Winter State

With the weather keeping me inside for a few days, I thought I'd endeavor to place some sort of holistic ratings on the teams in NASOMA to get a handle on where we stand as we enter the 2014 season.

Please understand that the following rankings do not take into account any prospects for the future - it's just an idea of how good we'll be next year. I used the Winter Tracker, so if you own players who are NOT listed on there, they were not taken into consideration. And obviously there's nothing scientific about it. I simply rated all 16 teams in four categories: draft pick situation, hitters, starting rotation, and bullpen. So yes, pitching counts twice as much as hitting in this rather shoddy system, but there's some adage out there that supports that premise, I believe. I considered adding Intangibles as a 5th category, but that would have had to include such things as "The Buckeyes always win" and "The Rhinos always cave and draft for the future" and "The Drillers suck"... things like that. And it all seemed too obvious to mess with. Anyway, I assigned each group a score of 1-10, with this rubric:

10 - the best, hard to improve this area

7-8-9 - pretty dang good

6 - slightly above average

5 - average

4 - slightly below average

3-2-1 - in need of repair

There aren't too many surprises. There are four ratings of 10 - twice for rotations, once for lineup, and once for draft picks. There are two ratings of 1 - both for bullpen. The Fungoes are the obvious team to beat. The MFD will have quite the race, as will the AWD. The Tweener totals surprised me a little, but there's no denying that's a talented pitching staff. Even the BUD, winners of the last two Higdons, will have an interesting race for first, although the winner is due a #4 playoff seed and the 12th pick in next year's draft.

The keys will be the trades that happen between now and the draft, the draft itself, and then the watch to see which teams give up the ghost and take aim at 2015.

And here we go...

Warpigs
Draft: 4 - An early pick (#2) saves this from being even lower since they have no 2nd.
Lineup: 2 - Yadi and Prince. That's it. The cupboard is bare.
Rotation: 10 - Wainwright, JFernandez, Zimmermann, and Strasburg earn the first 10.
Bullpen: 1 - Only because the ratings don't go any lower.

Wahoos
Draft: 10 - And here's the second rating of 10. They have 6 of the first 19; 9 of the first 36.
Lineup: 4 - Pedroia is joined by new acquisitions VMart, Beltran, and Aoki. But not much else.
Rotation: 4 - Anibal is pretty good, but Verlander, Gee, and Buehrle will be very hittable.
Bullpen: 1 - Right now if you call the bullpen, no one will answer.

DVs
Draft: 5 - All their own picks. They pick 7th.
Lineup: 5 - Holliday, Craig, Stanton, ARam, Kinsler.
Rotation: 4 - Latos, Weaver, Lynn, Porcello... maybe 4.5
Bullpen: 4 - Clippard is good and Breslow helps.

FFTs
Draft: 4 - No 1st or 4th.
Lineup: 4 - HanRam, Napoli, and Pence, but a lot of holes.
Rotation: 5 - Kuroda, Samardzija, Liriano, Masterson, Leake
Bullpen: 3 - The last Mariano card(?), but it's pretty good.

Rhinos
Draft: 2 - One pick in the first 90, and it's #59. Hard to help your team like that.
Lineup: 8 - Maybe the 2nd best in the league going in: Votto, Cano, Tulo, Gomez, Myers...
Rotation: 3 - Hudson, Garza, CC. If not for Gerritt Cole, this is probably a 2.
Bullpen: 4 - Jansen and O'Day are stout, but nothing else.

Fungoes
Draft: 5 - Their own picks, and they pick 9th.
Lineup: 7 - Trout is awesome, but plenty of help coming from Carpenter, Hosmer, and Zimmerman.
Rotation: 10 - Another perfect 10. Kershaw, Price, Harvey, Medlen, and even D.Holland.
Bullpen: 7 - Papelbon, Perkins, Cishek, and Robertson allow the league's best drafter to draft bats.

