David Wright and 10 Players Who Will Get off to Epic Starts in 2012

The baseball season is almost upon us.

Within the next month or so, every team will have their pitchers and catchers reporting to their determined spring training destination.

When that happens, the regular season is just around the corner. With that in mind, let's take a trip around the league and examine some players who are due for a breakout year in 2012.

In no particular order, we will focus on at least one player from each division and see what places them on the cusp of breaking out. Keep in mind that this is not a "be all, end all" type of list and that there are many players who fit into this category that will not be here.

These are just a few that I feel have the best chance of turning it around in 2012. Before they can turn in a complete effort this coming season, however, they need to get off to a great start.

Several factors have to fall into place for these players to do just that. Therefore, let's take a look at some of these players and the circumstances they are in that will ensure such a boost to their upcoming season. 

David Wright: New York Mets

Because the title is "David Wright and 10 players who will get off to epics starts," it seems only logical to start with David Wright of the New York Metropolitans. It's no secret that the Mets are a team in transition.

They have openly announced that their finances will be a factor this year and the following one too. This has led to the inability to re-sign Jose Reyes and go after major players in the free-agent market.

They also have several players returning from various season-ending injuries in 2011. Among them is Daniel Murphy and Ike Davis. In addition to all of this, the Mets have decided to move their walls in just a tad to generate more home runs.

The last two points add up to their best player having a dynamic season. If the Mets place a healthy Daniel Murphy in front of Wright in that lineup in the two-hole and a determined Ike Davis behind him in the clean-up spot, Wright will excel.

Murphy is a guy who hit in the second spot and fourth spots last season through various injuries to the lineup. He hit .320 last season without having the chance to get comfortable in one spot in the order.

If given that chance this season, he should build on that success. He will get on base and provide plenty of RBI opportunity for Wright hitting behind him.

Furthermore, the impact of Ike Davis to the mix helps even more. Davis hit 19 home runs in his rookie campaign of 2010. He followed it up last season with a hot start in 2011 (seven home runs and 25 RBI in 36 games) before ultimately going down to a fluke injury.

He's healthy now and looking to bounce back. If his 2011 production was any indication of what type of power hitter he will be, Wright should see a lot of fastballs hitting ahead of him.

Finally, the fences in Citi Field will be moved in. In particular, the right field nook that Wright has hit so many opposite field fly balls into for long outs. Wright is a natural opposite field hitter, and therefore, will benefit from the changes.

His power numbers will jump anywhere from another five to 10 home runs. It's no secret that the old dimensions got to his head, and he struggled mightily as a direct result of his home park. That will change almost immediately.

He's due for a breakout year and one that may make him great trade bait or show the Mets why they need to spend money to retain his services.

Jim Thome: Philadelphia Phillies

Let's move from New York down the turnpike to Philadelphia.

When Ryan Howard hobbled down the first base line and eventually fell to the ground in terrible pain to make the last out in the N.L.C.S. last season, the collective Phillies fanbase gasped in horror.

The Phillies had a plan, though. They almost immediately went out and signed future Hall of Fame nominee and former Phillie Jim Thome. Thome has amassed 604 home runs in his 21 seasons.

Of those years, he spent three in Philadelphia, from 2003 to 2005. He hit 96 homes runs and 266 RBI until injuries shut his final season down, and he was eventually replaced by the man he will replace this year—Ryan Howard.

He's not expected to be the Jim Thome of old this season, just to complement Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins in front of him.

With the pressure taken off him this time around, he will be able to produce his average season of 25-plus home runs and 100 RBI in the bandbox that's Citizen's Bank Park.

If that's the case, he will feel right at home with his former manager Charlie Manuel. His chances of getting his bat on track after a subpar 2011 season (15 home runs, 50 RBI) in Philly are very good.

He will feel at home almost immediately, and it will show in his game.  

Stephen Strasburg: Washington Nationals

Let's remain in the N.L. East for one more moment and transition from a star to a phenom. Stephen Strasburg came into the league with the fanfare of a future Hall of Famer and may still get to that point. His first two seasons were exhilarating and disappointing at the same time.

He entered in 2010 with high expectations. He responded with 12 starts and 92 strikeouts to go with a 2.91 ERA. He was forced to shut it down due to injury and had to have the dreaded Tommy John surgery.

Last season, he started the year recovering but returned for the final month. In his five starts, he posted a 1.50 ERA and struck out 24 batters. All reports point to him being on track to start this season healthy and with the big club.

The team has suggested that he will be on a limited innings count, topping off at around 160 innings pitched. Even with the limited usage, he will have a terrific season if he's healthy. There are two reasons he will get off to a great start. One is Gio Gonzalez and the other is previous experience.

