Kuzul

The Baltimore Orioles used to be the envy of the baseball world. There was an Oriole Way: The team had an identity and a unique sense of fundamental soundness and professionalism. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, they won 90 games nearly every year and went to six World Series.

These days, that once-proud organization is in tatters. The team last won 80 or more games in 1997. They have finished as high as third in the AL East just once since then, and have been the worst team in the division three years running. Even the farm system is not strong, so the future is not (necessarily, at least) very bright.

But it’s early March, and thus the time for hope. Who knows? The Orioles have a plethora of talented young players and a rebuilt veteran infield with a chance to break out. They could come out of nowhere to displace the titans of the AL East and, a la the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, surprise everyone with a World Series berth. Here are 10 things that could make that far-fetched fantasy a reality.

This is the third in a series of pieces listing 10 things that would have to go right for each MLB team to win a pennant this season. To find out when your favorite team’s article comes out, follow me on the twitter @MattTrueblood, or sign up for your team’s Bleacher Report newsletter.

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Justin Upton and the Arizona Diamondbacks had a rough go in 2010. Plagued by a historic case of strikeout fever—the batters whiffed 144 times more than any other club in the National League and the pitchers struck out the third-fewest opponents on the senior circuit—and a poor defense, the team lost 97 games.

Manager A.J. Hinch and GM Josh Byrnes got the axe, and have been replaced by Kirk Gibson (in the dugout) and Kevin Towers (in the front office).

The team did little this winter to suggest they feel like contenders in 2011. Their pitching staff was young but got even younger, and their lineup now features more contact hitters but far less upside risk. Still, this team has some pieces that have enigmatically struggled in recent years, and if they put it all together, who knows? The snakes could bite some unsuspecting National League foes.

Here are 10 things that have to happen first.

This is the first in a series of pieces listing 10 things that would have to go right for each MLB team to win a pennant this season. To find out when your favorite team’s article comes out, follow me on the twitter @MattTrueblood, or sign up for your team’s Bleacher Report newsletter.

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With Adam Wainwright hurt, Miguel Cabrera battling alcohol addiction and the Yankees’ rotation in shambles, it only makes sense that most of the talk about minor leaguers so far this spring has surrounded who can fill a need for his team at the big-league level in 2011. So much uncertainty encircles inexperienced prospects that only the most hardcore fans really take interest in minor leaguers still two or three years from MLB readiness.

Still, those players can be the organization changers. Albert Pujols played just three games above Class-A, in late 2000. In 2001, he was the National League Rookie of the Year.

There is no Albert Pujols lurking in the Midwest League right now—at least, not that we know of. But there are studs in almost every farm system in baseball, and many of them are not yet far enough up the ladder to get the full attention they deserve. Let’s remedy that: Here are the best prospects in each minor-league system to have never played above Class-A.

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Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein made a remark late last week that likely drew less attention than it deserved, especially as the world gears up for Albert Pujols to hit free agency after the 2011 season. 

In discussing the tactics that helped Boston sign free-agent Carl Crawford in December—despite rumors that Crawford would go to the Angels—Epstein mentioned that Boston scouted Crawford exhaustively throughout “the last three, four months of the season at the ballpark, away from the ballpark.”

That is a significant thing to admit, and although I confess to a lack of intimate knowledge about the behind-the-scenes world of big-league scouting, I cannot imagine that this level of scrutiny is within normal limits of scouting intensity. Epstein and his staff undertook that colossal task because they were very high on Crawford, and because they knew it would take a sizable commitment of both money and intangible incentives to lure him to Boston.

No player in the history of the game has demanded this kind of scrutiny on par with Pujols, whom every team would love to have. He has a very real chance at collecting the biggest contract in MLB history, and the highest per-year salary is all but assured. Five or more teams will make serious pushes to land him.

Therefore, it is time for Jim Hendry to take a page from Theo Epstein’s book on player evaluation and free-agent diplomacy. The Cubs are, almost without a close second, the top potential bidders for Pujols’ services in 2012 and beyond. If it comes down to the money, Pujols will—not might or should, but will—be wearing a Cubs uniform on Opening Day next spring.

