On June 16th of this season, the Mariners finally called an end to the Bill Bavasi era that began in 2004. Today, October 22nd, the Mariners begin on the Jack Zduriencik era. This soon to be often misspelled era will hopefully bring about a change in direction for the downtrodden Seattle fans; a group that has seen their baseball team become the first ever to spend over $100 million in payroll and lose 100 games, their basketball team get stolen away from them and their football team stagger to a 1-5 record under the weight of 427 and counting injuries. This city needs new blood, new decisions, a new direction. It needs hope.

Jack Zduriencik was one of the few people retained by Doug Melvin would he took over as Milwaukee’s General Manager in 2002 and for good reason, there are very few people with an eye for talent that rival Jack’s. Just look at the Brewers’ 2008 roster. Their primary starters at first base (Prince Fielder), second base (Rickie Weeks), short stop (J.J. Hardy), left field (Ryan Braun) and right field (Corey Hart) were all Zduriencik’s draft picks. This lineup was assembled despite Zduriencik’s reputation for almost doggedly taking the best player available without regard to current organizational surpluses. Zduriencik also made these drafts without the benefit of any extra picks via compensation and suffering the loss of three second picks during his eight years in Milwaukee because of free agents signed.

A good indication that you’re doing something right as a front office is when your assistants get hired out from you to become GMs elsewhere so kudos to Doug Melvin here. But that principle also applies elsewhere. Two of Zduriencik’s scouts were hired out from under him to become scouting directors: Tom Allison with Arizona and Bobby Heck with Houston. All this and more lead Jack Zduriencik to be named the first non-GM to be awarded Executive of the Year by Baseball America.

Is Zduriencik the man to provide the hope Seattle needs? I think he’s a start. As our own Dave Cameron espoused before the hire, it’s not just about the GM, but the whole organization from top to bottom that needs an upheaval. Zduriencik is a fine choice at the top, but questions remain on if he will be granted the authority to make the needed changes below. Beyond that, will he tap the vast local resources of tech-savvy people to help move Seattle to the top of organizations in advanced analysis? Time will tell, but for the first time in years, there’s a reason to look to the future with a feeling beside soul-crushing despair.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Fifteen: Minnesota Twins

With the trade of Johan Santana away from Minnesota and the trade of Miguel Cabrera to Detroit, Minnesota’s chances were mostly dismissed in the face of Cleveland’s defending crown and Detroit’s vamped up offense. Ironically, it was Chicago that proved to be the ultimate dark horse in the AL Central. Nonetheless, the Twins made a strong run for the division title backed by a remarkable 34-18 record in games decided by five runs or more.

It certainly wasn’t from anything sustainable as the Twins offense ranked just 15th and run prevention just 21st. Although 15th doesn’t come off too impressive, it was a big step up from 2007 as Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer both took steps forward and Nick Punto managed to upgrade from being one of the worst hitters in baseball with his .210/.291/.271 line to a serviceable .283/.343/.381 in 2008. Those three combined to add about sixty runs over 2007.

They would need those sixty runs because the pitching, absent Johan Santana, would slide backward a bit. The bullpen also lost the significant contribution provided by Pat Neshak last season and Matt Guerrier went from a strikeout-to-walk ratio over three to under two and also saw increased home runs allowed.

Francisco Liriano was supposed to be a cover for Santana’s departure, but his long rehab stint in the minors kept him from adding too many innings to the major league rotation. Nick Blackburn and Kevin Slowey were useful additions though and portend good things for Minnesota’s future.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Fourteen: Arizona Diamondbacks

A sad season for Arizona fans as they saw their team race off to a 9-2 start and if they had simply played .500 ball for the remaining 151 games they would have at least tied Los Angeles’ 84 wins. Their defense was mediocre to below average, which makes their 3rd overall rank in runs allowed from BaseRuns all the more a praise to their pitching. Besides some below average defense, the position players also mounted a below average attack at the plate, ranking just 19th in runs scored.

Eric Byrnes had been a stealing machine since arriving in Arizona with 75 steals against just 10 caught stealings between 2006 and 2007. Signed to a three-year extension in August of 2007, Byrnes had a rough 2008 with both bad performance and numerous injury problems. The Diamondbacks bailed on Carlos Quentin which proved to be a tough bit to swallow later on as their offense constantly struggled and Quentin matured to contend for an MVP title in the American League. While Stephen Drew regressed in a troubling fashion in the walks and strikeouts department dropping his isolated discipline from .075 down to .042, his power took off adding over 30 extra base hits in just 44 more plate appearances.

Arizona dealt off their 2007 closer in Jose Valverde but still managed to improve their bullpen, namely from improvements by Brandon Medders and Jailen Peguero and the addition of Chad Qualls, who came over from Houston in the Jose Valverde trade.

