MLB Teams Who Didn't Do Enough This Winter to Keep Up Entering 2016
From the Zack Greinke-less Los Angeles Dodgers to the injured and depleted St. Louis Cardinals, it's been a bummer of an offseason for some of the top MLB clubs from 2015.
Scanning the league, the Dodgers and the Cardinals headline the list of October hopefuls who have been far too quiet this winter if they want to keep up with the best of the best.
To single out the following five squads, we zeroed in on teams who have obvious needs—which have so far gone unmet—and who play in unforgiving divisions. Naturally, with the second criteria in mind, we had to include one team from the relentless American League Central.
Los Angeles Angels
1 of 5
Key Losses: C Chris Iannetta, 3B David Freese, OF David Murphy and OF Shane Victorino
Key Additions: 3B Yunel Escobar, OF Craig Gentry, OF Daniel Nava and SS Andrelton Simmons
The Breakdown
Can someone—anyone—please get Mike Trout some help?
Last summer, the Los Angeles Angels' offense went into hibernation in the second half, as the club tumbled out of the playoff picture.
Following the Midsummer Classic, the Halos ranked second-to-last in runs in the AL. That slide coincided with the physical decline of Albert Pujols, who was hobbled by a chronic case of plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
The 10-time All-Star went under the knife in November, and it's "probable" that he'll begin the season on the shelf, according to Jon Morosi of Fox Sports.
New third baseman Yunel Escobar totes the biggest bat of the new Angels, as he tallied a .314 average in 2015. But he's not going to offset the loss of Pujols in the power department, as Escobar cracked just nine homers for the Washington Nationals in 2014.
It doesn't take a major league talent evaluator to decipher that left field would have been the logical spot to plug in an impact hitter.
Last year, the players who patrolled that spot posted a .592 OPS—the lousiest mark in the bigs. This year, the brain trust tapped Craig Gentry (.396 OPS in 2015) and Daniel Nava (.665 OPS) to hold down left.
The Angels' decision not to bring in a prime-time hitter is especially puzzling since the team plays in the AL West, where the defending winners the Texas Rangers, wild-card winners the Houston Astros and new-look Seattle Mariners will all be jockeying for the top spot.
St. Louis Cardinals
2 of 5
Key Losses: OF Jason Heyward, CF Jon Jay and SP John Lackey
Key Additions: RP Jonathan Broxton (Re-signed), UTL Jedd Gyorko, SP Mike Leake and C Brayan Pena
The Breakdown
It's not just the defections of Jason Heyward and John Lackey—both to the rival Chicago Cubs—that have left the St. Louis Cardinals in a bind.
It's those pesky injuries.
Tommy John surgery has already knocked out Lance Lynn for all of 2016, and Yadier Molina is a giant question mark for the 100-game winners from a season ago.
The backstop tore the ligament in his left thumb at the end of last season and has since undergone a pair of surgeries after the first one didn't do the trick. Even though the rehab process has already gone off the rails once, Molina is still talking about playing on Opening Day.
"That’s what I want," Molina told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "That’s my goal, obviously. We have to wait. We have to see, obviously. I’m going to try to do my best to be in the opening day lineup."
The Redbirds have to play it smart with the face of the franchise and captain of the pitching staff. As Goold noted, "Molina had a similar injury to his right hand [last year], and it took several months for him to regain enough strength in the hand to hit with authority."
With the Cubs rising and the Pittsburgh Pirates, winners of 98 in 2015, lurking, the Cards can't afford for Molina's injury to linger. If it does, this team is in serious trouble.
Minnesota Twins
3 of 5
Key Losses: OF Aaron Hicks, OF Torii Hunter (Retired) and SP Mike Pelfrey
Key Additions: C John Ryan Murphy and DH Byung Ho Park
The Breakdown
Pitching is the problem for the Minnesota Twins.
Let's begin with the rotation, which will look awfully similar to the staff from a season ago.
Kyle Gibson, Ervin Santana and Phil Hughes occupy the top three spots, and after that, the Twins will have a derby for the final two gigs, with Ricky Nolasco and Tommy Milone among the front-runners.
