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The point of this is to really be able to objectify what holes we need to address and what resources we have to address those holes. I did this last offseason prior to the firesale (which more-or-less justified the firesale unless we were going over a 100m payroll. It's also interesting to see how much our pitching progressed from then) and thought it'd be good to see where we now stand going forward.
Few notes:
-* means arbitration eligible/guess payroll
-Replacement level team is worth 48 wins, so add 48 to the WAR total for total team wins
-Those WAR numbers are very rough, as are minimum numbers. This is meant as a rough view and not meant to be completely 100% accurate. Just enough to paint a picture.
-If they're making the minimum, their name really doesn't matter (This especially goes for bench/bullpen). It's just used as a filler piece since it's already rather interchangeable.
2014
Nothing really to say except that our IF sucks ass while the rest of our team is good and our payroll is super low (aka what everyone already knows). I have us at ~78 wins, Zips has us at ~75 wins. So there really isn't much hope even with major break outs. Our IF just sucks so bad
2015
With continual development from the likes of Fernandez, Yelich, and Ozuna/Mars, the first full season of Heaney, and the departure of Dobbs, I think we progress to being around a .500 win team. Still way too many holes in the IF. Our pitching staff will likely be in the top-5 (and that's being conservative) in the NL, our OF will be top ranked as well, but our current projected IF is looking like the worst in baseball.
The good part? The IF FA class is a lot more interesting than this past year's. Up the middle, there is Lowrie, Hardy, and Asdrubal Cabrera (Their contracts probably being around 3-4 years at 9-12m per). At third, there's Sandoval and Headley (4-5 years at 14-17m per). All of which are about ~3 WAR players and relatively young.
Further expounding optimism is just how much money there is to play with. We're looking at a current projected payroll of just 50m. Removing Cishek, Dunn, and McGehee frees up over another 10m. Hech and Turner are more pieces that would not hurt to move to free up room. We could sign 3 of the above players and still be around just a 75m payroll.
Now, it's unlikely we sign all 3 for a lot of reasons. But we need to sign at least two (likely of the up-the-middle variety so as not to block Moran) to be serious contenders. If we do that, we're looking at a ~5 win increase and now being an upper-80's team. Still not great, but there's a lot of room for growth with our young players.
There is also dealing from our SP depth to fill these holes. And that really should not hurt us all too bad.
If we have a desire to upgrade 1st (and we likely should), it'll have to be through trade. The FA class there is incredibly weak. But there is also the option of moving Stanton to first if both Ozuna and Marisnick develop well. This would free up even more money to spend on the rest of the IF.
2016
With Fernandez hitting arbitration, as well as the continual raises in others like Stanton, Eovaldi, Alvarez, and Cishek, our payroll is getting pretty high. Dumping a lot of our pen (which, with our pitching depth, is not a bad thing) frees up a ton of payroll though so this isn't too big of a thing. Again: need IF help.
2017 will also be pretty hard on payroll with more guys like Yelich and Ozuna/Mars hitting arbitration. Plus Stanton getting huge pay raise from FA years. Oh, wait. Sigh.
TLDR
Lot of hope starting in 2015 based off how good our pitching and OF are, along with a stronger IF FA class and a lot of money to spend. As long as they actually spend that money.
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