It was the rotation though that kept Arizona from being just another bottom dwelling western team. The 2008 Diamondbacks dumped Livan Hernandez, added Dan Haren via trade with Oakland and would get a mostly full season from Randy Johnson. Along with the steady Brandon Webb, those three formed a terrific trio, each individual among the best 20 starters in baseball. Doug Davis was no slough either, coming back from his own health problems to pitch like an above average starter. As the fourth best starter, above average usually means you’ve built yourself quite a staff.

How 2009 fares for Arizona depends on whether they retain Randy Johnson and if their young hitters can take a few more steps forward. The Giants and Padres probably don’t pose a threat to the division in 2009 so they’ll just have to keep an eye out for a re-emerging Colorado club from behind and keep an eye forward on Los Angeles.

What an incredible night in Boston. Scott Kazmir got the starting nod for Tampa ahead of James Shields for some reasons relating to James Shields pitching at home and Scott Kazmir avoiding a particular home plate umpire. The switch caused some doubt in the minds of a few media members, but Joe Maddon would come up aces with the decision. Kazmir’s performance is likely to be forgotten with the late game fireworks, but his six shutout innings allowing just two hits and three walks while punching out seven.

Daisuke Matsuzaka who has walked a tight rope of good fortune all season long slipped off the edge tonight surrendering home runs to B.J. Upton, Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria and saw himself out of the game after four frames trailing 5-0. As good as those three hitters were for the Rays tonight, along with Bartlett and Iwamura before them, the five through eight hitters for Tampa went 0-15 with just a lone walk. The lack of balance in the lineup hurt Tampa’s ability to sustain rallies later in the game when their lead started to slip away.

On Boston’s side, they were held scoreless as previously mentioned through six, but a long top of the 7th for Tampa, which saw Boston bring in Jonathan Papelbon, ensured that Kazmir wouldn’t come back out for the bottom half. It did give Tampa a pair of runs, making it 7-0 and at one point during that inning, Tampa’s win expectancy stood at 99.4%. Grant Balfour seemed like the right choice for the seventh, but a single-single-homerun stretch with two outs and one on netted four runs for the Red Sox and brought the game to 7-4.

There were four key mistakes that I think swung this game to Boston. One, Maddon’s choice of Dan Wheeler. Wheeler had pitched 3.1 innings back in game 2, when he had only four outings all season longer than four outs and the last one of those was on May 6. Wheeler simply didn’t have anything tonight and with the off day yesterday and one tomorrow, Maddon had pretty much his whole bullpen at his disposal. When J.D. Drew came up, I thought at the time that you had to have J.P. Howell or David Price ready for that situation. Secondly with two outs, none on and a one run lead in the bottom of the eighth, why isn’t Upton playing deeper in center field? You have to be playing back to avoid doubles there.

Third and this one is much more minor, but Carlos Pena swinging at a 1-0 low slider that lead to an inning ending double play. It’s hard to second guess a hitter choosing to swing at a pitch that was probably a strike, but in that situation, with a huge platoon advantage in Pena facing Masterson , knowing that the biggest event you want to avoid is a pulled groundball and a count already in your favor, I think you should be more selective there for a ball more up in the zone or else dropping your bat lower to make sure you get under the ball.

Finally, and the eventual killer for the Rays, Evan Longoria made a fantastic stop on Kevin Youkilis‘ groundball, and he had all kinds of time to even stop his momentum, plant and throw to first. His terrible throw there was completely avoidable and especially in that situation with the Rays really needing some deep breaths, would have done much to settle them down heading to extra innings.

All that being said, this loss obviously hurts the Rays deeply. They had seven outs to get and a six run buffer to clinch the AL pennant and lost. That will hurt. However, let us not act like Boston just won the series. All they did was stay their execution for now. Games six and seven are in Tampa, where the Red Sox were just 1-8 during the regular season and the Rays overall were 57-24. Boston has an injured Josh Beckett going in game six, while Tampa gets to counter with James Shields. This series still greatly favors the Rays, dramatic comeback or not.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Thirteen: Anaheim Angels

Checking in at number 13 is our final playoff team with the Angels. They won three more games than any other team in baseball, but rank just 7th in the American League according to BaseRuns. Principally they were hampered by their offense, ranked 18th with just 738 projected runs scored. The pitching and defense were a bit better at 9th.

