Saturday, March 1, 2014

AL South Preview



The AL South is the home of the Richmond Braves, the defending Wold Series Champions. The Braves have been the most consistent franchise in the entire MiLB. This year they lost starting pitcher Woody Buchanan and reliever Andrew Buchanan (no relation). They added Adrian Bowen for $6.7 million, but that was an iffy acquisition. What helps their subpar pitching is the excellent defense. But the team is getting ready to go into another transition. They are ageing, and starting to lose a little skill. Richmond is still great, but now more vulnerable than they have been in awhile. Although their will not be competition from anyone in this division any time soon.























Memphis moved to El Paso when the new owner (zsiegri) took over. Z brings a wealth of experience to the MiLB with 126 season, 29 division titles, 104 playoffs, and 10 world series titles. That's impressive and it will be fun to watch him and cyclone go head to head year in and year out. To start, the Sun Kings turned over their pitching staff. Out of 14 pitchers, only four returned, and only 1 of those was a starter. This was a team that allowed 676 runs, which is very good. But it didn't stop there. Out of the players that had 400 PA's or more (9) only 3 remain on the team. Tex Varitek, Johan Sellers, and Max Ordaz had WAR's ranging from 4 to 5.8...all gone. 527 Runs created...gone. The players obtained in all trades, are a mix of AAA, AA, and High A stars. A good haul, but none will be ready for a few years or more. SO, who does El Paso have playing baseball for them? It's the scrap heap all-stars. After FA ended, they offered contracts to players that had dropped their prices and were able to put together a team. They spent $61 of their $89, so they will probably be transferring to go after a big international or swooping in on deadline deals. Overall, this team is hard to figure out. All I can do is guess. My guess is they do better than I think, which isn't much.
























The Suns had the opportunity to improve their pitching, but must have whiffed in the FA market. They didn't make ANY moves to improve. Out of the $98 million, they have only used $79. They could be waiting for an international to drop to them, or some deadline deals. But right now it's wasted money. You would think with young players more money would be spent on coaches, scouting, and training to get the young guys to improve faster. But there was no changes made. I honestly have to wonder how invested Jacksonville is in their club and if owner mytitan is even interested.























Not sure if I'm missing something, but I could find no record of a minor league team with the nickname Azul. So…I did the best I could with the logo. This team was just plain awful last year, and firesign saw the writing on the wall and bailed. The new owner, factorganize, has a good track record, but has taken on three new teams all starting about the same time. At this point the pitching staff has been completely turned over. By attacking the Rule V draft, and waiver wire the Azul found replacements (if you can call them that).  One oddity was the amount of players signed and then released back on the market. Maybe a trick I'm not aware of to increase salary for the next few years? Not sure. But it's happening. Overall, this team will be worse than last year and may actually be the most futile offensive team in the MiLB. In all of my time doing previews on various blogs I've never seen a team like this. Only $31 in salaries with a $61 player payroll means international buyer. This team is tanking big time which is something I personally do not enjoy seeing.

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