Chicago is looking scariest so far, just based on their offseason. Their first move was pretty quiet, adding bullpen lefty Zach Duke (a sneaky-good signing). Then they added Adam LaRoche - incidentally, his top 3 search suggestions are "Adam LaRoche Elk", "Adam LaRoche Kills Giant Elk", and "Adam LaRoche Kills Elk", which is better than the typical athlete's search suggestions of "stats", "salary", and "wife" or "girlfriend" - a 35 yr-old 1B with decent power, not-great average, and negligible defense. He'll most likely be the regular DH and bat 4th or 5th. Then they added pitching, trading for Jeff Samardzija and signing David Robertson to close. Chicago needs another bat, but they've done a great job addressing needs so far.
Cleveland just added Brandon Moss via trade with the A's (who are weirdly selling right now, having dealt their top 3 power guys & their #2 pitcher in the past 5 months, and they're probably losing Lester, Lowrie and Gregerson in FA). Moss follows the Adam LaRoche mold, decent power, mediocre batting average, poor defense. This isn't the WOW signing like Chicago getting Samardzija and Robertson, but it fills in the gap in power at the DH spot caused by Nick Swisher falling off the cliff last season. Swisher was worth -1.0 WAR, Moss was worth 2.6 WAR. Cleveland's lineup improved by 3.6 wins. They finished 5 games behind Detroit for the Division and 3 games from making a Wild Card spot, so as minor as this signing was, it's not nothing.
Detroit's biggest move was re-signing Victor Martinez. The Anthony Gose deal barely moves the needle, the Shane Green deal moves it a little more, but I was waiting for something that could flip the script. Chicago got a CLOSER, something that's been an issue for them nearly as long as it's been an issue for the Tigers. Chicago & Cleveland's out-going talent < their in-coming talent. We can't say that about the Tigers. Scherzer is probably gone. Torii Hunter's bat hasn't been replaced in the lineup. There were talks of acquiring Cespedes for Porcello, but those talks seem to have cooled off. The Braves' Justin Upton is being dangled as trade bait and would be a GREAT fit in the lineup (solid power & average, ok speed & defense), but so far there's been no actual traction to this outside of sheer speculation.
Here's my educated guess/hope: Dombrowski is waiting to have Scherzer NEARLY locked up or else totally locked up before then swinging either a Price/Porcello for Cespedes/Upton trade. Dave Dombrowski has openly said he isn't dealing either Price or Porcello unless he has a replacement locked up. I get the feeling he'd rather trade Price (who struggled down the stretch & appears to be on the downhill side, career-wise) than Porcello (basically the opposite of my aside comment on Price), and that he wants to re-up with Scherzer.
Dave (btw, doesn't he look a LOT like Mr. Rogers? Maybe a cross between Mr. Rogers and Chevy Chase? Anyway...) has to know that they need another bat, right? He says he's ready to move forward with the OF as is, but I think that's just a classic GM smokescreen. Some Dombrowski headlines this offseason have been infuriating, like "Dombrowski Satisfied with 'Pen" and "No 'Gaping Hole' in OF," but when you get to his actual quotes, it's more like "We could get better, but we can win with the guys we have." Dombrowski KNOWS he needs another OF bat (preferably a #2 hitter), and he KNOWS he needs another arm in the 'pen. But he can't SAY that, or his guys will feel like he has no faith in them. As of right now, the OF features JD Martinez (who had an All Star-caliber season) in LF or RF and the other 2 spots as basically replacement-level players (Rajai Davis is a bit better than that). They hope Gose is a viable starter at CF, but he looks like a platoon player. This is not a championship level OF.
(This portion previously a bit about Dombrowski inquiring on closer Sergio Romo, mis-reported on mlbtraderumors.com. Barely held myself back from punching mlbtraderumers.com in the face for giving me false hopes. Lester has signed, the top closer on the market has signed, so I expect the rest of the pack to start falling into place.)
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The Pistons SUCK. If Michael Buffer were introducing them, they would be the Master of Disaster, the Epitome of Incompetence, the Singularity of Sucktitude... basically, the opposite of THIS. You get it, they're bad. Their current record is 3-19 and they're on a 13 game losing streak (you math nerds out there have probably figured out that this means they were 3-6 before going in the tank), with losses to 2-18 Philly, the 4-16 T'wolves, and the 6-16 LA Lakers.
The main problem is shooting. The Pistons are the worst shooting team in the league with .404 FG% (league average is about .456%) and 2nd from the bottom in offensive efficiency. At least they start 3 GREAT rebounders, right? RIGHT? Well, Drummond is averaging just under 12, Monroe is just over 9, and Smith is just over 7 per game, but nobody else on the team averages even 4. Detroit gets out-rebounded by 1.1 per game, which isn't a ton except you expect this team to be on the other side of that equation. On top of that, they look like they're sleep-walking through games a LOT of the time (Greg Monroe ESPECIALLY).
That is the LAZIEST "show" I've ever seen on PNR defense. First, Durant could've blown by Monroe if he wanted, based on how bad his footwork was, but passing was a better option because Monroe was a FULL SECOND late rotating back. When he DID decide to rotate back, he did so with all the urgency of a guy who just heard his coach say, "Okay, everybody line up to run suicides!" He doesn't rotate back to the middle until AFTER Durant has thrown his pass, at which point he's already too late. It then takes him 4 seconds to get back into position, by which point the rest of the defense is flying around trying to cover the extra guy.
This is roughly the urgency Monroe plays on every defensive possession, on transition, when the Pistons are on offense and he doesn't have the ball... He looks like a guy who grew up to be 6'10", someone suggested he could make some money playing ball, so he took it up but never loved the game. I don't know if that's Monroe or not, but that's what he's playing like right now. Some of it might be him sulking over his contract situation, or the fact that this team was built by "Bloody Stupid" Johnson, but MAN has he been terrible.
Monroe isn't eligible to be moved for another week, but I would expect a major trade to occur over the next 2-3 weeks if SVG isn't tanking already. The Nets are reportedly selling, although that would involve taking on a TON of salary. Williams, at the position the Pistons most desperately need to upgrade, is on the decline and is owed an average of $21M thru the end of the 2016-'17 season (one of the worst contracts in the NBA, equal to Josh Smith PLUS Jodie Meeks). Brook Lopez has probably the best deal (still owed a lot at $16M/yr thru next season), but he's only marginally better than Monroe.
The Nets are maybe the only team in the league with a worse position than Detroit, since Boston owns their picks in the 2016 & 2018 drafts and has the option to swap 2017 picks with them. Without draft picks to sweeten a deal, Brooklyn is going to have to take on a LOT of that salary if they want Joe Johnson, Deron Williams, and/or Brook Lopez gone. I'd like to get Deron Williams if the Nets are willing to pay around half of the rest of what he's owed (we'd still be doing them a favor, since he's getting paid about 3 times what he's worth right now). Not sure how that trade works out or even happens, but keep an eye on those trade rumors in the next 2-3 weeks.
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Actual GOOD NEWS in Detroit Sports: the Wings are SWEET! Pavel Datsyuk has stayed healthy and has been on a tear (22 pts in 17 games), but they also started getting better production from the Weiss-Sheahan-Franzen line (Franzen is a guy who is SO frustrating & has me yelling his name like Kirk yelling, "KHAAAAANNN!)
But Datsyuk has been the MAN, and Tomas Tatar (with 12 goals, tied for the team lead with Datsyuk & Nyquist) have been instrumental in moving the offense. The powerplay has been LOADS better this year, and they're getting more quality chances. Can we get to the playoffs already?
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