The Angels had just four positions that ended up ranking above average: catcher, first base, and two of the outfield/designated hitter combo. Catcher Mike Napoli posted a .273/.374/.586 line in 227 at bats, but fellow backstop Jeff Mathis hit just .194/.275/.318 in 283 at bats. Notably, the left side of the infield was an unmitigated mess offensively. Erick Aybar, Macier Izturis, Brandon Wood, Robb Quinlann and Chone Figgins combined for around 45 runs of below average offense according to wOBA. It wasn’t all bad though as Torii Hunter lived up to their hopes for actual offense from their center fielders and Mark Teixeira was an absolute beast, .358/.449/.632, after coming over in July.

Anaheim’s pitching was a testament to not only a solid unit but also to an enduring quality. The Angels tied for both the fewest number of starters used and the fewest number of relievers used. In fact, the Angels had four starters make 30 or more starts, a helpful achievement to a team that started the season with injury news to Kelvim Escobar and John Lackey. Ervin Santana underwent a complete turnaround, going from a 8.38 ERA in 14 road starts in 2007 to a 3.02 ERA in 17 road starts during 2008.

The Angels boasted five reliable bullpen arms in Jose Arredondo, Darren O’Day, Darren Oliver, Scot Shields and of course Francisco Rodriguez and his saves. Meaningless records aside, the five of them soaked up the majority of innings that the dependable starters couldn’t get to and helped keep the whole staff in balance.

Francisco Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira might be departing this winter, but the Angels have money to spend and a rotation that is going to return with Kelvim Escobar. Further blessed with a division that looks weak on paper once again next season and the Angels are likely to be the most favored division winner to repeat in 2009.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Twelve: St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals were one of the biggest surprises this year in large part because of their offense, roughly an 800-run unit, 2nd in the National League. The 22nd ranked run prevention group though is not quite as impressive, 12th among 16 NL teams.

Given how bad their run prevention finished, who was to blame? Well, one group that doesn’t deserve the blame is the defense, which clocked in at 58 plays above average according to The Hardball Times. That was the 2nd best in the NL, just a single play below league leading Milwaukee.

Among the starters and relievers, the brunt of the blame rests on the starters. Significant innings going to Todd Wellemeyer, Joel Pineiro, Braden Looper and Kyle Lohse (newly signed to a 4-year, $41 million contract) were all to a varying degree below average, Pineiro being the biggest offender. Adam Wainwright was the only saving grace amongst the rotation.

The bullpen didn’t have any single person to really lay the blame on, it was an almost total team commitment to mediocrity with the exception of Russ Springer. Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen provided numerous adventures out of the closer’s role, and not really of the thrilling kind.

But oh boy those bats! Albert Pujols had another insane season that he no longer gets credit for just because he does it every year. In addition to Big Al, the Cardinals struck gold in Ryan Ludwick who came off the free talent scrap heap to post a 4.89 WPA/LI and came out winners in the Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen swap.

Although several members of the offense are due for some regression in 2009, the pitching was so bad that it shouldn’t be hard to improve in that area and would help keep the Cardinals as contenders next season. Kyle Lohse for $10 million a year though? Not a great start.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Eleven: Cleveland Indians

We return to the American League and a team that was mostly overlooked due to their horrible first half performance and subsequent trading of CC Sabathia. The Indians benefit a bit in these rankings from a tougher than average schedule, but mostly it was their 10th ranked offense that lands them the 11th overall spot.

It seems counter intuitive that an offense that garnered nothing from Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez would be an asset but Kelly Shoppach stepped in and did an adequate job of blunting the blow from the loss of Martinez and while Hafner’s performance was damaging, it was made up for by the unexpected breakout of Shin-Soo Choo. The major issue for Choo going forward will be his performance against lefties. He’s always done a fair job against righties, but he’s had a platoon split of around 200 OPS points over his career including 2008.

On the run prevention side, an under reported regression from 2007 was in the gloves which went from an above average defensive team to a much more run of the mill, slightly mediocre squad. Of course, the big glaring problem was in the bullpen. While Rafael Betancourt pitched tremendously in 2007, the 2008 version was more pedestrian and Joe Borowski simply imploded. All in all, the 2008 bullpen was on the order of 50 runs worse than in the previous year.

Gone also from 2007 was the dynamic and not appreciated enough duo of CC Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. Sabathia was a little worse while in Cleveland and with his mid season trade, obviously didn’t log anywhere near as many innings. Meanwhile, Carmona’s control never made it to 2008 and he finished the year walking more than he struck out.

There were also terrible contributions from Paul Byrd and Jeremy Sowers, but amazingly, those pair plus the regression from CC and Fausto were all canceled out by the incredible comeback of Cliff Lee. Cliff Lee allowed five fewer earned runs in 2008 despite pitching one hundred and twenty-six more innings. And I spell that out to give you some idea of how big a feat that is. Lee also walked two fewer batters, hit two fewer batters and allowed five fewer home runs. In 126 more innings. 126!

