Prior to the season, we embarked on an ambitious ‘Off the Rankings’ series at Off the Bench, creating hierarchies for all sorts of things to give our audience some interesting– and informative– preseason reading. Today, I want to republish my 2016 preview piece listing the top 10 ‘lynchpin players’ and see how I did. The original intro below lays out my working definition of lynchpin, and the post itself spells out my reasoning.
I’ve italicized all the old stuff from March; the normal text are reflections, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight:
In this installment Off the Rankings, we’re going to take a look at the player’s whose individual performances will most impact their teams the most this season. If these guys excel, chances are the whole team will, but if they fail, the team will likely flounder as well.
Some are pitchers who are charged with leading staffs and others are hitters who are either the big bat or the most important supporting piece, but for all of these guys, pressure is going to be a fact of life in 2016.
Be sure to check out our other Off The Rankings posts as we’ll be providing great content all week and month leading up to Opening Day. We’ll also be providing great content after Opening Day, so check us out then too.
Ok, let’s see what happened.
10. Albert Pujols, 1B/DH, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Albert Pujols’ offensive decline has been well documented, it’s not new news that his OBP and AVG have dropped every year this decade and he’s no longer near the best hitter in baseball, as he was during his time in St. Louis. But just because Pujols is no longer capable of terrorizing the best pitchers in the game doesn’t mean he isn’t vitally important for the Angels’ chances this season.
There are two key reasons why Pujols is so important. First, and most importantly, the Angels lineup is pretty suspect beyond Mike Trout. Someone needs to protect and compliment baseball’s best player and there’s no obvious person besides The Machine. If Pujols is the one dimensional slugger he appeared to be last season, that would be (sad and disappointing but) fine, but he needs to be at least that much.
Second, the Angels have so much money sunk into Pujols that if he’s awful, they’re in trouble. Of course, this team probably won’t be good anyway but without some production from Pujols, this is going to be a disaster.
Hmm. Interesting start. Pujols has been objectively very good this season, but the Angels have nonetheless been very bad. LA is 61-75. Their pitching has been a disaster and they would be in last place if not for the disaster of a calamity playing in Oakland. As predicted, the Angels’ offense is Trout, Pujols, and nothing else. But Albert has done his part. He’s leading baseball with 108 RBIs, he’s batting a respectable .268, and has 29 homers entering Sunday. He’s only got a bWAR of 1.4 because his defense has really cratered but he certainly can’t be considered a disappointment.
9. Ervin Santana, SP, Minnesota Twins
The Twins want to be this year’s 2014 Royals and come from nowhere to win the AL Central. They think they have the offense to do it and with Miguel Sano and others, they might be right. But I’m very suspicious about their pitching staff. Phil Hughes is the nominal ace but Santana is the most talented pitcher on the staff. Can he be 2013 Ervin and throw 200+ quality innings or will he be 2015 Ervin and struggle to stay healthy and effective.
Again, bad, bad team but it is not really Ervin’s fault. If I was right and the Twins really did want to make a run at it….oops. They are arguably baseball’s worst. Still, it’s not Santana’s fault. He has a perfectly respectable 3.54 ERA and 3.70 FIP. His bWAR is already 1.2 wins higher than he had all of last year.
8. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Arizona Diamondbacks
The Diamondbacks thought they were good last year. They were wrong. They think they’re good this year, we’ll see. Arizona has a much much much better pitching staff with Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller at the top, but they’ll need to hit too.
Goldschmidt is one of baseball’s quietest superstars and one of the game’s best hitters by any measure. There’s little doubt that he’ll hit if healthy. The bigger question is whether his offense will be enough to carry the team in a very tough NL West.
I’m beginning to sense a theme here. Very bad team, pretty good player. The Dbacks are a dumpster fire, to the point that its likely that the whole front office will be replaced, but Goldschmidt is once again carrying whatever’s left of Arizona’s offense. He’s 20-20 already with 20 homers and 23 steals, which is really impressive from a first basemen. He’s batting .298 and has put up a respectable 4.3 WAR en route to his 4th straight All Star team. He’s not lighting the world on fire like he did in 2015, but it’s definitely not his fault that Arizona is this bad.
7. Matt Holliday, OF, St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals take a balanced approach to offense, they don’t tend to rely on any one hitter all that much. However, with the departure of Jason Heyward and the injury to Jhonny Peralta, the offense will need to come from somewhere. Holliday is likely to move to first base this year, a trouble position for the Cards in 2015. If he’s good, the team will be in much better shape to repeat as 100 game winners.
The Cardinals are battling for a second wild card spot in the NL and Holliday hasn’t been much help. He’s batting a career low .242 and has just 19 home runs and a 0.0 WAR. Replacement level is not exactly what the Cards wanted or needed from their star left fielder and he might be considered a top lynchpin player for the month of September as St. Louis fights to make the playoffs. At this point, just one or two extra wins could make a world of difference. It would have been nice if Holliday could have accounted for those so far.
6. Robinson Cano, 2B, Seattle Mariners
Cano got a boatload of money to come to Seattle and it has’t worked out very well. We all know he struggled last year, though he was much better at the end of the season when he was presumably healthy. With a new front office and manger in Seattle, the team will be eager to compete and shed its offensive struggles from the last few years. Given his ability and contract, Cano will have to be center of that. Seattle is one of those teams that could win the AL West or finish last; they have a very high ceiling and a comparably low floor. Robinson’s performance will go a long way toward determining which one they end up at.
