Every season seems to catch us by surprise. Young players reach stardom before we can even say their name. Injuries derail players and teams. Age finally catches up with veterans. Some “risers” never rise. And Cinderella teams give us something to root for.
So what will be this year’s surprises?
Here are 50, count ‘em, 50 bold predictions that will grab our attention in 2011.
This just in: Texas Rangers first base prospect Chris Davis is having an excellent spring. Davis hit his third home run and ninth extra base hit in just 36 at bats against the Rockies on Wednesday.
On a daily basis, Davis has been turning heads with his play. The formerly-touted first basemen of the future is showing exactly what Texas has hoped out of its 24 year-old slugger.
There’s just one problem:
There’s no room for him with the big league club. The Rangers are committed to Mitch Mooreland as the first baseman they are developing on the big league club. The Rangers also have Mike Napoli, who will see some time at first, along with Michael Young.
Look, there’s no guarantee the Rangers will trade Davis. And there’s no guarantee that Davis won’t suffer with strikeout problems that have caused him to get sent back to the minors last year, and slide down the prospect totem pole. But the Rangers may use their depth and Davis’s hot spring to made a trade that helps the club.
Enter the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Rays say they are committed to giving Dan Johnson every opportunity to win the full-time job at first base, replacing Carlos Pena. And with everything Johnson has done in small doses, and his ability to hit well against New York and Boston, it may very well be the right thing to do.
But this would be a very opportunistic move for the Rays. Johnson isn’t the long-term answer at first. Davis very well could be.
If the Rays parted with a pitching prospect like Nick Barnese, who often gets overlooked because of the depth of the Rays pitching prospects, that would probably be a fair amount for a guy like Davis. But as has been said, the Rangers may not move him.
And recent history would show them why they shouldn’t move him. The Rangers dealt with this problem just a few seasons ago. They had an outfielder who was labeled as a AAAA player, because he was struggling to put it all together on a big league level. They thought about trading him and moving on.
That outfielder was Nelson Cruz.
The difference is the Rangers didn’t have as much of a depth problem as they do now. And if they decide to trade, look for the Rays to be a likely candidate to be involved in the talks.
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We’re midway through spring training, and each team has had two weeks to assess its club as we close in on Opening Day. What’s amazing is each of these teams could have the ability to contend if one or two things bounce their way.
In other words, each team has a major question it must answer to push its season well into October.
Can Baltimore really rise up from the cellar? Will Toronto’s restocked farm system help the Blue Jays fly high in the AL East? Can Boston return to the postseason after a loaded offseason? Can the Tampa Bay Rays find a way to win their third AL East division crown in four seasons? Can New York and the “Core Three” survive the loss of Andy Pettitte and return to their AL East dominance?
Let’s take a look at each team’s major question heading into this season.
A lot has been stated (and overstated) on the state of the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen. The Rays lost nearly their entire bullpen in one off-season, and General Manager Andrew Friedman has run out of band-aids trying to patch a ‘pen together for the 2011 season. He’s signed a couple of veterans, he’s traded for some young arms, but the best and brightest hope to a successful bullpen in 2011 is squarely on the shoulders of someone who was already in-house.
Jake McGee.
The 6’3″, 230 lbs. 24 year-old lefty is fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, and earned his first exposure to the bigs late last season. During that time he impressed more than one Rays executive on his adapting to the bullpen.
One of his biggest believers is Rays manager Joe Maddon.
While there has been some debate as to whether McGee should be a starter or reliever, Maddon recently stated that McGee will be given every opportunity to earn a spot in the bullpen this spring.
Fantasy nerds went into hyper drive with that announcement.
McGee represents the arm with the highest upside in the Rays bullpen and the highest potential reward. A lefty that throws a 95+mph fastball are not too common in MLB. The Rays are always cautious with their pitchers, and McGee won’t begin the season as the closer. But he will be given every opportunity to earn that position by being put into late-inning, high-leverage situations.
The best prediction is McGee becomes the Rays primary closer by mid-season. If it even takes that long.
2011 MLB Stats Prediction: 5-2, 3.35 ERA, 25 saves, 10.09 K/9IP.
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