One preseason feature that several of our league’s players are contributing to is divisional previews, taking a look at the teams’ rosters and making quick assessments. I’ve volunteered to do that for my teams’ two divisions, and while I do have Spring Training experience for my two teams, the others are all still unknown quantities for me in action. Just how bad will this preview look in retrospect?!? Let’s find out!

National League Central

Chicago Cubs, coached by alsi2843

-Playing at Cement Gardens

-First two draft picks: Earl Abbot and Matessa Sturges

The Cubs have two main strengths: hitting and pitching. While they don’t have anybody with the coveted/dreaded 10 hitting rating, they also don’t have a player with hitting below 5, and have three solid 7-hitters (including sluggers Ronny Dobbs and Jason Giambi) and three 9-hitters. On the pitching front, Alsi was able to assemble squad that, whether intentional or not, has only two players with a pitching rating below 7. Earl and Matessa will probably be able to carry the entire team with their 10 ratings, but if they ever fall short, there are still five solid relievers to help them out. This is a team that will never run out of pitching talent.

However, on the flip side, the Cubs do have pretty lacklustre running and fielding. While they do have Earl and his amazing 10 speed, he is their only player with speed above 7, Nancy Chin is the only 7-speed player, and Ronny and Matessa are the only 6-speeders. This leaves over half of the squad with 5 speed or lower, and in practice is going to mean that most of the time when they don’t hit home runs, they probably won’t be getting much of anything done on offense, and could also be susceptible to a lot of double plays. In addition, the team only has three players with fielding ratings of 7 or higher, and all of those – Giambi, Todd Helton, and round 9 pick Umberto Ander – are very slow. Between low fielding ratings and low speed, this team is going to have trouble whenever a hitter gets past the pitchers and puts the ball in play. As a result, while this is a team that could theoretically win a lot of games by hitting plenty of homers and striking everybody out, in practice I’m not too intimidated by them. They have significant holes in their structure and I can see them struggling to perform.

The biggest question mark for me with this team is: how will they mesh with Cement Gardens? On the one hand, the high buildings bordering most of the outfield are going to give Alsi’s sluggers a hard time. On the other hand, the pavement will speed up his runners, and if he’s able to consistently drive the ball to the wall, he could rack up a lot of singles that way. Plus the left field alleyway could work very well for all of his hitters. But a solid outfield by the opposition would likely decrease these advantages a lot. How will it turn out for them? We’ll have to wait and see.

Super-Duper Melonheads, coached by Eauxps I. Fourgott

-Playing at Steele Stadium

-First two draft picks: Achmed Khan and Luanne Lui

As I elaborate on in my Spring Training report, the Melonheads are the weaker of my two teams and have some definitive flaws. One of these is on defense – while Brad Radke, Ben Olds, and Veronica Lee provide a solid defensive core and Ernie Steele is as good of a first baseman as I could ask for, the rest of my team is a bit light on fielding, and in a practice game showed themselves to be quite error-prone. Despite the pitching talent on the team, this defense isn’t going to give my opponents a very tough time. In addition, despite the strong start, my finished team doesn’t have as much pop in the bat as would be ideal. Achmed can smash homers all day, Veronica can drive the ball well, and my custom Rufus Xavier Sasparilla will be good for slapping out outfield hits, but the rest of the team (including Rufus’s generic replacement Scotty Roth) is a bit low on power and will probably give the infield a lot of balls to play with. Because of this, the Melonheads might well struggle to put up high run counts.

However, I did manage to put together a strong squad in some other respects. With only my very last pick, Ben Olds, sporting a running rating below 6, this is going to be a team that can move around the field with a fair amount of efficiency. They’re not quite a team of speed demons, but they won’t be super-easy double-play bait and the decent speed should help them be near most balls hit against them pretty quickly. I’ve also got no worries as far as pitching is concerned – even if my roster isn’t as great of pitchers as the Cubs, I still have star pitchers Radke and Lulu to anchor a lot of the action, with three solid relievers in Wing Kwan, Chucky Flinder, and Ernie Steele. And while my defense isn’t the best, I have solid arms in just the right places (under my control, at least) around the field to keep runners from advancing too much. A Screaming Linedrive was hit off me to right field at one point, and even through he started on first and had his normal speed, I was able to throw Kenny Kawaguchi out at third without much problem.

Ultimately, what makes or breaks this team will be just how well my star players actually perform. Achmed and Lulu didn’t have the strongest days in Spring Training, and if they produced at full capacity, that alone could boost me up quite a bit. We’ll see how things go, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Melonheads scraping along the bottom of the leaderboard.

Houston Astros, coached by psanchez55

-Playing at Casa de Pablo

-First two draft picks: Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez

psanchez went for four straight pro kids before filling out his roster with generics, but the result is a team of hitters that makes Alsi’s squad look pathetic by comparison. The Astros have five hitters with ratings of 8 or better on their team, headlined by none other than Sammy Sosa, and although Shawn Green’s 8 hitting may not translate into a ton of home run power (as far as I know), A-rod’s 7 hitting makes up for that and makes this a team to make pitchers quake in their boots. And unlike the Cubs, the Astros bring decent speed to the table. While the last three picks are slow as molasses despite their bats, the first six all are 6 running or higher (with only one 6-runner), so they won’t be as dead in the water if they fail to hit it all the way. I’ve also heard that psanchez is a very good BYB player, and so with him at the helm, the Astros may put up some totals to be feared.