First, the Nationals traded for Oakland A's ace Gio Gonzalez last month and shocked the baseball world. This is a pitcher that for a lowly A's team posted 16 wins and a 3.12 ERA in 32 starts last season. He's experienced enough to make an impact on any team and young enough to be in his prime while doing it.

This takes all of the pressure off of Strasburg. Until this trade, he was heavily regarded as the savior of the franchise, the ace. Now, he can relax comfortably into the role of a No. 2 until his skills naturally kick in, and he surpasses Gonzalez.

Secondly, his two seasons of experience will help immensely. He will know what it's like to start a season at the majors and what the experience of that is like. Furthermore, he will not be phased by it because he has already lived that first big moment.

He will be able to adjust a little more quickly to the league this time around as a result and therefore, have better staying power. This time will be the charm for both him and Washington.

Jason Kubel: Arizona Diamondbacks

We move from the East Coast over to the West Coast now and go to Arizona by way of Minnesota.

Jason Kubel spent his entire career with the Minnesota Twins. He was drafted by them in 2000, called up by them in 2004 and stayed with them through thick and thin for seven seasons.

He tested the free-agent market this offseason and was rewarded by the Arizona Diamondbacks to the tune of three years/$12 million.

Last season, he had a down year as he battled injuries and only played 99 games. He hit 12 home runs and 58 RBI. The seasons before, however, showed what he could do when playing the entire year. He hit 21 home runs and 92 RBI in 2010 and 28 home runs and 103 RBI in 2009.

This season, he takes his talents and his health to Arizona. He will be part of a lineup that has Justin Upton, Chris Young and Stephen Drew. He will bring validity to this lineup and find the change of scenery to be a nice one.

The main reason is the depth of pitching in the N.L. West. Outside of Tim Lincecum and Clayton Kershaw, the division is not very deep with starting pitching.

In the A.L. Central, he would have to face pitchers like Jake Peavy, Justin Verlander, Ubaldo Jiminez and Luke Hochevar.

Each team has a solid bullpen as well. In the N.L. West, he will face suspect backend rotations and shaky pens for half of the season. That will help his batting AVG and his power numbers. That all adds up to a clearly good move on his behalf.

He will benefit from the talent around him and embrace the supporting role well while taking advantage of lackluster pitching from the immediate competition. That spells a successful year for Jason Kubel.

Mark Trumbo: Los Angeles Angels

Staying on the West Coast, we look at the Angels.

The biggest news in the baseball offseason was undoubtedly Albert Pujols hitting the free-agent market. The Los Angeles Angels made a bold statement to the league and their main competition, the Texas Rangers, by signing him last month.

The acquisition impacts the lineup in Anaheim dramatically. One of those players it will affect is Mark Trumbo. Trumbo played his first full season last year and exploded onto the scene. His 29 home runs and 87 RBI were good enough to place him second in voting for Rookie of the Year.

He had a solid rookie campaign. His ability to avoid a slump in the sophomore season will hinge on the way he adjusts to the league. There's no doubt the rest of the league is making their adjustments to him, and he has to be aware of that.

The difference now, however, is that the A.L. West isn't preparing for just him in that lineup. Pujols will be their main concern. That helps Trumbo fly under the radar even more now and progress naturally without the pressures that go along with having a highly touted rookie season.

If he continues to work on building his batting AVG up, especially on the road where he struggled to the tune of .246 and against lefties where he hit .248, he will improve immensely.

Part of that adaptation comes from his approach. Being surrounded by veterans on the team will aid in making the necessary changes from the start of spring training.   

Luke Hochevar: Kansas City Royals

Continuing our travels, we move a little further east toward the Midwest with a stop in Kansas City.

The Royals have been down for a good part of the past two decades. The past few seasons they have started off well just to taper off into irrelevance midway through the season.

While they have had a relatively quiet offseason, they have focused on their young talent in their farm system and how it will translate to the major league level. Their biggest move was signing a solid setup option to transition to the ninth inning in Jonathan Broxton.

His addition will help a few pitchers in the rotation. The Royals offense finished fourth in team AVG and 10th in runs scored. The bullpen, however, was not good in holding leads and getting it to Joakim Soria in the ninth.

One such starting pitcher that saw bad luck reflected on his record as a direct result of the bullpen struggles was Luke Hochevar. He was second on the team in wins (11) and led the team in ERA (4.68).

While that ERA jumps out as not very impressive, it's a fair argument to say the bullpen's inability to limit inherited runners helped inflate it just a bit. By all other accounts, Hochevar had his best season of his career. His 128 strikeouts, 1.28 WHIP, 16 quality starts and 198 innings pitched were all team bests.