If Pujols has other boxes on his checklist, though, the Cubs may have some obstacles to overcome. How seriously does Pujols take the rivalry between St. Louis and Chicago? Does he enjoy playing at Wrigley Field? Are there any specific players he’d like to team-up with?

Most important of all may be this question: How badly does Pujols want to win more World Series rings, and will his perception of a team’s commitment to winning swing his decision? If it will, Hendry might need to demonstrate Chicago’s willingness to get aggressive as soon as possible. 

Extending Matt Garza could be a good idea in this scenario. If the team senses Pujols will have little patience for a potential rebuilding project, they should also exercise Aramis Ramirez’s club option for 2012. Ramirez is aging and declining at third base, but he remains the best short-term option for the team unless prospect Josh Vitters breaks out in 2011 and proves himself big-league ready at the hot corner.

Should an organization really allow the preferences of a potential free-agent to dictate its decisions this way? In this case, absolutely. So long as the Cubs know what decisions will legitimiately help lure Pujols, they should act within reason to make their club as appealing as possible.

Chicago is not as down and out of a franchise as some believe: Its farm system remains ready to graduate two or three solid contributors by the start of 2012, even after trading for Garza. 

They also have solid vets like Ryan Dempster, Carlos Marmol and Ramirez alongside young stars Starlin Castro, Tyler Colvin and Andrew Cashner. Add a very sturdy supporting cast composed of low-cost regulars Geovany Soto, Marlon Byrd and Kerry Wood, and this team looks ready to take a step forward. 

In a vacuum, the Cubs are not merely one piece away from winning their first pennant in nearly 70 years.

Of course, Pujols doesn’t amount to merely “one piece.” He is a difference-maker, a game-changer and any other hyphenated cliche the reader chooses. He counts as two pieces at once. With the Phillies getting older faster than they are getting better and the Giants facing the specter of expenses exploding over the next two years, the Cubs could easily be the team with the inside track to a title in 2012.

Another factor makes the stakes extraordinarily high in the potential pursuit of Pujols, and it calls to mind another snippet from Epstein last week.

“We covered him as if we were privately investigating him,” said Epstein of Crawford. Similarly, the Cubs—and any other would-be investors—need to delve deeply into Pujols’ past.

For years, the whispers have floated around baseball that Pujols, whose listed age is 31, is actually two or three years older than his birth certificate indicates. Obviously, this is not uncommon among Dominican players. Vladimir Guerrero and Miguel Tejada are just two of many high-profile players whose ages proved inaccurate under greater scrutiny later in their careers. 

The question of a player’s true age may never have been this important, though. Pujols is in line for a record-breaking contract that will last until he’s 40. If he is in fact 33 or 34, his aging profile for the life of that deal looks far less appealing. 

Consider: Pujols hit .312/.414/.596. Those are elite offensive numbers, but they are the worst in every category for Pujols since 2007. At 31, that mild regression is nothing to worry about. At 34, though, it could signal the start of an unpredictable decline. Which is the truth? The answer is critical to valuing Pujols as a free agent, and the Cubs—along with other Pujols suitors—ought to have one or more hired hands to spend the next nine months in the Dominican Republic, searching for any evidence of Pujols’ true age.

If all these proposed evaluation methods seem a bit extreme, it’s because they are. But then, the investment Pujols will require is extreme, too. This is the new world of baseball, and to survive in it, no team can afford to be shy.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

A majority of MLB position players will be at the site of their teams’ Spring Training camps by the end of the day Wednesday, and that certainly includes Albert Pujols. The St. Louis Cardinals and Pujols remain far apart on a potential contract extension, meaning a Jamesean (LeBronian?) season of media hoopla lies ahead.

In the meantime, though, there will be real live baseball, with bats and balls and gloves and (hopefully) other things to talk and think about than Albert Pujols’ contract. Read on for some fun and fascinating tidbits from around baseball.

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Albert Pujols plays his home games in the shadow of the gateway to the American West, but with only a few days left before the deadline, Pujols imposed upon negotiations for a contract extension. He and the St. Louis Cardinals are as far apart as the East is from the West. That gulf likely will leave Pujols without a contract for 2012 entering the season, and could well make him a free agent next winter.

