The Offseason is starting to heat up...

Teams are starting to make moves after the White Sox closed the 2005 season with a sweep of the Houston Astros. Did I just really type those words. Anyways, teams are moving along and the Cubs have done plenty already. Let's recap.

Though it didn't happen this week, 'Trader' Jim Hendry and incumbent closer Ryan Dempster agreed to a 3 year, $15 million deal during the last series of the season. Dempster put up stellar numbers in relief this past season. In 58.1 innings over 57 appearances he struck out 53 with a 1.85 ERA, finishing up the season 33 of 35 in save attempts. Really good numbers for a closer, especially one that has started his entire career up to this point. But for some reason I just cannot shake this feeling that these will be better numbers than anything we see during his new contract. The Cubs still need to pick up another reliever this offseason whether it be one of the dominant lefties out there - Billy Wagner or B.J. Ryan - or even Brandon Looper, who's option year was declined by the Mets earlier today.

In a move that reeks of brilliant timing combined with extreme incompetence, 'Trader' Jim brought back the entire Cubs coaching staff - announcing the decision during game 1 of the ALCS. I honestly don't think it got a mention on any of the tv stations and no more than a blurb the next day in the paper. The White Sox were the best thing that happened to the Cubs this offseason, as no one cared about any of the moves they made, as there were more important things happening in town - a team was winning in the playoffs. How Hendry can bring back an entire staff that led an underperforming team who had next to zero fundamentals seriously perplexes me. Guys couldn't cover bases, couldn't run the bases, couldn't play defense, couldn't move runners over, and can't teach Michael Barrett to catch deserve to come back for one more hurrah? Give me a break. I used to think Hendry was a decent general manager but his moves from the 2004 offseason to now have been very questionable. Yes, the executive team he has assembled has drafted well and turned around the farm system, which is much better than the black hole it was for twenty years, but they still haven't produced a starting position player for any team in the MLB since Mark Grace and Rafael Palmiero came up in the late 1980's. Hendry is lining up for an extension before the start of next season, who's contract ends after the 2006 baseball season, and he better start acting as shrewdly as he did in previous seasons.

Over the past weekend the Cubs did some options work as they picked up the options of 2B Todd Walker and RP Scott Williamson while denying the $7 million option of Jeromy Burnitz. The Cubs also had the $9 million option of Greg Maddux kick in automatically when he hit inning no. 188 of the last season. So lets roll through these. Is Todd Walker making $2.5 mil next season a good thing? Only if its in a different uniform. I have to think that Hendry picked up this option only to deal Walker to someone this offseason, maybe in a package for a SS or RF? Williamson is more a of question mark going into next season as he got the Ryan Dempster deal from last year, getting his $2 million option picked up after coming back from Tommy John surgery. His velocity wasn't up to par during the last couple of months, but the Cubs apparently believe that it will be back by next season. If healthy, Williamson is a very good to dominant relief pitcher, plus its only a one year commitment so there's not to much risk here for the team, I like this move. Dumping Burnitz, please, it appears that Hendry isn't as stupid as I just questioned him to be. Now let's see if he decides to bring Burnitz back at a cheaper price - this will determine how serious the team is to winning next year. And finally Mad-Dog coming back. Hendry didn't really have to make a decision on this, but when signing him you had to expected that he would have pitched 400 innings over two years (his clause for the third year kicking in). He's not the pitcher he used to be, Maddux is beneficial in other ways besides pitching to the club, like actually setting a professional example and teaching things to the other pitchers on staff. Although I would like the move a lot more if he was our no. 5 starter.

