Hurricanes Squeeze Florida's Grapefruit League
PLUS: WILL DODGERS RUN AWAY AND HIDE IN NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST?
Readers React
“I enjoy reading the IBWAA newsletter but Dr. Paul Semendinger needs to rethink his position on WAR [column last weekend]. Even some GMs today don’t understand it and don’t use it. It is a very deceptive and inaccurate metric. I applied it to my own career and found out it was deceiving, then bounced my thoughts off Ken Rosenthal and that confirmed my disdain for it.”
— Jim Kaat, Hall of Fame Class of 2022
“I understand why baseball would expand, but I see it as two negatives: further watering down of talent; thirty teams are plenty. A money grab for owners and players. Owners get their expansion fees, and players get eight figure salaries where they might not made it to the majors.”
— Brian Greenberg, Long Island, NY
Pregame Pepper
Spring stats don’t matter: Houston’s José Altuve batted .143 last spring and then put up a .311/.393/.522 line in the regular season . . .
A spokesperson for the lame-duck A’s says the club is willing to share the Oakland Coliseum with a pair of local soccer teams during the 2025 season and that negotiations regarding the Athletics’ short-term future in Oakland are ongoing . . .
Food for thought: at age 43 in 1990, Nolan Ryan threw 204 innings for Texas and led the American League with 232 strikeouts . . .
Righthander J.J. Niekro, son of Joe and nephew of Phil, is in the Atlanta camp hoping to become the third Niekro to pitch for the Braves . . .
Kiké Hernández, perhaps the most versatile player in the majors, is back with the Dodgers after a small bidding war . . .
Former All-Star shortstop Brandon Crawford has hooked on with the Cardinals after agreeing to serve as a utility infielder and pinch-hitter.
Leading Off
Will Wild Weather Determine Future Of Florida Spring Training Ballparks?
By Dan Schlossberg
Hurricanes are a fact of life for Florida — and for the 15 baseball teams that train there.
Every year, the Sunshine State has more swings and misses than Dave Kingman against the weather gods.
The enormous peninsula, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and Gulf of Mexico on the west, inevitably suffers storm damage every year — from tornadoes as well as hurricanes. Most of the time, however, the weather is warm and benign.
Not so in September of 22, however, when Hurricane Ian, with imbedded twisters, caused $113 billion of damage, smashing into Fort Myers are wielding a trail of destruction that went straight through Port Charlotte.
Damage was so extensive at Charlotte Sports Park, where the Tampa Bay Rays train, that they actually had to go north for spring training, dividing their team between Champion Stadium at Disney World — home of the Atlanta Braves before North Port — and their domed regular-season ballpark in St. Petersburg.
Thanks to the fury of Ian, the Minnesota Twins had to repair Hammond Stadium, which suffered more hurricane damage that jetBlue Park, where the Boston Red Sox train. Both are in Fort Myers, the southernmost post of the Grapefruit League.
Up the Gulf coast, the Braves learned why their larger host community is named Venice: their facility and its environs were surrounded by water, with street signs, traffic lights, and roofs the primary casualties. Many were not fixed for months.
The good news is that spring training baseball has returned to Charlotte Sports Park, where wind and water damage was widespread.
After Charlotte County spent $18 million, the Rays have returned. There are new signs, new lighting, better clubhouses, a new batter’s eye, and more.
The 7,000-seat ballpark, the spring headquarters of the Texas Rangers before that ballclub bolted for Arizona and the Cactus League, is a typical spring training facility, with seating in seats with backs or cheaper seats for those willing to spread out in a berm behind the outfield fence. Alligators, occasionally seen in a pond behind left field, are only allowed in if they appear on the shirts of the fans.
Like North Port, Port Charlotte is an out-of-the-way destination far from the big city — though commercial, retail, and even residential properties are creeping closer to both.
That doesn’t mean the frugal Rays, who always keep one eye on the bottom line, will stay put. Of the 15 Grapefruit League outposts, Port Charlotte is probably the most tenuous — especially if The Weather Channel starts talking about it again.
For now, fans that brave the traffic and long food lines are enjoying the 82-acre complex again. It doesn’t have the flavor of Victorian Hammond Stadium or the ballpark village atmosphere of jetBlue Park but it’s bare-bones spring training baseball 15 or so times this month.
Go and bring a camera: the home of the Rays since 2009 could soon fall into the dustbin of history.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ covers the game for forbes.com, MLBReport.com, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Memories & Dreams, Sports Collectors Digest, and many other outlets. His Hank Aaron biography is due from Skyhorse in April. Dan’s email is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Cleaning Up
Who’s Best in the West? Billion-Dollar Dodgers Have Challengers
By Jeremy Dorn
The National League West is chock full of intrigue for the 2024 season. There is an ultimate extreme between the billion-dollar Los Angeles Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies. Many expect the Dodgers, who added Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Teoscar Hernández to a team that won 100 games last season, to run away with the division.
But the defending-NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks, star-laden San Diego Padres, and pitching-heavy San Francisco Giants might have something to say about that. To be sure, anything short of a division title (and, maybe, 100 regular season wins) will be considered a failure for the Dodgers. But baseball is a crazy and wonderful sport exactly because it can create the most unexpected outcomes. Just ask the 2023 Padres.
