5 Feeling the Most Pressure

Yesterday, I gave you 5 individuals who will be feeling the heat of the respective situations they're stepping into this season. Today, here are the 5 individuals or groupings that will be under the gun more than anyone:

5. Gil Meche - Starting Pitcher, Kansas City Royals
The poster boy for free agency gone amok with his $55 million contract, Meche is going to be scrutinized like no other Kansas City player has been in years. He has the potential to actually live up to his contract because of his undeniably great stuff. But if that never translated into him blossoming into an ace in Seattle (another smaller market where the pressure isn't intense), then why should it here? I think on this Royals team, he'll be hard-pressed to collect more than 12 wins.

4. John Maine and Oliver Perez - Starting Pitchers, New York Mets
These two could be the difference between another near-miss for the Mets and a championship. Both were forced into prominent roles in the playoffs last year, and both performed admirably. Now the expectations have been raised, and these two won't be treated with kid gloves any more. On a staff where the top two pitchers are the ancient Tom Glavine and El Duque Hernandez, the young arms need to rack up quality innings. They could both easily blossom into 15 game winners with their potential and the run support they'll likely receive.

3. Daisuke Matsuzaka - Starting Pitcher, Boston Red Sox
A roll of the Dice-K. The Dice is Right. Boston headline writers are going to have a field day with Matsuzaka, and not just for his pun-able name. Enormous expectations accompany him into the pressure cooker of Fenway Park. A lot of experts said that if he were on the free agent market this offseason, instead of the complex bidding system that the Red Sox utilized to sign him, he would have been the clear #1 starting pitcher on the market, a notch above Barry Zito. With so much that's been said about him, it seems that he's got the stuff to succeed. But the first time he gives up 5 runs in an inning, the Boston media is going to be out in full force.

2. Alex Rodriguez - 3B, New York Yankees
There haven't been many players in recent history who've had their every move scrutinized the way A-Rod has been since he's donned the Yankee pinstripes. The problem though, is that he seems to be feeding the situation to greater heights than it probably deserves to be. He's clearly insecure about his status as a Yankee and it shows in his comments. He could hit .330 with 50 HR this season, but nobody is going to be satisfied until he shows it in the playoffs. Until he makes a conscious decision to disregard the criticism (easier said than done, I understand), I have to believe that his woes will continue.

1. Barry Bonds - OF, San Francisco Giants/Bud Selig - MLB Commissioner
There's no escaping it. These two will be inextricably linked in history. The man who broke the all-time home run record due in part to performance-enhancing drugs, and the man who allowed it to happen, even if indirectly so. Most likely, Bonds will break the record this year, and God help him if it's not in San Francisco. Wow. The reception he would get would be mind-boggling. And Selig isn't helping himself with his noncommittal response to the question of whether he'll attend the possible record-breaking game. When it does happen, it will be an incredibly important moment for baseball, for better or for worse, and to not have the commissioner there is unfathomable to me. If he's not there, it really appears like he's ducking the game purposely. Selig probably can't do anything about the Bonds situation now - his time to act came and went. But as baseball's spokesman, he needs to be there.

barry bonds
bud selig
alex rodriguez
daisuke matsuzaka
gil meche
oliver perez
john maine

Barry Zito, the Final Domino, Falls to the Giants

Is it just me, or did it seem to anyone else that the primary reason for the many bold moves in free agency this year, with cash being thrown at players like it was monopoly money, were to serve the purposes of Barry Zito?

Zito, the big free agent prize this year on the pitching side, is the last big name to sign this off-season, and it seemed like with every pitcher that signed a big contract, all you heard was that this would drive up the price for Zito. So Barry should thank Jeff Suppan, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and especially Gil Meche, for driving up his price tag to the $126 million mark that the Giants signed him to yesterday. Because of course, they weren't signing for their own good, they were just doing it to get Zito a big payday.


Of course I'm kidding, but a few things did pop out at me with this signing:

1. When the Royals can sign Gil Meche to a $55 million contract, it's clear that players no longer have to go to one of the New York teams to get a fat payday. To me, this was made abundantly clear with the Zito signing - if any player was destined for New York, be it with the Mets or the Yankees, it was him. But as it turned out, he could and did get his money somewhere else, San Francisco. It seems the off-season bidding wars are getting more competitive.

2. The Yanks' failure to get Zito may hasten their pursuit of Roger Clemens. The writing seems to be on the wall for fading star Randy Johnson in the Bronx, and New York will likely look to fill the hole in their rotation with Clemens with the failure to land Zito. The Red Sox, who are thought of as the other major player in the Clemens sweepstakes, do not have the need for him that the Yankees do with their signing of Matsuzaka, and may not push for him as hard as the Yankees will.

