NL East on Liners Sliders and Scoops

Okay, so here comes the first in my series that I’ll call, for short, “Assessing the Offseason Maneuverization of every single team in Major League Baseball.” Let’s have a contest, actually. If you can think of a snappier title than, “Assessing the Offseason Maneuverization of every single team in Major League Baseball,” I will give you a free one-year subscription to Liners, Sliders and Scoops (including archived content).

What I’m Attempting to Do

I’m not going to sit here, especially on Martin Luther King Day, and create a “players added” and “players dropped” spreadsheet so you can download it, print it, and magnetize it to your dirty refrigerator. If you want to have some sort of all-inclusive, “What did my Oakland Athletics do on their winter vacation?” kind of dropdown menu, ESPN does a decent job of tracking the transactions here.

I’m just going to give you enough information where you can argue a little baseball to the point where you piss off a fellow patron at a local bar, and perhaps piss him off enough that he wants to break your nose with his fist. So there’s my goal. If the knowledge I give you here gets you a broken nose, I’ve done my job. I’m not really going to mention much about rookies that are coming up, or any young players who might finally start becoming stars. I’ll save that for closer to Spring Training, while I’m doing research for the 32 fantasy leagues that I’m going to join.

So here comes a little sumpin’ sumpin’, my assessment of the National League East teams’ offseason moves. And like I’ll do for all the divisions, I’m going to do it in ascending order, from who did bad, to who did well. In other words, here come the Marlins:

Florida Marlins

I don’t know that we can really complain about them too much anymore. I mean they win a World Series in 1997, they dismantle, they come back to respectability, they win a World Series in 2003, they try real hard for two more years, and then they dismantle again. What else is there to be said? They have like one fan in the world, it’s hot as hell in Florida, and the ownership has led the league in sucking for years. It’s hard to believe that this team has won two of the last nine World Series, while the Atlanta Braves have won zero of the last nine, the Oakland Athletics haven’t even been to the World Series, okay you get the point.

The moves this team made are worth listing, just for effect: The Marlins lost two of their top starters, A.J. Burnett (signed with Toronto) and Josh Beckett (traded to Boston). They lost their first baseman Carlos Delgado (traded to the Mets), third baseman, Mike Lowell (traded to Boston: okay, so Miguel Cabrera is going to start playing third base and they’re going to be fine there). They lost their closer Todd Jones (signed with Detroit), their center fielder Juan Pierre (traded to the Cubs), their former closer Guillermo Mota (traded to Boston), their catcher Paul Lo Duca (traded to the Mets), their second baseman Luis Castillo (traded to Minnesota), their franchise spokesman Jeff Conine (signed with Baltimore), and a decent outfielder in Juan Encarnacion (okay, well I think he sucks, but he signed with St. Louis).

So how did they replace that talent? They signed the pride of Bayonne, N.J., Joe Borowski, to be their closer. And honestly, that’s about it. They signed Pokey Reese, and in the Lo Duca trade got Mike Jacobs from the Mets (a guy who hit a bunch of homers after being called up in the second half of 2005), and they got Kerry Ligtenberg (signed to a minor league contract). Almost all the players they got back in those trades – the ones for Beckett, Pierre, Lo Duca and Delgado - are either Minor Leaguers or players with 14 seconds of Major League experience. This team is going to be just a bit young, I’d say.

They still have Dontrelle Willis – he just resigned for like a dollar a year or something - but he’s joined in the rotation by the resigned Brian Moehler, and really, who knows who else. The lineup is going to have Jacobs and Cabrera, but if you can name another player in their starting lineup, I’ll seriously give you a lot of money.

The Marlins – a team that went 83-79 in 2005 – went so much further backward than perhaps any team in baseball that I can’t even fathom how they could lose less than 100 games.

Oh wait, hold on, they just signed Wes Helms to a one-year deal. That changes everything.

