within a dreadful division.

I don't know any more about Fukudome than you do. He's listed at 6'0" and 190, so he doesn't quite have Hideki Matsui's size, and thus may be less reliable in preserving his HR power (and Matsui himself lost quite a few homers in translation). Fukudome's had great OBPs in Japan, it remains to be seen whether pitchers will work around him as much if he hits for less power here.

Cincinnati Reds

Raw EWSL: 192.00 (64 W)
Adjusted: 211.53 (71 W)
Age-Adj.: 193.18 (64 W)
2008 W-L: 77-85

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Dave Ross	8	7
1B	24	Joey Votto+	2	12
2B	27	Brandon Phillips	13	14
SS	31	Alex Gonzalez	11	9
3B	25	Edwin Encarnacion	13	17
RF	38	Ken Griffey jr.	13	10
CF	28	Corey Patterson	9	9
LF	28	Adam Dunn	19	20
C2	32	Javier Valentin	6	5
INF	28	Jeff Keppinger	5	5
OF	32	Ryan Freel	8	6
12	29	Norris Hopper*	4	7
13	38	Scott Hatteberg	11	8
SP1	30	Aaron Harang	16	14
SP2	31	Bronson Arroyo	14	11
SP3	22	Johnny Cueto+	0	4
SP4	31	Josh Fogg	6	4
SP5	24	Ednison Volquez#	1	1
RP1	33	Francisco Cordero	12	9
RP2	38	David Weathers	11	9
RP3	29	Jeremy Affeldt	4	3
RP4	27	Todd Coffey	4	4
RP5	27	Jared Burton*	3	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Jay Bruce, of course, is the elephant in the AAA outfield. Juan Castro is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery (how many times have I written that in these previews this year?) Also OF DeWayne Wise, C Paul Bako and INF Jolbert Cabrera. Pitchers - Homer Bailey got passed on the way up by Cueto; Bailey still has great stuff but has apparently not proven all that swift a learner. Kent Mercker is on the roster; Mike Stanton got cut, and Greg McMichael was not in camp. Matt Belisle is expected to have a job when he is ready. Others include Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, Jon Coutlangus, snf Bobby Livingston.

Analysis: How many stories can Dusty Baker jump out of and still land on his feet? Perricone thinks the answer is "none, unless Barry Bonds is involved." The decision to bring in Corey Patterson and make him the CF/leadoff man has been hashed out by others, but I wonder if it's really just a smike screen for the same thing Tampa is doing, and keeping Bruce in the minors until the first time Griffey gets eaten by wolverines (15-day DL) so they can keep Bruce's service time down. Or, Dusty could just be an idiot.

The Reds are unlikely to be terrible, and that alone will make Baker look fine. There's not a ton of talent here unless the real youngsters (Bruce, Votto, Cueto, Bailey) go nuts, but there's enough to hang around .500.

I confess I had no idea Cordero was 33 already; as I noted in November, while he's not a great pickup he does have a pretty good record at avoiding the longball, which is key in this park.

Is it just me or does Ednison Volquez change the spelling of his name every year?

Pittsburgh Pirates

Raw EWSL: 179.67 (60 W)
Adjusted: 188.57 (63 W)
Age-Adj.: 180.17 (60 W)
2008 W-L: 73-89

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Ronny Paulino#	10	12
1B	28	Adam LaRoche	15	16
2B	30	Freddy Sanchez	20	17
SS	30	Jack Wilson	16	14
3B	27	Jose Bautista#	9	11
RF	29	Xavier Nady	10	9
CF	26	Nate McLouth	6	7
LF	29	Jason Bay	18	17
C2	27	Ryan Doumit	5	5
INF	37	Chris Gomez	4	3
OF	27	Njyer Morgan*	2	4
12	34	Doug Mientkiewicz	5	5
13	28	Chris Duffy	5	6
SP1	26	Ian Snell	8	9
SP2	25	Tom Gorzelanny#	7	9
SP3	33	Matt Morris	8	6
SP4	26	Paul Maholm	6	6
SP5	25	Zach Duke	6	7
RP1	24	Matt Capps#	9	11
RP2	33	Damaso Marte	5	3
RP3	29	John Grabow	4	3
RP4	30	Tyler Yates	2	2
RP5	26	Franquelis Osoria	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Matt Kata, Luis Rivas. Pitchers - Evan Meek, Phil Dumatrait, Sean Burnett, John Van Berschoten; Jonah Bayliss was also in camp but seems to have been let go.

Analysis: Maybe this is unfair to some of these guys, but when I was doing the depth charts, anytime I came across some guy who is miserable, washed up or otherwise down on his luck, and I was wondering where he ended up? Pirates camp.

Doug Mientkiewicz? Check.
Jaret Wright? Check.
Casey Fossum? Check.
Matt Morris? Check.
Luis Rivas? Check.
Chris Gomez? Check.
Byun-Hyung Kim? Check.
Elmer Dessens? Check.

They cut Kim, Dessens, Fossum and Wright, but then they traded for Tyler Yates, and gave a bullpen slot to Evan Meek, who has a career minor league ERA of 5.14, has never pitched above AA and has walked 198 batters in 287 career innings. Maybe this isn't satire.

David Wright, David Ortiz, Jack Wilson, Magglio Ordonez, Todd Helton, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Carlos Pena, Jorge Posada...one of these things is not like the others. That's the Major League OBP leaders for last August 1 through the end of the year, all of whom slugged above .560 with an OBP of at least .444 for that stretch. Wilson, who hit .409/.467/.697 down the last two months, had batted just .252/.303/.342 before that. (Actually, the whole Pirate offense had a torrid run to the finish line.) It was a bizarre hot streak, but don't expect a repeat. I do think LaRoche will turn in a better year, but Fredy Sanchez's early injuries worry me (Duffy is also hurt).

St. Louis Cardinals

Raw EWSL: 174.33 (58 W)
Adjusted: 191.10 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 179.90 (60 W)
2008 W-L: 73-89

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Yadier Molina	11	14
1B	28	Albert Pujols	34	35
2B	32	Adam Kennedy	9	7
SS	28	Cesar Izturis	5	5
3B	31	Troy Glaus	16	14
RF	28	Skip Schumaker*	4	7
CF	28	Rick Ankiel*	4	8
LF	27	Chris Duncan#	12	15
C2	34	Jason LaRue	6	5
INF	31	Aaron Miles	10	8
OF	26	Brian Barton+	0	4
12	29	Ryan Ludwick	5	5
13	30	Rico Washington+	0	1
SP1	26	Adam Wainwright#	10	13
SP2	29	Kyle Lohse	8	6
SP3	29	Todd Wellemeyer	3	3
SP4	33	Braden Looper	7	5
SP5	26	Brad Thompson	5	5
RP1	35	Jason Isringhausen	11	7
RP2	39	Russ Springer	6	5
RP3	35	Ryan Franklin	6	4
RP4	32	Randy Flores	2	2
RP5	29	Joel Pineiro	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. I could have bumped up Ankiel, but who knows what to expect from him? I at least rated him as a rookie last year, since he's not the same player he was in 1999.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Juan Gonzalez is, unsurprisingly, hurt, much to Ryan Ludwick's relief; Juan Encarnacion is out quite a while. Brendan Ryan is hurt. D'Angelo Jimenez is on hand. Scott Speizio is not, having been cut in late February after an ugly DWI incident. Yes, the Cards have a Brian Barton and a Brian Barden. Colby Rasmus and Joe Mather are the soon-to-arrive power-hitting OF prospects. Pitchers - Much will turn on the impossible-to-predict returns of Chris Carpenter, Mark Mulder, and Matt Clement from injury; Tyler Johnson is also hurt. Anthony Reyes is at the back of the bullpen but remains a promising rotation prospect. Others on hand incluyde Ron Villone, Kelvin JImenez and Kyle McClellan.

Analysis: There are many storylines around the Cardinals this spring, and few happy ones - bad elbows and bad shoulders, steroids and HGH, lawsuits and demon alcohol. Minor league old soldier Rico Washington getting a major league job is one of the nicer ones, but inconsequential in analytical terms. From Pujols' could-blow-anytime arm on down, it's a fool's errand to predict anything of this team, but they won't be real good, that much is clear.

Pineiro will take one of the rotation spots, probably Thompson (the 5th starter) or Looper (who had a crummy spring) when he returns in a few weeks. LaRussa and Dave Duncan will be called on yet again to work their magic with Lohse, a classic guy nearing 30 with a live arm and not much to show for it, exactly their type.

If you were picking a guy to lose nearly 50 points off his batting average in 2007, you would not have selected LaRue, who had batted .194 the prior year.

Given that Molina is only 25, it may turn out that he will hit some after all; his brother Bengie didn't hit until he was 28.

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The fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Today: The NL East. Notes on the EWSL method are below the fold.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

New York Mets

Raw EWSL: 268.00 (89 W)
Adjusted: 268.70 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 248.56 (83 W)
2008 W-L: 96-66

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Brian Schneider	11	9
1B	36	Carlos Delgado	19	14
2B	32	Luis Castillo	17	14
SS	25	Jose Reyes	24	31
3B	25	David Wright	31	40
RF	29	Ryan Church	12	11
CF	31	Carlos Beltran	27	23
LF	41	Moises Alou	14	8
C2	32	Ramon Castro	5	4
INF	38	Damion Easley	7	5
OF	30	Endy Chavez	7	6
12	34	Marlon Anderson	5	5
13	26	Angel Pagan#	4	5
SP1	29	Johan Santana	20	17
SP2	36	Pedro Martinez	6	6
SP3	27	John Maine	8	7
SP4	26	Oliver Perez	5	6
SP5	42	Orlando Hernandez	8	6
RP1	36	Billy Wagner	14	12
RP2	29	Aaron Heilman	8	7
RP3	31	Pedro Feliciano	6	5
RP4	32	Matt Wise	5	3
RP5	31	Jorge Sosa	6	5

Subjective Adjustments: None. Indeed, Angel Pagan is the only guy listed here on less than three years' big-league experience. Pagan, Pelfrey, and relievers Joe Smith and Steve Register are basically the only non-established players who are likely to be a factor this year for the Mets, barring a meteoric rise by OF prospect Fernando Martinez.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Jose Valentin is still around and his knees are recovered, but has hinted at retirement if things don't improve with the pinched nerve in his neck; for now he will start the season on injury rehab. Ruben Gotay may be done with the Mets, having been placed on waivers, which is a shame because Gotay can hit, but he's just not that good a fielder and his chance at winning the everyday job in the near future was iced by the 4-year, $25 million contract for Castillo. If neither of them stays with the team, weak-hitting glove wizard Anderson Hernandez moves up the depth chart behind Easley (Marlon Anderson made just one appearance at 2B last year but can presumably still handle the position in a pinch). Brady Clark leads the pack of reserve outfielders, followed by Fernando Tatis, now in a second career as a utilityman, and Ben Johnson. Raul Casanova is the third catching option. Olmedo Saenz was also contemplating retirement; he's been sent to the minors. Pitchers - Sosa, who I had hoped never to see again, may get some starts early in the year, but Mike Pelfrey will be the main option for a #6 starter, which between El Duque and Pedro the team will inevitably need. It occurs to me that Pelfrey is basically the ideal situation for a pitching coach. Think about it: as a pitching coach you want four things:

1. A currently unsuccessful pitcher (you get no credit for working with Johan Santana),
2. Who has the talent to succeed if he plays his cards right,
3. Who has no obvious obstacle to succeeding, and
4. Who will listen to you.

Pelfrey scores on all four. On #1, his career major league ERA is 5.55. On #2, Pelfrey is tall (6'7"), throws very hard (mid-90s), and has great sinking movement on his fastball (0.67 HR/9 in the majors, 0.77 at AAA, 0.27 at AA). On #3, Pelfrey's never had a significant injury, he has command issues around the plate but has never had really serious control problems, he's still just 24, and he has had enough success at lower levels (including success following prior failures in college) that he won't have his confidence shattered. On #4, he seems to be regarded as a fairly intelligent, coachable guy, even adjusting for the tendency of white players to get a better reputation on that score. Rick Peterson has had many more successes than failures (Maine and Perez being great successes last season for which Peterson deserves some of the credit), and working with Pelfrey to figure out what second pitch he can best develop without hurting his arm and how to improve his command will be a real opportunity for Peterson. The downside is that it may take so much time that Pelfrey ends up getting traded for peanuts and not hitting it big until later on for someone else - I was discussing the other day with my older brother whether Pelfrey is more reminiscent of a young Kevin Brown or a young Mike Scott, and neither parallel suggests a short path to success.

Other starting options on hand include Jason Vargas, who has been suffering from a torn labrum in his hip, Tony Armas jr., Clint Nagoette, and blast-from-the-past ex-prospect Nelson Figueroa.

In the bullpen, Duaner Sanchez will sooner or later play a significant role but it's not quite clear yet what his status will be to open the year. Sidewinder Joe Smith will make the roster, and of course Scott Schoenweis is still around as a situational lefty. Others in the bullpen mix include Ruddy Lugo, Brian Stokes, and Rule 5 righthander Steve Register (the Mets are trying to work out a trade so they can keep Register without having him on the major league roster all year). Ambiorix Burgos is still rehabbing from surgery and unlikely to pitch this season, and the perpetually injured Juan Padilla has been sent down.

Analysis: EWSL rates David Wright as the best player in baseball. 40 Win Shares seems optimistic (EWSL has Wright and Reyes worth 24 wins all by themselves), but I can't disagree with the assessment that Wright is the player most likely to be the best in the game this season, even ahead of Pujols (whose elbow could go at any time), A-Rod, Miguel Cabrera or Grady Sizemore. Of course, the team's extreme dependence on four players (those two, Beltran and Santana) just underlines the risks that the Mets face if one of them gets injured (or, in Beltran's case, has his skills degraded by nagging injuries).

The Mets don't have a powerhouse offense (unless Delgado finds one last Delgado year in his bat), but the starting rotation could be tremendous (EWSL is properly cautious about guys who have not repeated success or are coming off large amounts of time missed to injury, plus it recognizes the extent to which Mets starters benefit from good defense and a favorable park, but I still expect a good deal more than 19 Win Shares from Pedro, Maine and Perez combined) and the defense should hopefully recover from last year's late-season defensive meltdown; the Mets should score enough to win a lot of games if they prevent as many runs as I expect. Of course, the bullpen hasn't really done much to address the horrors of 2007 other than shipping Guillermo Mota out of town, but Wise and Sanchez could take some pressure off the rest of the staff (I've been a Wise fan for years), and I'm hopeful that Smith can be more effective.

Ryan Church is one guy who, while he is unlikely to have a glorious career with the Mets, I am optimistic that he can have a big year in his first season away from RFK. EWSL rates Church as a downgrade from where Shawn Green was at this point last season, but there is upside potential here in the short run.

Philadelphia Phillies

Raw EWSL: 232.17 (77 W)
Adjusted: 247.13 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 223.76 (75 W)
2008 W-L: 87-75

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Carlos Ruiz*	7	12
1B	28	Ryan Howard	24	25
2B	29	Chase Utley	27	25
SS	29	Jimmy Rollins	26	24
3B	33	Pedro Feliz	12	10
RF	33	Geoff Jenkins	14	12
CF	27	Shane Victorino#	9	11
LF	31	Pat Burrell	19	16
C2	35	Chris Coste#	5	4
INF	29	Greg Dobbs	4	4
OF	29	Jayson Werth	8	7
12	32	Wes Helms	5	4
13	30	Eric Bruntlett	4	3
SP1	24	Cole Hamels#	10	12
SP2	27	Brett Myers	11	11
SP3	23	Kyle Kendrick	5	9
SP4	45	Jamie Moyer	9	7
SP5	30	Adam Eaton	3	3
RP1	31	Brad Lidge	10	8
RP2	40	Tom Gordon	7	5
RP3	27	Ryan Madson	5	5
RP4	32	JC Romero	5	3
RP5	30	Chad Durbin	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None. Kendrick might exceed that 9 Win Shares if he holds up over a full season, but I am pretty much out of the business of projecting rookie pitchers to do that.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Chris Snelling, healthy for once and trying to break into the OF picture, So Taguchi, and 1B Pete LaForest. Pitchers - Kris Benson and relievers Vic Darensbourg, Travis Blackley, Clay Condrey, JD Durbin, and Fabio Castro.

Analysis: The Phillies remain a contending team loaded with players in their prime, but to understand why they aren't really quite as impressive as they first appear, you have to remember that all that offensive talent - like the Mets pitchers - benefits significantly from Citizens Bank Park; take a look at the career home-road splits during the years they played for the Phils since the park opened in 2004) of the incumbent regulars:

Player	Avg-H	OBP-H	Slg-H	Avg-R	OBP-R	Slg-R
Howard	.285	.395	.613	.296	.398	.607
Utley	.317	.387	.557	.284	.362	.490
Rollins	.300	.353	.505	.277	.329	.447
Burrell	.284	.400	.539	.244	.362	.447
Victorino	.264	.333	.397	.301	.352	.447
Ruiz	.263	.347	.424	.256	.323	.377

These are all fine players, other than Ruiz; they just aren't quite as great as they look. Note that while there are, as you would expect, some variations in the home-field advantage, the most pronounced effects show up in the guys with the largest sample of at bats to work with (Rollins, Utley, Burrell). Also, ironically, while Rollins rolls up a lot of Win Shares by his durability, it also means that there is nothing left for the bench to contribute at his position. That's a good problem to have - I've long argued that durability is a vastly underrated skill - it's just another way you have to avoid letting the statistics deceive you.

On the whole, I expect to see Rollins come back to earth a bit this year from last year's record-setting season (Rany Jazayerli has a fine look at the historic nature of Rollins' records for at bats and plate appearances), and Burrell to be off a little as well, but balanced off by better or healthier seasons from Utley and Howard and the removal of the sinkhole of Abraham Nunez at 3B. But as always, much will turn on the pitching staff, and the question of whether Hamels and Myers can each kick in 200+ innings of the kind of work they are capable of. My guess, again, is that the two of them will step forward but the back end of the rotation will falter again; Eaton still stinks, Moyer is 45 and has to run out of tricks eventually, and Kendrick won't have another ERA in the threes by striking out less than 4 men per 9 innings while pitching in a bandbox. In the bullpen, I suppose the theory is that Lidge (who is injured already) won't have a repeat of his mental struggles in Houston, in that the always-supportive Phillies fans and genial Philadephia media won't turn on him when he hits the first bump in the road.

To sum up, the Phillies are the same sort of adversary for the Mets that they were in 2007: available if given the opportunity, but fundamentally beatable if the Mets take care of their own business. And, of course, there's no particular reason, especially with Santana and a hopefully healthy Pedro in the rotation and the addition of a catcher who can throw, why the Mets should repeat their head-to-head problems beating these guys.

Atlanta Braves

Raw EWSL: 193.67 (65 W)
Adjusted: 207.73 (69 W)
Age-Adj.: 204.88 (68 W)
2008 W-L: 81-81

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Brian McCann	16	20
1B	28	Mark Teixeira	25	26
2B	26	Kelly Johnson	11	13
SS	25	Yuniel Escobar*	6	15
3B	36	Chipper Jones	23	17
RF	24	Jeff Francouer	17	22
CF	32	Mark Kotsay	8	7
LF	30	Matt Diaz	8	7
C2	26	Brayan Pena*	0	0
INF	26	Omar Infante	5	6
OF	25	Josh Anderson*	2	4
12	26	Scott Thorman#	2	2
13	24	Martin Prado#	1	2
SP1	41	John Smoltz	15	12
SP2	32	Tim Hudson	13	9
SP3	42	Tom Glavine	12	9
SP4	35	Mike Hampton	1	1
SP5	22	Jair Jurrjens*	1	2
RP1	28	Rafael Soriano	7	7
RP2	30	Mike Gonzalez	6	5
RP3	29	Peter Moylan*	5	8
RP4	30	Will Ohman	3	3
RP5	26	Chuck James#	7	9

Subjective Adjustments: None. I suppose I could have added two Win Shares to bump up Jurrjens to equivalent to a pure rookie starter, but he did start 7 games last year, and frankly that was balanced out by rating Moylan only on 2007, not 2006. I could also arguably have given a bump to Escobar, but the age adjustment adequately compensated him and 15 Win Shares seems pretty close to a fair target for him.

I included Mike Gonzalez, who says he will be back from Tommy John surgery by May, as well as DL-bound John Smoltz and Omar Infante. None of them are particularly unreasonable bets to match their EWSL despite the injuries, especially since Gonzalez' numbers include the 2007 season that was interrupted by injury in the first place.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Perennial disappointment Joe Borchard's presence suggests how thin the Braves are in the outfield. Top prospect Brent Lillibridge, acquired from Pittsburgh in the Adam LaRoche-for-Mike Gonzalez deal, is seen as a possible replacement if Johnson, Escobar or Chipper gets hurt, or if Escobar's 2007 proves a fluke. Pitchers - Buddy Carlyle and Jo-Jo Reyes are the next starters in line after Jones to step in if Smoltz or Hampton gets hurt (Smoltz is ailing already, and Hampton, well, you know that story) or Glavine reaches the end of the road, or rather returns from the end of the road where he was at the end of last season. The relief corps also includes Royce Ring, Jeff Ridgway, Manny Acosta, and Blaine Boyer.

Analysis: Last season was the first time since the divisional alignment that the Braves entered a season as not the team to beat. Mazzone is gone, Schuerholz is semi-retired and many of his key deputies are gone, Bobby Cox may be on his way towards retirement, the team's finances remain cloudy (Mark Teixeira remains unsigned after this season and is represented by Scott Boras), Andruw Jones is gone after a terrible year, and even John Smoltz won't last forever. The Braves, at last, are just another team.

They still could make some noise with full seasons from Teixeira and Yuniel Escobar, a bounce-back from still-young Brian McCann, a solid bullpen and continued development from Francouer, who - as I have said repeatedly - is a better long-term than short-term bet when you weigh his ability to drive the ball at such a young age against his appalling plate discipline. Francouer may finally be ready in 2008 to have some business batting in the middle of a contending team's order.

But there are problems, too. I really am convinced that Glavine is just done, and who knows what they will get from Hampton. I'm gunshy about saying this after EWSL picked them to finish last in 2005 in part because their starting outfield included Brian Jordan and Raul Mondesi and they won the division anyway, coming up with Francouer and Ryan Langerhans, but Atlanta really doesn't have much of an outfield besides Francouer and not much help on the way. Kotsay's just a stopgap at this stage (OPS+ below 100 three of the last four years), Diaz can mash but he's a platoon player, Josh Anderson had a nice debut with the Astros last year, but the man has a career line of .296/.339/.370 in the Texas League (AA) and .273/.325/.341 in the Pacific Coast League (AAA), both hitters' paradises; he projects as a poor man's Scott Podsednik, and Heaven help them if they need to rely on Borchard.

UPDATE: Mac Thomason emails that I'm overlooking the fact that if Diaz can't handle an everyday job, there's also Brandon Jones, who is 24 and batted .295/.367/.490 between AA and AAA last season. With the Braves, there does always seem to be another guy. Also, he notes that Gregor Blanco, a highly similar player but with more patience, may take Anderson's slot.

Washington Nationals

Raw EWSL: 175.00 (58 W)
Adjusted: 184.50 (62 W)
Age-Adj.: 186.88 (62 W)
2008 W-L: 75-67

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Paul Lo Duca	12	9
1B	29	Nick Johnson	12	11
2B	33	Ron Belliard	14	12
SS	30	Cristian Guzman	5	4
3B	23	Ryan Zimmerman#	18	30
RF	28	Austin Kearns	17	18
CF	23	Lastings Milledge#	4	7
LF	24	Elijah Dukes*	1	3
C2	32	Johnny Estrada	9	8
INF	28	Felipe Lopez	14	15
OF	28	Ryan Langerhans	7	7
12	34	Dmitri Young	10	9
13	26	Wily Mo Pena	6	7
SP1	27	Shawn Hill#	3	4
SP2	31	Odalis Perez	3	2
SP3	25	Matt Chico*	3	6
SP4	26	Jason Bergmann#	3	3
SP5	30	Tim Redding	3	2
RP1	26	Chad Cordero	12	13
RP2	29	Jon Rauch	8	7
RP3	30	Luis Ayala	3	3
RP4	30	Saul Rivera#	5	5
RP5	30	Jesus Colome	3	2

Subjective Adjustments: None. Zimmerman may look a little high but it's not an unreasonable assessment of his age and talent. Dukes and Milledge may be low, but the point here, as always, is that neither has established himself as a Major League regular.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Oddly, there's a ton of depth here in terms of guys who you could slot in for the people in the lineup above and not alter the team's EWSL. Jesus Flores is the eventual starting catcher down the road, and might be the #1 catcher today due to Lo Duca's and Estrada's injuries, but in the intermediate term he will be headed for AAA. Utilitymen Rob Mackowiak and Willie Harris are battling for end-of-the-bench slots, along with 29-year-old perpetual OF prospect Alex Escobar. Aaron and Bret Boone are on hand, and probably both headed for the minors, along with OF Kory Casto and Michael Restovich and fourth C Humberto Cota. I forgot to mention in the NL West roundup that Nook Logan has left DC for the Dodgers. Pitchers - John Lannan is the sixth starter, and LOOGY Ray King will inhabit the back of the bullpen. Reliever Ryan Wagner will probably have a job waiting for him when he returns from injury, despite the crowded Nationals pen; starter Jason Simontacchi may not, despite the chaotic Nationals rotation.

Analysis: The Nationals are almost a mirror image of the Mets: they are deep in position players but lack stars (other than Zimmerman), they have a logjam at first base (last year's MVP Dmitri Young reported out of shape and let Nick Johnson get ahead of him), their bullpen is deep, stable and productive, and they are almost wholly lacking in established starting pitchers. Of course, given the choice I would always rather have one star than three guys who are just above replacement level; Washington's challenge is figuring out what to do with the pieces they have as they enter a new ballpark.

Milledge still looks like a coming offensive star, but color me skeptical that the man is or ever will be a major league center fielder, given the troubles he had handling right field with the Mets. I suppose the Nats were unimpressed with Dukes' contributions in center last season to the game's worst defensive team. That said, the outfield will be the fun part of this team, as both of them try to tap their talents (recall that Dukes last year averaged 33 homers and 108 walks per 600 at bats, but did absolutely zero else, batting .190 with 3 doubles and 2 steals in 184 AB). Wily Mo Pena, who finished last season with such a rush, now says he will have a much quicker than expected recovery from an oblique injury, but we shall see how that goes. #1 starter Shawn Hill is also ailing early.

The rotation remains a complete crapshoot, and without the crutch of pitcher-friendly RFK, though we have not seen how the new stadium will play. I was once an Odalis Perez fan, but his numbers for the last two seasons are ghastly: 5.87 ERA, and 4.95 K per 9. His HR and walk numbers aren't as bad (1.09 HR, 2.76 BB per 9), but they aren't the sort of excellence in those categories you need to survive that plunging K rate.

Florida Marlins

Raw EWSL: 137.17 (46 W)
Adjusted: 161.43 (54 W)
Age-Adj.: 160.64 (54 W)
2008 W-L: 66-96

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Matt Treanor	5	4
1B	27	Mike Jacobs	8	9
2B	28	Dan Uggla#	16	20
SS	24	Hanley Ramirez#	22	33
3B	26	Jorge Cantu	5	6
RF	24	Jeremy Hermida#	9	13
CF	22	Alejandro de Aza*	1	1
LF	29	Josh Willingham#	14	16
C2	28	Mike Rabelo	1	2
INF	30	Alfredo Amezaga	4	4
OF	27	Cody Ross#	7	9
12	40	Luis Gonzalez	13	8
13	38	Jason Wood*	2	2
SP1	34	Mark Hendrickson	5	3
SP2	23	Rick VandenHurk*	0	0
SP3	23	Andrew Miller*	1	2
SP4	24	Scott Olsen#	4	4
SP5	25	Ricky Nolasco#	2	2
RP1	30	Kevin Gregg	7	6
RP2	33	Lee Gardner*	4	5
RP3	28	Matt Lindstrom*	3	5
RP4	25	Taylor Tankersley#	3	5
RP5	30	Justin Miller	3	2

Subjective Adjustments: None, but obviously I will be surprised if they don't get more than 2 Win Shares from Andrew Miller and Rick VandenHurk.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Future roto stud Cameron Maybin has been sent back to AA, and with just 69 career at bats above A ball and 181 K per 600 at bats as a pro, he probably just isn't ready to take his game to the big show yet. 3B Dallas McPherson is back at AAA hoping to keep his balky back healthy long enough to challenge for the 3B job if Cantu falters. Middle infielder Robert Andino is on hand, as is 1B prospect Tagg Boziel. Offseason acquisition Jose Castillo was cut and ended up with the Giants. Pitchers - The walking wounded include Anibal Sanchez, Josh Johnson, Henry Owens, Sergio Mitre and Harvey Garcia, none of whom is expected back at a reliable enough date in the near future to be worth including in the EWSL tables; the rotation listed above appears to be set. Swingman Wes Obermuller, reliever Reynel Pinto and starting prospect Burke Badenhop appear to be the main next options, as well as starter Christopher Volstad Act and reliever Logan Kensing.

Analysis: There's no particularly good reason why baseball should not succeed in South Florida, but yet again the Marlins are doing their best to suck the joy out of what had not long ago been a talented young team, while tantalizing fans with newly acquired young talents who will, in their turn, move on as well. They may legitimately have needed to move Cabrera to do something about their terrible defense and his disinclination, in Florida, to stay in shape, but they still have to figure out if a new 3B can cover more of Ramirez' ground. Fredi Gonzalez does, however, deserve credit for putting together a bullpen that was one of the team's strengths last season amidst the collapse of the rotation.

Cantu has had a bizarre odyssey - debuting as a professional as a 17-year-old, he was basically a slap hitter for years until he hit AAA in 2004, where his slugging average shot up 200 points in a year, resulting in a major league trial where he batted .301 and smacked 20 doubles in 50 games. The following year, as a 23-year-old second baseman, he cracked 69 extra base hits and drove in 117 runs, batting .325/.361/.601 with men in scoring position. But he's been in reverse gear ever since, with terrible plate discipline and who knows what else affecting him. This may be his last chance to show he can hold an everyday job. The yoga better work.

Rabelo may end up as the starting catcher but he's been hampered by spring injuries, so Treanor is the guy for now. Hermida will open the year on the DL, which is too bad - the guy whose talents he most resembles is JD Drew (he batted .340/.401/.555 in the second half last year, although his top 5 statistical comps are Shawn Green, Billy Conigliaro, Bernie Carbo, Mel Hall and Vernon Wells), but you'd like to see him avoid Drew's fragility.

They still don't have a center fielder; the departure of Juan Pierre just hasn't worked out for anyone.

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The fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Today: The NL West. Notes on the EWSL method are below the fold.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

Arizona Diamondbacks

Raw EWSL: 199.17 (66 W)
Adjusted: 238.10 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 238.71 (80 W)
2008 W-L: 92-70

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Chris Snyder	11	11
1B	26	Conor Jackson#	11	14
2B	30	Orlando Hudson	20	17
SS	25	Stephen Drew#	10	15
3B	24	Mark Reynolds	7	18
RF	20	Justin Upton+	1	12
CF	24	Chris Young*	8	18
LF	32	Eric Byrnes	18	15
C2	24	Miguel Montero*	2	4
INF	28	Chad Tracy	11	11
OF	34	Trot Nixon	8	7
12	33	Augie Ojeda	2	2
13	27	Jeff Salazar*	3	4
SP1	29	Brandon Webb	21	17
SP2	27	Danny Haren	15	15
SP3	32	Doug Davis	10	7
SP4	44	Randy Johnson	7	6
SP5	25	Micah Owings*	7	15
RP1	28	Brandon Lyon	8	8
RP2	26	Tony Pena#	6	8
RP3	29	Chad Qualls	9	7
RP4	29	Juan Cruz	5	4
RP5	25	Edgar Gonzalez	4	4

Subjective Adjustments: None, but as I have generally been doing I rated Justin Upton as a straight rookie, rather than using the lower rating that would come from his 140 mediocre at bats as a teenager last season. Upton probably isn't 100% ready to make full use of his prodigious talents (.309/.399/.556 in a half season at AA last year) at the big league level, but for this year he may be roughly equivalent in value to an older, more polished and less talented rookie. Think Ken Griffey Jr, who as a 19-year-old rookie batted .264/.329/.420.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Longtime Astro Chris Burke, finally freed of being assigned to play wherever Craig Biggio isn't, and third catcher Robby Hammock. Pitchers - Brandon Medders, LOOGY Doug Slaten, and Dustin Nippert are the main ones who will get lots of major league usage. Prospect Billy Buckner is on hand as well. Yusmeiro "Big Y" Petit, still just 23 years old, remains a tantalizing prospect, but he's posted a 4.99 ERA in 288.2 career innings between AAA and the majors in large part because he's allowed a staggering 1.53 HR/9 IP, 2.05 if you look only at the majors. 321 times in major league history a pitcher has allowed 1.5 or more homers per 9 in a season of 100 innings or more; only 47 of those managed an ERA below 4.50, only 16 managed an ERA below 4.00, and only one (Dave Boswell, 3.40 ERA in 1965) got below 3.58. Eddie Guardado in 2000 is the only major league pitcher ever to have an ERA below 4.25 while allowing more than 2 homers per 9. Petit's K/BB numbers haven't been bad (2.84 BB, 6.30 K over those same 288.2 IP), but not spectacular as they were at lower levels and as they need to be to offset the longballs. Arizona may not be the ideal place for him.

Analysis: The Diamondbacks hugely overperformed their EWSL last season and, not coincidentally, outdid their Pythagorean record by 11 games, advancing to the LCS despite allowing 20 more runs than they scored. Now, ordinarily a team that wins that many games and exceeds its Pythagorean projections by that much would be close to a mathematical certainty to decline in the following year, as nobody stays that lucky (or that "clutch") for that long, especially when the team's most significant offseason departure is the guy who saved 47 games last year.

But the Diamondbacks are more reminiscent of another team that won 90 games while being outscored by 24 runs, besting its Pythagorean record by 12 games: the 1984 Mets, who went on to improve their real record by 8 games in 1985 and 10 more in 1986, and improve their Pythagorean record by 18 games in 1985 and 7 in 1986. Like those Mets, this team is just stacked with young, in many cases very young, talent, although configured a bit differently - Arizona's pitchers are mostly in or near their prime, while the hitters include a number of people who are still 2-3 years away (Young, Reynolds, Drew) and one (Upton) who is probably 5-6 years from his prime. Aside from Eric Byrnes and a few of the bullpen guys, almost nobody here really had a career year in 2007, and only Byrnes and Randy Johnson are really on the downside of the age mountain. While there's no guarantee that they won't backslide this year if the young hitters take a year before striding forward and the bullpen unravels, it's not at all difficult to envision Arizona winning 100 games in 2008, 2009 or 2010, and maybe more than once.

What that presages for the future of this division is a fascinating question. The NL West looked just a year ago like a weak division, but Colorado and probably the Dodgers will be competitive for the next several years - and they will likely be chasing the Diamondbacks.

In the rotation, of course, we have Randy Johnson, who I expect will be effective when available (even last year, his rates were 1.11 HR, 2.06 BB and 11.44 K per 9), and Edgar Gonzalez is expected to sub for him in the meantime. Bill James likes Micah Owings (of course I remember when he liked Jimmy Haynes), and Owings finished the season strong, with a 3.02 ERA in his last ten starts (1.36 HR, 1.96 BB and 6.79 K per 9 in that stretch - much will depend, as with Petit and new arrival Danny Haren, on keeping the ball inside the friendly confines of Chase Field, f/k/a the BOB).

National League Champion Colorado Rockies

Raw EWSL: 191.17 (64 W)
Adjusted: 224.00 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 226.36 (75 W)
Subj. Adj.: 221.36 (74 W)
2008 W-L: 87-75

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Yorvit Torrealba	6	5
1B	34	Todd Helton	22	20
2B	25	Jayson Nix	0	12
SS	23	Troy Tulowitzki*	12	28
3B	28	Garrett Atkins	19	20
RF	29	Brad Hawpe	16	15
CF	26	Willy Taveras	12	14
LF	28	Matt Holliday	23	24
C2	25	Chris Iannetta*	3	6
INF	29	Clint Barmes	4	3
OF	28	Ryan Spilborghs#	6	7
12	32	Scott Podsednik	6	5
13	27	Jeff Baker#	2	2
SP1	27	Jeff Francis	12	12
SP2	29	Aaron Cook	10	8
SP3	24	Ubaldo Jimenez*	2	4
SP4	22	Franklin Morales*	2	5
SP5	34	Mark Redman	4	3
RP1	25	Manny Corpas#	9	11
RP2	32	Brain Fuentes	11	8
RP3	38	Matt Herges	4	3
RP4	33	Luis Vizcaino	6	5
RP5	26	Taylor Buchholz#	3	4

Subjective Adjustments: Troy Tulowitzki -5 (from 33 to 28). I've seen this repeatedly before (Khalil Greene and Bobby Crosby come to mind): EWSL over-projects the growth potential of a second-year shortstop whose rookie value consisted very heavily of his defense. Sorry, Tulowitzki just doesn't have that kind of room to improve with the glove. 28 Win Shares is +4 from last season, when he was effectively the leader of a pennant-winning team; if he does that, Rockies fans will be thrilled. You will notice, however, that the subjective adjustment for Tulowitzki, small though it is, comes very close to tipping the microscopic balance of power between the Rockies and the Dodgers.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Marcus Giles was brought in to replace the departed-to-Houston Kaz Matsui, but Giles has apparently played his way out of a job and, at age 30, seems destined for the Brent Gates Hall of Second Base Careers That Never Quite Happened (he's being shopped to the Dodgers and Orioles). Omar Quintanilla is the next infielder in line, and Ian Stewart and Seth Smith are the remaining OF options. Pitchers - Jason Hirsh remains talented and a good bet to end up in the starting rotation at some point once he gets healthy again; Hirsh is still just 26. Veteran starters Kip Wells and Josh Towers are also on hand, as are relievers Micah Bowie, Jose Capellan (who had a busy winter), and Ramon Ramirez.

Analysis: My gut tells me that this team's future may already be behind it - 2007 will be a tough act to follow. And the whole back end of the bullpen, so effective last season, is gone - Hawkins, Affeldt, Julio (not that any of those guys is likely to repeat 2007 anyway). That said, Helton, Fuentes and Herges are the only significant players past 30, and even in a rough division, Colorado should be a force to contend with for the next few years. But Helton was third in the majors in OBP last season; if he takes a nosedive, it will be a big gap in the offense. Moving Corpas to the closer role may end up being counterproductive to the extent that it takes him out of the setup role where he was so crucial last season - but there's no money in being a setup man, and you have to keep your best players happy.

Like KC with Angel Berroa, the Rockies remain haunted by the Ghost of Shortstop Past in Clint Barmes, who may make the team as an older and wiser bench player.

The big question as always is pitching. I noticed when checking the Rays stuff that Baseball Prospectus projects the Rox to allow the most runs in the NL, always a hard fate to avoid in Coors (humidor or no) but a dubious distinction they have evaded the past three seasons. The Win Shares totals suggest what you already know: even on an effective staff, the park just doesn't let any one pitcher shine as they could elsewhere. Jeff Francis may be harder to replace than most teams' aces, but he still will never contribute as much positively to the Rockies as a guy in another park who can throw 20 more innings and exert more influence on the game. And three years from now he could look like Jason Jennings.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Raw EWSL: 211.17 (70 W)
Adjusted: 236.84 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 220.33 (73 W)
2008 W-L: 86-76

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Russell Martin#	16	24
1B	24	James Loney*	9	20
2B	40	Jeff Kent	19	11
SS	30	Rafael Furcal	21	18
3B	34	Nomar Garciaparra	12	11
RF	23	Matt Kemp#	6	10
CF	31	Andruw Jones	18	15
LF	30	Juan Pierre	13	11
C2	36	Gary Bennett	3	2
INF	23	Tony Abreu#	2	6
OF	26	Andre Ethier#	10	14
12	38	Mark Sweeney	4	3
13	26	Jason Repko	2	2
SP1	30	Brad Penny	15	13
SP2	35	Derek Lowe	12	8
SP3	23	Chad Billingsley#	8	9
SP4	33	Hiroki Kuroda+	0	4
SP5	36	Esteban Loaiza	4	5
RP1	38	Takashi Saito#	15	14
RP2	24	Jonathan Broxton#	8	9
RP3	31	Joe Beimel	6	4
RP4	31	Scott Proctor	6	5
RP5	26	Hong-Chih Kuo*	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Top prospect Andy LaRoche was supposed to challenge for the 3B job, but is injured and may not end up getting his opportunity for some months. Delwyn Young appears to have made the team as a reserve infielder (more on the latest roster doings here). Infielder Ramon Martinez is also in camp but may go elsewhere if not on the Opening Day roster. Pitchers - Jason Schmidt will be trying to pitch through pain in his shoulder, but his recovery is going slowly and he may not pitch until May or June. Either Schmidt or the talented but frustrating Kuo, who has made the team as a reliever, could be a valuable addition to the rotation if needed, assuming Schmidt still has something left. Fireballing lefty phenom Clayton Kershaw has impressed everyone this spring, and may also step in but despite his enormous talent, he's likely to have the same control issues as Kuo (0.66 HR, 4.94 BB and 12.02 K between A and AA last season). If the Dodgers need a ninth starter - and I can't say they won't - the glass case containing Chan Ho Park is near at hand. Reliever Yhency Brazoban is in extended spring training after labrum surgery, and ancient LOOGY Mike Myers is on the same bubble as Martinez. Rudy Seanez was a late cut.

Analysis: As I have noted before, Joe Torre has spent 31 seasons in the National League as a player and/or manager and only been to the postseason once; it remains to be seen whether Torre can build a winner without Rivera, Jeter & co. The team he inherits has talent, including a fair distribution of young talent - but it also has a bunch of age, injury and contract questions: Kent is 40, missed a lot of time last year and may not be ready for Opening Day this season, Juan Pierre can't hit nearly enough to play a corner and makes too much money to trade, Nomar is of questionable value at this point and is already injured, Saito has been ailing this spring, and Derek Lowe is reaching a dangerous age. Can Torre work the young core of Martin, Loney, Kemp, Eithier, LaRoche, Billingsley, Broxton, Kuo and Kershaw into regular slots the way he did once upon a time with Jeter, Rivera, Posada and Pettitte, and more recently with Melky and Cano? Or will he stay too long with the broken-down or breaking-down veterans as he did with Bernie? This team has the potential for a lot of frustrating second and third place finishes over the next few years if the management, including Torre, lacks the will and judgment to limit the playing time of veterans to those who are really still contributing. Which is not to say this team should strip down and rebuild, but rather that they can't contend on the cheap - they need to get the higher-ceiling kids broken in and use their financial resources to surround them with quality veterans, not just keep holes plugged with declining players who are merely adequate, as the Padres are doing.

The 33-year-old Kuroda seems to be, quality-wise, in the Masato Yoshii model (career 0.96 HR, 2.36 BB and 6.65 K per 9 in Japan).

San Diego Padres

Raw EWSL: 195.67 (65 W)
Adjusted: 211.60 (71 W)
Age-Adj.: 192.29 (64 W)
2008 W-L: 77-85

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Josh Bard	12	10
1B	26	Adrian Gonzalez	18	21
2B	33	Tadahito Iguchi	17	15
SS	28	Khalil Greene	17	17
3B	26	Kevin Kouzmanoff*	8	17
RF	37	Brian Giles	21	13
CF	38	Jim Edmonds	12	9
LF	28	Scott Hairston	4	4
C2	31	Michael Barrett	9	7
INF	25	Callix Crabbe+	0	4
OF	30	Jody Gerut	1	0
12	27	Paul McAnulty*	0	0
13	36	Tony Clark	5	4
SP1	27	Jake Peavy	17	17
SP2	29	Chris Young	12	10
SP3	42	Greg Maddux	10	8
SP4	31	Randy Wolf	4	3
SP5	27	Wil Ledezma	2	2
RP1	40	Trevor Hoffman	12	9
RP2	30	Heath Bell	7	6
RP3	25	Cla Meredith#	6	7
RP4	28	Kevin Cameron*	2	4
RP5	25	Justin Germano*	2	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - The Padres had a fair amount of outfield chaos in camp (more on which below), ending by the decision that hot hitting prospect Chase Headley really needed to go back to the minors despite a great camp following a bust-out year in AA, despite a better minor league record than Paul McAnulty; Headley hasn't played at AAA and is being converted to the outfield from 3B (which is blocked by Kouzmanoff), and the Padres want him to get his feet under him on both counts before making the jump to the majors. (More here). Chip Ambres is in camp as well; Jeff DaVanon and Robert Fick were late roster cuts. Matt Antonelli is the heir apparent at 2B (his minor league numbers are solid, esp. that career .406 OBP, but at 23 Antonelli has yet to face AAA pitching himself), and Oscar Robles and Luis Rodriguez are on hand as well. Pitchers - In the short run, Ledezma's competition for the last rotation slot is Germano and the revived Glendon Rusch (returned after retiring due to blood clots), as well as Shawn Estes. Longer term, the Padres are taking a savvy but possibly fruitless flier on the oft-injured Mark Prior, the Brigadoon of starting pitchers, though he's been missing almost as long as D.B. Cooper and might take longer to return. Other arms on hand: Justin Hampson, Joe Thatcher, Enrique Gonzalez, Adam Bass and Aaron Rakers (probably the most likely to contribute at the back of the pen).

