Nick's Blog Post #9 - September 2019
September 30, 2019
64-98, 5th in NL Central
And just like that, the 2019 MLB Regular Season is over. It feels like the season started just a few weeks ago, yet here we are at its end. Here's a brief rundown of how the final month went, along with the season as a whole:
Team Performance
The team got hot at the beginning of the month, going 7-2 in the first 9 games of September (coming off of a 4-2 stretch to end August, no less) but eventually faded, going 5-12 the rest of the way to end up with a 12-14 record in the final month of the season. Highlights included a 4 game series sweep of the
Phillies, a win against Cy Young favorite
Jacob DeGrom, and 2 wins in a 3 game series against the division rival
Brewers, who went 102-60 this season.
Overall, we finished with a 64-98 record, good for 2nd-worst in the NL (with 12 more wins than the
Marlins!) and 4th-worst in the MLB overall. Avoiding a 100-loss season was important to me, and at least we did manage to do that by a narrow margin. Incredibly, our two best months came following the trade deadline, which I see as a source of hope: the current roster played better than our overall record suggests, and with the help of some reinforcements from the minors next year, we could be a .500 team or better!
Our offense showed some encouraging signs this season - we finished 8th in the NL in both OBP and home runs, and tied for 5th in total hits. On the other hand, our pitching and defense were nothing short of atrocious, ranking last or 2nd-last in the NL in just about every category imagineable - except, oddly, for strikeouts, where we finished 7th in the league.
What does this all mean? I think it means that there is reason for optimism about next season, but it also means we have work to do in the offseason. Our defense will hopefully be aided by the promotion of several defensively capable position players from the high minors to the big leagues but our pitching will need to be improved through any means available to us. If that means trading away from areas of strength and depth to bolster our pitching, then so be it.
Player Performance
- 1B/OF
Ryan McMahon looked great following our acquisition of him at the deadline - he put up a .362/.423/.500 slash line with 2 homers in 105 September plate appearances. Rarely does a hitter improve his performance after
leaving Colorado, but that's exactly what's happened here. At just 24 years old and showing immense skill, we see him as a long-term piece of our lineup.
- 2B
Tony Kemp is another guy who has played well after we traded for him. with a .340/.440/.402 slash line and a 14% BB rate vs. an 11% K rate in September. He's not a huge power guy, but if he can continue to avoid strikeouts while getting on base over 40% of the time, he'll be a great fit as our leadoff hitter next year.
- SS
Orlando Arcia just about completed his redemption arc, putting up a 98 OPS+ (with 24 homers!) and 2.3 WAR in 147 games this season, one year after posting a 60 OPS+ and negative WAR in 119 games. He even managed to win the NL Player of the Week award twice! He obviously isn't currently the superstar that some expected him to become, but a league average hitter who plays shortstop is nothing to sneeze at, and given his pedigree and natural talent, there's a chance he could be even better next year.
- OF
Nomar Mazara's redemption story is a bit less clear, unfortunately. He put up just about the same numbers at the plate as he did last year (103 OPS+ in 155 games in 2019 vs. 102 OPS+ in 124 games in 2018), but his fielding took a step backward so he ended up producing less WAR than he did in last year's disappointing season (0.4 vs. 1.2). I still think it's too early to give up on him, but a league average hitter who doesn't run particularly well and plays below-average defense in right field isn't exactly a must-start player. He might have a tough time winning a starting job in our outfield next year, given the bevy of prospects who look to be just about ready for the majors (more on that later...)
- Our lone remaining All-Star, 2B/3B
Eugenio Suarez, had a rather forgettable season by his standards. He launched 31 HR, but his season slash line of .271/.351/.467 was only good for a 112 OPS+,a far cry from the 140 to 150 OPS+ he achieved in the prior 2 seasons. He was still a solid player, and one could argualy chalk up his relative underperformance to unfamiliarity with the second base role we threw him into mid-season. Let's hope he gets back to his old ways next year - the team will be very young and inexperienced, and will need a strong steady leader like himself to show them the ropes.
- Our de facto ace
Luis Castillo had a mediocre season overall, and looks a lot more like a league average pitcher than a star. His 108 FIP- and 89 ERA+ pretty closely align with his numbers in 2018 (106 FIP- and 97 ERA+), and at 26 years old it's not clear how much better we can really expect him to become. He also had the misfortune of partially tearing his labrum in early September, which was the rotten icing on his disappointing cake of a season. We're expecting him to fully recover by the end of October, so he'll have plenty of time to get back into game shape before next season starts.
- SP
Framber Valdez, who we acquired at the deadline from the
Astros for a song, looks like he may actually be the best SP on our roster right now. In his 11 starts with us, he put up a 104 ERA+ with 10 K/9 and an 85 FIP-. He's only 25 and has 6 years of team control remaining, so he is someone we're very excited about. He's probably not good enough to be the #1 pitcher on a playoff team, but we'd be very comfortable with him as our #2 or #3.
- The
Alex Reyes experiment probably has to be considered a failure at this point. He managed to lead the league in walks with 92, and his 8.30 ERA (58 ERA+) is sickening. His 118 FIP- is more tolerable, but still not particularly good. A pitcher like him who allows a lot of baserunners needs a good defense behind him, and we didn't have that this season. He might be a "change of scenery" candidate this offseason - perhaps a GM with a better defense and masochistic tendencies will offer to take him off our hands.
Prospect Performance
Congratulations are in order for the
Daytona Tortugas, our High-A affiliate, who won dominated and won their league championship, following a regular season in which they had the best record in the league by 6 wins. They lie in stark contrast to our Triple-A and Double-A affiliates, who each won their division and led their 1st-round playoff series 2-0, then promptly lost their next 3 games and were eliminated from the playoffs.
Next month, to help fill the space in what will be an otherwise quiet update (playoffs? What playoffs?) we will do a rundown of our top performing prospects this season at each level, and what we expect from them next year. For now we'll end this section here, since there's not much September baseball in the minors.
League News
- Superstar
Christian Yelich pulled it off and won the NL Triple Crown (.351 AVG / 50 HR / 134 RBI), becoming the first player to do so
since 1933. He also won the slash line Triple Crown for the whole MLB (.351/.437/.677), and was two homers short of tying
Joey Gallo for the MLB lead in home runs. His league leading 8.6 WAR made him more valuable this year than the entire roster of the
Marlins, combined. If only they could have had a player like him...
- The NL Wildcard race took until game 161 of the regular season to settle, with the
Cardinals sweeping a 3 game series against the
Cubs that decided which of the two teams would grab the final spot. Elsewhere in the division, the
Brewers won a MLB-high 102 games. It's so great that we get to play in such a fun and easy division with these guys...
- There were two 100-win teams (
Brewers and
Astros) and two 100-loss teams (
Marlins and
White Sox) this season, down from 3 of each last year. Is this a sign that parity is returning to the league? Almost certainly not.
Playoff Predictions
Here's how I see the playoffs going down:
Wildcard
TB vs. BOS:
Red Sox
STL vs. ATL:
Braves
ALDS
NYY vs. CLE:
Yankees
HOU vs. BOS:
Astros
NLDS
LAD vs. NYM:
Dodgers
MIL vs. ATL:
Brewers
ALCS
HOU vs. NYY:
Astros
NLCS
MIL vs. LAD:
Dodgers
World Series
HOU vs. LAD:
Astros
Something about those Astros just makes me believe in them - it's like they've got an invisible advantage over every opponent they face...
Next Update
Next month we'll recap the playoffs and do a deep-dive into how our top prospects performed this season. Til next time!