Montreal Expos

For a third straight season, the Montreal Expos enter the season as wards of the state of baseball, and for the second straight year they enter the season as a team without a country. This year, 2004, really is a critical one for the Expos, and for baseball itself, a year full of questions …

A fair question. The Expos lost two of their brightest lights when Vlad Guerrero dropped a bombshell on baseball by signing on to Arte Moreno’s Latin Revolution in Anaheim and Omar Minaya couldn’t find the cash to keep ace Javier Vazquez away from the Evil Empire. The bright side for the Quebecois is that at least Vazquez brought some schwag into a system in desperate need of warm bodies with talent.

Nick Johnson heads a cast of new comers into Bingo Long’s traveling vagabonds. Johnson will be counted on as Montreal’s full-time first baseman, which is risky for both parties. The Expos will count on Johnson to provide offense for a team that lost the heart of its offense in Vlad, but to do that, he must be in the lineup. A series of wrist and hand injuries has limited Johnson to just 248 games in three big league seasons. However, while just 24 years old, Johnson showed the type of skills in his truncated 2003 that gave Yankee fans non-sexual mancrushes and had statheads batting their eyes at him for some time now.

Johnson made posted an on-base average of .422 – which would have been good for third in the American League (just behind Carlos Delgado and ahead of former teammate Jason Giambi) had he posted the requisite 502 plate appearances. But he didn’t. He strode to the plate just 394 times – drawing a base on balls in 70 of those appearances. If healthy, he’ll mash and he’ll draw walks and he’ll help mitigate the loss of Vlad and the impending loss of Jose Vidro and Orlando Cabrera (more on that later).

But enough about Nick… Juan Rivera isn’t chopped liver. Well, relative to Johnson he is, but relative to the assorted motley crew of fourth and fifth outfielders the Expos trotted out between Endy Chavez and the foul lines, he’s solid gold. In between Vlad’s back injuries and Brad Wilkerson’s everything else injuries, Montreal ran out a combo of Ron Calloway, Jose Macias, Joe Vitiello, Henry Mateo, Al Oliver and Boots Day on a daily basis (OK, I made those last two up.) Rivera’s not an all-star, and New York did good to get rid of him, but Montreal did good too. Vasquez wasn’t staying and the Expos filled two spots with league average or better defenders and serviceable bats, given his situation, Minaya should be proud.

A few other moves should make Mrs. Minaya very happy about her baby boy’s offseason. Omar brought in Jurassic Carl Everett, who right now is practicing how to say he doesn’t believe in dinosaurs in two foreign languages (more on this later). Everett is still younger than one would think (playing age of 33 in 2004) and fairly productive at the plate (.287/.366/.510 in 2003 between Texas and the White Sox). His 28 homers last year would have led the team, as would his 92 runs batted in and his .876 OPS, which was driven by what would have been his team-leading .510 slugging percentage. It’s not all rosy for Carl, the league switch may hurt him a bit. Everett was fifth in the AL in OPS on curveballs, smacking breaking pitches to the tune of .979. Moving to a league that anecdotally sees more fastballs thrown, this could be a problem. Carl posted just two seasons above .450 slugging while in the Senior Circuit, both in pre-Minute Maid Houston.

The other nifty roster move Minaya made was letting Fernando Tatis take a long walk to Tampa, even though one off a short pier would have been just a good. Tatis in Montreal was an unmitigated failure. He was often hurt, and when he wasn’t hurt, he was killing the lineup before losing his job to a combo of Jamey Carroll (a 29-year-old minor league vet) and Todd Zeile (rotting corpse of a ballplayer). Tony Batista will replace Tatis in the lineup. Batista is a league average defender at third, and occasionally can charge the ball over the wall. His best two seasons were north of the border, where he hit 72 bombs with Toronto. He’s not great, but given the dearth of available talent at the hot corner, he was a good get for the Expos.

No.

Money. Money buys depth, and the Expos ain’t got neither. Andy Fox, Jamey Carroll and Henry Mateo probably duke it out for the scraps of playing time on the infield, while Ron Calloway, Endy Chavez and a cast of dozens try to hop on as the fifth outfielder. Greg Zaun is not only still alive, but still active and very likely Brian Schneider’s backup backstop.