Washington Nationals

I can’t believe these guys still don’t have an owner. Still, they traded for Alfonso Soriano (Soriano plus Jose Vidro equals a fight for who gets to play second base), and they got the versatile Robert Fick (a skinny guy that catches, plays first and plays the outfield and hits pretty well too). Marlon Anderson, who kicked ass pinch-hitting for the Mets, also signed with them, as did the starting pitcher Ramon Ortiz, who left Cincinnati. In the trade for Fick, they also got Brian Lawrence, the change-up artist, and utility guy Damian Jackson.

Still, they lost Preston Wilson (signed with Houston), Vinny Castilla (traded to the Padres), Esteban Loaiza (signed with Oakland), Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge (gotta give it up to get Soriano), and shortstop Deivi Cruz (signed with St. Louis).

I think they’re best offseason move was resigning Tony Armas, who will have his best year of his career this year.

Overall, it’s so disappointing that eight groups are bidding for this team and the rights to build a new stadium (RFK sucks, even though the man its named after was great – I saw the stadium last year and almost fell asleep during a game) and Major League Baseball still hasn’t made the $450+ million decision.

Atlanta Braves

How the hell are they going to win their 15th straight division title? While I’m still playing the “I’ll believe it when I see it” game, this really should be the year the Mets take over the NL East. And Atlanta’s offseason is probably the main reason that I’m reasonably confident that prediction will come true.

Dude, they lost Leo Mazzone. He’s the guy who made Jaret Wright not suck, Chris Hammond not suck, and a ton of other guys that later went on to get big contracts and bigger ERA’s (usually with the Yankees). Losing Mazzone will smash them in the face.

They lost their shortstop, Rafael Furcal, who signed with the Dodgers, but got a decent replacement in Edgar Renteria. I’m not a huge Edgar fan, but he’ll be more comfortable back in the National League. They also signed Brian Jordan and Eddie Perez to Minor League deals, I guess trying to get back to their glory years or something.

They got rid of Kyle Farnsworth (signed with the Yankees), and Dan Kolb (back to Milwaukee). How man closers can they possibly go through? Oh, wait, they also traded Johnny Estrada so they can make room for catching phenom – I hate that word – Brian McCann. Picking up Perez as his possible backup was a great move, although they also signed Todd Pratt away from the Phillies, so who knows.

Actually, who cares? They lost Mazzone, and 73-year-old Julio Franco, and everything is not okay.

Philadelphia Phillies

I know they lost Billy Wagner (signed with Mets) to a team within their own division, and it really sucks when that happens, but their contingency plans weren’t terrible, and frankly, the teams in the NL East other than the Mets all screwed themselves so badly that the Phillies don’t come out looking like they belong back in Veterans Stadium or anything (sorry for the long sentence, Why don’t you go back and read it again so you can understand it? I’ll put an extra space in between this and the next paragraph so you can do that.


To replace Wagner, the Phillies signed Yankees’ setup man Tom Gordon to be their closer. In Gordon, they’re getting a guy who will be fairly reliable in any month not ending in “ober.” To make room for last year’s N.L. Rookie of the Year award-winning first baseman Ryan Howard, the Phillies traded Jim Thome to the White Sox, getting back Aaron Rowand. By doing that, the Phillies got younger and better in center field (Kenny Lofton, last year’s center fielder, signed with the Dodgers), and they got younger and better at first base without having to deal with Thome’s contract.

The Phillies traded Vicente Padilla to Texas, getting a questionable bullpen arm in Ricardo Rodriguez back. I don’t know about that move, although Padilla gets injured a lot and has problems sometimes with making his little sinker sink. To replace him in the rotation, they signed steroidist Ryan Franklin away from the Mariners.

This bullpen is a little wrecked, and they really didn’t do much to address that. Ugueth Urbina is unsigned, and in jail somewhere I think – I’m not kidding, he really is in jail – and they have a bunch of Rheal Cormier-type guys, including Cormier himself. Ryan Madson is a tough righty, but bullpen success usually comes down to whether three or four guys have lucky good years or not.

They have somewhat solid starting pitching in Brett Myers, Jon Lieber, Cory Lidle, maybe Randy Wolf if he ever comes back, Gavin Floyd if he finds out that it’s within the rules to throw the ball over home plate, and of course Franklin. One of those guys could perhaps help out in the bullpen.

New York Mets

TODAY