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Catcher
Victor Alveraz - Age: 24 - One of these days Alveraz is going to produce a halfway decent offensive season for us . . .or die trying. We’ve spent a lot over the last few years patching together the C position on this squad. Sending away picks and prospects for the Jeremy Windley and Harry Elliott’s of the world. This year? We’re going with what we’ve got. We can’t afford to make those deadline deals every year. Hopefully one of our young catchers finally seizes the opportunity to make a career for themselves.
Infield
1B - Joe Seagarra - Age: 28 - A full two productive seasons have passed since his terrible eye injury suffered in Denver. At this point he is what he is, a relatively productive 1B. His stats were a bit down overall last year because he never seemed to have that true manic month we’ve come to expect from him (he’s genuinely bi-polar at the plate). He had spurts of great production, but no sustained runs where he just carried the team. We’re hoping for a slight uptick in production this season, but you never know.
2B - Geoff Scott - Age: 24 - In last year’s preview we said: He put together one of the best seasons in club history in ’88 and we look forward to him building on that success as he matures into an even better hitter. This year we can change the “best seasons in club history” to “best seasons in league history”. He was nothing short of phenomenal last year in setting the all time league record for Player VORP at 104.2. It’s hard to imagine him improving on his production from last year, but he’s still so young we’re not betting against it. In addition to his work at the plate, he also won the IL Glove Wizard award at 2B (after winning the SS award last year). There’s really not much else to say about one of the best players in the league, other than we’re glad he’s on our team.
3B - Jim Newlin - Age: 30 - Jim Newlin has been rock solid the last two years. He’ll play the majority of this the ’90 season at the age of 30 so it will be interesting to see how long he can play at that high of a level (’88 VORP = 67.4 and ’89 VORP = 66.6).
SS - Raul Carbajal - Age: 27 - He started off really slowly in ’89 despite having a great ST. I know we all say ST stats don’t matter, but sometimes I still get a little caught up in them when they are produced by an inexperienced player. It gives me a (false) feeling that the young guy can at least hold their own at this level. Carbajal was well below average through the All-Star break and for all intents and purposes lost the starting SS job for a while. He rebound in the second half and ended up turning in a halfway decent rookie campaign. We expect a fairly sizeable leap in production at the plate this year. We don’t need him to be a star, just a big leaguer. Even then, he’s the best defensive shortstop in the IL and he’s a huge part of the defensive IF that helps out our groundball heavy pitching staff.
Outfield
LF - Orinosuke Takahashi - Age: 25 - A bit of a sophomore slump out of OT in ’89, but he was still good for us. He hit a career high 14 HRs and we wouldn’t be surprised to see him approach 20+ this year. He’ll get more of a chance to face LHP this year which means he’ll probably bat in the .260’s or so, but we like his run production possibilities lower in the order.
CF - Raul Velez - Age: 26 - Rule V-er from last year when he exceeded expectations. He’ll patrol CF this year, much as he did all of the second half of last year. A little bit of growth from experience out of him would be a welcome sight and would solidify our OF. Still, a repeat of last year’s near .700 OPS would be fine by us.
RF - Pat Gibson - Age: 25 - Gibson will get the opportunity to play RF this year. We were hoping early last year that he would be able to jump up and contribute, but it just never happened for him. He doesn’t appear to have anything left to prove in the minors, so it’s time to make the jump for good. If he can’t make it this year he may be relegated to being a career 4th/5th OFer type.
Bench
Tex McLerlan - Age: 28 - Big Tex struggled last year (that’s putting it politely) after being “rushed” to the show. He’s another guy with nothing really left to prove at AAA, so it’s time to show he belongs in the BLB or if he is just another AAAA type.
IF - Pete Summers - Age: 28 - He was exactly what we were expecting out of him when we made the Joe Alveraz deal (someone needs to do a recap of that deal at some point). He will get plenty of ABs all around the infield again.
OF - Jose Urra - Age: 34 - He’s done, but he can still be a 4th/5th OF at this point. Struggled against LHP last year for the first time ever, but he got such irregular playing time it was hard to find a rhythm. Sadly for Urra, it’ll be more of the same this year barring a lengthy OF injury.
1990 Outlook
We’re a little thin in the OF and will probably be in the market at some point for some OF depth. We’ll either be looking to pick up a 4th OF type or a starting OFer who can push either Velez or Gibson to bench duty.
Once again the strength of the team will be our dynamic IF. If Carbajal takes another step forward offensively like he did during the 2nd half last season, I’d be willing to match our two middle infielders up against any team in the league with the combination of offense and defense Scott/Carbajal could potentially bring to the table.
Do we have a realistic shot at the playoffs? Hard to say, really. California backed up the Brinks truck and had themselves a fine offseason, but we have not finished more than 1 game back of the Porter division crown since the inception of the Division. I’d like to think we’ll still be in it at the end of the year, but time will tell.
