Update Notes – January 20

To be honest I first set up the 2018 projections a little after Thanksgiving, but never felt like writing up anything about them. At this stage – with pitchers and catchers still having four more weeks of liberty before reporting for duty, and most of the free agents still free – there’s an awful lot of guesswork to go around. How are the Marlins are going to fill their outfield? The Orioles their rotation? How long will Player X, expected to be ready by May, really be out?

These are my token stabs in the dark at some of those answers

Baltimore Orioles – Signed Audry Perez and Eddie Gamboa; neither is likely to play.

Chicago White Sox – Signed Miguel Gonzalez and Gonzalez Germen. Both Gonzalezes should claim a regular spot for the Sox this year, with Miguel in the rotation and Germen in the pen.

Detroit Tigers – signed Johnny Barbato, who could get a spot callup to fill the back end of the bullpen for a month or so.

Kansas City Royals – Added Tyler Collins, who is no better than the bad outfielders I already have slotted in the KC outfield.

Minnesota Twins – Added Addison Reed and Jermaine Curtis. Curtis won’t play. Reed, however, is probably the best reliever in the Twins bullpen, and is going to be a very popular bid in roto leagues waiting for Rodney to fail.

New York Yankees – Signed Wade LeBlanc to a minor league contract; I expect him to work into long relief for some few innings.

San Francisco Giants – Trading for McCutchen primarily means that the Parker/Slater combo, who were fighting for left field playing time, are now fighting for fourth outfielder time. Although they do have a chance of knocking off Hunter Pence, if he can’t recover from last year’s disaster.

Tampa Bay Rays – No changes, but I had only had Brendan McKay registered as a hitter. Now he’s listed as both a hitter and a pitcher.

Texas Rangers – picked up Curt Casali and Deolis Guerra. Casali is probably the fourth catcher, which puts him on the fringe of getting into the majors this season – survey says about a third of similar players were in the majors. Guerra projects better than several current members of the pen, and I think he’ll be get a fair amount of playing time.

Toronto Blue Jays – Traded Dominic Leone and Conner Greene for Randal Grichuk. Also signed Curtis Granderson and Al Alburquerque. Granderson figures to take over the big side of a LF platoon with Steve Pearce, while Grichuk more or less takes over in right. That should be a marked improvement over the Teoscar Hernandez/Anthony Alford/Ezequiel Carrera combos I had in there before. Replacing Leone with Alburquerque is a loss for what is already a pretty sorry-looking bullpen.