The final note of Cubs news is that rubber armed Glendon Rusch was signed to a 2 year, $6 million contract. In doing this the Rusch gave up his player option of $2 mil for this season. He will get $2.75 mil this season and $3.25 next, with up to $500,000 in bonuses for starts during each year. At the end of the season Rusch talked to Jim Hendry about how he wanted to start this season and did not want to pitch out of the bullpen anymore. Hendry had this to say about it, "Obviously you don't promise anyone...that they are penciled into the rotation. But I assured him that he would come back as a starting candidate and that I didn't have any interest any longer in putting him in the bullpen." Here is the key line in that statement, " I didn't have any interest any longer in putting him in the bullpen," that sure sounds like he's part of the rotation to me. Even though Rusch pitched decently as a starter last year he crept much closer to his career averages than staying towards the outstanding performance he had in 2004. This is very troubling. His batting average against went from .256 to .296 - almost at his career average. His ERA went up to 4.32 as a starter much closer to his career average of 4.88. Rusch throws more flyball outs than groundouts per average start and his walk/9inn pitched ratio went up by over a full point last season. It appears to me that 2004 was an aberration year for Rusch and if anything, he should have been worse in his performance last season. This looks like a bad (re)signing to me, especially if he's going to be your new no.4 or 5 starter. This also gives the staff 6 starting pitchers, and that's if none of the younger guys just forces his way onto the staff during spring training. Right now were looking at:
1) Zambrano
2) Prior
3) Wood
4) Maddux
5) Williams
6) Rusch

Odds are that Wood will not last the year and will (hopefully) be moved full time to the bullpen, but that significantly weakens the staff overall unless one of the youngsters steps it up. The starters, which was possibly the best in MLB going into 2004, is now not even the best staff in its own division, and won't be again if Roger Clemens comes back for one more go-around. There have been rumors floating around of the Cubs going after him of the best stuff in baseball A.J Burnett or Kevin Millwood, but I really cannot see them spending on those guys. Plus getting one of those guys would add to the serious logjam starting to accumulate in the starting pitching position. This isn't a bad thing, as the old axiom goes, you can never have enough pitching, but sometimes you need to deal from a strength to correct a weakness.


Other Happenings...

Moneyballers have taken a serious hit the past week as two of their followers, Boston GM Theo Epstein and Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta quit/was fired leaving only the originator Billy Beane left in the GM ranks. Although neither man followed the formula through completely, they used a lot of the idea process to put their respective teams together. DePodesta was fired after less than two years on the job and after winning a division championship in 2004. Theo's Boston teams made the playoffs all three of his years and winning it all last season. Both of these guys will catch on somewhere else, but probably not till next season. Look for the BoSox to hire Kevin Towers as GM. Towers teamed up with Red Sox president Larry Lucchino to lead the Padres to the World Series in 1998.

Pitching coach extrordinarre Leo Mazzone flew the Braves coup and landed with the Orioles earlier this month, spurning the Yankees in the process. We'll now see how much of an impact he had on the Braves pitchers as he has been the coach there since the 1980's. Since he was still under contract at the time the O's gave up prospect Moises Hernandez to the Braves. If the name looks familiar it's Seattle phenom Felix Hernandez's older brother. He is 21 and not nearly as good as his younger brother but still is a solid prospect. Atlanta replaced Mazzone with the eccentric Roger McDowell, which should be interesting at times to say the least.

On the South Side of town Sox GM Kenny Williams has already got started preparations to defend their title as he declined the option of Carl 'dinosaurs never existed' Everett, picked up reliever Cliff Polittes option, and saw Frank Thomas accept his $10 million player option - virtually guaranteeing that Williams will use his clause for a $3.5 million buyout of that option. The Sox will probably bring him back, or at least try to, giving him a contract for $1.5 - $2 mil with heavy incentives. There wont be many teams out willing to offer him more than that - if any - so he'll begrudgingly head back to 35th and Shields for 2006.


Why aren't there Gold Sluggers....

Congrats to Derek Lee and Michael Barrett who picked up Silver Slugger awards this year at 1B and C respectively. The award is based on voting by all coaches and managers in the National League - who cannot vote for anyone on their own team. Lee should be the Gold Glove and MVP as well, we'll see if he picks those up, but here's your Silver Slugger line for catching this year: .276, .345, 16, 61. I knew I should have stuck with catching. But if you seriously look at the numbers for National League Catchers this season he probably had the best overall season. If only Cincinnati's Jason LaRue and Javier Valentin could add their numbers together they would have crushed all competition - good thing this is an individual award.


