Mailbag Q & A: Santana, Glaus, Phillies, Tigers
We have received some questions from our readers, and figured it was time to fire-up a Mailbag for you guys. So let’s get to it!
Question: Timothy from New York asks: What’s the deal with the Johan Santana situation? It’s getting kind of old, where do you guys think he’ll end up?
Answer: Fleece Factor responds: Was just touching base on this in our most recent Johan post. It’s tough to tell at this point Tim. Hank Steinbrenner is in, and he’s out, and he’s in again. The Yankees package of Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, and one or two other prospects has remained consistent since it was rumored at the Winter Meetings. The Twins had wanted Ian Kennedy as the third prospect, and the Yankees balked. The Red Sox have been quiet recently, but we can assume their offer led by Jon Lester is still out there. My guess is he ends up on the Mets. Omar Minaya loves making the big splash, even though he has been quiet thus far this off-season. The most recent rumors have the Mets taking the lead, offering up a package of four of their top prospects. The Twins are holding our for outfield prospect Fernando Martinez. My guess is Omar takes the bait, and trades five prospects for Johan Santana.
Question: Brad from St.Louis asks: Troy Glaus? Seriously?
Answer: Fleece Factor responds: Tough deal, Brad. Listen, it is no secret Larussa 
Question: Tony B. from Philadelphia asks: The Phillies won the NL East last season by one game, yet neither the Phills nor the Mets made significant improvements this off-season to take a strangle hold of the division. I mean, the Phillies got Lidge, the Mets got Church and Schneider. How do you see 2008 playing out? Thanks!
Question: Jackson from Michigan asks: Miguel Cabrera & Dontrelle Willis = 2008 World Series champs?
Answer: Fleece Factor responds: Too early to tell, Jackson. Tremendous deal for 
Question: Paula from Florida asks: I got my boyfriend a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, and in return I got a gift certificate to a nail salon. Did I get fleeced?
Answer: Fleece Factor responds: Yes, yes you did.
Thanks everyone! Sorry we couldn’t get to all the questions this time around. Feel free to send us some good questions for the next Mailbag at MLBFleeceFactor@GMAIL.COM. Thanks!
Filed under: _Mailbag
What … You don’t even mention the Braves in the fight for the NL EAST? Smoltz, Hudson, Glavine, Maybe Hampton. Chipper, Tex, Francour, MacCann. Stronger bench from Last..
The Braves will be competetive with Smoltz & Hudson….Glavine is a marginal starter at this point in his career. For the Mets, he struggled to post more than 6 innings, and got shelled once every few starts. Their bullpen is suspect, Hampton is always hurt, and even if he’s healthy, who knows what you’ll get? I do like Chuck James a bit, but he is no difference maker. I think the Braves will hang around, but they lost Andruw and replaced him with Kotsay. I know Andruw had a poor year last year, but that’s a huge drop-off. Chipper needs to stay healthy for the Braves to be in the race.
Hey, I could be wrong. A three-team race would be far more exciting, so hopefully the Bravos can make it more competetive than I anticipate. Even with Tex, Chipper, and McCann….the Phills have Rollins, Howard, and Utley while the Mets have Reyes, Wright, and Beltran. So they don’t have a decided advantage with their “big-3″.
I like the Phills, too. If the Mets make no more moves, the Braves could “possibly” compete with them for 2nd place, I suppose, but I like the division to shake out like this:
Phillies
Mets
Braves
Nationals
Marlins
The NL West is going to be the division to watch in the NL, anyways. The D’Backs are a year older, and very strong. Rockies are defending NL Champs…SD has great pitching, but no offense…they can be pretty good. And LA has all those young prospects with a decent staff led by Penny.
The Phillies are not as good as winning the N.L. East last year might suggest.
Agreed, Sean. But is there a team in the NL East that does not have significant weaknesses? Perhaps “No Braves Love” has a point as far as the Braves being contenders in the division, we shall see!
