2056 Charlotte Flyers Preview

[Bob Breum]

The Charlotte Flyers have finished above .500 only once in the last four years and last made the playoffs in 2051. The new management is shaking things up. This season, Flyers fans are going to need buy a program, as the team will be filled with new faces, including seven players taken in the Rule 5 draft.

CATCHER

Primary C: Last year’s C, Adalgiso Bosendorfer, was a disaster. Starting 138 games, he logged negative 3.1 WAR, with an incredibly bad -29.8 framing runs. Thus, there is nowhere to go but up. The club traded for Alfredo Rodriquez, who will be a 32-year-old rookie. Scouts are high on A-Rod’s framing, and he managed league average offensive production at AAA last season.

Backup C: For now, Jeremy Tucker stays on as the backup, but his framing skills are average at best, as is his bat.


MIDDLE INFIELD

Flyers fans will see familiar faces here, but that is both good and bad news.

Shortstop: Robert “Tosser” Menzies is the crown jewel of the franchise, and he’s coming off a career year at the age of 34. Tosser won the batting title and posted a league leading .420 on-base percentage. He is a slightly above average defender. This combination was good for 5.3 WAR. The only concern with Menzies is that he is Fragile. The team can ill afford to lose him for any length of time.

Second base: Ricardo Munoz will man the keystone again, but that’s after a season where he cost his team 2.5 WAR, in spite of earning a near double-digit positive zone rating. Munoz may have won the anti-batting crown, hitting .158 over 456 plate appearances. This may be the exception to the rule that Iron Man status is a good thing. This is far and away the single largest concern with the team entering 2056.

CORNER INFIELD

First base: Last year’s first baseman was Bob Irwin, who led the league in at-bats because he is almost allergic to walks. Surprisingly, he is not Dominican. He managed 0.6 WAR. Replacing Irwin will be free agent signee Pancho Costa. At age 35, Costa is a 6’4” athletic player with game-changing speed who can play any corner infield or outfield position. He will be a strong target at first base for the Flyers’ infielders. Last season he had his best season in 5 years, posting 3.7 WAR and joining the elite 20/20 club with 23 home runs and 26 stolen bases. His speed and gap power should play well in his new home park, which greatly inflates extra base hits. He is a major upgrade.

Third base: Ryobe Watanabe manned the hot corner last season, where he is a slightly above average defender. He is a right-handed hitter with a significant platoon factor. He delivered league average production against left-handed pitching but struggled against right-handed pitching. The Flyers picked up the switch-hitting infielder Vasco Fonzarelli in the Rule 5 draft. Like many switch hitters, Fonzarelli is a much better hitter against right-handed pitching than southpaws, and he will now take over the strong side of the third base platoon. He is roughly average defender. Given his below average track record, there is no guarantee that the new platoon will be an improvement over Watanabe alone.

CORNER OUTFIELD

Left fielder: After losing the fragile 35-year-old Bret Powers to free agency, the Flyers will enter the season with Chris McFadden in left field, whom they acquired in trade during the offseason. On the face of it, this looks like a downgrade after Powers posted 3.5 WAR as a not-quite-average defender. He slugged 35 home runs and drove in 111 while batting over .300. In his last full season, 2054, McFadden only earned 1.1 WAR. He should hit over .300 with comparable defense, but without the home run power. His superior gap power should play well at Family Dollar Field, so perhaps he can earn 2 WAR.

Right fielder: Qadir bin Gamal will return to play right field, where he has earned an average of 1.5 WAR over the last two seasons. He is a roughly league average defender.

CENTER FIELD

Center Field: Team captain Aurelio Dieguez will also return to patrol center field. He is a slightly below average defender and a well below average hitter, but he is a force to be reckoned with on the basepaths, having stolen 30 bases last season. He’s averaged about 0.2-0.3 WAR over the last three seasons.

