The Philadelphia Phillies organization has done a nice job of developing its own players, as witnessed by the likes of Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollins. That pipeline, though, has been slowed in recent years. The club lacks the can’t miss prospect at the top of the system, although outfielder Domonic Brown is a very talented player and could develop into an above-average player.

Trades for the likes of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay have weakened the system. The re-trade of Lee for a collection of prospects including Juan Ramirez, Phillippe Aumont, and Tyson Gillies does not come close to replacing the likes of Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor, and Travis d’Arnaud.

With all that said, there are some interesting names in the minor league system, including pitchers Trevor May, Scott Mathieson, and Brody Colvin, as well as catcher Sebastian Valle, first baseman Jonathan Singleton, and outfielder Anthony Gose. Many of those players, though, are very raw.

The club is definitely veteran-heavy at the MLB level. Starting pitcher J.A. Happ is one of the few players 27 years of age or younger. The youngest hitter on the 40-man roster is shortstop Brian Bocock (age 25), a fringe big leaguer who was claimed off waivers during the off-season.

Although not a major player in the world market, the club has nine international prospects on its Top 30 prospect list, according to Baseball America. The organization’s draft results have been modest over the past three seasons but the club remains loyal to scouting director Marti Wolever, who is in his ninth season as scouting director. First round picks Joe Savery (2007) and Anthony Hewitt (2008) have been disappointments, while the club lacked a first-round selection in 2009. It’s no secret that the club likes to gamble with prep picks. Over the last three drafts, the club has selected just three four-year college players in the Top 3 rounds and with its over-slot deals (20 picks in total). That puts a heavy burden on the player development system, and the jury is still out on that.

Once the main core of star players start to fade out or become too expensive, Philadelphia could be in trouble. The minor league depth is certainly showing signs of wear and tear. The organization has also had trouble developing impact pitching with the likes of Cole Hamels, Brett Myers (now with Houston), and Carlos Carrasco (Cleveland) failing to reach their potentials. Former prep phenom Gavin Floyd did not start pitching well until he reached the Chicago White Sox organization.

The Phillies’ Major League roster is a World Series threat entering 2010, but cracks are starting to show on the foundation.

The Cardinals cruised to the NL Central last season with a 91-71 record, 7.5 games ahead of second place Chicago. They did so despite an $11 million cut in payroll from the previous year down to around $90 million. They are maintaining that level in 2010 even with the addition of Matt Holliday.

Just as the payroll is remaining fairly static, the projected win totals for the Cardinals is close to their 2009 actual totals. FanGraphs readers have the Cardinals at 88 wins for 2010, a massive ten games over the second place Cubs. That is twice the separation of any other division. CHONE agrees as well with the Cardinals topping the NL Central at 91 wins, ten games ahead of the Brewers and Reds.

Around the infield, Yadier Molina, Albert Pujols, Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan all return. They’re all reasonably young and none really had outrageously fluke-filled seasons so St. Louis fans should have a pretty good idea of what is in store for 2010. I might expect slightly less offense from the right side, but Schumaker might make up for that with increased defensive prowess at second base with more experience there. What is less known is at third base where David Freese and Felipe Lopez will battle for the majority of playing time.

Matt Holliday, Colby Rasmus and Ryan Ludwick all return for the Cardinals outfield though there appears to be some questions as to who will be providing depth behind the starting three. Holliday and Ludwick are roughly average gloves in the corners but Rasmus provides an opportunity for a plus defender in center and obviously all three can swing the stick a little bit.

While Joel Pineiro is unlikely to repeat the success he had in 2009 for the Angels this coming year, his loss still hurts the Cards some. They did import Brad Penny to ease some of that pain however. The fifth spot was Kyle McClellan’s to lose and he apparently has as Jaime Garcia appears to have been named to the post. Nevertheless, his hold is tenuous and McClellan along with Rich Hill and others are lurking. Still, it should remain an above average unit for St. Louis.

The bullpen returns largely intact and that’s less of a positive as they were unimpressive in 2009. Still, they were not a disaster and if that’s the worst unit on the team, it’s not bad enough to prevent the Cardinals from playing postseason baseball.

