The players have reported, the camps are open. Spring training is here at last. And you know what that means: a whole month of televised things that look and smell and walk and talk like baseball games … but aren’t. Not really. Still, while you should never take any one thing that happens in a spring training game with any degree of seriousness – unless it’s someone getting hurt – there are things to keep an eye on until the games actually start to count. Here’s a rundown of the predominant offseason storylines each team is bringing into camp and how they might develop. (We’ll take a look at the National League on Tuesday.)
AL East
Baltimore Orioles: This is the third season in a row that most insiders have been skeptical that the Orioles will continue to win, given their active disinterest in signing name players – whether it’s passing on veteran free agents like Nelson Cruz or international free agents like Yoan Moncada. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any turnover, especially on the fringes; the most interesting question is where the newly signed Everth Cabrera will play, assuming he keeps himself out of trouble with the law and remembers how to hit a baseball at the major league level. The Orioles also appear to have too many starting pitchers for a five-man rotation – but that’s only if you count Ubaldo Jimenez as a starting pitcher, and with his 1.1 IP, 5 ER debut against a Detroit Tigers spring-training lineup last week, he is already presenting a compelling case against himself.
New York Yankees: The media’s going to spend most of the spring focusing on the Yankees’ designated hitter, but the real storyline for New York is the health, stability and performance of their starting rotation. CC Sabathia is back up over 300lbs – and is painting this as a positive thing, as he thinks a loss of body mass threw off his mechanics. Masahiro Tanaka still has questions about whether his elbow will hold together. And there’s a significant danger the team will go into the season with Chris Capuano somewhere in the rotation.
Boston Red Sox: Another case where the star power of the position players might distract from the team’s problems in the rotation. The bad news for the Red Sox is that unless you’re in love with Clay Buchholz’s 2013, no one in the Boston rotation has Tanaka’s upside. This is a collection of No 3 or No 4 starters from top to bottom. The good news is that unlike the Yankees, the Red Sox can change this from a negative to a positive over the next month with one good trade for a top-of-the-rotation starter. If they make that trade, said starter will probably come from the Philadelphia Phillies. The only question is: will he be Cole Hamels or Cliff Lee?
Tampa Bay Rays: The Rays have done just about everything they can to make this season unpalatable to their own fans, let alone baseball fans across the country; their offseason has been a fine example of a small-market team swallowing bitter medicine to rebuild their farm system down the road – and save a few bucks for the hedge fund managers that own them. We’ve had enough young-ish players-turned-managers that Kevin Cash isn’t particularly exciting as a Joe Maddon replacement, and the roster itself isn’t that compelling either. The development of right fielder Kevin Kiermaier will be interesting for statheads who love what the metrics say about his defense, while second baseman Nick Franklin’s ultimate fate will be interesting to anyone following the Seattle Mariners’ front-office drama of the last couple seasons, but beyond that, there’s not much drama here. Even Tampa Bay non-roster invitee first baseman Allan Dysktra doesn’t have the decency to be related to Lenny. C’mon now.
Toronto Blue Jays: One thing you can say about the Blue Jays under general manager Alex Anthopoulos: they never want for an interesting offseason. Of course, this time around the Jays ownership helped him out by publically trying to replace his boss with his counterpart in Baltimore, Dan Duquette, but Anthopoulos still supplemented his already interesting roster by trading for third baseman Josh Donaldson and signing catcher Russell Martin, among other players. Now if everyone could just stay healthy for once, the Jays might – what’s that? Michael Saunders tripped over a sprinkler and needs knee surgery? Yeah, that sounds about right. The team still needs someone to step up at second base and in center field even if Saunders returns on time, and all the pitchers in their rotation are either so old they might fall apart at any moment or so young they might never break out. But if everything clicks, the Blue Jays could be dangerous. Of course, I said that after they signed Josh Johnson, too.
AL Central
Detroit Tigers: They replaced Torii Hunter with Yoenis Cespedes! They replaced Max Scherzer with Alfredo Simon. They have a full season of David Price! They have a full season of Anthony Gose. Detroit’s still a good team, but they’ll need a lot of people to step up if they want to keep pace with their past selves. Designated hitter Tyler Collins could find his way onto the club if Victor Martinez can’t stay healthy – he’s currently rehabbing another leg injury – and the Tigers need somebody, anybody to emerge from their minor league system and help stabilize that bullpen, because free agent signings sure aren’t doing the trick. Alternatively, the Tigers could push Simon and Greene back into the pen and let two of Buck Farmer, Kyle Lobstein, and Drew VerHagen take the No 4 and No 5 spots. At the very least they’ll have high-quality names.
Kansas City Royals: The biggest question for Kansas City: is their defense good enough to carry not just Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Vargas, but Edinson Volquez as well? The answer should be yes … if the other two guys in the rotation, Yordano Ventura and Danny Duffy, are as good as they looked last year. I thought Alex Rios would have been a good player for the Royals to trade for at the deadline last year; considering Nori Aoki’s somewhat putrid postseason, it’s an assertion I stand by. Also, both Joe Blanton and Ryan Madson (yes, that Ryan Madson) are NRIs trying to make the KC bullpen! Madson’s already hurt his back and Blanton’s already been lit up in a split-squad game. All is comfortable and familiar.
