2010 Carolina Kraken

[agrudez]

Offseason
With 5 seasons of sub 70 wins separating 2 playoff berths (in ’03 and then again this past year), the 2009 season can’t be described as anything but exceedingly impressive for the Kraken even despite their unceremonious ousting from the first round of the playoffs by Las Vegas.

Subtractions:
Kenny Glendenning – voided option
Lee Dundee – traded
Defrim Isaj - traded
Christopher Lee – traded
Djhani Wadsner – traded
Kenji Masaki - traded

Additions:
Waichirou Moronobu – acquired via trade
Antonio Andrade – acquired via trade
Jeremiah Stone – acquired via trade
Jacob Bryant – acquired via trade
Bartolo Guzman – acquired via trade
Harry Martin – acquired via trade
Luis Flores – acquired via trade

Overall:
With a payroll pressed firmly against the league salary cap it is no surprise that the Kraken elected to play the trade market instead of the FA market this offseason. Likewise, after tasting the playoffs despite being only 3 games over .500 last year, it is no surprise that the quickly aging Kraken ‘went for broke’ in a sense by trading a variety of top prospects (despite what anyone may think of them individually, the three primary ones still had an average star value of 4 between them) for players to help the ML club for the short-term. Coming off a .867 OPS/4.5 WAR season, Moronobu represents a huge upgrade to the team’s middle infield, Andrade similiarly had a solid season (3.85 ERA in 29 starts) and should be a boost to the depth of a rotation that relies heavily on having it and Bryant is a young talent that (while he needs more seasoning) should be able to help this team right out of the gate as well. Overall, while the Kraken may miss Masaki’s defense, they gave nothing else of consequence (for next season, anyway) up and seemingly upgraded their ML roster tangibly in the process.

2010 Outlook
Pitching:
With no one starter that can go out every 5th day and dominate, Carolina countered by doing a wonderful job of putting together a deep, servicable 1-5 rotation. ‘Headlining’ the staff will be Izatt, followed by Feldmann, King, Craig and Andrade – all of whom should plausibly provide high 3 to low 4 ERAs for the upcoming season. If you can’t have a true #1 or 2 then having 5 #3s is a very good (and smart) play to make. At the end of the game, the Kraken have assembled a solid shutdown tandem of Sorensen and Webb which helps mitigate the many question marks (that most teams have) in the middle of their ‘pen.

Batting:
As a stark contrast to last year’s opening day lineup, Carolina has assembled a very potent (and balanced attack). OBP savants like Lowe, Avilia and Pere at the top of the lineup should be juicy targets for the big power bats in the heart of the order to drive in: Campbell Jr., Bryant and Mornobu. Meanwhile, even the bottom third of the lineup won’t provide opposing pitchers a respite as Carolina has the luxury of tossing out three players with career .75 OPS’ in those slots: Stupples, Cruz and Rayas.

Overall:
Carolina did a great job of reshaping their roster last season (including the acquisitions of Izatt and Campbell, Jr.) to poise themselves for their first playoff berth in half a decade. In this past offseason, they’ve done yet another great job of reshaping their roster to not only repeat last year’s feat, but make themselves a more potent threat to advance once there... if they can overcome the surging MON squad (since the losers of the LBC/LV and NO/DM races have the definite inside track on the WC).

Carolina prediction: 88 wins, locked in plausibly the most bitter fight for a division crown of the 2010 season with Montreal

[Cliche]

Man. This is not what I want to read!

I'm starting to worry about the baseball twist on that saying "if you meet one asshole, they're an asshole, but if you meet assholes all day, you're the asshole."

I keep waiting to meet the doormat of the FLA. But now I'm wondering if I'm the doormat.

[recte44]

No...it's Bornac.

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[mrbornac]

No...it's Bornac.

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