When it comes down to it, the 2010 Cardinals look a lot like the 2009 Cardinals and for a team that’s not overly old and won the division last year, that’s a good thing.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have won the American League Western division three years on a row while outperforming their Pythagorean expectation by a combined 20 games. This has tended to generate a lot of hot air. Are they just lucky? Does Mike Scioscia have some managerial secret? Are they good at situational hitting? These concerns distract from the obvious: the Angels have had very talented teams, and still do.

The outfield is a good-hitting, poor-fielding group. Juan Rivera, (along with Chone Figgins, Kendry Morales, and Torii Hunter) had a career year in 2009, and while I think he’s far from a +15/150 fielder, he isn’t helpless out there and can still hit after missing almost two years due to injury. Bobby Abreu’s power has dissipated at an alarming rate, but he remains an on-base machine. His defense is terrible, but he isn’t in the same league as Jermaine Dye and Brad Hawpe… yet. Torii Hunter doesn’t get enough attention… that is, attention for how overrated he is (particularly in the field), but he’s an above-average player. As a whole, this a decent group, if older and (in the cases of Abreu and especially Hunter) overpaid. Depth is also a concern, given the group’s age and history; if one of the three has a serious injury, that could lead to far too much playing time for Willie Bloomq–, I mean Reggie Willits. Or worse, Terry Evans. I suppose designated hitter Hideki Matsui could see some time in the outfield but that seems… sub-optimal.

If the outfield is aging and overpaid, the Angels are getting great value from their underrated group of home-grown, cost-controlled infielders. It’s unlikely that first baseman Kendry Morales will have another +28 season at the plate in 2010, but after finally getting a chance, he’s shown he’s an above-average player. Erick Aybar’s bat is also due for some regression, but he has a tremendous glove at shortstop. Remember a few years back when Howie Kendrick and Brandon Wood were slated to be destroy the league infield, with Wood hitting 30+ homers a year from shortstop and Kendrick being a second base version of Tony Gwynn? Well, that didn’t happen. But Kendrick is a plus bat and glove at second, and Wood is finally getting his chance at third base. If any of the three should stumble, Macier Izturis is a plus bat and glove who is good enough to start for almost anyone. Mike Napoli may not be much with the glove at catcher, but he more than makes up for it with a bat that might be the Angels’ best.

While the Angels’ 2010 rotation doesn’t feature an obvious ace, it’s not as if the departed John Lackey had pitched like one since 2007, anyway. It’s a big advantage to be able to go four-deep with good starting pitchers, and Jered Weaver, Scott Kazmir, Ervin Santana, and newcomer Joel Pineiro are all various degrees of above average. Concerned fans should look to the bullpen, once a great strength of the team. Brian Fuentes and Fernando Rodney are a less-than-intimidating 1-2 “punch” at the back end; Jason Bulger might be the best choice for high leverage situations.

The losses of Chone Figgins and Lackey hurts the Angels a bit, but not terribly given the relative quality of their replacements and the $120 million combined for which Figgins and Lackey signed. The starting lineup has no holes. There are depth concerns, and the bullpen isn’t what it was, but many teams have those problems. The main problem the Angels have is that the other three teams in their division are no longer floundering. As will probably continue to be said ad nauseum, the AL West projects as the most closely matched division in baseball. It would be foolish to count a good team like the Angels out, but for the first time in years, they aren’t the obvious favorite.

I will admit to being more bullish on the Brewers than anyone else I know that is not from Milwaukee. I realize that the projection systems have them as about a .500 team, but I’ve got them closer to 86 or 87 wins.

I may be the world’s last remaining believer in Manny Parra, who I still expect some pretty good things from. I’ve been a Rickie Weeks fanboy forever, and I’m still high on his abilities if he can stay healthy. I love watching Carlos Gomez play defense. And those guys are just the role players around a really good young core. Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Alcides Escobar, and Yovani Gallardo form a tremendous quartet of young talent, and give Milwaukee some of the best building blocks in the game.

