We are at the placid point of the Major League calendar. It’s all sunshine and smiles in the early days of camp, when the games that don’t count haven’t even started yet and the games that do count are more than a month away.
Ah, but the real thing is coming eventually. And when the 2021 season dawns, the stars who changed homes this past offseason will all be tasked with validating the optimism surrounding their arrivals.
Here are the offseason additions facing the most scrutiny this year, ranked in order from most pressure to least.
1. Francisco Lindor, SS, Mets
So this will be an interesting test for him on a variety of levels. Like so many superstars, he loves the limelight. But the lights burn just a bit brighter in New York than in Cleveland, where slumps or struggles in the clutch were nowhere near as magnified.
Everything will be magnified on this new-look and very much win-now Mets team. And with free agency looming at season’s end and the impending free-agent shortstop class loaded to the gills (in the midst of a collective bargaining agreement negotiation, no less), Lindor would be facing heightened pressure to perform no matter which market he played in. (That is, unless he winds up signing an extension with the Mets prior to the season, though that would arguably create pressure of a different sort.)
2. Trevor Bauer, RHP, Dodgers
He has a particularly tough act to follow after posting an incredible 1.73 ERA and 0.80 WHIP in 11 starts in the shortened 2020 season and winning the National League Cy Young Award. He’s joining a team for whom anything shy of a World Series title will be considered a step back and a letdown. He’s also pitching for his hometown team, which tends to ramp things up a notch.
And no talk about Bauer is complete without mentioning Bauer’s talk. He welcomes the social-media spotlight, which he has used for both good and, well, not-so-good. His more problematic moments obviously did not carry enough weight for the Dodgers not to make a deal, in the end. But Bauer does have an especially large number of detractors who will most certainly let him hear about any stumbles.
3-4. Blake Snell, LHP, and Yu Darvish, RHP, Padres
It’s difficult to distinguish them in this discussion, so we’ll just put this Padre pair together -- especially given that the successive swaps that brought them to San Diego happened within 24 hours of each other. That made Snell and Darvish the central figures of a monumental offseason for the Padres, and now the pressure is on the team, at large, to take another big step forward and down the Dodgers.
Snell and Darvish must lead a rotation high on both talent and risk. If Dinelson Lamet’s iffy elbow doesn’t cooperate, the importance of these two pitchers, who have dealt with their own injury issues in recent years, will be all the more pronounced.
They also both face some pressing questions in their new home. Can Darvish sustain the level he has been at since mid-2019 (2.40 ERA in 25 starts), or might he regress toward the less-flattering results of 2018 and early 2019? Will Snell get his wish for a longer leash in games, and, if so, will he capitalize on it?
5. Liam Hendriks, RHP, White Sox
You know how this works: If the closer blows it, he hears about it.
In giving Hendriks the sixth-largest contract any free agent received this winter ($54 million guaranteed), the South Siders have made a major monetary and emotional investment in Hendriks to be the guy he was in Oakland (1.79 ERA, 0.897 WHIP over past two seasons). That’s a difficult -- perhaps even impossible -- standard to maintain in such a volatile role, though Hendriks will certainly try.
The big-money reliever is one of the biggest risks in baseball, and otherwise great teams are undermined if the bullpen doesn’t come through. So yes, Hendriks is under pressure.
6. Nolan Arenado, 3B, Cardinals
The Cardinals, famously, didn’t give up much to get Arenado. Heck, they’re not even on the hook for his 2021 salary. So from that standpoint, it’s all wine and roses right now, and we’ll rank Arenado accordingly.
But St. Louis has a particularly passionate fan base. And through no fault of his own, Arenado was the only impact acquisition for a lineup that, if we’re being honest, probably needed more help than even his high-ceiling talent can provide. So if Arenado has a season that resembles his injury-affected 2020 (.738 OPS), it’s not going to be enough. And if Arenado struggles at all in Busch Stadium, he’s going to have to hear the unfair-but-unavoidable talk about how Coors Field inflated his past numbers.
Assuming he doesn’t opt out after 2021 (and it’s doubtful he would), Arenado is all set on the financial front. But he has joined a franchise where expectations are more than a mile high.
7. George Springer, OF, Blue Jays
This is a tricky one to tabulate. The Blue Jays are merely at the beginning of their competitive window, and, frankly, Torontonians are so happy to finally not come in second in the pursuit of a major player that Springer ought to be a fan favorite.
Besides, the Blue Jays aren’t even opening in Toronto. They’ll be opening in Dunedin, Fla., where the biggest pressure point is trying to find a parking spot in the vicinity of TD Ballpark. (I can tell you from experience that parking at the library next door is strictly verboten.)
Having said all that, Springer and fellow free-agent import Marcus Semien are the only two truly established bats in this young and burgeoning lineup. The Blue Jays’ pitching plan is a bit of a wild card. So this team might have to win some high-scoring games, and Springer will be counted on to set the table and the tone from the leadoff spot. So while he might not be under as much pressure as the others on this list, we hereby forbid him from mailing it in. (And from parking at the Dunedin Public Library.)
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