Analysis: Pity the poor Padres, still working off a 2004-07 blueprint for winning the NL West - over the past 4 years, the division winner has averaged 88 wins a year. This roster might, if things break right, be up to the task of winning in the high 80s against weak intra-division competition - but against a deep and talented trio of opponents, the Pads are just outclassed, and should be officially in rebuilding mode by midsummer, looking to shop Giles, Maddux, Iguchi, and possibly Clark and Edmonds (Hoffman, I assume, will remain a Padre to the bitter end).

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming: Jim Edmonds is hurt and not ready for the season's opener (it was past time for the Cardinals to be rid of the frustration of Edmonds and Rolen). That likely leaves Hairston in center and Jody Gerut, who has missed two full seasons with a major knee injury, starting in left (more here - the Pads may end up needing another CF).

In the infield, I expect Kouzmanoff to pick up where he left off, batting .310/.364/.514 after May 14 following a horrible beginning to the season that saw his average drop as low as .108. The utilityman role has been given to speedy Callix Crabbe, acquired from JK Rowling in the Rule 5 draft and who stuck with the Pads due to his versatility.

Kevin Cameron had a ludicrous 0.80 ERA through mid-August but got torched to a 9.69 mark the rest of the way; his second tour around the league will tell whether he can find a workable medium. He still has not allowed a home run.

San Francisco Giants

Raw EWSL: 170.33 (57 W)
Adjusted: 186.30 (62 W)
Age-Adj.: 161.47 (54 W)
Subj. Adj. 164.47 (55 W)
2008 W-L: 68-94

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	33	Ben Molina	13	11
1B	27	Dan Ortmeier*	2	6
2B	36	Ray Durham	12	9
SS	41	Omar Vizquel	16	9
3B	36	Rich Aurilia	10	7
RF	34	Randy Winn	16	14
CF	30	Aaron Rowand	16	14
LF	36	Dave Roberts	14	10
C2	29	Eliezer Alfonzo#	4	4
INF	23	Brian Bocock+	0	4
OF	27	Rajai Davis*	3	5
12	26	Kevin Frandsen#	2	3
13	27	Fred Lewis*	3	5
SP1	23	Matt Cain	11	10
SP2	24	Tim Lincecum*	4	8
SP3	30	Barry Zito	12	10
SP4	27	Noah Lowry	10	10
SP5	27	Kevin Corriea	6	6
RP1	26	Brian Wilson#	3	4
RP2	28	Brad Hennessey	8	8
RP3	32	Tyler Walker	4	3
RP4	29	Vinnie Chulk	4	3
RP5	25	Jonathan Sanchez#	1	1

Subjective Adjustments: Dan Ortmeier (+3 from 3 to 6); I was tempted to bump up Ortmeier further but remembered the Ryan Shealy fiasco from last season. +3 is a conservative adjustment for the fact that Ortmeier, who isn't really a great prospect, should play a lot more this year and is rated on one partial season. On the other hand, Brian Bocock's inexperience and weak minor league batting line, combined with the likelihood of Omar Vizquel's return, prevented me from giving Bocock any more Win Shares to reflect the fact that he is temporarily the everyday SS in Vizquel's absence.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Catcher Guillermo Rodriguez, OF Nate Shierholtz, SS Eugenio Velez. Pitchers - Mostly veteran releivers - Steve Kline, Randy Messenger, Scott Atchison, Patrick Misch.

Analysis: The Giants are slowly, slowly easing out the ancient veterans, but the guys who are taking their place in the lineup are not that young and already close to their ceilings. Rarely have I seen such a desperate, terrible lineup supporting such a deep and talented pitching staff as these Giants last season and this. Rowand should give good defensive backing, as will the old and young shortstops, but Durham is awfully creaky this spring. And of course, you need to score the occasional run to win games.

While Cain and Lincecum should exceed those WS numbers, Lowry is out until late April at least due to forearm surgery, and Sanchez will replace him in the rotation in the interim.

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The third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Today: The AL East. Notes on the EWSL method are below the fold.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

The Hated Yankees

Raw EWSL: 277.17 (92 W)
Adjusted: 289.23 (96 W)
Age-Adj.: 265.51 (89 W)
2008 W-L: 101-61

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Jorge Posada	23	17
1B	37	Jason Giambi	14	9
2B	25	Robinson Cano	18	23
SS	34	Derek Jeter	27	24
3B	32	Alex Rodriguez	33	27
RF	34	Bobby Abreu	22	20
CF	23	Melky Cabrera#	10	17
LF	34	Hideki Matsui	14	13
DH	34	Johnny Damon	19	17
C2	33	Jose Molina	5	4
INF	32	Morgan Ensberg	13	11
OF	28	Shelley Duncan*	2	4
13	26	Wilson Betemit	8	9
SP1	28	Chien-Ming Wang	14	14
SP2	36	Andy Pettitte	14	13
SP3	39	Mike Mussina	9	8
SP4	22	Philip Hughes*	2	5
SP5	23	Ian Kennedy+	1	4
RP1	38	Mariano Rivera	15	12
RP2	22	Joba Chamberlain*	3	6
RP3	32	Kyle Farnsworth	6	4
RP4	35	LaTroy Hawkins	5	3
RP5	26	Brian Bruney	2	2

Subjective Adjustments: None. But certainly Joba Chamberlain is likely to contribute more than 24 innings of work. I did not want to rate him higher than a rookie, though, whereas I used the rookie adjustment for Ian Kennedy, who would otherwise have had 2 WS.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Alberto Gonzalez, catcher Wil Nieves. Pitchers - Failed/injured starters Kei Igawa and Carl Pavano, young starters Jeff Karstens, Matt DeSalvo, Darrell Rasner and Ross Ohlendorf, and relievers Chris Britton, Edwar Ramirez, and the unfortunate Sean Henn. I gather that Igawa will pitch out of the bullpen; Pavano will pitch if mutually convenient dates can be arranged.

Analysis: The Hated Yankees have run off the road in October seven years running now, but the regular season juggernaut shows no sign of stopping. A lineup with four 34-year-olds, a 36-year-old and a 37-year-old could change that in a hurry - consider even how much the Yankees lose if A-Rod drops back to .290 and 40 HR - but there's a lot of quality bats here and the Yanks' bench, while not great, is not quite as bare as it was for much of the late Torre years. 2008 is an exciting year for purist Yankee fans who have waited a long, long time to see the team break in a significant amount of young talent (Melky getting an everyday job, two rookie starters and maybe three if Joba slots in for Mussina), but it's also a year of risk. In a sense - and this was reflected in the desultory pursuit of Johan Santana - the Yankees and Red Sox almost seem to have entered into an unspoken detente this season, both deciding simultaneously to take a breather from big-ticket acquisitions, prepare for the decline in earnest of their aging stars, and start working more youth into their rotations and lineups - a Melky for an Ellsbury, a Hughes for a Buchholz, a Kennedy for a Lester, a Mussina for a Schilling, a Giambi for a Manny (both of whose contracts finally end in 2008). If there was a serious threat to their two-superpower system this would be risky, but as of now there still isn't.

The notoriously indestructible Matsui's numbers are still dragged down by his 2006 injury, although of course at 34, he may be more susceptible to injuries anyway. Jeter, by contrast, seems on the path of slow, gradual decline, with age starting to eat away around the corners of several of his assets, breaking down his weak defense and stripping some of his speed and power. I expect Jeter to continue to be productive into his late 30s, like similar hitters like Paul Molitor and Pete Rose; just a little less like the Jeter of old.

I can't add much to the Joba saga except to note the obvious that his future path will probably be determined less by his own performance than by Mussina's and by Mariano's health.

World Champion Boston Red Sox

Raw EWSL: 216.17 (72 W)
Adjusted: 240.37 (80 W)
Age-Adj.: 221.03 (74 W)
Subj. Adj.: 226.03 (75 W)
2008 W-L: 88-74

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Jason Varitek	12	9
1B	29	Kevin Youkilis	18	16
2B	24	Dustin Pedroia*	10	23
SS	32	Julio Lugo	14	12
3B	34	Mike Lowell	18	16
RF	32	JD Drew	14	12
CF	24	Jacoby Ellsbury*	3	13
LF	36	Manny Ramirez	22	16
DH	32	David Ortiz	28	23
C2	30	Kevin Cash	0	0
INF	32	Alex Cora	5	4
OF	28	Coco Crisp	14	15
13	31	Bobby Kielty	5	4
SP1	28	Josh Beckett	15	15
SP2	27	Daisuke Matsuzaka*	6	12
SP3	41	Tim Wakefield	10	8
SP4	23	Clay Buchholz+	2	4
SP5	24	Jon Lester#	4	4
RP1	27	Jon Papelbon	15	15
RP2	32	Hideki Okajima*	6	9
RP3	42	Mike Timlin	7	5
RP4	30	Javier Lopez	3	2
RP5	26	Manny Delcarmen#	4	5

Subjective Adjustments: Jacoby Ellsbury (+5 from 8 to 13, to place him just ahead of the typical rookie). Buchholz I just rated as a rookie. Obviously, there's some significant upside to both Buchholz and Lester, but young pitchers are also a risk. Ellsbury will probably clear 13 WS, but if he does, Crisp won't approach 15 in a Sox uniform this year, so I didn't want to get carried away.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Sean Casey, onetime big league regular Keith Ginter, SS Jed Lowrie, OF Brandon Moss, catcher Dusty Brown. Pitchers - The injured Curt Schilling, Bartolo Colon, relievers Julian Tavarez, Devern Hansack, Kyle Snyder, David Aardsma, and Bryan Corey.

Analysis: I can't quite put my finger on one single reason why the defending champs are not rated higher by EWSL, other than the loss of Curt Schilling. The rest is little things - the mid-30s wearing-down of Manny, Lowell and Varitek, the uncertainty of two rookies in the rotation, the relative lack of solid relievers after Papelbon and Okajima, the difficulty of projecting health and productivity from the erratic backgrounds of Beckett and Drew, even the decision to carry a backup catcher with a remarkable facility for accruing service time without accumulating even a single Win Share (Cash has notched zero Win Shares in four of his five big-league seasons). Other than the rookies, Matsuzaka (who I expect to do better this season) and who-knows with Drew, about the only upside here is possibly a slight recovery for Julio Lugo, who was sapped by an intestinal parasite last season.

End of an era: Manny doesn't expect the Sawx to pick up his $20 million options for 2009 & 2010, and is arming for war with the hiring of Scott Boras.

Toronto Blue Jays

Raw EWSL: 237.50 (79 W)
Adjusted: 242.70 (81 W)
Age-Adj.: 209.93 (70 W)
2008 W-L: 83-79

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Gregg Zaun	10	6
1B	31	Lyle Overbay	12	10
2B	26	Aaron Hill	16	19
SS	33	David Eckstein	15	13
3B	33	Scott Rolen	13	12
RF	27	Alex Rios	19	19
CF	29	Vernon Wells	19	17
LF	31	Reed Johnson	9	7
DH	40	Frank Thomas	16	9
C2	32	Rod Barajas	6	5
INF	32	Marco Scutaro	10	8
OF	40	Matt Stairs	10	9
13	34	Shannon Stewart	11	6
SP1	31	Roy Halladay	17	14
SP2	31	AJ Burnett	10	8
SP3	26	Dustin McGowan	6	6
SP4	26	Shaun Marcum#	6	8
SP5	23	Jesse Litsch*	4	7
RP1	32	BJ Ryan	9	6
RP2	26	Jeremy Accardo	9	10
RP3	32	Scott Downs	7	5
RP4	30	Jason Frasor	4	3
RP5	30	Brian Tallet#	3	3

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Russ Adams, John McDonald and Hector Luna are all in the middle infield mix. Adam Lind has fallen out of favor but remains a top prospect, and it's not hard to see him reclaiming a corner outfield or DH slot if the logjam of veterans ahead of him break down. Young Curtis Thigpen and old Sal Fasano are on hand to back up Zaun and Barajas. Pitchers - Starter Gustavo Chacin is still trying to get healthy enough to get back to where he was in 2005. Brandon League will be in the bullpen mix, as will Brian Wolfe and perhaps the recently acquired Armando Benitez. Casey Janssen is out for the year, which is a shame given his talent - I was wondering why I thought Janssen had been kicking around Toronto's system for a long time and then I realized I was thinking of Marty Janzen.

Analysis: I admit that I have tended to discount Toronto this offseason in thinking about the AL East...there's definitely upside here - if healthy that rotation could be quite good (you never know with Burnett and Halladay; McGowan's numbers here are suppressed by including his 2005-06 struggles), and BJ Ryan might come around to his old form. But only 3 non-pitchers are under 31, and one of those is Vernon Wells, whose power may well be permanently degraded as a result of his bum shoulder (Will Carroll seems pessimistic). David Eckstein is not likely to age well. Frank Thomas has been old for a very long time. And life is too short to discuss here all of Scott Rolen's health woes.

Tampa Bay Rays

Raw EWSL: 147.17 (49 W)
Adjusted: 172.30 (57 W)
Age-Adj.: 175.50 (59 W)
2008 W-L: 71-91

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Dioner Navarro	5	7
1B	30	Carlos Pena	15	13
2B	29	Akinori Iwamura*	7	13
SS	28	Jason Bartlett	13	14
3B	22	Evan Longoria+	0	12
RF	35	Cliff Floyd	11	8
CF	23	BJ Upton#	12	19
LF	26	Carl Crawford	21	24
DH	27	Johnny Gomes	8	9
C2	33	Josh Paul	2	2
INF	25	Willy Aybar	3	4
OF	30	Eric Hinske	6	5
13	27	Ben Zobrist#	1	1
SP1	24	Scott Kazmir	13	12
SP2	26	James Shields#	8	11
SP3	24	Matt Garza#	2	3
SP4	25	Andy Sonnanstine*	2	3
SP5	24	Edwin Jackson	1	1
RP1	38	Troy Percival	2	2
RP2	37	Al Reyes	5	4
RP3	30	Dan Wheeler	8	7
RP4	31	Gary Glover	2	2
RP5	29	Juan Salas*	1	2

Subjective Adjustments: None, but see below re: Garza and Sonnanstine. I suppose I could have rated Upton on a 3-year basis, since he was really a rookie in 2004, or a 1-year basis; this was a reasonable compromise. By contrast, Pena is rated here on a 3-year basis since he's 30 years old and has been a regular in the past; ditto for Percival.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Rocco Baldelli is probably done for his career due to his bizarre mitochondrial illness, which is a terrible shame for such a young and talented man who never really got to find out whether he had what it takes to turn a promising debut into major league stardom. Shawn Riggans and the undead Mike DiFelice are the catching backups. Hot SS prospect Reid Brignac, OF Justin Ruggiano and INF Joel Guzman. Pitchers - A bunch of relievers will round out the bullpen options - Trever Miller, Grant Balfour, Chad Orvella, JP Howell, and Kurt Birkins. Jason Hammel is on hand as a starter, followed by waves of highly touted youngsters who don't appear to be likely contributors in 2008 (first round draft pick David Price is the biggest name but hasn't pitched in the pros yet).

Analysis: Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA system has projected the Rays to win 88 or 89 games this season, a prediction Nate Silver has confidently touted. Allow me to say: this is nuts.

Last season, Tampa allowed 944 runs (5.83 per game), the highest in the majors by a margin of more than 50 runs. This season, BP is projecting them to allow 713 runs (4.40 per game), the lowest in the AL, third-lowest in the majors (behind the Mets and Padres), and a 32% reduction from last season. This for a team that returns 4 of last year's top 5 starting pitchers, last season's closer as a setup man for a 38-year-old who just came out of retirement in the middle of last year, and six members of last season's starting lineup, one of whom is learning to play second base at the major league level after not having played it since junior high. I have not done a study to see how many teams have (absent a radical change in the league scoring environment) cut their runs allowed by a third in one season or shot in the space of a year from the worst to the best pitching/defense team in the league, but it's an incredibly ambitious goal - the 2006 Tigers cut their runs allowed by 17%, the 1991 Braves by 27%. And remember: like EWSL but with more science behind it and more ambitions to be an actual prediction system, PECOTA is supposed to predict, not what might or will happen, but what is most likely to happen. Until I saw BP's prediction, I considered myself quite bullish about Tampa; they could, if everything breaks right, win in the high 80s even in this division, and they seem likely to get up around or maybe a little over .500, which would be a historic achievement for this franchise and a great foundation for the future of a young team. 81 wins would require them to exceed their EWSL by 10 games - and note that at least measured by the 23-man rosters, only 5 teams in the past three years have cleared their EWSL by 30 or more. BP has put itself way out there on a limb on this one.

All of that said, let me give my own reasons, not so dissimilar from BP's, why I am optimistic about this team. As I have explained before, there has been a fair amount of deadwood pruned from the pitching staff, and the arrival of Jason Bartlett, if he stays healthy, should do wonders for the majors' worst defense in 2007, thus lifting a big load off the shoulders of the pitching staff. The rotation could be quite good, as Kazmir and Shields are solid and still improving, and Edwin Jackson's improved K rate suggests a guy who is gradually learning to harness his long-heralded natural talent, although I would not expect dramatic improvement given the problems he still has with walks and homers. The key to the rotation will be Garza and Sonnanstine. Garza has front-of-the-rotation talent and had a good 3.69 ERA last year; he could put it all together, but young pitchers are young pitchers. Sonnanstine got shellacked last season to the tune of a 5.85 ERA, but his main rate stats (1.24 HR, 1.79 BB and 6.68 K/9) suggest a guy who should be a solid big leaguer and could be a good one if he can get the homers down; in 257 innings at AA and AAA, those rates were 0.81, 1.65 and 7.67. Again: reasons to like Sonnanstine. Not reasons to bet the ranch on a guy with a 5.85 big league ERA.

The lineup is another story - the Rays desperately need more than last season's .227/.286/.356 Avg/OBP/Slg from Dioner Navarro, and don't really have a workable Plan B if they don't. The outfield looks good, but the departure of Baldelli, Delmon Young and Elijah Dukes means that the problem of too many talented young outfielders has now been replaced with hoping that Cliff Floyd can hold up as a regular again at age 35. Longoria could be a big star right away, but even if he's going to be one eventually, he could be Alex Gordon's 2007. Tampa's 1324 strikeouts (on offense) set an AL record, and other than Delmon Young, all the major offenders are still here.

Carl Crawford's slugging percentage dropped 16 points last season, and in 2005 his OBP stayed steady from 2004. I mention these two examples because they are the only exceptions - otherwise, Crawford has increased his average and his slugging percentage and his OBP each of his six seasons in the majors, a record of steady growth that makes up for not having taken the explosive leaps forward of similar hitters like Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes. Still, one more significant improvement is needed if he's going to be the cornerstone of a contending team.

There's a good reason why Baseball-Reference.com and Baseball Prospectus both identify one of the most similar players to Carlos Pena as Jim Gentile.

Trivia - Did you know that Cliff Floyd's real first name is Cornelius?

Baltimore Orioles

Raw EWSL: 155.00 (52 W)
Adjusted: 189.80 (63 W)
Age-Adj.: 166.92 (56 W)
2008 W-L: 68-94

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Ramon Hernandez	14	12
1B	36	Kevin Millar	12	9
2B	30	Brian Roberts	20	17
SS	24	Luis Hernandez+	1	10
3B	36	Melvin Mora	14	11
RF	24	Nick Markakis#	14	21
CF	22	Adam Jones+	0	12
LF	30	Luke Scott#	9	9
DH	31	Aubrey Huff	11	10
C2	26	Guillermo Quiroz	1	1
INF	27	Brandon Fahey#	2	2
OF	35	Jay Payton	11	7
13	31	Jay Gibbons	6	5
SP1	29	Jeremy Guthrie*	6	10
SP2	24	Adam Loewen#	2	3
SP3	27	Daniel Cabrera	7	6
SP4	37	Steve Trachsel	6	6
SP5	24	Garrett Olson*	0	0
RP1	31	George Sherrill	5	4
RP2	33	Chad Bradford	6	4
RP3	36	Jamie Walker	6	6
RP4	25	Matt Albers*	0	0
RP5	27	Brian Burres*	2	3

Subjective Adjustments: Luis Hernandez (-2 from 11.5 to 9.5). Hernandez is just such a horrible hitter (.296 career OBP in the minors) that I couldn't seriously assign him the standard rookie EWSL.

Also on Hand: Non-Pitchers - Freddy Bynum, whose knee injury took him out of the infield picture for now; Tike Redman, and Adam Stern. Pitchers - Chris Ray and Danys Baez are among the scores of pitchers rehabbing from Tommy John surgery this spring. Hayden Penn, Greg Aquino and Fernando Cabrera are on hand; Aquino is sometimes a useful pitcher.

Analysis: Another year, another roster full of short-term thinking. I don't envy new pitching coach Rick Kranitz, trying to see if he can do a better job with this staff than did Cooperstown-bound pitching guru Leo Mazzone, and without the team's ace, Erik Bedard, and its top 2 relief arms. Let's put it this way: they are contemplating starting Steve Trachsel on Opening Day. More here on the remaining rotation battles. Guthrie and Loewen should contribute solid full seasons, but they can't fill the void left by Bedard.

Whether the lineup will be weak or horrendous depends on who else gets shipped out of town to start yet another half-hearted rebuilding process (Brian Roberts is supposed to head the list). Pity poor Nick Markakis, who will be stuck in this mess for years to come.

Luke Scott's comps have some interesting names, the most encouraging of which are Mike Easler and Matt Stairs.

Read More »

The second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Today: The AL West. Notes on the EWSL method are below the fold. One new development: I've added a line for each team's estimated 2008 W-L record, to reflect EWSL plus 38.57 Win Shares, which is the average number of Win Shares by the rest of the team's roster (i.e., the players other than the 23 listed before the season) over the teams I have tracked the past three seasons. I'll go back and add that in to the AL Central report in a little while.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

The Angels

Raw EWSL: 253.67 (85 W)
Adjusted: 267.07 (89 W)
Age-Adj.: 250.31 (83 W)
2008 W-L: 96-66

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Mike Napoli#	9	10
1B	25	Casey Kotchman	8	10
2B	24	Howie Kendrick#	7	10
SS	24	Erick Aybar*	1	3
3B	30	Chone Figgins	20	17
RF	33	Gary Matthews	16	14
CF	32	Torii Hunter	19	16
LF	36	Garret Anderson	14	10
DH	32	Vladimir Guerrero	27	23
C2	25	Jeff Mathis#	1	2
INF	27	Macier Izturis	13	14
OF	29	Juan Rivera	8	7
13	27	Reggie Willits*	7	15
SP1	29	John Lackey	19	16
SP2	25	Jered Weaver#	11	14
SP3	32	Kelvim Escobar	14	10
SP4	28	Jon Garland	15	15
SP5	27	Joe Saunders#	5	6
RP1	26	Francisco Rodriguez	16	17
RP2	32	Scot Shields	10	7
RP3	34	Justin Speier	7	5
RP4	37	Darren Oliver	5	4
RP5	25	Ervin Santana	7	7

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Robb Quinlan, who is actually a more established player than Willits, but is possibly the odd man out for this team, Kendry Morales, and Brandon Wood. Pitchers - Chris Bootcheck (who has been banged up this spring), Dustin Moseley, Jason Bulger. The 26-year-old Moseley is apparently going to open the year in the rotation, but on a temporary basis; he pitched fairly well in 92 big-league innings last season (0.68 HR, 2.64 BB and 4.89 K/9 - he can succeed in the majors if he bumps up that K rate a bit), but mixing him in the chart wouldn't change the numbers much (age-adjusted EWSL of 6.5).

Analysis: The Angels are not a superpower like the Yankees and Red Sox of recent years, but they are a team with an embarrassment of riches in terms of depth, and they stand astride the AL West in a forbidding pose. An awful lot needs to go right for the Mariners, their only real competition, to dethrone the Angels.

Right, and/or wrong - while the Angels have Ervin Santana and Moseley on hand in case anything happens to the starting rotation, the health of that rotation remains the biggest concern, as a strained triceps for John Lackey and a bum shoulder for Kelvim Escobar seems likely to keep both sidelined into May, leading some Mariners scribes to label them the faves. Which is another reason why the acquisition of Jon Garland made so much sense - Garland is unlikely to be much more than a league-average starter (his already-low K rate dropped perilously last season) but he specializes in eating innings, having made 32 or 33 starts each of the past six years.

In all likelihood - and the issues with Lackey and Escobar only make this more likely - the outfield/corner logjam will be busted by a deal at some point, as (1) the Angels don't really have room for Rivera, Willits and Quinlan and (2) they are overpaying two guys for their center field defense (Hunter and Matthews) while there are teams out there starting the likes of Nick Swisher in center field.

Given their performance last season, 2008 is about the point for the Angels to stop regarding Kendrick and Kotchman as gravy and start really being able to depend on them as regulars.

Seattle Mariners

Raw EWSL: 235.00 (78 W)
Adjusted: 244.17 (81 W)
Age-Adj.: 220.97 (74 W)
2008 W-L: 87-75

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Kenji Johjima#	15	15
1B	33	Richie Sexson	14	12
2B	24	Jose Lopez	11	14
SS	26	Yuniesky Betancourt	14	16
3B	29	Adrian Beltre	16	15
RF	31	Brad Wilkerson	10	9
CF	34	Ichiro Suzuki	28	25
LF	36	Raul Ibanez	23	17
DH	33	Jose Vidro	14	12
C2	36	Jamie Burke	3	2
INF	30	Willie Bloomquist	3	3
OF	27	Jeremy Reed	2	2
13	26	Mike Morse	3	3
SP1	29	Erik Bedard	14	12
SP2	22	Felix Hernandez	11	13
SP3	29	Carlos Silva	9	7
SP4	37	Miguel Batista	11	10
SP5	33	Jarrod Washburn	10	7
RP1	31	JJ Putz	17	13
RP2	29	Sean Green#	3	3
RP3	23	Eric O'Flaherty*	2	4
RP4	23	Brendan Morrow*	3	5
RP5	25	Ryan Rowland-Smith*	1	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Catcher Jeff Clement, the ubiquitous Miguel Cairo, Greg Norton, outfielders Wladimir Balentien and Charlton Jimerson. Balentien and Jimerson both strike out a ton and neither walks much (Jimerson doesn't at all), and while both have a little pop, once you take out the Pacific Coast League inflation factor there isn't much reason why either would threaten Jose Vidro's job as DH, or any of the starting outfelders. Pitchers - Oh, there are lots of them...rehab cases Arthur Rhodes (Tommy John surgery) and Chris Reitsma, relievers Sean White, Jake Woods, RA Dickey, Jon Huber, and Cesar Jimenez, and starters Ryan Fierabend and Cha Seung Baek.

Analysis: The Mariners are unlikely to be bad, but a lot of things need to go right for them to unseat the Angels - basically most of the things that went right last year plus the things that didn't. They need Lopez in particular to step forward as he gets older, while Ichiro, Ibanez, Johjima and Vidro hold to their 2007 performance against the tides of age. They really, really need more from Sexson than .205/.295/.399. They can't afford a big falloff from Putz, although even a good year could see him add a run to his 2007 ERA.

How desperate is Jose Lopez' need for plate discipline? Last season he batted .240/.297/.392 after getting ahead 1-0 in the count. Lopez batted .362/.361/.594 when swinging at the first pitch, and .320/.338/.373 when putting the ball in play 0-1, but almost any hitter in baseball will improve dramatically when spotted the first pitch. But pitchers could afford to waste one to avoid Lopez' first-pitch proclivities, and he still didn't make them pay for it.

A major challenge for John McLaren is digging through the pile of mostly young bullpen arms to decide who can really get the job done behind Putz, especially with George Sherrill gone to Baltimore. Rowland-Smith had probably the best peripheral numbers (0.93 HR, 3.49 BB and 9.78 K per 9, with minor league totals of 0.48, 4.00 and 8.79 in 204.2 innings at AA and AAA) of any of the rest of the relievers, whose 2007 numbers are otherwise a blur. Rowland-Smith also had the least-worst stretch run of the bunch - take a look at how the young relievers ran off the road after August 1:

P	ERA thru 7/31	ERA from 8/1
Sean Green	2.66	5.60
Eric O'Flaherty	3.28	7.02
Brendan Morrow	3.16	6.10
Ryan Rowland-Smith	3.68	3.96

The team ERA as a whole was 5.12 in August and 5.20 in Sept/Oct.

And, of course, the biggest question mark of all is whether they can get 60-66 starts from Bedard and King Felix, which would cover an awful lot of sins. Those two should be the equal of any 1-2 punch in the game, even Santana and Pedro. But I continue to have little faith in Washburn and Batista.

Texas Rangers
Raw EWSL: 158.00 (53 W)
Adjusted: 171.10 (57 W)
Age-Adj.: 162.51 (54 W)
2008 W-L: 67-95

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Gerald Laird	7	7
1B	31	Ben Broussard	8	7
2B	26	Ian Kinsler#	13	17
SS	31	Michael Young	25	21
3B	27	Hank Blalock	11	11
RF	34	Frank Catalanotto	12	11
CF	27	Josh Hamilton*	6	11
LF	30	Marlon Byrd	8	7
DH	30	Milton Bradley	12	10
C2	23	Jarrod Saltalamacchia*	3	7
INF	31	Ramon Vazquez	4	3
OF	27	Nelson Cruz#	3	4
13	27	Jason Botts*	1	2
SP1	33	Kevin Millwood	9	7
SP2	30	Vicente Padilla	6	5
SP3	29	Jason Jennings	6	5
SP4	26	Kason Gabbard#	3	4
SP5	26	Kameron Loe	4	4
RP1	31	CJ Wilson	6	5
RP2	37	Eddie Guardado	3	2
RP3	30	Joaquin Benoit	7	6
RP4	28	Frank Francisco	2	2
RP5	25	Wes Littleton#	4	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - David Murphy, Kevin Mench, Chris Shelton, Joaquin Arias, Miguel Ojeda, the injured Travis Metcalf, and slugging catching prospect Max Ramirez. Pitchers - Brandon McCarthy, who had been projected to be in the Rangers' rotation before injuries claimed him for a minimum of 4-6 weeks; Jamey Wright, now settled in the bullpen; 31-year-old Japanese closer Kazuo Fukumori, who sports career averages of 0.76 HR, 3.30 BB and 6.25 K in Japan; starters Robinson Tejeda, Ezequiel Astacio, Sidney Ponson, Luis Mendoza, Eric Hurley and John Rheinecker (Rheinecker is supposed to be out until the All-Star Break); relievers Franklyn German and Scott Feldman. Akinori Otsuka is supposed to miss the whole season with Tommy John surgery.

Analysis: Basically all of the Rangers' pitchers are hurt, and most of them aren't that good when they are healthy. How screwed up is Texas' pitching? They had to absorb multiple pitching injuries before realizing there was something wrong with the mound at their spring facility. I can't even begin to assess this pitching staff except to say that we have seen many such staffs over the years with the Rangers, and few of them ended well. I have been doing EWSL for five years, and in those five years the Rangers have had a pitcher with 10 EWSL only four times (Francisco Cordero twice and Kenny Rogers twice).

Experience tells us that the Law of Competitive Balance should narrow the gap between the top and bottom two teams in the AL West a little from what EWSL projects... I realize that Catalanotto may be slotted at DH, but that assumes that Bradley is healthy enough to play the field, which he's not at present, and I don't like projecting Milton Bradley to get healthier. Catalanotto is starting to show his age, and Byrd seems likely to disappoint after last year's bravura performance; this lineup will have its share of holes. The Rangers are headed nowhere in particular; I'd suggest that they deal Michael Young, as that would at least formalize a rebuilding posture.

Oakland A's

Raw EWSL: 139.17 (46 W)
Adjusted: 164.43 (55 W)
Age-Adj.: 161.69 (54 W)
2008 W-L: 67-95

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Kurt Suzuki*	4	9
1B	22	Daric Barton+	2	12
2B	31	Mark Ellis	18	15
SS	28	Bobby Crosby	7	7
3B	30	Eric Chavez	12	10
RF	24	Travis Buck*	5	13
CF	27	Chris Denorfia#	1	1
LF	33	Emil Brown	11	10
DH	29	Jack Cust	10	9
C2	27	Rob Bowen#	3	4
INF	28	Jack Hannahan*	3	5
OF	28	Dan Johnson	8	9
13	25	Donnie Murphy*	2	4
SP1	26	Rich Harden	4	5
SP2	27	Joe Blanton	12	12
SP3	25	Chad Gaudin	7	8
SP4	30	Justin Duchscherer	6	5
SP5	28	Lenny DiNardo	3	3
RP1	24	Huston Street	12	12
RP2	33	Kiko Calero	4	3
RP3	38	Alan Embree	6	4
RP4	28	Santiago Casilla*	2	4
SP5	24	Dallas Braden	0	0

Subjective Adjustments: I didn't add a subjective adjustment to Jack Cust, but counting him based on three years rather than one, while consistent with my policy of not treating guys as rookies if they have had numerous if short-lived major league opportunities, does short-change him somewhat (he had 19 WS in 124 games last year), and even a few extra Win Shares would push Oakland ahead of Texas. So apply whatever grain of salt you feel appropriate. Also, bear in mind that Beane teams traditionally finish near the top when I do the postseason wrapup of who got the most Win Shares from players not on the 23-man preseason roster (an average of 53 per year compared to 39 across the majors).

Also on Hand: Position players - Mike Sweeney, fighting Dan Johnson for the backup 1B job; Matt LeCroy (who has been sent down). Jeremy Brown is not on hand, having retired this spring at age 28 without ever really getting more than a cup of coffee in the majors. Brown sported a .268/.367/.439 line in six minor league seasons, so while he never did make it as a big leaguer it's hard to say he didn't cut it as a pro; many are drafted, few become big league regulars. Pitchers - Once-hot prospect Dan Meyer and starting prospects Dana Eveland (whose minor league numbers and good spring are competing with his 7.55 career ERA in the majors), Greg Smith and Gio Gonzalez; relievers Fernando Hernandez, Joey Devine, Jay Marshall, Andrew Brown and, back from the dead, Keith Foulke; Brad Halsey is in extended spring training after shoulder surgery. Kirk Saarloos is back in the minors for the A's.

Analysis: The House of Beane started teetering last year, and the GM decided to scrap it and go back to the drawing board, with what will undoubtedly be ugly short-term results. One of the wild cards of projecting fantasy baseball this season is the possibility that two top-shelf closers, Huston Street and Joe Nathan, could get dealt in midseason. Blanton remains actively on the block; while Street might get traded, Blanton being dealt is only a matter of time.

Harden, naturally, will be worth more than 5 WS if healthy, but his injury record has historically been nothing if not consistent. And poor Dan Johnson's woes just never cease:

A recent bout of sinusitis turned so severe, Johnson revealed Monday, that he had to spend eight days in the hospital late last month - and he nearly had to have a hole drilled into his forehead....Johnson already had had viral meningitis in the winter (a four-day stay in the hospital) and altogether, he lost 30 pounds....Johnson's variety of maladies is remarkable. Along with this winter's meningitis and sinusitis, he had vertigo his first month in the big leagues (and wound up not playing at all), then he developed double vision after sunscreen was sprayed in his eyes during spring training in 2006, a problem that wasn't correctly diagnosed until after the 2006 season. Last spring, he tore hip cartilage, but he avoided surgery and successfully rehabbed the injury instead.

Of course, each of these setbacks has eaten into what could have been productive seasons with the bat. Johnson's value to the A's, as well as his market value, would be greater if he was a plausible outfielder - I'd rather have him than Emil Brown - but as is, he would seem likely to be dealt once Barton gets settled in. Barton, once heralded as a power prospect, seems for now at least to be more of a Mark Grace type, but that will do if he can provide good defense.

Hannahan's .422 OBP at AAA Toledo - not a hitters' haven - last season, combined with his major league numbers in 2007 (.278/.369/.424), suggests to me that he may be ready to take on an everyday job ain a modestly productive and low-cost capacity. At 28, the future is now, but of course that assumes the A's could move Chavez, which seems unlikely.

Rob Bowen drew 10 walks in 54 plate appearances in Oakland last season, giving him a .415 OBP, but nothing in the rest of his major league or minor league records suggests a repeat of that performance.

Donnie Murphy is the sixth Murphy to wear an A's uniform, and three of them (Danny, Eddie and Dwayne) had multi-year tenures in the A's lineup.

Read More »

This year, I'm starting my preseason previews with the AL Central; this is the first of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point.

The Method

For those of you who are unfamiliar, EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2008 revisions to the age adjustment are discussed here, rookie adjustments here, and subjective adjustments for players with less than three seasons' track record are discussed here.

Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give a probabalistic assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system - EWSL tells you what you should reasonably expect to happen this year if there are no surprises, rather than shedding light on how to spot the surprises before they happen; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here, here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. (I'm not convinced going to 24 or 25 would make the system more useful, since it would tend to overrate teams that stuff their back bench slots with aging ex-regulars). That said, I also don't adjust for available playing time, since as a general rule, teams that have excess depth of players with established track records are better off than those that are stretching to cover their whole roster with guys who have proven they can do the job.

As always, the depth charts here are drawn from multiple sources (my starting points are the depth charts at Baseball Prospectus.com and RotoTimes, modified by press reports and my own assessments) to list the guys who will do the work (e.g., if there are two guys battling for a fifth starter spot I'll often list one of them with the relievers if I think they'll both end up pitching), but I take responsibility for any errors. It's still a fluid time for rosters.

Key: + (Rookie) * (Based on one season) # (Based on two seasons)

Detroit Tigers

Raw EWSL: 279.33 (93 W)
Adjusted: 284.70 (95 W)
Age-Adj.: 267.18 (89 W)
2008 W-L: 102-60

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Ivan Rodriguez	16	12
1B	32	Carlos Guillen	19	16
2B	32	Placido Polanco	20	17
SS	32	Edgar Renteria	18	15
3B	25	Miguel Cabrera	30	38
RF	34	Magglio Ordonez	25	22
CF	27	Curtis Granderson#	20	21
LF	33	Jacque Jones	14	12
DH	39	Gary Sheffield	15	12
C2	31	Brandon Inge	15	12
INF	28	Ramon Santiago	1	1
OF	31	Marcus Thames	7	6
13	27	Ryan Raburn*	2	4
SP1	25	Justin Verlander#	13	18
SP2	25	Jeremy Bonderman	9	10
SP3	30	Nate Robertson	10	9
SP4	26	Dontrelle Willis	12	13
SP5	43	Kenny Rogers	9	7
RP1	40	Todd Jones	10	7
RP2	31	Fernando Rodney	5	4
RP3	30	Bobby Seay	3	3
RP4	31	Jason Grilli	4	3
RP5	26	Zach Miner#	4	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Vance Wilson (who is supposed to be the backup catcher but is slow coming back from Tommy John surgery), Brent Clevlen, the speedy Freddy Guzman, Timo Perez (who caught that old lightning in a bottle for a few weeks last fall), and Mike Hessman (who has excellent minor league power numbers, but he should, as he's 30 years old and has spent 5 full seasons in AAA). Pitchers: Joel Zumaya (whose shoulder injury, suffered moving boxes during the California wildfires, is sufficiently serious that you can't factor him in any preseason assessment of the Tigers - he'll be out at least until mid-season and possibly the year, although his prognosis doesn't sound as grim now as it did initially), Tim Byrdak, Francisco Cruceta, Macay McBride, the perenially tantalizing Denny Bautista, Yorman Bazardo and Jordan Tata.

Analysis: The Tigers are loaded with prime and veteran talent, but also have more question marks than the Riddler. The 260-pound question is the conditioning of Miguel Cabrera, but for now at least, Cabrera looks slimmed-down and ready to go - proof, perhaps, that a change of scenery and the prospect of working with quality veterans on a contending team was the motivation Cabrera needed to keep his appetite from swamping his prodigious talents (his career numbers remain nearly identical to Hank Aaron's at the same age). The Tigers also seem to have gambled wisely by not rushing to ink Cabrera to a gigantic long-term deal before seeing how he showed up in camp.

The Tigers' non-pitchers may be slightly overrated by EWSL for at least two structural reasons. First, Carlos Guillen's established value is based in good part on his defense at short, and it's questionable whether he can improve his offensive output enough at first to cover the switch. Second, Brandon Inge is precisely the sort of out-munching player whose Win Shares totals derive much more heavily from his playing time than from his actual productivity (yes, this is the point where someone tells me to switch to a Win Shares Above Replacement or similar metric); while Inge is more valuable than your usual supersub on account of being in his prime and only recently stripped of a starting job, he's unlikely to match 12 Win Shares unless some of the regulars fall short of their EWSL figures due to injury. More broadly, Inge is well-served if he takes advantage of Wilson's injury to re-establish himself as a catcher, as some reports have suggested he is hesitant to do; the man is past 30 and a lifetime .241/.304/.394 hitter who batted .236/.312/.376 last year, so his chances of getting another everyday job are pretty slim; but as a backup catcher who can play multiple positions, he could last another decade.

Looking at Jacque Jones in left (who at best needs a right-handed platoon partner and at worst may not make it as a regular anymore now that his power has evaporated), and the aging Gary Sheffield's health at DH (he's rehabbing from a torn labrum), it's hard to see why the Tigers would deal Marcus Thames.

But the pitching staff is where the real questions are. Verlander is the rock of this staff, and the rise in his strikeout rate last season resolves the tension in his rookie season between his talent and ERA, on the one hand, and his unimpressive peripheral stats, on the other. He should be one of the AL's elite starters as long as he remains healthy. An interesting note: Verlander threw 17 wild pitches last year and hit 19 batters, leading the league in both and belying his relatively low walk totals. Gradual refinements in his command should lead him to further improvements, although the HBP is also a reflection of his combination of tremendous velocity and a willingness to work the inside part of the plate.

Beyond Verlander, things get sticky. Bonderman is just as talented as Verlander but until he gets over his late season fades he will never be an ace. Dontrelle Willis has escaped the Marlins' woeful defense (well, except for Cabrera) that contributed to a terrible .682 DER last year, but defense alone didn't drive up Willis' rates of homers, walks and line drives allowed (his HR rate nearly tripled since 2005), nor the decline in his K rate. This season will tell us a lot about whether Willis is healthy or not - if he is, he seems a good turnaround candidate, but the markers pointing to latent arm injuries have been flashing red for a while.

Then, there's the bullpen, in 2007 a shell of the unit that was one of this team's signatures in 2006's run to the World Series, headed by the perenially embattled veteran closer Todd Jones. Rodney might be the logical successor to Jones with Zumaya out, but Rodney's had his own shoulder troubles this spring. And yes, if you are wondering, Bobby Seay really is just 30, even though he seems like a figure from the long-forgotten past for the headlines he made in 1996 when his agent, Scott Boras, found a loophole to get him out of his draft status with the White Sox, leading to a $3 million signing bonus with the the yet-to-field-a-team Devil Rays organization.