I can’t say the Phillies aren’t the favorites going in the way the Mets ended the season, but I’m not willing to to call it yet. None of these teams have drastically improved or regressed in my eyes, and it was only a one win difference in the division. Plus the Mets had to play absolutely atrocious baseball to land at 88 wins. They flat out underplayed, but they’re clearly at least an average team. If they managed to play like one in September, they’d have taken the division. I’m not saying the Mets deserved it or were a better team, you can say similar things about the Phils and their terrible April, I’m just pointing out that the Mets underplayed just about as badly as they possibly could and still only finished one game out. Its hard to call the reigning champion the favorite by default in this scenario.
Unless Santana winds up in the NL East, this division could come down to which team sees the most improvement from its youth corps. If I’m a Philly fan, this is also what I’m afraid of. The Mets and Braves both have a pretty decent set of young players who could see improvement (or regression as well). The Mets have Wright, Reyes, Maine, Perez, Pelfrey, and Smith. All very talented, but you’d be hard pressed to convince me that any of them have already seen their best years. The Braves have McCann, Francouer, James, Jojo Reyes, Jurjenns, and B. Jones. Less sexy names, but a lot of talent there that could contribute in 2008.
When I look at the Phils, the only player I can unequivocally say hasn’t reached his ceiling yet and should contribute significantly in 2008 is Cole Hamels. Howard and Utley are great, sure, but they are what they are. They’re not going to make the team better in 2008 than it was in 2007. Rollins is also one who’s clearly peaking at the prime of his career.
The Phils are what they are: an 85-90 win type team. They lost Rowand and his career year, but they’ve slotted Myers back into the rotation. We’ll see how it goes with Lidge. Given his history of problems with the HR ball (both on the field and in his head), his propensity for flyballs, and pitching in CBP with those fans, I’m not sold that’s going to work so well.
If either the Mets or Braves somehow improve to a 90+ win team, they’ll probably take the division. So again, without a big wild card getting thrown into the Mix like Santana, its going to come down to whether the Mets or Braves can find enough improvement from their talented young players to pass 90 wins. It would probably take a little luck from either team, but its far from inconceivable. Nor is it inconceivable that both teams see some of their young players regress, in which case they could finish below 85 wins and likely in third place.
Nitendo Wii to Boyfriend for Christmas:$300
Gift Card to a Nail Salon to Girlfriend for Christmas:$50
Boyfriend not getting sex till Easter:Priceless and funny
Mr Fleece… I disagree with a couple of your points. I think Glavine should be a solid $8 Million dollar innings eater for the braves. He did pitch over 200 innings last year. The only mets pitcher to do so. Also I believe 23 of his 34 starts were quality starts. Hopefully he keeps the bullpen rested, and the braves in most games. You state the Braves bullpen is “suspect”. Really..The Bravos bullpen was 3rd in the NL last year in ERA . That was with our closer Wickman doing so bad he got relased, and Gonzalez having TJ surgery. Yes the other relievers aren’t all-stars, but they have done some good solid relief work. And one last thing… we replaced AJs defense with Kotsay, we replaced AJs offense with TEX. We replaced Thorman’s Offense with Kotsay. Glad you do look over the comments. Renteria will be missed I think.
GO BRAVES
In this day in age where # 4 starters are scoring $10 million a season, $8 million for Glavine is not a bad deal. He is a professional. His 200 innings are more a product of his amazing health (the guy is never, ever hurt), so in that regard at least you know he’ll take the ball every 5th day!
AJ is the one of the best best defensive center fielders in the game, so Kotsay doesn’t exactly replace his defense, but he can be a solid contributor. You’re right, the loss of Renteria will hurt. TEX can rake, no doubt about it, and it’s a contract year. Like I said before, the success of the Braves, I think, will depend a lot on Chipper’s ability to stay on the field. Last year he played 134 games, the two prior seasons he did not play more than 110 games. We shall see!
Chipper Jones is ridiculous!!
Yes, yes he is!
