S54 Needs

Jack Torrance - contributing reporter

We've brought a new article idea to take a look near mid-season at what each team needs, whether it gets address this season, next, or never is completely up to the owner. Or perhaps the current owner values an Adam Dunn type over Ichiro Suzuki and will put up with the extra easy outs a game. Let's dive into it!

• Anaheim - Relief Pitching. They have one of the better young rated relief pitchers in game, but as a unit this bullpen has blown a league leading amount of save opportunities. If you brought that down to just league average this team would be sitting within a game of first in their division. 
• Atlanta - Budget plan. With 9 players entering their Arb2 years, Atlanta will have some decisions to make if they want to remain mid budget with contributions to IFA or start spending money and keep their current talent. 
• Augusta - Get On Base. The team ranks second to last in OBP, between their low batting average and limited walks it's hard to score runs and win games. Adding some power is a close second need for the team
• Austin - Defense. The team ranks lowest in the league in DER (Defense Efficiency Ratio), meaning they are not making the most use out of balls put in play. It doesn't help that they are top 5 in minus plays. 
• Boston - Front Line Starter. Overall the pitching has been slightly above average, adding that ace or front line starter could be huge. As it stands today, they are playing for that Wildcard #2 slot and only a few games behind Monterrey. 
• Buffalo - Anti-aging pills. Jefferson and Guardado have really stepped it up, but Bison lifers are sad to see the decreases both Alex Tarraga and Gregor Lopez have seen thus far this season. Luckily the rest of the team is relatively young. A close second is resolving their current closer issues as we've seen S52 Fireman of the Year, Jayson Roof struggling; saving only 9 of his 16 chances, and taking 6 Ls this season. 
• Chicago - Fielding Coach. I don't know much about Wayne Weaver, and truth be told I believe he's an average ML fielding coach, but why did he move 3x Gold Glove (S51-53) Shawn Long who has above average ratings everywhere defensively, off Shortstop in favor of Ed Watanabe who falls short of average in glove, arm strength, and his accuracy? Each are still getting regular at-bats so it's not a playing time issue. Or perhaps there were a lot of balls hit to right field and Weaver wanted the best defensive player there. 
• Colorado Springs - Hitting. This team leads the AL West but Skynet has their bats rated at the bottom of the league. Second last in OPS, but least amount of walks and home runs will do that to you. The recent trade was intended to help that, but will it be enough to hold off Helena in the chase for the division title. 
• Columbus - Offseason. After shedding so much money within just days from each other this team just needs the offseason to get here so they can put Step 2 into place in their rebuild/retooling. 
• Dover - Pitching. This team is only 5 games out of first in their division, the entire staff has an ERA 1.65 above league average. Even if they were 0.50 above league average, they'd likely be tied or in the division lead. 
• Hartford - Unearned Runs / Inherited Runners. Call it small sample size, but after acquiring RPs Bonilla and Owen from Columbus, Hartford's IRS% has actually gone up; which still leads the league. They are leading the league in Unearned Runs, come on boys make 'em earn 'em!
• Helena - Patience. Waiting for their right pitch, it's not that their bats have a strikeout problem but could they walk a little more. The team is right there at the top of the AL West, but perhaps with a little more patience at the plate they'd have a little bit of wiggle room ahead of Colorado Springs. 
• Houston - Experience. While the owner has all the experience in the world, the team is fairly young. 18 players on their current Major league roster have a year or less of experience with 9 of them being younger than 25 yrs old. This team definitely has some growth left in them as well. 
• Huntington - Pitching. According to the latest Skynet power rankings their bats can keep up with many of the top teams but they fall short in pitching, specifically their bullpen whose team ERA is 6.17 compared to their starters 4.23. If you fall behind early against them, don't give up hope; there's a good chance you'll come from behind. 
• Mexico City - Better Base Coaches. It's hard to track how many times a player might have been thrown out trying to stretch an extra base, but the Mexico City base coaches must be drinking cervezas on the field. The team has stolen 35 bases and been caught 37 times. You think the 3rd base coach would stop giving his team the steal side. Or is the sign to steal the same as drinking a cerveza. That would make complete sense!
• Milwaukee - Baseball Players. Spoiler alert, but Skynet currently has this Milwaukee team as the lowest rated team in the league. But we suspect long-time owner jbburner knows what he's doing and it's all part of the (evil) plan. 
