Which Nice Teams Are Starting Out Naughty?

Welcome to Atlanta, where your 8-25 Braves stand as the 2016 poster boys for mortgaging the present. It's hard to believe now, but the Cincinnati Reds have to wish they were the Braves.

The Reds tried to play both ends against the middle two off-seasons ago and ended up getting toasted both ways. After a 76-86 campaign in '14, they unloaded their second and third best starters but left the rest of the team intact, en route to a 98-loss season.

Having flipped ace Johnny Cueto for some future chips at last year's trading deadline, GM Walt Jocketty sent Todd Frazier to Chicago for more prospect goodies this off-season. And that was it.

Hanging on to middling veterans like Brandon Phillips, Jay Bruce (getting tagged out, left) and Zack Cozart, he left Joey Votto and the Seven Dwarfs to compete this year against the likes of Pittsburgh, St. Louis and the Cubs. By failing to convert veterans into promising youth, the Reds lack the prospect-laden farm system that hints at a brighter future.

At least the residents of Marietta, Georgia have a future to look forward to.

Others Worthy of Relegation
In short, neither Atlanta nor Cincinnati is surprising anyone with their wretchedness so far this season. Nor are the Twins, who blinded themselves into a false sense of hope with a moment of incandescence last season, nor the Padres, a basket case of a different weave, nor the A's, whose management seems to have run out of ideas about how to convert trash into energy. The Brewers are sowing the bad karma that building around Ryan Braun reaps, not to mention a pitching staff of the following luminaries: Taylor Jungeman, Jimmy Nelson, Willy Peralta, Chase Anderson and Zach Davies.

Then there's the Angels, despite a gargantuan payroll and two inner-ring Hall of Famers, who can't buy a run and whose best starter, now that Garret Richards got laid up is...um...the smoldering ruins of Jered Weaver? Dude hasn't fanned a Major Leaguer batter since 2014.*

It's possible we'll see some dead cat bounce out of Minnesota this year, but that's about the best this pile of owl upchuck can hope for. The real question for these franchises is whether they are on the way up or the way down, or whether they even have a way.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other
All that leaves us with one head-scratcher, the Houston Astros. If ever a team was tailor-made for a season in which runs are being scored off big flies, it's this ultimate three true outcome team. Houston finished second in homers and fifth in walks last season, and first in whiffs, with seven batters accumulating 100+ Ks, including Colby Rasmus and Chris Carter, who fanned more than 300 times between them. (They also led the league in steals. Go figure.)

They're doing it again this year -- first in strikeouts, first in walks and fourth in going yard. The problem for the Astros is that the guys throwing the most innings are their worst pitchers. Starters 1-4, including last year's Cy Young, have been scorched fora combined 4.87 ERA. Starters #5 and #6 rock a combined 2.48 ERA and the bullpen has neither added nor subtracted.

The all-or-nothing offense combined with a pitching rotation regressing well beyond the mean have spelled doom for Houston, but there is good news in both the immediate past and on the horizon. They've won seven of their last 11 in large part because scads of ill fortune foisted upon them in April is settling out in May. The Astros have played sub-.400 ball so far but Baseball Prospectus projects them to play .543 the rest of the way. Projection systems are for movie theaters, but at least this suggests that the underlying conditions are there for a real recovery.

The early bottom feeders really do appear to be the sport's worst, with one exception. But baseball is a funny game and five months is an awfully long time.

*mild hyperbole but his average pitch speed is 82.7, or roughly how fast I can spit.

It Gets Late Early Around Here

The talk is already starting.

The Rockies (12-19) are  already in the basement, despite a hot start. The Phillies (13-23) claimed their rightful place almost immediately. The Brewers (12-23, 12.5 games out) have the worst record in baseball and the most ground to make up.

So who are they trading?

This is crazy talk, right?

In a word, no.

It's not like we're writing off the Indians or A's, whose early season performances have been similarly distressing. Colorado, Milwaukee and Philadelphia are simply ratifying their woebegone expectations.

All three teams employ aging, overpaid stars who will not be contributors by the time the rosters might conceivably inspire dreams of contention. The faster they convert what's left of those assets into prospects, the less the transition will hurt.

Take the Phillies. Please. By waiting to trade him, the returns on Chase Utley have cratered. In March he was an aging second baseman with some speed, defense and on-base skills. By May he's a decrepit has-been batting .118 and fumbling afield with utterly no trade value.

Ryan Howard has at least socked seven homers to go with his .293 OBP. But with his inability to move laterally or avoid the training table, he's already a $25 million sunk cost.

Still, Cole Hamels, Aaron Harang and Jonathan Papelbon might fetch something around the trade deadline. There's not much point in keeping any of them, particularly not Pop, whose whining, when mixed with a 100-loss season, is a recipe for indigestion.

In Denver, speculating upon Troy Tulowitzki's  next uniform is a favorite activity, along with ski jumping and mountain climbing. Tulo is only 30 and remains a great player during those fleeting interludes between DL stints, but he's signed for $100 million for the next five years (including this one). They need to flip him before his value divots, knowing that whatever the Rocks get for him will be tempered by injury fears.

The only other Colorado teammates over 30 of any note are catcher Nick Hundley and reliever John Axford. Ax might appeal to a contender with an ugly bullpen but there's not much of a market for a backstop worth six wins in eight years -- three of them in 2011.

The Brewers are suds of a different color. Most of their players exude the bloom of youth and the joy of skills. Two of their stars -- catcher Jonathan Lucroy and shortstop Jean Segura -- are on the shelf with injuries. With their return and the addition of one top starter Milwaukee could play meaningful September baseball. They might ultimately be buyers, not sellers.

If they had to unload, the best candidates are: Adam Lind, now producing his third consecutive TAv above .300 and at 31, signed for just one more season; Matt Garza, a 31-year-old third starter with three more years on his contract; and Kyle Lohse, another third starter entering free agency. 

But I don't see any of that. Not only will brass need more convincing that they can't contend, they just picked up Lind and Garza in the last year, so bouncing them would amount to admissions of defeat. Unlike Philly and Colorado, the Brewers might be wise to ride out the wave.

On the flip side, there are the Astros and Yankees. Neither should print playoff tickets just yet...

Call Off the Season Now

It's May 14. The concept in force remains "small sample size." Yet already, 35 games into the season, logic prevails:

Division Leaders
Atlanta Braves
St. Louis Cardinals
San Francisco Giants

New York Yankees
Detroit Tigers
Texas Rangers

Wild Cards
Cincinnati Reds
Arizona Diamondbacks

Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox

Other than the conspicuous absence of the Nationals, would any of this be shocking at year's end? All six division winners made the playoffs last year. So did two of the four Wild Cards. There doesn't appear to be a 2012 Cleveland, 2011 Pittsburgh or  2010 Baltimore here that takes off with a gallop and pulls up lame at the three-quarter pole.

Let's delve deeper. Here's the bottom of the standings:

Last place teams
Toronto Blue Jays
Chicago White Sox
Houston Astros

Miami Marlins
Chicago Cubs
Los Angeles Dodgers

Not a single 2012 playoff team. We like to think of Toronto as a favorite, but the 2012 version lost 89 games and the imports arrived with plenty of downside everywhere but on the payroll.
Someone has to bring up the rear in the AL East.

L.A. will almost certainly switch places with the Padres, who are better equipped for the cellar. As for Chicago, well, let's hope the Blackhawks can parlay the NHL's best record into a Stanley Cup run.

It would be interesting to research how long it takes for Major League team records to coalesce around their natural state. In 2013, it looks like 30 games is about that point.