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| | Wednesday, April 19 Montreal Expos | ||||||||||
| By Rany Jazayerli Special to ESPN.com
Record: 68-94, 26th overall Payroll: $15.0 million, 29th overall Runs scored: 718, 14th in NL Runs allowed: 853, 13th in NL What went right? Vladimir Guerrero continued his rise as one of the game's best young superstars. Rondell White stayed healthy, and played healthy, all season. Rookie Michael Barrett had a fine year (.293, 32 doubles), while second baseman Jose Vidro may have been the best player in baseball that no one knew about, hitting .304 with 45 doubles. Javier Vazquez showed signs of developing into an excellent starting pitcher. And, most important by far, the team was sold to New York art dealer Jeffrey Loria, who has both the finances and the willingness to spend the money necessary to keep the Expos' best players together long enough to build a winning team. What went wrong? The Expos' organizational disdain for the base on balls continued to hurt them, as they finished last in baseball with just 438 walks. Their pitching staff was weaker than expected, as ace Dustin Hermanson was awful in the first half and highly touted Carl Pavano was neither healthy nor effective. Third baseman Shane Andrews (.181) was a disaster, and the Expos couldn't come up with a third outfielder to complement Guerrero and White. Finally, after making 17 outfield errors in 1998, Vladimir outdid himself with 19 more last year. He narrowly avoided becoming the first outfielder to make 20 errors in a season since 1936. In retrospect, the critical decisions were: 1. Finding a new owner. The long-awaited departure of Claude Brochu as the team's managing partner not only brought in an owner committed to trying to end the flight of great players out of Montreal, but it may have actually saved major league baseball in Montreal, period. 2. Signing Vladimir Guerrero to a long-term deal. OK, this actually happened late in 1998, but its importance to a rebuilding small-market franchise like the Expos can't be understated. Guerrero is the best player the Expos have produced since Gary Carter and Andre Dawson, and locking him up through 2003 gives Montreal four years to build a winning team around an inexpensive superstar. 3. Going with Manny Martinez in center field. The Expos felt that Peter Bergeron wasn't ready for the major leagues out of spring training, and made the curious decision to go with Martinez as their starting center fielder. Bergeron hit .320 with a lot of walks and gap power in the minor leagues before a September callup; meanwhile, Martinez was awful, hitting .245 before losing his job. Looking ahead to 2000 Three key questions 1. Can the young pitchers step forward? Dustin Hermanson, the ace of the staff, is just 27, and he's a wily veteran compared to youngsters like Mike Thurman, Carl Pavano, Javier Vazquez, and Jeremy Powell. Felipe Alou has long had a reputation as an excellent handler of young pitchers, but that reputation took a hit last year. His ability to get the most out of his starters, and whether he can get contributions out of top prospects Tony Armas Jr. and Ted Lilly, will determine whether the Expos can challenge for a .500 record. 2. Can Michael Barrett be an everyday catcher, and can the Expos find a third baseman? After a season of alternating Barrett back and forth between catcher and third base, the Expos have finally decided that his future is behind the plate. While Barrett's offense is more valuable as a catcher, there's also the increased danger that his bat won't develop as quickly as he deals with the rigors of catching. It also means the Expos need to get somebody to play third (rumors swirl about a Rondell White-for-Travis Fryman trade), and they need to trade incumbent catcher Chris Widger. 3. Can Bergeron give the Expos the leadoff hitter they need? The Expos' leadoff hitters in 1999 combined for just 99 runs and a .318 OBP. Bergeron is just 22 and has to prove himself, but he's capable of hitting .300 with an OBP close to .400, putting even more runners on base for Vladimir Guerrero to drive in. Can expect to play better Hermanson is not a 9-14 pitcher. He had mechanical problems in the first half of the season, and was terrible (3-10, 5.53 ERA). From Aug. 1 on, despite the heaviest workload of his career, he went 6-4, 2.37 ERA. If Pavano is healthy, he can't help but improve on his 5.63 ERA. Can expect to play worse Unheralded Mike Thurman had a 4.05 ERA in the rotation, better than Kris Benson or Tom Glavine, among others. He'll have to prove that it wasn't a fluke. And the concern about Rondell White isn't whether he'll play as well, but whether he can play as much: he's never played in even 100 games in back-to-back years.
