I'm just going to say that I'm a lot more optimistic about this team than most on here:
Position Players:
C: Don't look now, but Danny Jansen is expected to be a Top 10 catcher in the bigs next year by Steamer and I expect that to come true now that he won't split time with Martin. Beyond that, Maile is fine as a backup. McGuire isn't a bad guy to have stashed away in AAA.
1B: Smoak should produce a solid 2 WAR there and play every day. Not much more you can ask for there. Maybe Tellez comes up again, but I highly doubt he sustains anything close to what he did in Sept.
2B: Yet to be seen what happens here. Injuries have derailed Travis, though there may still be something there. Drury is a good option here as well. Eric Sogard could have a good spring. Biggio or Bichette may get called up before long as well.
SS: Let the kids play! Said to death, but Statcast and projection systems loves Gurriel. I don't expect him to be a star there next season, but so long as he's not terrible defensively, he should produce surplus value. He's proven he can hit major league pitching. Again, Bichette may get the call here later in the season as well which may shift Gurriel to 2nd.
3B: Vladimir Guerrero Jr, a 19 year old who's never seen a major league pitch is expected by Steamer (a very conservative projection system) to put up 4.7 fWAR next season. I really don't think that's unrealistic. Even if he puts up 3-4 fWAR, that'd be a huge win. The kid has hit whereever he's been without skipping a beat, and I expect that to continue in the major leagues.
RF: Grichuk should provide 2 WAR as a floor given his defense and baserunning. Hopefully he stays healthy.
CF: I hate watching Pillar at the plate, but he too should provide 2 WAR at least with his defense and baserunning
LF: One of Hernandez/Alford/McKinney/Smith Jr should be good enough for an everyday role, right?
DH: Morales is what he is. Not expecting much on the field, but he'll provide value off the field to all the young guns.
Rotation:
Stroman may not be as good as his 2017, but he's also no where near as bad as his 2018. I expect him to settle down with a high 3's ERA. Nothing special, but a solid 2-3 WAR
Gamblers fallacy, but eventually after going through so many injuries, Aaron Sanchez has to pitch a full healthy season, right? I'd be fine with a ~4 ERA with him, assuming he pitches a full season. Same could be said about Matt Shoemaker.
Ryan Borucki should fill that mid-rotation spot fine.
Clayton Richard is ass, but beyond that we have Sean Reid-Foley, Julian Merryweather, Thomas Pannone, Sam Gaviglio, Trent Thornton, TJ Zeuch, and Jacob Waguespeck sitting in AAA. Statistically speaking, with all the arms that we've compiled, we'd have to be extremely unlucky to not have alteast 1 of them break out to be a viable major league starter.
Bullpen:
- Ken Giles: Nowhere near as bad as his 4.65 ERA would suggest (3.08 FIP, 3.27 xFIP). Had some bad luck with HR's. Good chance he may trend closer towards what he was in 2017.
- Ryan Tepera: Coming off a 1.3 WAR season, should produce another mid 3's ERA season like he's given us the last couple seasons.
- Tim Mayza: Someone just wrote a good article on him at the Radio Scouts blog, but he could be a bullpen breakout candidate with his fastball/slider combo, especially if he's only used against lefties.
- Danny Barnes: Again, he had some batted ball luck and should be better than the near 6 ERA he put up.
- David Phelps: First off, what a fantastic signing by this front office to get a guy like Phelps who as a reliever has had a 3.33 career ERA and 10.4 K/9 (compared to the 7 he put up as a starter). He could really be another one of those former starters who couldn't quite put it together and becomes dominant out of the pen. He's got the starters pitch mix to get out both lefties and righties that'll play up out of the pen. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he does. Only downside is he's returning from TJ, but we've seen plenty of arms come back just fine.
- David Paulino: Good results in very limited action last Sept. I can't find the whiff and swing rate on his changeup (if anyone can, let me know), but watching all his outings last season, that changeup looked lethal out of the pen. At the very least, a promising arm at the back of the pen.
- Luciano: Doubt he'll be used unless we're winning a blowout. I'm not expecting him to be used much at all next season.
- Biagini: Meh, might be used out of the pen. If he's good fine. If not, option him to Buffalo and get another arm up. No big deal.
Not a lot of black holes anywhere, but there is some uncertainty with some new position players and that rotation. At the very least, the rotation has a lot of options in AAA.
Beyond that, is it unrealistic to tack on 2-3 wins between all the coaching additions we've added? Charlie Montoyo is going to be a very hands on manager compared to Gibby who just let the veterens do their thing. The front office has said they're going to be focusing a lot more on shifting as well. New major league coaching staff that seems to be more analytics driven. Sometimes, teams end up having a rising tide effect when 1 superstar joins the teams that effects the rest team positively and gets them to play up (Kris Bryant 2015, Ronald Acuna 2018).
And of course, most importantly adding Carson Cistulli (at least 1 win right there). I'm not expecting them to be competitive, but I'll say they hover around .500 next season.
