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Over the winter, the Padres changed over almost their entire roster, turning an also-ran into a contender with a flurry of moves that borrowed heavily from the team’s future. The current roster is good enough to be a legitimate Wild Card threat, but despite some big name pieces at the top of the roster, San Diego is still rolling with a tandem of Alexi Amarista and Clint Barmes at shortstop. Unsurprisingly, A.J. Preller is looking to change that.

The #Padres and aggressive A.J Preller still aren't done dealing. They are now scouring the shortstop market, teams say.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) April 7, 2015

Significant trades are pretty rare in April, but Preller already defied the odds by getting the Braves to surrender the best closer in baseball on the eve of Opening Day, so let’s put aside the fact that most teams aren’t likely going to want to move a quality shortstop right now and see if we can find a fit for the Padres. After all, we don’t need to look for an All-Star to find someone better than what San Diego has at the moment.

The Options

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The Red Sox clearly have a thing for Justin Masterson. They drafted him with their second-round pick in 2006, then developed him into one of their best young pitching prospects before the Indians demanded him as part of the Victor Martinez trade in 2009. This winter, when he was finally a free agent after spending six years in Cleveland, the Red Sox took the opportunity to bring him back to Boston, signing him to a $9.5 million contract for 2015 despite the fact that he posted a 5.88 ERA last season.

The organization’s affinity for Masterson’s skillset is noteworthy, because this week, the Red Sox signed Rick Porcello to a four year, $82.5 million contract extension on the bet that Porcello is essentially a younger version of this same type of pitcher.

First, let’s do a quick comparison. Here are Masterson and Porcello’s numbers from their age-23 through age-25 seasons, which in Porcello’s case covers the last three years.

Both Porcello and Masterson were pitch-to-contact groundball hurlers, with Masterson getting a few more grounders and strikeouts at the expense of a walk rate that was significantly higher than what Porcello has posted. They’re not identical, but they’re cut from the same cloth, and heading into their mid-20s, the results were quite similar. By ERA, both were roughly league average starters, though metrics that attempt to eliminate defensive performance from the picture both thought they were significantly above average, with Porcello being slightly ahead of Masterson at the same point in their careers.

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While I ran through my thoughts on all 30 teams in the division previews, I had a few stray things that didn’t fit into the capsule format, so I’m tackling them here. A year ago, I wrote this same post, including gems like this one:

2. I believe the Royals are being overrated.

Let’s see if I can do better this year. On to the five things I believe about the 2015 season. Read the rest of this entry »

And now the final division preview, just in time for Opening Day. If you missed them, here are the first five:

NL West
AL West
NL Central
AL Central
NL East

Now, wrapping things up with the AL East.

The Projected Standings

The only division in baseball where all five teams have a legitimate shot at winning; the projected spread between first and last place in the AL East is smaller than the gap between first and second place in the NL East. The forecasts have a favorite, but this division is wide open, and nearly any order of finish could be reasonable. On to the teams themselves.

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We’ve moved our from the west — both NL and the AL — and covered both the NL and AL Wests the last two days. Today, we’ll do both eastern divisions, starting with the National League.

The Projected Standings

The easiest division in baseball to handicap. The favorites just have to avoid implosion to punch their ticket to the postseason, with only two teams even pretending to put up a fight, and neither one looking quite ready for the postseason yet. The fight for second place could be a Wild Card battle, but more likely, there is only one playoff team here, and it’s probably going to be the one we’d all expect.

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We’re halfway done, with the wests — both NL and the AL — and covered NL Central yesterday. Today, we tackle the AL’s version of the country’s heartland.

The Projected Standings

With no great teams and only one franchise not really trying to contend this year, this is one of the most up-for-grabs divisions in the sport. Our forecasts suggest that there are two tiers within those going for it, but I think things might be a bit more bunched up than the numbers above suggest. Let’s go team by team.

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We’ve already previewed the two western divisions, the NL and the AL. Today, we move into the middle of the country, and look at perhaps the most interesting division in baseball.

The Projected Standings

It’s a three team race at the top, with a couple of teams not quite willing to rebuild but also probably not good enough to contend. Let’s go team by team.

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