With two weeks behind us in this young baseball season, there are a high number of what could be called "surprise teams" in baseball right now. There are also a number of teams that are underperforming expert expectations. Allow me to come to your aid and provide hope to the hopeless and rain on a few parades.
1. Florida Marlins
Fish fans are understandably excited about the Marlins' Major League-best record of 11-2. However, as last night's 8-0 loss to the Pirates illustrated, they're not as good as they look. Suffice it to say, it's easy to win when six of your 13 games are against the Washington Nationals.
Offensively, the Marlins are striking out more than all but one team in the Major Leagues. Their team batting average is just .261 with an on-base percentage of .333. They are in the middle of the pack for almost every important offensive statistic.
Things are looking pretty mediocre on the other side of the ball as well. There's a lot of hype about the great young Marlins rotation, and that's true. Their pitchers are ranked eighth in the Majors for strikeouts, and they keep their walks down to a reasonable rate.
The problem is in the fielding. The Marlins may rank sixth in team ERA with a nice 3.63 line, and they're ranking in the top third as far as total runs allowed, but they've got a team WHIP of 1.42 and are simply allowing too many hits to fall. That puts a lot of pressure on those pitchers, who feel like that they HAVE to strike out the batters, and this team's shoddy defense is going to catch up to them.
Now for some realistic hope for Marlins fans: this IS a great young team. This is probably not their year, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this team win somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 games this year, and I think in a few years they'll be the class of the NL East.
2. Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa has some of the same offensive issues thus far as the Marlins, with only a .266 team average and .333 team on-base percentage. You could say their hitters have stumbled out of the gate. That's the bad news.
The good news is that they're tied with the Yankees for fourth in the Majors at hitting the long ball, sitting pretty at 20 team homers. They also have a .472 team slugging percentage, which suggests that when they hit the ball, they hit it with authority for a lot of extra bases. That's a good thing.
In addition, the Rays have a Major League-leading 19 team steals, and have only been thrown out attempting to steal once. That kind of base-stealing efficiency from the entire lineup can really bring another element to the table from this team.
As many analysts have been quick to point out, a lot of the Rays success last season had to do with an improved team defense, and their defense is still playing well. They have a horrendous team ERA of 5.37, but have not surrendered any unearned runs this season.
The problem lies in the pitching. This rotation has not been striking out as many batters as they're expected to, and have been walking far too many.
However, I expect all this to change. With David Price coming up later this year, the Rays will have a rotation featuring Scott Kazmir, James Shields, Matt Garza, Andy Sonnanstine and David Price.
Will Price single-handedly reverse their fortunes? No, but he's a significant improvement over Jeff Niemann, and the rest of this staff is due to start striking out batters at a rate they're more accustomed to and things will fall into place.
The bottom line is that this is a young team that won 97 games last season in baseball's toughest division, and that's no fluke. They can only improve from here. Keep your heads up, Rays fans.
3. Cleveland Indians
The Indians were a disappointment last year. I don't expect this year to be a repeat of that performance.
Cleveland has a 4-9 record. They also have a ridiculous team OBP of .380, are tied for second with 22 home runs, and are second in the league in slugging with .495. Simply put, this is a murderer's row. Offense alone could easily carry this team to 92 wins, even if the defense and pitching only put up league average numbers.
The problem thus far is that the pitching has been VERY below average. League worst, in fact. The Indians have an ugly team ERA of 6.95 and have given up 23 home runs, more than all but two teams. They're in the bottom third of strikeouts and have issued more free passes than any other team.
Is there any hope? Who knows. This staff needs to start performing. All of their batted ball data is right about what you would expect, so we can't exactly fault bad luck here, but at the same time I think we can.
We all know what kind of season Cliff Lee had last year. We know that Fausto Carmona and Carl Pavano usually pitch better than they have this year. Anthony Reyes is not very good, but Aaron Laffey still has a lot of untapped potential.
If the Indians can make a deal or call up someone that's at least a solid pitcher, I think the rest of this rotation can and will turn things around. They've simply been underperforming, and I expect them to pull it together and start at least doing a few things to limit the damage enough for their offense to start winning games.
4. Los Angeles Angels
Thought to be one of the best offensive teams in the Major Leagues before the season began, they've been disappointing so far in that category.
The Angels pitching has been bad, but not so far below average that they can't keep the team in games for the offense to win. The problem with this team lies almost entirely on lack of hitting.
LA currently has a .250 team average, .316 on-base percentage and .360 slugging percentage. Those are pathetic numbers for any team, let alone one that was thought to be so good.
Batted ball data suggests a slight regression from the average. Their BABIP is .287, their line drive percentage is only 15.4. Both of those numbers are due for a correction, and when they correct themselves we'll see the team offense look better as well.
Of course, we know the reason the Angels are this bad. All of their stars are currently injured. Three pitchers out of their starting rotation are on the DL, as is offensive star Vlad Guerrero. As a result, the team is left in shambles. When their stars come back, I expect the Halos to live up to all those expectations we had for them pre-season.
5. San Diego Padres
The Friars are off to a hot start at 9-4.
Knowing what we know about Petco Park, we can probably assume that their pitching will continue to look good, even if they don't start striking out more batters. They're not walking too many batters either, so for the most part they can let their pitcher-friendly park do the work for them.
What we can't assume, however, is that they'll be able to keep scoring runs. The team only has a .261/.339/.438 line with only an average amount of home run pop.
There is exactly one hitter on this team with any promise, being Chase Headley. The rest are marginal players and veterans way past their prime.
There's a good farm system in San Diego right now, and they've got a lot of hope vested in their future, but this is definitely not a team that will continue to win this season.
Sixty Feet, Six Inches is an Indianapolis based sports blog covering a wide range of sports. If you like what you read here, check out our home page for more. Sixty Feet, Six Inches
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