Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Connecticut Nutmeggers are a bad team.

For those who haven’t been paying attention – and it would hardly be surprising if you haven’t – it’s 2013 and the plan has failed.  The Connecticut Nutmeggers lost an average of 102 games a season from 2007 to 2009.  The initial plan was to build around young talent, develop a core and see that core through into a powerful contender.

It looked like things were headed in the right direction in 2010 when the team jumped up to 78 wins on the year, just three games shy of breaking even and a 3^rd place finish in the Pan-Atlantic.  All-Star first baseman Miguel Lluea was traded away after the season for starting pitcher Chandler Davis.  Lluea carried a big contract and Davis looked like a solid middle of the rotation guy.  It was a smart move that paid off with Davis pitching like an ace.  However, things stalled in 2011.  The team made no progress, winning exactly the same number of games as they had the season before, but getting a year older.  Davis was great and third baseman José Montaño improved quite a bit in his sophomore season, but the formula didn’t lead to more success.

This past season, the progress of 2010 looked like a distant memory.  The team fell back to last place with a 69-93 record.  Despite a year in which left fielder Brooks Erickson set franchise records in numerous offensive statistics, the offense sputtered and the team struggled with injuries, including one that kept Davis from being anything close to the effective pitcher he was the season before.

The Connecticut Nutmeggers are a team in transition.

This is a team headed in the wrong direction.  At least that’s true if the direction is up the standings, and even that’s debatable since a team can’t finish any lower than 6^th in a PEBA division.  Regardless, this team looks like it is going to be farther from a championship in 2013 than it was at the end of 2012, and that’s already a good way off.

On the other hand, the team has some indication that changes are afoot that will eventually yield dividends.  Significant amounts of long-term salary have been shipped off to other teams.  The contracts coming back have not been cheap, but for the most part are deals that will be off the books next off-season.  The small market Nutmeggers may actually be in a position to spend as soon as next winter.

Big name vets like last year’s offensive hero Brooks Erickson, starter Chandler Davis and outfielder Bob Jefferson are off the books.  In return, the team has added payroll flexibility beyond this year and a promising young second baseman in Alonso Méndez.  Starting pitcher Carlos Cervantes is also in house and despite recovering from injury has had some success in the past.  The team also added walk machine Roger Jordan, who won’t hit for much average or power but gets on base plenty.

With the exception of Méndez and some added draft picks, though, these aren’t players that Nutmeggers fans should expect will be part of a contender in a few years.  These are the guys the team is hoping will pass through as new talent emerges that will ultimately be the core of a contender.

The Connecticut Nutmeggers are a team to watch out for.

Well, maybe not to watch out for so much as simply to watch.  No aspect of a team with the track record this one has can be said to have a strong suit to their game, but the stronger element of the Nutmeggers is the rotation.  Adrián Reséndez and António Cruz are both fairly young and posted ERAs below 3.50 in 2012, putting them each in the top 10 for Imperial League starters.  In the bullpen, Francis Phillips was one of the better closers in the league last season, but the team also boasts flame-throwing prospect David Chesney at triple-A Providence.  Chesney is rumored to be ticketed for the majors in 2013.

At the moment, though, the rotation needs to find some answers beyond the top two.  Davis’s departure leaves the team with several pitchers who ought to be in the rotation still in the process of returning from injury.  Cris Reyes was tremendous in 2011 but only lasted four starts in 2012 before a torn elbow ligament shelved him for the rest of the season.  Carlos Cervantes won’t be back until near the end of spring training and Anastasio Juárez will be recovering from Tommy John surgery until June at the earliest.

These injuries leave the door open to some of the Nutmeggers young talent.  Ed O’Bryan, José Solís and Rick Whitney are all possibilities to emerge this spring.  However, the big name that Connecticut fans will likely have to wait a little bit longer for is Carlos Rivera.  Some scouts have Rivera as the best pitching prospect in all of the PEBA.  With a fastball in the upper 90s, his changeup is impossible to lay off of and his slider is simply unfair.  Throw in a sinker and the only thing missing at this point is an ability to place his pitches.  Of course, at 19 years old, there’s plenty of time for him to work on his control while being a significant contributor for a very long time.

If the pitching staff is still a work in progress, the lineup is a work in need of progress.  The core centers around catcher Samuel Kettley and shortstop Ronald Lowry, which is sure to annoy second baseman George John, but it’s true.  The 22-year-old Kettley is a defensive wonder behind the plate and carries a bat that scouts see developing into one of the most well rounded offensive threats among backstops.  He’ll be given plenty of opportunity to succeed.  Lowry just turned 25 and the team will be asking him to be the go-to run producer that the departure of Erickson and Montaño leaves a gaping need for.

As for John, he’s a potential free agent after the 2013 season and needs to return to the All-Star form he displayed in 2009 and 2010 if he’s to convince the team that he’s worth signing to a longer extension.  At 26 years old, he’s certainly young enough to keep around, but he hasn’t lived up to the $23 million contract he signed nearly three years ago.

The big concern on the offensive side, and why the team is in need of progress, is that there aren’t really any offensive prospects in the system that are comparable to Rivera.  Outfielder Jorge Morín is the only player with any real shot at stardom, and that lack of depth is something the team will need to address via either trade, the draft or development.  There are a handful of prospects that currently look like solid regulars or good support players.  Ideally, these players would step up and show that they’re far better than the scouts predict.  Naturally, that can’t possibly happen with enough players to allow the front office to neglect the need for some shrewd player acquisitions.  What happens over the coming year will reveal a lot about where this club is headed and how it’s going to get there.

The Connecticut Nutmeggers are contenders.

This is, of course, where the club hopes to be headed.  It’s certainly not true yet, but it can be true in three to four years.  If each of the bolded section titles in this article were applied to each of the Nutmeggers ballclubs from 2013 to 2017, most fans of the team would be pretty happy with that progress.

There are some signs of optimism and some interesting players to watch in the coming year.  It’s also going to be a rather long season where another last-place finish is certainly possible.  Probably the best that would be possible would be a 4^th-place finish if things break right (London and New Jersey falter), but the most likely scenario is that the team will lose a few more games than they did this past year and finish up in exactly the same spot.

What wouldn’t be surprising, though, is to see the cautious optimism of this off-season gradually improve by this time next year.  The added payroll flexibility and another year of development for many of the team’s young future stars should result in a step forward in 2014, and from there, things will only get better.

Samuel Platt covers the Nutmeggers for the Connecticut Post.