With pitchers like Jeff Francis, Bruce Chen and Jonathan Sanchez all looking to have bounce-back seasons, Hochevar is the clear candidate to have the ability to build off a good 2011.

The solidifying of the bullpen and his growing ever more comfortable with his place in the Royals rotation will all help him get off to a great start and be the next Royals ace.

Adam Wainwright: St. Louis Cardinals

As we remain in the Midwest for another few minutes, we move on to the reigning World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals.

Has there ever been a championship team with so many questions entering the following season or so many shake ups in the clubhouse? I can't recall one in a very long time.

This Cardinals team has seen the retirement of long-time eventual Hall of Fame manager Tony Larussa and the departure of their franchise player Albert Pujols all in the span of one offseason. They still have a dangerous offense, though.

Players like Lance Berkman and David Freese will be around to defend their title. They also added the services of free-agent Carlos Beltran to the fold to help replace the loss of Pujols. The truth is, however, there's no way they can replace a player like Pujols entirely.

The offensive numbers will take a hit. The only way they can remedy this is to strengthen their pitching and keep their offensive production close to what it was last season. On that note, the starting pitching steps into the spotlight even more. One player in particular that fits that bill is Adam Wainwright.

He missed all of the championship season last year due to Tommy John surgery early last season. All reports state that he's on track for a normal return to form without any setbacks.

The former Gold Glove winner and Cy Young runner-up can make a huge difference for a Cardinals team that lacks the pop it once had. If he returns to his 2009 and 2010 self, he will be lethal in a rotation that already boasts Chris Carpenter, Jake Westbrook and Kyle Lohse.

In those seasons, he posted 19 wins and 212 strikeouts in 2009 and 20 wins and 213 strikeouts in 2010. A dominant Wainwright will make for a lethal rotation that will not need a lot of offense to support it.

With his experience and his health both with him, he will start spring training with a determination to prove himself. That spells trouble for the N.L. Central.

Aramis Ramirez: Milwaukee Brewers

While the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, they did not win the N.L. Central.

That distinction belongs to the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers, however, are not going to field the same team in 2012 that they did in 2011 to win the division.

The stunning news of MVP Ryan Braun facing suspension due to testing positive for steroids and the certain departure of Prince Fielder will be massive blows to the 2012 squad.

When the team realized the free-agency pursuit of Fielder would drag on and include multiple teams, thus driving up his price, they decided to move on and sign Aramis Ramirez to a three-year/$36 million deal.

According to Brewers GM Doug Melvin in the press conference to announce Ramirez, "it appears, that obviously Prince Fielder will probably not be coming back at this time. So we had to move forward."

With that said, the drop off in offense between Fielder and Ramirez is not that dramatic. Last season, Fielder hit 38 home runs to 26 for Ramirez and 120 RBI to 93 for Ramirez. Ramirez had a higher AVG, though. He hit .306 to Fielder's .299. 

In addition to this, Ramirez will be able to take advantage of the fact that he will be hitting against all of the weak Central Division teams, including his former Cubs club and not just most of them. He could face Houston, Pittsburgh and Chicago 19 times a year each.

That helped give Fielder the advantage over him last season. Ramirez had to face the Brewers solid rotation while Fielder was able to feast on the Cubs. That subtle difference will more than make up for the loss of Fielder's bat in the Milwaukee lineup.

If Braun misses the first half of the season the Brewers will rely heavily on the pitching staff and a productive Ramirez to keep them in the hunt until Braun can return and lend some support to the lineup. That is a very possible scenario, however.

With the exceptions of San Francisco, Atlanta, Arizona and St Louis, the Brewers face a primarily light first half schedule. They play at Wrigley in the first week of the season where Ramirez is a career .308 hitter with 124 home runs.

They also face the Dodgers, Rockies and Astros at home.They get tested to begin the year when they visit the Cardinals, but after that, they have a solid stretch of winnable games early on.

The schedule favors a good start for the Brewers and a good first half of the season for Ramirez.  

Adam Dunn: Chicago White sox

Staying in the Midwest, let's move to the A.L. Central.

From 2004 to 2010, Adam Dunn hit 38 or more home runs every season for primarily two teams, the Cincinnati Reds and the Washington Nationals (not counting the 44 games in Arizona in 2008).

He signed a four-year/$56 million deal with the Chicago White Sox last year. He followed it with the worst season of his career. He hit .159 (low even by his career .243 standards), 11 home runs and 42 RBI. All of those were career lows.

Is this a case of Dunn emerging from his prime and beginning a downward trend or just an example of a player underperforming from the tremendous weight of big contract expectations in their first year?  

I believe it has more to do with the latter than the former. Another factor is adjusting to a new league. He made 81 appearances as a DH.