"You look at the rotation, we have depth there," Manager Paul Molitor explained to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. "We can argue how they are going to be slotted in terms of not only who the five will be, but how they will go one through five. But we have some competition, as well as depth."
What Molitor doesn't have is an ace—and it's not even close.
Last year, Gibson (3.84 ERA) was the only Twins pitcher to make at least 16 starts and finish with an ERA south of 4.00. Whether via free agency or trade, finding a No. 1 should have been at the top of the offseason to-do list.
After all, Minnesota plays in the loaded AL Central, where the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers have both rebooted their lineups and the Kansas City Royals bring back a group that posted the third-highest batting average in baseball.
The bullpen, which ranked No. 10 in the AL in ERA and which totaled the fewest strikeouts, also looks frustratingly familiar. This winter, the front office hasn't signed a single reliever to a big league deal.
From rising masher Miguel Sano to new guy Byung Ho Park to old hand Brian Dozier, the Twins have bats. But arms? Not so much.
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Washington Nationals
4 of 5
Key Losses: 3B Yunel Escobar, SP Doug Fister, OF Denard Span, RP Craig Stammen, RP Drew Storen and SP Jordan Zimmermann
Key Additions: INF Stephen Drew, RP Shawn Kelley, 2B Daniel Murphy, RP Yusmeiro Petit, RP Oliver Perez and OF Ben Revere
The Breakdown
There's been a ton of turnover in the nation's capital.
Just look at the lists about. Admittedly, not all of it has been bad.
GM Mike Rizzo secured Daniel Murphy to effectively replace Yunel Escobar in the infield, landed Ben Revere to take over for Denard Span in center and added Shawn Kelley to offset the departure of setup man Drew Storen.
But one guy the Nats definitely didn't replace was Jordan Zimmermann, who was rock-solid in his seven-year stint in D.C., compiling a 3.32 ERA in 178 starts and pitching at least 195.2 frames in each of the past four campaigns.
The loss of Zimmermann (who will likely be replaced by Tanner Roark) is doubly troubling because it means the Nats only fall that much further behind in the arms race with the New York Mets. As the Mets announced to the baseball world emphatically last October, their rotation is the best on the planet, and it's only getting nastier.
And it's not just that absurd stable of pitchers that new skipper Dusty Baker and the Nationals will be competing with. It's also the Yoenis Cespedes-led offense, which scored the second-most runs in baseball after the All-Star break in 2015.
Los Angeles Dodgers
5 of 5
Key Losses: SP Zack Greinke, RP Juan Nicasio and RP Joel Peralta
Key Additions: SP Brett Anderson (Re-signed), RP Joe Blanton, SP Scott Kazmir, 2B Howie Kendrick (Re-signed), SP Kenta Maeda, CF Trayce Thompson and 2B Chase Utley (Re-signed)
The Breakdown
There's one reason why the Los Angeles Dodgers ended up on this list: Zack Greinke is gone.
And the NL Cy Young runner-up hasn't just left the building—he bolted town to join the rising Arizona Diamondbacks in the desert.
While Greinke and his shinny 1.66 ERA are out the door, the Dodgers have replaced the erudite vet with Scott Kazmir and Kenta Maeda.
Kazmir owned a strong 3.10 ERA in 2015, but he wobbled down the stretch, logging a 4.17 ERA in 13 trips to the mound with the Houston Astros. Meanwhile Maeda's first pitch this April will be his first pitch ever as a big leaguer.
While the D-backs stole away Greinke, the San Francisco Giants grabbed Johnny Cueto (along with Jeff Samardzija and Denard Span). Suffice it to say that the three-time defending NL West champs have some company in the division.
The Dodgers have re-upped role players like Brett Anderson and Howie Kendrick and made a shrewd if low-key trade for Trayce Thompson. Still, even Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations, didn't offer a clear response when asked point blank if this iteration of the Dodgers is better than 2015's:
"We just haven’t done a comparison to last year," Friedman admitted to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. "It’s much more about how we like our chances in the 2016 season compared to the teams that we’re competing against."
Now that's a non-answer if there ever were one.
Note: All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com. All salary information courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts on BaseballProspectus.com.
If you want to talk baseball, find me on Twitter @KarlBuscheck.
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