Given the talent already in Milwaukee, I think they’ve got a legitimate shot at contending for at least the next two years and likely beyond. Whether they can retain Fielder is an open question, but even if they can’t, they should be able to get a significant return in trade for him that will include some major league ready guys. With the roster they’ve put together, I don’t see Milwaukee dropping off any time soon.

Part of that belief is faith I have in Doug Melvin and his crew, who don’t get enough credit for the job they’ve done. The Brewers aren’t loud about their integration of scouting and statistic analysis, but they’re one of the more forward thinking front offices in baseball. Melvin might not have an Ivy League pedigree, but he runs a really good organization.

Milwaukee is a good young team that should remain a contender for years to come. Their payroll limitations and mediocre farm system keep them out of the top 10, but it’s definitely a good time to be a Brewer fan.

The Brewers are coming off of an 80 win season in which their position players earned the right to pummel their pitchers into a big pile of replacementness. The position players accumulated 26.1 WAR, good for 2nd in the NL, while the pitchers only managed a measly 3 WAR, good for last in the NL. However, this post is supposed to be about their chances in 2010, so let’s not dwell on the past. The Fans and PECOTA have the Brewers at 78 wins and CHONE has them at 81, all of which gets them 2nd or 3rd in the Central with a 15-20% chance of getting into the playoffs. Clearly, they are not eliminated from the race before the season starts, but a decent number of things will have to go their way for a playoff berth.

The Brewers’ everyday lineup is built on two stars, a high upside young guy, and some average-ish filler. This model in not too dissimilar from their division rivals the Cardinals, it just so happens that the Cardinals players are projected better at most of the positions. As an interesting aside, both teams have their two stars projected to amass ~45% of the WAR for their starting eight. Those two stars, Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, both project to hit well above average, which more than makes up for their below-average defense, and places both in the top 20 of projected WAR for position players.

Alcides Escobar’s mean projection is a slightly above average to above average glove and a slightly below average bat at a premium position, but he probably has the widest distribution of the Brewers’ position players given the lack of data off of which to project. Carlos Gomez is somewhat similar in that he projects to be more glove than bat and probably has a pretty wide range of outcomes considering his relative lack of experience still. The big question about Gomez is how bad the bat will be. CHONE projects a 0.323 wOBA, while most other systems have him hovering in the 0.300 range. At 0.323 he is likely a well above average player, but it would be hard for his defense to be good enough to be anything more than average with a 0.300 wOBA.

Rickie Weeks, if healthy, could surpass his projections as they are all based off of a fairly low playing time assumption. Corey Hart is two years removed from a 4.5 WAR season, and has seen his offense and defense decline. His projections meet in the middle of his last two years and that one good one. The rest of the starting eight, Gregg Zaun and Casey McGehee, project to be below average to sniffing average.

As a whole the Brewers’ staff projects to be better than the 3 WAR they put up last year. Yovani Gallardo is back at the top of the rotation after posting a 3.97 FIP last year and will probably be good for 3-4 wins this year. Randy Wolf comes over from the Dodgers and slides into the number 2 slot after posting numbers similar to Gallardo last year, but with a lower upside for the upcoming season. Next up in the rotation is Doug Davis, who is back for a second go-around with the Brewers and projects to be right around average. The last two spots theoretically should go to David Bush and Manny Parra, but that implies that the Brewers will see Jeff Suppan and his 12.5M as sunk cost.

The bullpen also projects to be better this year, with Trevor Hoffman back slinging changeups in the closer role. They also have solid depth with LaTroy Hawkins, Carlos Villanueva, Mitch Stetter, and Todd Coffey all projecting to have FIPs in the high 3s or low 4s.

Clearly the Brewers have some pieces in place to be contenders, but their chances this year will likely hinge on a Weeks comeback, a big jump for Escobar, and some substantial improvement on the starting pitching side.

The Indians won just 65 games a year ago, and in the process, traded away two of their best players in Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee. Their trades of major league talent for minor league prospects emphasize that the team is rebuilding, but yet, I think Cleveland could surprise quite a few people this year. This team isn’t that bad.