However, the powerhouse offense does come with a middling defensive team. Pitching could be something of a problem for this team. Betty Houston can pitch well, and Shawn Green can provide some relief, but from that point on the team will struggle to find solid footing if things go south. And while only two fielders have ratings below 5, the truth is that other than A-rod, this team is not very remarkable on defense. Between their not-terrible speed and not-terrible defense, they’ll be able to do fine, but this team might crumble when faced with a determined offense.

I don’t think there’s much of an unknown factor with this team. Their strength lies on hitting the ball hard and not being terrible in other aspects. Their weakness lies with a middling defense. I think that they have a home field that will suit them well. I expect this team to be my top competition in the division.

Milwaukee Brewers, coached by Ellman

-Playing at Sandy Flats

-First two draft picks: Ichiro and Jimmy Rollins

Looking at Ellman’s roster here, what stands out is the SPEED. Pure unadulterated SPEED. He got a bit shorted in the final round of the draft, getting stuck with 3-running Andres Isben with the second-to-last pick overall, but other than that, every single player has a 7 running rating or higher. Ichiro and J-Rol headline the squad as two very good start-of-the-lineup hitters, and if they get the chance, the whole team can run around the bases over and over again to give the rest of us nightmares.

However, the rest of Ellman’s squad looks uneven to weak. 8-hitting Ichiro is his best hitter, and while J-Rol and Derek McCattery have decent-looking bats, the other kids have either dud bats or middling ratings which could have a variety of effects. Speed can be neutered if you’re hitting most of the balls to strong infielders, and I’m not sure that this team will be able to put many balls in the outfield. Defense is also rather skewed, as while the Brew Crew does have five solid fielders, the remaining four look quite terrible, and might make Ellman resultingly have a hard time containing opposing hitters. Additionally, Ellman has similar pitching woes to psanchez, with McCattery the only strong pitcher and George Coleman the only other decent one. If Milwaukee ends up on the wrong side of the hitters, then the pitching staff could be depleted very very quickly.

But what really makes me think that the Brewers are going to struggle a lot this season is their home field. Sandy Flats is, in my opinion, the most unique field in the game – where speed is stifled and long drives are the only reliable way to get on base. This field has a terrible synergy with the Brewers’ talents. They rely on speed, while Sandy Flats will cut that down significantly. Their hitters won’t be sending many long drives, and so will often become sitting ducks on the basepaths if the defense has enough hustle. The field diminishes their strengths while accentuating their weaknesses, and I can easily see a team of strong hitters like the Cubs or Astros pummeling them into the dust… er, sand.

The big X-factor with this team is how well their mid-range hitters will do. Are all those 5s and 6s players who will struggle to have balls make it to the outfield, or will they be deceptively strong and be able to punch out bunches of base hits? The answer to that question will probably determine Ellman’s fate in the National League.

American League West

Texas Rangers, coached by GreenDayEagles

-Playing at Casa de Pablo

-First two draft picks: Ken Griffey, Jr., Jane Davis

This is a tough team for me to figure out. Looking simply at the number of good batting and good running ratings, it would seem to be a top-notch offense, but when you put the two together for each player, I see a lot of lopsided players who can either hit well but are slow, or have decent running but can’t hit very well (or neither, in the case of Sweet Vincent). Especially when paired with the quirky Casa de Pablo, this could be a devastating combination – for the Rangers. And while there are few truly terrible pitchers, the Rangers are short on top pitching talent. Carlos Delgado and Tom Glass provide a two-8 core, but other than that the pitchers are probably mostly going to be one-trick ponies.

On the other hand, while much of the team’s lineup don’t seem to have the best batting/running synergy, Eagles was able to get a top-notch core trio of Griffey, Davis, and Jason Kendall. Ken and Jane will be able to thwack the ball for miles, and Kendall is a great all-around player, and these three might be able to carry the team. Eagles also put together a strong overall defensive team, with Griffey and Kendall headlining a group of five players with defensive ratings of 7 or above, and only two players with fielding lower than 6. This team probably won’t be putting up a bunch of errors, and could be a hassle to opposing hitters.

I’m not sure what a bigger-picture X-factor would be for this team, but for me, the question is: Is there something I’m not seeing? Is there a big underlying strength that I’ve failed to pick up on? Or is this truly going to be a largely unintimidating team largely carried by a core trio?

Humongous Hornets, coached by GSchlim

-Playing at Sandy Flats

-First two draft picks: Davy Marian (later traded for twin Francis Blewer), Zena Fromme

Former champion coach GSchlim has put together the most specialized squad that I’ve seen yet. This team is incredibly good at hitting and fielding; on the hitting side, they have nobody worse than a five, with six different players who at least seem like they should be capable of smacking the ball a long distance. This team is going to be hitting the ball a lot and hitting it far. In terms of fielding, as well, the team is nearly impeccable – Frank Thomas and Petra Chekov have very low fielding ratings, but everybody else on the team has fielding of 7 or higher, so as long as their arms are as good as suggested, this should be a very hard team to get bonus bases off of indeed.