This is a role he was virtually unfamiliar with from playing in the National League all of his career. While he had 18 games as a DH for his N.L. teams prior to last year, he was not the full-time DH, and that change in mentality is a tough adjustment to make in the first season.

He may have put added pressure on himself last year too. There's little doubt about that. A player that makes $15 million a season is going to push himself a little more than usual to prove he deserves to paid that salary.

With a new season ahead of him and the struggles of change behind him, Dunn is geared for a solid year. He's a powerful lefty bat in a right-handed, heavy-pitching division.

This, combined with another opportunity to start spring training healthy and motivated, all points to Adam Dunn getting off to a great start and being a force in that White Sox lineup. 

David Price: Tampa Bay Rays

With our tour taking us back east, we travel to sunny Tampa Bay.

The Rays were a surprise wild-card winner last season. No one knows this better than the Boston Red Sox, who they leaped over on the final day of the season to take second place in the A.L. East and secure their spot in the playoffs.

The Rays have several solid players on offense. Names like Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton and Ben Zobrist are all household names now. Of the several key players the Rays have, none may be relied on more heavily to have a good 2012 than David Price.

It's hard to imagine that anyone can call a 2011 that posted a 3.49 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 218 strikeouts in 224 innings pitched as having room for improvement but look closer at the numbers. His record was only 12-13, and he gave up 22 home runs.

As dominant as most of his stats are, he could use some help. For one thing, the bullpen didn't do very well overall at holding leads. Seven of his 13 losses were by two runs or less. Eleven of them were games where he pitched six or more innings to keep them close.

Another problem was the offense had trouble scoring run support for him. In 15 of his starts, they scored three runs or less. This all adds up to missed opportunities.

If these factors were limited, he would have been able to win at least another five to seven starts. That would raise his record from 17 to 19 wins and put him closer to the productivity he enjoyed in 2010 (19-6, 2.72 ERA).

The Rays have strengthened the back end of that bullpen with the addition of Fernando Rodney to perhaps share the ninth-inning duties with closer Kyle Farnsworth. The hope of a solidified bullpen to secure wins for the starting rotation would be a major boost for the Rays.

It would keep them in the hunt for the division and not have to make a late surge for a wild-card spot. The difference, however, will be Price returning to his 2010 form. A more effective offense and a stronger backend bullpen can ensure a better transition to form for him.

R.A. Dickey: New York Mets

With our tour of the MLB nearly complete, it only makes sense to finish where we started—the New York Mets.

The Mets have several players who could be due for a turnaround season.

None more than R.A. Dickey, though. Dickey made national headlines when he defied the organization and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro despite protests from the Mets.

The event was for charity and made him look even more reputable, and the Mets appear even more sinister when he completed the climb without incident with good friend and former teammate Kevin Slowey, who by the way did not receive any such notice from the Rockies organization.

This may be a factor in motivating him to do better in 2012—to prove that there were no residual effects of the climb and that the Mets publicly wronged him by scorning him. The truth is, though, Dickey was a candidate for this list when the team made a flurry of offseason moves in one short night.

They signed Frankie Francisco and Jon Rauch and traded for Ramon Ramirez all in an effort to solidify their biggest weakness—the bullpen. Perhaps, no pitcher in 2011 was a better example of a hard-luck loser than Dickey.

He posted a 3.28 ERA but just a 8-13 record. Of his 33 starts, 12 were no decisions. Among those, half (six) were one-run games that Dickey pitched at least five innings. The fact is the bullpen failed to hold leads all season long for more than just Dickey.

This was the main reason the Mets decided the bullpen was really the only problem. The offense ranked 12th in runs scored, sixth in batting AVG and sixth in on-base percentage. The problem was primarily pitching, and the Mets suffered most in the loss column.

With three pitchers combining (Dickey, Mike Pelfrey and Jon Niese) to have at least 10 no decisions that were team losses, it would be safe to assume that if the bullpen had converted half of those into wins, the Mets would be above the .500 mark.

With that remedied, R.A. Dickey will have a better season. In addition to all of this, there's one more factor that could contribute to Dickey's success in 2012.

If Johan Santana returns healthy from the start of spring training, he will cause Dickey to drop in the rotation and oppose the lower-rotation starters on the other team.

Instead of facing the other ace, he will going up against the No. 2 or No. 3.

That would mean the Mets score more runs in support of his efforts and gain more wins for him. In the end, Dickey is capable and in a prime position to lower his ERA and build on his record next season.

Overall, that would mean great success for his teammates and a big "I told you so" to the organization.

Seeing what they put him through when all he was trying to do was raise money for a great cause, I think many fans wouldn't mind seeing him get the last laugh.