At the plate, these guys are going to do some damage. Asdrubal Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, and Shin-Soo Choo are all good on base guys with power and speed, and then some combination of Travis Hafner, Russell Branyan, and Matt LaPorta provide some power in the middle. Even the 7-9 hitters won’t be terrible, especially once Carlos Santana claims the catching job at some point during the season.

The pitching has issues, certainly, and I wouldn’t pick the Indians to win the AL Central this year, but they could hang around for a while and make things interesting. And the future only looks better in 2011 and beyond.

The core of the team is young and cheap, as the organization has quality players or high level prospects at nearly every position on the diamond. The rotation is a big question mark, but there are a quantity of arms to sort through with differing levels of potential. The bullpen is full of young power arms who rack up strikeouts. Give this team a year to mature and figure out how many starters they need to add, and they could be a serious contender in the AL again. There’s that much young talent in place.

And, despite the backlash against the Indians front office for the lack of results, this is still one of the best run organizations in the game. They have a large enough payroll to win, especially considering how many below market contracts they’ll have on the team, and the farm system is deep enough to provide necessary trade chips for when the organization shifts into go-for-it mode.

Don’t sleep on the Indians – they’re on the verge of being good once again.

How does a team feature the AL Cy Young winner two straight years, yet find itself in rebuilding mode? The Cleveland Indians know. In 2007, when the team made it all the way to Game 7 of the ALCS, CC Sabathia won the Cy. The next year, however, Cleveland stumbled out of the gate and found themselves in last place, 10.5 games out of first, on June 30. They didn’t waste much time in trading Sabathia to the Milwaukee Brewers for Matt LaPorta and others (including, eventually, Michael Brantley). Yet Cleveland still had something brewing in the rotation.

On July 1, Cliff Lee tossed eight innings of one-run ball against the White Sox. That pushed him up to 111.2 innings, in which he allowed just 28 runs, a 2.26 ERA to go with a 2.57 FIP. That was his halfway point. He pitched 111.2 innings after July 1 and saw slightly worse, but still elite, results: a 2.82 ERA and 3.09 FIP. The Indians improved, too, They entered play on Jul 7, the day they traded Sabathia, with a 37-51 record, a .420 win percentage. They finished the season 81-81, having gone 44-30, a .595 win percentage, after the trade. Things, then, didn’t look so gloomy. That’s why 2009 came as something of a surprise.

After trading Lee to the Phillies and receiving a handful of prospects in return, the Indians head into 2010 with a relatively thin pitching staff. Jake Westbrook, who hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since May 28, 2008, will likely start Opening Day. He was a solid option when healthy in the mid-00s, pitching 770.2 innings to a 4.06 ERA and a nearly identical FIP from 2003 through 2006. In the final year of a three-year, $33 million contract, and if the Indians again find themselves out of the race in July, he could prove a viable trade chip if healthy.

Justin Masterson and Fausto Carmona figure to follow Westbrook in the rotation. Carmona’s story is well known by now. After a standout performance in 2007 he’s struggled over the past two years, walking three more batters than he has struck out. He has pitched well this spring and will get another shot. With $18 million guaranteed to him over the next three years, it might not be his last, either. Masterson, acquired from the Red Sox in the Victor Martinez trade, will get a chance to prove his worth in the rotation. Lefties have killed him during his career, posting a .374 wOBA against him in 479 plate appearances.

The final two rotation spots appear a battle among three competitors: Aaron Laffey, David Huff, and Mitch Talbot. Laffey, a lefty who will turn 25 in April, has posted a near-league average performance in parts of three seasons with the Indians. Last season he started in 19 of his 25 appearances, logging 121.2 innings. He walked nearly as many as he struck out, though. He’s never been a strikeout guy, so he’ll have to bring down his walk totals if he’s to succeed. Huff, also a 25-year-old lefty, fared a bit worse in terms of results in 2009, a 5.61 ERA in 128.1 innings. They had comparable FIPs, though, Laffey at 4.54 and Huff at 4.69.

