Dodgers? D-Backs? Astros? Buy/Sell/Hold Ratings for MLB (West edition)

Here we are, middle of June and there at the top of the NL West standings are the Dodg…Gia…Padr…the Arizona Diamondbacks? Believe it, because it’s true. The DBacks are looking solidly like a division winner. The early talk about Corbin Carroll as an NL Rookie of the Year candidate has shifted, as people are now considering him a legit MVP candidate. And why not? He’s hitting .308/.391/.586 with 18 doubles, 14 home runs, and 36 RBIs, and his OPS is a stellar .978. But this young and super-exciting DBacks offense is so much more than Carroll; the reason for their offensive success is that they have such a variety of specialist hitters, young and old, who cover the span of hitting categories—Perdomo (142 wRC+), Marte (.845 OPS), Rivera (.331 AVG), Longoria (.545 SLG), Gurriel, Jr., Fletcher, Walker, etc. The Diamondbacks offensive roster includes eight players with wRC+ numbers above 115. It is a squad that ranks top-10 in just about every advanced hitting category. They are 13-5 since May 28, easily one of the hottest teams in baseball.

And yet, there’s the other side of the card—pitching & defense. While Zac Gallen is brilliant for sure, the DBacks’ starting staff currently has a 4.59 SIERA, near the bottom of Major League Baseball (ranked 23rd ). Their K-BB% (11.9) and WHIP (1.38) rank bottom ten in baseball. Their Hard Hit allowed rate is 41.2%, and their Barrel hit allowed rate is 9.5%, both numbers that put them in the bottom 7 in baseball. Things improve only slightly when their bullpen (3.87 SIERA) goes to work. Those numbers are rather scary if one is thinking about Arizona’s chances to make a playoff run this year.

It is not surprising then that the Philadelphia Phillies visited Phoenix this week and rang up 32 runs in four games. Arizona is a great story, and their potential is enormous. We will have to see if they can do anything in free agency to shore up their pitching (or if can they avoid a trade that leads to a Madison Bumgarner disaster.) For now, HOLD but do not buy.

The Houston Astros are a team that right now has a -15.0 wRAA. This means that the number of runs contributed by their average offensive player is -15 below the league average. By comparison, their division rival Texas Rangers have a 53.8 wRAA. And their American League rival Tampa Bay Rays have a 70.6 wRAA. It is true that Yordan Alvarez being out for a month is horrible news, but even before Alvarez went down, the Astros had a .714 OPS (ranked 21^st in the league), a 100 wRC+ (16^th in the league), a .290 BABIP (19^th in the league), numbers all supported by low Barrel % and Hard Hit % figures. Without Alvarez, things have been worse. This is a team that has managed to score more than 6 runs only one time in that last 10 games.

Of course, the argument could be made that they have the best pitching staff in baseball. And that argument is supported by excellent season numbers—a league-leading 3.23 ERA supported by a top-5 SIERA (.384), xFIP, K-BB% (16.9%), and WHIP (1.23). However, since May 21, some cracks in that façade have begun to appear—a SIERA number of 4.23 ranked 19^th in the league and an xFIP number of 4.32, ranked 16^th in the league.

Houston supporters are among the fiercest fanbases out there, perhaps because they’ve heard too much from other fanbases about the long-past cheating scandal. Astros fans have the right to be proud; their organization has done so many things right in the last decade. But numbers are numbers. And right now, the Astros just are not measuring up to their AL rivals. In a word, SELL.

So who are we buying? Let’s look westward to an LA team, and not one named the Angels. It is pretty darn surprising that one could classify the Los Angeles Dodgers as an under-the-radar team to buy, but here we here.

There’s just so much attention now elsewhere on the West Coast. The Diamondbacks are leading the NL West by 3.5 games. The Giants, revamped and resurgent, are very much in the hunt for the division title. And over in the American League, that other LA team, the Angels, have won ten of their last 12 games, including a series win in Arlington over the division-leading Rangers. Meanwhile the Dodgers are looking very, um, average at times. Take for example, this play from last night against the Giants:

Yes, that happened. With two runners on base in the bottom of the 11^th inning, needing two runs to tie, the Dodgers are gifted two egregious errors in one play. And yet, the best that they can do is an awkward base-running out. They ended up losing 7-5.

In short, if it was not clear before, it should be now—absolutely nothing is going to come easy for the Dodgers this season.

I cannot help but wonder if that might actually be a good thing—if perhaps in recent years, things have just been too easy for the Dodgers during the regular season. Things may not be easy this year, but this is a club that still has pennant-winning numbers. They are still an offensive powerhouse. Freeman, Betts, Martinez, Smith and others contribute to an offensive side that ranks top-4 in every advanced hitting category, including a .780 OPS and 112 wRC+. As far as pitching goes, their ERA of 5.14 is not good, but the signs for positive regression are super-clear—a 4.00 SIERA and a 4.11 xFIP, both top-10 numbers in the league, and the addition of this ace-in-the-hole will help. LAD might actually have to begin their playoff run from a wild-card spot, a rarity for them recently. But they are set up to do some damage, especially offensively, and the fact that they are rather under-the-radar right now makes these Dodgers a solid BUY.