Funny I should ask myself this. The staff ace this year is innings-sponge Livan Hernandez. No, that wasn’t a typo. The less famous half-brother racked up league-leading 233.1 innings pitched, going the distance in an NL-high eight times to an ERA of 3.20 (good for eighth in the NL). Livan also fanned 178 batters, made 22 quality starts, and held teams to just a .304 on-base average, all of which put him solidly in the category of "Best Pitchers in the NL in 2003." The Expos will need an encore performance from the 29-year-old right-hander.

Vazquez aside, Livan leads a rotation that is not much different than v.2003. Back are Tomo Ohka, Zach Day and Claudio Vargas. Tony Armas Jr., returning from a torn rotator cuff and labrum is expected to soak up some of what Vazquez gave the team, as is Sun-Woo Kim, but on the whole the rotation could be David Gest scary in 2004.

The bullpen is where Minaya had his greatest success in 2003 and his biggest shortcoming. First, the good news. Luis Ayala was a great reliever at twice the price or more. The Rule 5 draftee is a textbook demonstration of the fungible relief pitcher. Originally signed by Arizona off as free agent out of the Mexican Pacific League after a brief stint in Ottawa (Montreal’s then-AAA affiliate), the Expos made him their Rule 5 pick before the 2003 season and he rewarded them handsomely. At 25 all he did was strike out 46 batters in 71.0 innings while only walking 10 batters unintentionally. Sporting a sub-3.00 ERA, Ayala allowed just 16.7% of his inherited runners to score and was second to San Francisco’s Joe Nathan with 10 relief wins. If he can repeat, he’ll be a blessing to a Montreal bullpen that promises to be busy.

On the flip side we have Rocky Biddle, the Proven Closer. Biddle led the league in relief losses (8), was second in blown saves (7) and had an ERA of 4.65 (but component ERA of 5.13. Toting a strikeout-walk ratio of 54-40, Biddle conned his way into a closer’s role and 34 saves. Twenty-one of those saves were "easy" as defined by the Bill James’ Handbook, another 12 were "regular" with only two being "hard." In short, Biddle got fat on easy and regular saves, was never really tested and when he was, teams made him extra crispy. Perhaps other GMs knew this about Biddle and shied away, but once Montreal fell off the pace, Minaya should have flipped Biddle for something more useful than a mediocre reliever dressed as a quasi-reliable closer.

Other arms in the bullpen should be undervalued former Yankee lefty Randy Choate and 2003 first round draft choice Chad Cordero. Choate, a Yankee for four seasons, came over in the Vasquez deal. His only real shot came in 2001, when he posted ERAs of 3.35 with 35 strikeouts in 48.1 innings. Walks have historically killed Choate, who has handed out 51 of them against 64 punchouts in 91.1 big league innings. He should get a chance to throw regularly in the bigs for the first time since 2001, and he should reward his new masters. Cordero was one of two "signability" picks that made their major league debuts just months after hearing their name on MLB’s draft conference call (the other being Cincinnati’s Ryan Wagner). Both Cordero and Wagner were college relievers and both had success in 2003 in the majors. In limited action, Cordero struck out 12 in 11 innings, walking just 2 unintentionally and surrendering just two runs (both to Florida on a Juan Encarnacion two-run homer in the ninth inning of a 14-4 Expo win). Cordero should be an asset to the 2004 club.

Well, once again the team will play 22 "home" games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 59 games in front of indifferent fans waiting for the inevitable loss of their franchise in Montreal and 81 times on the road. Aside from forcing Carl Everett to explain away paleontologic evidence of giant reptile and bird like creatures in English, French and now Spanish, this silly city-sharing arrangement is the most galling aspect of MLB’s ownership of the Expos (well that and their inability to call up players in September when rosters expand, and the hypocrisy of having…. Well, let’s just move on, shall we?). The Expos played 103 games away from their home hotels, or apartments or families, etc – 22 more to be exact. Anecdotally, stories circulated that the extra travel hurt the team as it faded out of contention after a surprising start. The park itself led to high scores and a stupid 181 home run park index, nearly 50 points higher than the index at Coors Field. If the Expos trotted out a PlayStation and used that to play the games, the scores would most likely have been lower. Because of the impact of tiny, Hiram Bithorn Stadium, the combined park factor of the Expos’ home stadiums was 118 in 2003, up from 101 in 2002.