Talbot, acquired from the Rays in exchange for Kelly Shoppach this off-season, presents an interesting case because he is out of options and has pitched only 9.2 innings at the major league level. Over his minor league career he has struck out 7.4 batters per nine to 2.6 walks, a good ratio and a good walk rate. If he doesn’t win a rotation spot he’ll likely end up in the bullpen. Carlos Carrasco, acquired from the Phillies in the Lee trade, has performed well this spring, though he is likely ticketed for AAA to begin the season. Considering the state of the Indians rotation, he could force his way into the majors in a few months.

On the offensive side the Indians look relatively strong, but have a few question marks in terms of health. Grady Sizemore could again be the team’s best hitter. He posted the worst wOBA of his five-year career in 2009, .343, though an elbow injury certainly affected his play. A recovery to the ~.380 wOBA figures he posted in the previous three years would be a huge boost. He won’t be batting leadoff this year, but instead second. This leaves room for Asdrubal Cabrera to bat first. He greatly increased his production last year, raising his OBP to .361 while hitting for a bit more power. If he can maintain that OBP he should score plenty of runs.

After Cabrera and Sizemore, the Indians could have three lefties in a row. Shin-Soo Choo, Travis Hafner, and Russell Branyan figure to hit 3-4-5 in some order. Choo began his breakout in 2008, though he played in only 94 games. In 2009 he again displayed middle of the order skills, posting a .389 wOBA in 685 PA. Hafner remains an injury concern, having just 617 PA over the past two years, though 383 came last year. He hit decently enough, a .355 wOBA. It’s unlikely that he returns to the .420+ wOBAs he posted from 2004 through 2006, but he could still provide power if healthy. Branyan presents a similar situation in that he can hit for power and he’s an injury risk.

After that portion of the lineup, the only Indians hitter long on experience is Jhonny Peralta. He experienced a down year in 2009, though he could certainly rebound to his prior production levels. He slides over to third, too, where his defensive deficiencies shouldn’t hurt the team as much. The remaining three, Luis Valbuena, Lou Marson, and LaPorta, have just 726 career PA among them. That’s fine, though, for a team like the Indians. With only an outside chance of contending, they should get a very good look at their up and coming players.

What would it take for the Indians to make a run in 2010? A complete recovery to 2007 form for Carmona, for starters. They’ll also need an effective return from Westbrook and progress from Masterson. They’ll also need a few more things to go wrong for the Twins, the AL Central favorites. Perhaps then they could sneak into the picture. More likely, though, the Indians will perform well, but not playoffs well. They have a good crop of talent. It just seems like they underachieve most years.

On talent, the Dodgers may be top ten. They’re the favorites in the NL West this year (or at least co-favorites with Colorado) with a club built around mostly young talent, including several of the best under-27 players in the game. The core trio of Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, and Chad Billingsley are tough to beat, and they’re surrounded by quality or upside at most spots.

So, why are they 14th? The Divorce. The uncertainty surrounding the ownership of the Dodgers is a big problem. Frank McCourt can talk about how it will be business as usual once everything gets settled and the court gives him control of the team, but that’s not the only possible outcome, and he knows it. There’s a reason they didn’t really spend any money this winter.

The whole thing is a mess. The revelations that have surfaced in the divorce proceedings paint the McCourts in an even less flattering light than before, which is saying something. Any owner that would essentially use his team as an ATM to finance his personal lifestyle is a problem, and that description undersells how the McCourts behaved with Dodger money.

As a Dodger fan, I can only imagine the frustration when you see the team declining to offer arbitration to players who clearly won’t accept it, because of the perceived risk, yet later finding out that the team has both of the McCourts sons on their payroll at a total of $600,000 per year, when neither actually work for the Dodgers. I bet Logan White would love to have another $600,000 to spend on the draft. I can only imagine how much they could upgrade their information systems with a $600,000 per year investment.

Regardless of how it turns out, the McCourts have been exposed as people you don’t want owning your team. Through their own personal issues, they have created a cloud that hangs over the team, and is now affecting the way they put together their ball club.

If I’m a Dodger fan, I’m hoping that the Judge orders a sale of the team. But, no matter what, this doesn’t look like its going to end any time soon, so while 2010 should be an exciting year for LA fans as they push for a playoff berth, it’s all secondary to the drama of the owners.