So, how did each team fare this off-season and what does it mean for the upcoming season? I’ll do my best to break it down below, in order of projected finish:
National League West (FanGraphs 2024 projected records)
Los Angeles Dodgers (93-69)
Arizona Diamondbacks (83-79)
San Diego Padres (81-81)
San Francisco Giants (80-82)
Colorado Rockies (64-98)
As alluded to above, it would be something of a letdown if the Dodgers only won 93 regular-season games. For a team that has cracked the century mark in five of the last six full seasons and then added the two top free agents and another elite pitcher, expectations are rightfully sky-high.
The Dodgers might be considered as close to a post-season lock as a baseball team can be in early March. However, there’s one thing even the most prepared teams can’t control: injuries.
If the Dodgers remain largely healthy, they should be fine. However, they are banking on a rotation that has significant injury history and/or limited MLB experience.
Ohtani is going to DH through his recovery from a second Tommy John surgery. Gavin Lux just started playing shortstop in live game situations for the first time since an ACL tear in Spring Training 2023 ended his season early. You just never know.
The Dodgers do possess great depth on the 40-man roster and throughout their minor- league ranks, plus they obviously have the capital to add at the trade deadline, if any major needs arise. So, absent a torrent of bad luck, this team should be playing in October yet again.
Here is where things get interesting: the Diamondbacks are coming off an unexpected run to the World Series last season and made intelligent and valuable additions to the roster this winter. Are they a serious challenger for the division?
Maybe, but they don’t necessarily have to be; there are six playoff spots per league now, and they showed what a hot team can do even from the lowest seed in last year’s post-season.
A rotation led by Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly added Eduardo Rodriguez and saw the ascendance of Brandon Pfaadt when the lights were brightest. That’s a good starting point. But also replacing Evan Longoria with Eugenio Suárez and adding big-time pop with Joc Pederson and Randal Grichuk improved an already-potent offense. This is a young, hungry, obscenely-talented team that knows it can win after last year’s success. Another post-season run wouldn’t surprise anyone in 2024.
On the flip side, nobody expected the Padres to crater as they did in 2023. After adding Juan Soto and Josh Hader late in 2022, the Padres signed Xander Bogaerts and got Fernando Tatis, Jr. back from suspension for 2023. For whatever reason, it didn’t work.
They were expected to win 10 more games than they actually won and outscored opponents by more than 100 runs total (third only to the Dodgers and Braves). So, it was a bit of bad luck mixed with bouts of inconsistency and some weird, baseball magic that kept San Diego out of the playoffs.
This year, they are down Soto, Hader, and Blake Snell. But they are still going to roll out a lineup with Tatis, Jr., Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Ha-Seong Kim, and a rotation led by Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish. Even in a competitive division, that is a pretty good place to start.
Don’t be surprised if the Padres aggressively promote some of their elite prospects to fill gaps and get valuable playing time this summer. And definitely don’t be surprised if they are more cohesive than last year and plant themselves firmly in the NL Wild Card race.
The Giants are one of those teams that confounds a little bit: they have the payroll flexibility to add big-name players in free agency. But, lately, they’re always the bridesmaid, not the bride.
They have missed out on coveted free agents like Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Carlos Correa, and Ohtani in the past and made their most significant addition this winter in the international market, signing Jung Hoo Lee out of South Korea. He will likely hit leadoff for a lineup that boasts the power of newly-signed Jorge Soler and a few other noteworthy names.
The Giants’ best chance to compete, though, seems to be its solid pitching staff, from ace Logan Webb and young Kyle Harrison in the rotation to closer Camilo Doval. Of the four competitive teams in the NL West, the Giants have the most glaring holes, but still have a roster capable of making the playoffs.
They would be well-served to take a serious look at spending some of their available cash on Snell or Jordan Montgomery, just to ensure they have a rotation that can deal with powerful opposing offenses in L.A., Phoenix, and San Diego.
Finally, the Rockies can’t possibly be as bad as last year, right?
While nothing compares to the dysfunction in Oakland, the ownership in Colorado right now does seem intent on staying behind the curve. That is hurting the on-field product, which continues to suffer due to a lack of serious investment in its pitching.
Coors Field is a notoriously-difficult place to pitch, but that’s precisely why the Rockies should be focusing on overloading the pitching. And if they won’t do that, they need to have an offense so explosive that they come out on the right side of most of the inevitable slugfests on their home field.
Right now, even with a fully-healthy Kris Bryant and up-and-coming Nolan Jones anchoring the offense, they are nowhere near said level of explosiveness. In a tough division, with a stubborn owner, and Keith Law’s 24th-ranked farm system, the Rockies have a long way to go.
The author can be reached via JeremyDorn67@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
"It was a freaking knuckleball from left field.”
— Seven-time All-Star Chris Sale on his trade from the Red Sox to the Braves
Cleveland’s Naylor brothers (Josh and Bo) became the only siblings in club history to homer in the same game — let alone the same inning when they did it in 2023 . . .
The last time brothers homered in the same game was Sept 27, 2014, when BJ and Justin Upton did it for the Braves . . .
The Uptons did it six times, followed by Jason and Jeremy Giambi (A’s) and Vladimir and Wilton Guerrero (Expos) with four each . . .
Hank and Tommie Aaron did it three times, all during the 1962 season, while the Paul and Lloyd Waner — both Hall of Famers — also turned the trick in three different games . . .
Brothers Rick Ferrell (Red Sox) and Wes Ferrell (Indians) homered in the same inning as opponents on July 19, 1933 . . .
No other brother tandem has ever done it as opponents.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.