Cleveland Indians

Raw EWSL: 233.00 (78 W)
Adjusted: 249.87 (83 W)
Age-Adj.: 255.44 (85 W)
2008 W-L: 98-64

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Victor Martinez	24	22
1B	27	Ryan Garko#	8	10
2B	22	Asdrubal Cabrera*	4	14
SS	26	Jhonny Peralta	20	23
3B	34	Casey Blake	11	10
RF	25	Franklin Guitierrez#	3	5
CF	25	Grady Sizemore	27	34
LF	34	David Dellucci	6	6
DH	31	Travis Hafner	20	17
C2	27	Kelly Shoppach#	5	6
INF	25	Josh Barfield#	10	15
OF	33	Jason Michaels	9	7
13	24	Andy Marte#	1	2
SP1	27	CC Sabathia	19	19
SP2	24	Fausto Carmona#	11	13
SP3	30	Jake Westbrook	10	9
SP4	37	Paul Byrd	10	9
SP5	23	Aaron Laffey*	2	3
RP1	37	Joe Borowski	8	7
RP2	33	Rafael Betancourt	11	8
RP3	26	Rafael Perez*	5	10
RP4	34	Aaron Fultz	5	3
RP5	29	Cliff Lee	6	5

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Ben Francisco (who appears to be roughly the next Ben Broussard), Shin-Soo Choo (who is due back in May from Tommy John surgery), Jamey Carroll and Jason Tyner. Pitchers - A truckload of arms - Jensen Lewis, Japanese import Masahide Kobayashi (Kobayashi has a career record in Japan of 0.62 HR, 2.64 BB and 7.18 K/9 - quite good but not spectacular numbers, so he will need to avoid a big dropoff in translation to the U.S. if he wants to be effective in the U.S.), Tom Mastny, injury-prone prospect Adam "not to be confused with Andrew" Miller (who's been battling blisters this spring), Jeremy Sowers, Jorge Julio, Brendan Donnelly (another Tommy John rehab case) and, yes, Scott Elarton.

Analysis: The Indians remain a solid team and a serious postseason contender; nearly nobody in baseball did less this offseason to change their roster, the departure of Trot Nixon (last sighted in Arizona) being nearly the only significant move. They're not old, either; if everyone on the roster over age 31 collapsed completely, Betancourt is the only one they would really have a hard time replacing. And there's a fair amount of upside here, if Hafner bounces back, if Cabrera and Guitierrez can perform over a full season in line with 2007, if Sizemore takes a big step forward to claim the MVP that's clearly in his future (Sizemore's career tracks that of Duke Snider fairly closely, but he's still a year from the age at which Snider really exploded on the league.) The downside, of course, is the unlikelihood of a full reprise of 2007 by Betancourt, Perez and Carmona. I'm less certain about Aaron Laffey, whose minor league record suggests more and maybe slightly better of what we have seen in the majors: excellent control and very, very few homers.

I'm not ready to give up long term on Josh Barfield, who batted .280/.318/.423 as a 23-year-old regular in the toughest pitcher's park in baseball and batted .300/.351/.445 in his minor league career; Barfield's plate discipline skidded badly last season leading to the loss of his job, but he's still pretty young. And John Sickels has it about right on Andy Marte: he "still has a reasonable shot to develop into a useful, productive slugger . . . But his chance to be a star is gone". The Indians are fortunate to have both around; if even one of them rights the ship, they will have a real surplus to work with, most likely to replace Casey Blake or to make a trade.

Uneasy lies the head of Joe Borowski, whose position as closer is considerably more tenuous than Todd Jones; there's every indication that the Indians will be headed to a committee bullpen, and if a regular closer re-emerges from that mess it seems unlikely to be Borowksi.

Minnesota Twins

Raw EWSL: 191.00 (64 W)
Adjusted: 212.50 (71 W)
Age-Adj.: 221.73 (74 W)
Subjective Adj.: 211.73 (71 W)
2008 W-L: 83-79

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Joe Mauer	24	31
1B	27	Justin Morneau	19	20
2B	27	Brendan Harris*	7	13
SS	31	Adam Everett	9	7
3B	32	Mike Lamb	9	8
RF	22	Delmon Young*	9	25
CF	22	Carlos Gomez*	1	4
LF	29	Michael Cuddyer	17	15
DH	26	Jason Kubel#	6	9
C2	37	Mike Redmond	9	5
INF	30	Nick Punto	8	6
OF	31	Craig Monroe	8	7
13	23	Alexi Casilla*	1	1
SP1	24	Francisco Liriano	5	6
SP2	26	Boof Bonser#	4	5
SP3	33	Livan Hernandez	11	8
SP4	26	Scott Baker	5	5
SP5	24	Kevin Slowey*	2	3
RP1	33	Joe Nathan	18	13
RP2	27	Pat Neshek#	6	7
RP3	29	Matt Guerrier	7	6
RP4	29	Juan Rincon	5	5
RP5	31	Dennys Reyes	4	3

Subjective Adjustments: Delmon Young (-10 from 35 to 25). As we have seen repeatedly, the age adjustment goes a bit haywire on guys who put in a solid full season as 21-year-old rookies; Young might well be a 35-Win Share player someday, but if he gets to 25 this year, the Twins will be very happy. A slightly larger adjustment might even have been in order but 25 is not an unreasonable assessment of his value.

Also on Hand: Position players - Jason Pridie and Denard Span, both competing with Gomez for the CF job; neither seems to have a real impressive minor league record, although Pridie had an excellent year in 2007. Brian Buscher, a third baseman who likewise broke out with a good year between AA and AAA at age 26 last season. Pitchers - In the bullpen, Jesse Crain, who is rehabbing from shoulder surgery, and lefties Glen Perkins and Carmen Cali (with Santana's departure, either of them would join Reyes and Liriano as the only lefties on the staff); for the rotation, Nick Blackburn, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey (more on the latter two here).

Analysis: The Twinkies still have too much talent to be awful, although if Liriano doesn't give them 180+ quality innings and they deal Nathan, they could go down pretty badly, and of course they remain at the mercy of Joe Mauer's knees. The infield other than Morneau is a wreck (Everett can't hit, and Harris and Lamb aren't much with the glove, while Nick Punto was the worst everyday player in the game last season). They had mused about using Cuddyer in center, which is a true desperation ploy if none of the kids are ready. I can't see Gomez contributing nearly enough with the bat yet, especially after his injury, to be a useful everyday player. That said, I expect better from Bonser and Baker - the rotation has some potential - and a solid bullpen handled by Gardenhire, even if Nathan is dealt.

Chicago White Sox

Raw EWSL: 218.50 (73 W)
Adjusted: 230.33 (77 W)
Age-Adj.: 207.91 (69 W)
2008 W-L: 82-80

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	AJ Pierzynski	11	9
1B	32	Paul Konerko	19	16
2B	28	Juan Uribe	13	13
SS	33	Orlando Cabrera	21	18
3B	30	Joe Crede	11	9
RF	34	Jermaine Dye	17	15
CF	27	Nick Swisher	18	18
LF	25	Carlos Quentin#	5	5
DH	37	Jim Thome	20	12
C2	32	Toby Hall	3	2
INF	25	Josh Fields*	6	15
OF	27	Jerry Owens*	3	6
13	33	Pablo Ozuna	3	2
SP1	29	Mark Buehrle	15	13
SP2	31	Javier Vazquez	15	12
SP3	36	Jose Contreras	10	9
SP4	23	John Danks*	2	4
SP5	25	Gavin Floyd	1	1
RP1	27	Bobby Jenks	13	13
RP2	34	Octavio Dotel	2	1
RP3	31	Scott Linebrink	7	6
RP4	31	Matt Thornton	5	4
RP5	31	Mike MacDougal	3	2

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Danny Richar, who is part of a 3-way fight with Uribe and Ozuna for the second base job, Luis Terrero, fallen center field prospect Brian Anderson, and Cuban import Alexei Ramirez, a third baseman who is apparently working out at multiple positions. Pitchers - Boone Logan, one of the offenders from last year's ghastly pen after being rushed to the majors, the towering and talented but aimless lefthander Andy Sisco, and Lance Broadway, who far exceeded his minor league attainments with a hot streak at the big league level last fall.

Analysis: Saying goodbye to a contending team is never an easy thing to do, and so I present to you the 2008 Chicago White Sox. True, they should be better than they were last season, with a revamped bullpen, a solid 27-year-old bat in Nick Swisher and a better glove at short. And true, if the division leaders stumble these guys could back their way into a postseason berth with 86 wins or something, but this is a team whose best players are on the downside of their careers, and the injection of Swisher (out of position in center), Josh Fields (who is probably going to take over Crede's job again as soon as the Sox can deal Crede) and Quentin (looking to recover from a horrible 2007) isn't enough to turn that around. Realistically, they probably end up 2 games over .500 in July looking to deal Thome, Dye and Konerko and go back to the drawing board. It's a pity for them that the Mets are too tapped out to pursue any of those guys. If they try to squeeze one more run out of this roster, they are probably headed the way of the Orioles of the past decade or so.

Linebrink, by the way, was a guy I had wished the Mets could get, but over the past four seasons his HR/BB/K per 9 have gone from 0.86--2.79--8.89 to 0.49--2.81--8.55 to 1.07--2.62--8.09 to 1.54--3.20--6.40. Those are not encouraging trends.

Kansas City Royals

Raw EWSL: 159.00 (53 W)
Adjusted: 181.97 (61 W)
Age-Adj.: 182.53 (61 W)
2008 W-L: 74-88

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	John Buck	8	8
1B	32	Ross Gload	5	4
2B	38	Mark Grudzielanek	13	10
SS	27	Tony F. Pena*	6	11
3B	24	Alex Gordon*	6	15
RF	32	Jose Guillen	13	11
CF	28	David DeJesus	15	15
LF	26	Mark Teahen	15	17
DH	22	Billy Butler*	4	14
C2	29	Miguel Olivo	9	8
INF	28	Ryan Shealy#	3	3
OF	27	Joey Gathright	6	6
13	30	Esteban German	8	7
SP1	29	Gil Meche	10	8
SP2	27	Brian Bannister#	7	8
SP3	24	Zack Grienke	5	5
SP4	27	Jorge De La Rosa	3	2
SP5	35	Brett Tomko	4	2
RP1	24	Joakim Soria*	7	12
RP2	32	Joel Peralta	5	4
RP3	26	Jimmy Gobble	4	4
RP4	24	Leo Nunez	2	2
RP5	37	Ron Mahay	5	4

Subjective Adjustments: None.

Also on Hand: Position players - Alberto Callaspo, former Rookie of the Year Angel Berroa (who appears to have no chance to return to the big leagues at this stage but the Royals still owe him money), Shane Costa and Justin Huber. Pitchers - 35-year-old Japanese import Yasuhiko Yabuta's career numbers in Japan are less impressive than Kobayashi's - 1.1 HR, 3.28 BB, and 5.99 K/9, but that includes early years as a starter; he's been an effective setup man the past four years, for which period those numbers are 0.68, 2.98 and 7.83. Also on hand are Kyle Davies, working to reclaim a spot in the rotation after two consecutive horrible years (and his rookie year wasn't that great either), and hot starting prospect Luke Hochevar, as well as relievers Brandon Duckworth, John Bale, Roman Colon (obtained from the Tigers) and Ryan Braun (The One Who Pitches).

Analysis: If the White Sox are facing a long, slow decline, the Royals face the opposite, a painfully slow climb up from the depths after a season in which they avoided 100 losses for the first time since 2003 and won 69 games, only the second time they have notched that many wins since 2000. KC has had a winning record just once since 1993 and hasn't won 85 games in a season since 1989.

Looking at the current roster, there are, yes, pockets of hope - Gordon and Butler should contribute a lot more this season, Greinke (who posted a 2.42 ERA in the second half) might finally get back to where he was going as a starter, Shealy should put a nightmarish 2007 behind him. But hope requires not looking too closely at the holes. The rotation is thin on accomplishments and long on failures. Buck had what looked like a career year last year with an early season power surge, and he still batted .222. Pena is never going to hit, and there's no future in Guillen and Grudzielanek. DeJesus is solid but he is what he is; he's not going to get better. Aside from Greinke, probably the key guy if you expect this team to take major strides forward is Teahen, as he tries to replicate the magic of the second half of 2006.

One of the underreported stories of 2007 is how well Kansas City's bullpen pitched, after years of having no relief at all. Look it up if you don't believe me - 6 relievers with ERAs 20% or more below the league. That can be hard to replicate, especially with David Riske gone and Greinke back in the rotation, but the personnel who remain should keep that a strength. I've always liked Ron Mahay, who has had a strange but often productive career. Gobble is another guy who is younger than he seems, having flamed out as a touted young starter in 2003-04.

Check out prior years' AL Central reports for 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Last brief installment of my wrapup on Established Win Shares Levels (EWSL, explained here), this time the rookies. Rookies - players with no significant major league track record - present a unique challenge for what is intended as a system for objectively evaluating players' major league track records. As I've noted before, EWSL uses a standard arbitrary figure for all rookies. As with last season I intend to use, but sparingly, a subjective adjustment for some players, including for the occasional rookie (usually imports from Japan) in the absence of a way to apply the EWSL method to some sort of Major League Equivalency Win Shares (I don't believe they exist anywhere). Of course, the one subjective element already built into EWSL is my evaluation each spring of who looks like they have a job nailed down.

Anyway, part of the quest to make EWSL more empirical and less guesswork is that the adjustments - both the age adjustment and the rookie adjustment - get tweaked every year based on the accumulated data I have from, now, four years' worth of results. Let's look at the 2007 and cumulative results:

Type of Player	# in 2007	WS in 2007	# 2004-07	WS 2004-07	Rate
Everyday Players	9	119	42	481	11.45
Bench Players (Under 30)	15	62	40	155	3.88
Bench Players (Age 30+)	0	0	2	2	1.00
Rotation Starters	5	19	14	61	4.36
Relief Pitchers	0	0	11	65	5.91
TOTAL	29	200	109	764	7.01

After 2004, I had split off the rookie bench players by age because guys who break in as bench players in their 30s generally lack upside (the same isn't true of starters, since rookie everyday players age 30 and up tend to be Japanese imports). Of course, 2007 had no rookie relievers or older rookie bench players on anyone's preseason 23-man roster anyway.

You can see that the rookie everyday players had a fine year in 2007, dragging up the average, while the starting pitchers had a bad one (and would have been a total loss without Matsuzaka).

I'll be using these figures, rounded off for this year's adjustments, but it makes sense to split the difference for the everyday players - so, 11.5 for everyday players, 4 and 1 for bench players under and over 30, 4 for starting pitchers, 6 for relievers.

Now, we'll be ready in another few days to launch the team previews.

I'm almost done with the retrospective on Established Win Shares Levels (EWSL, explained here), before I kick into the preseason previews, and in so doing, I'm looking again at the age adjustments. (I've looked at these previously here, here after 2004, and here after 2005, and here after 2006).

The great thing about doing something like EWSL as an ongoing project is that the data becomes progressively more stable over time: I now have four years of results to work from in evaluating how players tend to perform at each age relative to their adjusted Established Win Shares Levels, and thus can have progressively more confidence in the age adjustments I use going forward. For example, the more years of data I have, the less influenced it will be by a single generation of exceptional players born in a particular year.

Let's start with the 4-year results for the non-pitchers:

Non-Pitchers 2004-07:

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	4	33	34.000	0.878
22	20	332	161.870	2.051
23	35	502	362.503	1.385
24	60	776	611.306	1.269
25	88	977	768.400	1.271
26	118	1300	1135.670	1.145
27	124	1439	1388.833	1.036
28	137	1692	1630.532	1.038
29	131	1532	1671.470	0.917
30	146	1592	1847.169	0.862
31	128	1378	1634.036	0.843
32	109	1110	1316.833	0.843
33	95	1023	1178.773	0.868
34	78	790	884.333	0.893
35	84	631	920.670	0.685
36	52	462	627.833	0.736
37	41	318	507.326	0.627
38	26	231	315.496	0.732
39	24	260	324.833	0.800
40+	24	192	334.660	0.574

As I have noted in previous reviews, the rapid rise of young players and their gradual fall from age 29 on is a powerful pattern in the data, and one that grows smoother with each year's additional data - on average, players lose more than 10% of their established value each year from age 30-34, and more than 25% each year from 35-38, and nearly half every year from 40 on - and that's just the people who hang onto their jobs. After age 32, the number of players holding jobs at all entering a season really starts to drop off. As I've explained before, the nature of any established performance level will exaggerate the upward and downward trajectory of player aging, since a 25-year-old is still being partly compared to his 22-year-old self, while a 35-year-old is still being partly compared to his 32-year-old self - but the pattern as a whole is still unmistakable.

Here's this year's data on its own:

Non-Pitchers (2007):

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	0	0	0
22	5	70	45.67	1.533
23	11	147	115.17	1.276
24	17	286	223.77	1.278
25	24	269	203.50	1.322
26	25	235	200.90	1.170
27	35	411	424.87	0.967
28	23	276	280.63	0.983
29	28	311	331.10	0.939
30	34	263	402.33	0.654
31	44	520	620.00	0.839
32	20	208	249.60	0.833
33	26	315	360.67	0.873
34	11	81	111.33	0.728
35	24	220	327.50	0.672
36	11	83	122.50	0.678
37	11	79	116.83	0.676
38	4	30	41.67	0.720
39	8	85	102.33	0.831
40+	8	72	111.83	0.644

Rob McMillin notes a "Lake Woebegone effect" in this year's data, in that EWSL underestimated a lot of teams' performances overall - that's a bit of a misunderstanding of the team data, as actually more teams' 23-man rosters under-performed than over-performed, the difference being made up by guys who were not in my EWSL calculations before the season. But there's a larger point here: in fact, 2007 seems to have been an unusually tough year for non-pitchers trying to match their established performance levels. You can speculate why by looking at the age distributions or the possibility that players were being weaned off performance enhancing drugs, but the effect is there in the data - while small sample sizes and the other issues with very young players may be the culprits for less dramatic improvements by the age 22-23 crowd, the declines began at age 27 this season rather than the traditional 29, and the 30-year-olds in particular had a horrendous year, with large declines in particular by Ben Broussard, Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay, Robb Quinlan, Craig Wilson, Michael Barrett, AJ Pierzynski, Jay Gibbons, Reed Johnson, Andruw Jones, Craig Monroe, and Adam Everett all playing a role. The 34-year-olds also had a rough year, headed by Jay Payton, Cliff Floyd, Brady Clark, Vance Wilson, and Chris Coste, but this looks more like a small-sample-size issue than anything.

Now, the pitchers:

Pitchers (2004-07):

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	8	56	38.000	1.474
22	20	155	131.600	1.178
23	37	269	273.760	0.983
24	58	343	361.370	0.949
25	85	602	535.400	1.124
26	104	717	652.200	1.099
27	102	705	719.560	0.980
28	123	870	844.300	1.030
29	107	655	776.306	0.844
30	98	591	679.400	0.870
31	84	534	661.470	0.807
32	69	401	563.460	0.712
33	57	304	422.300	0.720
34	50	248	354.632	0.699
35	38	171	275.166	0.621
36	30	169	186.170	0.908
37	25	192	213.329	0.900
38	28	189	237.996	0.794
39	19	141	162.333	0.869
40+	42	330	420.336	0.785

In general, the rule still holds that the pitchers as a group start to fall off earlier than the hitters. The age 21 and under cohort continues to be dominated by the career of Felix Hernandez, so it's not terribly predictive - of course, guys who open a season in a rotation at that age tend to be pretty much unique anyway. By contrast, you can see if you follow these things from year to year that the performance of the over-40 crowd has been declining for a couple of years, mainly because it's the same handful of guys who have pitched well into their 40s now and are reaching the end of the line. That will continue in 2008, as there were no 39-year-old pitchers in the sample in 2007. In general, you can see that there are a lot of young (age 23-26 in 2007) pitchers in the game today, with a huge dropoff between 31 and 33. As a whole the results for the late 30s are still influenced by a small sample size. The 2007 data:

Pitchers (2007):

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	1	14	8.00	1.750
22	3	27	26.60	1.015
23	14	92	101.53	0.906
24	18	77	104.50	0.737
25	28	160	158.60	1.009
26	28	243	188.40	1.290
27	15	113	102.00	1.108
28	31	253	247.50	1.022
29	28	156	199.77	0.781
30	29	168	181.00	0.928
31	21	118	154.30	0.765
32	14	109	137.83	0.791
33	8	29	39.00	0.744
34	11	43	81.67	0.527
35	9	53	80.83	0.656
36	7	46	38.50	1.195
37	5	45	59.67	0.754
38	6	28	33.00	0.848
39	0	0	0
40+	16	98	151.00	0.649

The 23 and 24 year olds had a bad year as a group, the kind of bad year you would not see for a group of hitters that age. Among the 23 year olds, the Marlins were almost wholly responsible (Josh Johnson, Scott Olsen, Anibal Sanchez). Zach Duke and Ervin Santana were the worst offenders in the age 24 group, with the rest being mainly low-level pitchers zeroing out. The 34 year olds had a horrible year for the same reason 34 year old pitchers usually do - Bartolo Colon, Jason Schmidt, Armando Benitez. The 36 year olds had a big year just due to a small sample size - Al Reyes, Paul Byrd and Miguel Batista were the big movers.

As I did last year and the year before, before diving into my preseason Established Win Shares Levels ("EWSL") roster analyses, I'm going to look back at last season's on a team-by-team level. For those of you who need a primer on EWSL and my annual roster roundups, go here. A few basic reminders:

*I look at 23 players (13 non-pitchers, 10 pitchers) per team, so an average team should exceed its EWSL due to the fact that most teams these days use between 30-45 players in a season.

*EWSL is an estimate of the established major league talent on a team (adjusted for age) going into a season. It's not a system for predicting the future, although it can be a helpful part of the toolkit (or at least a sanity check) in making predictions of the future. That said, the more closely future performance hews to EWSL, the better the system is doing in setting baseline expectations.

*EWSL uses a standard figure for rookies (11 WS for rookie everyday players, 4 for rookie bench players, 5 for rookie starting pitchers, 6 for rookie relievers). It does not distinguish between good and bad prospects if both are expected to hold everyday jobs. Thus, a team with a lot of high-quality rookies will exceed its EWSL. I'd like to add a non-subjective adjustment for rookie quality, but until I can get Major League Equivalency Win Shares (I don't believe they exist anywhere), I have to rely on the facts that (1) bad rookies rarely get everyday jobs and (2) good rookies often fall on their faces. But I have used adjustments for Japanese imports.

That said, basically, my analysis assumes that there are three components to team success: how much established talent is on the preseason roster, how well they perform, and how much production the team gets from guys who supplement those top 23 players with trades, rookies or scrubs. The following table shows the following columns: (1) each team's 2007 EWSL; (2) the actual Win Shares for those 23 players (includes Win Shares earned for other teams, e.g., Mark Teixeira counts with the Rangers); (3) column (2) minus column (1) to show how the 23 players fared relative to EWSL; (4) the team's total actual 2007 Win Shares (i.e., Wins x 3); (5) the team's Win Shares minus those from the top 23 players (in the example above this will include the negative value of, say, Teixeira's Braves Win Shares from the Rangers' "Rest" column); and (6) column (4) minus column (1) to show how the team as a whole fared relative to EWSL. Teams are ranked by column (3), since that's the column that lets us compare apples to apples and see how each team's preseason-rated players did:

Team	EWSL	23-Man WS	23-Man WS-EWSL	Total WS	Rest	Total WS-EWSL
D-Backs	175.57	227	+51.43	270	43	+94.43
Padres	207.83	236	+28.18	267	31	+59.17
Mariners	212.78	232	+19.22	264	32	+51.22
Rockies	197.68	215	+17.32	270	55	+72.32
Red Sox	239.82	256	+16.18	288	32	+48.18
Cubs	202.36	210	+7.64	255	45	+52.64
Reds	179.52	186	+6.48	216	30	+36.48
Angels	242.72	249	+6.28	282	33	+39.28
Phillies	225.76	229	+3.24	267	38	+41.24
Mets	225.93	229	+3.07	264	35	+38.07
Brewers	206.37	208	+1.63	249	41	+42.63
Pirates	186.01	185	-1.01	204	19	+17.99
Yankees	255.66	252	-3.66	282	30	+26.34
Royals	159.40	155	-4.40	207	52	+47.60
Rays	159.19	154	-5.19	198	44	+38.81
Nationals	177.85	171	-6.85	219	48	+41.15
Twins	226.62	216	-10.62	237	21	+10.38
Giants	172.62	162	-10.62	213	51	+40.38
Rangers	185.39	174	-11.39	225	51	+39.61
Braves	206.69	194	-12.69	252	58	+45.31
Blue Jays	208.77	196	-12.77	249	53	+40.23
Indians	239.82	222	-17.82	288	66	+48.18
Dodgers	231.76	212	-19.76	246	34	+14.24
Tigers	245.95	220	-25.95	264	44	+18.05
Orioles	204.25	178	-26.25	207	29	+2.75
Cardinals	212.53	176	-36.53	234	58	+21.47
Astros	207.33	169	-38.33	219	50	+11.67
White Sox	222.62	181	-41.62	216	35	-6.62
Marlins	223.63	172	-51.63	213	41	-10.63
A's	219.73	167	-52.73	228	61	+8.27

A few observations:

*All in all, I'm pretty happy with EWSL's "performance" here at the team level - 11 out of 30 teams within 9 WS of their established levels, 21 within 20, and there were a lot more major downward than upward departures, as you would expect, since unforseeable injuries are more common than lightning-strike improvements. Anyway, the idea of a system like EWSL isn't to take away the element of surprise but precisely to set a baseline against which to measure surprises. And the Diamondbacks win the award for that going away.

*I generally regard a large number of win shares for the "rest" as the measure of the GM's ability to supplement the frontline roster with trades, prospects, etc. in-season. Obviously, in some cases the correlation between EWSL and final team record is going to be influenced not by the arithmetic but by how well I do in figuring out pre-season who the top 23 guys are. The Indians had the majors' highest number of win shares from players not listed in the preseason preview in very large part because I didn't include Fausto Carmona. That said, Cleveland had catastrophic failures by Josh Barfield and Cliff Lee, and did an admirable job of finding replacements.

*Billy Beane's ability to improvise on the fly was also yet again in evidence, with Oakland showing the second-highest figure for the rest of the team (Travis Buck figuring prominently) even as the original projected roster went in the crapper.

*The Mets and Phillies provide a fascinating contrast: the two teams were nearly even in preseason EWSL, they both nailed their preseason figures almost exactly with identical totals (note that I hadn't listed Pedro at all with the Mets' preseason roster), and the Phils' margin of victory was provided entirely by a 3-WS margin on the rest of the roster, mainly Kyle Kendrick but also marginally useful pickups like Tadahito Iguchi and Kyle Lohse.

*As usual, you win by being both lucky and good - note that the list of top overacheiving teams here includes both the Red Sox and Rockies.

*It's easier to see why the Marlins were willing to cut bait and start over when you consider how badly they underperformed last season.

*The NL West produced three of the four largest positive surprises and by far the two largest. Here are the totals by division:

Division	EWSL	23-Man WS	23-Man WS-EWSL	Total WS	Rest	Total WS-EWSL
NL East	1059.86	995	-64.86	1215	220	+155.14
NL Central	1194.12	1134	-60.12	1377	243	+182.88
NL West	985.46	1052	+66.55	1266	214	+280.54
AL East	1067.69	1036	-31.69	1224	188	+156.31
AL Central	1094.41	994	-100.41	1212	218	+117.59
AL West	860.62	822	-38.62	999	177	+138.38

Boy, the NL West sticks out there, eh? Some of that is the division having an unexpectedly good year at the expense of the NL East and Central (the West had lot of young talent come along quickly), but given that (when you adjust for the non-standard number of teams in the AL West and NL Central) the NL West started with the smallest per-team EWSL and they all had to play each other, I have to chalk those numbers up in some part tto the unbalanced schedule - somebody has to win those games.

Here are the players among those on the preseason 23-man lineups of each team who were the biggest over and underacvhievers (in general I just went by raw totals, and left off anyone who wasn't at least +7 or -7):

Team	Best	Worst
D-Backs	E. Byrnes, T. Pena, C. Snyder	C. Tracy, R. Johnson
Padres	A. Gonzalez, H. Bell, J. Bard	C. Hensley
Mariners	I. Suzuki, JJ. Putz, J. Guillen	R. Sexson
Rockies	T. Tulowitzki, B. Hawpe, K. Matsui	R. Ramirez
Red Sox	M. Lowell, D. Pedroia, J. Beckett	None
Cubs	M. DeRosa, R. Hill	M. Barrett, M. Murton
Reds	B. Phillips, J. Hamilton	None
Angels	O. Cabrera, C. Kotchman, K. Escobar	J. Rivera, S. Hillenbrand, E. Santana
Phillies	C. Ruiz, A. Rowand, J. Werth	F. Garcia
Mets	J. Maine	None
Brewers	C. Hart, JJ. Hardy	B. Hall, C. Capuano
Pirates	N. McLouth, T. Gorzelanny	J. Bay, Z. Duke, J. Castillo
Yankees	A. Rodriguez, J. Posada	J. Giambi
Royals	B. Bannister	A. Berroa, J. LaRue
Rays	BJ Upton, B. Harris	J. Cantu, Baldelli, C. Crawford
Nationals	D. Young	N. Johnson
Twins	J. Kubel, T. Hunter	J. Crain, J. Mauer
		J. Santana, J. Rincon
Giants	B. Bonds	El. Alfonzo
Rangers	M. Byrd, K. Lofton, G. Laird, CJ Wilson	H. Blalock
Braves	K. Johnson, C. Jones, T. Hudson	W. Aybar, Cr. Wilson, B. McCann
Blue Jays	J. Accardo, A. Rios	BJ Ryan, L. Overbay, R. Johnson
Indians	R. Betancourt, CC Sabathia	J. Barfield, C. Lee
	V. Martinez
Dodgers	B. Penny	B. Clark, J. Schmidt, R. Furcal
Tigers	M. Ordonez, C. Granderson	J. Zumaya, C. Shelton
	P. Polanco	K. Rogers
Orioles	None	J. Gibbons, M. Tejada
Cardinals	None	C. Carpenter, A. Kennedy
		P. Wilson, J. Encarnacion
Astros	None	J. Jennings, M. Ensberg, A. Everett
White Sox	J. Vazquez, J. Thome	J. Crede, S. Podsednik, J. Dye
Marlins	K. Gregg	J. Johnson, D. Willis, A. deAza
A's	M. Ellis	J. Kendall, E. Chavez, M. Kotsay

It's the time of year again when I prepare for my Established Win Shares Levels (EWSL)-powered team previews by first reviewing how last year's real-world results varied from the method. Of course, since EWSL is a compilation of historical results adjusted by age, rather than a projection system, it's not supposed to flawlessly predict the future but rather to set a reasonable baseline for expectations, from which real life invariably varies.

This time, I will start off with the subjective adjustments I introduced in 2007. Since EWSL works from past performance, it's necessarily less stable when dealing with guys who have a limited track record in the majors, especially second-year players. Second-year players, of which very young players are a large proportion, tend to be split between guys with a full season or a partial season of experience. Given that I haven't had the time and methods to split the two, the age adjustment for very young players tends therefore to over-project non-pitchers with precisely one full season in their early 20s under their belts, while perhaps under-projecting high-quality players with a half-season of experience. Last season I tried to fix that on an ad hoc basis with subejctive tweaks to players whose numbers looked out of whack. Note that I use Win Shares numbers from the Bill James Handbook. Let's see how I did. First, downward adjustments on non-pitchers:

1. Ryan Zimmerman, age 22. Adjusted down from 54 EWSL to 30. Actual 2007 WS: 20.

Zimmerman was a compelling case for a downward adjustment - while I thought and think that his short- and long-term future is excellent, 54 Win Shares would be a career year by a large margin for Albert Pujols. Zimmerman was over-projected because so few players are quality full-season regulars at 21. As it turned out, I still think 30 EWSL was at least a realistic expectation, but one he failed to meet with a sophmore jinx that dropped him to 20.

2. Hanley Ramirez, age 23. Adjusted down from 36 EWSL to 27. Actual 2007 WS: 27.

Right on the nose. Ramirez took a big leap forward from a great rookie year, but 36 was too far for him to reach.

3. Dan Uggla, age 27. Adjusted down from 25 EWSL to 22. Actual 2007 WS: 16.

With Uggla, by contrast, I was dealing with the fact that the typical 27-year-old is not a second year player, so I was really hedging him down for the fact that his rookie year looked like a bit of a fluke. Dropping his EWSL to 16 would have been too big an adjustment to make on that subjective assessment.

4. Melky Cabrera, age 22. Adjusted down from 29 EWSL to 15. Actual 2007 WS: 12.

Like Zimmerman, Melky's numbers were way out of whack - EWSL had him as the best player in the AL East - and doubly so because Melky was very unlikely to get everyday playing time. Also, he was unusual in that most 21-year-old regulars get a job due to their exceptional talent rather than due to a battery of team injuries.

He still projects as a quality player but the downward adjustment looks fine in retrospect.

Conclusion: these were, as a group, necessary and wise adjustments.

Upward adjustments for non-pitchers:

1. Stephen Drew, age 24. Adjusted upward from 8 EWSL to 11. Actual 2007 WS: 16.

Drew looked like a quality player who would play everyday and should not be projected to repeat at less than half a season's at bats. As it turned out he had a poor 2007 with the bat, but his raw WS total went up anyway from a full season's glovework.

2. Ryan Shealy, age 27. Adjusted upward from 6 EWSL to 9. Actual 2007 WS: 1.

Shealy had injuries but he also represents the reason to be cautious about upward adjustments: sometimes the guy who hasn't proven himself over a full season, doesn't.

3. Chris Duffy, age 27. Adjusted upward from 6 EWSL to 8. Actual 2007 WS: 5.

Same problem as Shealy, and again with a 27-year-old.

4. Scott Thorman, age 25. Adjusted upward from 3 EWSL to 8. Actual 2007 WS: 2.

Same problem again, although in Thorman's case it was clear from the outset that he wasn't that good.

5. Kelly Johnson, age 25. Adjusted upward from 5 EWSL to 8. Actual 2007 WS: 19.

Johnson actually did have an excellent year after missing 2006 with an elbow injury and switching to second base. An odd case, and one that's hard to generalize from.

6. Gerald Laird, age 27. Adjusted upward from 3 EWSL to 8. Actual 2007 WS: 10.

Laird did somewhat better with a sudden promotion to full-timer than some of the others, but then he was a backup being promoted rather than a late arrival from the minors.

Conclusion: I may skip the upward adjustments this season, or at least will be much more stingy with them. They were largely unreliable. Better simply to rest on the general fact that EWSL is a system that measures established performance.

Upward adjustments for pitchers:

1. Daisuke Matsuzaka, age 26. Adjusted up from 5 EWSL to 10. Actual 2007 WS: 12.

I'd do this one again; Dice-K was known to be a high-quality Japanese import in his prime, and should not have been rated with the 5 EWSL I hand out to rookie pitchers.

2. Matt Garza, age 23. Adjusted upward from 1 EWSL to 5. Actual 2007 WS: 4.

I suppose this worked out OK. My theory was that Garza after 50 major league innings should not rate lower than a straight rookie. He ended up close to the rookie average. That said, he didn't pitch that well and the rookie average includes guys who have not yet struggled in the bigs. I'll be careful with this in the future.

Downward adjustment - pitcher

Josh Johnson, age 22. Adjusted downward from 12 EWSL to 9. Actual 2007 WS: 0.

It may be that I should not have rated Johnson at all, given that he began the season injured with an uncertain timetable for return. Next time in that situation I may apply a steeper discount to an injured pitcher, maybe 50%.

I have a long-in-the-making column up at The Hardball Times this morning on the Hall of Fame candidacies of Tim Raines and similar players - the tablesetters.

FYI, I left Amos Otis out of the article because I wasn't sure where to classify him. Otis was sort of neither fish nor fowl, not exactly a slugger or a tablesetter but, as Bill James has noted, one of the most well-rounded players in the game's history, doing well at almost everything. Anyway, Otis' translated stats for the 10 years of his prime (age 23-32, 1970-79) rates him at .285/.477/.351* in 623 plate appearances for a "Rate" of 104.1, with 30 SB and 7 CS and 11 DP per year.

* - The THT folks switched all my Avg/Slg/OBP numbers to Avg/OBP/Slg, which still looks wierd to me but has become the convention in the last 10 years or so, I guess.

Further to my note on Jeremy Bonderman the other day, yesterday's Tigers-Mariners slugfest - featuring a poor pitching performance by 21-year-old Felix Hernandez and yet another meltdown by the 24-year-old Bonderman - was a fine illustration of the difficulties of bringing along young pitchers these days, especially in the AL. You could scarcely find two more talented young arms than these two, and both have great stuff and good control and have been generally healthy (Hernandez' balky elbow earlier this year notwithstanding) while pitching in the two best pitcher's parks in the league. Yet, Bonderman's now sporting a 4.78 career and 5.01 season ERAs, has never had an ERA below 4.00, and had never won more than 14 games; Hernandez (let's not call him "F-Her") has a 4.03 career and 4.17 season ERAs, and his career high in wins is 12. Either or both could still become major stars as soon as next season, but the point is the struggles they have required just to become slightly above-league-average pitchers. Meanwhile, the most heralded young pitcher in the AL, Joba Chamberlain, has pitched the grand total of 14.1 major league innings and has yet to start a game.

For the Tigers, this portends a larger problem. They are in the unusual situation, for a Detroit team, of being awash in young arms - Bonderman, Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, Andrew Miller, Zach Miner, Jair Jurrjens. Yet their pitching staff has been awful, 9th in the league in ERA.

This got me thinking about the historic role of pitching in the Tigers franchise. If you look at the real ace seasons, 200+IP and an ERA of less than 3.00, only the Red Sox of the original 8 AL teams have had fewer such seasons since 1920 than the Tigers (the numbers: Red Sox 27, Tigers 29, A's 34, Twins/Senators 36, Orioles/Browns 37, White Sox 39, Indians 44, Yankees 61). Here's Detroit's list.

I also looked at the role hitting and pitching has played in team success, broken out by the team's winning percentages. I included the 2007 season, in which Detroit is 2d in the AL in Runs Scored, 9th in ERA, and has a .538 winning percentage. "Runs High" is seasons where the Tigers have ranked higher in the AL in Runs Scored than in ERA, "ERA High" is seasons where they ranked higher in ERA than in Runs Scored, and "Tie" is where they finished the same. The "Avg" figures show their average finish in each category in seasons when they posted winning percentages in that category.

W%	Runs High	ERA High	Tie	Avg R	Avg ERA
All	64	33	10	5	6
.500+	42	16	6	3	5
-.500	22	17	4	7	8
+.600	8	1	1	1	2
.550-.599	12	4	4	3	5
.500-.549	22	11	1	4	6
.450-.499	11	9	1	5	7
.400-.449	7	3	2	8	9
-.400	4	5	1	10	10

First of all, we have a reminder here that, the 1994-2005 period notwithstanding, the Tigers have been an exceptionally successful franchise over the years. Of course, this is more a descriptive table than a predictive one; if there's a reason why the Tigers have far more frequently built winning teams around offense than pitching it's Tiger Stadium, which is no more. Still, historically there has been a very pronounced tendency for Detroit's teams to rely more on their bats, and that tendency has only been more pronounced in the years when they have had their best seasons.

Tom Glavine, with 294 wins, is on the verge of becoming only the fifth lefthanded pitcher in Major League history to win 300 games (Randy Johnson, if he manages 20 more wins, would be the sixth). Which leads me to an interesting issue: the fact that it took some time for lefthanded pitching to take root in the majors. While this story would make a fascinating article by someone with more time to do the research, I'll lay out here the outlines in statistical terms.

Over the first 11 years of major league ball - the five year run of the National Association from 1871 to 1875, and the first six years of the National League from 1876 to 1881 - lefthanded pitchers were at best a curiosity:

Years	League	Total IP	LHP IP	%
1871-75	NA	17,228	624	3.6%
1876-81	NL	29,114	1,962	6.7%
1871-81	Both	46,342	2,586	5.6%

Granted, there were a few hundred innings thrown over those years by pitchers whose handedness was not recorded, but those were rarely guys with significant pitching roles. In both 1874 and 1876 there was no lefthanded pitching at all.

Those 2,586 innings were thrown by just 11 men, three of whom (Charlie Pabor, Ed Pinkham, and Hall of Fame slugger Dan Brouthers) were full-time players who never threw more than 30 innings in a season, and three others of whom (John McMullin, John Cassidy and Curry Foley) also spent the bulk of their careers as everyday players, plus two (Jack Leary and John Greason) who never pitched as many as 70 innings in a season.

If there is a common thread among the earliest southpaws, it's that they were ineffective. McMullin threw 249 innings for Troy in 1871, the first lefty to play a significant pitching role, and was pounded, walking a league-leading 75 batters (an astoundingly high total for the day) and finishing with the worst ERA of any significant pitcher in the league. He spent most of the rest of his career as an outfielder. Next up in 1875 was John Cassidy, who was likewise spectacularly ineffective in 214.2 innings for Brooklyn and who likewise set off on a career in the outfield.

The first semi-significant lefty in the National League, and the first to spend his career primarily as a pitcher, was Bobby Mitchell, who threw 100 innings for Cleveland in 1877, 80 for Cincinnati in 1878, and 194.2 for Cleveland in 1879. Though ERAs were not tracked in those days, Mitchell never did manage a league-average ERA and ended with a losing record, but he at least pitched respectably, and had the highest K/IP rates in the NL in 1877 & 1878. In 1879 he was joined by Foley, an OF-1B who threw 161.2 innings in 1879 and 238 in 1880, both for Boston, with middling results. But most teams in those days used a single starter to handle most of the work, and in 1880-82, the first lefty to take that job emerged, as Lee Richmond threw 590.2, 462.1 and 411 innings for Worcester. Richmond pitched well his first season, but the Worcester Ruby Legs finished last in 1881 and 1882, so he didn't exactly inspire a rush of imitators.

In 1882, however, something new happened: the American Association sprang up as a rival major league. The first ERA champ in the league was 21-year-old lefty Denny Driscoll, who got a full-time rotation gig the following year. And then in 1884, a sea change set in: the rules were liberalized to allow pitchers to throw overhand. I have to believe that the ability to abandon straight underhand was the change that made lefthanders proportionately more effective, and the AA was the early adopter (as startup leagues are often quicker to process innovation): the first lefty to lead a league in IP or K was Ed Morris in the AA in 1885 (his second season as a rotation anchor, at age 22), the first in Wins was Morris in 1886, and lefties led the AA in innings and strikeouts from 1885-87, with young fireballers Matt Kilroy (age 20, 513 K) and Toad Ramsey (age 21, 499 K) posting the two highest strikeout totals of all time. The unfortunately nicknamed Lady Baldwin became the first star lefty in the NL, posting a 1.86 ERA in 1885 and going 42-13 while leading the league in wins and strikeouts in 1886.

Even so, significant lefthanded pitching was still a relative rarity through the end of the 1800s. While multiple righthanded pitchers racked up large career win totals, only six 19th century lefties won as many as 100 games: Morris with 171, followed by Frank Killen (164), Ted Breitenstein (160), Kilroy (141), Ramsey (114), and Duke Esper (101). One can look at the records of lefthanded hitters in this era and see, perhaps, the benefits of the relative dearth of lefthanded quality pitchers.

The end of the 19th century brought on the two men who would set the template for lefthanded pitchers to follow, and they plied their trade once again mainly in an upstart league, the American League. First came Rube Waddell, baseball's second pitcher (after Amos Rusie) to compile a multi-year record as a strikeout pitcher. Waddell, of course, was an eccentric, childlike, unpredictable drunk and - Bill James suggests - possibly mentally disabled, and likely contributed as much as anyone to the stereotype of the flaky lefthander. His teammate Eddie Plank, by contrast, was more like Glavine, a cerebral, college-educated pitcher who set the mold of the crafty lefthander. Together they brought a lot of success to Connie Mack, and Plank became the first lefty to win 300 games - indeed, the first to win 200 games. With 305 of his 326 wins coming in the AL, he holds to this day the career record for wins by an AL lefty.

As we know, the concept of platooning first began to be tried around 1906, though it did not come into heavy vogue until around 1920 - which was around the time that the emergence of Babe Ruth created a much more pressing need for teams to find their own Hub Pruett type lefties who could shut down the Babe. By 1919, the career leaderboard for lefties looked like this (and recall that by this point Walter Johnson was three wins from becoming the ninth righthanded 300-game winner, including five with 340 or more wins; counting wins in the NA, there were by then 14 righties with 250 or more wins, 24 with 225 or more). A few of these guys, as you can see from their career timelines, would win a few more in the 1920s; Marquard would become the second lefty to win 200 games, and two others who would as well (Eppa Rixey and Wilbur Cooper) were already active.

