Surprise, Surprise

Dave Paisley

With 20 or so games in the books for each team, we?re starting to get an inkling of how the various teams are likely to perform. Of course, 20 games aren?t by any means definitive, especially as each team has only played three other teams. In the cozy AL West, all the games have been intra-divisional, while the other baseball divisions have had to mix and match more due to the odd numbers.

The talking points are all the good and bad starts, of course. Nobody cares about you right now if you?re 11-9 or 9-11. The Yankees are, as usual, a different story. The 17-3 start is pretty spiffy, but a little of the shine goes off when you notice they?ve played only Tampa Bay, Toronto and Minnesota. To be fair, Minnesota is not a bad team, but as I opined pre-season, they?re not as good as people think they are after last year?s playoff appearance. And Toronto? Not horrible, but not particularly tough. And even Lou Piniella isn?t going to be able to turn a sow?s ear into a silk purse in Tampa.

So I would have expected the Yankees to get off to a good start, just not quite this good. The fact is though, they have the #1 offense and #1 pitching in the league. It doesn?t hurt that Bernie Williams, Raul Mondesi and Alfonso Soriano all feature an OPS over 1.000 with three more regulars in the .900s. I expected Hideki Matsui to struggle, and from the occasional ESPN snippet, he doesn?t appear to be, with 20 RBI. But as I suspected, he?s being pretty mediocre at the plate for a ?slugger?, with a pedestrian .275/.344/.425 (Avg/OBP/SLG) line.

On the pitching front, Andy Pettitte is by far the Yanks worst starter, with an appallingly high 3.70 ERA. Mike Mussina appears to be in Cy Young form with a sparkling 1.86 ERA and a 4-0 record to go with it.

Of course, none of this will last, not even if the Yanks play nobody but the Rays the rest of the way. With a West Coast swing under way, we?ll see how the Yankee steamroller holds up on the road against the elite of the AL West.

Another big surprise is Kansas City. I already discussed them last week. The offense has improved a bit since then and surprisingly, the pitching (2nd best) hasn?t slipped yet. Once Runelvys Hernandez runs out of steam, though - watch out. The other starters have ERAs of 4.50 and up, so there?s nothing special going on there except luck.

I?m not sure I?d classify the Tigers sucking as a surprise, but I have a graphical depiction of their woes that may shock you. Here?s a chart of the AL offenses, showing runs scored per game versus team OPS:

The Tigers being way down there at two runs per game (TWO!) is just amazing, even at this early stage of the season. Combine that with the fourth worst pitching, easily seen here (NOte WHIP is walks plus hits per inning pitched):

And you have a disaster of a season in the making. If they?re going to dig themselves out, who is going to do it? Dean Palmer? (Hint: Not bloody likely with his .287 OPS? Yes, I said OPS.) Here?s a problem - highest OPS on the team so far? Gene Kingsale at .746. Next highest, Bobby Higginson with a truly evil .666. Only three players on the entire roster are over .600 and that is a serious problem. Amazingly, four of their starters have ERAs around 4.50, which is at least respectable. Poor Tigers.

Moving to the NL, here?s how the offenses square up:

No shock that Colorado and San Francisco are near the top, but St Louis and the Cubs are more of a surprise. Hee Seop Choi has added a fair amount to the Cubs offense so far. At the bottom, it quickly becomes apparent why the Mets and Diamondbacks are struggling. LA and Pittsburgh not scoring is hardly news.

On the pitching front, things look like this:

Given the Cubs offense, the fact that their pitching is also among the league leaders explains their good start. Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Clement and Estes will be formidable if they all stay healthy. No guarantees about that, though.

Finally, I don?t know if anyone would classify this as a surprise, but Cincinnati?s awful start is explained quite simply by their awful pitching. The chart shows that, much like Tampa and Texas in the AL< their pitching is in a class of its own. The remedial class, that is. With only one starter under a 6.00 ERA and two under 8.00, there?s not a lot of joy in Northern Kentucky right now. And all this despite an average offense, with Kearns, Dunn and Casey providing a nice offensive nucleus. Oh, by the way, whoever had April 14 in the ?on what date will Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Larkin both be on the DL? pool - you won.

about the author

Dave Paisley's looking for your surprises. What's hot and what's not? Send them along to drdjp@strikethree.com.