This once-mighty prospect factory has fallen on hard times to a degree. The organization has some interesting sleepers – Trayvon Robinson, Kenley Jansen, and Allen Webster, for example – but it lacks the impressive collection of high-ceiling talent that it once had. With that said, the likes of Devaris Gordon, Andrew Lambo, Josh Lindblom, Ethan Martin, and Chris Withrow possess a lot of potential.

There is a serious lack of depth at catcher, first base, second base, third base, and left-handed pitching. The deepest positions are right-handed pitching and the outfield. Gordon and Ivan DeJesus Jr. are interesting shortstop prospects.

The organization’s recent drafts have been good but they really haven’t produced high-ceiling talents. Aaron Miller was an interesting pick in ’09 but he was not a consensus first round selection, and the club chose not to sign players to over-slot deals. Martin (’08) and Withrow (’07) have the potential to be impact starters but they have yet to truly take “that next step.” Scouting director Tim Hallgren, in his fourth season, will have his work cut out for him. This organization needs depth.

The organization’s international signing efforts have also fallen on hard times. Based on Baseball America’s Top 30 prospect list for the Dodgers, the club has just four international prospects amongst the organization’s best players. Four. Five years ago, the club had nine international prospects listed. In the publication’s first handbook in 2001, the system had 11 internationally signed Top 30 prospects. The organization’s player development system seems lost. Where is the club investing in prospects?

On the plus side, the club does have some exciting, young players currently in the Major Leagues. Outfielders Matt Kemp (25) and Andre Ethier (27) are some of the best hitters in the NL West under the age of 30. Kemp flirted with a .300 average while also just missing a 30-30 season. He drove in 100 runs for the first time in his career. Ethier also topped 100 RBI for the first time and slugged 31 homers and 42 doubles. James Loney (25) doesn’t have prototypical power, but he’s a valuable first baseman. Catcher Russell Martin is just 27 but his bat has fallen on hard times.

On the mound, the club has innings-eater Chad Billingsley (25) in the starting rotation and bulldog Jonathan Broxton (25) holding down the bullpen. Left-hander Clayton Kershaw, 22, has the ceiling of a No. 1 starter. Those are three very talented arms, but the depth is just not there are the MLB level, either.

There are a lot of question marks surrounding this organization entering the 2010 season and there may not be many answers until the ownership mess is resolved.

Ahh, the Mets. So much to say in just 600 words.

Obviously, they’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last year. Omar Minaya has taken a beating here and elsewhere, and the organization appears to be in something of a mess, with the organizational flow chart kind of summing up the front office. Feuds with the players and media, a GM who may or may not be allowed to handle conference calls, an involved (to say the least) ownership group… it’s all just a big circus at times.

It didn’t help that everything that could have gone wrong last year did, from the star players getting hurt to David Wright losing his power, and the team fell apart as a result. As such, the Mets have been the butt of many jokes over the lsat 12 months. Spending a lot of money to be terrible will do that to you, especially when you play in New York.

But, despite all the jokes and all the problems, the Mets actually aren’t in that bad of shape. The revenue stream from being in New York with a new ballpark is significant, obviously, but the core of a good team is still there. Despite last year’s debacle, few teams have a group that can match Wright-Reyes-Beltran-Santana. And it’s not exactly barren after that, either.

Jason Bay may be wildly overpaid, but he’s not useless. There is a mix of solid role players and some good young players. The farm system boasts a couple of high ceiling youngsters. The roster isn’t perfect, but with a few breaks, they could contend this year, and a better management team could build a beast of a team with the resources they have.

In many ways, the Mets are where the Mariners were a couple of years ago – the joke of the league, with some core talent dragged down by bad decision making upstairs. But, a new front office can fix a lot of things in pretty short order, and since the Mets front office probably can’t survive another bad year, the options for them are essentially win or clean house. Neither option is all that bad.

So, while the Mets may do a lot of things hilariously wrong right now, I don’t think fixing the organizations is that big of a task. They don’t have to burn the whole thing down – just get some new people in charge, make some better use of the money they have to spend, and the Mets could be challenging for the NL crown again. It probably won’t happen in 2010, but I don’t think it will take that long.