#	Pitcher	Years	W
1	Eddie Plank	1901-1917	326
2	Jesse Tannehill	1894-1911	197
3	Rube Waddell	1897-1910	193
4	Doc White	1901-1913	189
5	Ed Morris	1884-1890	171
6	Frank Killen	1891-1900	164
7	Slim Sallee	1908-1921	162
8	Ted Breitenstein	1891-1901	160
9	Hippo Vaughn	1908-1921	156
10	Rube Marquard	1908-1925	149
11	Matt Kilroy	1886-1898	141
12	Hooks Wiltse	1904-1915	139
13	Nap Rucker	1907-1916	134
14	Noodles Hahn	1899-1906	130
15	Lefty Liefield	1905-1920	124

You can see how Plank towered over his contemporaries . . . I haven't crunched the numbers to see how the proportion of lefties increased over time from the 1880s or when it reached modern rates, but by 1920, besides the above, there were a number of other active lefties on their way to decent careers, and in 1925 Mack came up with his third lefty superstar, Lefty Grove, who would go on to become the second lefty to win 300 games, followed by Warren Spahn (now the winningest lefty of all) and Steve Carlton. Today there are 25 lefthanded pitchers who have won 200 games, including 10 who have won 250 or more, compared to 83 righthanded 200-game winners, 34 righthanded 250-game winners, and 18 righthanded 300-game winners. I'll close with the top 10 winningest lefties of all time as of yesterday's action:

#	Pitcher	W
1	Warren Spahn	363
2	Steve Carlton	329
3	Eddie Plank	326
4	Lefty Grove	300
5	Tom Glavine	294
6	Tommy John	288
7	Jim Kaat	283
8	Randy Johnson	280
9	Eppa Rixey	266
10	Carl Hubbell	253

The last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. As always, the largest and probably most obscure division, the NL Central, goes last - my apologies for lagging on this one. Until last year the NL Central, a division whose star had fallen badly since the McGwire/Sosa/Bagwell heyday, was the only division not to claim a World Championship under the post-1994 divisional alignment. In fact, the division features two teams that have never won it all, one that is nearly a century into its drought, and two others that entered last year having waited 24 and 27 years for a flag.

EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2007 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here and rookie adjustments here). Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers and explanations are in my AL East preview here; my AL Central preview is here, AL West is here, NL East here and NL West here.

World Champion St. Louis Cardinals

Raw EWSL: 229 (76 W)
Adjusted: 240 (80 W)
Age-Adj.: 213 (71 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Yadier Molina	10	12
1B	27	Albert Pujols	37	39
2B	31	Adam Kennedy	15	13
SS	32	David Eckstein	17	14
3B	32	Scott Rolen	19	16
RF	32	Preston Wilson	10	8
CF	37	Jim Edmonds	20	12
LF	26	Chris Duncan*	5	11
C2	35	Gary Bennett	3	2
INF	30	Aaron Miles	10	9
OF	34	Scott Speizio	7	6
12	37	So Taguchi	8	5
13	31	Juan Encarnacion	16	13
SP1	32	Chris Carpenter	18	12
SP2	30	Kip Wells	2	2
SP3	25	Adam Wainwright*	5	11
SP4	25	Anthony Reyes*	2	4
SP5	29	Braden Looper	8	5
RP1	34	Jason Isringhausen	10	8
RP2	25	Brad Thompson#	4	6
RP3	31	Randy Flores	2	2
RP4	38	Russ Springer	4	3
RP5	31	Randy Keisler	1	0

Also on hand: Ryan Franklin, Skip Shumaker, the rehabbing Mark Mulder, and Tyler Johnson. Josh Hancock, of course, was in the bullpen picture until his fatal auto accident Sunday morning; it seems terribly unfair that the Cardinals organization has to go through this again less than a decade after Darryl Kile's death. Keisler is presently in the rotation due to Carpenter's injury following an unprecedented two straight seasons for Carpenter without serious injury.

There isn't really a ton of precedent for whether a World Championship helps offset a 17-game decline in the standings (22 over two years); the closest parallel that comes to mind is the 1998-2001 Yankees. The Yanks dropped 16 games in the standings in 1999, another 11 in 2000, but still won the Series both years. In 2001 they bounced back from 87 to 95 wins and pushed the World Series to a Game 7. Like this team, those Yankees had a lot of guys in their early 30s but their signature star (Jeter) was 27. The Yankees added one high-end starter to their rotation, Mike Mussina, while these Cardinals have overhauled the whole rotation behind Carpenter but with two youngsters, a retread and a converted reliever. Oh, and both teams had Randy Keisler. The other parallel would be the 1908 Cubs, who won the series after a 17-game decline over two years; they bounced back to win 104 games but finish second in 1909 with essentially the same team, and the pennant in 1910, but have never won it all again.

Injury risks with Carpenter and Rolen are a given, but really the big question marks for this team - creating both the upside and downside are (1) that rest of the rotation, including the talented Wainwright and Reyes; (2) whether Edmonds has one last Jim Edmonds year left and (3) whether Chris Duncan, a born DH, can ever play the outfield respectably enough to keep his bat in the lineup (realistically, the Cards would be better off just dealing him to an AL team to whom he would have more value).

Houston Astros

Raw EWSL: 236 (79 W)
Adjusted: 245 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 207 (69 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	38	Brad Ausmus	10	7
1B	31	Lance Berkman	28	23
2B	41	Craig Biggio	15	8
SS	30	Adam Everett	13	12
3B	31	Morgan Ensberg	19	16
RF	29	Luke Scott*	6	10
CF	27	Chris Burke#	7	9
LF	31	Carlos Lee	22	19
C2	27	Humberto Quintero	1	1
INF	35	Mark Loretta	19	13
OF	30	Jason Lane	9	8
12	31	Mike Lamb	9	7
13	38	Orlando Palmeiro	3	2
SP1	29	Roy Oswalt	20	17
SP2	28	Jason Jennings	10	11
SP3	40	Woody Williams	7	7
SP4	27	Chris Sampson*	2	3
SP5	28	Wandy Rodriguez#	2	2
RP1	30	Brad Lidge	11	10
RP2	29	Dan Wheeler	10	9
RP3	28	Chad Qualls	8	8
RP4	34	Trever Miller	4	3
RP5	38	Rick White	3	2

Jennings and White are presently injured, and Lidge has for the moment at least lost the closer job to Wheeler, though I expect him to reclaim it if he rights himself. Also on hand: Matt Albers (currently in the rotation), Brian Moehler, Dave Borkowski and Hunter Pence, plus the rehabbing Brandon Backe.

The Astros? The Astros. Partly EWSL rates, or overrates, them on depth - the bench is stocked with guys who recently held regular jobs (Loretta, Lane), the pen runs three deep in quality - plus the addition of Carlos Lee. And partly this just isn't that strong a division. Of course, experience tells us that over a long season, depth matters, especially when you have a 41-year-old second baseman and a rookie right fielder.

Jennings is key - he ought to be better in Houston than in Colorado, but the early injury is another sign that pitchers age in dog years in Coors.

Absent a return from Roger Clemens, I can't realistically see this team winning the division, but they should plod along around .500 again.

Milwaukee Brewers

Raw EWSL: 201 (67 W)
Adjusted: 219 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 206 (69 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Johnny Estrada	13	11
1B	23	Prince Fielder*	9	23
2B	24	Rickie Weeks#	8	12
SS	24	JJ Hardy#	5	8
3B	36	Craig Counsell	14	10
RF	29	Kevin Mench	11	10
CF	27	Bill Hall	17	18
LF	32	Geoff Jenkins	17	14
C	37	Damian Miller	10	6
INF	35	Tony Graffanino	11	8
OF	25	Corey Hart*	3	6
12	27	Gabe Gross	6	6
13	24	Tony Gwynn jr.+	1	4
SP1	28	Ben Sheets	11	11
SP2	28	Chris Capuano	12	12
SP3	32	Jeff Suppan	12	8
SP4	27	David Bush	9	9
SP5	29	Claudio Vargas	6	5
RP1	32	Francisco Cordero	12	8
RP2	29	Derrick Turnbow	7	6
RP3	31	Matt Wise	5	4
RP4	38	Brian Shouse	3	2
RP5	23	Carlos Villanueva*	2	4

Also on hand: Corey Koskie, Laynce Nix and Greg Aquino (all injured; Koskie's future seems doubtful), Elmer Dessens and Chris Spurling, and, looming at AAA, top pitching prospect Yovanni Gallardo, who has a 42-8 K/BB ratio and just 1 HR allowed in 30 innings this season in the hitter-happy PCL after striking out 188 batters while posting a 1.86 ERA last season.

When asked before the season who should be the favorite in the NL Central, I told people, without conviction, the Brewers. Now that April is behind us, the first place team is, without conviction, the Brewers. Sure, they are tied with the Braves for the NL's best record and with the Red Sox for the majors' largest division lead (3.5 games), but they have outscored their opponents just 117-114, for a "Pythagorean" record of 13-12. In other words, they aren't playing like a team that is gonna take the division out behind the garage and teach it a lesson. That said, the hot start by JJ Hardy, who fizzled and got hurt last season after a promising second half in 2005, is most encouraging, and as they have been doing for a few years now the Crew has scrounged up veterans to plug most of their potential holes. What this team is missing is a really big bat in the outfield; I still don't buy Bill Hall as a consistent 30 HR threat or Mench as a serious corner outfielder outside of Texas. Also, as has been true for several years, Milwaukee lacks a reputable fifth starter, although Vargas has gotten off to a good start. Presumably it won't take long for either Vargas or Bush to falter or Sheets to sustain his usual injury and get Gallardo into the rotation.

Chicago Cubs

Raw EWSL: 207 (69 W)
Adjusted: 219 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 202 (67 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Michael Barrett	15	14
1B	31	Derrek Lee	17	14
2B	32	Mark DeRosa	9	7
SS	27	Cesar Izturis	8	8
3B	29	Aramis Ramirez	20	18
RF	32	Jacque Jones	14	12
CF	31	Alfonso Soriano	21	18
LF	34	Cliff Floyd	15	14
C2	35	Henry Blanco	6	4
INF	24	Ronny Cedeno#	3	5
OF	22	Felix Pie+	0	4
12	27	Ryan Theriot*	3	6
13	25	Matt Murton#	8	12
SP1	26	Carlos Zambrano	18	18
SP2	27	Rich Hill*	3	5
SP3	31	Ted Lilly	10	8
SP4	28	Jason Marquis	7	8
SP5	30	Wade Miller	3	3
RP1	30	Ryan Dempster	8	7
RP2	27	Neal Cotts	4	4
RP3	33	Bobby Howry	9	6
RP4	28	Michael Wuertz	4	4
RP5	29	Will Ohman#	4	4

Also on hand: Daryle Ward, Scott Eyre, Angel Guzman, and of course the oft-injured Kerry Wood and already-out-for-the-season-again Mark Prior.

Eventually, after two years of significantly underperforming their EWSL, it was inevitable that the Cubs' expectations would drift down to meet their performance. That should end now that I'm no longer listing Prior and Wood anywhere on their depth chart (not that Wade Miller is Mr. Durability). They have shored up some of their weaknesses by importing pricey 30-somethings, but while Soriano will help them for some time (aside from his outrageous price tag), the long-term future around the core of Zambrano and Ramirez is with Hill, Pie, Murton, and Theriot. And Pie is still a raw youngster while the latter two have much to prove to show that they are more than just useful role players.

Win Shares aren't out yet, but Rich Hill is probably closing in already on that 5 Win Shares figure. As I have noted several times, Hill just clicked at the start of last August after getting pounded in 2005 and early 2006, and now looks like a coming frontline starter.

Lee is having an odd year that suggests a guy whose wrist is not quite 100% back but compensating well - he's batting .392 with a staggering 14 doubles in 24 games, but has only gone deep once. The homers will doubtless come, and it's good to see him back.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Raw EWSL: 154 (51 W)
Adjusted: 182 (61 W)
Age-Adj.: 184 (61 W)
Subjective Adj.: 186 (62 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Ronny Paulino*	7	16
1B	27	Adam LaRoche	13	14
2B	29	Freddy Sanchez#	16	17
SS	29	Jack Wilson	15	13
3B	26	Jose Bautista*	5	10
RF	28	Xavier Nady	9	9
CF	27	Chris Duffy#	5	8
LF	28	Jason Bay	23	24
C2	26	Ryan Doumit#	3	4
INF	26	Jose Castillo	8	9
OF	26	Brad Eldred+	0	4
12	25	Nate McLouth	1	2
13	28	Humberto Cota	3	3
SP1	24	Zach Duke#	8	10
SP2	25	Ian Snell#	4	6
SP3	24	Tom Gorzelanny*	2	3
SP4	25	Paul Maholm#	5	7
SP5	29	Tony Armas	3	2
RP1	35	Salomon Torres	10	6
RP2	23	Matt Capps*	4	7
RP3	32	Damaso Marte	5	3
RP4	28	John Grabow	3	3
RP5	29	Shawn Chacon	4	4

I try to avoid the subjective adjustments with pitchers, who are inherently unstable when projected out to higher innings totals, but Gorzelanny, like Rich Hill, should easily surpass that 3 WS total. I did give a 2-WS subjective bump from 6 to 8 to Duffy to reflect increased playing time. I could have listed Jonah Bayliss or John Wasdin instead of Chacon, but Chacon is a little more estaablished than Bayliss and the Pirates already list a lot of unproven young pitchers.

Pittsburgh has little to be excited about beyond Bay on the offensive side, though an optimist would say that the next few years should be solid ones for LaRoche, Sanchez and Paulino. What we will know a lot better after this season is whether the Pirates have any real gems among their young arms - Duke, Snell and Gorzelanny have all given flashes (even Maholm, in late 05), and all four are 24 or 25, plus Capps is 23 - there ought to turn out to be somebody there with more upside than the last few generations of young Pirate hurlers, which gave us only Jason Schmidt and Denny Neagle as front-line starters (the jury is still out on Oliver Perez), and neither of those guys originally came out of their system. You'd like to see someone here better than the Kris Bensons and Kip Wellses of the world. Certainly the Pirates' fans deserve better.

Cincinnati Reds

Raw EWSL: 191 (64 W)
Adjusted: 201 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 180 (60 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Dave Ross	8	7
1B	37	Scott Hatteberg	13	8
2B	26	Brandon Phillips	7	8
SS	30	Alex Gonzalez	12	11
3B	24	Edwin Encarnacion#	8	13
RF	37	Ken Griffey	14	8
CF	31	Ryan Freel	12	10
LF	27	Adam Dunn	23	24
C2	31	Javier Valentin	6	5
INF	41	Jeff Conine	11	6
OF	26	Josh Hamilton+	0	4
12	35	Juan Castro	6	4
13	28	Norris Hopper+	1	4
SP1	29	Aaron Harang	13	12
SP2	30	Bronson Arroyo	15	13
SP3	28	Kyle Lohse	6	7
SP4	31	Eric Milton	5	4
SP5	27	Matt Belisle#	3	3
RP1	37	David Weathers	9	8
RP2	26	Todd Coffey#	6	7
RP3	40	Mike Stanton	6	6
RP4	28	Kirk Saarloos	6	7
RP5	30	Victor Santos	2	2

Others on hand include Chad Moeller, Rheal Cormier, Bill Bray, Joe Coutlangus, the injured Eddie Guardado and Gary Majewski, and AAA flamethrower Homer Bailey, who like Gallardo is pitching well and likely to arrive this season.

The Reds, as so often has been true in recent years, seem less than the sum of their parts. Some of that is lack of pitching depth (though Harang and Arroyo are the best 1-2 punch they have had since the days of Jose Rijo). Some is that the parts are less than they seem - guys who are no longer the stars they were (Griffey), guys who are stuck in reverse (Dunn) or have never lived up to promise (Milton) or have yet to prove they can do it twice (Phillips, Encarnacion, Ross). They don't look like an awful team, though probably between Cincy, the Cubs, the Astros and the Pirates somebody will run off the rails.

You know, the first time I saw the name "Norris Hopper," before I knew anything else about him - position, skills, track record - I thought "speedy outfielder." Some guys really are exactly who they sound like.

The fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2007 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here and rookie adjustments here). Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers and explanations are in my AL East preview here; my AL Central preview is here, AL West is here, and NL East here.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Raw EWSL: 220 (73 W)
Adjusted: 252 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 232 (77 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Russell Martin*	7	18
1B	33	Nomar Garciaparra	12	11
2B	39	Jeff Kent	22	18
SS	29	Rafael Furcal	26	23
3B	26	Wilson Betemit#	7	9
RF	25	Andre Ethier*	6	14
CF	29	Juan Pierre	16	15
LF	39	Luis Gonzalez	14	11
C2	35	Mike Lieberthal	8	6
INF	33	Marlon Anderson	6	5
OF	34	Brady Clark	14	12
12	36	Olmedo Saenz	8	6
13	22	Matt Kemp*	2	7
SP1	34	Jason Schmidt	14	10
SP2	34	Derek Lowe	12	9
SP3	29	Brad Penny	10	9
SP4	30	Randy Wolf	3	3
SP5	34	Brett Tomko	7	5
RP1	37	Takashi Saito*	9	17
RP2	23	Jonathan Broxton*	5	9
RP3	30	Joe Beimel	4	3
RP4	33	Mark Hendrickson	7	5
RP5	22	Chad Billingsley*	3	7

Also in the mix: Hong-chih Kuo, if he can get healthy, should be in there with Billingsley and the veteran Hendrickson to step into the rotation. Prospect Andy LaRoche is close to ready at 3B. Also Jason Repko, Yhency Brazoban, Tim Hamulack, and Ramon Martinez.

The Dodgers are unlikely to score as many runs as last season without JD Drew and Kenny Lofton's contributions (Gonzalez is nearing the end of the line, and Juan Pierre in his prime is still a poor offensive substitute for Lofton even at his advanced age, though he will compensate a bit with his glove for Lofton's terrible defense in CF), so much will ride on the health of veterans Garciaparra and Kent and the productivity of last year's booming rookie class (Ethier, Martin, Kemp, James Loney, as well as Billingsley, Kuo, Saito and Broxton on the pitching staff). On the other hand, the bench is deep. Dodgers are the clear though not heavy favorites in the West.

San Diego Padres

Raw EWSL: 198 (66 W)
Adjusted: 221 (74 W)
Age-Adj.: 208 (69 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Josh Bard	6	5
1B	25	Adrian Gonzalez#	9	13
2B	29	Marcus Giles	19	17
SS	27	Khalil Greene	15	16
3B	25	Kevin Kouzmanoff+	1	11
RF	36	Brian Giles	25	19
CF	34	Mike Cameron	19	18
LF	30	Termel Sledge	3	3
C2	26	Rob Bowen*	1	2
INF	31	Russell Branyan	7	6
OF	33	Jose Cruz Jr.	8	7
12	34	Geoff Blum	6	5
13	26	Paul McAnulty+	1	4
SP1	26	Jake Peavy	14	14
SP2	28	Chris Young	10	10
SP3	41	Greg Maddux	12	11
SP4	27	Clay Hensley#	7	8
SP5	44	David Wells	7	7
RP1	39	Trevor Hoffman	12	10
RP2	30	Scott Linebrink	9	8
RP3	24	Cla Meredith*	5	9
RP4	29	Heath Bell	1	1
RP5	40	Doug Brocail	2	2

The Padres have their own age issues with Brian Giles, Cameron, Maddux and Hoffman. Obviously the bullpen is deep and off to a flying start, as among other things we will see whether Heath Bell finally makes good on his abilities. I would expect Cruz to take Sledge's job at some point. The key guys on this team may be Marcus Giles and the slugging Kouzmanoff, who have the ability to create a powerful offensive infield, especially if San Diego can squeeze a little more out of the 27-year-old Greene. I expect Peavy to rebound strongly from 2006; nothing in his numbers last season reflected a real falloff in ability, just a failure to perform to standards.

Colorado Rockies

Raw EWSL: 175 (58 W)
Adjusted: 206 (69 W)
Age-Adj.: 198 (66 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Chris Iannetta+	1	11
1B	33	Todd Helton	24	21
2B	31	Kaz Matsui	8	6
SS	22	Troy Tulowitzki+	1	11
3B	27	Garrett Atkins#	19	20
RF	28	Brad Hawpe	10	11
CF	25	Willy Taveras#	13	16
LF	27	Matt Holliday	17	18
C2	28	Yorvit Torrealba	5	5
INF	32	Jamey Carroll	11	9
OF	42	Steve Finley	10	5
12	36	John Mabry	4	3
13	26	Jeff Baker*	2	3
SP1	26	Jeff Francis	9	9
SP2	28	Aaron Cook	9	9
SP3	31	Rodrigo Lopez	7	6
SP4	25	Jason Hirsh*	0	0
SP5	30	Josh Fogg	5	4
RP1	31	Brain Fuentes	11	9
RP2	34	LaTroy Hawkins	6	4
RP3	28	Byung Hyun Kim	5	5
RP4	28	Jeremy Affeldt	3	3
RP5	25	Ramon Ramirez*	4	8

Also on hand: Cory Sullivan, Denny Bautista, Tom Martin, Taylor Buchholz. I suspect that Colorado will have no better luck with Affeldt and Bautista than the Royals did; those guys need to get attention from someplace that isn't one of the two worst franchises in baseball to pitch for.

No, I don't actually expect Colorado to finish ahead of Arizona, but if rookies Ianetta and Tulowitzki live up to their projections from minor league success, the Rockies will have a very deep lineup; playing in Colorado you really need to lead the league in runs scored to finish much above .500, but this team could do that. The only offensive holes should be Matsui (who is hurt already, what a surprise) and Taveras. The rotation is also not as bad as some Colorado staffs of the past, though there's nobody here you would be happy to start in a posteason game.

The deal that was built around Jason Jennings for Taveras is an interesting one, philosophically. Jennings was the Rockies' ace, and he's pitched well already with the Astros, but is also missing time this week with elbow tendinitis, lending credence to the idea that Coors ages pitchers in dog years. Taveras is basically a poor man's Juan Pierre, one of the fastest men in the game brought in almost solely for the value his glove will bring in Coors' cavernous center field. This deal could be a disaster, or it could work if you think that Jennings is damaged goods or that the value of good center field defense in Coors (given how many potential extra base hits are put into play) is a core survival issue for the team.

If you believe the latter, however, why would you employ a 42-year-old Steve Finley?

Arizona Diamondbacks

Raw EWSL: 146 (49 W)
Adjusted: 177 (59 W)
Age-Adj.: 173 (58 W)
Subjective Adj.: 184 (61 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	Chris Snyder	5	6
1B	25	Conor Jackson*	6	15
2B	29	Orlando Hudson	18	16
SS	24	Stephen Drew*	3	11
3B	27	Chad Tracy	15	16
RF	31	Eric Byrnes	13	11
CF	23	Chris Young+	1	11
LF	27	Scott Hairston	1	9
C2	23	Miguel Montero+	0	4
INF	35	Tony Clark	7	5
OF	24	Carlos Quentin*	3	6
12	24	Alberto Callaspo+	1	4
13	30	Robby Hammock	1	0
SP1	28	Brandon Webb	18	18
SP2	43	Randy Johnson	13	13
SP3	32	Livan Hernandez	13	9
SP4	31	Doug Davis	10	8
SP5	24	Edgar Gonzalez	2	2
RP1	27	Jose Valverde	7	6
RP2	27	Brandon Lyon	3	3
RP3	27	Brandon Medders#	5	5
RP4	28	Juan Cruz	4	4
RP5	25	Tony Pena*	1	1

Micah Owings has pitched well in the rotation so far, and also on hand are JD Durbin and Brian Barden. I gave subjective bumps up for Drew (from 8 to 11) and Hairston (from 1 to 9) to reflect increased playing time/opportunity.

EWSL punishes the D-Backs for the lack of star power in their lineup (my guess is that Chad Tracy has an up year this year with the bat, Hudson and Byrnes have down ones), a lack of depth in proven quality pitchers, and the heavy mileage on Johnson, Hernandez and Davis. Hairston is something of a wild card but once healthy, Quentin will get playing time from someone.

San Francisco Giants

Raw EWSL: 215 (72 W)
Adjusted: 222 (74 W)
Age-Adj.: 173 (58 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Ben Molina	12	10
1B	35	Rich Aurilia	14	9
2B	35	Ray Durham	18	12
SS	40	Omar Vizquel	20	11
3B	32	Pedro Feliz	11	10
RF	33	Randy Winn	17	15
CF	35	Dave Roberts	16	11
LF	42	Barry Bonds	22	12
C2	28	Eliezer Alfonzo*	3	2
INF	36	Ryan Klesko	9	7
OF	37	Mark Sweeney	7	4
12	28	Lance Niekro#	4	4
13	25	Kevin Frandsen*	0	0
SP1	29	Barry Zito	15	13
SP2	22	Matt Cain#	7	10
SP3	26	Noah Lowry	10	10
SP4	32	Matt Morris	8	6
SP5	33	Russ Ortiz	2	2
RP1	34	Armando Benitez	7	5
RP2	34	Steve Kline	5	3
RP3	26	Kevin Corriea	4	4
RP4	28	Vinnie Chulk	3	3
RP5	24	Jonathan Sanchez*	1	2

Tod Linden is also on hand at present, and star pitching prospect Tim Licencum should make his presence known later. The Giants' rebuilding/youth movement is well under way in their rotation - Cain, Lowry, and Licencum should provide plenty of upside in years to come, with Zito (still under 30 and signed for 7 years) anchoring the staff. I expect a good year from Zito, with the switch of leagues probably making 2007 the best season of his outrageous contract.

Beyond the rotation, evidence of the rest of the Giants' roster can be obtained from archaeologists - I mean, look at the age of their double play combination and their outfield. In fact, that age alone makes me more skeptical about Zito and the other starters (although last year's Giants barely missed second in the NL in defensive efficiency on balls in play, and thus far this season they are not too far from last year's pace, albeit well behind the league). There is simply no sign that San Francisco has even started the rebuilding job in the lineup, which is why it should be years before they can field a strong contender. The quality of their young pitchers contrasted with the deperate state of their lineup makes the decision to commit all those resoruces to Zito all the more bizarre.

The best they can hope for is a solid showing in a tight division where nobody wins 90 games. And, as usual in recent years, if Bonds goes down the Giants plunge deep into the cellar.

Check out the prior EWSL reports for the NL West: 2004, 2005, 2006.

The fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2007 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here and rookie adjustments here). Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers and explanations are in my AL East preview here; my AL Central preview is here, AL West is here.

New York Mets

Raw EWSL: 243 (81 W)
Adjusted: 251 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 226 (75 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Paul LoDuca	15	11
1B	35	Carlos Delgado	24	16
2B	37	Jose Valentin	11	6
SS	24	Jose Reyes	20	25
3B	24	David Wright	25	32
RF	34	Shawn Green	14	13
CF	30	Carlos Beltran	29	27
LF	40	Moises Alou	17	9
C2	31	Ramon Castro	3	3
INF	37	Damion Easley	7	4
OF	29	Endy Chavez	9	8
12	22	Lastings Milledge*	2	9
13	48	Julio Franco	6	3
SP1	41	Tom Glavine	14	13
SP2	41	Orlando Hernandez	7	6
SP3	35	John Maine#	3	4
SP4	25	Oliver Perez	4	4
SP5	23	Mike Pelfrey+	0	5
RP1	35	Billy Wagner	14	9
RP2	28	Aaron Heilman	7	8
RP3	30	Pedro Feliciano	4	4
RP4	23	Ambiorix Burgos#	3	3
RP5	33	Scott Schoeneweis	6	4

I've been super-conservative with the Mets projections, leaving Pedro Martinez, Duaner Sanchez, Guillermo Mota and Juan Padilla entirely out of the picture. Also on hand is sidearming rookie ROOGY Joe Smith to replace Chad Bradford, plus David Newhan, Anderson Hernandez and an unusual number of guys with major league track records or who are as major league ready as they will ever be in the wings: Jorge Sosa, Aaron Sele, Chan Ho Park, Jon Adkins, Dave Williams, Jason Vargas, Anderson Hernandez, and Ben Johnson (Alay Soler, who looked to be in the same boat, was cut in the spring and has been snapped up by the Pirates).

The Mets should justifiably be the favorites this year, despite the fact that numerous key players are unlikely to repeat last season (especially Lo Duca, Chavez, Valentin and Feliciano). They still have the young core of Wright and Reyes, they still have Beltran and Delgado, and the pitching staff, if healthy, should be adequate despite the palpable absence of a legitimate #1 starter.

Philadelphia Phillies

Raw EWSL: 212 (71 W)
Adjusted: 234 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 226 (75 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Rod Barajas	9	7
1B	27	Ryan Howard#	18	23
2B	28	Chase Utley	23	24
SS	28	Jimmy Rollins	24	25
3B	31	Wes Helms	8	6
RF	26	Shane Victorino*	6	13
CF	29	Aaron Rowand	13	12
LF	30	Pat Burrell	18	17
C2	28	Carlos Ruiz*	1	2
INF	31	Abraham Nunez	6	5
OF	28	Jayson Werth	5	5
12	34	Chris Coste*	4	7
13	24	Michael Bourn+	0	4
SP1	26	Brett Myers	11	11
SP2	23	Cole Hamels*	4	8
SP3	31	Freddy Garcia	15	13
SP4	44	Jamie Moyer	10	10
SP5	29	Adam Eaton	5	4
RP1	39	Tom Gordon	11	9
RP2	26	Ryan Madson	6	6
RP3	30	Geoff Geary	6	5
RP4	35	Antonio Alfonseca	2	1
RP5	37	Jon Lieber	9	8

Also on hand on the pitching side: Fabio Castro, Clay Condrey, and at AAA Scott Mathieson.

It's worth noting here that Howard, Utley and Rollins, the Phillies' core offensive players, are (respectively) three, four and four years older than David Wright, Jose Reyes and Miguel Cabrera, who in turn are a year older than Brian McCann and Hanley Ramirez, who in turn are a year older than Ryan Zimmerman (Burrell is two years older than Utley and Rollins). Granted, the key pitchers (Hamels and Myers) are younger than that, but this is not an up-and-coming team relative to the rest of the division; their future is now.

That said, the present looks solid - Hamels and Myers give them the chance to have the best 1-2 pitching punch in the division, the talent on hand is mostly prime-age, and the rotation and lineup have soft spots but no glaring holes. The Phils would be division favorites but for the disastrous Bobby Abreu deal, which leaves them with a significantly weaker outfield than the Mets or Braves, both of whom have an anchoring superstar in center. Even without Abreu, they should give the Mets a serious rival.

Florida Marlins

Raw EWSL: 145 (48 W)
Adjusted: 211 (70 W)
Age-Adj.: 239 (80 W)
Subjective Adj.: 224 (75 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Miguel Olivo	10	10
1B	26	Mike Jacobs#	8	10
2B	27	Dan Uggla*	12	25
SS	23	Hanley Ramirez*	13	36
3B	24	Miguel Cabrera	29	37
RF	23	Jeremy Hermida*	4	9
CF	22	Alejandro de Aza+	0	11
LF	28	Josh Willingham*	7	15
C2	31	Matt Treanor	3	3
INF	34	Aaron Boone	7	6
OF	28	Joe Borchard	2	2
12	29	Alfredo Amezaga	3	2
13	30	Alex Sanchez	2	2
SP1	25	Dontrelle Willis	16	18
SP2	23	Anibal Sanchez*	5	10
SP3	23	Scott Olsen*	5	10
SP4	24	Ricky Nolasco*	3	5
SP5	22	Josh Johnson*	6	12
RP1	28	Jorge Julio	5	5
RP2	24	Taylor Tankersley*	3	5
RP3	29	Kevin Gregg	4	3
RP4	23	Randy Messenger#	1	1
RP5	26	Sergio Mitre	1	1

Also on hand: Cody Ross, Eric Reed, Reggie Abercrombie, Henry Owens, and Nate Field. Jorge Julio has solved the question of who would claim the Marlin closer job, but don't be surprised to see Owens grab a significant late-inning role - the Mets gave up on him due to a single bad outing last season, but Owens has some nasty stuff.

I'm applying the subjective adjustments here downward - Josh Johnson down to 9 WS to reflect his injury status, Ramirez to 27 and Uggla to 22 to reflect the problem I identified with Melky Cabrera in the Yankees comment of over-projecting improvement based upon one single season of play. In Uggla's case, I just don't think he can improve on last season; Ramirez may really be a 36-WS player someday but I don't see him taking that dramatic a step forward all at once. Without those adjustments, this would be listed as the first-place team.

Two main questions linger about the Marlins, those being the pitching staff and the outfield. On the former, Dontrelle Willis will be solid, but we don't know if he will return to his elite status from 2005, and almost everyone else in the rotation is still a seriously unknown quantity. As to the latter, Willingham is dependable but we don't know what direction the injured Jeremy Hermida will go in (Hermida has major offensive talent but hasn't hit the ball with authority in the bigs yet) or what to make of de Aza, the latest center field experiment (the presence of Alex Sanchez should tell you all you need to know about the Marlins' own uncertainty at that position).

My guess is that this is the year that Cabrera becomes a really big time 40+ home run hitter.

Atlanta Braves

Raw EWSL: 182 (61 W)
Adjusted: 200 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 199 (66 W)
Subjective Adj.: 207 (69 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Brian McCann#	13	22
1B	25	Scott Thorman*	1	3
2B	25	Kelly Johnson#	3	5
SS	31	Edgar Renteria	17	15
3B	35	Chipper Jones	20	14
RF	23	Jeff Francouer#	12	20
CF	30	Andruw Jones	21	19
LF	27	Ryan Langerhans#	8	10
C2	25	Brayan Pena+	1	4
INF	31	Chris Woodward	3	3
OF	30	Craig Wilson	9	8
12	29	Matt Diaz#	5	5
13	24	Willy Aybar#	5	8
SP1	40	John Smoltz	16	15
SP2	31	Tim Hudson	11	9
SP3	25	Chuck James*	4	9
SP4	33	Mark Redman	6	4
SP5	26	Lance Cormier	2	2
RP1	38	Bob Wickman	8	6
RP2	29	Mike Gonzalez	9	8
RP3	27	Rafael Soriano	4	4
RP4	25	Oscar Villereal	4	4
RP5	24	Macay McBride#	2	2

Also on hand: Pete Orr, Kyle Davies, Mike Hampton (both injured), Chad Paronto, Tanyan Sturtze, Tyler Yates, and Peter Moylan. I used subjective adjustments to bump up both Thorman and Kelly Johnson to 8 WS to reflect the fact that their EWSL numbers reflect very little playing time; 8 is a conservative measure but I try to limit the size of the subjective adjustments when possible, since they are based on pure speculation (plus, Thorman will be platooned with Craig Wilson, while Johnson may well lose his job to Aybar once Aybar is healthy). Either way, Atlanta's offense will miss Marcus Giles and Adam LaRoche; I have trouble seeing this as an elite offensive team.

EWSL still projects Francouer, solely on the basis of his youth, to develop significantly; I think that's possible but his strike zone judgment is so terrible that I can easily see him playing his last season as an everyday player around age 25.

On the whole, last season has stripped the Braves of the air of invulnerability that says that we just know that everything will turn out better for them than it looks on paper. Hudson in particular is now just another pitcher trying to make ends meet, and if Smoltz goes down, things get grim indeed. Oddly, the bullpen, last year's Achilles heel, could be an elite pen this year with the addition of Gonzalez and Soriano.

Washington Nationals

Raw EWSL: 94 (31 W)
Adjusted: 110 (37 W)
Age-Adj.: 139 (46 W)
Subjective Adj.: 115 (38 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Brian Schneider	13	12
1B	28	Nick Johnson	20	21
2B	27	Felipe Lopez	16	17
SS	29	Cristian Guzman	5	4
3B	22	Ryan Zimmerman*	13	54
RF	27	Austin Kearns	13	14
CF	27	Nook Logan	3	3
LF	28	Ryan Church#	7	9
C2	22	Jesus Flores+	0	4
INF	33	Dmitri Young	6	5
OF	25	Chris Snelling#	1	3
12	32	Ron Belliard	15	12
13	33	Robert Fick	3	2
SP1	29	John Patterson	6	5
SP2	26	Shawn Hill*	1	1
SP3	25	Jerome Williams	3	4
SP4	24	Matt Chico+	0	5
SP5	33	Jason Simontacchi	0	0
RP1	25	Chad Cordero	13	15
RP2	29	Luis Ayala	4	4
RP3	28	Jon Rauch	5	6
RP4	24	Ryan Wagner	1	1
RP5	29	Jesus Colome	2	1

I cut down Zimmerman, the most egregious of the 1-year guys, from 54 (!) win shares to a still-optimistic 30, but didn't bother with other subjective tweaks even despite Nick Johnson's injury; basically, this team will have to manufacture wins ex nihilo, because there is nearly no talent on hand with any kind of established track record you could rely on. You have to work really hard to lose 115 or more games - the odds say the Nationals catch some breaks somewhere and end up closer to 108 losses - but the Law of Competitive Balance is pretty much the only reason to think they won't lose that many. This will very likely be the worst team in baseball; there is hope for at least modest improvement in Tampa, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, but not Washington.

The infield will be much better off if Cristian Guzman can reclaim his 2006 form as early in the season as possible, and he appears well on his way. The thumping the Nats took for the first two and a half games of their series with Florida is indicative of the pitching, especially if John Patterson - their one potential quality starter - doesn't have a full, healthy season. It's gonna be a long summer.

Check out the prior EWSL reports for the NL East: 2004, 2005, 2006.

The third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2007 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here and rookie adjustments here). Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers and explanations are in my AL East preview here; my AL Central preview is here.

The Angels

Raw EWSL: 239 (80 W)
Adjusted: 257 (86 W)
Age-Adj.: 243 (81 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Mike Napoli*	5	13
1B	24	Casey Kotchman	2	2
2B	23	Howie Kendrick*	3	9
SS	32	Orlando Cabrera	16	13
3B	29	Chone Figgins	19	17
RF	31	Vladimir Guerrero	26	22
CF	32	Gary Matthews	16	14
LF	35	Garret Anderson	15	10
DH	31	Shea Hillenbrand	11	10
C2	32	Jose Molina	6	5
INF	30	Robb Quinlan	6	6
OF	28	Juan Rivera	14	15
13	26	Macier Izturis	9	10
SP1	28	John Lackey	15	16
SP2	24	Jered Weaver*	7	15
SP3	24	Ervin Santana#	8	10
SP4	31	Kelvim Escobar	10	8
SP5	34	Bartolo Colon	8	6
RP1	25	Francisco Rodriguez	16	18
RP2	31	Scot Shields	12	10
RP3	33	Justin Speier	7	5
RP4	37	Hector Carrasco	7	7
RP5	26	Joe Saunders*	2	4

Injuries are a huge issue with the Angels right now. Colon is still rehabbing, and Weaver won't be ready for Opening Day, giving Saunders, at least, room in the rotation, and possibly Dustin Moseley. Figgins could be out several weeks. Dallas McPherson is sidelined for a year.

I could have used a subjective adjustment to bump up Kotchman, but then he has an injury history himself, and EWSL is also rating Rivera and Izturis high based on their prior playing time, and the Angels have a lot of flexibility to slide people between OF, 3B, 1B and DH. If Kotchman can't establish himself, Kendry Morales will eat his lunch. Also expect Brandon Wood to enter the picture, probably as a result of Cabrera getting dealt.

I'm pretty pessimistic that a 35-year-old Garret Anderson will produce and last in left; the sooner they get Rivera out there, the better. End of the day, the Angels are division favorites on the strength of their starting pitching - if the starters can get healthy, they will be formidible, if not they don't have the offensive firepower to overcome that loss.

Oakland A's

Raw EWSL: 232 (77 W)
Adjusted: 238 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 220 (73 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	33	Jason Kendall	20	18
1B	27	Dan Johnson#	6	7
2B	30	Mark Ellis	14	13
SS	27	Bobby Crosby	10	11
3B	29	Eric Chavez	18	16
RF	27	Nick Swisher#	14	15
CF	29	Milton Bradley	13	12
LF	33	Shannon Stewart	8	7
DH	38	Mike Piazza	12	8
C2	35	Adam Melhuse	2	2
INF	31	Marco Scutaro	11	9
OF	30	Bobby Kielty	8	7
13	31	Mark Kotsay	15	13
SP1	25	Rich Harden	8	10
SP2	26	Danny Haren	12	12
SP3	26	Joe Blanton#	9	11
SP4	35	Esteban Loaiza	8	5
SP5	28	Joe Kennedy	7	7
RP1	23	Huston Street#	12	15
RP2	29	Justin Duchscherer	10	9
RP3	32	Kiko Calero	6	4
RP4	26	Brad Halsey	5	5
SP5	24	Chad Gaudin	4	4

It's not hard to be optimistic about the A's when you look in the "age" column - besides Piazza, Kendall and Loaiza, this team's key guys are as close to the sweet spot as any team since the 2002 Angels. A lot needs to go right for this team to win 90+ games, but when you load your lineup with guys in that age range, good things do happen. Dan Johnson is really in a do-or-die situation at age 27, and ought to pay off for the A's if he really has gotten his eyes fixed. Bradley is in his walk year. Crosby, who has stagnated with injuries, is more worrisome.

Also on hand: Antonio Perez, Erubiel Durazo, and a handful of pitching prospects (Jason Windsor, Shane Komine, Dan Meyer) who could step up if Joe Kennedy continues to struggle, as he has this spring.

Seattle Mariners

Raw EWSL: 215 (72 W)
Adjusted: 229 (76 W)
Age-Adj.: 213 (71 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Kenji Johjima*	10	17
1B	32	Richie Sexson	18	15
2B	23	Jose Lopez	10	15
SS	25	Yuniesky Betancourt#	8	11
3B	28	Adrian Beltre	19	20
RF	27	Jose Guillen	10	8
CF	33	Ichiro Suzuki	24	21
LF	35	Raul Ibanez	20	14
DH	32	Jose Vidro	11	10
C2	23	Rene Rivera*	2	3
INF	30	Ben Broussard	12	11
OF	26	Jeremy Reed	4	5
13	29	Willie Bloomquist	4	4
SP1	21	Felix Hernandez*	7	11
SP2	32	Jarrod Washburn	10	7
SP3	30	Jeff Weaver	8	7
SP4	27	Horacio Ramirez	5	5
SP5	36	Miguel Batista	10	8
RP1	30	JJ Putz	11	9
RP2	29	Julio Mateo	5	4
RP3	29	Chris Reitsma	4	3
RP4	30	George Sherrill	2	2
RP5	25	Jake Woods#	3	5

Also on hand: Mike Morse, Arthur Rhodes, Jon Huber, Sean Burroughs.
Broussard is presumably first in line if Vidro isn't up to DH standards, but since Broussard isn't really a significantly better a hitter than Vidro, that may not matter.

I have very little faith in Seattle's rotation beyond Hernandez; even if Hernandez makes the Big Leap this season into Johan Santana-land, he will be dragging the rest of these guys behind him. The bullpen is deep, although questions about Putz's health make it look a lot less so.

A stable lineup and rotation heading into March is usually a sign of a strong team, and sometimes even a leading indicator (I noticed the same thing about Detroit before last season). Seattle did come into the spring with players in relatively well-settled roles, and in some cases, as with the double play combination, that can signify a potential strength beyond the numbers on the page. But even if the Mariners are improved in 2007, they still have too few real offensive strengths and a pitching staff with too many big holes to seriously contend.

Texas Rangers

Raw EWSL: 175 (58 W)
Adjusted: 192 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 180 (60 W)
Subjective Adj.: 185 (62 W)

13

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Gerald Laird	3	3
1B	27	Mark Teixera	26	27
2B	25	Ian Kinsler*	6	15
SS	30	Michael Young	27	25
3B	26	Hank Blalock	16	18
RF	26	Nelson Cruz*	2	3
CF	40	Kenny Lofton	12	7
LF	30	Brad Wilkerson	13	12
DH	35	Frank Catalanotto	11
C2	32	Miguel Ojeda	2	2
INF	22	Joaquin Arias+	1	4
OF	29	Marlon Byrd	4	3
13	26	Jason Botts+	1	4
SP1	32	Kevin Millwood	12	8
SP2	29	Vicente Padilla	9	8
SP3	23	Brandon McCarthy#	4	5
SP4	25	Robinson Tejeda	4	5
SP5	25	Kameron Loe#	4	5
RP1	31	Eric Gagne	5	4
RP2	35	Akinori Otsuka	10	6
RP3	27	Frank Francisco	1	1
RP4	26	CJ Wilson#	2	2
RP5	30	Rick Bauer	4	3

I'm bumping Laird up subjectively to 8 WS. You can call me a pessimist for leaving Sammy Sosa off here despite indications that he will start off the season as the everyday DH, but it wouldn't affect the Rangers' status as the clear preseason favorite to finish last, given their weak pitching and questionable outfield. This despite still having one of the best infields in baseball, maybe the best given the current status of the Yankees and Cardinals.

I expect Teixeira to bounce back this year and Kinsler to step up; Blalock is a more dauting puzzle, reaching the point where he needs to either go forward or abandon hope of making it as a star.

I assume Gagne will still be Gagne when healthy. If there is an upside on this team, it's with Gagne, Blalock, Wilkerson, McCarthy, Kinsler, Teixeira, Botts and Tejeda - come to think of it, a pretty long list.