Yeah, No Braves love, see how you like when you’re team gets shelled twice a month when Glavine pitches. I can’t wait until the Mets get to blast on him. You many see Wright tee off on Glavine more than any hitter-pitcher tandem in the majors (besides maybe Wright and Jaime Moyer).
Speaking of Jamie Moyer, I wonder what his fastball will top-out at this year. Maybe he can pump-it up to 82 MPH on the gun? Or is that asking too much?
I know my stomach might regret it, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a three-team race all year long. I work with a Braves fan, and it would be nice to see him participate in our lunchtime baseball discussions again, It’s been a while.
Nice and tight right to the end, and may the best team win.
BBallDude… Careful I might have to remined you that Chipper has owned the mets in the past and continues to ” blast on” Mets pitching more than any hitter. Especially at Shea. He likes killing the mets so much at Shea, didn’t he even name his kid Shea? As for Glavine getting shelled, it seems you may be right. It looks as though about once a month he had a bad game last year, except for his last 3 starts which were real bad.
Chipper is overrated.
Yeah, Glavine is the worst. I would NEVER want to see that guy in a Mets uni ever again after that piss-poor display the last day of the season. Guy never wanted to be in NY. So, let him go nibble the corners in ATL. And when he doesn’t get the call, he can continue to be stubborn and not throw strikes, so he will get shelled there too.
Franklin,
Although I do agree that it was the right choice by the Mets to let him leave, Glavine is not “the worst.” He gave the Mets some good years and some good starts, especially in 2006.
Chipper over rated??? What about the mets over”wrighted” third baseman? 21 errors and he wins the gold glove? No way…. way over rated, I heard David Wright even won a Golden Globe he’s so overrated….
I agree that Chipper is not overrated. He is one of the finest 3B’s ever, and one of the best switch hitters ever. If I had to pick one active player to take one at bat, Chipper would be in my top 10 most likely.
On to Wright: Wright should not have won the gold glove, but we all know that award means nothing. It’s voted on by a bunch of homers instead of real baseball evaluators. The homers would rather see Derek Jeter win instead of Alex Gonzalez, and David Wright instead of Pedro Feliz.
I’ll agree that Wright didn’t deserve the award, but until he won it I would have argued his defense was underrated. His range and hands are both excellent, but his arm is average-below average. Especially at a position like third, fielding errors can more be a function of a player being able to get to more balls than you’d expect. The majority of Wright’s fielding errors were balls that most third basemen would not have even gotten to, therefore they wouldn’t have received an error.
Another good example of this is Ryan Zimmerman. Defense is widely considered his best tool, yet he committed 23 errors in 2007, mostly because:
A. He’s an incredibly aggressive defender.
B. He got to more balls than the average third baseman.
I’ll agree with that, Mark. He definitely gets to more balls than most 3B’s, which may result in more errors.
Just another reason why “errors” can’t be the only factor in evaluating defense.
I think Jose Reyes has underrated defense. He had the highest fielding percentage for a shortstop until the collapse.
I wouldn’t call Jose’s defense underrated. He’s widely regarded as a future (and possibly perennial) gold glover. I’d call his defense spectacular before I called it underrated. His range is outstanding and his arm is an absolute cannon. His biggest problem is and always has been mental lapses. Until the last couple months, I’d have assumed Reyes was the leader by a mile for the GG, but when he started slumping at the plate he carried it into the field. He made some mistakes you’d NEVER expect him to make anymore. He didn’t always watch the ball all the way into his glove, failed to be in position to cutoff throws from the outfield, etc. Failing to run out ground balls a couple times in the second half was a symptom of the same issue.
Still, I could see Reyes and Tulo having some great Gold Glove battles for many years to come. They both have outstanding range, hands, and arms. Tulo’s got the better arm, but Reyes has (and given his size/speed will probably maintain) better range. Still, its not like either particularly suffers in any area defensively, they’re both amazingly well rounded, especially for their ages.