In Montreal, with injury cases like Carl Everett and Nick Johnson, Jose Vidro’s balky back, Brad Wilkerson’s maladies and the general suckiness of the field, management has equipped Stade Olympique with new NexTurf, which should help to keep Les Expos on the field and out of le training room.

I did, and I’m getting to it.

Jose Vidro is a bonafide star. He led the team in every rate stat in 2003 and was the team’s lone all-star. He also makes $7.75 million in 2004 and can walk at the end of the year. If Montreal falls out of contention early, or MLB continues to jerk baseball-free cities and Montreal around past its self-imposed All-Star Break deadline to figure out what to do with the team, Vidro will likely be rented to a contender.

Cabrera just signed a one-year deal with $6 million. He led the team in every major counting stat, save homers, played a serviceable shortstop and started 160 games and appeared in all 162. He too could be sent to parts unknown if the season goes south.

Minaya miscalculated his team’s chances in 2002 and went for broke in a failed effort to get his team into the playoffs just one time. Between June 27 and July 11, 2002, Montreal acquired Bartolo Colon and Cliff Floyd. However, they dealt Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee, Carl Pavano and Justin Wayne to get them.

The team ultimately failed to get anywhere, traded Floyd to Boston for Sunny Kim and Seung Song, but the system hasn’t had time to regenerate yet.

Terrmel Sledge is the best bet to make the trip north with the club. As a 26-year-old, he smacked around pitching in the Pacific Coast League to the tune of .324/.397/.545. Aside from being the first position player to test positive for some sort of steroid, Sledge is solid left-handed bat that can cover all three slots in the outfield. He could have helped the team in September while they were still marginally in the race for the Wild Card, but it was not to be.

Also lurking in the minors is Larry Broadway, 23-year-old AA first baseman who is now blocked by Nick Johnson, but who went from the Sally League to the Eastern League in jumping from low-A to double-A in 2003, popping 20 homers in 544 ABs. He also walked 69 times on his tour of the various bus leagues.

Clint Everts is probably the team’s best pitching prospect. In his first year in pro ball, Everts fanned about twice as many as he walked (71-45) and gave up just 5 homers in 80 innings of work. The team’s top draft choice in 2002, he’s still 19 and still in A-ball.

Sadly for Expos fans, that appears to be about it. There are no pitchers in the upper levels that scream can’t miss or ace.

The good news is MLB’s powers that be have seen the light that the Expos can’t continue to be wards of the state forever. Bud Selig has publicly said a decision on the team’s future, either in Montreal (where there are no local buyers) or elsewhere (D.C. being the leading contender), will be made by the All-Star Break. The head of the group representing Northern Virginia in the bring baseball to the Washington area has said if the Expos don’t move somewhere, then their group will fold tents and pack it in.

The optimal time to sell the team was early in 2003, when it was in contention, still had Guerrero and the price would likely have been it’s highest. As it is now, the Expos are a cut-rate shell of a franchise relative to its 2002 and 2003 highs.

Well, that and the NL East is wide open this year. Atlanta should finally drop out of the top spot in the division and while the Phillies have improved, the Marlins are defending World Series champions and the Mets are starting to get better, anything is possible.

If Nick Johnson and Brad Wilkerson stay healthy, if Carl Everett stays healthy and happy, if Jose Vidro and Orlando Cabrera just stay, if Tony Batista, Juan Rivera, Brian Schneider and the rest of the offense stay in spitting distance of league average it’s possible the offense could improve on last year’s run total of 711 runs.

The pitching outlook isn’t nearly as rosy, and a regression from their 716 runs allowed seems likely.

If I had to guess, the Expos finish near .500 again, which is no small feat, and could be something to build on. Somewhere.

