Last year was an incredibly shocking run for the San Diego Padres, who most, including this "expert" picked to finish last in the division. they turned out to lose to the eventual World Champion San Francisco Giants on the last day of the season. San Francisco won the division with pitching, which they plan to use again, with arguably the best staff in the majors. It also doesn't hurt that their staff is all home grown, which makes it easier for fans to like them. What craziness will this division bring us this year? Well, hopefully a lot of it. Again as a refresher, I will go bottom to top with my pick for each team, and review each team's biggest loss and biggest gain.
San Diego Padres
Biggest loss: Adrian Gonzalez. This one is the most obvious loss in all of baseball. Gonzalez was essentially the only source of power coming from the middle of this order, and he still managed to hit 30 homers regularly in an insanely pitcher friendly park. Gonzalez also helped hide errors with his stellar defense at first base.
Biggest gain: The Padres have acquired a bunch of players who are coming off of down years such as Orlando Hudson, Jason Bartlett, and Aaron Harang. If these players revert to their 2009 selves, they can perform very well and allow the Padres to get some more players for their farm system.
The Padres are again expected to do absolutely zilch this season. They proved absolutely everyone wrong last season, but I don't think they can do it two years in a row. San Diego's offense is again putrid, and they don't have Gonzalez to bail them out of any situations where he could blast a three run homer. San Diego is trying to rebuild from within, and it will take them a little bit to do so, but they got what they could for Gonzalez and look for sometime in the summer for them to trade all-star closer Heath Bell to try and get more prospects in return.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Biggest gain: J.J. Putz. Putz is back closing again after a few years of set up duty with the Mets and White Sox. Putz knows how to close and the Diamondbacks may trade him midseason so they can get prospects.
Biggest loss: Mark Reynolds. The D-Backs third baseman was traded to the Orioles over the offseason as part of the makeover the Diamondbacks front office is trying to make. Arizona is trying to get rid of high risk, high reward guys like Reynolds in favor of more balanced players. Reynolds is a 40 homer guy, but he also strikes out 200 times a year, which is far far too many for any player.
Arizona was supposed to be a contender for the past three seasons after going to the NLCS in 2007. Now they are getting into full fledged rebuilding mode with new GM Kevin Towers, who was inexplicably let go by the Padres after the 2009 season. Towers will get the Diamondbacks back on track soon enough, plus Arizona has some very good young talent in the desert, especially with their pitching. Daniel Hudson and Joe Saunders lead the way for the starting pitching.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Biggest gain: Jon Garland comes over from San Diego after having a strong year there in a very pitcher friendly park. Garland again has that privilege in Los Angeles, as Chavez Ravine isn't known as a hitters park. Garland will help solidify an already strong pitching staff.
Biggest loss: Russell Martin, who was the Dodgers starting catcher for the past five seasons. While Martin's production behind the plate continued to dwindle, he still was very good handling the Dodgers still fairly young pitching staff, so there is a question of whether newcomer Rod Barajas can fill those shoes adequately.
The Dodgers are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now while the McCourt divorce is happening. The reason for that is because they can't spend too much money if they do not know if Frank McCourt or Jamie McCourt owns the team. The Dodgers are still very talented all throughout the field, but as mentioned, they cannot go out and spend money on any key free agents to upgrade at a key position. Los Angeles has a bunch of good players with James Loney, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Rafael Furcal if he stays healthy, and so on, but they do have some very good pitching, beginning with Chad Billingsley, who is a horse. Billingsley will definitely give you 200 innings and strike out nearly a batter an inning. Billingsley leads the pitching staff full of quality starters. So if everything turned out correctly, things can work out like roses, if not, then things will turn into weeds quickly.
San Francisco Giants
Biggest gain: Miguel Tejada. Tejada replaces the tandem of Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria at shortstop. Tejada is not the player he was nearly a decade ago when he won the 2002 AL MVP award, but he is still very servicable at short. Tejada will provide around 15-20 homers and about 80 RBI.
Biggest loss: Uribe, who was a great utility guy who eventually became the everyday third baseman, as Pablo Sandoval regressed a lot from his 2009 form. Uribe will be missed for his versatility and pop.
While the Giants are coming off a World Series victory, I just cannot see how they do it back-to-back. There have been few teams in the past 20 years to repeat, in fact the only teams to repeat were the 1992-93 Blue Jays and the 1996-98 Yankees. Plus, it's hard to come back and go to back-to-back World Series, the most recent team to do it was the Phillies in 2008-09, so hence why I'm counting the Giants out of the playoffs. Granted, they have one of the top three staffs in all of baseball top to bottom, but they can't continuously win games 3-2 can they? Even with Brian Wilson and his menacing beard on the mound, they just can't win back to back division titles.
Colorado Rockies
Biggest gain: Matt Lindstrom. Lindstrom will be the setup man behind closer Huston Street. Lindstrom closed for Houston last year before being dealt to the Rockies in a minor trade. If street struggles or is injured, it's always good to know to have a proven closer behind to be a stop gap solution.
Biggest loss: The Rockies didn't really have any huge losses over the offseason, just role players like Octavio Dotel, Manny Corpas, and Jason Giambi. These players are not big losses, as the team can replace them rather easily.
The Rockies have high expectations after going on another tear at the end of the 2010 season, falling a few games behind both San Diego and San Francisco. Plus, if Troy Tulowitzki can put together an entire season like he did last September where he hit a homer seemingly every other day to put himself in the running for the MVP award. Now, they have Carlos Gonzalez back and Colorado hopes to see another performance like last year for him. Finally, Ubaldo Jimenez was the National League's starting pitcher for the All-Star game last year, no reason to think he can't put up Cy Young capable numbers again. This is just a hunch for the Rockies to win the division.
Tomorrow: AL East preview. Will the Red Sox win the division? Will the Orioles finally climb out of the cellar or even sniff .500 for the first time since 1997? Will the Rays be able to win the division even with all of their losses over the offseason? Find out tomorrow in the next edition of PJ's sports blog!
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