S30 AL North Preview

AL North
Last season Milwaukee won the division with an 82-80 record.  It was the first time that franchise has EVER won the division title.  New York came in second, 10 games under .500.  It was the seventh straight season in which New York has finished in either 2nd or 3rd place.  Kansas City finished in third place.  It was the seventh straight season in which Kansas City has not made the playoffs.  Dover finished in last place.  It snapped an impressive streak of 11 straight winning seasons.

Kansas City Yardbirds (Holleybard 4th season)
Payroll-$70.2m
Draft Pick-#9

Season 30 grades
OFFENSE  C+
Hitting  C+
Power  C  
Speed  C

PITCHING C-
Starters C+
Relievers D-

Fielding A

Dover Dinklebergs (tmfran 13th season)
Payroll-$89.5m
Draft Pick-#2

Season 30 grades
Offense  C
Hitting  C
Power  C
Speed  D-

Pitching   D+
Starters   D-
Relievers  C-

Fielding-A-


New York Damage Controllers (Skuff730 11th season)
Payroll-$89m
Draft Pick-#13

Season 30 grades
Offense  C+
Hitting  C
Power   B-
Speed  A

Pitching  D
Starters  D
Relievers  D

Fielding  D



Milwaukee Magnitude(Horvie78 5th season)
Payroll-$77.7m
Draft Pick-#21

Season 30 grades
Offense C+
Hitting  C
Power  B-
Speed C+

Pitching  B+
Starters B
Relievers  A

Fielding  B


Predictions

All of these teams hit pretty close the same.   Milwaukee has a far better pitching staff than the rest of the division, so they should probably run away with it.  Kansas City is probably right behind them with their strong defense.    Dover and New York are about on even playing fields, however Dover's defense is way better than New York.  So I'll pick them to place third.  New York will finish at the bottom.  Just a side note that New York seems to have 9 starting pitchers on their roster.  I found that a little odd.

1. Milwaukee
2. Kansas City
3. Dover
4. New York

Press Releases-
Kansas City-As I go into Year 4 with the Yardbirds, my goal is fairly simple: top 800 runs for the season. If that happens, the Yardbirds will likely win 80-something games, which could be enough to nab a wildcard spot. Every fiber of my baseball being KNOWS that putting everything on the offense is just wrong, but the reality is that's our best chance of success right now. Sticky is the man as our ace, and Clint Buddie is a solid 2. As usual, the 3-4-5 slots are shaky, and I didn't do enough in the offseason to change that. And by enough, I mean nothing! I wanted Rock Randall badly, but that didn't work out. I also offered Olmedo Johnson (.292/.367/.407, 42 SBs) to ghutton for some of his pitching, and that didn't work out, either. I'm hopeful that Mr. Johnson will be a professional and not sulk about being used as trade bait. ("It's business, Sonny! It's not personal!") What I'm relying on is the continued stardom of Hugh Paterson, who is just scratching the surface of his potential and still posted a MVP finalist season (33 HRs, 125 RBI, 45 doubles, 8 triples, 19 SB). We made slight upgrades at CF, 1B, and DH. If they work out, topping 800 shouldn't be a problem. But, oh, that pitching. I see 85-77 in the Yardbirds' future. We'll see where that takes us.

Milwaukee- I think we have a good chance to win the division, but we're not at the level of some of the elite AL teams. The pitching and fielding should be decent. The starters are old, but nobody had any major declines. Ben Boyer has been awesome out of the pen, and Tex Wagner had a nice season as the closer. The offense should be below average and needs at least 1 more great bat. was hoping to add a stud DH/1B, but there wasn't much available in FA. Zip Sullivan and ROY John Martin should be our top hitters. Hoping Michael Chong (16M IFA) has a nice rookie season.