UTK Special 2/7/25

Standing on Standings, Looking towards Disney

Another reminder that ending this weekend, there’s a sale at Penney’s! No, there’s a discount on the annual subscription to Under The Knife. It’s $49 for a full year of UTK and everything you’ll see here. Please consider supporting my work, telling a friend, giving a gift. I know there’s a lot of subscriptions these days. A LOT. But I’m hoping you find this one valuable enough to consider. And if you get that reference above, I feel like you should get a prize.

Quick note on some travel: I’ll be pitching at the Sloan Sports Conference next month with NTangible, then in Phoenix the following week for SABR Analytics, where I’ll moderate a panel about … analytics! If you’re at either, be sure to say hi.

I mentioned Clay Davenport’s projected standings the other day and absent any big injury or other baseball news … some other game is happening this weekend? … I thought I’d take a look at those and discuss. I already mentioned the three teams at the bottom and that horse is well beaten.

At the top? I don’t think anyone will be surprised that the Dodgers are the only team projected over 100 wins. 104 isn’t close to a record and from the talk this offseason, you’d think they’d be at least the Murderers Row Yankees if not the 2001 Mariners. 104 wins gets the NL West crown and the bye, so if they do that in a healthier manner, it’s hard not to start with the Dodgers as the NL pennant favorite. Write that one in pen, but is it a lock?

Over in the AL, there’s not a single team projected over 90 wins. That has to be some kind of record and it’s either the biggest win or biggest indictment for Bud Selig’s “hope and faith” crusade for parity. There’s five teams from 85 to 89 wins, which means 85 is a playoff lock. There’s three more to 500 meaning that all you have to do is be a 500 team and you have a very good chance at being in the playoffs in the AL. The lowest of those - the Rangers at 83 - is a 42 percent playoff team and while that might not sound great, it’s definitely good.

What’s more, the toss-a-blanket-over-them-ness of the AL means that the marginal value of a win in that grouping and even for those - there’s four teams at 78 or 79 - it’s close enough that one good signing or trade could be the difference. Keep a player healthy and have him go a career year? It’s the difference.

If you need an example, look at the Twins. Imagine a full season from Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis. I know, Twins fans have given up that dream, but it doesn’t even take a full season. Buxton almost gave a “best shape of his life” quote at Twinsfest last week, but the difference between his single campaign over 140 games versus his very good 2024 is over a win. Lewis doesn’t have the full season to work from, but if his 2024 playing time matched his 2023 production, that would be as much as two wins.

The interesting projection to me is the Diamondbacks. At 90 wins, they’re going to be double-digit back of the Dodgers so forget the bye. They just need to be sure to get the best wild card slot, which alters the MVW calculation a bit. The easiest version of that calculation is “get as good as you can”, but paying too much for it in prospects or cash might not be the best way.

The Diamondbacks could actually add by subtraction. Jordan Montgomery isn’t surplus to needs, but he could probably use a fresh start. Flipping him to strengthen another position makes sense and likely saves money. Plenty of teams need pitching and given what the D-Backs have coming with Jordan Lawlar and Tommy Troy, the outfield would be easiest.

I’d argue I’d take a DH-first guy who could play outfield as a fifth option. There are plenty of those guys and a lot of them on those blanket teams in the AL. Detroit has a load of them, but doesn’t really need the pitching after the Jack Flaherty deal. Boston has Wilyer Abreu, who could hit 20 homers and cost less. There’s not a great fit in Seattle or Texas, but there’s other teams and the D-Backs might have other priorities.

If anything, looking at this chart at this point in the off-season makes me think that health is going to be even more important than most seasons. While teams like the Dodgers can overcome injuries, the ability to keep the best players on the field more often or at least minimize the injuries that occur could well be the single deciding factor after talent and execution.

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Pete Alonso goes back to the Mets for significantly less than a “megadeal”, but more than what many expected. A 2/54 is hardly a pillow deal and isn’t one that keeps the expected Vladimir Guerrero Jr window open for next year, pending the leak of all the parameters. Is there an opt-out … ah, and yes, there is, as the news comes while I’m typing. The deal is 1/30 with an opt out to 1/24, so Alonso just has to believe he’s better than that, had a better season than that, and isn’t going to stick it to the Mets, who would just flip him if they think they can do better. $24 million isn’t going to stop Steve Cohen, who also dropped a model of his “Metropolitan Park” with a casino, tennis tie-ins, and the kind of rendered cool you get from leafy green models.

If we haven’t learned by now that the architectural promise of park seldom lives up to the initial renderings, will we ever? MLB’s peak was Camden Yards, but thirty years later, there’s no Cathedral of Sport as we’re seeing with Euro renovations. We have the McMansions of MLB instead, and some mistakes.

Alonso’s signing leaves Bergman as last man standing and … well, I fully anticipate having to re-write this after first writing it late Wednesday night. Here’s hoping …

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Barry Larkin’s group, the “Orlando Dreamers”, have been trying to set themselves up for an expansion team, but haven’t demonstrated that they could succeed in a market with two teams already. Nor have they demonstrated they have the money in the way that groups like Salt Lake have. So could they lure the Rays to Orlando now that there’s an opening?

Jim Schnorf is leading that side of the group and while his resume is nice, it doesn’t read “billionaire” which is what MLB needs. However, the reality is that the Rays don’t really need a change in ownership. They need a ballpark. That’s never happened in Tampa, or in St Pete, or in any of the hundred locations they’ve looked. I may be exaggerating, but not by much. If Orlando or the counties around it could be convinced to put up the money for that stadium, I think the Rays would have to listen.

Sure, the city would probably want some local ownership, but Stu Sternberg and his group are pretty close. Add in someone like Schnorf to the minority table and it could work. The problem is that $450 million isn’t close. The land deal in St Pete was a swap and the Rays have said they can’t up their commitment. Land in Orlando isn’t cheap and construction doesn’t go faster. They might be more used to building big things, but even if they started today, the Rays might not have a home for 2026-2028, the same problem they have now.

There’s no usable park in Orlando, even if stretched like what the Rays will do this year in Steinbrenner Field. They couldn’t shoehorn into the oddly named Inter&Co Stadium, or fit that schedule with two soccer teams, or even UCF’s currently-expanding stadium. Camping World, you ask? That stadium is largely empty now, but while it’s had more renovations than a Real Housewife since it’s first construction in 1936 (!!), it would require a near-rebuild to have a realistic baseball configuration. I’m all for doing something crazy like the LA Coliseum nets for the Dodgers pre-Dodger Stadium days or even the wacky Alamodome setup the Rangers have used a couple times.

The best I could do is get 262 feet to the outfield and while that’s not horrible, it’s not good, even for a couple years. The Dodgers played with a shorter left field and the net lasted four seasons in LA! Modern baseball is a bit more picky (and unionized) than it was back in 1958. A bigger problem than the wall is that even at almost 60,000 capacity, I’m not sure how many of those would be good seats for baseball. There’s suites, which help, but I can’t see this as a real solution either.

The Rays are left in an unenviable position. Unless the Trop can be fixed for next year, they’re functionally homeless. The best solution would be to move the team quickly to an expansion location and let it get established as they fix the permanent stadium problem. Nashville’s Triple-A park is almost as big as Steinbrenner and could be expanded as they’ve done in Sacramento. It’s not perfect, but baseball can’t have two teams wandering in the desert.