3. The NL West might have the best collection of starters of any division in baseball. Here are the presumed top 1-3 starters for the NL West teams excepting the Rockies:

Arizona:
Brandon Webb
Livan Hernandez
Doug Davis

Los Angeles:
Jason Schmidt
Brad Penny
Derek Lowe

San Diego:
Jake Peavy
Chris Young
Greg Maddux

San Francisco:
Barry Zito
Matt Morris
Matt Cain

That's an impressive group - should mean a good race in that division next season.

Matsuzaka Signing a Watershed Moment for Major League Baseball

After weeks of speculation and posturing that comes with any Scott Boras negotiation, the Red Sox finally signed (apparent) all-world Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka to a 6 year, $52 million deal today.

With the $51 million posting fee that Boston paid Matsuzaka's Japanese team, the Seibu Lions, just for exclusive negotiating rights, the Red Sox are betting over $100 million that Matsuzaka not only works out, but pitches like the ace pitcher that he's getting paid to be.

His success or failure is crucial because it may very well affect the way teams throughout Major League Baseball approach Japanese players. If he's a Cy Young contender, the pitching equivalent of Ichiro Suzuki, the Red Sox's risk in a fairly unknown quantity will be rewarded, and it may embolden other teams to look to the East in scouting players. The posting business (detailed wonderfully in this New York Times article by Richard Sandomir) will become a high-stakes competition. Meaning that for Japanese clubs like Seibu, Matsuzaka's success could result in a huge financial windfall. Washington Post writer Thomas Boswell says it well:

As for the Lions, they're swimming in sake now. Seibu, with a dinky $17 million payroll, gets a $51.1 million windfall because it "owns" the rights to Matsuzaka. For doing nothing, Seibu will get a check for three times its annual team payroll. That would be like a league from outer space offering the Red Sox $350 million -- three times their payroll -- so a team from Mars could try to sign Jonathan Papelbon.

The question now becomes: are the Japanese clubs willing to "sell their souls" and serve as the springboard for their stars, a pseudo farm system for Major League Baseball? If the answer is yes, then free agency in baseball has entered a new era where high revenue teams like the Red Sox and Yankees can now fight it out on two sides of the world. And with Major League teams showing an increased willingness to throw gobs of money at anyone with a pulse (Gil Meche anyone?), it seems likely that the cash will be too much for teams like Seibu and company to resist.

Here's a quick video of Matsuzaka's mysterious "gyroball."

Stop the Madness!

When did major league baseball GMs and owners decide to go Dan Snyder on us and overpay anyone who's put on a glove? The Cubs paying $136 million for 31 year old-to-be Alfonso Soriano was excessive, but at least he's one of the top offensive forces in the game. The Red Sox paying $51 million just to negotiate with Japanese star pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka is huge, but he's only 26, and if he's as good as everyone says he is, you'd have to consider that a necessary price of doing business.

But the Angels paying $50 million over 5 years for centerfielder Gary Matthews Jr? We need to draw the line here. At this point, you're just throwing your money away. This past season his numbers for Texas were: .313, 19 HR and 79 RBI, and he made his first All-Star Game. Don't get me wrong, he's a good player, but he came up with his career-best numbers in a contract year, and has not had anywhere near the kind of season he had last year at any other time in his career. Wouldn't you think you'd like to have a little less risk in your substantial investment - for example, knowing that he could put together his numbers two years in a row?

What really boggles my mind on this signing is that the Angels could have stuck with their current outfield roster and probably come out even without having had to spend $50 million. Instead of bringing in Matthews, why not give utility-man extraordinaire Chone Figgins a chance to start everyday in center? Figgins is four years younger than Matthews, has a higher career batting average (.285 to Matthews' .263), and gives an added dimension as a real base running threat (52 stolen bases last year to Matthews' 10). While Matthews will likely get you somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 HR and 25 RBIs more than Figgins would provide, in addition to some spectacular defense, is that really worth an additional $10 million per year? I guess the Angels think so, but I don't.

I know that some people will say that a huge part of Figgins' value is in his versatility, but the Angels have young Maicer Izturis looking to emerge at third base, the infield position that Figgins plays most often, along with strong corner outfielders in perennial MVP candidate Vladimir Guerrero and the solid Juan Rivera. Plus, this guy's been bounced around the field enough with nary a complaint the last few years - doesn't the Angels organization at least owe him a well-deserved shot to stick at one position rather than importing an expensive free agent?