The Houston Astros’ 2011 season figures to go about as well as NASA’s recent Glory satellite launch — it’s going to end with disappointment and a thud. CAIRO, Oliver and PECOTA all project the ‘Stros for fewer than 70 wins, and considering that Marc Hulet dubbed Houston’s farm system second-worst in the game, it could be years before Houston has the talent to compete once again. The Astros’ plight got even bleaker today, as it was announced that one of the club’s precious few long-term talents, Jason Castro, will likely miss the entire year with a torn right ACL.

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When you think of the Braves, you think of old guys. The Braves have had remarkable continuity over the past two decades: even the biggest departures, from John Smoltz to Tom Glavine to John Schuerholz to Bobby Cox, have remained or returned to the fold with the team. (Schuerholz is team president, Cox is a consultant, Glavine is a special assistant to the president, and Smoltz is a color commentator.) All four first joined the team more than 20 years ago — as did Chipper Jones, drafted in 1990 by GM Bobby Cox. And the new manager, Fredi Gonzalez, was hired precisely because he didn’t think too far outside the box. As Jones explained, “The way I see it, we just got a younger version of Bobby.”

But the Braves are a young team in an old team’s image. The faces of the franchise are two 21 year olds on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The names on the lockers have changed, but this is still a team built around young pitching and young talent up the middle. With the injuries on the Cardinals pitching staff, it might be the second-best team in the league. But is that good enough?
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What is the one “thing” we associate with pitchers? For me, and I imagine for many others, it is strikeouts. Preventing runs or getting outs are more accurate general descriptions of the pitcher’s primary task. But when I think of good pitchers, the first thing I think of is strikeouts. As we know, however, there are many pitchers who succeed without getting many strikeouts. Let’s take a look at some of 2010’s relatively successful starting pitchers with low strikeout rates, and see how they might fare in 2011.

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All this recent talk about the contract status of Barry Zito caused me to visit the Cot’s Baseball Contracts page on the most expensive players of all time. Any FanGraphs reader worth their salt already knows this, but there are only 26 players in all of baseball history that have ever been given total contracts worth more than $100M. The first player to break the $100M barrier was Kevin Brown, signing a 7-year, $105M deal before the 1999 season. Since then the barrier has been utterly destroyed, culminating so far in Alex Rodriguez’s recent 10 year, $275M deal (although of course, that could be passed this upcoming offseason by Albert Pujols).

But 1999 is a long time ago (as scary as that may be). Seven of the $100M contracts have already finished, and another three of them are finishing this season. Although $100M is an arbitrary cut-off, can these completed contracts tell us anything about the wisdom or folly of large, long-term contracts?  Let’s take a peek, shall we?

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The Phillies might have grabbed the most headlines this off-season, and the Braves might remain the stable contender in the NL East, but it’s the Marlins that are the most interesting team in the division. They have finished second or third in each of the last three years, and are slowly amassing a core of young talent that could soon bring them into serious contention. In 2011 we’ll get to see a number of these players try their hands against major league competition.

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Jonathan Papelbon recently announced that he will use his slider more this upcoming season and that he feels it will be a ‘difference-maker’ to rebounding from a down 2010 year. As reported by WEEI, here is how Papelbon came to decide to committing to this pitch:

“I remember being in Yankee Stadium, throwing a few of them to [Mark] Teixeira and one to [Derek] Jeter,” the Red Sox closer said. “I remember throwing one to Jeter and he check-swung. He got the call – even though it was a strike – but I remember him specifically looking at me and looking like he was thinking, ‘Where did that come from?’ From then on I said I am going to start using this pitch any time, all the time.”

“This is the most confident I’ve felt about a breaking pitch,” he said. “It’s right where I want it to be. I’m going to throw it as much as my split. I’ll have three pitches I can throw from 0-0, to 3-2.”

What this quote portends is that Papelbon will use his slider more this season — this much is true. Having three pitches to throw in all counts, as he claims, is more of a trite remark than an analytical one, but it does lead me to want to investigate how Papelbon’s three pitches and each of A) their usage and distribution based on the count, and B) their performance and pitch results.

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They’re called five-man rotations, yet virtually no teams make it through 162 games without relying on more than five starters. There are exceptions, as the 2003 Mariners proved, but on average MLB teams have used 9.9 starters each over the course of the past five years.

That’s why teams sign “depth” starters every offseason and it’s why the Tigers’ current approach stands out. Their front five looks good; Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello, Phil Coke and Brad Penny promise to keep the Tigers in enough games to make them contenders for the AL Central title. But unlike other teams, the Tigers aren’t stocking up on rotation depth — at least for now.

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Revamping a flagging team doesn’t happen in one offseason, especially an offseason spent discovering new and unhappy things about the owners’ finances. The ‘Sandyball’ era in New York has started, as Sandy Alderson got the old gang together and made wholesale changes in how the Mets are run. The new question is, ‘how long will it take for the new organizational philosophy to take hold?’ And can a team that made no obvious fundamental changes to the roster will their way to a different fortune in a new season?

The Starting Nine
SS Jose Reyes ^
CF Angel Pagan ^
3B David Wright
RF Carlos Beltran ^
LF Jason Bay
1B Ike Davis *
2B Brad Emaus / Luis Castillo ^
C Josh Thole *

* denotes left-handed hitter; ^ denotes switch-hitter

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A report suggesting that the San Francisco Giants were considering releasing Barry Zito appear to be bunk, according to Andrew Baggarly at MercuryNews.com. This isn’t particularly surprising or necessarily even newsworthy. I only bring this item up because it has resurrected my interest in a particularly intriguing baseball topic (at least to me): the reluctance of a general manager to release a replacement-level player with an albatross contract.

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When Barry Zito signed the most lucrative pitching contract in baseball history (at the time), few expected him to live up to his lofty new salary. Just four seasons into his seven-year $126 million deal, one San Francisco writer isreporting Zito might be on the verge of getting cut. According to the article, the San Francisco Giants have grown “exasperated” with Zito, and would consider buying out his contract before the season starts. There’s no doubt Zito has failed to live up to expectations with the Giants, but giving Zito his walking papers would be a poor decision.
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