The Mariners are 2 games over .500, but not really in the playoff hunt. Cano has done his part to try though, he’s hit 31 bombs and batted .304. From a second basemen, I’m not sure you could expect any more. Cano is once again among the game’s best but the rest of the team hasn’t done anywhere near its part, and that was the fear when Cano signed with Seattle in the first place.
5. Yasiel Puig, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers expect to compete for the title this year. They have Clayton Kershaw at the top of the rotation and a pitching staff heavily shaped by the new front office regime, a regime that was very successful running the show in Tampa. Whether or not the fans agree at this point, the Dodgers feel good about where they are.
Offense is where things could get hairy. Adrian Gonzalez is great but beyond him, LA is counting on a lot of guys who are either very young and without proven track records, or aging and unreliable. If Puig performs like he did last season, he’ll be putting even more pressure on the likes of Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier to cover for him, but if he gets back to 2014 Puig, or even the 2013 version of himself which took the league by storm, the Dodgers will be tough to stop.
Obviously, I got this one wrong. The Dodgers are in first place and will be in the hunt for the playoffs from here on out. Puig, however, has only recently been recalled from AAA. He’s apparently a clubhouse cancer and when he isn’t hitting, there’s no reason to put up with his nonsense. The Dodgers didn’t let him go to Milwaukee when he was claimed on waivers last week, but that he made it that far is all the evidence you need (as if you needed more) that LA is pretty well done with this guy.
If Puig had lived up to his billing, the Dodgers might be 5 or 6 games up on the Giants instead of just 3. But clearly, they’re able to compete pretty darn well without him.
4. Mark Teixeira, 1B, New York Yankees
Teixeira wouldn’t have made this list before Greg Bird went down with injury last month. The Yankees have a lot of question marks: Carlos Beltran, Chase Headley, Alex Rodriguez, Jacoby Ellsbury all need to play well for New York to keep pace with Toronto, Boston, Tampa, and Baltimore, but the difference with Tex is the lack of depth. At all those other positions, the Yankees have other options but at first, without Bird, its just Dustin Ackley if Teixeira can’t stay healthy or perform. I’d hoped the Yankees would go after Pedro Alvarez after Bird go hurt but the team clearly believes in Ackley and Tex. It seems unlikely he’ll repeat last season’s performance but the Yankees would be thrilled with just 80% of that.
Clearly, things did not go according to plan for Teixeira- unless that plan was to announce his retirement mid-season. The soon to be former Yankee has been awful this season, batting just .200 with 13 homers, and the team has struggled because of it. The wave of young players seems to have reenergized the Yankees and they are miraculously not dead yet, but Tex should get no credit for that.
3. Bryce Harper, OF, Washington Nationals
We all know that Harper is great. His 2015 season was an All-Timer but the Nats still didn’t reach the playoffs, a major disappointment for a heavily favored club. Of course, Washington has a number of other big name, high expectation players. Given this team’s consistent history of failing to live up to expectations, if Harper isn’t spectacular, they might not have much of a chance.
Harper has been a big disappointment this season, but the Nats seem not to have noticed much. Washington is arguably the 3rd best team in baseball, with a comfortable lead in the NL East, but that has much more to do with great seasons from Daniel Murphy, Trea Turner, Wilson Ramos, and the pitching staff, and a resurgent one from Jayson Werth, than anything Harper has done.
Bryce is hitting just .251 with 23 homers, which certainly isn’t bad, but isn’t anywhere near his MVP season last year.
2. Rick Porcello, SP, Boston Red Sox
Last year, Porcello was supposed to be one of the anchors of a well balanced Red Sox staff. That didn’t go well. This year, he’s supposed to be a middle of the rotation arm behind a bona fide ace in David Price, and that’s a role that suits him much better. If Porcello is solid and Price is Price, the Red Sox are looking at a pretty good top of the rotation, even if they can’t really count on Clay Buchholz. If he posts another 4.92 ERA over 28 starts, Boston will have a lot of trouble competing in a tough AL East.
I think I nailed this one. Boston is in a dogfight for the AL East title and the Wild Card, and a big reason why is Porcello’s dominance. Rick won’t win the Cy Young but he’s getting some buzz thanks to his league leading 19 wins and 3.23 ERA. He also leads the league in k/bb and has been a great second fiddle to David Price.
1. Marcus Stroman, SP, Toronto Blue Jays
The Jays are riding high after last year’s division championship and trip to the ALCS, despite losing ace David Price. They think they should be able to make another run deep into the playoffs and, given that they have baseball’s best offense, featuring the game’s best shortstop, two of the top power hitters, and the reigning AL MVP, they should be right.
However, the rotation wreaks of 2015 Red Sox. It’s a lot of ‘okay-not-great’ pitchers without a clear stopper. Besides Stroman. The Jays are counting on 5’8″ 24 year old to emerge as a front line starting pitcher, as THE front line starting pitcher, just a year removed from missing the vast majority of the season with a bad knee injury.
There is no doubt Stroman is great, and he threw 160 innings in 2014, but he’s never been counted on to be the top guy over the course of a season, let alone on a team that expects to legitimately compete. If he’s great, chances are the team will be ok. If he struggles, the rest of the staff is ill-equipped to pick up the slack.
Stroman has not been good in his age 25 season. He’s thrown 173 innings, which is good, but he’s spent most of the second half trying to work his ERA down from above 6. He’s now got it at 4.58, which reflects some serious progress, but not consistency or anything close to what Toronto had hoped.
The Jays are still in first place and in the driver’s season in the AL East, but that’s due primarily to their potent offense and JA Happ. They’ll need Stroman in October though.
-Max Frankel