Check out previous AL West previews from 2006, 2005 and 2004.

The second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2007 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here and rookie adjustments here). Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers and explanations are in my AL East preview here.

Detroit Tigers

Raw EWSL: 250 (83 W)
Adjusted: 267 (89 W)
Age-Adj.: 246 (82 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Ivan Rodriguez	19	13
1B	32	Sean Casey	14	12
2B	31	Placido Polanco	17	15
SS	31	Carlos Guillen	19	16
3B	30	Brandon Inge	16	15
RF	33	Magglio Ordonez	14	12
CF	26	Curtis Granderson#	12	16
LF	30	Craig Monroe	13	12
DH	38	Gary Sheffield	18	13
C2	34	Vance Wilson	4	4
INF	27	Chris Shelton#	8	11
OF	30	Marcus Thames	7	6
13	25	Omar Infante	7	9
SP1	24	Jeremy Bonderman	11	11
SP2	23	Justin Verlander*	8	16
SP3	42	Kenny Rogers	14	13
SP4	29	Nate Robertson	11	9
SP5	29	Mike Maroth	7	6
RP1	39	Todd Jones	11	9
RP2	22	Joel Zumaya*	6	15
RP3	30	Fernando Rodney	6	5
RP4	41	Jose Mesa	6	6
RP5	30	Jason Grilli	2	2

The Tigers feel like last year's fashion, and inevitably a few things will go wrong that didn't last time around; Pudge and Rogers are old, Guillen may be off a little from last year, the team's general lack of plate patience and lack of a true leadoff hitter could bite. But this is still and up-and-down solid team with some real depth (players not shown here include Zach Miner and Brent Clevlen), the addition of Sheffield should help the offense, and the power trio of Bonderman, Verlander and Zumaya are a very stable foundation for the present as well as the future, especially if Zumaya can be moved into the rotation at some point. Bonderman in particular has yet to really put up the kind of ERAs that his K/BB numbers suggest he has in him.

I would imagine that Casey will be sent packing once Shelton gets back on track; certainly the Shelton of 2005 is superior to anything Casey is likely to produce at this point. Which is not to say Casey's acquisition was a bad idea, given the Tigers' needs at the time, but when you take into consideration the double plays, he's really only been a productive hitter once in the past five years.

Cleveland Indians

Raw EWSL: 214 (71 W)
Adjusted: 234 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 240 (80 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	28	Victor Martinez	20	21
1B	26	Ryan Garko*	3	7
2B	24	Josh Barfield*	9	23
SS	25	Jhonny Peralta	16	20
3B	23	Andy Marte*	2	6
RF	33	Trot Nixon	11	9
CF	24	Grady Sizemore	21	26
LF	33	David Dellucci	11	9
DH	30	Travis Hafner	24	22
C2	27	Kelly Shoppach*	2	3
INF	27	Hector Luna	7	7
OF	33	Casey Blake	11	10
13	31	Jason Michaels	10	9
SP1	26	CC Sabathia	14	14
SP2	28	Cliff Lee	11	11
SP3	29	Jake Westbrook	12	10
SP4	24	Josh Sowers*	4	7
SP5	36	Paul Byrd	9	7
RP1	36	Joe Borowski	5	4
RP4	42	Roberto Hernandez	6	6
RP3	32	Rafael Betancourt	6	4
RP4	25	Fernando Cabrera#	2	3
RP5	26	Tom Mastny*	1	1

It seems ridiculous to list Mastny as a second-year player with just 16.1 innings of big-league experience, but the man had 7 save opportunities in the major leagues last season (he was second on the Indians in saves), so he really isn't a true rookie. Josh Barfield is probably overprojected here for the same reasons I discussed regarding Melky Cabrera in the Yankees comment, but that is offset by the fact that the EWSL figures for Garko and Marte are lowballed by their half-seasons of experience last year, so I left them all as is.

As you probably know, the Indians underperformed their "Pythagorean" record by a whopping 11 games last year, so they ought to improve just standing still. Of course, it was the bullpen that did them in most of all last year, and while the new pen looks to be a little better, it hardly inspires confidence. If there had been the kind of relievers on the market this offseason that there were entering 2006, you have to figure the Indians would have laid out some serious cash - the Indians were a better team than the Blue Jays last year, by runs scored and allowed, but won 9 fewer games. You do the math and tell me if the money Toronto spent on BJ Ryan would have been a worthwhile investment for the Tribe.

This is probably the year that this officially becomes Grady Sizemore's team, assuming he stays as indestructible as in past seasons. Cliff Lee has been ailing this spring, but if Cleveland's Big Three can stay healthy they should have the starting pitching to run with the AL Central elite. Probably the two most important guys on the team are Peralta, who is still young and needs to show us whether 2005 or 2006 or somewhere in between is his real level of ability, and Sabathia, who seems perenially due for a breakout year if he is healthy. And, of course, the more games they can stand Victor Martinez' defense behind the plate, the better.

One thing I've noticed in recent years is the decline of platooning, driven both by the ability of managers to neutralize platoons by going righty/lefty/righty from their bullpens ever earlier in the game, and by the need to carry fewer non-pitchers to make room for those overpopulated bullpens. The Blue Jays, though - always an organization on the forefront of platooning - used outfield platoons to great effect last year, and the Indians seem set to do the same, with Nixon/Blake and Dellucci/Michaels platoons in the corners. Shin-Soo Choo is also a fine hitter, and may yet surpass the struggling Hee Seop Choi as the best position player to come from Korea. That depth should be more generally helpful and may put their offense over the top.

Minnesota Twins

Raw EWSL: 222 (74 W)
Adjusted: 230 (77 W)
Age-Adj.: 223 (74 W)
Subjective Adj.: 234 (78 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	24	Joe Mauer	23	29
1B	26	Justin Morneau	17	19
2B	31	Luis Castillo	19	16
SS	27	Jason Bartlett#	9	11
3B	29	Nick Punto	9	8
RF	28	Michael Cuddyer	15	16
CF	31	Torii Hunter	15	12
LF	35	Rondell White	6	4
DH	25	Jason Kubel*	1	1
C2	36	Mike Redmond	6	5
INF	37	Jeff Cirillo	6	4
OF	30	Lew Ford	9	8
13	30	Jason Tyner	4	4
SP1	28	Johan Santana	24	25
SP2	26	Boof Bonser*	3	6
SP3	28	Carlos Silva	8	8
SP4	34	Ramon Ortiz	4	3
SP5	23	Matt Garza*	1	1
RP1	32	Joe Nathan	18	13
RP2	25	Jesse Crain	8	9
RP3	28	Juan Rincon	9	10
RP4	26	Pat Neshek*	3	6
RP5	30	Dennys Reyes	6	5

Note that the Twins' numbers may be artificially depressed a bit here for two reasons - Jason Kubel isn't going to produce just one Win Share as the everyday DH, and they actually have two other non-pitchers (Matt LeCroy and Phil Nevin), one or both of whom may make the team, with better EWSL numbers than Kubel and Tyner. Accordingly, I'm using the subjective-adjustment override to up Kubel to 8 WS to reflect that combination of factors, which also has the advantage of breaking the EWSL tie between the Twins and White Sox. I'm similarly using the adjustment to pop Garza up to 5 WS to at least equal what he would project at if he came into 2007 as a pure rookie.

The Twins are a classic "tweener" team - they have the bats to be a winner behind solid pitching, but not to carry a bad rotation even with a good bullpen. Yet, after Santana the rotation is two uncertain youngsters (Bonser and Garza, the latter with only about 200 innings in pro ball under his belt), and two veterans who have fallen long and hard from not being that great in the first place and are only a hope and prayer to be adequate. At least their lineup isn't starting in a self-inflicted hole the way they did last year, but unless they can come up with better starters (giving Scott Baker a shot over Ortiz would be a step in the right direction that they are still considering, but Baker's no more reliable than the other young guys), I can't see them repeating as a 90-win team without Francisco Liriano.

Chicago White Sox

Raw EWSL: 239 (80 W)
Adjusted: 249 (83 W)
Age-Adj.: 223 (74 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	AJ Pierzynski	13	12
1B	31	Paul Konerko	22	18
2B	32	Tadahito Iguchi#	16	16
SS	27	Juan Uribe	14	15
3B	29	Joe Crede	16	15
RF	33	Jermaine Dye	20	18
CF	25	Brian Anderson*	3	6
LF	31	Scott Podsednik	11	9
DH	36	Jim Thome	18	13
C2	31	Toby Hall	7	6
INF	28	Alex Cintron	7	7
OF	33	Darin Erstad	8	7
13	31	Rob Mackowiak	10	8
SP1	28	Mark Buehrle	15	16
SP2	35	Jose Contreras	13	8
SP3	27	Jon Garland	16	15
SP4	30	Javier Vazquez	11	9
SP5	24	Gavin Floyd	0	0
RP1	26	Bobby Jenks#	8	10
RP2	30	Mike MacDougal	5	4
RP3	30	Matt Thornton	4	4
RP4	24	Andy Sisco#	2	2
RP5	25	David Aardsma*	2	5

The White Sox probably need to stop coasting on 2005 and get Podsednik out of the lineup if he can't keep his OBP above .350 and his stolen base percentage above 70%; he just doesn't bring anything else to the table.

Chicago has another deep bench, and will undoubtedly use it if Anderson can't win back Ozzie Guillen's confidence.

Floyd is a major crapshoot - with him, Jenks, MacDougal, and Sisco around, White Sox fans will get plenty of heartburn. It would not surprise me, if Floyd doesn't pan out, to see Sisco get a run in the rotation. He's still a major talent despite last year's not-entirely-shocking setbacks.

Kansas City Royals

Raw EWSL: 145 (48 W)
Adjusted: 168 (56 W)
Age-Adj.: 156 (52 W)
Subjective Adj.: 159

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	26	John Buck	8	9
1B	27	Ryan Shealy*	4	6
2B	37	Mark Grudzielanek	14	9
SS	29	Angel Berroa	8	7
3B	23	Alex Gordon+	0	11
RF	24	Mark Teahen#	12	18
CF	27	David DeJesus	14	15
LF	32	Emil Brown	13	11
DH	33	Mike Sweeney	10	9
C2	33	Jason LaRue	11	9
INF	29	Esteban German*	6	10
OF	39	Reggie Sanders	9	7
13	31	Ross Gload	3	3
SP1	28	Gil Meche	7	7
SP2	30	Odalis Perez	4	4
SP3	30	Luke Hudson	4	3
SP4	26	Brian Bannister*	2	3
SP5	23	Zack Grienke	3	3
RP1	33	Octavio Dotel	3	2
RP2	30	David Riske	5	4
RP3	26	Jorge De La Rosa	2	2
RP4	28	Todd Wellemeyer	2	2
RP5	31	Joel Peralta#	3	3

On the subjective adjustments, I topped up Ryan Shealy from 6 to 9 WS to reflect a conservative estimate of his value with increased playing time. I considered doing the same for Brian Bannister, but it's better practice not to make assumptions about any pitcher's ability to pitch more than he did last year. They would pick up a Win Share or three if you spotted in Joey Gathright in place of Gload.

Amazingly, EWSL rates the Royals even lower than it did last season, when I was certain that they would lose at least 110 games (they lost 100). In part that's because this team is even younger and its veterans even further removed from their primes, neither of which is really bad news for the franchise, but both of which provide a caution that the revival of long-term optimism that has bloomed lately in KC may not yet be matched by anything tangible on the field.

Mike Sweeney is only 33? He seems a lot older. He's a good guy and a hometown favorite, but it's probably near time to plan for a future without him. As for John Buck, he's only 25 and I still think he has a chance to turn into a decent hitter (he'll need a mite more plate discipline), but I take LaRue's arrival as a sign that the Royals are not unlimited in their patience with Buck. Then there's Angel Berroa, who just sucks the life out of this team on both sides of the ball. Get as excited as you want about Gordon and Teahen, but the Royals aren't getting out of the cellar as long as Berroa is the everyday shortstop.

That said, I do think the Royals will be improved this season - they're much like the Devil Rays (albeit behind them on the curve), developing a bunch of talented young position players under the guidance of a new GM, but without any basis beyond hope and prayer to think they are making progress towards fixing their abysmal track record with pitchers. They probably need to reach into the farm system and bring up people not listed here to get to 70 wins - Billy Butler, for one, and maybe Justin Huber.

Check out prior years' AL Central reports for 2004, 2005, and 2006.

The AL East is yet again the first stop in my annual division-by-division roundups, powered by Established Win Shares Levels (EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2007 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here and rookie adjustments here). Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here and here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team (I'm not convinced going to 24 or 25 would make the system more useful, since it would tend to overrate teams that stuff their back bench slots with aging ex-regulars). As always, the depth charts here are drawn from a number of sources and modified to list the guys who will do the work (e.g., if there are two guys battling for a fifth starter spot I'll often list one of them with the relievers if I think they'll both end up pitching), but I take responsibility for any errors. It's still a fluid time for rosters.

The Hated Yankees

Raw EWSL: 279 (93 W)
Adjusted: 295 (98 W)
Age-Adj.: 270 (90 W)
Subjective Adj: 256 (85 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Jorge Posada	22	15
1B	33	Doug Mientkiewicz	6	5
2B	24	Robinson Cano#	13	19
SS	33	Derek Jeter	29	25
3B	31	Alex Rodriguez	29	24
RF	33	Bobby Abreu	28	24
CF	33	Johnny Damon	23	20
LF	33	Hideki Matsui	16	14
DH	36	Jason Giambi	20	15
C2	29	Wil Nieves	0	0
INF	30	Andy Phillips*	1	1
OF	22	Melky Cabrera*	7	29
13	33	Miguel Cairo	6	5
SP1	35	Andy Pettitte	14	8
SP2	38	Mike Mussina	12	9
SP3	27	Chien-Ming Wang#	10	12
SP4	27	Kei Igawa+	0	5
SP5	31	Carl Pavano	4	4
RP1	37	Mariano Rivera	17	16
RP2	31	Kyle Farnsworth	8	6
RP3	32	Luis Vizcaino	7	4
RP4	30	Scott Proctor	5	4
RP5	38	Mike Myers	3	3

There is, sadly, a difference between doing baseball statistical studies professionally and doing them in your spare time, and one of them is that when you discover a methodological problem that should send you back to the drawing board, it's too late to change. EWSL more than doubles the Win Shares for a 22-year-old non-pitcher, based upon my experience with 15 such players over the past three seasons. Unfortunately, most of those 15 were guys who were working their way up to a full season of playing time; when the age adjustment is applied to a guy who played regularly for one season at age 21, it has a serious risk of over-projecting improvement. We will see this especially graphically when we get to the NL East.

Here, EWSL values Melky Cabrera as the best player in the AL East. Urk. It's true that Melky's ability to post a .360 OBP, have a nearly 1-to-1 BB/K ratio, and crack 26 doubles in 524 plate appearances at age 21 are all suggestive of a high-quality player who should take impressive strides forward this season. But there is simply very little chance that he will play regularly this year, let alone play a lot more than he did in 2006, and so for the first time (other than a 50% haircut I applied in 2005 to the injured Barry Bonds) I'm applying the Band-Aid solution of using subjective adjustments where appropriate to bring particular teams into line with what should be their reasonable expectations (you can still see and compare the purely objective ratings if you prefer them - I'll flag the players being adjusted with italics). Here, what I'm doing is shaving Melky down to 15 EWSL - still high for a bench player, but he's backing up three or four 33-year-olds (depending whether you think Giambi can slot in at first in a pinch) and a 36-year-old, so he should still get close to 400 PA. (Josh Phelps and Todd Pratt should take the remaining roster spots).

As for the team as a whole, the Hated Yankees' status as favorites may seem as fixed as one of Newton's Laws, but eventually we will find out whether they need to take some lumps like mortals when they can no longer rely on Jeter, Rivera and Posada as their anchors; we'll be asking those questions soon about the latter two. This is an old team - it's been an old team for years and has been shedding the oldest guys only gradually, and (as in the case of Gary Sheffield) replacing them with players who are likewise past 32. We saw last season what risks that carries even when you invest in players with previously bulletproof health records.

That is this team's only major weakness, though there are a number of smaller ones - Pavano's health, some questions about the bullpen and the bench beyond Melky, Minky's bat (although he'll be useful if he's platooned and hits like he did in 2006) - and there are young pitchers on the way, led by super-prospect Philip Hughes. Even with Cano sliding back a bit in his batting average and Jeter likely to return to his usual self, this team will score loads of runs and should have adequate starting pitching to take the AL East.

Boston Red Sox

Raw EWSL: 245 (82 W)
Adjusted: 263 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 235 (78 W)
Subjective Adj: 240 (80 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Jason Varitek	13	9
1B	28	Kevin Youkilis	13	14
2B	23	Dustin Pedroia+	1	11
SS	31	Julio Lugo	18	15
3B	33	Mike Lowell	15	13
RF	31	JD Drew	19	16
CF	27	Coco Crisp	14	15
LF	35	Manny Ramirez	29	20
DH	31	David Ortiz	28	23
C2	36	Doug Mirabelli	4	3
INF	31	Alex Cora	8	6
OF	25	Wily Mo Pena	9	11
13	29	Eric Hinske	8	8
SP1	40	Curt Schilling	13	12
SP2	26	Daisuke Matsuzaka+	0	5
SP3	27	Josh Beckett	11	11
SP4	26	Jon Papelbon#	11	13
SP5	40	Tim Wakefield	10	9
RP1	28	Joel Piniero	2	2
RP2	41	Mike Timlin	9	8
RP3	35	Brendan Donnelly	5	3
RP4	25	Manny Delcarmen*	2	4
RP5	34	Julian Tavarez	6	4

I've adjusted Matsuzaka, as a very high-quality foreign entry, up to 10 EWSL from the usual 5 for rookie starting pitchers. Valuing Matsuzaka at 10 and Kei Igawa at 5 may still be conservative, but you can rarely go wrong being conservative with rookie starting pitchers, whatever their pedigree, and especially in the American League.

The BoSox have two things going for them as against the Yankees. On the one hand, they have more upside from their established performance levels - any of their front four starters could be outstanding, with their ace, Schilling, perhaps having the lowest odds of a big leap forward (a lot has happened to him since 2004). JD Drew could always be healthy and rip off a "Lynn in 79" season. Piniero could turn his value around, freed of the workload of a starting pitcher. Crisp could have a huge year at age 27 after last season's regression.

On the other hand, the Sox have more depth, at least in the lineup, to withstand injury; Cora, Hinske and Pena give them more credible alternatives than the Yankees, who can only play Melky at one position at a time. Bullpen options besides those shown here include Craig Hansen and JC Romero (I still wouldn't bet against Hansen ending up the closer by mid-season; Piniero hasn't impressed this spring). Backups in the rotation are more questionable, as one wouldn't want to bank on Matt Clement or Jon Lester being ready to go any time in 2007, and that leaves us last year's collection of failed emergency options.

Overall, though, the Sawx are most likely competing for the Wild Card. The rotation could unravel due to health issues; Father Time could finally make some inroads on Manny at age 35, immaturity not being a defense to aging. Even if neither of those things happens, they don't have the guns to run with the Yankees unless the Yankees really get the aging bug badly or the Sox' rotation steps up in a big way.

Toronto Blue Jays

Raw EWSL: 217 (72 W)
Adjusted: 225 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 209 (70 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Gregg Zaun	10	8
1B	30	Lyle Overbay	18	16
2B	25	Aaron Hill*	10	15
SS	37	Royce Clayton	9	6
3B	30	Troy Glaus	17	16
RF	26	Alex Rios	13	15
CF	28	Vernon Wells	21	22
LF	30	Reed Johnson	13	12
DH	39	Frank Thomas	14	11
C2	30	Jason Phillips	3	3
INF	26	Russ Adams	6	7
OF	23	Adam Lind+	2	4
13	39	Matt Stairs	10	8
SP1	30	Roy Halladay	17	14
SP2	30	AJ Burnett	9	8
SP3	26	Gustavo Chacin#	7	9
SP4	31	Tomo Ohka	6	5
SP5	30	Shaun Marcum*	2	4
RP1	31	BJ Ryan	16	13
RP2	29	Jason Frasor	5	4
RP3	24	Brandon League#	3	3
RP4	25	Jeremy Accardo#	3	4
RP5	31	Scott Downs	5	4

I don't recall if Bill James ever formally listed the signs of a bad organization, but you would think that employing Royce Clayton as an everyday player (at age 37!) would qualify. JP Ricciardi is a smart guy, but if there's a method to that particular madness it eludes me.

Lind was sent down to AAA on Saturday, but I still expect him to play a big role in the outfield, as he's a serious hitter. Remaining roster slots should go to John McDonald, John Hattig and Jason Smith, or possibly Sal Fasano. Several experienced starting pitchers are on hand as additional options, including Josh Towers, Jon Thomson and Victor Zambrano, plus a bunch of the young arms who got exposure last season. I expect League to contribute more than EWSL suggests, and he could well be preferred over Frasor as a primary setup man.

The Jays, like the Sox, could exceed reasonable expectations if their starting pitching stays healthy and steps forward, but even if that happens and Frank Thomas is healthy, these guys will be hard pressed to match last season's 87 wins.

Baltimore Orioles

Raw EWSL: 214 (71 W)
Adjusted: 225 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 204 (68 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Ramon Hernandez	16	14
1B	30	Jeff Conine	13	12
2B	29	Brian Roberts	19	17
SS	31	Miguel Tejada	25	21
3B	35	Melvin Mora	20	14
RF	23	Nick Markakis*	6	17
CF	27	Corey Patterson	11	12
LF	34	Jay Payton	14	13
DH	30	Jay Gibbons	10	10
C2	35	Paul Bako	2	1
INF	36	Chris Gomez	5	4
OF	35	Kevin Millar	13	9
13	32	Brandon Fahey*	2	5
SP1	28	Erik Bedard	10	11
SP2	26	Daniel Cabrera#	7	7
SP3	29	Adam Loewen*	2	4
SP4	36	Steve Trachsel	5	4
SP5	31	Jaret Wright	6	5
RP1	25	Chris Ray#	7	10
RP2	29	Denys Baez	8	7
RP3	32	Chad Bradford	5	3
RP4	35	Jamie Walker	5	3
RP5	36	Todd Williams	4	3

Nick Markakis, by the way, is precisely the kind of player EWSL's sharp upward slope for very young regulars is based on - he was in and out of the lineup in the first half last season due to his mediocre performance, but picked up his power stroke in the second half, and anyone who saw him play after the All-Star Break expects significanly better full-season numbers from him in 2007. By contrast, Corey Patterson's EWSL hasn't changed a whit from last year, as he is basically topping out.

The Orioles' lineup is wall-to-wall adequate, but Tejada and perhaps Markakis are the only star-level contributors, and Tejada may yet break Jim Rice's single-season GIDP record. And the starting rotation, even with Bedard progressing nicely and the talented Loewen not far behind, is basically a burnt offering to Leo Mazzone. The Orioles will perform respectably for a fourth-place team, but have little to recommend them as anything more.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Raw EWSL: 108 (36 W)
Adjusted: 147 (49 W)
Age-Adj.: 159 (53 W)
Subjective Adj: 164 (55 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Dioner Navarro#	4	7
1B	29	Ty Wigginton	10	9
2B	25	Jorge Cantu	9	12
SS	26	Ben Zobrist*	1	2
3B	28	Akinori Iwamura+	0	11
RF	21	Delmon Young+	1	11
CF	25	Rocco Baldelli	9	11
LF	25	Carl Crawford	21	27
DH	26	Johnny Gomes	9	10
C2	32	Josh Paul	3	2
INF	22	BJ Upton	2	4
OF	34	Greg Norton	5	4
13	26	Brendan Harris+	0	4
SP1	23	Scott Kazmir	10	10
SP2	25	James Shields*	3	7
SP3	30	Jae Seo	6	5
SP4	29	Casey Fossum	4	3
SP5	27	Brian Stokes+	1	5
RP1	26	Seth McClung	1	1
RP2	27	Ruddy Lugo*	4	7
RP3	31	Shawn Camp	3	3
RP4	36	Dan Miceli	3	2
RP5	36	Al Reyes	3	3

There's a saying about Brazil that it's the country of the future and always will be . . . so it seems with Tampa, which has done a fine job scouting talented youngsters (at least non-pitchers) but never seems to yield much in the win column.

This team should not be as terrible as its EWSL profile suggests, even with a subjective adjustment of Ben Zobrist from 2 to 7 EWSL to account for the fact that he has a steady job. The profile of Tampa's lineup looks a lot like last year's Marlins, no track record but a fair amount of talent. Of course, your guess for the Dan Uggla in this picture is as good as mine, and I don't see a Josh Johnson even if Kazmir plays Dontrelle...basically, the Rays should score a decent number of runs, especially if Upton slots in somewhere as a regular and shakes off 2006's apathetic performance with the bat, but there are too many question marks, too little patience and power here to make a really to-flight offense even if everything goes right, and too few credible major league pitchers (even trying the control-challenged McClung as a closer is a sign of desperation) to project them at much more than 75 wins as a best-case scenario.

You can compare the prior AL East roundups for 2004 here, 2005 here and 2006 here.

This is Part III of my look back at at how Established Win Shares Levels fared in 2006. It's time to look at the age adjustments. (I've looked at these previously here, here and here).

The great thing about doing something like EWSL as an ongoing project is that the data becomes progressively more stable over time: I now have three years of results to work from in evaluating how players tend to perform at each age relative to their adjusted Established Win Shares Levels, and thus can have progressively more confidence in the age adjustments I use going forward. For example, the more years of data I have, the less influenced it will be by a single generation of exceptional players born in a particular year.

Let's start with the 3-year results for the non-pitchers:

Non-Pitchers 2004-06:

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	4	33	34	0.878
22	15	262	116.200	2.255
23	24	355	247.333	1.435
24	43	490	387.536	1.264
25	64	708	564.900	1.253
26	93	1065	934.770	1.139
27	89	1028	963.963	1.066
28	114	1416	1349.902	1.049
29	103	1221	1340.370	0.911
30	112	1329	1444.836	0.920
31	84	858	1014.036	0.846
32	89	902	1067.233	0.845
33	69	708	818.103	0.865
34	67	709	773.003	0.917
35	60	411	593.170	0.693
36	41	379	505.333	0.750
37	30	239	390.496	0.612
38	22	201	273.830	0.734
39	16	175	222.500	0.787
40+	16	120	222.830	0.539

As you can see, the rapid rise of young players and their gradual fall from age 29 on is a powerful pattern, and one that grows smoother with each year's additional data. 2006 was a good year for 27-year-olds and a bad year for 28-year-olds, so some equilibrium has been restored in that regard from the prior age adjustments showing 27-year-olds flatlining but then hopping up one last time at 28. After age 32, the number of players holding jobs really starts to drop off.

The train wreck at age 35 only grew more pronounced this season. On the other hand, additional data helped bouy up the 40+ year olds, whose numbers got devastated by Barry Bonds' 2005. Here's this year's data on its own:

Non-Pitchers (2006):

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	0	0	0
22	4	58	26.20	2.214
23	11	198	134.90	1.468
24	15	155	125.97	1.230
25	18	160	127.10	1.259
26	30	401	358.67	1.118
27	21	282	219.13	1.287
28	28	289	318.67	0.907
29	29	364	396.57	0.918
30	45	550	636.47	0.864
31	25	270	266.67	1.013
32	32	348	439.40	0.792
33	16	140	163.67	0.855
34	26	323	357.17	0.904
35	19	133	209.17	0.636
36	15	102	152.00	0.671
37	6	36	89.33	0.403
38	8	69	110.83	0.623
39	6	48	65.50	0.733
40+	7	60	84.83	0.707

As I've explained before, the nature of any established performance level will exaggerate the upward and downward trajectory of player aging, since a 25-year-old is still being partly compared to his 22-year-old self, while a 35-year-old is still being partly compared to his 32-year-old self.

Now, the pitchers:

Pitchers (2004-06):

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	7	42	30.000	1.400
22	17	128	105.000	1.219
23	23	177	172.230	1.028
24	40	266	256.870	1.036
25	57	442	376.800	1.173
26	76	474	463.800	1.022
27	87	592	617.560	0.959
28	92	617	596.800	1.034
29	79	499	576.536	0.866
30	69	423	498.400	0.849
31	63	416	507.170	0.820
32	55	292	425.630	0.686
33	49	275	383.300	0.717
34	39	205	272.966	0.751
35	29	118	194.336	0.607
36	23	123	147.670	0.833
37	20	147	153.663	0.957
38	22	161	204.996	0.785
39	19	141	162.333	0.869
40+	26	232	269.336	0.950

2006 was a tough year for the established pitchers, at least the under-30 set. The one-year sample sizes get really small - for example, Jon Lieber was the 36-year-old starting pitcher, Steve Trachsel and Paul Byrd the only 35-year-old starters. In general, the rule still holds that the pitchers as a group start to fall off earlier than the hitters. The 2006 data:

Pitchers (2006):

Age	#	WS	EWSL	%
21-	2	19	13	1.462
22	6	36	41.60	0.865
23	6	36	33.30	1.081
24	15	96	107.77	0.891
25	23	169	158.17	1.068
26	17	98	93.30	1.050
27	29	230	228.90	1.005
28	33	202	218.40	0.925
29	25	149	174.77	0.853
30	26	144	188.27	0.765
31	20	155	174.17	0.890
32	12	49	71.83	0.682
33	18	95	143.50	0.662
34	14	92	115.80	0.794
35	8	40	50.67	0.789
36	9	46	54.67	0.841
37	3	24	20.83	1.152
38	5	35	41.83	0.837
39	6	61	55.50	1.099
40+	13	86	115.67	0.744

Overall, as consistent with past data, the age/EWSL numbers are a powerful reminder of the tides of age pulling players down from 29 onward. Which is not surprising: in baseball, as in life, everyone comes up from nothing and goes back to nothing in the end.

In Part II of my look back at how Established Win Shares Levels fared in 2006, I'm taking a look at the rookies. Rookies - players with no significant major league track record - present a unique challenge for what is intended as a system for objectively evaluating players' major league track records. As I've noted before, EWSL uses a standard arbitrary figure for all rookies - it does not distinguish between, say, Ryan Zimmerman and Reggie Abercrombie if both are expected to hold everyday jobs. I'd like to add a non-subjective adjustment for rookie quality, but until I can get Major League Equivalency Win Shares (I don't believe they exist anywhere), I have to rely on the facts that (1) bad rookies rarely get everyday jobs and (2) good rookies often fall on their faces.

Of course, the one subjective element of this is my evaluation each spring of who looks like they have a job nailed down. One reason there were more rookies listed in 2006 was because I ran the EWSL rosters later in the year, mainly during April.

Anyway, part of the quest to make EWSL more empirical and less guesswork is that the adjustments - both the age adjustment and the rookie adjustment - get tweaked every year based on the accumulated data I have from, now, three years' worth of results. Let's look at those results:

Type of Player	2004 #	2004 WS	2005 #	2005 WS	2006 #	2006 WS	#	WS	Rate
Everyday Players	6	74	10	101	17	187	33	362	10.97
Bench Players (Under Age 30)	4	26	10	38	11	29	25	93	3.72
Bench Players (Age 30+)	2	2	0	0	0	0	2	2	1
Rotation Starters	3	1	3	13	3	28	9	42	4.67
Relief Pitchers	4	21	1	1	6	43	11	65	5.91
TOTAL	19	124	24	153	37	287	80	564	7.05

After 2004, I had split off the rookie bench players by age because guys who break in as bench players in their 30s generally lack upside (the same isn't true of starters, since rookie everyday players age 30 and up tend to be Japanese imports). You can see a steady uptick the last three years in the number of rookies being given jobs early in the season, although bearing in mind that part of that is changes in my own estimation of who would play. Still, there's no disputing that last year had a real good crop of rookies from Day One. You can also see the miserable return from rookie starting pitchers - the good ones, like Jered Weaver and Dontrelle Willis, tend to come up a few months into the season, while with the exception of the occasional Verlander, guys who win rotation jobs early are often there more because of team need than because they are definitely ready.

I'll be using these figures, rounded off (most are pretty close to whole numbers anyway) for this year's adjustments - 11 for everyday players, 4 and 1 for bench players under and over 30, 5 for starting pitchers, 6 for relievers.

As I did last year, before diving into my preseason Established Win Shares Levels roster analyses, I'm going to take a quick look back at last season's. First up is the team-by-team results. For those of you who need a primer on EWSL and my annual roster roundups, go here. A few basic reminders:

*I look at 23 players (13 non-pitchers, 10 pitchers) per team, so an average team should exceed its EWSL due to the fact that most teams these days use between 30-45 players in a season.

*EWSL is an estimate of the established major league talent on a team (adjusted for age) going into a season. It's not a system for predicting the future, although it can be a helpful part of the toolkit (or at least a sanity check) in making predictions of the future.

*EWSL uses a standard figure for rookies (12 WS for rookie everyday players, 6 for rookie bench players, 4 for rookie pitchers (starting or relief)). It does not distinguish between, say, Ryan Zimmerman and Reggie Abercrombie if both are expected to hold everyday jobs. Thus, a team with a lot of high-quality rookies will exceed its EWSL. I'd like to add a non-subjective adjustment for rookie quality, but until I can get Major League Equivalency Win Shares (I don't believe they exist anywhere), I have to rely on the facts that (1) bad rookies rarely get everyday jobs and (2) good rookies often fall on their faces.

That said, basically, my analysis assumes that there are three components to team success: how much established talent is on the preseason roster, how well they perform, and how much production the team gets from guys who supplement those top 23 players with trades, rookies or scrubs. The following table shows the following columns: (1) each team's 2006 EWSL; (2) the actual Win Shares for those 23 players (includes Win Shares earned for other teams, e.g., Bobby Abreu counts with the Phillies); (3) the ratio of column (2) divided by column (1) to show how the 23 players fared relative to EWSL; (4) the team's total actual 2006 Win Shares (i.e., Wins x 3); (5) the team's Win Shares minus those from the top 23 players (in the example above this will include the negative value of, say, Abreu's Yankees Win Shares from the Phillies' "Rest" column); and (6) the ratio of column (4) divided by column (1) to show how the team as a whole fared relative to EWSL. Teams are ranked by that last column:

Team	EWSL	23-Man WS	23-Man WS/EWSL	Total WS	Rest	Total WS/EWSL
Tigers	194.70	249	1.279	285	36	1.464
Rockies	160.96	188	1.168	228	40	1.417
Padres	188.40	209	1.109	264	55	1.401
Marlins	167.71	192	1.145	234	42	1.395
Reds	182.16	209	1.147	240	31	1.318
Twins	224.49	242	1.078	288	46	1.283
Dodgers	208.02	188	0.904	264	76	1.269
Astros	196.82	203	1.031	246	43	1.250
Giants	184.24	198	1.075	228	30	1.238
Mets	235.18	237	1.008	291	54	1.237
Mariners	192.02	216	1.125	234	18	1.219
D-backs	193.86	194	1.001	228	34	1.176
Blue Jays	224.76	241	1.072	261	20	1.161
Phillies	223.25	231	1.035	255	24	1.142
Royals	163.20	135	0.827	186	51	1.140
White Sox	238.09	252	1.058	270	18	1.134
Brewers	199.47	192	0.963	225	33	1.128
Angels	236.79	204	0.862	267	63	1.128
Indians	212.02	207	0.976	234	27	1.104
Pirates	184.21	162	0.879	201	39	1.091
Nationals	196.88	162	0.823	213	51	1.082
Rangers	228.06	214	0.938	240	26	1.052
Cardinals	237.00	210	0.886	249	39	1.051
A's	267.34	245	0.916	279	34	1.044
Yankees	280.18	238	0.849	291	53	1.039
Devil Rays	181.79	142	0.781	183	41	1.007
Orioles	211.61	179	0.846	210	31	0.992
Braves	241.69	193	0.799	237	44	0.981
Red Sox	269.77	246	0.912	258	14	0.956
Cubs	236.80	166	0.701	198	32	0.836

It should come as no surprise that the Tigers, 2006's big story, rate at the top of teams that exceeded expectations, and that the Cubs land at the bottom of the pile. As you can see, the top teams are something of a mix of teams that had great seasons and teams that had very low expectations - I was a little surprised to see the Reds and Rockies listed, for example. The Mets, on the other hand, did pretty much as expected with their roster but did better than average with guys they added on (although I should note that players overall rated at 0.968 of their EWSL, which will factor in as I re-adjust this year's age and rookie adjustments). The Dodgers rate the highest in that regard, with rookies like Andre Eithier helping out, while the Red Sox, White Sox and Mariners got the least help for their original roster. For the most part, teams that were near the top of this list last year tended to be nearer the bottom and vice versa, but the Cubs were down with the dregs for the second year in a row.

Here are the players among those on the preseason 23-man lineups of each team who were the biggest over and underacvhievers (I'm mixing those who were the biggest ups or downs by percentage or raw total):

Team	Best	Worst
Tigers	Justin Verlander, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen	Chris Shelton, Dmitri Young
Rockies	Brad Hawpe, Garret Atkins	Cory Sullivan, Luis A Gonzalez
Padres	Adrian Gonzalez, Mike Cameron	Ryan Klesko, Shawn Estes
Marlins	Alfredo Amezaga, Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla	Reggie Abercrombie, Chris Aguila
Reds	Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo	Jason LaRue, Chris Hammond
Twins	Francisco Liriano, Mike Cuddyer, Justin Morneau	Carlos Silva, Rondell White, Lew Ford
Dodgers	Takashi Saito, Derek Lowe	Bill Mueller, James Loney
Astros	Trever Miller, Lance Berkman	Eric Munson, Brad Lidge
Giants	Kevin Corriea, Barry Bonds	Mike Matheny, Jason Ellison
Mets	Jorge Julio, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran	Anderson Hernandez, Victor Diaz, Victor Zambrano
Mariners	JJ Putz, Joe Borchard, Raul Ibanez	Matt Lawton, Jeremy Reed, Joel Pineiro
D-Backs	Brandon Lyon, Juan Cruz, Brandon Webb	Tony Clark, Jose Valverde
Blue Jays	BJ Ryan, Alex Rios	Gustavo Chacin, Josh Towers
Phillies	Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley	Aaron Rowand, Alex Gonzalez
Royals	Emil Brown, Mark Teahen	Angel Berroa, Zack Grienke
White Sox	Matt Thornton, Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye	Mark Buehrle, Neal Cotts
Brewers	Gabe Gross, Chris Capuano	JJ Hardy, Derrick Turnbow
Angels	Robb Quinlan, Ervin Santana, Juan Rivera	Jeff Mathis, Bartolo Colon, Darrin Erstad
Indians	Bob Wickman, Travis Hafner	Jason Johnson
Pirates	Ian Snell, Jason Grabow, Freddy Sanchez	Joe Randa, Oliver Perez
Nationals	Mike Stanton, Ryan Zimmerman, Nick Johnson	Jose Guillen, Cristian Guzman, Brandon Watson
Rangers	Mark DeRosa, Gary Matthews	Laynce Nix, Brad Wilkerson
Cardinals	Scott Speizio, Chris Carpenter	Mark Mulder, Jim Edmonds
A's	Frank Thomas, Kiko Calero	Huston Street, Antonio Perez, Rich Harden
Yankees	Chien-Ming Wang, Derek Jeter	Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield, Carl Pavano
Devil Rays	Shawn Camp, Mark Hendrickson	Jorge Cantu, Jonny Gomes
Orioles	Chris Ray, Ramon Hernandez	Luis Matos, Brian Roberts
Braves	Oscar Villereal, Brian McCann	Kelly Johnson, Jeff Francouer
Red Sox	Kevin Youkilis, Jon Papelbon	JT Snow, Jason Varitek, Coco Crisp
Cubs	Matt Murton, Bobby Howry	Derrek Lee, Mark Prior, Jerry Hairston

Bear in mind again that these are full-season numbers - Jorge Julio, for example, did his good work in Arizona. Derrek Lee had the worst falloff of any marjor league player, from an EWSL of 27 to 4 Win Shares. It doesn't show here but the Rangers also took big hits from Teixera and Blalock.

For those of you who have been wondering what I was doing instead of blogging about baseball lately - besides being swamped with work and a not-sleeping-well baby - I decided to take a systematic look at this year's free agent signings thus far, using Established Win Shares Levels. These are all the signings through Monday, drawn from ESPN's list. [UPDATE: Yes, I know the chart is already a bit out of date - I may re-run this later to include Drew, Lugo, and Pettitte, as well as some of the people who sign later in the offseason].

EWSL is explained here, and the age adjustments I used, developed from the 2004-05 results, are here (I have not yet had time to add the 2006 results). As you will recall, EWSL is not a predictive tool and is not individually tailored to the player; it simply looks at the established level of quality a player has produced over the last three years, applies an age adjustment derived from actual experience, and concludes that a particular level of Win Shares is a player's current established level of production. I see it as a baseline or starting point for an analysis of this nature, rather than an endpoint - in other words, if EWSL says a player's current established level is 6 Win Shares, you need a really good reason to explain why you are paying a guy with the expectation that he will give you 20. I don't exclude the possibility that a closer statistical analysis or some teams' scouting and coaching staffs may have such good reasons, but the bigger the gap is, the more skeptical we should be.

The chart below is mainly self-explanatory. The last five columns list, in order, (1) the average per-year contract value, (2) the player's 2007 EWSL, (3) the average contract value divided by 2007 EWSL, (4) the player's average EWSL for the life of the contract, and (5) the average contract value divided by the average EWSL for the life of the contract. The chart is ranked by the final column, with the best bargains in terms of dollars per EWSL for the life of the contract at the top, and the worst deals at the bottom. I explain below some of the biases in the study, however.

EWSL more than a year out was computed by successive application of the age adjustments (I'll spare you the algebra). Obviously that's a crummy way to project a player as far as 8 years into the future, but then I'm not convinced that the Cubs have a better way to project a player 8 years into the future.

