Written by: Alex Patt<\/p>\n
Ball players are reporting to spring training, meaning the 2014 baseball season is upon us! Opening day may be two months away, but predictions and debates are well underway regarding team statuses. The big questions to ask are \u00a0who will be the contenders and which unsuccessful team from last year will surprise us in 2014. There are several teams that fans should follow, but here are three teams that, while under the radar, deserve your attention<\/p>\n
The first of these teams is the Kansas City Royals. The Royals have had a reputation in the past for low risk of pitcher abuse, with consistent below .500 records year after year. Last year, the Royals won 86 games with a very young solid club. The Royals\u2019 rotation features James Shields, Bruce Chen and Jeremy Guthrie as their top three. They are all solid arms to lead off, not to mention young bats such as Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer. Veterans Omar Infante and Justin Maxwell add solid offense to the line-up. The Royals have a tough division to play in, as they play see the Tigers and Indians, two 2013 playoff teams, often. If all goes well, they can continue to push and even make a bit of a run.<\/p>\n
Another team to watch out for is the Texas Rangers. The team who won back to back pennants in 2010 and 2013 are back and ready to make a big push. The biggest note for the Rangers is them acquiring slugging first basemen, Prince Fielder. They said goodbye to solid infielder Ian Kinsler after they traded him to Detroit for Fielder, but the Rangers get a good return player. Fielder should love the offensive-friendly ballpark in Arlington and should hit between 30 and 40 bombs and drive in over 100, if healthy. The Rangers line up also now features lead off speedster Sin Soo Choo, who will help get base runners on. With their pitching rotation featuring Yu Darvish, Alexi Ogando, Derek Holland and a healthy Matt Harrison, the Rangers should make a great run.<\/p>\n
The last team to watch out for, a playoff team last year, is the Pittsburgh Pirates. Since they made the playoffs last year for the first time since 1992, the Pirates should still be legitimate threats to find baseball\u2019s biggest treasure. Though the team has lost ace A. J. Burnett, they still have a great rotation with Francisco Liriano, Charlie Morton, Gerrit Cole and Wandy Rodriguez. The lineup is still lead by NL MVP Andrew McCutchen, sluggers Pedro Alverez and Neil Walker, back stop Russell Martin and the young Starling Marte. The Pirates are a very solid team whose batters can score runs and starters can give 6 to 7 solid innings, if they remain healthy. \u00a0The Pirates bullpen last year, which was un-hittable last year, was third best in the majors with a 2.89 ERA. The Pirates are a great tea, and they will be hungry to prove that they are not a fluke as in previous years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written by: Alex Patt Ball players are reporting to spring training, meaning the 2014 baseball season is upon us! Opening day may be two months away, but predictions and debates are well underway regarding team statuses. The big questions to ask are \u00a0who will be the contenders and which unsuccessful team from last year will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}