Catcher
Victor Alveraz - Age: 24 - One of these days Alveraz is going to produce a halfway decent offensive season for us . . .or die trying. We’ve spent a lot over the last few years patching together the C position on this squad. Sending away picks and prospects for the Jeremy Windley and Harry Elliott’s of the world. This year? We’re going with what we’ve got. We can’t afford to make those deadline deals every year. Hopefully one of our young catchers finally seizes the opportunity to make a career for themselves.
Infield
1B - Joe Seagarra - Age: 28 - A full two productive seasons have passed since his terrible eye injury suffered in Denver. At this point he is what he is, a relatively productive 1B. His stats were a bit down overall last year because he never seemed to have that true manic month we’ve come to expect from him (he’s genuinely bi-polar at the plate). He had spurts of great production, but no sustained runs where he just carried the team. We’re hoping for a slight uptick in production this season, but you never know.
2B - Geoff Scott - Age: 24 - In last year’s preview we said: He put together one of the best seasons in club history in ’88 and we look forward to him building on that success as he matures into an even better hitter. This year we can change the “best seasons in club history” to “best seasons in league history”. He was nothing short of phenomenal last year in setting the all time league record for Player VORP at 104.2. It’s hard to imagine him improving on his production from last year, but he’s still so young we’re not betting against it. In addition to his work at the plate, he also won the IL Glove Wizard award at 2B (after winning the SS award last year). There’s really not much else to say about one of the best players in the league, other than we’re glad he’s on our team.
3B - Jim Newlin - Age: 30 - Jim Newlin has been rock solid the last two years. He’ll play the majority of this the ’90 season at the age of 30 so it will be interesting to see how long he can play at that high of a level (’88 VORP = 67.4 and ’89 VORP = 66.6).
SS - Raul Carbajal - Age: 27 - He started off really slowly in ’89 despite having a great ST. I know we all say ST stats don’t matter, but sometimes I still get a little caught up in them when they are produced by an inexperienced player. It gives me a (false) feeling that the young guy can at least hold their own at this level. Carbajal was well below average through the All-Star break and for all intents and purposes lost the starting SS job for a while. He rebound in the second half and ended up turning in a halfway decent rookie campaign. We expect a fairly sizeable leap in production at the plate this year. We don’t need him to be a star, just a big leaguer. Even then, he’s the best defensive shortstop in the IL and he’s a huge part of the defensive IF that helps out our groundball heavy pitching staff.
Outfield
LF - Orinosuke Takahashi - Age: 25 - A bit of a sophomore slump out of OT in ’89, but he was still good for us. He hit a career high 14 HRs and we wouldn’t be surprised to see him approach 20+ this year. He’ll get more of a chance to face LHP this year which means he’ll probably bat in the .260’s or so, but we like his run production possibilities lower in the order.
CF - Raul Velez - Age: 26 - Rule V-er from last year when he exceeded expectations. He’ll patrol CF this year, much as he did all of the second half of last year. A little bit of growth from experience out of him would be a welcome sight and would solidify our OF. Still, a repeat of last year’s near .700 OPS would be fine by us.
RF - Pat Gibson - Age: 25 - Gibson will get the opportunity to play RF this year. We were hoping early last year that he would be able to jump up and contribute, but it just never happened for him. He doesn’t appear to have anything left to prove in the minors, so it’s time to make the jump for good. If he can’t make it this year he may be relegated to being a career 4th/5th OFer type.
Bench
Tex McLerlan - Age: 28 - Big Tex struggled last year (that’s putting it politely) after being “rushed” to the show. He’s another guy with nothing really left to prove at AAA, so it’s time to show he belongs in the BLB or if he is just another AAAA type.
IF - Pete Summers - Age: 28 - He was exactly what we were expecting out of him when we made the Joe Alveraz deal (someone needs to do a recap of that deal at some point). He will get plenty of ABs all around the infield again.
OF - Jose Urra - Age: 34 - He’s done, but he can still be a 4th/5th OF at this point. Struggled against LHP last year for the first time ever, but he got such irregular playing time it was hard to find a rhythm. Sadly for Urra, it’ll be more of the same this year barring a lengthy OF injury.
1990 Outlook
We’re a little thin in the OF and will probably be in the market at some point for some OF depth. We’ll either be looking to pick up a 4th OF type or a starting OFer who can push either Velez or Gibson to bench duty.
Once again the strength of the team will be our dynamic IF. If Carbajal takes another step forward offensively like he did during the 2nd half last season, I’d be willing to match our two middle infielders up against any team in the league with the combination of offense and defense Scott/Carbajal could potentially bring to the table.
Do we have a realistic shot at the playoffs? Hard to say, really. California backed up the Brinks truck and had themselves a fine offseason, but we have not finished more than 1 game back of the Porter division crown since the inception of the Division. I’d like to think we’ll still be in it at the end of the year, but time will tell.