Just saying...

In 2004 the Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years, ending the third longest drought in MLB.

In 2005 the Chicago White Sox win the World Series for the first time in 88 years, ending the second longest drought in MLB.

Dare I say what's next...

World Series Preview....

Houston Astros vs. Chicago White Sox



Matchups(subject to change):
Game 1, Clemens v. Contreras
Game 2, Pettitte v. Buehrle
Game 3, Garland v. Oswalt
Game 4, Garcia v. Backe
Game 5, Contreras v. Clemens
Game 6, Pettitte v. Buehrle
Game 7, Oswalt v. Garland



Well through the first two rounds of the baseball playoffs I only made one correct prediction, the Astros over Atlanta in 4. The next closest to correct prediction I made was the 'stros in 6 in the NLCS, unfortunately i had them over the Padres, not the Cardinals - but I think I can work with that one. When it boils down to getting the series winners I was 4-2 getting the Angels, White Sox, Astros, and Astros correct. Maybe things just weren't meant for me to go 6 for 6 this postseason as the Pads revealed that Jake Peavy broke a rib celebrated thier NL West championship....after he got lit up by Reggie Sanders in Game 1. Would Bartolo Colon throwing 2-3 games in the ALCS have helped the Angels, probably not the way the White Sox played in the series - especially with the horseshoe that has been prominently stuck up their ass all of October, but i would have liked to see what he could have done against his former team.

Alas, you can't pick 'em all, but maybe I can go 5 for 7 this year. Originally picking the Astros in 7 in the world series, I'm not going to go back on that pick, but lets say that the degree of difficulty for them to win has risen in the past three weeks. The White Sox have been playing well in the postseason, and have gotton more than thier share of luck on thier side. But you need a little luck to win in the postseason, and there's no asterik next to the champ in the record books if they had lady luck on thier side during a series. Can the White keep up thier great starting pitching with timely hitting and catch a few breaks along the way? Thats the question that will be answered in the next 10 days.

The White Sox already have luck on thier side as they catch a major break since Houston cannot put Roy Oswalt out there in Game 1, where he could have possibly pitched three games in the series. Oswalt is a top 5 pitching in MLB and is hands-down the best pitcher that toed the rubber during this postseason. He'll most likely be pitching games 3 and 7 for Houston, if it goes that far. The Sox DO NOT want to be facing Oswalt in a game 7, no matter where its played, so it is imperative that they close the series in 6 games or less. The major factor in this World Series is how Roger Clemens hamstring will respond in Game 1 at the Cell. It is supposed to be damp and in the 40's in Chicago for that game and Clemens' hammy is injured to the point that it severly slowed him down during his game 3 start in Houston. If Clemens doesn't feel any after-effects of that pulled hamstring during his start he could add to his career 3-0, 1.90 ERA in the World Series. If not, the White Sox will probably take the early advantege in this series. But Clemens isn't the only pitcher hurt for the Astros in this series. Not counting the ego of Brad Lidge after giving up a 800 foot bomb to lose game 5 of the NLCS, Andy Pettitte has been trying to work off a leg injury which saw him limit the size of his leg kick to his disadvantege. It was noticable in his postseason starts up to that aforementioned game 5, where he looked more like he had during the regular season, but if its not 100%, or acts up again during his next couple of starts - this could be a short series in favor of the White Sox.

On the offensive side of things these teams are fairly equal, especially with the breakout of Chris Burke and Criag Biggio playing like he's 33 years old again. If Morgan Ensberg figures out that he used to hit with power that could be trouble for the Sox pitchers as that adds another weapon for Houston. Right now Paul Konerko is bashing left and right as he sees the dollar signs for his contract this offseason getting higher and higher while everyone else on the team, including the much maligned on the South-Side Joe Crede, is getting the timely hit. Both teams have speed guys at the top, some pop in the middle, and timely hitting in the back end (with the sox getting the edge here). It's amazing how close these two teams are all-around. The major x-factor will be how good Jeff Bagwell will be DH'ing during the games in Chicago. He has the ability to swing the offensive side of things towards the 'stros.