2003 Lineup (common) 2004 Lineup (projected)

Name               P    AVG   OBP   SPC    G   AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI   BB    K  SB  CS 
Johnson*           1b  .283  .413  .482  120  392   72  111  21   0  19   67   77   87   4   3 
Vidro#             2b  .317  .393  .480  145  546   85  173  39   1  16   83   63   56   3   2 
Wilkerson*         lf  .272  .393  .481  146  497   80  135  31   5  21   77   95  146  10   9 
Sledge*            lf  .299  .380  .482  128  485   87  145  26   6  17   70   59   86  10   6 
Rivera             rf  .310  .358  .488  129  471   62  146  28   1  18   76   31   68   3   5 
Pascucci           rf  .257  .377  .432  134  475   75  122  21   1  20   71   88  130   2   3 
Everett#           cf  .265  .344  .479  129  468   74  124  27   2  23   78   44   85   6   3 
Cabrera            ss  .286  .343  .430  161  619   79  177  46   2  13   80   52   58  22   5 
McKinley#          1b  .262  .345  .421  115  420   70  110  26   1  13   58   49   85   8   5 
Batista            3b  .258  .308  .472  162  627   87  162  31   2  33  106   38  104   4   4 
Knorr              c   .263  .326  .423   82  300   31   79  25   1   7   39   25   55   1   0 
Church*            lf  .269  .319  .436   94  353   46   95  16   2  13   50   23   64   2   2 
Cepicky*           lf  .276  .323  .431  132  478   62  132  29   3  13   63   29  103   4   4 
Hodges*            3b  .279  .337  .399  125  484   69  135  23   1  11   60   38   95   2   2 
Schneider*         c   .255  .332  .415  107  330   32   84  27   1   8   42   36   63   0   2 
Zaun#              c   .265  .333  .392   69  166   17   44   9   0   4   21   16   25   1   1 
Calloway*          lf  .262  .322  .416  125  428   54  112  23   2  13   56   34   91  12   7 
Chavez*            cf  .291  .339  .392  136  498   74  145  28   5   4   49   34   55  16  12 
Matos              3b  .285  .317  .384  123  417   50  119  20   0   7   48   15   50   5   5 
Watson*            cf  .292  .345  .339  133  513   78  150  13   4   1   42   36   50  15  11 
Bergeron*          cf  .269  .342  .337  126  484   79  130  17   5   2   39   50  100  12   8 
Lopez              3b  .247  .314  .377  137  522   62  129  29   0  13   64   47   69   0   2 
Carroll            3b  .265  .330  .338   92  204   28   54  10   1   1   18   17   34   4   2 
Mateo#             2b  .260  .315  .354  108  350   47   91  11   5   4   30   24   66  17   8 
Fox*               2b  .239  .322  .311  110  318   37   76  11   3   2   24   36   69  17   6 
Hoover             c   .239  .303  .318   88  314   35   75  15   2   2   26   26   73   4   3 
Creese             c   .221  .265  .346   87  335   42   74  19   1   7   36   16  102   0   0 

Name                  ERA   W   L   G  GS     INN    H   ER  HR   BB    K 
Corcoran             3.73   6   4  49   0    70.0   60   29   7   26   71 
Ayala                3.80   7   5  60   0    64.0   63   27   7   12   46 
Ohka                 4.07  11  10  32  32   188.0  193   85  20   42  119 
Eischen*             4.09   3   3  66   0    66.0   62   30   7   21   54 
Choate*              4.22   2   3  52   1    64.0   59   30   3   32   47 
Hernandez            4.22  13  14  33  33   228.0  228  107  25   67  160 
Armas                4.33  10  11  29  29   162.0  146   78  17   72  148 
Cordero              4.37   1   2  31   0    35.0   33   17   3   15   28 
Farnsworth           4.37   4   9  27  15   105.0  109   51  10   34   60 
Day                  4.53   8  11  29  23   137.0  138   69  11   57   81 
Fikac                4.74   4   5  66   0    76.0   74   40  11   30   63 
Ferrari*             4.82   4   6  45   0    71.0   74   38   4   35   32 
Biddle               4.88   5   7  49  10    94.0   91   51  12   44   75 
Judd                 4.95   4   6  24  16    91.0   92   50   9   44   62 
Song                 5.02   6  10  25  25   129.0  132   72  15   58   80 
Mahomes              5.06   5   7  54   5    96.0  102   54  12   41   56 
Chiavacci            5.26   5   8  30  20   130.0  125   76  17   75  108 
Parker               5.32   6  10  25  25   142.0  158   84  16   56   52 
Coco                 5.32   5   9  30  26   142.0  153   84  21   60   92 
Kim                  5.33   5   9  32  21   135.0  142   80  21   59   91 
Tucker               5.34   4   6  42  16   113.0  121   67  17   48   72 
Smith                5.51   3   6  35  12    98.0  105   60  19   38   70 
Downs*               5.70   4   7  21  19   109.0  126   69  18   43   46 
Vargas               5.73   5  11  25  23   121.0  129   77  24   53   88