• Minnesota - Extra Base Hits. This Minnesota team is one of the top in the league in hits, but appears they just can't do so with runners in scoring position as they rank below average in runs. They lead the league and all strippers in the Minnesota area in singles, by nearly 50!
• Montreal - Stop Giving Away Free Outs. This Montreal team leads the league in Strikeouts, doing so an average of 8.2 times a game. Stop swinging at everything thrown your way. And it's not like they have an issue taking walks, they are near league average in that category. 
• New Orleans - Miracle. After losing Cortes in the off-season, the NOOFs replaced him with aging 2x AL Cy Young William Thompson and added high average / power bat Keith Halter at 1B; yet Atlanta is still favored over them. With the Hartford additions, this writer wouldn't be surprised if Hartford is favored as well in a playoff series even if they don't end up finishing with a better record than the NOOFs. Season records don't mean anything in the playoffs. 
• New York - More Injuries to Atlanta. After 11 straight Division Titles, they seem to be on another streak of second place finishes, if it happens again this year that will be 5. Considering Radhames Machado's 5/$78.2M deal, they have no plans to pause and rebuild. 
• Oklahoma City - Quality Starts. Considering the history of the Barons franchise this is a surprise, but they need starting pitchers to give their team a better chance to win. They come in by a large margin with the fewest number of quality starts from their starting rotation which has been spread through 7 players, lead by Jessie Fields who has 2 quality starts in 16 tries. But not bad for a team leading their division.
• Philadelphia - A break. It's seems just yesterday this was a young team who had recently come out of their rebuild, finishing with no less than 98 wins each of the last 4 seasons but this year the are below .500. The all-star break can't come soon enough for Philly. 
• Pittsburgh - Rip Bromberg to stay Healthy. This team is hitting well decently well but if Rip goes down with an injury, he takes the Yinzer's season with him. As a team is top 10, hitting .271 but without Rip the team is exactly league average, .259. They better start carrying Rip every he goes, can't have him stubbing a toe!
• Portland - Hitting. Any kind of hitting will do. Singles, Doubles, Home Runs, I'd probably even take a few extra foul balls down the line. The team has one player hitting above .260 and that's CF Dicky Chang; he's a career .273 hitter, hitting .292 this season. 
• San Juan - Road Fans. Puerto Rico is a really nice place to visit but apparently their fans do not travel well as the team is 17-22 on the road this season. Not the worst in the league, but could easily put them at .500 and within reach of the second wild card slot. They currently stand quite a few games behind the NOOFs in the NL South but still another 90+ games to play this season, anything can happen. The NOOFs are well reminded of blowing a 2-0 lead in a best of 5 series just a few seasons ago against this San Juan club. 
• Santa Fe - Defensive Catcher. You can't fault Santa Fe pitchers for giving up HRs, after all that is what their home field is designed for; but their catcher on the other hand is letting a lot more of those singles stretch out to another base by only catching .197% of base stealers. Now this isn't worst in the league, but when you add in how teams appear to be running A LOT more against Santa Fe than the other teams nearly the bottom of CS% it makes a big difference. Allowing 5 SBs every 4 games on average. Playing in such a hitter's park, you definitely don't want to be allowing so many runners to easily get into scoring position; especially late in the game. 
• Seoul - Hitting. Who needs hitting more than Portland, Seoul. League worst, .233 average. They went from league best last season to worst, but I guess that's what happens when you move out of Colorado and start a rebuild. Was bound to happen. 
• Tacoma - IFA scouts in Afghanistan. The Tacoma team continues to rebuild, signing first round pick and #6 overall Ernest Page along with 7 IFAs, hoping one might turn into a diamond in the rough. Their hope is that Jeff Jose Bazos Bazardo can eventually match what SP Pedro Bazardo is doing for the major league club this season (7-3 through 14 starts with a 1.02 WHIP and 2.26 ERA).
• Tokyo - This AL East visit to end. The team did not travel well, and have 1 game remaining on their stretch to the AL East, going 3-8 over that time period. The Nomo fans sure are missing Omar Gonzales. The team is now 10-16 without him. Luckily they had a stretch in there against Montreal, otherwise it's easily 7-15.
• Vancouver - This one's easy, move out of Canada. Oh and walk more / strike out less. The team leads the league in K/BB and in Free Outs, where they average 8 CS+K a game which means they basically limit themselves to 6 innings a game. Git Gud Canada!
• Washington DC - Good Scouting. After one season above .500 the Country's capital missed being within the top 10 picks during the Rule 4 draft, if the season ended today they'd be the #11 pick next year. Perhaps a few more key moves and they get that top 10 pick after all.