Inmates
Draft: 5 - No first, but extra 3rd and 4th. They pick late in each round.
Lineup: 6 - Beltre, CarGo, AJones, Marte, Segura. Above average offense, but not great.
Rotation: 5 - Parker, Chacin, Straily, Stults. Injuries keeps this from being better.
Bullpen: 4 - Street, Grilli, D.Hernandez. Like everybody, will need to get better in the draft.

Nads
Draft: 5 - His own picks, starting at #6.
Lineup: 2 - AGonzalez... and then... okay, when Ben Revere is your 2nd best hitter, that ain't good.
Rotation: 4 - CJ, Fister, and Miley is the start of a decent nucleus.
Bullpen: 4 - Not great relievers, but a lot of them: Thayer, Albers, Balfour, LeCure, Blevins.

Drillers
Draft: 6 - Their own picks, but it starts at #1.
Lineup: 7 - Ellsbury, Longo, Posey, Puig, Bruce, Yelich. Even better when they add Donaldson.
Rotation: 5 - Shields, Minor, Corbin, Cobb. I rated this as average, but it might be better than that.
Bullpen: 4 - Nathan, Mujica, and Gregerson. Not a bad start.

Zaps
Draft: 5 - All their own picks, starting at #10.
Lineup: 10 - Holy cow. The AL MVP. The NL MVP. The NL MVP Runner Up. And there's lots more.
Rotation: 4 - Scherzer will dominate, and Greinke is fine; but there isn't much else.
Bullpen: 3 - Ziegler and Parnell will need some help.

Buckeyes
Draft: 4 - No 1st or 2nd, but an extra 3rd. And all the best cards are always still there when he picks.
Lineup: 3 - Ortiz and Cuddyer and probably a bunch of guys named Greg Pirkl.
Rotation: 4 - Hamels and Dickey. Miggy Gonzo too.
Bullpen: 5 - Uehara, and Alias Smith and Johnson.

Mavs
Draft: 5 - An extra 2nd, but thanks to his 100 wins last year, his picks are all pretty late.
Lineup: 7 - Chris Davis leads a salty group: Harper, the good Upton, Country Breakfast, Lucroy.
Rotation: 5 - Cain, Bailey, Buchholz, Gallardo. If Buchholz hadn't been hurt, this rating is higher.
Bullpen: 4 - Doolittle, GHolland, RRoss.

Sidewinders
Draft: 5 - No 1st but an extra 2nd.
Lineup: 5 - Mauer, Kipnis, Belt, Wright. A good nucleus. Depth needed.
Rotation: 6 - Sale, Lester, Moore, Peavy, Cueto. The Cueto injury hurt.
Bullpen: 6 - Kimbrel and Chapman. Best 1-2 punch in the league. That's all there is for now.

Killer Bees
Draft: 6 - No 3rd, but he has an extra 5th and his first pick is early (#4).
Lineup: 6 - Freeman, Encarnacion, Werth, CSantana. Pretty solid.
Rotation: 6 - CLee, Teheran, ESantana, Ubaldo, Lincecum.
Bullpen: 4 - Janssen, RSoriano, Peralta, Stammen. Not a great group, but a good start.

Tweeners
Draft: 6 - An extra 1st. He picks #5 and #13.
Lineup: 4 - Victorino, Zobrist, Sandoval, Rosario. Losing VMart hurt some.
Rotation: 8 - Deep and good: Iwakuma, Tillman, King Felix, MadBum, Shelby Miller, Gio.
Bullpen: 6 - Smyly, Avilan, Romo.

Goofs
Draft: 5 - His own picks, starting at #12.
Lineup: 4 - Ahh... Choo.
Rotation: 5 - Darvish, Griffin, Lohse
Bullpen: 3 - Benoit and Walden.

Totals by Division:

BUD
19 Wahoos
18 DVs
17 Warpigs
16 FFTs

HWD
29 Fungoes
20 Inmates
17 Rhinos
15 Nads

MFD
22 Drillers
22 Zaps
21 Mavs
16 Buckeyes

AWD
24 Tweeners
22 Sidewinders
22 Killer Bees
17 Goofs