Player	Age	Old	New	Yrs	Dollars	$/Yr	EWSL	$/WS	WS/Yr	Tot$/WS
Geoff Blum, 3B	34	SD	SD	1	$900,000	$900,000	5	$166,256	5	$166,256
Damion Easley, SS	37	AZ	NYM	1	$850,000	$850,000	5	$175,941	5	$175,941
Mike Lieberthal, C	35	PHI	LAD	1	$1,250,000	$1,250,000	6	$211,411	6	$211,411
Ramon Martinez, 2B	34	LAD	LAD	1	$850,000	$850,000	4	$219,828	4	$219,828
Royce Clayton, SS	37	CIN	TOR	1	$1,500,000	$1,500,000	6	$235,738	6	$235,738
Kazuo Matsui, 2B	31	COL	COL	1	$1,500,000	$1,500,000	6	$259,905	6	$259,905
Adam Kennedy, 2B	31	LAA	STL	3	$10,000,000	$3,333,333	12	$276,228	12	$283,546
Kevin Millar, 1B	35	BAL	BAL	1	$2,750,000	$2,750,000	9	$292,180	9	$292,180
Craig Counsell, SS	36	AZ	MIL	2	$6,000,000	$3,000,000	11	$283,447	10	$315,146
Sean Casey, 1B	32	DET	DET	1	$4,000,000	$4,000,000	12	$323,939	12	$323,939
David Weathers, RP	37	CIN	CIN	2	$5,000,000	$2,500,000	8	$317,622	7	$344,545
Alex Cora, SS	31	BOS	BOS	2	$4,000,000	$2,000,000	6	$338,839	6	$363,488
Jose Mesa, RP	41	COL	DET	1	$2,500,000	$2,500,000	6	$394,737	6	$394,737
Scott Spiezio, 3B	34	STL	STL	2	$4,500,000	$2,250,000	6	$363,685	6	$397,448
Rich Aurilia, 3B	35	CIN	SF	2	$8,000,000	$4,000,000	10	$394,633	10	$397,615
Frank Catalanotto, LF	33	TOR	TX	3	$13,000,000	$4,333,333	11	$379,164	11	$401,637
Gary Bennett, C	35	STL	STL	1	$900,000	$900,000	2	$414,365	2	$414,365
Jay Payton, RF	34	OAK	BAL	2	$9,500,000	$4,750,000	13	$365,610	11	$417,342
Wes Helms, 3B	31	FL	PHI	2	$5,450,000	$2,725,000	6	$472,161	6	$454,489
Aaron Fultz, RP	33	PHI	CLE	1	$1,650,000	$1,650,000	4	$454,566	4	$454,566
David Dellucci, LF	33	PHI	CLE	3	$11,500,000	$3,833,333	9	$414,026	8	$462,964
Alex Gonzalez, SS	30	BOS	CIN	3	$14,000,000	$4,666,667	12	$397,886	10	$471,003
Gregg Zaun, C	36	TOR	TOR	2	$7,250,000	$3,625,000	8	$440,355	7	$493,970
Tanyon Sturtze, RP	36	NYY	ATL	1	$750,000	$750,000	2	$494,071	2	$494,071
Mike Stanton, RP	40	SF	CIN	2	$5,500,000	$2,750,000	6	$496,241	6	$498,913
Jose Valentin, 2B	37	NYM	NYM	1	$3,800,000	$3,800,000	7	$511,888	7	$511,888
Bengie Molina, C	32	TOR	SF	3	$16,000,000	$5,333,333	11	$490,286	10	$521,305
Pedro Feliz, 3B	32	SF	SF	1	$5,100,000	$5,100,000	10	$525,665	10	$525,665
Mark DeRosa, 2B	32	TX	CHC	3	$13,000,000	$4,333,333	8	$566,893	8	$546,034
Ray Durham, 2B	35	SF	SF	2	$14,000,000	$7,000,000	13	$542,159	13	$559,361
Dave Roberts, CF	35	SD	SF	3	$18,000,000	$6,000,000	12	$512,616	11	$560,597
Kerry Wood, SP	30	CHC	CHC	1	$1,750,000	$1,750,000	3	$570,652	3	$570,652
Roberto Hernandez, RP	42	NYM	CLE	1	$3,500,000	$3,500,000	6	$614,035	6	$614,035
Russ Springer, RP	38	HOU	STL	1	$1,750,000	$1,750,000	3	$618,229	3	$618,229
Wade Miller, SP	30	CHC	CHC	1	$1,500,000	$1,500,000	2	$625,000	2	$625,000
Steve Kline, RP	34	SF	SF	2	$3,500,000	$1,750,000	3	$521,558	3	$643,051
Luis Gonzalez, LF	39	AZ	LAD	1	$7,350,000	$7,350,000	11	$648,949	11	$648,949
Darren Oliver, RP	36	NYM	LAA	1	$1,750,000	$1,750,000	3	$667,429	3	$667,429
Henry Blanco, C	35	CHC	CHC	2	$5,250,000	$2,625,000	4	$659,216	4	$676,174
Jose Guillen, RF	31	WA	SEA	1	$5,500,000	$5,500,000	8	$710,701	8	$710,701
Juan Pierre, CF	29	CHC	LAD	5	$44,000,000	$8,800,000	14	$612,103	12	$721,928
Jim Edmonds, CF	37	STL	STL	2	$19,000,000	$9,500,000	14	$695,020	13	$743,655
Paul Bako, C	35	KC	BAL	1	$900,000	$900,000	1	$745,856	1	$745,856
LaTroy Hawkins, RP	34	BAL	COL	1	$3,500,000	$3,500,000	5	$768,611	5	$768,611
Gary Matthews Jr., CF	32	TX	LAA	5	$50,000,000	$10,000,000	14	$708,617	12	$813,729
Tom Glavine, SP	41	NYM	NYM	1	$10,500,000	$10,500,000	13	$818,713	13	$818,713
Nomar Garciaparra, 1B	33	LAD	LAD	2	$18,500,000	$9,250,000	10	$888,057	11	$869,319
Guillermo Mota, RP	33	NYM	NYM	2	$5,000,000	$2,500,000	3	$739,754	3	$881,379
Greg Maddux, SP	41	LAD	SD	1	$10,000,000	$10,000,000	11	$889,548	11	$889,548
Woody Williams, SP	40	SD	HOU	2	$12,500,000	$6,250,000	7	$897,129	7	$898,150
Mike Piazza, DH	38	SD	OAK	1	$8,500,000	$8,500,000	9	$912,507	9	$912,507
Joe Borowski, RP	36	FL	CLE	1	$4,250,000	$4,250,000	5	$933,245	5	$933,245
Aramis Ramirez, 3B	29	CHC	CHC	5	$75,000,000	$15,000,000	18	$839,991	16	$957,903
Scott Williamson, RP	31	SD	BAL	1	$900,000	$900,000	1	$983,965	1	$983,965
Orlando Hernandez, SP	41	NYM	NYM	2	$12,000,000	$6,000,000	6	$971,660	6	$990,388
Alan Embree, RP	37	SD	OAK	2	$5,500,000	$2,750,000	3	$937,820	3	$1,027,868
Danys Baez, RP	29	ATL	BAL	3	$19,000,000	$6,333,333	7	$908,917	6	$1,083,488
Frank Thomas, DH	39	OAK	TOR	2	$18,120,000	$9,060,000	11	$829,556	8	$1,094,241
Chad Bradford, RP	32	NYM	BAL	3	$10,500,000	$3,500,000	3	$1,018,923	3	$1,096,806
Kenny Lofton, CF	40	LAD	TX	1	$6,000,000	$6,000,000	5	$1,133,680	5	$1,133,680
Carlos Lee, LF	31	TX	HOU	6	$100,000,000	$16,666,667	17	$977,422	14	$1,156,569
Moises Alou, RF	40	SF	NYM	1	$8,500,000	$8,500,000	7	$1,160,806	7	$1,160,806
Justin Speier, RP	33	TOR	LAA	4	$18,000,000	$4,500,000	5	$921,848	4	$1,261,868
Alfonso Soriano, LF	31	WA	CHC	8	$136,000,000	$17,000,000	17	$1,028,620	13	$1,315,438
Mike Mussina, SP	38	NYY	NYY	2	$23,000,000	$11,500,000	9	$1,258,848	9	$1,329,466
Jamie Walker, RP	35	DET	BAL	3	$12,000,000	$4,000,000	3	$1,524,100	3	$1,391,725
Vicente Padilla, SP	29	TX	TX	3	$33,750,000	$11,250,000	8	$1,462,210	7	$1,597,677
Ted Lilly, SP	31	TOR	CHC	4	$40,000,000	$10,000,000	7	$1,366,618	6	$1,804,602
Jason Schmidt, SP	34	SF	LAD	3	$47,000,000	$15,666,667	10	$1,594,355	8	$2,011,000
Gil Meche, SP	28	SEA	KC	5	$55,000,000	$11,000,000	7	$1,542,669	5	$2,042,034
Octavio Dotel, RP	33	NYY	KC	1	$5,000,000	$5,000,000	2	$2,219,263	2	$2,219,263
Adam Eaton, SP	29	TX	PHI	3	$24,500,000	$8,166,667	4	$2,009,185	3	$2,372,750
Kip Wells, SP	30	TX	STL	1	$4,000,000	$4,000,000	2	$2,500,000	2	$2,500,000
Randy Wolf, SP	30	PHI	LAD	1	$8,000,000	$8,000,000	3	$3,000,000	3	$3,000,000

As I see it, this analysis has three biases you need to take account of before using it to analyze contracts.

1. You will notice that the top of the chart is dominated by short-term deals for low-cost, low-quality players, while most of the stars are in the bottom half. There's a rational reason for that that doesn't depend on GM stupidity. Lots of players can give you 1 Win Share; very few can give you 30. And there are still only 25 roster spots. In a perfectly efficient free agent market, that marginal 30th Win Share should be more expensive; the stars ought to cost a premium for scraping the right end of the bell curve. That's an argument that the best measures analyze contracts by marginal value, but I didn't have time to run an analysis of that nature.

2. Win Shares accords a fairly large share of the value of preventing runs to fielders as opposed to pitchers. As a result, especially with declining innings totals, all but the very best starters and nearly all relievers will top out in the mid teens, comparable to a solid but not star-level regular. While you could argue that this is a reflection that real-world teams should spend less on individual pitchers, you still need pitching, and accordingly the pitchers generally come in as more expensive. Another way of viewing this is to recognize that pitching is scarce and thus more valuable.

3. Unsurprisingly, players returning from long injuries preceded by periods of injury-reduced effectiveness are rated by EWSL as not being worth much. Naturally, the teams employing Randy Wolf and Octavio Dotel know that they are taking on a risk.

That said, some thoughts:

*I see Adam Kennedy as a guy nearing the end of his effectiveness, at least as an offensive player, but EWSL sees him as a guy who has been a consistent producer and is not that old, and just signed for a lower annual salary than Jose Valentin. The Cards don't need to get a ton of value from Kennedy for that to pay off. Credit the savvy Walt Jocketty for that one.

*Yes, I recognize the inherent skepticism that accompanies anything that rates Kaz Matsui as a good deal. Just because he appears to be a good use of money doesn't mean he's a good use of at bats. Although I do still think Matsui may have a revival in him in Colorado.

*No, I do not actually think Gary Matthews and Juan Pierre are better investments than Glavine. Don't forget the value of their defense, but I do see Pierre in particular as a guy who is in rather faster than usual decline.

*Note that Aramis Ramirez is the only player on the chart who has an EWSL of 15 or higher for the duration of his contract. Obviously, he's a steal.

*I was a little surprised to see Jason Schmidt in the rogues' gallery with Eaton, Wells, Meche, Lilly, and Padilla, none of whom are pitchers of comparable quality.

Yes, as always, the six-team NL Central is last in line in my division-by-division previews using Established Win Shares Levels; having just put the finishing touches on this one, I should finally have a little more flexibility back in the blog.

EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2006 revisions to the age adjustment are discussed here. Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers are in my AL East preview here.

St. Louis Cardinals

Raw EWSL: 239.67 (80 W)
Adjusted: 254.53 (85 W)
Age-Adj.: 237.00 (79 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Yadier Molina#	8	14
1B	26	Albert Pujols	37	43
2B	29	Aaron Miles#	8	9
SS	31	David Eckstein	18	14
3B	31	Scott Rolen	19	15
RF	30	Juan Encarnacion	16	15
CF	36	Jim Edmonds	28	22
LF	36	So Taguchi	9	7
C2	34	Gary Bennett	4	4
INF	26	Hector Luna#	4	5
OF	26	Skip Schumaker+	0	6
12	33	Scott Speizio	3	3
13	28	John Rodriguez*	3	5
SP1	31	Chris Carpenter	14	11
SP2	28	Mark Mulder	14	16
SP3	27	Jason Marquis	11	10
SP4	31	Jeff Suppan	11	9
SP5	29	Sidney Ponson	5	4
RP1	33	Jason Isringhausen	11	8
RP2	31	Braden Looper	8	7
RP3	36	Ricardo Rincon	3	3
RP4	30	Randy Flores	2	2
RP5	24	Brad Thompson*	3	6

Larry Bigbie, originally part of the outfield mix, is still injured. Overall, the Cards are a lot less fearsome than they were a year or two ago, with holes having sprung in the lineup at several points (outfield corners, second base, catcher) and continuing question marks on the health of Scott Rolen (who looks 100% so far this year, in which case he'll easily bypass his EWSL of 15) and the age of Jim Edmonds. Chris Carpenter, like Rolen, will likely exceed his established level if he breaks with his history and manages another full healthy season. Pujols remains this team's backbone, but the more the Cards are Pujols rather than Pujols-Edmonds-Rolen, the more trouble they'll be in.

One of the imponderables in St. Louis, though more as an analytical and Roto issue than as an effect on the W/L column, is how friendly or unfriendly the new ballpark will be to hitters over a full season.

Chicago Cubs

Raw EWSL: 219.17 (73 W)
Adjusted: 240.17 (80 W)
Age-Adj.: 236.80 (79 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Michael Barrett	15	14
1B	30	Derrek Lee	28	27
2B	33	Todd Walker	14	12
SS	23	Ronny Cedeno+	1	12
3B	28	Aramis Ramirez	20	21
RF	31	Jacque Jones	14	11
CF	28	Juan Pierre	18	20
LF	24	Matt Murton*	2	5
C2	34	Henry Blanco	5	4
INF	30	Jerry Hairston	8	8
OF	35	John Mabry	5	3
12	33	Neifi Perez	10	8
13	26	Freddy Bynum+	0	6
SP1	25	Carlos Zambrano	18	23
SP2	40	Greg Maddux	11	11
SP3	31	Glendon Rusch	6	5
SP4	25	Mark Prior	12	15
SP5	24	Jerome Williams	7	7
RP1	29	Ryan Dempster	7	6
RP2	32	Bobby Howry	7	5
RP3	28	Will Ohman*	2	4
RP4	30	Scott Williamson	3	2
RP5	29	Kerry Wood	8	7

I was frankly stunned that the Cubs rate just a hair behind the Cardinals. Of course, that's ranking Prior and Wood as if they will be at least as healthy as in the last three seasons, when they haven't pitched yet, and Derrek Lee going down for six weeks puts them in a big hole. Also, I suspect that, as was true in Colorado, Juan Pierre will be less valuable in a park where the home run ball plays a bigger role and runs are not as scarce as in Florida. On the other hand, Matt Murton gets short changed here, and there's always the possibility that a healthy Wade Miller could be useful. Right now, Sean Marshall is holding down the other rotation spot. I'm not sure what options the Cubs have at first in Lee's absence - playing Mabry every day can't be pretty, but I'm not sure if there's someone else who can move over there to get Hairston in the lineup. Maybe Michael Restovich can play first?

Milwaukee Brewers

Raw EWSL: 177.33 (59 W)
Adjusted: 207.13 (69 W)
Age-Adj.: 199.47 (66 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	36	Damian Miller	11	8
1B	22	Prince Fielder+	1	12
2B	23	Rickie Weeks*	5	13
SS	23	JJ Hardy*	6	15
3B	33	Corey Koskie	11	10
RF	31	Geoff Jenkins	18	14
CF	33	Brady Clark	17	14
LF	30	Carlos Lee	22	21
C2	31	Chad Moeller	3	2
INF	26	Bill Hall	12	14
OF	26	Gabe Gross#	2	2
12	36	Jeff Cirillo	4	3
13	24	Corey Hart+	0	6
SP1	27	Ben Sheets	14	13
SP2	30	Doug Davis	12	9
SP3	27	Chris Capuano	8	7
SP4	30	Tomo Ohka	8	7
SP5	26	David Bush#	6	7
RP1	28	Derrick Turnbow	9	10
RP2	30	Matt Wise	5	4
RP3	31	Danny Kolb	5	4
RP4	28	Justin Lehr#	2	2
RP5	25	Jorge de la Rosa*	1	2

Ex-closer Mike Adams and the injured Rick Helling are also in the pitching mix. I expect more than 25 Win Shares from Fielder and Weeks, although my enthusiasm has been tempered somewhat whenever I watch Weeks attempt to play second base. Anyway, if those guys are undervalued a bit here, it's offset by Bill Hall being valued as if he was playing everyday.

The future for Ben Sheets is now, but can he get healthy and back up to full strength? Actually, Sheets is an oddity on this team - along with Lee - being in his prime. The Brewers are mainly built on two groups of players - the very young infielders and a bunch of late bloomer scrap-heap pickups (Turnbow, Davis, Capuano, Wise, Clark, Ohka). The downside is that, like the Cooper/Oglivie/Thomas Brewers, these guys will get old far faster than you expect, so Milwaukee's window of opportunity may be narrower than it looks. I expect the Brewers to stay in contention all year, despite their early struggles scoring runs.

Houston Astros

Raw EWSL: 205.83 (69 W)
Adjusted: 217.97 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 196.82 (66 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Brad Ausmus	12	8
1B	30	Lance Berkman	25	24
2B	40	Craig Biggio	18	8
SS	29	Adam Everett	13	12
3B	30	Morgan Ensberg	19	19
RF	29	Jason Lane#	9	10
CF	24	Willy Taveras*	7	17
LF	31	Preston Wilson	11	9
C2	28	Eric Munson	4	5
INF	26	Chris Burke*	3	7
OF	37	Orlando Palmeiro	5	4
12	30	Mike Lamb	7	7
13	28	Eric Bruntlett	2	3
SP1	28	Roy Oswalt	18	20
SP2	34	Andy Pettitte	15	11
SP3	28	Brandon Backe	5	6
SP4	27	Wandy Rodriguez*	1	2
SP5	26	Ezequiel Astacio*	0	0
RP1	29	Brad Lidge	15	13
RP2	28	Dan Wheeler	7	7
RP3	29	Mike Gallo	2	2
RP4	27	Chad Qualls	5	4
RP5	33	Trever Miller	3	2

Yes, I realize that Astacio isn't starting at the moment, as two guys named Taylor Buchholz and Fernando Nieve have taken their cracks at the fifth starter's job. Regardless of who is starting there, this rotation is just crying out for Roger Clemens, including the fact that Backe is really better suited as a #4 than a #3.

I thought last season that the loss of Beltran, Kent, and Miller was a lot for Houston to absorb, and if Bagwell and Clemens are really gone, that's a lot to add to what they overcame last season. Plus, Biggio is due to be next - man, there are a lot of old guys playing up-the-middle positions these days.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Raw EWSL: 172.17 (57 W)
Adjusted: 193.37 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 184.22 (61 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	Ryan Doumit*	3	8
1B	31	Sean Casey	19	15
2B	25	Jose Castillo#	7	11
SS	28	Jack Wilson	17	18
3B	36	Joe Randa	14	11
RF	37	Jeromy Burnitz	16	11
CF	26	Chris Duffy*	3	6
LF	27	Jason Bay	22	22
C2	27	Humberto Cota	3	3
INF	28	Freddy Sanchez*	6	13
OF	29	Craig Wilson	10	9
12	36	Jose Hernandez	5	4
13	24	Nate McLouth	1	1
SP1	23	Zach Duke*	5	10
SP2	24	Oliver Perez	7	8
SP3	24	Paul Maholm*	2	5
SP4	24	Ian Snell	1	1
SP5	29	Victor Santos	3	2
RP1	28	Mike Gonzalez	6	6
RP2	41	Roberto Hernandez	6	6
RP3	31	Damaso Marte	8	6
RP4	27	John Grabow#	1	2
RP5	34	Salomon Torres	10	7

The Pirates have to be downgraded from these numbers depending upon the severity of Sean Casey's injury, which I gather is pretty grim. (Doumit is also hurt at present). On the other hand, that's one reason I don't downgrade bench players who are rated based on being regulars in the recent past - Craig Wilson, who was probably going to play a lot anyway, can now be valued as a regular.

I suspect the Pirates will actually finish last (the early standings certainly bear this out), but much depends on their young and young-ish pitchers - whether Perez' 2004 season was a fluke year (his control's been bad in the early going), whether Maholm and Snell can contribute in a serious way. If the youngsters (or, more likely, Victor Santos) falter, Kip Wells should be back later in the season.

Cincinnati Reds

Raw EWSL: 183.33 (61 W)
Adjusted: 188.80 (63 W)
Age-Adj.: 182.16 (61 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Jason LaRue	15	13
1B	36	Scott Hatteberg	12	9
2B	30	Ryan Freel	12	12
SS	26	Felipe Lopez	14	16
3B	23	Edwin Encarnacion*	2	6
RF	26	Austin Kearns	9	10
CF	36	Ken Griffey	16	12
LF	26	Adam Dunn	25	29
C2	30	Javier Valentin	7	7
INF	36	Tony Womack	8	6
OF	35	Quinton McCracken	2	1
12	34	Rich Aurilia	12	11
13	25	Brandon Phillips	1	1
SP1	28	Aaron Harang	7	8
SP2	27	Brandon Claussen#	4	4
SP3	29	Bronson Arroyo#	9	9
SP4	30	Eric Milton	3	2
SP5	27	Dave Williams	4	3
RP1	36	David Weathers	7	6
RP2	38	Kent Mercker	6	4
RP3	40	Chris Hammond	5	5
RP4	37	Rick White	4	3
RP5	25	Todd Coffey*	2	4

"Hey, I remember that guy - he's still pitching?" should be the motto of the Reds' bullpen. Also in the pen mix are younger arms like Matt Belisle and Mike Burns, plus when he returns from injury Paul "Mr. February" Wilson may get a crack at the rotation, depending on which parts of it are in disarray at that juncture. I expect Ryan Wagner as well to get some serious time in this bullpen.

I gather that Womack may get cut when Griffey comes back, but I'm keeping him on the list of talent on hand until then.

Griffey seems to be reaching the point where it's no longer credible to pretend you can stick him in center and play him every day; between the injuries and the deterioration of his defense, he's probably most effective platooning in a corner outfield slot or becoming a DH. And honestly, the Reds should just move on - if Griffey was gone, maybe we wouldn't see a bad team fielding a roster with a 34-year-old, a 35-year-old, and seven guys 36 or older.

The fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Hopefully, I can get the NL Central done before we're too far into the season.

EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2006 revisions to the age adjustment are discussed here. Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers are in my AL East preview here.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Raw EWSL: 199.33 (66 W)
Adjusted: 224.00 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 208.02 (69 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	22	Dioner Navarro*	2	9
1B	22	James Loney+	0	12
2B	38	Jeff Kent	25	21
SS	28	Rafael Furcal	24	26
3B	35	Bill Mueller	17	13
RF	30	JD Drew	20	19
CF	39	Kenny Lofton	13	10
LF	32	Jose Cruz	13	12
C2	40	Sandy Alomar	2	1
INF	32	Nomar Garciaparra	11	9
OF	25	Jason Repko*	3	6
12	35	Olmedo Saenz	7	5
13	33	Ramon Martinez	4	4
SP1	28	Brad Penny	9	10
SP2	33	Derek Lowe	10	7
SP3	29	Odalis Perez	7	6
SP4	29	Jae Seo	7	6
SP5	33	Brett Tomko	8	6
RP1	28	Danys Baez	9	10
RP2	26	Yhency Brazoban#	3	4
RP3	31	Lance Carter	5	4
RP4	36	Takashi Saito+	0	4
RP5	24	Franquelis Osoria+	1	4

First of all, the NL West absolutely stinks; the Dodgers are a very unimpressive team, and it gets worse from here. I tend to think the Diamondbacks might just be the team to run this division this year, but in any event I can't disagree with the assessment of EWSL that there are four mediocre teams bunched relatively close together here, and then the Rockies.

Second, more than any other - even the AL East - this division's story entering the season is dominated by players whose injuries or injury histories, in several cases combined with advanced age, make them enormous question marks - on the Dodgers, that's Eric Gagne, Cesar Izturis, Drew, Garciaparra, Penny, plus on a lower level Jayson Werth. The Dodgers' EWSL figure would have looked more impressive if I'd got to them before Opening Day, when I could still have listed Gagne. Of course, Bonds and Schmidt with the Giants are the other two huge question marks.

It has to be frightening for a pitcher to look down the barrel of a season knowing a 38-year-old second baseman and a 39-year-old center fielder have his back.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Raw EWSL: 195.67 (65 W)
Adjusted: 211.40 (70 W)
Age-Adj.: 193.86 (65 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Johnny Estrada	11	10
1B	24	Conor Jackson+	0	12
2B	28	Orlando Hudson	16	17
SS	35	Craig Counsell	16	11
3B	26	Chad Tracy#	13	18
RF	33	Shawn Green	18	15
CF	30	Eric Byrnes	14	13
LF	38	Luis Gonzalez	18	14
C2	25	Chris Snyder#	3	5
INF	34	Tony Clark	12	11
OF	32	Jeff DaVanon	7	6
12	36	Damoin Easley	7	6
13	28	Andy Green#	1	1
SP1	27	Brandon Webb	15	14
SP2	40	Orlando Hernandez	6	5
SP3	32	Russ Ortiz	6	4
SP4	35	Miguel Batista	10	5
SP5	28	Claudio Vargas	5	5
RP1	26	Jose Valverde	9	9
RP2	26	Brandon Lyon	1	1
RP3	27	Juan Cruz	2	2
RP4	31	Luis Vizcaino	5	4
RP5	28	Greg Acquino#	2	2

If Eric Byrnes is half as bad as his defensive reputation, puttting him in center is a frightening concept, and doubly so next to an aging Luis Gonzalez. On the other hand, in the infield you have Orlando Hudson; I've been a fan of Hudson for some time and think this might be the year when he steps up his offensive game after some disheartening steps backwards last season.

There's an awful lot not to like in Arizona's starting rotation after Webb (and I don't know that I'm sold on the Baseball Prospectus' Cy Young hype for Webb in 2006, either).

San Diego Padres

Raw EWSL: 199.33 (66 W)
Adjusted: 216.23 (72 W)
Age-Adj.: 188.40 (63 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	37	Mike Piazza	12	8
1B	24	Adrian Gonzalez*	1	1
2B	23	Josh Barfield+	0	12
SS	26	Khalil Greene	15	17
3B	38	Vinny Castilla	13	10
RF	35	Brian Giles	29	21
CF	33	Mike Cameron	15	13
LF	34	Dave Roberts	12	11
C2	35	Doug Mirabelli	5	3
INF	31	Mark Bellhorn	10	8
OF	39	Eric Young	7	5
12	35	Ryan Klesko	16	12
13	29	Termel Sledge#	6	6
SP1	25	Jake Peavy	15	18
SP2	27	Chris Young#	6	6
SP3	39	Woody Williams	6	5
SP4	33	Shawn Estes	6	4
SP5	26	Dewon Brazleton	2	2
RP1	38	Trevor Hoffman	8	6
RP2	29	Scott Linebrink	10	8
RP3	36	Alan Embree	2	2
RP4	33	Chan Ho Park	4	3
RP5	26	Clay Hensley*	3	5

Adrian Gonzalez, of course, will do better than this . . . Last year, I called the Pads "a deceptively old team". Now, with the addition of Piazza, Castilla, Cameron, Estes, Mirabelli and Embree, the deception has been dropped. And really, what is starting Vinny Castilla but an admission that you are out of ideas and (more to the point) in such a snit with Sean Burroughs' lack of development that you'd rather bring in a guy with no upside to miss?

I'm very excited about Chris Young's possibilities at Petco. Brazleton is another matter - maybe the scouts see something, but where's the evidence of him showing any ability to pitch at the major league level?

San Francisco Giants

Raw EWSL: 221.67 (74 W)
Adjusted: 231.73 (77 W)
Age-Adj.: 184.24 (61 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	35	Mike Matheny	14	10
1B	27	Lance Niekro*	3	6
2B	34	Ray Durham	16	15
SS	39	Omar Vizquel	17	13
3B	31	Pedro Feliz	10	7
RF	39	Moises Alou	21	17
CF	32	Randy Winn	21	18
LF	41	Barry Bonds	25	11
C2	35	Todd Greene	3	2
INF	38	Jose Vizcaino	5	4
OF	41	Steve Finley	12	5
12	36	Mark Sweeney	7	5
13	28	Jason Ellison*	3	7
SP1	33	Jason Schmidt	15	11
SP2	25	Noah Lowry#	10	14
SP3	31	Matt Morris	9	7
SP4	21	Matt Cain*	3	7
SP5	31	Jamey Wright	4	3
RP1	33	Armando Benitez	9	7
RP2	38	Tim Worrell	7	5
RP3	33	Steve Kline	4	3
RP4	30	Tyler Walker	5	4
RP5	25	Kevin Corriea	2	2

I could also have listed 43-year-old Jeff Fassero, yet another of baseball's growing legion of well-past-40 hurlers, at the end of the staff.

The injury to Noah Lowry had to be a particularly frustrating setback; with age eating away at this roster from all directions, the last thing the Giants needed was an injury to their one good, established player in his mid-20s, and the optimist's case on the Giants rests heavily on Schmidt, Lowry and Cain providing a top-shelf 1-2-3 punch at the top of the rotation. (Benitez' injruy was more par for the course).

Bonds, of course, is way beyond anyone's predictive abilities, but presumably he wouldn't have a .472 OBP if someone wasn't still afraid of him.

Colorado Rockies

Raw EWSL: 140.67 (47 W)
Adjusted: 167.83 (56 W)
Age-Adj.: 160.96 (54 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Danny Ardoin*	2	2
1B	32	Todd Helton	29	25
2B	28	Jason Smith	1	1
SS	27	Clint Barmes*	5	9
3B	26	Garrett Atkins*	7	15
RF	27	Brad Hawpe#	4	5
CF	26	Cory Sullivan*	5	12
LF	26	Matt Holliday#	12	16
C2	31	Miguel Ojeda	3	2
INF	27	Luis A. Gonzalez#	7	8
OF	26	Choo Freeman+	0	6
12	32	Eli Marrero	5	5
13	31	Jamey Carroll	7	6
SP1	27	Jason Jennings	7	7
SP2	29	Josh Fogg	5	4
SP3	28	Zach Day	3	4
SP4	25	Jeff Francis#	4	5
SP5	27	Aaron Cook	6	5
RP1	30	Brain Fuentes	9	7
RP2	40	Jose Mesa	6	5
RP3	32	Ray King	5	3
RP4	35	Mike DeJean	4	2
RP5	27	Byun Hyung Kim	5	5

I could have listed more pitchers if I gave myself the flexibility to add more and subtract some position players, as guys like Sun-Woo Kim and Tom Martin are in the mix. I assume the second base situation will remain fluid between Smith, Gonzalez and Carroll. As my older brother pointed out, while paying a 40-year-old Jose Mesa millions to pitch in Coors Field is wrong in too many ways to count, the upside is that Mesa isn't going to be bothered by giving up a lot of runs.

If you're an optimist you can point to the fact that many Rockies are right in their prime (26, 27), healthy, and just getting their first or second full shots at regular playing time - precisely the profile of a team poised to take a big step forward. If you're a pessimist that means 2006 is likely to be about as good as the current youth movement gets (there's no high upside 22 and 23 year olds on hand), and that's probably not too good, especially with the pitching still in its perpetual state of disarray.

The fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. And yes, I'm aware that I'm well behind schedule here, but it's been a crazy spring; I've been working on this post for the past week trying to get all the numbers up to speed before they are out of date.

EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2006 revisions to the age adjustment are discussed here. Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers are in my AL East preview here.

Atlanta Braves

Raw EWSL: 193.67 (65 W)
Adjusted: 222.20 (74 W)
Age-Adj.: 241.69 (81 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	22	Brian McCann*	3	14
1B	26	Adam LaRoche#	8	11
2B	28	Marcus Giles	22	24
SS	30	Edgar Renteria	17	17
3B	34	Chipper Jones	20	18
RF	22	Jeff Francouer*	6	27
CF	29	Andruw Jones	21	19
LF	26	Ryan Langerhans*	6	14
C2	39	Todd Pratt	5	4
INF	25	Wilson Betemit*	4	9
OF	24	Kelly Johnson*	5	12
13	27	Pete Orr*	2	3
14	39	Brian Jordan	4	3
SP1	30	Tim Hudson	16	13
SP2	39	John Smoltz	16	12
SP3	26	Horacio Ramirez	7	7
SP4	22	Kyle Davies*	2	6
SP5	29	Jorge Sosa	9	8
RP1	28	Chris Reitsma	8	9
RP2	24	Oscar Villereal	2	3
RP3	40	Mike Remlinger	3	2
RP4	25	Lance Cormier#	2	3
RP5	32	John Thomson	8	5

What, you expected someone else? Last year, I had the Braves in last place in a tight division; I had the tight division right, but I didn't account for the huge influx of rookies who saved Atlanta. This time, EWSL is overrating some of those rookies. Francouer, for example, is rated here as he should be, in one sense: the age adjustment compensates for the fact that he played only a half season last year. But in fact, he's probably a guy who had a well-timed hot streak rather than a genuinely great young talent who can cough up 27 Win Shares this year. But no matter: the Braves will get them from somewhere.

There will be few clearer tests of the Braves' ability to continue to defy the odds after the departure of Leo Mazzone than Jorge Sosa, whose dramatic improvement last season was almost entirely due to better luck on balls in play. On a non-Braves team, you'd look at that (and his 23.14 ERA thus far) and assume he would collapse, but the Braves are the Braves; even if he does, they will replace him.

Matt Diaz is currently playing in place of the injured Kelly Johnson, and Thomson is currently in the rotation in place of the injured Ramirez. Some rotoheads are excited by the idea that recent callup Joey Devine will stand next in line for the closer job, and while that may be true, Devine's high minor league walk rates suggest to me a guy who - at least if he wasn't on the Braves - would probably have a rocky ride his first time around the majors. Chuck James is in some ways a more interesting short-term prospect, but he's also a guy who is very unproven at this level.

New York Mets

Raw EWSL: 225.00 (75 W)
Adjusted: 249.90 (83 W)
Age-Adj.: 235.18 (78 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Paul LoDuca	16	15
1B	34	Carlos Delgado	26	24
2B	23	Anderson Hernandez+	0	12
SS	23	Jose Reyes	12	16
3B	23	David Wright#	16	27
RF	27	Xavier Nady	6	6
CF	29	Carlos Beltran	26	23
LF	33	Cliff Floyd	19	17
C2	30	Ramon Castro	4	4
INF	30	Kaz Matsui#	7	8
OF	24	Victor Diaz*	4	9
13	30	Chris Woodward	5	4
14	47	Julio Franco	9	4
SP1	34	Pedro Martinez	18	13
SP2	40	Tom Glavine	13	13
SP3	35	Steve Trachsel	6	3
SP4	30	Victor Zambrano	8	7
SP5	25	Brian Bannister+	0	4
RP1	34	Billy Wagner	15	11
RP2	27	Aaron Heilman	5	5
RP3	26	Duaner Sanchez#	6	7
RP4	27	Jorge Julio	3	3
RP5	31	Chad Bradford	4	3

The arbitrary award of 12 WS to a rookie with an everyday job is probably high for Hernandez; the 12 number is high in general because only the very best rookies tend to get everyday jobs out of spring training. This year, there are a number of players being forced into jobs either due to injuries (here, Matsui) or due to wholesale restructurings (see the Marlins below). I suspect that when I recalculate the rookie number after 2006 I will have to revise it downward.

Heilman's EWSL is low because it counts in 2003, when he was horrid, and 2004, when he hardly pitched. Note that he's 27; Heilman's future is now, and he ought not to be wasting it in the bullpen. Trachsel is also lowballed here because he missed almost all of last season after WS totals of 13 and 10, but in Trachsel's case that's a reasonable caution: he's 35 and coming off a bad back, so caution is wise. The Mets are also very heavily invested in 34-year-olds, which tells you that this team will need to be rebuilt soon whether they win this year or not. For the record, I do think there's a pretty good chance this team could go deep into the playoffs; there's a bunch of gambles here but if Pedro and Glavine hold up and Beltran bounces back, the Mets could really make some noise.

I'll be surprised if Julio lasts until the All-Star Break; I'd rather see him go the Felix Heredia route with the Mets than the Mel Rojas route.

Of course, as I've noted repeatedly, don't be fooled by the low win totals listed here - especially if the Nationals and Marlins struggle, the other three teams in the division should end up looking stronger as a result of getting some easy in-division games.

Philadelphia Phillies

Raw EWSL: 226.34 (75 W)
Adjusted: 237.83 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 223.25 (74 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Mike Lieberthal	11	10
1B	26	Ryan Howard*	5	12
2B	27	Chase Utley	16	16
SS	27	Jimmy Rollins	22	22
3B	33	David Bell	12	10
RF	32	Bobby Abreu	30	26
CF	28	Aaron Rowand	17	19
LF	29	Pat Burrell	19	17
C2	34	Sal Fasano	2	1
INF	30	Abraham Nunez	7	7
OF	32	David Dellucci	12	10
13	33	Alex Gonzalez	8	7
14	25	Shane Victorino+	1	6
SP1	25	Brett Myers	10	12
SP2	36	Jon Lieber	10	8
SP3	34	Cory Lidle	7	5
SP4	25	Ryan Madson#	6	9
SP5	23	Gavin Floyd*	1	1
RP1	38	Tom Gordon	12	9
RP2	36	Arthur Rhodes	4	4
RP3	39	Rheal Cormier	5	4
RP4	32	Aaron Fultz	5	3
RP5	33	Ryan Franklin	7	5

Geoff Geary will undoubtedly pitch in higher-leverage relief situations than Franklin, but I'm sure Franklin will end up the year with more innings as he gets called upon to start, so I listed Franjlin. A healthy return by Randy Wolf would also boost this team's fortunes. One of the frustrations of getting delayed in launching the EWSL previews is that I sometimes end up rating the same guy twice - here, David Dellucci, who got traded from Texas. He won't find the playing time in Philly to match his 29 homers from 2005.

Needless to say, Howard should beat 12 Win Shares, but it is worth noting that he wasn't a young rookie last year; he's probably already pretty close to as good as he'll get. Utley should also clear 16 WS, since his EWSL reflects a two-year battle for playing time before his breakout 2005.

The Phillies are another of those teams that has age around the edges, although they do take a hit on some key guys entering their decline years (Abreu) or well into them (Gordon, Lieber, Bell, Lidle, Rhodes - the pitching staff after Myers has a lot of age on it). David Bell may well be finished, and there isn't really a good alternative reayd at this point. On the other hand, Madson could be a surprise success story in the rotation, and Floyd at least has an upside, though I doubt we'll see him do much but learn to survive in 2006. Basically, the Phillies are taking on all the classic hallmarks of a team in a good hitters' park: a deep, solid lineup (but one with a few weak links protected by the park) coupled with difficulty developing young pitchers and a corresponding tendency to rely on weak second-line free agent veteran arms.

Realistically, EWSL has it about right: the Phils are a weaker team than the Braves or Mets, mainly because of their pitching, but not by a lot, and in a world where it was possible for the Braves to lose they could still win the division.

Washington Nationals

Raw EWSL: 183.50 (61 W)
Adjusted: 209.20 (70 W)
Age-Adj.: 196.88 (66 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	Brian Schneider	16	14
1B	27	Nick Johnson	15	15
2B	31	Jose Vidro	12	10
SS	36	Royce Clayton	10	8
3B	21	Ryan Zimmerman+	1	12
RF	30	Jose Guillen	18	17
CF	24	Brad Watson+	0	12
LF	30	Alfonso Soriano	18	17
C2	32	Wiki Gonzalez	1	1
INF	28	Cristian Guzman	10	11
OF	28	Marlon Byrd	8	8
13	30	Matt LeCroy	7	7
14	32	Marlon Anderson	5	4
SP1	31	Livan Hernandez	17	13
SP2	28	John Patterson	8	8
SP3	33	Ramon Ortiz	5	4
SP4	28	Tony Armas jr	2	2
SP5	30	Ryan Drese	7	5
RP1	24	Chad Cordero#	11	15
RP2	26	Gary Majewski#	4	5
RP3	39	Mike Stanton	4	3
RP4	33	Felix Rodriguez	4	3
RP5	36	Joey Eischen	3	2

Yeah, I know, is Livan really 31? Not knowing the truth, I stick to the reported age. Nick Johnson is entering the "is that all there is" stage of his career, and I no longer expect sustained greatness, but it still would not surprise me to see him rip off one healthy year in the next year or two where he slugs .550 with a .450 OBP and drives in 110 runs. He and Patterson are the main guys on this team with real upsides from their EWSL figures, although a healthy Armas could still turn in a halfway-decent season. It's the back of the rotation after Patterson that's a particular concern for this team, plus Vidro's decline, plus the utter lack of a major league shortstop.

It's almost a pity Andy Marte left Atlanta - imagine a division with Zimmerman, Wright, Cabrera and Marte as third base rivals for the next decade (assuming Cabrera doesn't get moved again). If the Nationals get 11 Win Shares out of Cristian Guzman, I'll eat my hat.

Florida Marlins

Raw EWSL: 70.83 (24 W)
Adjusted: 157.53 (53 W)
Age-Adj.: 167.71 (56 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Miguel Olivo	6	6
1B	25	Mike Jacobs*	3	6
2B	26	Dan Uggla+	0	12
SS	22	Hanley Ramirez+	0	12
3B	23	Miguel Cabrera	23	32
RF	22	Jeremy Hermida	2	12
CF	25	Reggie Abercrombie+	0	12
LF	27	Josh Willingham+	0	12
C2	30	Matt Treanor	1	1
INF	30	Wes Helms	6	6
OF	25	Eric Reed+	0	6
13	27	Chris Aguila+	0	6
14	28	Alfredo Amezaga	1	1
SP1	24	Dontrelle Willis	17	19
SP2	23	Jason Vargas*	2	4
SP3	34	Brian Moehler	3	2
SP4	25	Sergio Mitre#	1	1
SP5	22	Scott Olsen+	1	4
RP1	35	Joe Borowski	4	2
RP2	26	Franklyn German	2	2
RP3	36	Matt Herges	2	2
RP4	23	Chris Resop+	0	4
RP5	23	Ricky Nolasco+	0	4

That first number isn't a misprint: there are only 24 wins worth of established major league talent here. The rest will need to be made up with guys who have only been in the majors part of one season (Jacobs and Vargas) or two (Mitre) and raw rookies. Beyond that basic observation, EWSL is essentially useless to make sense of a team as reliant on un-established talent as the Hatchlings.

Note that Jacobs should easily surpass 6 WS, since he's rated here on barely more than a month's work, albeit a month he will probably never top; I continue to see him as the next Rico Brogna. My gut feeling is that the Marlins won't be terrible and could finish ahead of the Nationals, but then EWSL is assuming a solid 12-WS season from each of the rookie non-pitchers, and that's probably an unreasonably optimistic assumption, plus the pitching staff is awfully threadbare, and rookie pitchers - even in pitcher-friendly Miami - tend to struggle. Either way, this will not be a good team this season, and that changes the dynamics in this division rather dramatically.

Hermida might be a big slugger eventually, though I gather in the short term he should look comparable to Brad Wilkerson. There's been some talk of the Marlins moving Miguel Cabrera, but I chalk that up to paranoia - there's simply no possible way to benefit from trading a 23-year-old whose most similar players lists at baseball-reference.com and the Baseball Prospectus include Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey jr., Joe Medwick and Vladimir Guerrero. Any prospects you get back for Cabrera wouldn't be much younger and would be hugely unlikely to match Cabrera's upside (if you can name one minor leaguer anywhere with his upside, you're ahead of me).

Having done my EWSL previews of the AL's three divisions here, here and here, let's see what the final records of the AL teams should be if they adhere to EWSL, assuming (big assumptions) (1) no adjustment for schedule strength*, (2) the AL having a .500 record in inter-league play, and (3) each team gaining an equal amount from non-listed players (but see here):

AL East	W	L	GB	AL Central	W	L	GB	AL West	W	L	GB
Yankees	102	60	--	White Sox	86	76	--	A's	97	65	--
Red Sox	98	64	4	Twins	82	80	4	Angels	86	76	11
Blue Jays	82	80	20	Indians	77	85	9	Rangers	82	80	15
Orioles	77	85	25	Tigers	71	91	15	Mariners	70	92	27
Devil Rays	66	96	36	Royals	59	103	27

Now, as I've said before, EWSL does have its blind spots; I do think the Indians, in particular, will do better than 77 wins, the Royals will lose closer to 110, and I do think the AL will do better than .500 against the NL. I also think the A's aren't quite this much better than the Angels, although the more I look at their team the more I think they could be the stronger team. We shall see.

* - This is a somewhat reasonable assumption, as most of the players on the Indians, for example, compiled the stats they have by playing the same number of games vs the Royals they will play this year.

The third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2006 revisions to the age adjustment are discussed here. Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers are in my AL East preview here.

(And yes, for reasons I've explained before and will elaborate on elsewhere, I'm way behind schedule this year, but I'll get to the NL as soon as I can).

World Champion Chicago White Sox

Raw EWSL: 224.67 (75 W)
Adjusted: 252.97 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 238.09 (79 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	29	AJ Pierzynski	14	12
1B	30	Paul Konerko	19	19
2B	31	Tadahito Iguchi*	9	14
SS	26	Juan Uribe	16	18
3B	28	Joe Crede	13	14
RF	32	Jermaine Dye	13	12
CF	24	Brian Anderson+	0	12
LF	30	Scott Podsednik	15	14
DH	35	Jim Thome	14	10
C2	35	Chris Widger	1	1
INF	27	Alex Cintron	9	9
OF	30	Rob Mackowiak	12	12
13	30	Ross Gload#	3	3
SP1	27	Mark Buehrle	20	18
SP2	30	Freddy Garcia	15	12
SP3	29	Javier Vazquez	13	11
SP4	26	Jon Garland	15	16
SP5	34	Jose Contreras	11	8
RP1	25	Bobby Jenks*	3	7
RP2	26	Neal Cotts#	5	6
RP3	32	Cliff Politte	2	1
RP4	29	Matt Thornton#	1	1
RP5	22	Brandon McCarthy*	3	7

The Sox have an impressive bench - Cintron and Mackowiak both play multiple positions and could play regularly without terrible results in a pinch. Pablo Ozuna is also on hand. I believe the White Sox also had Ben Grieve in camp, but that's just a sad story. On the pitching side, Dustin Hermanson's injuries have him contemplating retirement, so while he might be back, I wouldn't bank on him.