Projected lineup CF Peter Bergeron 2B Jose Vidro RF Vladimir Guerrero LF Rondell White 1B Brad Fullmer C Michael Barrett SS Orlando Cabrera/Geoff Blum 3B To be determined Rotation/Closer Dustin Hermanson Hideki Irabu Javier Vazquez Carl Pavano Mike Thurman Ugueth Urbina A closer look Jeffrey Loria, the new managing partner of the Expos, appears determined to change the team's tradition of developing great players, only to watch them leave as free agents or traded away for more prospects. "We will no longer be the farm system for the major leagues," Loria said recently. And true to his word, the Expos are not only committed to keeping all their good young players, but they have even been active in the free-agent market, signing their first notable free agent since 1990, Graeme Lloyd, to a 3-year deal worth $9 million. They also traded for Hideki Irabu, sending the Yankees three minor leaguers in return. Irabu has one year left on his current contract that will pay him $2 million in 2000. For Expos fans, the idea that the team are now players in the game of free agency must be a heartwarming thought. So heartwarming, in fact, that lost in the giddiness of signing a free agent, the true impact of signing this particular player may be missed. Graeme Lloyd is a good pitcher. His ERA last year was 3.63; his career ERA is 3.62. He's a fine addition to a pitching staff, and he will probably be a valued member of the Expos bullpen for the next three years. He's also averaged just 51 innings a season in his major league career. There's no way he's worth nine million dollars. At least not to the Montreal Expos. Loria wants to put a winner on the field, right? The Expos won 68 games last year. To become at least a wild-card contender -- say, 90 wins -- they would have to improve by 22 wins. To even reach .500, the Expos need to find a way to tack on 13 victories. And there isn't a reliever in the history of baseball who helped his team win 13 more games. Lloyd, if he has a great year, may make the difference in three games for the Expos. Now they're all the way up to 71 wins. Big deal. What's so peculiar about this signing is that the Expos don't really even need Lloyd. Ugueth Urbina, despite having an off-year, led the NL with 41 saves. Five relievers appeared in at least 50 games -- and every one of them had an ERA under four. See if you can tell these two left-handed relievers apart, based on their 1999 statistics: Pitcher IP ERA BR/9 IP A 72.0 3.63 11.38 B 69.2 3.75 11.50Pitcher A is Graeme Lloyd. Pitcher B is the Expos' own Steve Kline, who led the majors with 82 appearances and did a terrific job as the Expos left-handed set-up man last year. And Kline, who only has three years experience in the major leagues, figures to make less than a third of Lloyd's salary, even though he's just as effective and young enough to get better. Yes. Loria and the Expos wanted to send a "statement" that it's no longer business as usual in Montreal. They wanted to show their fans that there was a new commitment towards rebuilding the Expos into a playoff contender. But if you really want to show how committed you are to winning, how about taking that cash and using it to sign Dustin Hermanson -- who, as a starting pitcher, averaged more innings (187) over the last three seasons than Lloyd has in all three combined (159) -- to a long-term deal? How about keeping that money for the annual draft, ending the Expos tradition of drafting "signable" players with less talent and instead spending the extra million dollars on the higher-rated players? How about saving that money for the future, when it will be needed to keep the future stars, the Barretts and Fullmers and Vazquezes, in Montreal? The Expos, as much young talent as they have, have a long road to climb back to respectability. Having an owner who's willing to pay the price for success is an incredibly important first step. But the price for success isn't only measured in dollars, it's measured in years. It's not enough for the Expos to open up their bank accounts; they need to open their eyes, and realize that their first priority should be keeping the young players they already have, not going out and grabbing another team's aging veterans. If Loria can temper his eagerness to build a winner with the patience needed to get there, the Expos have a good shot at contending for the playoffs in three years. Which, it must be said, is when Graeme Lloyd's contract ends. Rany Jazayerli, MD, is co-author of the annual Baseball Prospectus, a hard-hitting, irreverent, no-holds-barred look at our national pastime. Look for the 2000 edition in bookstores Feb. 1. He can be reached by email at ranyj@umich.edu. | ALSO SEE Expos minor-league report ESPN.com's Hot Stove Heaters  | ||||||||||