If he makes it to those greener pastures, Pujols has a real chance at some very real green—
$30 million annually over a minimum of eight years is the asking price that has set him so much at odds with his long-time employer. Pujols is the best hitter of his generation and may be the best all-around player of the past two decades. Still, is he worth the rough equivalent of the Kansas City Royals’ projected 2011 payroll?

Obviously, that question distorts the real issue: Pujols is the best player in the game, and in the modern baseball economy, that means he has the right to pursue the league’s richest contract. Since Alex Rodriguez (10 years and $275 million) set that bar pretty high in 2007, Pujols will at least approach $30 million as an average annual salary. Still, if that number doesn’t pop your eyes enough in isolation, consider this lineup of nine players who can be had in 2011 for less then $30 million.

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If Albert Pujols was looking for more incentive to have a monster season in 2011, he may be about to find it.

He and the St. Louis Cardinals remain far apart on a contract extension, and Pujols said he would not discuss it beyond Feb. 19, when he reports for spring training. 

If Pujols actually makes it to market, he will be the most sought-after free agent in baseball history. He might well earn in excess of $30 million per season, perhaps for as many as 10 seasons.

To maximize his potential free-agent value, though, Pujols might want to make it clear that he is still very much in his prime by winning what would be his fourth NL MVP award.

He is not alone in trying to make a big statement this season. Read on for five guys who could win each of MLB’s major awards in 2011.

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The Chicago Cubs have already traded for starting pitcher Matt Garza and traded away starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny this winter, and it seems very possible that that will be enough for GM Jim Hendry. There is relatively little else Chicago could do at this point, with the key free agents off the market and the team unlikely to leapfrog the Brewers and Reds into the top spot in a rational prognosticator’s picture of the 2011 NL Central division.

Of course, miracles happen every day (see Wells, Vernon), so perhaps the Cubs can find a diamond somewhere in the January rough and make themselves into a more legitimate contender either in 2011 or in the longer term. Read on for five deals the Cubs could try to swing to turn their fortunes for the better.

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While Joe Mauer and Brian McCann rate as the best-known offensive catchers in baseball, Geovany Soto was the best hitter in the league at that position in 2010.

Though he got only 387 plate appearances due to a mixture of injuries and managerial stupidity, Soto logged a career-best .890 OPS and socked 17 home runs.

He did all that despite batting mostly seventh and eighth for the Cubs. National League hitters performed nine percent worse than their overall numbers when batting in those slots in 2010, so if Soto had been batting fourth (where he belonged in a beleaguered Cubs lineup, and where batters were 17 percent better than their baseline in 2010), he might well have hit 22 homers and finished with an OPS north of .920.

For perspective, the last Cubs catcher with numbers in that strata was Gabby Hartnett, when he won the MVP in 1935.

Yet the Cubs elected to tender a contract to Koyie Hill this winter (for reasons surpassing any understanding) and then claimed catcher Max Ramirez off waivers from the Red Sox this week. Those two, along with prospect Welington Castillo, will ostensibly compete to become Soto’s backup in 2011.

But what if the Cubs have other ideas? Jim Hendry has never shown a special affinity for Soto, and the 2008 NL Rookie of the Year reached arbitration for the first time this season and got a $3 million, one-year deal. The Cubs could have offered a multi-year extension, but they chose to go year-to-year with their star catcher.

Would Chicago be willing to trade Soto and give the nod to either Ramirez or Castillo as the starting catcher? Almost certainly, given their budget constraints, the answer is yes. Soto should fetch a good price on the market too, with a number of potential contenders in need of a catcher.

Read on for five possible destinations for Soto.

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Jayson Werth really loves No. 28. He feels such attachment to it, in fact, that when he sat down at the negotiating table with the Washington Nationals, he and his agent demanded that a clause in the contract guarantee him that jersey number. The Nats obliged, much to the dismay of first baseman/outfielder Mike Morse, who wore the number in 2010.

Baseball history is littered with strange clauses like these: When a team wants to get a deal done quickly or is truly desperate to win over a free agent, they frequently throw in strange incentives to make their offer more appealing. Werth loved his uniform number, which might seem odd, but wait until you see what sealed the deal for these other 10 players.

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