Like the 2002 Angels, the 2005 White Sox were a pretty good team that got nearly all the breaks; that won't happen again, and other than Brandon McCarthy and a full recovery by Thome there isn't a lot of room here for great leaps forward. Still, the rotation looks solid, and this team should be in the hunt all year, at least for the wild card. I'm comfortable listing them as the tentative favorite to win the division.

Minnesota Twins

Raw EWSL: 220.67 (74 W)
Adjusted: 234.73 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.49 (75 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Joe Mauer#	13	22
1B	25	Justin Morneau#	7	10
2B	30	Luis Castillo	20	19
SS	26	Jason Bartlett*	3	7
3B	32	Tony Batista	6	5
RF	27	Michael Cuddyer	7	7
CF	30	Torii Hunter	13	13
LF	32	Shannon Stewart	13	11
DH	34	Rondell White	12	11
C2	35	Mike Redmond	5	4
INF	34	Juan Castro	7	6
OF	29	Lew Ford	14	13
13	40	Ruben Sierra	5	2
SP1	27	Johan Santana	23	22
SP2	33	Brad Radke	14	10
SP3	27	Carlos Silva	13	12
SP4	27	Kyle Lohse	9	8
SP5	24	Scott Baker*	2	5
RP1	31	Joe Nathan	16	12
RP2	24	Jesse Crain#	6	9
RP3	27	Juan Rincon	10	9
RP4	43	Terry Mulholland	4	3
RP5	22	Francisco Liriano+	0	4

Sierra's a bit player, but it was a little easier to get a fix on him here than list Jason Kubel, who promises to get serious playing time, especially with Cuddyer ailing in the early going. Nick Punto and Terry Tiffee are also part of the infield picture, and should only be moreso if Batista doesn't hit and Jason Bartlett continues to have problems staying healthy.

Batista gets a raw deal from EWSL because I don't really have a way to put any value on what he did in 2005. Then again, if he posts a .284 OBP, it's pretty much moot. When he was playing shortstop and keeping his OBP around .305-.310, Batista's combination of power and defense made him useful; as a third baseman who hasn't had a .280 OBP in the majors since 2002, he's unlikely to be useful.

Francisco Liriano should push someone out of the rotation by midsummer; Liriano struck out more than a batter an inning in each of his six appearances last year. But you don't need me to tell you that Mauer and Morneau (and to a lesser extent Bartlett) are the keys to this team; if the offense is totally punchless it will matter little how good the pitching is. On the other hand, I'm optimistic that a season as a DH might help Rondell White stay healthier.

Cleveland Indians

Raw EWSL: 209.50 (70 W)
Adjusted: 220.23 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 212.02 (71 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	27	Victor Martinez	18	18
1B	29	Ben Broussard	12	11
2B	31	Ron Belliard	17	13
SS	24	Jhonny Peralta	13	17
3B	33	Aaron Boone	8	7
RF	32	Casey Blake	12	11
CF	23	Grady Sizemore#	14	23
LF	30	Jason Michaels	11	10
DH	29	Travis Hafner	21	19
C2	26	Kelly Shoppach+	0	6
INF	29	Ramon Vazquez	3	2
OF	33	Todd Hollandsworth	5	4
13	36	Eduardo Perez	5	4
SP1	25	CC Sabathia	12	15
SP2	27	Cliff Lee	9	9
SP3	28	Jake Westbrook	11	12
SP4	35	Paul Byrd	9	5
SP5	32	Jason Johnson	8	5
RP1	37	Bob Wickman	6	5
RP2	32	Guillermo Mota	8	5
RP3	24	Fernando Cabrera*	2	5
RP4	31	Rafael Betancourt	6	5
RP5	34	Scott Sauerbeck	2	1

As was true last year, EWSL gives the Indians a poor grade. There are a couple of reasons for this, some more valid than others. Cleveland has a bunch of guys who went from seasons of 100-300 at bats, in some cases of so-so play, to full seasons of stardom but are still dragged down by the earlier years - thus, you had Grady Sizemore with 5 and 24 WS, Hafner with 7-21-26, Martinez with 3-20-22, Peralta with 4-0-25, Lee with 3-7-13. The nature of an established performance level evaluation is to use the old Chuck Dressen line: "I'd like to see him do it again." But the Indians probably are better than the total you see above; Hafner and Martinez and Sizemore are definitely for real, and Peralta and Lee probably are as well.

The second reason is the erosion around the edges; Broussard, Blake and Boone all fell off last season, especially in the OBP department, and their offensive struggles will eat away quietly at this team unless they turn things around (odds are, no more than one of the three will) or get replaced. Andy Marte and Jason Dubois are on hand - I'm not sure why Hollandsworth is on the roster ahead of Dubois - but better solutions may be needed at first base and in the outfield corners.

The third reason is, this team is young at the core, but older than you'd think all around the roster. There's an awful lot of guys here, even guys who still seem like they're just establishing themselves, who have already hit the wrong side of 30. That, too, will be a quiet drain on Cleveland. (And this is before CC Sabathia left last night's marathon opener with a strained abdominal muscle, which could put a crimp in what is already not the deepest starting rotation).

The Indians, in reality, are about even with or better than the Twins, and probably not much behind the champs. But the watchword for this franchise right now is "missed opportunity."

Detroit Tigers

Raw EWSL: 185.33 (62 W)
Adjusted: 200.03 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 194.70 (65 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Ivan Rodriguez	16	15
1B	26	Chris Shelton*	7	15
2B	30	Placido Polanco	20	19
SS	30	Carlos Guillen	14	13
3B	29	Brandon Inge	13	12
RF	32	Magglio Ordonez	12	10
CF	25	Curtis Granderson*	3	8
LF	29	Craig Monroe	12	11
DH	32	Dmitri Young	11	9
C2	33	Vance Wilson	4	4
INF	24	Omar Infante	8	11
OF	26	Nook Logan#	4	5
13	29	Marcus Thames#	3	3
SP1	23	Jeremy Bonderman	8	8
SP2	41	Kenny Rogers	14	13
SP3	28	Mike Maroth	9	10
SP4	28	Nate Robertson	6	7
SP5	23	Justin Verlander+	0	4
RP1	38	Todd Jones	10	8
RP2	29	Fernando Rodney	3	3
RP3	34	Jamie Walker	5	4
RP4	26	Franklyn German	2	2
RP5	29	Chris Spurling	3	3

I'm fairly high on the Tigers as a source of Rotisserie players - a lot of guys here who can hit some and are basically bolted into the lineup with the departure of Carlos Pena and the failures of Infante and Logan in everyday jobs. [UPDATE: I did the depth charts here before the weekend - I missed Logan getting sent to AAA] But in the real world, this team will only go as far as its biggest star . . . Placido Polanco? Polanco is suddenly getting noticed as an underrated star (see here for something I wrote in September), but expect a falloff after hitting .330 last year. Actually, Pudge is still the star, but he's way exceeded the manufacturer's warranty at this stage.

Bonderman should be better than 8 Win Shares if, unlike last year, he doesn't run out of gas down the stretch. But again, that's what EWSL is for: to remind us that Bonderman hasn't done it yet. To move this team forward, he needs to step up.

There is some pitching potential here with Bonderman, Verlander and Joel Zumaya, who's currently in the back of the bullpen. Also, it would not surprise me if Todd Jones doesn't get the closer job back from Fernando Rodney. I see the Tigers' upside as being a season like the Nationals had last year - i.e., turning this into a four-team race - but the team's broad foundation won't make up for its lack of star power.

Kansas City Royals

Raw EWSL: 157.50 (53 W)
Adjusted: 169.30 (56 W)
Age-Adj.: 163.20 (54 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	25	John Buck#	6	10
1B	32	Doug Mientkiwicz	7	6
2B	36	Mark Grudzielanek	15	12
SS	28	Angel Berroa	12	13
3B	24	Mark Teahen*	5	12
RF	31	Emil Brown	9	7
CF	26	David DeJesus	11	13
LF	38	Reggie Sanders	14	11
DH	32	Mike Sweeney	15	13
C2	34	Paul Bako	2	2
INF	34	Tony Graffanino	10	9
OF	38	Matt Stairs	13	10
13	33	Aaron Guiel	3	3
SP1	22	Zack Grienke#	5	9
SP2	28	Runelvys Hernandez	3	3
SP3	32	Mark Redman	7	5
SP4	30	Scott Elarton	6	4
SP5	30	Joe Mays	1	1
RP1	29	Mike MacDougal	6	5
RP2	22	Ambiorix Burgos*	2	6
RP3	27	Jeremy Affeldt	4	4
RP4	25	Denny Bautista*	1	1
RP5	23	Andrew Sisco	3	5

OK, I cheated, but it was out of pity, pity and a little laziness; I couldn't bring myself to value the Royals absent Grienke, let alone striking guys like MacDougal, Hernandez and Redman whose health issues are more short-term. It would have been pointless to slot in so many zeroes. Suffice it to say that 55 wins may be the optimistic case for this team; the picture could hardly be bleaker, especially now that there are four respectable teams in the division.

Poor David DeJesus, like Lee Mazzilli in the late 70s, seems destined to be a good regular woefully miscast as a franchise player.

Affeldt and Bautista will be in the rotation for now, and while both have gotten rave reviews, well, we remember, among others, Dan Reichert, Glendon Rusch, Jeff Suppan, Chad Durbin, Chris George, Kris Wilson, Jimmy Gobble, Lance Carter, Orber Moreno, Brian Bevil, and Jim Pittsley, as well as some of the guys on the current staff. Not all of those guys were originally Royals prospects (eg, Suppan) and not all were total busts, either, but the gap between hype and major league performance is rarely larger than in KC, where so few pitchers ever seem to scale the heights of major league adequacy, let alone productivity or stardom.

The second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2006 revisions to the age adjustment are discussed here. Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team. Further disclaimers are in my AL East preview here.

Oakland A's

Raw EWSL: 229.33 (76 W)
Adjusted: 256.57 (86 W)
Age-Adj.: 267.34 (89 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	32	Jason Kendall	19	16
1B	26	Dan Johnson*	5	12
2B	29	Mark Ellis	14	12
SS	26	Bobby Crosby#	10	14
3B	28	Eric Chavez	21	22
RF	28	Milton Bradley	14	15
CF	30	Mark Kotsay	19	18
LF	26	Nick Swisher*	6	14
DH	38	Frank Thomas	9	8
C2	34	Adam Melhuse	4	4
INF	26	Antonio Perez	6	6
OF	29	Bobby Kielty	8	8
13	33	Jay Payton	14	12
SP1	28	Barry Zito	14	15
SP2	24	Rich Harden	11	13
SP3	25	Danny Haren	7	9
SP4	25	Joe Blanton*	7	16
SP5	34	Esteban Loaiza	12	8
RP1	22	Huston Street*	8	23
RP2	31	Kiko Calero	5	4
RP3	28	Justin Duchscherer	9	10
RP4	33	Jay Witasick	4	3
RP5	27	Joe Kennedy	7	6

EWSL is much kinder to the A's this year than last, now that the pitching rotation has some experience under its belt. What's debatable here is (1) whether Street's age adjustment is overprojecting him (he'd have to be Eric Gagne to earn 23 Win Shares as a closer) and (2) whether Haren is unfairly downgraded relative to Joe Blanton; both are the same age and earned 13 WS last year, but Haren is penalized for pitching poorly at the major league level for two years while Blanton was in the minors. I still think that fact gives Haren an advantage.

The A's are deep: besides the listed players they have a credible major league 2B at AAA (Keith Ginter), a decent backup 2B in Marco Scutaro, they just acquired Brad Halsey, who had appeared slated for the D-Backs' rotation, and they have Kirk Saarloos and Dan Meyer in reserve at AAA, though Meyer, like Juan Cruz, may turn out to be yet another proof of the dictum to beware pitchers the Braves give up on.

I'm not sure I see Oakland beating the Angels this year, but this is definitely a team that will make the race neck-and-neck, at least. Much will depend on the health of Milton Bradley and Frank Thomas and the sophomore progress of Haren, Blanton, Street, Nick Swisher and Dan Johnson.

Arte's Angels

Raw EWSL: 234.33 (78 W)
Adjusted: 253.60 (85 W)
Age-Adj.: 236.79 (79 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	23	Jeff Mathis+	0	12
1B	23	Casey Kotchman#	3	4
2B	30	Adam Kennedy	15	15
SS	31	Orlando Cabrera	14	11
3B	28	Chone Figgins	19	21
RF	30	Vladimir Guerrero	26	25
CF	32	Darin Erstad	13	11
LF	34	Garret Anderson	17	16
DH	27	Juan Rivera	10	10
C2	31	Jose Molina	6	4
INF	32	Edgardo Alfonzo	12	11
OF	29	Robb Quinlan#	4	4
13	25	Dallas McPherson*	3	8
SP1	33	Bartolo Colon	15	11
SP2	27	John Lackey	13	12
SP3	29	Jeff Weaver	11	9
SP4	30	Kelvim Escobar	10	8
SP5	23	Ervin Santana*	3	6
RP1	24	Francisco Rodriguez	14	15
RP2	30	Scot Shields	12	10
RP3	34	Brendan Donnelly	7	5
RP4	30	JC Romero	6	5
RP5	28	Kevin Gregg	3	4

Anderson's health is in doubt - plantar fascitis is a nasty, nasty ailment (it cost Mark McGwire years of his prime), and at last check the Angels were even considering reviving Tim Salmon, who's been in camp. In his best years, I thought Anderson was underrated by some analysts who failed to account for his remarkable durability, but that asset is a thing of the past.

I like Juan Rivera, but I'm not convinced that Mike Scioscia does. Rivera could top that Win Shares total easily with a full season in the lineup, and Kotchman will obviously do the same if he stays in the lineup all year. Those two are among the main reasons why this race is tighter than EWSL makes it look, and would be tighter if I used a playing time-adjusted system, although I'm leery of adjusting too strictly for playing time because you then miss the value of durability and a sizeable established track record.

I listed Quinlan as an outfielder because I had to put him somewhere, but obviously he's mainly a first baseman. I'm listing McPherson here because I expect him to get significant playing time notwithstanding the fact that he's starting the season at AAA. He's not Troy Glaus, but he's still a solid bat. Macier Izturis should fill that roster slot for now, while Esteban Yan is the likely 11th pitcher. We're probably a year away from the DP combo of Howie Kendrick and Brandon Wood.

I drafted Lackey in my Roto league on Saturday (more on that later), but it's possible that, like Escobar's 2004, 2005 was Lackey's career year rather than the start of something bigger.

Texas Rangers

Raw EWSL: 210.67 (70 W)
Adjusted: 233.13 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 226.06 (75 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Rod Barajas	9	9
1B	26	Mark Teixera	27	31
2B	24	Ian Kinsler+	0	12
SS	29	Michael Young	26	24
3B	25	Hank Blalock	19	23
RF	28	Kevin Mench	12	13
CF	29	Brad Wilkerson	20	18
LF	32	David Dellucci	12	10
DH	35	Phil Nevin	13	9
C2	26	Gerald Laird	1	1
INF	31	Mark DeRosa	4	3
OF	25	Laynce Nix	5	7
13	31	Gary Matthews	10	8
SP1	31	Kevin Millwood	10	8
SP2	28	Vicente Padilla	7	7
SP3	28	Adamn Eaton	6	6
SP4	24	Kameron Loe*	4	9
SP5	26	Juan Dominguez*	3	4
RP1	31	Francisco Cordero	13	10
RP2	34	Akinori Otsuka#	6	5
RP3	21	Fabio Castro+	0	4
RP4	28	Joaquin Benoit	5	5
RP5	30	Erasmo Ramirez	2	0

Oh, the things that a ballpark can do; Blalock has been vastly overrated by this park, but he's still young and talented; Dellucci's the same useful role player he's always been, but last season he smacked 29 homers (ditto Barajas); people are expecting revivals from Wilkerson and Nevin and a solid rookie year from Kinsler based mainly on the park; Millwood and Padilla look like ticking time bombs in this place. An extreme hitters' park starts out fun but ends up as a house of mirrors, leading its inhabitants to question reality.

You can add Frank Francisco to the bullpen mix if he remains healthy and doesn't throw any more chairs . . . Francisco Cordero and Fabio Castro should not be confused with AL pitchers Fernando Cabrera, Fausto Carmona or Francisco Cruceta. Cordero has been a mild disappointment of late, although some of that is the park; Castro is a Rule 5 guy, so even if he doesn't pan out he'll probably be around all year.

The Rangers' bottom line: probably slightly improved pitching, but not enough of it, and the offense isn't quite as scary as it looks.

Seattle Mariners

Raw EWSL: 176.17 (59 W)
Adjusted: 200.80 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 192.02 (64 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Kenji Johjima+	0	12
1B	31	Richie Sexson	17	14
2B	22	Jose Lopez#	4	10
SS	24	Yuniesky Betancourt*	2	4
3B	27	Adrian Beltre	21	21
RF	32	Ichiro Suzuki	24	21
CF	27	Joe Borchard	0	0
LF	34	Raul Ibanez	15	14
DH	35	Carl Everett	11	8
C2	22	Rene Rivera+	1	6
INF	28	Willie Bloomquist	4	4
OF	34	Matt Lawton	13	12
13	25	Jeremy Reed#	6	8
SP1	20	Felix Hernandez*	4	11
SP2	31	Jarrod Washburn	11	9
SP3	43	Jamie Moyer	11	10
SP4	27	Joel Pineiro	6	5
SP5	27	Gil Meche	6	5
RP1	35	Eddie Guardado	10	5
RP2	26	Rafael Soriano	2	2
RP3	28	Julio Mateo	6	6
RP4	29	JJ Putz	3	3
RP5	29	George Sherrill#	1	1

EWSL being a measure of established major league play, it is of limited use with a team like the Mariners except to point out that there isn't a lot of established major league talent here. If the imported catcher, Jumanji, lives up to predictions and doesn't turn into another Kaz Matsui (the Mariners, understandably, remain more bullish on Japanese imports than we Mets fans), and if the various rookies hold up, this still won't be a contender but it won't threaten 100 losses, either.

Borchard seems the logical replacement in center, if he can shake off his lifetime .191 batting average and reclaim his prospect status, for the injured Reed, who looks less like the new Tony Gwynn and more like the new Jeff Abbott. I remain somewhat upbeat about Reed, but the injury and the park are a bad combination for him.

I'd say time is due to catch up with some of the 40+ year old pitchers by now, but by all evidence it's already caught up with Moyer; the Mariners are just too pitching-poor to replace him. I do expect some great pitching from Soriano, if healthy.

Once more into the breach of my annual division-by-division roundups, powered by Established Win Shares Levels (EWSL is explained here, and you should read that link before commenting on the method; 2006 revisions to the age adjustment discussed here). Due to time constraints, and for ease in reading the charts, I'm leaving off the intermediate adjustment column, and just listing each player's raw EWSL and the age-adjusted number. Bear in mind as always that (1) EWSL is a record of past performance, adjusted by age to give an assessment of the available talent on hand; it is not an individualized projection system; (2) individual EWSL are rounded off but team totals are compiled from the unrounded figures; and (3) as demonstrated here in some detail, nearly all teams will win more games than their EWSL total because I'm only rating 23 players per team (and I considered going to 24, but I'm not convinced it would make the system more useful, since it would tend to overrate teams that stuff their back bench slots with aging ex-regulars). As always, the depth charts here are drawn from a number of sources and modified to list the guys who will do the work (e.g., if there are two guys battling for a fifth starter spot I'll often list one of them with the relievers if I think they'll both end up pitching), but I take responsibility for any errors. It's still a fluid time for rosters.

One final methodological note: Dave Studeman and others have suggested that a better method would look at WSAB, which measures marginal contributions and thus better adjusts for playing time. The short answer is that I fiddled a bit with WSAB but just didn't have the time this year to incorporate it in the system. Next year I may try something new in that regard.

Without further ado, we start with the AL East, where time and chance happeneth to no one; the race is always to the swift, the battle always to the strong.

The Hated Yankees

Raw EWSL: 297.00 (99 W)
Adjusted: 317.17 (106 W)
Age-Adj.: 280.18 (93 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Jorge Posada	21	19
1B	35	Jason Giambi	19	14
2B	23	Robinson Cano*	6	17
SS	32	Derek Jeter	25	22
3B	30	Alex Rodriguez	32	31
RF	37	Gary Sheffield	32	22
CF	32	Johnny Damon	24	21
LF	32	Hideki Matsui	25	22
DH	37	Bernie Williams	13	9
C2	36	Kelly Stinnett	2	1
INF	32	Miguel Cairo	7	6
OF	29	Bubba Crosby+	1	6
13	29	Andy Phillips+	0	6
SP1	42	Randy Johnson	17	16
SP2	37	Mike Mussina	12	11
SP3	30	Carl Pavano	10	8
SP4	26	Chien-Ming Wang	4	7
SP5	28	Shawn Chacon	7	8
RP1	36	Mariano Rivera	18	15
RP2	30	Kyle Farnsworth	9	7
RP3	36	Ron Villone	6	5
RP4	34	Aaron Small	4	3
RP5	30	Jaret Wright	5	4

Other pitchers we are likely to see include Tanyan Sturtze and, if he gets healthy enough to pitch this season, Octavio Dotel. Carl Pavano is clearly the key guy on this team; a solid year from Pavano gives them three dependable starters, with a chance for 4 if Wang holds up (no, I don't expect the fairy godmother to give Chacon and Small a new set of ball gowns this season), and could take the pressure off a bullpen that yet again is shaky behind the sandman. On offense, the Yanks are 8 men and out once again, with the decrepit Bernie eating up at bats and minimal help from the bench. And, of course, this is an old, old team.

With Bonds ailing last season and Palmeiro having hung it up, we haven't yet had a test of a guy with the kind of steroids bullseye Sheffield now has painted on him; 2006 will be that test, and we'll see if Sheff proves that he's still impervious both to age and to the media. Long term, of course, if it turns out that a lot of the performances by mid/late-30s slugging of the past decade have been steroids-driven, and those performances don't hold up in the future under the new testing regimes (two big ifs), that could adversely impact Steinbrenner's business model of buying established over-30 veterans.

I'm not optimistic about Cano, who came into camp out of shape and isn't the most disciplined player to start with.

Boston Red Sox

Raw EWSL: 289.17 (96 W)
Adjusted: 292.00 (97 W)
Age-Adj.: 269.77 (90 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	34	Jason Varitek	18	17
1B	27	Kevin Youkilis#	4	5
2B	34	Mark Loretta	23	21
SS	29	Alex Gonzalez	15	14
3B	32	Mike Lowell	17	15
RF	32	Trot Nixon	12	11
CF	26	Coco Crisp	16	19
LF	34	Manny Ramirez	31	28
DH	30	David Ortiz	26	25
C2	28	Josh Bard	3	3
INF	38	JT Snow	14	11
OF	24	Wily Mo Pena	8	10
13	30	Alex Cora	10	10
SP1	39	Curt Schilling	12	9
SP2	26	Josh Beckett	11	11
SP3	31	Matt Clement	11	8
SP4	43	David Wells	11	11
SP5	39	Tim Wakefield	12	9
RP1	33	Keith Foulke	10	8
RP2	40	Mike Timlin	10	10
RP3	29	David Riske	7	6
RP4	25	Jon Papelbon*	2	5
RP5	33	Julian Tavarez	7	6

I could easily have listed Willie Harris or Tony Graffanino instead of Cora, but the results would be similar. Ditto for whether you consider Youkilis or Snow as the #1 guy at first. I imagine that the Pena deal squeezes Dustan Mohr out of the picture.

Will Loretta still be this good? Coming back from injuries gets harder at his age, but a full recovery to 20+ Win Share territory would be a big help for this team. And for those of you who haven't followed the offseason moves that carefully, that's the Florida Alex Gonzalez, not the one who used to play for the Blue Jays.

This is an even older pitching staff than the Yankees, and with even more question marks, but the Sox may have more alternatives to fall back on. I'll be surprised if we don't see Craig Hansen pitching important innings by July, and Papelbon in the rotation at some point.

Toronto Blue Jays

Raw EWSL: 222.50 (74 W)
Adjusted: 238.00 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.76 (75 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	31	Ben Molina	14	11
1B	29	Lyle Overbay	16	15
2B	24	Aaron Hill*	5	12
SS	25	Russ Adams#	6	9
3B	29	Troy Glaus	16	15
RF	28	Eric Hinske	10	11
CF	27	Vernon Wells	19	19
LF	32	Frank Catalanotto	12	11
DH	30	Shea Hillenbrand	14	13
C2	35	Gregg Zaun	11	8
INF	31	John McDonald	3	2
OF	25	Alexis Rios#	7	10
13	29	Reed Johnson	10	9
SP1	29	Roy Halladay	15	13
SP2	29	AJ Burnett	8	7
SP3	25	Gustavo Chacin*	7	17
SP4	29	Josh Towers	9	8
SP5	30	Ted Lilly	9	7
RP1	30	BJ Ryan	12	9
RP2	32	Justin Speier	7	5
RP3	28	Jason Frasor#	5	7
RP4	32	Scott Schoenweis	5	3
RP5	27	Vinny Chulk#	4	4

Though the Jays are now making happy noises about Eric Hinske beating out Rios and Johnson, your guess is as good as mine as to who will end up with the playing time. The Jays and their fans may talk themselves into thinking this is a credible contender, but all you need to do is look at the DH and outfield corner slots to see why this is still a second-rate team; none of those guys is a championship-caliber regular.

One of the drawbacks of EWSL is the mechanical nature of the age adjustments; I don't seriously expect Gustavo Chacin to take that big a step forward in 2006 (he's probably less than a 50/50 bet to tread water). But even if that is balanced by what I regard as lowball figures for Halladay, Burnett and especially Ryan, it is a useful reminder that the Jays will need those guys to step up from what they've done thus far, at least in terms of Halladay and Burnett's durability.

Baltimore Orioles

Raw EWSL: 229.83 (77 W)
Adjusted: 235.33 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 211.61 (70 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Ramon Hernandez	13	12
1B	40	Jeff Conine	14	6
2B	28	Brian Roberts	22	23
SS	30	Miguel Tejada	27	26
3B	34	Melvin Mora	21	19
RF	29	Jay Gibbons	12	11
CF	26	Corey Patterson	11	12
LF	27	Luis Matos	9	9
DH	35	Javy Lopez	17	13
C2	30	Geronimo Gil	1	1
INF	35	Chris Gomez	5	4
OF	34	Kevin Millar	14	13
13	32	David Newhan#	5	6
SP1	25	Daniel Cabrera#	6	9
SP2	29	Bruce Chen	8	7
SP3	30	Rodrigo Lopez	9	7
SP4	27	Erik Bedard#	6	7
SP5	31	Kris Benson	8	7
RP1	24	Chris Ray*	2	5
RP2	33	LaTroy Hawkins	9	7
RP3	34	John Halama	3	2
RP4	35	Todd Williams	5	2
RP5	28	John Parrish	3	4

Parrish and Williams are hurt; I should go back and fix the numbers to replace Parrish with Eric DuBose, but that will have to wait until I have a free minute, and it only makes a slight difference in the bottom line.

As with Loretta, I'm skeptical that Roberts will match his EWSL, especially given the severity of Roberts' injury. And as with the Jays, even if Corey Patterson comes up with a good year, the 1B/LF situation in Baltimore is pretty desperate. Who expected Jeff Conine to still be a regular or semi-regular at 40?

Cabrera, Bedard and Chen should be a good test case for Leo Mazzone.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Raw EWSL: 152.33 (51 W)
Adjusted: 169.80 (57 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.17 (60 W)

POS	Age	PLAYER	Raw EWSL	Age Adj
C	30	Toby Hall	10	10
1B	31	Travis Lee	7	6
2B	24	Jorge Cantu#	11	16
SS	30	Julio Lugo	21	20
3B	29	Aubrey Huff	17	16
RF	25	Johnny Gomes*	7	18
CF	25	Joey Gathright*	2	5
LF	24	Carl Crawford	20	26
DH	24	Rocco Baldelli	7	9
C2	31	Josh Paul	1	1
INF	28	Ty Wigginton	8	9
OF	32	Damon Hollins*	4	6
13	30	Russ Branyan	7	7
SP1	22	Scott Kazmir#	5	9
SP2	32	Mark Hendrickson	5	4
SP3	28	Casey Fossum	3	3
SP4	25	Doug Waechter	2	3
SP5	25	Seth McClung	0	0
RP1	25	Chad Orvella*	2	4
RP2	28	Jesus Colome	3	4
RP3	30	Travis Harper	4	3
RP4	35	Dan Miceli	4	2
RP5	30	Shawn Camp#	1	1

A good roundup of what's happening with Tampa's roster battles can be found here. I probably should have listed Nick Green instead of Branyan. On the other hand, the EWSL totals would be higher if I listed Sean Burroughs, who is apparently on the verge of getting cut.

Other than Travis Lee, the Devil Rays lineup and bench don't look that terrible, especially when you project out more playing time for Baldelli, Gomes and possibly Gathright and add in BJ Upton - who may already be their best hitter but still lacks a fixed position unless he can redeem himself at shortstop in AAA - and, by season's end, possibly even Delmon Young in place of Gathright.

But beyond Scott (gag, cough, retch) Kazmir, the pitching to carry the AL East's long-time doormats to adequacy just isn't here.

You can compare the prior AL East roundups for 2004 here and 2005 here.

Continuing my pre-season romp through Established Win Shares Levels (explained here), using the new age adjustments set out here, I've assembled the top 15 players in baseball entering 2006 as ranked by age-adjusted EWSL, as well as by raw (non-adjusted) EWSL. First, the age-adjusted top 15, plus the tops at each position not represented in the top 15 (EWSL totals are rounded off).

#	PLAYER	Age	Pos	Team	EWSL
1	Albert Pujols	26	1B	Cardinals	43
2	Miguel Cabrera	23	1B	Marlins	32
3	Alex Rodriguez	30	3B	Yankees	31
4	Mark Teixera	26	1B	Rangers	31
5	Adam Dunn	26	1B	Reds	29
6	Manny Ramirez	34	LF	Red Sox	28
7	David Wright	23	3B	Mets	27
8	Derrek Lee	30	1B	Cubs	27
9	Rafael Furcal	28	SS	Dodgers	27
10	Miguel Tejada	30	SS	Orioles	26
11	Bobby Abreu	32	RF	Phillies	26
12	Carl Crawford	24	LF	Devil Rays	26
13	Vladimir Guerrero	30	RF	Angels	25
14	Todd Helton	32	1B	Rockies	25
15	David Ortiz	30	DH	Red Sox	25
-	Joe Mauer	23	C	Twins	22
-	Marcus Giles	28	2B	Braves	24
-	Carlos Zambrano	25	SP	Cubs	23
-	Johan Santana	27	SP	Twins	22
-	Roger Clemens	43	SP	Himself	20
-	Roy Oswalt	28	SP	Astros	20
-	Dontrelle Willis	24	SP	Marlins	19
-	Francisco Rodriguez	24	RP	Angels	15

In short, these are likely the best players in baseball as we enter 2006; with the injuries and age of Barry Bonds, I feel quite comfortable with the EWSL ranking of Pujols as baseball's best by a comfortable margin, although the age adjustment may overstate just a bit how far he stands ahead of the pack. I'm a little more skeptical of the ratings of Furcal and Crawford, but Furcal is obviously rated on his glove and Crawford is a solid established player just entering his prime years and likely to develop more patience and ability to drive the ball (he finished 2005 with a blazing September). Wright and Mauer are ranked only on 2004-05, so their ranking is a little inflated here in terms of what he has actually proven (the raw rankings are all three-year rankings). Note that the only team with two players in the top 15 is the Red Sox with Manny and Ortiz.

Now, the same list, except ranked by raw EWSL - in other words, the guys with the most real accomplishments entering the season, regardless of age. I went out to 16 here to avoid dropping a player solely on a rounding difference:

#	PLAYER	Age	Pos	Team	EWSL
1	Pujols	26	1B	Cardinals	37
2	A. Rodriguez	30	3B	Yankees	32
3	Gary Sheffield	37	RF	Yankees	32
4	Ramirez	34	LF	Red Sox	31
5	Abreu	32	RF	Phillies	30
6	Helton	32	1B	Rockies	29
7	Brian Giles	35	RF	Padres	29
8	Jim Edmonds	36	CF	Cardinals	28
9	D.Lee	30	1B	Cubs	28
10	Tejada	30	SS	Orioles	27
11	Texiera	26	1B	Rangers	27
12	Michael Young	29	SS	Rangers	26
13	Guerrero	30	RF	Angels	26
14	Ortiz	30	DH	Red Sox	26
15	Carlos Delgado	34	1B	Mets	26
16	Carlos Beltran	29	CF	Mets	26
-	Jorge Posada	34	C	Yankees	21
-	Jeff Kent	38	2B	Dodgers	25
-	Santana	27	SP	Twins	23
-	Clemens	43	SP	Himself	21
-	Mark Buehrle	27	SP	White Sox	20
-	C. Zambrano	25	SP	Cubs	18
-	Oswalt	28	SP	Astros	18
-	Mariano Rivera	36	RP	Yankees	18

No surprises here, especially not the fact that when you remove age from the picture you get a lot more guys on a handful of the same teams, and more Yankees in particular.

Continuing my look back at how Established Win Shares Levels (explained here) fared during the 2005 season. How did teams stack up against their pre-season EWSL? I'm raking the teams here by how their total Win Shares (i.e., their Wins x 3) exceeded their EWSL. Since I rank 23 players for EWSL before the season and a typical team goes through 30 guys a year, most teams will exceed their EWSL (in 2005, 27 of 30 teams did). But there are two ways to do so, and as you will see from the chart below, different teams took different routes. One route is to get more out of your top 23 players; the other is to bring in guys who weren't on my preseason radar screen.

The "EWSL" column shows each team's preseason age-adjusted EWSL for 23 players. "WS" is the number of Win Shares earned by those 23 players in 2005 (I used the WS totals from the Bill James Handbook, for simplicity of use); it includes Win Shares earned for other teams, so some teams get credit here they didn't actually receive on the field. "Team WS" is just Wins x 3. "Diff" is WS-EWSL. "Other"
is (Team WS)-(WS), thus catching the value of other contributors, minus the lost value of guys from the preseason EWSL roster who did their work for someone else. "Net" is (Team WS)-(EWSL), and the table is ranked by this value.

Team	EWSL	WS	Team WS	Diff	Other	Net
Brewers	157.83	201	243	+43.17	42	+85.17
Indians	195.33	263	279	+67.67	16	+83.67
Astros	202.05	249	267	+46.95	18	+64.95
White Sox	236.61	257	297	+20.39	40	+60.39
Braves	214.35	203	270	-11.35	67	+55.65
Cardinals	252.72	269	300	+16.28	30	+47.28
Angels	247.59	263	285	+15.51	22	+37.41
Blue Jays	203.89	202	240	-1.89	38	+36.11
Rockies	164.89	163	201	-1.89	38	+36.11
Mets	215.15	201	249	-14.15	48	+33.85
Rangers	205.05	210	237	+4.95	27	+31.95
A's	236.18	201	264	-35.18	63	+27.82
Tigers	185.72	168	213	-17.72	45	+27.28
Red Sox	258.06	264	285	+5.94	21	+26.94
Diamondbacks	204.11	208	231	+3.89	23	+26.89
Reds	193.66	203	219	+9.34	16	+25.34
Devil Rays	175.71	147	201	-28.71	54	+25.29
Twins	225.69	214	249	-11.69	35	+23.31
Nationals	222.03	191	243	-31.03	52	+20.97
Pirates	184.20	151	201	-33.20	50	+16.80
Phillies	247.30	253	264	+5.7	11	+16.70
Yankees	270.06	247	285	-23.06	38	+14.94
Padres	232.71	202	246	-30.71	44	+13.29
Royals	154.73	123	168	-31.73	45	+13.27
Orioles	214.83	197	222	-17.83	25	+7.17
Dodgers	209.67	166	213	-43.67	47	+3.33
Cubs	234.26	216	237	-18.26	21	+2.74
Marlins	250.61	229	249	-21.61	20	-1.61
Mariners	213.26	180	207	-33.26	27	-6.26
Giants	233.50	182	225	-51.50	43	-8.50

By and large, the fans of the teams at the bottom of the chart have the most cause for unhappiness, given how they failed to live up to the talent available to them. And note that the Giants' EWSL numbers already included both the age adjustments and my arbitrary pre-season slice of Barry Bonds' EWSL in half to adjust for his injury. Bonds' near-total wipeout was only the beginning of an epic collapse.

Available established major league talent isn't everything; teams like the Braves and A's and (though still with poor end results) the Devil Rays rebuilt on the fly, promoting youngsters to fill the shortfall of their preseason lineups. Of course, I had mentioned before the season that EWSL's projection of the Braves as a strong last-place team in a tight division, while reasonable on its face (the Braves' 203 Win Shares from the 23 guys I evaluated ended up being close to that of the Mets and Nationals but far behind Philly and Florida), was of limited usefulness because I didn't think they'd get through the season with Brian Jordan and Raul Mondesi as their outfield corners.

The best flourishings of talent on hand were the Indians - by far - the Brewers and the Astros. For Houston, this was largely the result of the Pettitte-Clemens duo and Morgan Ensberg. For Milwaukee, it was Brady Clark and Chris Capuano. For Cleveland, it was the amazing season of Jhonny Peralta, plus Grady Sizemore, but it was really all up and down the lineup.

Red Sox fans may be surprised to see that they basically got what they bargained for from their projected lineup. And the Mets weren't far off. EWSL had pegged the Royals before the season as a staggeringly bad team, the worst in baseball, yet the guys I looked at still managed to significantly underachieve that dismal evaluation.

Players who most exceeded their EWSL: Jhonny Peralta 22.9, Chase Utley 17.8, Jason Bay 17.1, Morgan Ensberg 16.4, David Eckstein 16.4, Grady Sizemore 15.3, Brian Roberts 15.0, Chris Carpenter 14.5, Tony Clark 14.2, Andy Pettitte 14.0, Brady Clark 14.0, Craig Counsell 13.6, Manny Ramirez 13.3, Derrek Lee 13.1, David Ortiz 13.0, Jose Contreras 12.9, Felipe Lopez 12.8, Carlos Delgado 12.6, Ryan Dempster 12.6, Ken Griffey jr 12.0, Danny Haren 11.8, Jorge Cantu 11.6, Paul Konerko 11.5, Joe Mauer 11.5, Richie Sexson 11.3, Mark Ellis 11.2, Todd Jones 11.1, Chris Capuano 10.7, Kyle Farnsworth 10.6, Eric Chavez 10.4, David Wright 10.3, Bruce Chen 10.2, Cliff Floyd 10.1, Dustin Hermanson 10.1. Note that a few of these guys went way up mainly because they got closer jobs. A few, like Manny, did nothing more than defy the ravages of age.

Players who fell furthest off their EWSL: Barry Bonds -38.5*, Scott Rolen -24.4, Albert Pujols -19.4, Jim Thome -19.2, Rocco Baldelli -18.8, D'Angelo Jimenez -18.6, Cesar Izturis -17.1, Corey Patterson -16.8, Termel Sledge -16.7, Jeff Bagwell -15.4, Adrian Beltre -14.7, Marquis Grissom -14.3, Eric Gagne -14.2, Erubiel Durazo -13.7, Curt Schilling -13.2, Khalil Greene -12.8, Carlos Beltran -12.6, Mike Lowell -12.5, Sidney Ponson -12.0, Sammy Sosa -11.8, Craig Wilson -11.5, Keith Foulke -11.4, Russ Ortiz -11.1, Nomar Garciaparra -11.0, Koyie Hill -11.0, Bret Boone -10.7, Oliver Perez -10.3, Sean Burroughs -10.3, Kerry Wood -10.2, Frank Thomas -10.2, Steve Finley -10.0. Note that a few of this group are guys I just misprojected to play. Bonds is the dropoff from his total EWSL, not the halved one I used for the team calculation. Note also that a particular type of player was overprojected by EWSL: good glove men in their 20s without a consistent track record with the bat, like Jimenez, Izturis and Greene. They may have been overprojected by the age adjustment to make strides forward that were incompatible with their defense-heavy profiles; you don't improve that much with the glove each year in your mid-20s. Also, the age adjustment's enthusiasm for early-20s hitters failed to take account of how little room for improvement Pujols had left. And let's not discuss why Termel Sledge was listed as a player of significant value entering 2005.

It's time to unveil one of my longer-running research projects. Offense has exploded over the past decade and a half in Major League Baseball, while at the same time the top pitchers of the age - Clemens, Maddux, Pedro, Randy Johnson - have stood further and further above the league. I've long suspected that these two phenomena were connected by a common fact: the percentage of each team's innings thrown by its top pitchers has been in steep decline for years, and as a result each team - even if it has just as many or more quality arms as in years past - is delegating an ever-growing percentage of its innings to be thrown by second-line pitchers. I should note that this phenomenon is mostly independent of the dilution of pitching inherent in expansion.* In other words, the problem isn't just that each team has fewer top pitchers because they are distributed more widely about the league - it's that each team makes less use of the best pitchers it does have, and reaches deeper into its own staff, than in years past. Three trends have driven this revolution: the five-man rotation, which takes innings from the top four starters and gives it to #5; the decline in complete games and related decline in innings per start, which shifts innings from the rotation to the bullpen; and the increasing specialization of relievers, which takes innings away from the bullpen aces (now, just "closers") and gives them to middle relievers.

We know all this, of course. But I wanted to quantify it, and if someone else has, I missed it.** So here's what I did. I took one season every five years from 1920 - the dawn of the modern, lively-ball era - through 2004 (I would have used 2005 but I started the study last July). I went through each team in each league and identified their top six pitchers. For most of the study, that meant top 4 starters and top 2 relievers. For some of the 1920-35 period, I used the fifth starter in the bullpen column because teams generally had a swing man with irregular starting duties do most of the relief work.

Picking a top 6 is more art than science, though I mostly followed the listings in baseball-reference.com's team pages. Wherever possible, I erred on the side of listing the better pitcher if there were two otherwise comparable workloads and usage patterns. I'll discuss a few other specific methodological issues below the fold.*** In general, I sought to look at a team's roster and figure out, from how it used its pitchers, who the team thought were its top 6. For example, I made sure to include Norm Charlton on the 1990 Reds even if it meant classifying him as the team's fourth starter. While I used an every-five year interval, I was off a year in 1996 to avoid using a strike-shortened season, and in 1946 to avoid a year of war depletion. Without further ado, here are the results, with more notes to follow the charts.

By Rotation/Bullpen Slot

First, a breakdown of the average workload and ERA for each slot:

Year	SP1	ERA	SP2	ERA	SP3	ERA	SP4	ERA	RP1	ERA	RP2	ERA	Others	ERA	Lg ERA
2004	207.8	3.83	193.1	4.19	160.9	4.56	139.7	4.62	66.4	3.10	78.5	3.33	600.0	4.99	4.46
2000	214.2	4.03	188.7	4.47	157.0	4.61	131.2	4.94	69.4	3.51	76.6	3.52	604.0	5.41	4.76
1996	222.1	3.83	198.5	4.43	173.8	4.47	132.9	4.82	68.3	3.31	79.8	3.38	573.0	5.30	4.61
1990	216.5	3.36	196.7	3.69	175.0	4.06	151.3	3.96	73.2	2.61	90.5	2.93	541.3	4.33	3.85
1985	237.2	3.18	220.1	3.79	180.2	3.81	147.0	4.06	91.1	2.93	91.1	3.27	481.6	4.57	3.89
1980	238.7	3.37	218.8	3.75	186.0	3.83	162.9	4.03	98.9	2.71	102.0	3.32	448.7	4.42	3.83
1975	260.9	3.05	229.7	3.69	193.5	3.74	154.8	3.92	91.2	3.11	95.2	3.29	421.4	4.23	3.70
1970	266.4	3.33	229.1	3.85	198.7	3.84	148.0	3.94	91.4	3.01	86.8	3.43	431.6	4.50	3.88
1965	258.6	3.04	227.1	3.24	190.7	3.56	161.2	3.63	103.5	2.67	86.6	2.97	431.2	4.13	3.50
1960	250.8	3.42	215.0	3.55	181.6	3.69	156.7	3.62	98.3	3.17	101.9	3.57	383.2	4.60	3.82
1955	230.8	3.36	206.7	3.70	175.0	4.00	148.1	3.75	97.3	3.20	104.4	3.73	413.3	4.84	4.00
1950	261.7	3.60	217.9	3.97	199.4	4.13	150.9	4.48	114.9	4.26	104.4	4.78	323.8	5.22	4.36
1946	244.5	2.78	209.1	2.94	178.3	3.46	140.5	3.34	90.9	3.27	121.2	3.14	399.5	4.35	3.46
1940	253.7	3.26	223.7	3.67	185.8	4.34	160.4	3.94	99.8	3.97	96.7	4.16	358.0	4.98	4.11
1935	261.5	3.52	220.5	3.76	187.5	3.95	163.7	4.33	141.6	4.11	111.6	4.33	280.7	5.44	4.24
1930	260.9	3.87	224.1	4.41	200.2	4.82	164.5	4.72	134.8	4.72	98.3	5.33	283.5	5.89	4.81
1925	252.3	3.70	232.1	3.88	205.2	4.08	176.5	4.40	139.6	4.69	109.5	4.66	248.9	5.20	4.33
1920	286.8	2.96	273.0	2.96	236.8	3.61	193.9	3.57	129.3	3.54	88.2	3.64	183.1	4.52	3.46

Innings are rounded to the nearest tenth. The every-five-years pattern does miss a few things; since 1970 was a hitters' year we basically skip the whole 1966-74 period. And you can see that workloads were mostly off in 1946, as managers spread their work around with pitchers returning from the war; those numbers would be more dramatic except for Lou Boudreau's decision to throw Bob Feller and his 2.18 ERA for 371.1 innings in pursuit of a sixth place finish. Also, bear in mind the switch to the 162-game schedule in 1961, which added 72 innings a year to each staff's workload, as well as the (not counted here) dramatic expansions in the size of the postseason from 4-7 games through 1968, to 7-12 games in 1969, to 8-14 games in 1985, to 11-19 games in 1995. A World Championship team in 1955 could expect to throw 1449 innings if it extended the postseason to its logical limit; by 1996, that number was 1629.

