Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
The White Sox enter this offseason at once pleased with the way 2008 ended and also wondering what might have been. And sure, you can say that for any team that makes the playoffs and falls short of the ulimate prize, but it's particularly so for the Pale Hose, who lost their best hitter by a country mile, Carlos Quentin, for the season in early September.
Would things have gone differently had Quentin been in Chicago's lineup for the ALDS? We'll never know. What we do know is that the South Siders aren't about to rest on their laurels after winning the AL Central.
No one will ever accuse general manager Kenny Williams of being timid or cautious as he attempts to reshape his roster -- that's why many consider him one of the better executives in the game -- and he's already begun to do just that this winter.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
How many teams in baseball can match a young core of Jay Bruce, Joey Votto, Edinson Volquez, and Johnny Cueto? The Reds have four young players to build around right now that would make every other team in the league jealous. The problem they currently have is that none of the older guys around those young players, namely Brandon Phillips, Aaron Harang, Edwin Encarnacion, and Bronson Arroyo, have performed up to expectations recently.
The question that Cincy now must answer is when their team is going to be ready to contend. They weren't last year, and Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. were shipped off as a result. They're still a ways away right now, though if players like Cueto and Bruce can take steps forward this year, they might be closer to contending then people realize. So should they try to arm up for a run to the top of the Central this year? Or should they sit back and wait.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
One season after the most remarkable run to a pennant ever, the Colorado Rockies learned that you can't rely on that sort of magic every season. The Rox rode the ecstasy right into the brick wall of 2008 ... otherwise known as reality. It's the same reality that forced the organization to send Matt Holliday riding off into the sunset. And unfortunately, reality also says that the sell-off isn't quite over. There has to be a way to sell and still contend for the N.L. West, right?
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
This past season the Cubs treated their fans to the best season of their lifetime ... only to rip their hearts out of their chests with a pathetic playoff showing, getting swept by the Dodgers without so much as a whimper of life.
The task in front of Jim Hendry is to evaluate if anything needs to be done to a team that was the class of the NL in the regular season with 97 wins. Do you just assume the team hit a rough patch when it mattered, or is the team only built for the regular season?
It's a tough task, for certain, but the fact of the matter is that the window of opportunity with the Derrek Lee/Alfonso Soriano/Aramis Ramirez offensive nucleus is limited. It's not totally closed yet, but it is closing. In order to capitalize on the excitement they started to develop in Wrigleyville the past two seasons, it would behoove Hendry to push all his chips to the center of the table. Making a trade like he did yesterday shows me that's what he fully intends to do. What good is a prospect who won't be ready for another two years to a team that wants to win it all in 2009?
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
You have to search pretty far and pretty wide these days to find a corner of Major League Baseball where there is virtually no hope. Parity is a reality. The Rays reign in the AL. There have been seven different champions in the last eight seasons and 23 different teams have qualified for the postseason since the beginning of the decade.
Enter the Washington Nationals, one of those few dark corners in the baseball world where it's hard to find anything to feel good about. They have a shiny new stadium in D.C., but it had one of the poorest first-year attendances of any ballpark in the post-Camden Yards era. The broadcast ratings haven't been much better either.
Of course, most of that trouble is related to the product on the field, and what an abysmal product it is. MLB's role as caretaker of the franchise during its last days in Montreal and its first days in Washington has buried it in a deep hole, and general manager Jim Bowden seems to have exacerbated the problem.
No matter what happens this winter, the Nationals have a long way to go.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
2008 was a very successful year for the Twins. Afterthoughts back in March, when everybody thought the Tigers and Indians would battle for the division crown, Minnesota finished the regular season in a tie with Chicago atop the Central, before losing to the White Sox in a one-game playoff. After a rocky April, it eventually saw the successful return of Francisco Liriano; other highlights included another MVP-caliber year from Joe Mauer, and the emergence of some of their young arms, most notably Kevin Slowey.
