Once the Houston Astros gather in spring training and begin their preparations for the 2020 season, it seems inevitable that this group of competitive professionals will eventually and reflexively rally around a mantra of "We'll show you."
You don't think we were the best team in baseball in 2017? We'll show you. You think we hit those home runs and piled up those big numbers because of sign stealing? We'll show you. You believe that we're defined by the cheating scandal? We'll show you.
The Astros will be bombarded with criticism from the stands everywhere they play, and some of them will undoubtedly come to look at it as disproportionate and unfair. The resentment that grows out of this treatment may help fuel them on a given day, or longer.
But it's possible that the backlash will negatively affect some individual players.
I covered the Baltimore Orioles when Roberto Alomar spat at umpire John Hirschbeck, and Alomar was booed in road games for the rest of his career. Alomar was uniquely talented, someone whose style changed the way middle infielders of his generation played their positions, and he would eventually be voted into the Hall of Fame.
But once the booing began, I always thought that something disappeared in Alomar. The joy with which he played in the first half of his career largely evaporated, and it seemed to become more of a job for Alomar. I wonder whether it will feel the same way for some of the Astros, feeding into an increasing vulnerability of a team that has largely dominated the American League West.
Gerrit Cole is gone, having moved on to the New York Yankees for a well-earned $324 million deal; no matter who steps into the rotation for the Astros, that pitcher will not come close to replicating the impact or importance of Cole. Will Harris, one of Houston's most effective relievers, moved to the Nationals. And manager AJ Hinch, regarded as one of the best in his profession, is gone, after being suspended for a year and fired by Astros owner Jim Crane. There has been significant tangible loss for a team that won 107 games last season and finished 10 games ahead of the Athletics, 29 games ahead of the Rangers, 35 in front of the Angels.
Meanwhile, the teams chasing Houston may well improve to varying degrees. The Athletics will at times turn over their roster to manage payroll, but they have largely kept an excellent 2019 team together. And a rotation that was good last season may get better with Sean Manaea and A.J. Puk in place for the start of the season.
The Rangers have built what might be the deepest rotation in the division, adding Corey Kluber, Kyle Gibson and Jordan Lyles to join Mike Minor and Lance Lynn -- and the hope and expectation is that their new ballpark will be fairer to pitchers, much more so than the hitter-friendly conditions of The Ballpark in Arlington.
And while the Angels continue to look for ways to augment their rotation, which remains a work in progress, Shohei Ohtani will get back to the mound this season and the addition of Anthony Rendon to their lineup might enable them to hit past other weaknesses. The Angels should score a whole lot of runs.
Houston has won the West for three straight seasons, averaging about 104 wins. But in an improved division, it may be that the Astros will need to weaponize their frustration over the sign-stealing fallout to help them stay on top.
Elsewhere around the major leagues
• Last weekend, Alex Bregman took heat for the sins of the 2017 Astros because he happened to be one of the first players from that team to sit in front of microphones, and his answers -- or non-answers -- and those of Jose Altuve stunned rival officials, who assumed that there would be at least a dollop of contrition or regret expressed. There was nothing of the sort, and the ugly reviews of what Bregman and Altuve said seemed to prompt Crane into saying that the players would address the issue again in spring training.
But it should be noted that Bregman was in his rookie season in 2016, and so while it's possible that he could have stepped forward and expressed some concern over the sign-stealing system, he was among the players with the least service time on the roster in '17. The leadership to address the cheating, if there was going to be any, really needed to come from one of the veterans.
• Marcell Ozuna, who is headed to Atlanta to fill the lineup hole vacated by Josh Donaldson, is the second player signed by the Braves for an $18 million salary for 2020 (Cole Hamels is the other) and the significance of that number is that it represents what veterans would have received had they accepted a qualifying offer from their team and passed on free agency. Ozuna turned down a qualifying offer from the Cardinals, so that was his bottom line.
• By the way, there does not seem to be any hard evidence that other teams were close to the $92 million the Minnesota Twins paid for Donaldson, despite apparently strategic leaks that multiple clubs had offered four-year deals in the same neighborhood. Some of those involved in the bidding were interested in adding the kind of production that Donaldson provided in 2019, but there was (and is) real concern over whether he'll hold up through Years 3 and 4 of a four-year deal, given his age (34) and injury history.
But the Twins don't have to worry about that in the immediate future, and they could have a spectacular, well-balanced lineup in the season ahead. A possible batting order:
RF Max Kepler (left-handed hitter)
3B Donaldson (right-handed hitter)
SS Jorge Polanco (switch-hitter)
DH Nelson Cruz (RH)
1B Miguel Sano (RH)
LF Eddie Rosario (LH)
C Mitch Garver (RH)
2B Luis Arraez (LH)
CF Byron Buxton (RH)
Additionally, the Twins have the very capable super-utilityman Marwin Gonzalez, a switch-hitter, to plug into the lineup on a regular basis, to fill holes created by injury or give someone a rest.
• The best of the Yankees' pitching prospects all share a similar trait: they have struggled to throw strikes. Deivi Garcia rocketed through the farm system last year, reaching Triple-A, but he walked 54 in 111⅓ innings. Albert Abreu, a prospect acquired from the Astros in the deal that sent Brian McCann to Houston, walked 53 in 96⅔ innings last season. Luis Medina had 67 walks in 93 innings. That trio are the Yankees' best pitching prospects, according to the YES Network rankings. The need to improve their command was one of the reasons why the team revamped its pitching program, hiring Sam Briend to become their director of pitching, with Matt Blake taking over as big league pitching coach.