But, on the flip side, the team has two massive Achilles’ heels: pitching and running. Frank Thomas *is* a star pitcher, but if he ever has a bad day then the Hornets have absolutely nobody to fall back on, with a lone 6-pitcher the next best available. And this team is going to be sssslllloooowwww. There are exactly two players with running ratings of 7 or higher, with a whopping five – over half the team! – possessing speed of four or lower. Whenever GSchlim’s hitters don’t hit the ball hard, they’re going to be sitting ducks on the basepaths, and their lack of speed could also significantly hamper their ability to defend effectively. This team is going to either go big or go home, and it will interesting to see which.

The biggest question mark is how well this team will mesh with their home field of Sandy Flats. On the one hand, their strong hitting is perfect for the long, empty outfields on the beach, and they should be able to hit many balls to remote locations that will take opposing fielders a long, long time to get to. In that respect, this team is perfectly suited for their home field. But on the other hand, you can’t deny that the Hornets will be slow, and Sandy Flats will slow them down even more. His team will be moving across the field at the speed of turtles, and that could turn out to be disastrous. How well he handles the dunes will probably make or break his team’s success.

Oakland Athletics, coached by alsi2843

-Playing at Playground Commons

-First two draft picks: Splash Gilligan, Lorelei Ikaye

If the Hornets have a scary team of hitters, then the Athletics have an even scarier team of hitters. Between this team and Alsi’s Cubs in the NL, I think this coach has a preference for big hitting! He started things off with a power move, making a custom player (Splash Gilligan) equivalent to demigod Jay Green with less pitching ability, and so his first-round slot will be giving enormous headaches to his competition, especially at the plate. Alsi then followed up by taking two other 10-hitters, Ikaye and Nagasawa, in the next two rounds, forming an exceptionally intimidating trio of hitters. Rounding the squad out are two 8s, two 7s, and two 5s, and while Billy Jean Blackwood’s 8 rating doesn’t translate into much power, this is still, on the whole, a team that is going to be destroying baseballs left and right.

And while Alsi’s AL team isn’t especially strong in other respects, they aren’t as weak in pitching or hitting as GSchlim’s group. There are five slower kids on the team, but in this case that equates to 6 or lower in running, not 4 or lower, and Alsi still has four kids with decent speed. And while this team won’t be helping the AL West’s lack of general pitching depth, they still do have three decent pitchers that will probably be able to hold the fort down most of the time, and this provides them with backup if somebody isn’t doing so hot.

Where the A’s are weak, though, is in fielding. Alsi has three good or solid fielders, and then six abysmal fielders (rating 4 or lower). This has the potential to develop into a serious problem, and while the A’s will be able to have a field day on offense, they might end up letting their opponents have just as much of a field day with their poor defense. The talents on this team are also a bit too squished together – all the best runners are also the best hitters, and that could leave the rest of the team high and dry.

Looking at the statistics, I’m having a hard time thinking of any big X-factors, but for me the biggest question is: how will Alsi lead this team? Alsi’s one of the coaches whom I’ve heard the least both from and about since joining the league, and that creates a big question mark in the middle of this. How well any coach leads their team is the deciding factor in victory or defeat, but in this case that’s even more of an unknown than with others.

Seattle Mariners, coached by Eauxps I. Fourgott

-Playing at Scrapco Field

-First two draft picks: Sidney and Ashley Webber

With my budget team, the Mariners, I think I was able to build a solid all-around squad who can perform better than their ratings suggest. Two areas that I think are particularly strong are lack of slow players, and a cohesive and strong defense. While my last two picks are quite slow, my first seven all have running ratings in the 7-9 range, and Fabienne Callahan, one of my slow-pokes, can crush the ball, helping to reduce the impact of her slow speed. For most of the time, the Mariners are going to have some good hustle, which can sometimes make all the difference. And while the fielding ratings don’t look so hot, Sidney and Ashley will be boosted significantly in that department, while I think that Vladimir Guerrero, Lisa Crocket, and Kenny Kawaguchi are all much better fielders than their ratings suggest. I feel like Whitney Singh is the only real weak spot in my fielding crew. In practice, I found that my crew performed quite well defensively as well.

In some situations, though, pitching could prove a liability. I think I’ll be fine when I’m in control – Sidney and Ashley should be able to handle most of the pitching work, while Kenny and Whitney are also available to help out. But that doesn’t change the fact that nobody on my team has a pitching rating higher than 7, and that might be a problem in the hands of the AI. And while my team has five solid bats in their lineup who will work especially well with Scrapco’s shallow left field, there are four less-imposing hitters on the squad who could prove to be a weakness indeed.

Ultimately, what makes or breaks this team’s success is the question: Jack of all trades, or master of one (or two)? Will my team’s all-around talent exceed everybody else’s expectations, or will they be eclipsed by those with a strong specialty? I’m going to skew optimistic, but there’s no telling where this will go.