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Ten: New York Mets

Our fourth consecutive National League team ends our top ten. The Mets are a return to our balanced ball clubs ranking 11th in runs scored and 10th in runs allowed.

The Mets defense certainly helped the pitcher’s cause as aside from the obvious one, there wasn’t much success in those ranks. Johan Santana started out slowly on the year, but really came on late and though his strikeouts were markedly down in 2008, he managed to raise his groundball rate and a slight uptick in missed bats means that we might see his strikeout rate climb back up in 2009.

Aside from Santana, Oliver Perez, Mike Pelfrey and John Maine managed to combine about 500 innings of average NL pitching which isn’t stunning but is always appreciated. The big problem in the rotation this year was Pedro Martinez, concluding his little-used four-year contract in a poor fashion.

Billy Wagner was an asset in the bullpen, but not a very durable one, missing the end of the season with injury. Aside from him however there was far too much durability from some members of the pen, who helped contribute to yet another Mets collapse. One wonders how much that will pressure the Mets to splurge over the winter for relief help.

On the hitting side, it was a season of rejuvenation for Carlos Delgado who seemed surely on his way to getting bought out at the end of this season and now walks away a near lock to have his option picked up. David Wright and Jose Reyes had another stellar season on the left side of the infield. Carlos Beltran added another underrated performance when combined with his position (center field) and glove ability.

When you have Wright, Beltran and Reyes to build around, three tremendous offensive and defensive studs, along with the payroll afforded to a New York franchise, it’s a wonder that the Mets aren’t dominating the National League.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Nine: Los Angeles Dodgers

Say hello to the National League version of the Toronto Blue Jays, a pitching and defense dominated team with a mediocre offense. While the Jays ranked 20th in runs scored and 2nd in runs allowed via BaseRuns, the Dodgers come in at 24th and 1st respectively. Keeping in mind that the Dodgers didn’t have, and didn’t face, a DH and the gap between the two teams would close even further.

The Dodgers were punished in these rankings for having one of the easiest schedules in baseball this year, little wonder considering the division they played in. Nevertheless, their pitching was legit headed by three pitchers who roughly qualified as number two starters. Chad Billingsley moved into the rotation nearly full time this season and responded positively with a jump in strikeouts and groundballs and a reduction in walks.

Hiroki Kuroda fell off the radar a bit after a horrible nine starts in June and July, but he bookended those with 11 great starts on each side and added a second groundball heavy pitcher alongside Billingsley. Of course, neither of those two could compare to the third pitcher of the group, Derek Lowe, who actually saw his groundball rate diminish this season, but compensated with much fewer walks.

The bullpen had a fearsome trio of it’s own. Jonathan Broxton continued his dominance and although Takashi Saito took a step back both from a performance and a health perspective, Hong-Chih Kuo finally enjoyed enough health to show what an asset he can be with his ridiculous stuff.

Unfortunately, for as good as the pitching was, the hitting was underwhelming, in some part due to the injury to Rafael Furcal. But the Andruw Jones experiment sure backfired and looks beyond horrible now. Mark Sweeney was terrible, Juan Pierre was the usual Juan Pierre (bad). It’s almost frightening to think how bad the offense would have finished without the Manny Ramirez trade.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Eight: Philadelphia Phillies

Ranking 9th in offense and 12th in defense by BaseRuns, the Phillies are the third team in the second group of balanced offense-defense squads with the White Sox and Brewers above them.

The rotation consisted of two full season average performances from Jamie Moyer and Brett Myers, a superb season from Cole Hamels and the worst statistical performance (factoring playing time) among pitchers this year from Kyle Kendrick.

In relief, Brad Lidge came back with a vengeance, recapturing a performance level not seen since 2005. Given the payoff (a playoff berth) and the poor performance of Michael Bourn, the offseason trade has to be considered a win for Philadelphia thus far. Ryan Madson and Chad Durbin combined to toss 151.1 innings of good relief, a contribution hugely helpful given the mediocre rotation throughout the year.

Aside from their above average bullpen, the offense is where the Phillies really shown, even after adjusting for their ball park. The Phillies were a catcher and a third baseman away from being above average at every position. Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth all produced at a high level over regular playing time and they even dragged out 240 solid plate appearances from Greg Dobbs after Pedro Feliz didn’t really work out.

The Phillies in 2009 will have enough on their plate just retaining their current players with many of them due significant raises via arbitration. Despite rumors that Ryan Howard might find himself on the trading block given his record arbitration reward, team sources seem to say that the likelihood that Howard is dealt is near zero. The Phillies also seem keen on trying to retain Pat Burrell, but the main question for them is going to be shoring up their rotation.