For recent history, you can see vividly that front-line pitcher workloads have fallen off sharply in the past 20 years, much more sharply than in any prior period, and that it's affected both starters and relievers. Without compelling evidence that this has reduced pitcher injuries, I can't see how you justify this, although you could argue that the modern postseason makes it a necessity. Until about 1930, a team's #1 starter would pitch more innings than the whole second-line staff; now, the second-line pitchers throw nearly three times as many innings as the ace.

One of the more dramatic changes comes when you trace the use of the bullpen before and after 1950. From 1955 on, you can see clearly defined #1 and 2 relievers on most teams; from 1940 to 1950, there are guys who have those jobs on most teams, but their ERAs are usually around the league ERA rather than far superior; prior to 1940, I was largely counting in those slots guys who were doing most of their work as spot starters.

Rotation/Bullpen Shares of the Workload

Next, the breakdown by starters, relievers, their performance and share of the workload. "Adv" is the ERA of the rest divided by the ERA of the top 6 (i.e., the percentage advantage of the top 6 in quality vs. the rest).

Year	SP%	ERA	RP%	ERA	S+R%	ERA	Rest%	ERA	Adv
2004	48.5	4.25	10.0	3.23	58.5	4.08	41.5	4.99	1.22
2000	48.0	4.46	10.1	3.52	58.1	4.29	41.9	5.41	1.26
1996	50.2	4.33	10.2	3.35	60.4	4.16	39.6	5.30	1.27
1990	51.2	3.74	11.3	2.79	62.5	3.56	37.5	4.33	1.22
1985	54.2	3.66	12.6	3.10	66.7	3.55	33.3	4.57	1.29
1980	55.4	3.71	13.8	3.02	69.2	3.57	30.8	4.42	1.24
1975	58.0	3.54	12.9	3.20	70.9	3.48	29.1	4.23	1.21
1970	58.0	3.70	12.3	3.21	70.3	3.62	29.7	4.50	1.25
1965	57.4	3.33	13.0	2.81	70.4	3.23	29.6	4.13	1.28
1960	57.9	3.55	14.4	3.37	72.4	3.52	27.6	4.60	1.31
1955	55.3	3.68	14.7	3.48	70.0	3.63	30.0	4.84	1.33
1950	60.4	3.99	16.0	4.51	76.4	4.10	23.6	5.22	1.27
1946	55.8	3.07	15.3	3.20	71.1	3.10	28.9	4.35	1.40
1940	59.8	3.75	14.3	4.07	74.0	3.81	26.0	4.98	1.31
1935	60.9	3.84	18.5	4.20	79.5	3.92	20.5	5.44	1.39
1930	62.2	4.40	17.1	4.98	79.2	4.52	20.8	5.89	1.30
1925	63.5	3.98	18.3	4.68	81.8	4.14	18.2	5.20	1.26
1920	71.2	3.23	15.6	3.58	86.8	3.30	13.2	4.52	1.37

There's a lot of different competitive factors at work here over time - expansion, war, integration. But if diminishing the workloads of frontline pitchers was really worth it, you would expect the "Adv" column to flatten out sharply as the work gets spread around more. It has flattened, buit only slightly - there's still no difference between 1925 and 2000.

The League Level

The third table looks at the league totals, and also at how the league ERA would change if you adjusted the best/rest mix to a steady 70% over time. Innings totals are rounded off to the nearest whole:

Year	Teams	Top 6 IP	Rest IP	LgERA	Adj70
2004	30	25393	18001	4.46	4.35
2000	30	25115	18121	4.76	4.63
1996	28	24509	16045	4.61	4.50
1990	26	23484	14073	3.85	3.79
1985	26	25133	12521	3.89	3.86
1980	26	26187	11667	3.83	3.83
1975	24	24604	10113	3.70	3.71
1970	24	24489	10358	3.88	3.88
1965	20	20552	8623	3.50	3.50
1960	16	16068	6131	3.82	3.84
1955	16	15394	6612	4.00	4.00
1950	16	16785	5181	4.36	4.43
1946	16	15751	6392	3.46	3.47
1940	16	16320	5728	4.11	4.16
1935	16	17383	4492	4.24	4.38
1930	16	17321	4536	4.81	4.93
1925	16	17843	3982	4.33	4.46
1920	16	19327	2930	3.46	3.66

There is probably no more dramatic set of numbers on this chart than the column here showing the explosive growth in the raw number of innings thrown eah year by pitchers who do not qualify as one of their team's top six pitchers. The total is up 50% just since 1985 (while the total thrown by front-line pitchers hasn't changed much, give or take a year-to-year variation, since 1970). It's up 80% since 1975, and has tripled since 1960, and the 1960 figure doubled the 1920 total. Yes, a lot of that is a function of the growth in the number of teams, and so spread out over more games. But there's just no way around the fact that an awful lot of the time of paying customers is spent watching lesser pitchers ply their craft.

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Bill Simmons asks:

Just throwing it out there to sidetrack the Baseball Crank's day, but after Brad Lidge's second demoralizing walkoff homer, is there any way to figure out the ratio of "Closer eventually bouncing back and becoming effective again" to "Closer who was never the same"? For instance, Calvin Schiraldi was probably the best pitching prospect in the Boston farm system before the '86 playoffs - look at his regular-season stats in 1986 compared to everything that followed in his career. And what about Byung Hyun-Kim, Donnie Moore, Mitch Williams, Mark Wohlers, Tom Niedenfuer ... really, the only guy I can remember who kept chugging along was Dennis Eckersley after the '88 World Series. Anyway, let's see what the Crank can dig up on this.

Well, I can't well turn down that challenge, can I? So, I decided to walk through every example I could find of a relief pitcher blowing the big game in the postseason, and see how they fared the next few years. A few observations:

*I limited myself to the postseason and season-ending playoffs rather than the regular season.

*I limited myself to relievers. That knocks out both starters who blew the big one (think: Mike Torrez), and starters pitching in relief, which eliminated Ralph Branca in 1951, Ralph Terry in 1960 (Mazeroski's homer), Bob Moose in 1972 (the wild pitch that ended Game 5 and the NLCS), Pat Darcy in Game 6 of the 1975 WS (the Bernie Carbo Carlton Fisk homer; Darcy never pitched effectively again), Jack McDowell in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS, Kenny Rogers in Game 6 of the 1999 NLCS, Derek Lowe and Rich Harden in Games 1 and 3 of the 2003 ALDS, Tim Wakefield (the Aaron Boone homer), Jeff Weaver (2003 WS Game 4), and Esteban Loaiza (2004 ALCS Game 5). I also left off Aurelio Lopez (1986 NLCS Game 6), an aging veteran who was just the last guy left on a staff.

*I ended up limiting the study to 1972-present. Before that period, there just weren't enough examples of relievers blowing the big game; starters tended to stay in longer, and before 1969 the postseason was a lot shorter. The only one that came to mind was Johnny Miljus throwing the wild pitch that ended the 1927 World Series; while Miljus struggled the next season and was swiftly put on waivers, I have a hard time thinking a guy who contributed to his team being swept by the 1927 Yankees was much of a goat.

*I noticed that the combination of more relievers, longer playoffs, more scoring in general and more home runs in particular has led to a massive upswing in recent years of huge game-breaking reversals of fortune in the postseason. Just in 2003-04 I counted 17 pitchers, counting guys who collaborated in big collapses including three in the 2003 Red Sox-A's ALDS and four apiece in the 2004 NLCS and ALCS.

Here we go. I broke the pitchers into three categories: guys who survived, guys who were ruined, and guys who came away in some sense damaged but not destroyed.

Dave Giusti, 1972 NLCS Game 5:

Moose threw the wild pitch, but it was Giusti, the Pirates' veteran closer, who blew the 3-2 lead in the ninth inning of game 5 of a best-of-5 series. Mitigating factor: the Pirates were already the defending champs. Giusti was just-y (hah!) fine the next season. Survived.

(Side note: Pittsburgh's Game 5 starter, 19-game winner Steve Blass, mysteriously lost the strike zone the next season).

Rawly Eastwick, 1975 WS Game 6:

The 24-year-old Eastwick served up Fisk's Bernie Carbo's home run. (UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that I went through the box score for this one too quickly and mixed up Eastwick and Darcy - it was Eastwick who gave up the big blow, the 3-run homer to Carbo that tied up the game in the 8th when the Reds were just four outs away from their first World Championship in 35 years). Mitigating factors: It was a tie game, and the Reds came back and won the next day. He was just as effective the next year. Survived.

Mark Littell, 1976 ALCS Game 5, 1977 ALCS Game 5:

Our first serial offender, Littell gave up Chris Chambliss' home run and the following year participated with four other pitchers in blowing a 3-1 lead in Game 5. Mitigating factor: Littell wasn't mainly responsible for the 1977 disaster. He was traded after 1977, but pitched effectively for two more years. Survived.

Rich Gossage: 1980 ALCS Game 3:

Gave up George Brett's massive game-breaking homer to cement a humiliating ALCS sweep. Mitigating factors: the series was a sweep, and the Goose already had the 1978 playoff game and championship under his belt. Gossage would also allow a famous but less crushing home run to Kirk Gibson in the 1984 WS. Posted an 0.77 ERA the next season, and kept on cruisin'. Survived.

Dave Stewart, 1981 NLDS Games 1 & 2:

A few mitigating factors: these weren't notably crushing losses, and the Dodgers won the series and went on to win the World Series. Stewart, a rookie reliever, pitched decently the next two years before the struggles that would land him in Oakland, but took years to establish himself as a star. We can count him as Damaged.

Luis Sanchez, 1982 ALCS Game 5:

Blew a 3-2 lead in the 7th inning of the deciding Game 5. A solid setup man rather than a closer, Sanchez continued in the same vein for two more years. Survived.

Lee Smith, 1984 NLCS Game 4:

The backbreaking Steve Garvey homer. Smith was fine. Survived.

Dan Quisenberry, 1985 ALCS Games 2, 4:

These were fairly routine losses. The Quiz had some decent years thereafter, but dropped from 37 saves in 1985 to 12 and never recovered as a big-time closer. May have been his age and workload, but the postseason shot to his confidence may have contributed. Damaged.

Tom Niedenfeur, 1985 NLCS Games 5 & 6:

The Ozzie Smith and Jack Clark homers; Niedenfeur, a successful closer through 1985, is the best comp for what has happened to Brad Lidge. Fell off sharply in 1987 and, while he had a few effective moments, was never the same again. Ruined.

Todd Worrell, 1985 World Series Game 6:

Major mitigating factor here - everyone blamed 1B umpire Don Denkinger, not the rookie closer. Worrell Survived.

Dave Smith, 1986 NLCS Game 3:

Gave up the walkoff homer to Lenny Dykstra. Survived. Teammate Charlie Kerfeld didn't handle postseason failure that well, though.

Donnie Moore, 1986 ALCS Game 5:

The Dave Henderson, one-strike-from-the-World-Series homer. Moore was mostly hurt in 1987, but never recovered as a pitcher and eventually shot himself. Ruined.

Calvin Schiraldi, 1986 ALCS Game 4, 1986 World Series Games 6 & 7:

Schiraldi had only a half-season of good pitching under his belt before beaning in the tying run in the 9th in Game 4; Games 6 and 7, you know about. Ruined.

Bob Stanley, 1986 World Series Game 6:

The Steamah was running out of steam by 1986 anyway, and the Sawx converted him back to a starter the next year with disastrous results. He did pitch OK in 1988, but was done as an effective year-in-year-out pitcher. We can count him as Damaged.

Dennis Eckersley, 1988 World Series Game 1:

The Kirk Gibson homer. Eck, with a long and checkered career already behind him (a no-hitter, living through the 1978 collapse, battle with the bottle), shrugged it off and got even tougher. Survived.

UPDATE: An emailer also calls attention to Eck allowing a 2-run homer to Roberto Alomar to blow Game 4 of the 1992 ALCS.

Alejandro Pena: 1991 World Series Game 7:

Pena wound up losing the classic Morris-Smoltz duel. This brought an end to his string of effective years. He pitched OK in 1995, including in the NLDS and NLCS, before losing Game 3 of the 1995 WS in extra innings. We can count him as Damaged.

Stan Belinda, 1992 NLCS Game 7:

The Francisco Cabrera/Sid Bream game, which the Pirates led 2-0 when Belinda entered the game. Belinda was sent packing the following season, but his overall effectiveness in 1993-95 was about the same as in the prior three years. Survived.

Mitch Williams, 1993 World Series Games 4 & 6:

Before the Joe Carter game was Game 4, a raucous 15-14 affair where the Phils had a 4-run lead when Williams entered the game in the 8th. Williams was utterly Ruined and threw less than 40 more major league innings.

Mark Wohlers, 1996 World Series Game 4:

The Jim Leyritz home run. Wohlers actually saved 33 games the next year before falling apart, so we'll list him as Damaged, but he was never quite the same.

Mariano Rivera, 1997 ALDS Game 4, 2001 World Series Game 7, 2004 ALCS Game 4:

Rivera survived blowing three huge season-killing postseason games, beginning with the Sandy Alomar home run, for the same reason Bill Gates survives losing $10 million in a bad day for Microsoft stock. Survived.

Armando Benitez, 1997 ALCS Game 6, 1999 NLCS Game 6, 2000 World Series Game 1:

This is the abridged version of Benitez' regular- and postseason rap sheet of big game disasters. Let's list him as Damaged; he's never let the big ones stop him from being an effective closer, but you have to think the long series of big-game implosions are more than just a coincidence and have fed off each other.

Jose Mesa, 1997 World Series Game 7:

Two outs away in the bottom of the ninth, and Mesa couldn't shut the door. He has had successes since then, but 1998-2000 was a stretch in the wilderness. We'll list him as Damaged.

Tom Gordon, 1998 ALDS Game 4, 2004 ALCS Game 5:

The 2004 debacle was partly mitigated by the fact that four pitchers (including the revered Rivera) participated in it, and the 1998 game wasn't a really unusual loss, nor a particularly close series. Gordon has Survived untouched.

Matt Mantei, 1999 NLDS Game 4:

The Todd Pratt walk-off series-ending homer. I'll list Mantei as having Survived, since his on-and-off effectiveness before and after the homer were the results of injuries; he remained the same pitcher he was before.

Kevin McGlinchy, 1999 NLCS Game 5:

McGlinchy, a promising rookie, had the lead entering the bottom of the 15th of the Robin Ventura "grand slam single" game. I guess we can label him Ruined since he has pitched just 8.1 innings since then, although this was due to injury.

Aaron Fultz, 2000 NLDS Game 3:

As a rookie, surrendered Benny Agbayani's walk-off 13th inning homer in a tie game, which turned the series. Fultz was the same mediocrity he'd been before for the next four years, before finding himself in 2005. Survived.

Arthur Rhodes, 2000 ALCS Game 6, 2001 ALCS Game 4:

The main one is the 2000 David Justice homer, but the game-tying Bernie homer in 2001 hurt too. The Colossus went on to the best years of his career in 2001-02, so he Survived. (Jose Paniagua, the losing pitcher in the Justice game, didn't fare so well).

Steve Kline, 2001 NLDS Game 5:

The great Morris-Schilling duel was a tie game when Kline took over in the 9th. He has Survived allowing Tony Womack's series-winning single.

Billy Wagner, 2001 NLDS Game 1:

Allowing a back-breaking homer to Chipper Jones in a tie game was actually the last of Wagner's postseason failures; we'll list him as Damaged, as his record is a smaller version of Benitez' and he has kept blowing big regular-season games. Personally, I expect Lidge to follow the Benitez-Wagner career path.

Kaz Sasaki, 2001 ALCS Game 4:

Walk-off 2-run homer to Soriano in a tie game effectvely finished a 116-win team that was down 2-1 in the ALCS. Sasaki Survived, though he quit the majors two years later.

Byung-Hyun Kim, 2001 World Series Games 4 & 5:

Kim had a great 2002 and solid 2003 but hasn't been the same since, and can't pitch in the postseason or against the Yankees. Damaged.

Tim Worrell, 2002 World Series Game 6, 2003 NLDS Game 3:

Worrell was the chief culprit in the Game 6 fiasco, bounced back with 38 saves in 2003, then blew a 1-run lead in the 11th inning in the 2003 game. Survived.

Robb Nen, 2002 World Series Game 6:

Nen's arm gave out over thr course of the last half of 2002, culminating with the Troy Glaus double that sealed the Giants' fate, and he hasn't pitched since. We'll list him as Damaged, since this wasn't really a psychological thing but he did see his career end.

Felix Rodriguez, 2002 World Series Game 6, 2003 NLDS Game 4:

Rodriguez was already in decline by 2002, and has Survived since his role in these two late-inning collapses.

Keith Foulke, 2003 ALDS Game Four:

Foulke found the best way to get over David Ortiz' 2-run double that blew a 1-run lead in the 8th: join Ortiz' team. His 2004 performance showed he Survived.

Kyle Farnsworth, 2003 NLCS Game 6:

The real goat of the 2003 Cubs' demise was Farnsworth, not Steve Bartman or a tired Mark Prior. The mercurial Farsnworth recovered this year after a lousy 2004; while he'd always been inconsistent, we'll label him Damaged.

UPDATE: An emailer points out that Farnsworth's damage assessment should also include Game 4 of this year's NLDS.

Francisco Rodriguez, 2004 ALDS Game 3:

Another David Ortiz victim. K-Rod had a rough postseason again this year, but I'll count him among those who Survived.

(UPDATE: A commenter notes that I remembered wrong - it was Washburn who surrendered the Ortiz homer. K-Rod, of course, had also been the losing pitcher in Game 2. So you can discount him from the list if you like).

Dan Miceli, 2004 NLDS Game 1 2, 2004 NLCS Games 2 & 6:

The Edmonds homer was the final straw in a horrific postseason for Miceli, who was ineffective in brief action this season after being exiled to Colorado. For now, we can mark him Ruined.

Paul Quantrill, 2004 ALCS Game 4:

An overworked Quantrill ran off the rails in the middle of 2004, so his ALCS meltdown was just part of an ongoing process on his way from 2003 star to 2005 batting practice pitcher. We'll mark him Damaged.

Jason Isringhausen, 2004 NLCS Game 5:

The Jeff Kent homer. Izzy's team lived to win the series, and he had a career year in 2005. Survived.

Conclusion: Even using a fairly broad definition of "Damaged," and understanding that in any season a certain number of successful relievers will fall off, we come up with a list of 22 relief pitchers (55%) who Survived a major postseason disaster, 12 (30%) who came away in some sense Damaged, and just 6 (15%) who were thoroughly Ruined by the experience, those being a mixture of young guys (Schiraldi) and established veterans (Niedenfeur, Williams).

UPDATE: Comments closed on this post.

The second half of yesterday's post: the weaker pitchers.

4.51 to 5.00

Pitcher	IP	DIPS ERA
Lowry	98.2	4.53
J.Johnson	107.1	4.54
Jennings	128	4.54
Fogg	111.2	4.55
Clement	99.2	4.56
Ol.Perez	130.1	4.56
Greinke	113.2	4.56
Ponson	132.1	4.56
Lidle	117.2	4.57
Od.Perez	119.2	4.57
Towers	108.1	4.59
Chen	81	4.61
Redman	123	4.63
Contreras	128.1	4.66
Vazquez	116.1	4.67
Bush	115	4.71
Meche	119.2	4.74
Myers	126	4.75
Lilly	116.1	4.77
Wolf	79.2	4.79
Villone	71.2	4.80
Leiter	113	4.83
Mulholland	90.2	4.84
Santos	100	4.89
Park	76.1	4.97
Loaiza	101	4.98
Kennedy	90.1	5.00

A few people here, like Clement and Oliver Perez, I was surprised to see rank so low. Some of these guys are doing better in the 2005 portion, like Brett Myers and Vazquez. DIPS seems pessimistic on Bruce Chen's improvement.

If you're below Chan Ho Park in anything, you got problems.

5.01 to 5.50

Pitcher	IP	DIPS ERA
Halama	77.1	5.01
Trachsel	90	5.04
Sele	89	5.05
Garland	141.2	5.06
M.Wood	101	5.07
Capuano	70	5.07
C.Lee	100.2	5.07
Suppan	113.1	5.08
Sosa	70.2	5.10
Moyer	125.2	5.10
Harang	119	5.13
Lohse	108.2	5.16
Rueter	119	5.16
Vogelsong	72.1	5.18
Mulder	130	5.19
Fossum	94	5.20
B.Anderson	115	5.21
Elarton	116.2	5.24
Claussen	80.1	5.26
P.Wilson	111.1	5.27
Ra.Ortiz	74.2	5.27
Jam.Wright	108.2	5.28
Bell	92.2	5.29
Wakefield	115	5.30
Robertson	113	5.34
May	95.2	5.42
Glavine	114.1	5.44

No bad luck for Glavine, just bad pitching. Trachsel was nothing so hot, either; he had a fine run with the Mets but was running on fumes the second half of last year. And you can see, especially in contrast to where Danny Haren ranked yesterday, why the Mulder deal is a real risk for the Cardinals. Garland is low because he pitched a lot of innings last year, so this year's numbers don't make much of an impact yet. Wakefield, being a knuckleballer, can be expected to outperform his DIPS ERA anyway.

5.51 to 6.50

Pitcher	IP	DIPS ERA
Cabrera	98	5.56
Brazleton	115	5.62
Batista	88.2	5.71
Franklin	134.1	5.73
Lima	119.1	5.75
Estes	123.2	5.79
Milton	130.2	5.83
Ishii	89.1	5.98
Ru.Ortiz	122.2	6.10
Valdez	71	6.21

You can see here why the pitchers on my HACKING MASS team over at Baseball Prospectus are Russ Ortiz and Jose Lima, both of whom moved into tougher parks to pitch in this year. Hopefully, the Ishii Experience will be brief now that the Mets are developing other options, but it's debatable whether he's the most flammable of the Washed-Up Ex-Dodgers Club along with Park, Pedro Astacio and Hideo Nomo (what, Ramon Martinez can't find work?).

We come, at long last, to the sixth and final installment of my 2005 EWSL review (Established Win Shares Levels are explained here, the AL East EWSL report is here, the AL West EWSL report is here, the AL Central EWSL report is here, the AL EWSL standings are here, the NL East EWSL report is here, and the NL West EWSL report is here). Again, recall that the 23-man rosters used here will slightly depress the team win totals: as I demonstrated with the AL standings, the total EWSL for the league requires rounding up by about 7-10 wins per team. Now that we have all the NL teams, I can run a similarly adjusted standings table soon.

St. Louis Cardinals

RAW EWSL: 261.83 (87 Wins)
Adj EWSL: 265.83 (89 Wins)
Age Adj EWSL: 252.72 (84 Wins)

Pos	Age	Player	Raw EWSL	Adj EWSL	Age-Adj EWSL
C	22	Yadier Molina*	2	4	7
1B	25	Albert Pujols	39	39	53
2B	35	Mark Grudzielanek	13	13	8
SS	30	David Eckstein	12	12	11
3B	30	Scott Rolen	32	32	29
RF	38	Larry Walker	17	17	14
CF	35	Jim Edmonds	30	30	20
LF	37	Reggie Sanders	16	16	13
C2	32	Einar Diaz	3	3	3
INF	25	Hector Luna	2	4	5
OF	34	John Mabry	7	7	6
12	35	So Taguchi	4	4	3
13	30	Roger Cedeno	7	7	7
SP1	27	Mark Mulder	16	16	17
SP2	30	Chris Carpenter	6	6	6
SP3	30	Matt Morris	9	9	8
SP4	30	Jeff Suppan	10	10	9
SP5	26	Jason Marquis	8	8	8
CL	32	Jason Isringhausen	11	11	9
R2	32	Julian Tavarez	8	8	7
R3	31	Ray King	6	6	5
R4	37	Cal Eldred	4	4	3
R5	34	Al Reyes	2	2	1

My age adjustments, based on last year's experience across all major leaguers who were rated on EWSL entering 2004, project a 37% improvement for 25-year-old players. Of course, in last year's sample there weren't any 25-year-old hitters whose Established Performance Level was .337/.644/.420, leading to EWSL of 39. (This assumes the truth of Pujols' reported age, a subject I won't revisit here). However, if you look historically at Pujols' most-comparable players, you'll see that the guys at the top took a small step backwards at age 25 - DiMaggio, Foxx, Vlad Guerrero (Ted Williams was in the military). On the other hand, two of his ten comps, Foxx and Joe Medwick, won the Triple Crown at 25, Frank Robinson won the MVP, and Aaron and Joe D won the batting title, so I wouldn't be losing much sleep. Just saying that 53 Win Shares is a bit much of an improvement for a guy already performing at Pujols' elevated level.

(Of course, it's not just that DiMaggio is the most similar player to Pujols; what's more impressive is that for age 21-23, the most similar player to DiMaggio is Pujols. Think about that.)

Speaking of comparables, they also provide a caution on Jim Edmonds, who hits the magic 35 this year. I ran a quick weighted average, and Edmonds' comps, on average, aged OK at 35, sliding from .291/.537/386 to .287/.499/.365, about a net 7% dropoff, albeit with a severe drop in playing time, from 462 at bats to 310. But even the good performance is largely the doing of Ellis Burks batting .344 at 35; of the 8 usable comps (Wally Berger and Hack Wilson retired after age 34), three (Tim Salmon, Larry Doby and Mo Vaughn) wiped out completely, ending Doby's and Vaughn's careers and possibly Salmon's, two others (Fred Lynn and David Justice, both in some sense genuinely similar players) dropped off sharply, Lynn from .287/.499/.371 to .253/.487/.320, Justice from .286/.584/.377 to .241/.430/.333. I can't tell you what will happen with Edmonds, but he's part of a larger issue, masked to some extent in EWSL by Pujols, of age creeping up on the Cardinal lineup. (I guess if you're a fourth outfielder - or a fifth, or sixth - you have to be happy backing up a starting three of Edmonds, Walker and Sanders.)

Staying on the age thing, do we also need a new model for the aging process for .300 hitters with modest supporting skills? Grudzielanek, like Joe Randa and Mark Loretta, has aged surprisingly well. Then again, there's Jeff Cirillo.

Chicago Cubs

RAW EWSL: 231.17 (77 Wins)
Adj EWSL: 236.67 (79 Wins)
Age Adj EWSL: 234.26 (78 Wins)

Pos	Age	Player	Raw EWSL	Adj EWSL	Age-Adj EWSL
C	28	Michael Barrett	12	12	14
1B	29	Derek Lee	23	23	20
2B	32	Todd Walker	16	16	14
SS	31	Nomar Garciaparra	19	19	16
3B	27	Aramis Ramirez	18	18	19
RF	36	Jeromy Burnitz	14	14	12
CF	25	Corey Patterson	15	15	21
LF	32	Todd Hollandsworth	7	7	6
C2	33	Henry Blanco	3	3	2
INF	32	Neifi Perez	7	7	6
OF	29	Jerry Hairston	8	8	7
12	33	Jose Macias	4	4	3
13	26	Jason Dubois+	1	6	6
SP1	24	Carlos Zambrano	16	16	20
SP2	24	Mark Prior	12	12	15
SP3	28	Kerry Wood	12	12	14
SP4	39	Greg Maddux	13	13	11
SP5	28	Ryan Dempster	1	1	1
CL	32	LaTroy Hawkins	12	12	11
R2	34	Joe Borowski	6	6	5
R3	39	Mike Remlinger	5	5	4
R4	34	Chad Fox	2	2	1
R5	30	Glendon Rusch	6	6	5

Obviously, Prior could easily surpass 15 Win Shares, but he could fall short as well; this is a fairly reasonable estimate in between. Zambrano, on the other hand, I suspect peaked last year, although if he can maintain something close to that peak for a few years, that's a heck of a pitcher.

Basically, the Cubs are behind the Cards because they lack depth - Dempster's got an ugly recent track record, the bullpen's a bit shallow, and there's really no competent left fielder on hand unless Dubois really seizes the job and cranks out 25-30 homers. The ifs can come true, there are just more of them than with St. Louis, where the ifs are all about avoiding declines rather than hoping things will happen that haven't happened before.

Houston Astros

RAW EWSL: 186.17 (62 Wins)
Adj EWSL: 217.00 (72 Wins)
Age Adj EWSL: 202.04 (67 Wins)

Pos	Age	Player	Raw EWSL	Adj EWSL	Age-Adj EWSL
C	36	Brad Ausmus	9	9	7
1B	37	Jeff Bagwell	23	23	18
2B	39	Craig Biggio	18	18	15
SS	28	Adam Everett#	10	12	14
3B	29	Morgan Ensberg#	10	12	11
RF	28	Jason Lane*	4	6	7
CF	23	Willy Taveras+	0	0	12
LF	29	Lance Berkman	29	29	26
C2	32	Raul Chavez	1	1	1
INF	29	Mike Lamb	7	7	6
OF	36	Orlando Palmeiro	5	5	4
12	37	Jose Vizcaino	7	7	6
13	25	Chris Burke+	0	0	6
SP1	27	Roy Oswalt	16	16	16
SP2	42	Roger Clemens	17	17	14
SP3	33	Andy Pettitte	10	10	7
SP4	27	Brandon Backe#	3	3	4
SP5	25	Ezequiel Astacio+	0	0	4
CL	28	Brad Lidge#	11	13	16
R2	28	Chad Harville#	1	1	1
R3	28	Mike Gallo#	2	2	3
R4	27	Dan Wheeler	3	3	3
R5	25	Carlos Hernandez	1	1	1

The Astros are both overrated here (since I don't account for Berkman's knee injury at all) and underrated (since Lane, a solid-looking player, is valued as if he's a bench jockey). On the whole, I'd lean to the latter (I can't help but think they'll get more than 7 WS out of Pettitte), but this will nonetheless be a sad, sad season in Houston, as the aging of Bagwell and Biggio grows more urgent while the loss of Beltran, Kent and Wade Miller makes itself felt. By mid-season, it should be clear that an era has ended.

Yes, the Astros are reportedly moving Biggio back to second, although that doesn't affect the calculations here, since either way the alternative is a raw rookie, Taveras or Burke. In the abstract, the move makes sense if Biggio can presumably handle second no worse than his outfield play, which was poor in center, and his bat is better suited to the middle infield at this stage. In practice, though, all that matters is Taveras vs. Burke, since those are the options. Unless Biggio is being shopped to a contender later in the year, that is.

Cincinnati Reds

RAW EWSL: 195.00 (65 Wins)
Adj EWSL: 198.63 (66 Wins)
Age Adj EWSL: 193.66 (65 Wins)

Pos	Age	Player	Raw EWSL	Adj EWSL	Age-Adj EWSL
C	31	Jason LaRue	13	13	11
1B	30	Sean Casey	22	22	20
2B	27	D'Angelo Jimenez	19	19	20
SS	33	Rich Aurilia	9	9	6
3B	35	Joe Randa	13	13	8
RF	25	Austin Kearns	9	9	13
CF	35	Ken Griffey	11	11	7
LF	25	Adam Dunn	23	23	32
C2	29	Javier Valentin	3	3	2
INF	29	Ryan Freel#	10	12	11
OF	23	Wily Mo Pena#	8	9	12
12	25	Felipe Lopez	6	6	8
13	32	Jacob Cruz	2	2	2
SP1	32	Paul Wilson	7	7	6
SP2	29	Eric Milton	6	6	5
SP3	32	Ramon Ortiz	8	8	7
SP4	27	Aaron Harang	3	3	3
SP5	26	Brandon Claussen*	0	0	0
CL	31	Danny Graves	6	6	5
R2	22	Ryan Wagner#	2	2	4
R3	37	Kent Mercker	5	5	4
R4	35	David Weathers	6	6	4
R5	35	Ben Weber	4	4	3

Speaking of sad, what a collection of broken dreams and disappointments make up the Reds' starting rotation. . . When you build your offense around the longball and lard up your pitchint staff with guys who see more gophers than Bill Murray in Caddyshack, you've pretty much designed a team that's equally ill-suited to any ballpark.

Looking at Dunn, I wonder: would he, and other big NL sluggers, have lower WS totals if they played in the AL, even if they performed in the same way? The DH means more offense across lineups and thus reduces the value of any given hitter (i.e., the offensive pie is bigger when you replace Al Leiter with Frank Thomas, so each slice is smaller).

Pittsburgh Pirates

RAW EWSL: 172.17 (57 Wins)
Adj EWSL: 183.20 (61 Wins)
Age Adj EWSL: 184.20 (61 Wins)

Pos	Age	Player	Raw EWSL	Adj EWSL	Age-Adj EWSL
C	40	Benito Santiago	8	8	7
1B	28	Craig Wilson	14	14	17
2B	24	Jose Castillo*	4	8	10
SS	27	Jack Wilson	17	17	18
3B	27	Ty Wigginton	11	11	11
RF	33	Matt Lawton	12	12	9
CF	28	Tike Redman	9	9	10
LF	26	Jason Bay#	10	12	13
C2	26	Humberto Cota*	1	1	1
INF	29	Rob Mackowiak	12	12	10
OF	30	Daryle Ward	5	5	5
12	27	Bobby Hill	3	3	3
13	29	Ben Grieve	7	7	6
SP1	23	Oliver Perez	10	10	12
SP2	28	Kip Wells	11	11	12
SP3	31	Mark Redman	10	10	8
SP4	28	Josh Fogg	7	7	8
SP5	26	Dave Williams	1	1	1
CL	39	Jose Mesa	7	7	6
R2	27	Mike Gonzalez	4	8	8
R3	33	Salomon Torres	8	8	5
R4	29	Brian Meadows	4	4	4
R5	26	John Grabow*	1	1	1

The Buccos have the benefit of a stable starting rotation and a deep bullpen, which ought to count for something. Fifth place is what it counts for, when your most accomplished player is Jack Wilson. You gotta have stars, no matter what your depth and baalance is.

Yes, I know they sent Grieve down to AAA, but there wasn't another established player worth rating in his place. I do think he should be able to eke out a Dave Magadan-like second career as a pinch hitter who's a tough out, even absent power, speed or defensive abilities.

Milwaukee Brewers

RAW EWSL: 145.83 (49 Wins)
Adj EWSL: 164.63 (55 Wins)
Age Adj EWSL: 157.83 (53 Wins)

Pos	Age	Player	Raw EWSL	Adj EWSL	Age-Adj EWSL
C	35	Damian Miller	13	13	8
1B	28	Lyle Overbay#	12	14	17
2B	30	Junior Spivey	10	10	9
SS	22	JJ Hardy+	0	0	12
3B	29	Russ Branyan	6	6	5
RF	30	Geoff Jenkins	15	15	13
CF	32	Brady Clark	9	9	8
LF	29	Carlos Lee	22	22	19
C2	30	Chad Moeller	4	4	4
INF	29	Wes Helms	7	7	6
OF	28	Chris Magruder	1	1	1
12	25	Bill Hall	6	6	8
13	35	Jeff Cirillo	3	3	2
SP1	26	Ben Sheets	14	14	15
SP2	29	Doug Davis	10	10	9
SP3	26	Chris Capuano#	2	2	2
SP4	28	Victor Santos	2	2	2
SP5	28	Gary Glover	2	2	3
CL	26	Michael Adams+	3	5	5
R2	35	Ricky Bottalico	3	3	2
R3	25	Jeff Bennett*	1	2	3
R4	29	Matt Wise	2	2	1
R5	28	Wes Obermuller#	3	3	4

The less said by me about this team the better; I want to believe the Brewers are turning things around, but clearly this roster does not yet contain personnel capable of doing that. I'd expect Sheets to do better than this, but the point here is that last year's performance is not yet his established level. And after Sheets, the deluge.

As baseball fans, we have certain expectations, grounded in experience - our own lifetimes' experience, as well as the collective experience of 130 years of the game's history. Among those expectations are a set of boundaries about how players age: some burn out early, and some bloom late, and some are remarkably consistent. But age comes to all.

Until Barry Bonds.

At any time in the game's history, if you had to identify the everyday player most likely to show dramatic and sustained improvement compared to his prior accomplishments, about the last person you'd pick would be a 35-year-old slugger with a first-ballot Hall of Fame career already behind him. And the fact that Bonds has done precisely that is so fundamentally jarring to our expectations that we'd be talking about him doing something unnatural even if we'd never heard of steroids. You can point to his talent, but plenty of players had the same talents, the same determination, and plenty of players today have access to the same conditioning and equipment. Yet Bonds stands alone, and even if he's out for half or all of 2005, that's why the questions won't go away. More than anything else, even more than Bonds' own prickly personality or the shape of his head, that explains why the steroid debate has come down so hard around Bonds. Because we can't seem to explain Barry Bonds any other way.

How unique are Bonds' accomplishments? There are many ways to measure, and many have tried. But I wanted to get to the heart of the Bonds enigma: not the greatness itself, or even the greatness at an advanced age, but the dramatic improvement at that age compared to his own prior self. The closer you look, the more unique Bonds is.

To measure Bonds' improvement, I set up a study. First, I needed to decide what to study; I focused on comparing Bonds' seasons from age 35 to age 39 (2000-2004) to his career averages as a hitter through age 34. Second, I needed a measuring stick, one that was readily available and wouldn't be distorted by changes in offensive conditions over time (after all, a lot of players' careers look more volatile than they are because the league scoring average has changed over time). I settled on OPS+ (i.e., On Base Plus Slugging - OPS - compared to the league average OPS and adjusted for park effects), which is compiled at Baseball-Reference.com; Bonds has posted the top 3 OPS+ seasons of all time in 2001, 2002 and 2004. OPS itself isn't a perfect metric, but it's a quick and dirty way to estimate offensive value. And through the Similarity Scores charts, you can get a player's OPS+ through age 34; Bonds' was 163, combining a .559 slugging percentage and .409 OBP through 1999, the numbers that got him voted to the All-Century Team and won him three MVP Awards.

Third, I needed a group to compare him to. We know Bonds is unusual, so rather than establish a similar-through-34 control group, I selected a group designed to capture as many players as I could find who had big slugging seasons after age 34; using Baseball-Reference.com's age-based leaders, I picked out every player who finished in the top 10 for a single season at age 35 through age 39, or in the top 10 for their career after that age, in any of four categories: OPS+, Slugging, Home Runs, or Extra Base Hits (the latter to pick up guys from the pre-home-run era). I then went through each season from age 35 to age 39 and divided each player's OPS+ at that age to his own career OPS+ through age 34. To keep fluke small-sample-size seasons out, I limited the study to seasons of 400 at bats or more.

I believe the criteria worked; I came up with 76 players (plus Bonds), including nearly everyone I could think of who had a big year in their late 30s. The 400-at-bat thing knocked out six players who had no seasons between 35 and 39 of that many at bats - John Lowenstein, Johnny Grubb, Bill Dickey, Ed Delahanty, Estel Crabtree, and Bob Thurman. The remaining 70 players collectively gave me 248 seasons to study. Of those:

*159 (64%) were below 100, meaning their OPS+ was lower than their career mark. This is unsurprising; most players that age decline, and for the great ones, the bar is high (Ty Cobb came in below 100 for his age 35 season when he hit .401; for what it's worth, the lowest figures in the study were 49 for Carlton Fisk at age 38 and 52 for Nap Lajoie at 39).

*44 (18%) were between 100 and 109, meaning less than a 10% improvement over career norms.

*19 (8%) were between 110 and 114, for a total of 222 (86%) showing less than a 15% improvement.

Let's look more closely at the 31 seasons (including Bonds) at a 15% or greater improvement:

Age	Player	OPS+/Career
37	Barry Bonds	169
36	Barry Bonds	161
39	Barry Bonds	160
38	Barry Bonds	142
37	Andres Galarraga	137
35	Ellis Burks	136
36	Phil Weintraub*	133
39	Gary Gaetti	128
36	Darrell Evans	128
36	Zack Wheat	128
38	Bob Johnson*	126
37	Hank Aaron	124
35	Nap Lajoie	124
36	Cy Williams	122
38	Ted Williams	121
36	Gary Gaetti	120
36	Hal McRae	120
35	Sam Thompson	120
38	Tony Gwynn	119
37	Eric Davis	119
36	Dave Winfield	119
35	Tommy Henrich	119
38	Darrell Evans	118
36	Brian Downing	118
35	Barry Bonds	117
36	Tommy Henrich	117
36	Andres Galarraga	116
35	Hank Sauer	116
35	Cy Williams	116
35	Steve Finley	115
36	Paul Molitor	115

Wow. Bonds absolutely towers over everyone else in his ability to . . . tower over himself. Was the young Bonds really such an underacheiver that he was leaving historic levels of talent untapped when he batted .336/.677/.458 for what looked like his career best season at age 28? Note that, of the other seven players to clear a 25% improvement in one season, two - Bob Johnson and Phil Weintraub - are marked with a * because those seasons came in 1944 against war-depleted competition (another, Ellis Burks, was a teammate of Bonds when he had his big year in 2000). The things Bonds has done are just not done.

Here's a fact almost as impressive as what's above: while Bonds has topped his career norms by at least 17% five years running, no other player among the other 70 in the study was even able to post five straight seasons above 100. And remember, this is in a study deliberately stacked to include guys who aged well. (Other than Bonds, Gaetti's the only 39-year-old on the chart). Only three players did it four times - Galarraga, Downing, and Edgar Martinez. Six players other than Bonds cleared 110 three times, and five (shown above) cleared 115 twice.

Those three groups have some overlap, amounting to ten players who showed something like a sustained improvement past age 34: Galarraga, Downing, Edgar, Burks, Henrich, Aaron, Molitor, Gaetti, Cy Williams, and Darrell Evans. There are some common threads with these guys: Edgar, Molitor, Burks and to some extent Galarraga had big chunks of their twenties wrecked by injuries, while Henrich was in the military from 30 to 32 (Bonds, by comparison, played less than 140 games only once between 1987 and 1998, and that was the strike season). Downing, Molitor, and Edgar had been switched to DH in their late 30s, Downing having started out catching and Molitor, at second base (even so, Downing's career high OPS+ was at age 28, Molitor's at 30, Edgar's at 32). Cy Williams was a home run hitter who just hadn't done well in the dead ball era; he was 32 in 1920. In other words, the guys with some similarities to Bonds' late-career charge are few and not all that similar. No wonder people think he's doing something unusual.

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Finally, at long last, I've completed my division-by-division walk around the major leagues by Established Win Shares Levels with the biggest division, the NL Central. Some time in the next week or so, I'll have to go back and pull together an overall summary of the results for all six divisions. To review, you can go back over my previous efforts:

*The Top 25 Players in Baseball and explanation of EWSL method

*AL West EWSL Report & explanation of team method

*AL East EWSL Report & slight modification to team method

*AL Central EWSL Report

*NL West EWSL Report

*NL East EWSL Report

A few recurring notes on the method: Recall that the projected win totals below are probably a bit on the low side, in part because I only list 23 players, and that these aren't really projections at all, so much as estimates of how much established major league talent is on each roster. Also, as before, I've indicated the players who are ranked only on 2002-03 with a #, players ranked only on 2003 with a *, and rookies with a +. For rookie non-pitchers with everyday jobs, I've arbitrarily pencilled in 10 Win Shares , 5 WS for rookie pitchers with rotation slots, 3 for bench players and 2 for relievers.

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