The edge for the bullpen has to go to the Astros for two reasons. One, the sox relief pitchers have thrown 2/3 of an inning since October 8th. TWO-THIRDS OF AN INNING IN TWO WEEKS. Thats insane, but will it be a detriment if they have to pitch in this series, for some of the guys, especially thier rookie closer Bobby Jenks, it probably will. And two, the Astros have better 7th, 8th, and 9th inning guys on thier team. Thier set-up tandem of Chad Qualls and Dan Wheeler, and closer Brad Lidge are dominant. Lidge may have given up the bomb to Pujols in game 5, he was to juiced during that outing and overthrew his slider, causing it to not slide - which is something he can probably learn from to use during this series. Power pitching usually gets it done in the late innings of the postseason and Lidge and 8th inning man Wheeler are getting 12 and 9 k/9 this postseason. Even though Lidge was gotton to by the Cardinals in two of his appearances in the NLCS he is still better than anyone the White Sox can throw out there in the 9th.

So for the breakdown of edges we have:

Starting Pitching - White Sox (slight edge)
Relief Pitching - Astros
Offense - White Sox (slight edge)
Defense - White Sox
Managers - pick'em - both of these managers fly by the seats of thier pants
Intangibles - Theres a lot going for both sides here. The Sox making thier first series since '59. The 'stros making thier first series ever. The Sox benifiting from many close to questionable calls during the playoffs. The Astros coming back from a blow in game 5 of the NLCS that many teams cannot recover from. The Astros can also ralley around the fact that this is probably Roger Clemens last few games and the fact that Bagwell and Biggio have finally made it. Negative points for both side since these two teams have two of the most notoriously cheap owners in the game in Drayton McClaine and Jerry Riensdorf, niether team should win just for that reason alone. However the Sox get more negative points for making a Journey song thier theme of the playoffs as well as a media and fan bandwagon that became longer than the Oregon trail. Plus always remember that the baseball gods like to lull you into a sense of well-being before dropping the hammer - but what happens when two teams that have been bowled over by them in the past get together? We'll soon find out. Astros get the edge here.


Fun Fact

- Earlier this season Craig Biggio joined the exclusive club of having playing 2500 regular season games without appearing in the World Series. Till the Astros pennant win in Game 6 of the NLCS joining him on that list were Rafeal Palmerio, Andre Dawson, and Ernie Banks. Care to take a guess at what those three guys have in common?

Playoff Preview...

True to my title, here's my thoughts on the upcoming playoff series' in the American and National League.

American League

Every team in the American league playoffs has holes and two teams that are very opposite will be facing off. The strengths of Anaheim and Chicago are in pitching, and the strengths of Boston and New York are at the plate. We all know the old playoff baseball axiom, good pitching always beats good hitting...but does good pitching beat great hitting. Lets find out.

Chicago White Sox vs. Boston Red Sox

Matchups:
Game 1, Contreras V. Clement
Game 2, Buehrle v. Wells
Game 3, Garcia v. Wakefield
Game 4, Garland v. Schilling
Game 5, Contreras/Buehrle v. Undecided

The White Sox have the pitching edge in every game of this series, no matter who gets thrown out there by Boston in game 5. The key is for the White Sox pitchers to actually pitch like they have an advantage as they have been spotty lately on the mound. The only consistent one in the second half has been Contreras who sported a 2.96 ERA post all-star break winning his last 8 starts down the stretch (who would have guessed that during spring training). However against the BoSox he has posted a 11.67 ERA during the regular season and a 5.79 ERA during the postseason in 31.2 inn.

Boston has a significant advantage on the bats, especially with David Ortiz hitting everything in sight lately. The White Sox have experience in one-run games this season going 35-19. Will this experience help them, I think so. The Red Sox rotation is just too beat up and they will be counting on too many rookies out of the pen this postseason (Papelbon, Hansen, DiNardo) and no true closer. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen will be under heavy critization for not putting rookie phenom Brandon McCarthy on the roster if they lose.
WHITE SOX in 5.


Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs. New York Yankees

Matchups:
Game 1, Colon v. Mussina
Game 2, Lackey v. Wang
Game 3, Byrd v. Johnson
Game 4, Washburn/Santana v. Chacon
Game 5, Undecided for both

Again we have here another pitching vs. hitting matchup. The Yankees have a decisive hitting edge while the Angels take the pitching edge - both in the pen and on the mound. The Yankees still have the best closer in the game in Mariano Rivera and good setup men in Tom Gordon and Tanyon Sturtze, but the Angles have had the most dominating bullpen since 2002.

Although the Yankees have great hitting, the Angles have some production as well, with the main source of it being Vlad Guerrero - the best bad-ball hitter in baseball. They also have Bengie Molina, Garrett Anderson, and possibly Steve Finely to provide some thump. Chone Figgins races around the bases almost as much as Scott Posednik, but at a higher success rate. On paper the Yankees pitching looks better but in real life it wont be.
ANGELS in 4.


National League

The National league has four ballclubs with great pitching in the postseason, so if you like old-timey baseball this will be your year.


St.Louis Cardinals vs. San Diego Padres

Matchups:
Game 1, Peavy v. Carpenter
Game 2, Astacio v. Mulder
Game 3, Williams v. Morris
Game 4, Peavy v. Undecided
Game 5, Eaton v. Undecided

At first you look at this series and think, "Cardinals in a walk". But if you examine it more closely you'll see that the Cardinals might be in some serious trouble here. Peavy is a top pitcher in the game and more than capable of shutting the Redbirds out in his two starts. Astacio has given up earned runs of 1,2,1,2,1,2,2 while going at least 6 innings in his starts since August 6th. Eaton has electric stuff if he is on, like he was in his final start on Sunday against LA. The Bullpen comprised of Seanez, Otsuka, Linebrink, and Hoffman is better than St.Louis' Flores, King, Tavarez, and Irsinghausen - now that Al Reyes is out for the season. My question though is why pitch Williams, who has a career 2.91 ERA at Busch, at home and not in game 2.

Matt Morris is 1-5 career with a 4.06 ERA in the postseason. Jason Marquis was roughed up last year in the postseason. Scott Rolen is out for the playoffs. Edmonds, Sanders, and Walker can still rake - while Pulojs is the best hitter in baseball. Eckstien is a competent leadoff/no.2 man - depending where Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa puts him. The key on offense for this series is if the Cardinal pitchers can shut down the San Diego offense on the road, where almost all of their players are much much better. Will that happen, I don't think so.
PADRES in 5.


Atlanta Braves vs. Houston Astros

Matchups:
Game 1, Pettite v. Hudson
Game 2, Clemens v. Smoltz
Game 3, Oswalt v. Sosa
Game 4, Undecided for both
Game 5, Undecided for both

Although its been said all season, the Braves will be using too many rookies in its everyday lineup with Francouer and Langerhans playing the corners in the outfield, and boths production have dropped recently, not to mention catcher Brian McCann if Johnny Estrada's back acts up again. This will also force them to carry 3 catchers taking up another roster spot from someone that could potentially help them. Their Bullpen is in shambles, with their closer changing hands throughout the season. Is The Farns a World Series closer?

Atlanta has two excellent starters in Smoltz and Hudson, but is John Smoltz the dominant playoff starter he once before his conversion to closer? The Astros have three excellent starters in Pettite, Oswalt, and Clemens, an excellent setup man in Dan Wheeler, as well as a dominant closer in Brad Lidge. Yes Andruw Jones has been a power juggernaut this season (think Kenny Williams wants to go back and make that trade) The offense of Atlanta is not significantly greater than Houstons either - at least not as big as the difference between Houston's pitching edge over the Braves.
HOUSTON in 4.


ALCS
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim over Chicago White Sox in 7.

NLCS
Houston Astros over San Diego Padres in 6.


World Series
Houston Astros over Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in 7.


Yep, I think Houston's pitching will take them to the Series, as much as I hate to write it. Stay tuned, see what happens, see if I'm right. Hopefully I'll be able to put the Cubbies in as world series champs next year.