DESIGNATED HITTER

Last year, the designated hitter position was another major sink of lost WAR. Yalew Angolwisye started at DH in 146 games last season, hitting .239/.328/.334 with 119 strikeouts for negative 1.3 WAR. Replacing him is Rule 5 pick Harun Al Rachid bin Jamal, who spent last season between A and AA. It seems unlikely that bin Jamal will make the leap to the big league without an extended period of acclimation. Scouting projects him as a significant improvement over Angolwisye, so if the Flyers are patient with him, he may ultimately be the upgrade they seek.

STARTING PITCHING

Last season’s ace Ruben bin Majid Al Din returns to lead the Flyers rotation. At age 30, he’s a durable workhorse who can be counted on to answer the bell. He led the league in games started each of the last two seasons. He has averaged over 3 WAR for the last six seasons. He throws a heavy sinker that keeps the ball in the park and sets up double play opportunities.

The Flyers lost their other ace, Lance Harrison, to free agency. He matched bin Majid Al Din with 36 starts last season, led the team in innings pitched, and earned 3.0 WAR. He is going to be very difficult to replace.

After bin Majid Al Din, the Flyers return two other starters, Jamie Barber and Trey Raynor, each below average starters who serve primarily as inning eaters.

New to Charlotte is free agent signee Liam Johnston, a GBC veteran whom management knows well from their time in Cairo.

They have promoted long reliever Nobuhito Kan to the rotation. He has yet to post a season of positive WAR in two seasons with Charlotte.

The rotation is demonstrably weaker than last season with the loss of Harrison, as there is a non-zero chance that his replacement will register negative WAR and result in a swing of perhaps 4 WAR.

BULLPEN

The Charlotte bullpen was poor last season, and despite widespread turnover, it may not be much better this season. Last season’s closer was Harry Raymond, who despite 23 saves, posted negative 0.4 WAR with an ERA of 5.69, and left in free agency. This could be addition by subtraction.

Returning relievers include Cristobal Aguila (1.1 WAR), Antonio Cuenca (-0.1 WAR), Luigi Tibbits (-0.4 WAR), and Ira Carter (-0.8 WAR), not an imposing group.

Additions include free agent signee Ross Brown (0.4 WAR), Rule 5 pick Antonio Cuartas (0.2 WAR in 2054), Rule 5 pick Sebastian Seabert (-0.3 WAR), Rule 5 pick Brian Ioneki (-0.4 WAR), and Rule 5 pick Sergej Gijsberts (rookie).

Relief pitchers, except for the most elite relievers, are notorious for wildly varying production from one year to the next. There is a remote chance that several of these pitchers step up and become effective, but it seems highly unlikely. I expect the Flyers bullpen to be comparable to last season. I believe that the weak pen is largely responsible for the Flyers’ poor record vis-à-vis their Pythagorean expected record.

FARM SYSTEM

Charlotte does not have a strong minor league system. They are ranked 23rd out of 32 teams. Their top prospect, right-handed pitcher Josh Clark, is likely to be promoted this season.

OFFSEASON

The Flyers lost two significant players to free agency, left fielder Bret Powers (3.5 WAR) and starting pitcher Lance Harrison (3.0 WAR). The team was unable to replace their production in the offseason.

Charlotte’s big free agent splurge was on first baseman Pancho Costa. He is a huge upgrade at the position. But even a 3-4 WAR improvement there won’t offset the losses of Powers and Harrision.

SUMMARY

Charlotte is facing a major rebuild. They have a superstar at shortstop who is fragile and a newly signed first baseman who should be an All Star, but little else to give their fans hope. Using 2 WAR as the benchmark for a big league regular, they were below average at seven out of nine positions last season, and had two starting pitchers that met or exceeded that. They lost one of the position players and one of the starting pitchers, while adding one position player. Their bullpen is likely going to be weak again, damaging their chances of matching their Pythagorean projections, which will be modest at best.

If there’s any good news, it’s that Charlotte has one of the lowest payrolls in the league. Perhaps they can use that cap space to buy prospects by taking bad contracts off the hands of other clubs. They have way too many holes to try to fill them in free agency, even given their current low payroll.

The Flyers were projected to win 70 games last season, and fell four games short. Given their offseason, I project fewer wins this season. I’ll set the over/under at 64 wins.

[Trebro]

Great insights into the team.