But it's hard not to look back at July and wonder what else the Twins could have accomplished. In that month, Livan Hernandez made five starts, allowing 21 runs in 29 1/3 innings for a 6.44 ERA. Meanwhile, Francisco Liriano was inexplicably still in Triple-A, where he was absolutely dominating, striking out almost a third of the batters he faced. If the Twins -- who have a history of being reluctant to promote guys, and had already pushed Liriano too soon in April -- had recalled him just a week sooner, they probably wouldn't have needed the playoff against Chicago, instead winning the division outright and advancing to face the Rays in the ALDS.
Footprints in the Snowis FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
There's only one word that fits as a tagline for the 2008 New York Yankees: Failure. Failure to make the playoffs for the first time since 1993, failure to inject youth into an aging lineup and rotation, and failure to make anything meaningful out of the highest payroll in all of baseball. Harsh, perhaps, for a team that won 89 games in one of the toughest divisions in recent memory, but the Yankees don't get graded on a curve.
There were some individual successes. Mike Mussina won 20 games for the first time in his career. Mariano Rivera padded a legacy that will land him in Cooperstown exactly five years after he stops entering to "Enter Sandman," and Alex Rodriguez, despite more tabloid headlines and awful statistics in the clutch, had a year that would be a career best for many players.
But the disappointments were more pronounced. Neither Phil Hughes nor Ian Kennedy made Brian Cashman look smart for refusing to trade them for Johan Santana. Melky Cabrera regressed so far that he ended up in Triple-A, and Robinson Cano looked more like a future plumber than a future star. That's created huge holes in center and the rotation, and called into question how well the Yankees are developing a wave of players that can carry them when the remaining stalwarts fade into the sunset.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
The Mariners went into 2008 as playoff contenders in the eyes of some, and a sub-.500 team that wasn't going to be able to score enough runs to compete in the minds of others. The latter camp was closer in its expectation, but nobody could have foreseen just how far Seattle would fall.
The offense was bad, as expected, finishing 13th in the AL in runs, OBP, and SLG. The more surprising issue was that the pitching, a unit which looked to be solid at the outset of the year, fell apart as well. Offseason acquisition Erik Bedard and previously dominant closer J.J. Putz both battled injuries, and weren't particularly impressive when they did pitch. They also got some abysmal performances from the back end of the rotation, with Carlos Silva, Ryan Feierabend and Miguel Batista combining for a 6.55 ERA in 308 innings.
It's worth noting that all the blame for the run prevention issues shouldn't fall solely to the pitchers, as the Mariners were 13th in the AL in defensive efficiency.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
The funny thing about the Dodgers is that it's really, really easy to forget that before Manny Ramirez rode in on his dreadlocked donkey like a free-swinging Don Quixote, well, they were basically just your run of the mill mediocre baseball team.
Ned Colletti was, justifiably, on the hot seat, Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre were gathering larddustballs on the bench, and despite some pretty good pitching, there wasn't enough offense to limp the team towards a .500 National League West-winning record and OMG JOE TORRE FAIL.
But Manny did show up, and he did play the role of hero. The Dodgers streaked into the playoffs, the fans started flocking back to Chavez Ravine in their imitation 'locks and then Los Angeles shocked the world by sweeping the Cubs in the NLDS. Nowhere to go up but, right? Um, actually, no.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
Generally, losing doesn't get you anywhere. If you do enough of it, though, you might grab some attention for it. Meet the Pittsburgh Pirates. They haven't had a winning season since 1992. That's 16 years, which ties the all-time record for losing seasons in any North American sport. As things stand, the Pirates are pretty well lined up to break the record with losing season No. 17 in 2009.
And yet, not all is lost for the Pirates. After taking over last year, GM Neal Huntington has started to restock the minor league system with some actual talent. Still, he was left quite a mess by his predecessors. The Pirates might not be able to avoid losing season No. 17, but can they avoid 18, 19, or 20?
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.
Footprints in the Snow
Footprints in the Snow