Cleveland Indians: Cleveland had a quiet offseason, with the only real moves made to the MLB roster being their acquisition of Brandon Moss from the Athletics and the signing of Gavin Floyd to presumably be their No 3 or No 4 starter. Floyd pitched 54 good innings for the Braves last year, but he’s still a guy with a career ERA+ of 101, which could make him the second- or third-best pitcher on this staff, terrifyingly enough, if Carlos Carrasco hasn’t permanently figured things out and Danny Salazar and Trevor Bauer don’t follow suit. If they’re not careful, they might actually experience the absurdity of losing their spot in the rotation to Bruce Chen, who is in camp with Cleveland as an NRI. The current Cleveland regime has a thing for scrapheap veteran lefties – see also: Rich Hill and Scott Kazmir, both NRIs who eventually made the team – so it’s not as crazy as it might sound.
Chicago White Sox: Everyone forgets about the White Sox, but I’m not convinced they haven’t had a better offseason than their crosstown rivals each of the last two years. The biggest question for them in camp is a two-parter: is Carlos Rodon actually ready for the majors, and will the Sox allow him to break camp with the team? My guess is that regardless what the answer to the first part is, the answer to the second part is “no”. But Sale/Samardzija/Rodon/Quintana/whoever is a rotation with a lot to like, and while the Sox still require solutions at second base, third base and catcher, the team has a pretty solid power-heavy core for their lineup. The bullpen, which was a nightmare last year, has a great new closer in David Robertson, but just as importantly could feature prospect Michael Ynoa (if he’s ready) and veteran Jesse Crain (if he’s healthy). It could also legally feature 37-year-old NRI Brad Penny. That’s the best that can be said for his chances to make the team. It would not be against the law.
Minnesota Twins: The main question I have for the Twins is if they feel bad that their fans keep showing up. I know I do. The Twins gave Ervin Santana a long-term deal to round out their rotation of guys who for some reason have long term deals, featuring Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes. One assumes that if Kyle Kendrick has a good year for the Rockies, they’ll throw $80m at him, too. The legit good news for Minnesota fans is that prospects Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton are healthy again – Buxton in particular suffered an extremely worrying injury in an outfield collision in 2014 – and should see action in Minnesota in 2015 regardless of what happens in camp, because they’re probably going to be good players and their team probably won’t be playing for anything but next year.
AL West
Oakland Athletics: Billy Beane confused and worried Oakland fans once again by doing what appears to be extremely weird stuff, which you’d think they’d be used to by now. Massive roster turnover has led to the longest tenured player on the Athletics’ 25-man roster being Coco Crisp, now entering his sixth season with the club. A’s fans will be introduced to Ben Zobrist’s versatility, Ike Davis and Brett Lawrie’s variably weird temper tantrums, and Billy Butler’s weird “Country Breakfast” nickname, though maybe that’ll go away now that he’s on the West Coast. The big story in camp is the NRI signing of former Athletic Barry Zito, and how quickly A’s fans sentimentality for him will fade when they see how he pitches.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: The most interesting question in camp for the Angels has nothing to do with Josh Hamilton – he was already out for a few months anyway due to injury, and Matt Joyce will take his place for the time being. Andrew Heaney is the real person of interest; a top Miami Marlins prospect that the Dodgers acquired in a bizarre Dan Haren salary dump that MLB should never have allowed, and then was traded to the Angels for second baseman Howie Kendrick. The Angels are still going to have to give Jered Weaver and CJ Wilson turns in the rotation, but if Garrett Richards, Matt Shoemaker, and Andrew Heaney can pick up the slack, it’ll make the two veterans a whole lot more palatable – and perhaps free the Angels up to redirect Hector Santiago to the Angels’ bullpen, which has also been disappointing the last few years.
Texas Rangers: The only moves of importance by the Rangers this offseason were the acquisitions of Yovani Gallardo and Ross Detwiler by trade from the Brewers and Nationals – and also their exercising of Adrian Beltre’s 2016 option, if exercising an option early on one of the five best third basemen of all time in order to keep him happy is something that actually gets you riled up. The big questions for the Rangers in 2015 are “can everyone please not get hurt?” and “can everyone who did get hurt please return to form?”, and if Prince Fielder, Derek Holland, Matt Harrison and friends oblige, the Rangers could be pretty dangerous. Also, it’s not new news because he got over 400 plate appearances from the Rangers at second base last season, but as a reminder, Texas’s projected starting second baseman is named “Rougned Odor.”
Seattle Mariners: The Mariners gave Nelson Cruz a lot of money for a lot of years, meaning they no longer have just one player in their lineup vastly better than everybody else to complement the one pitcher in their rotation vastly better than everybody else. The team needed career years from both guys – Robinson Cano and Felix Hernandez – to even glimpse the second wild card last year, so it’ll be interesting to see how Cruz changes the calculus. As for interesting camp news, catcher Jesus Montero lost a bunch of weight to much fanfare, and his manager Lloyd McClendon reminded us on the record that this doesn’t mean he’s suddenly a good baseball player, which is an utterly bizarre thing for a manager to be doing. Some systems are projecting Mariners shortstop Brad Miller and Chris Taylor to both be top 15 shortstops in all of Major League Baseball, which I find ridiculous but worth watching.
Houston Astros: The Astros are still a weird, not-very-good team whose management seems to put way more effort into explaining why they’re not winning games than they do into actually getting better, and doing things like trading for “catcher”/”outfielder”/designated hitter Evan Gattis doesn’t do much to tip the needle in their favor. He’s the big offseason get, by the way, him and centerfielder Colby Rasmus, whose departure is reportedly being celebrated in the Blue Jays’ clubhouse. The most important thing to whether the Astros will win 65 or 75 games this year is whether Scott Feldman, Dallas Keuchel, Collin McHugh, Brett Olberholzer and Dan Straily can continue to impersonate a major league rotation over a full season. A significant point in their favor is that they’ve done it once already.
