My Horn Is Not Medicine: 2015 Rhinos Preview
It's a cool fall evening in 2009 and Rhinos is waiting for a family friend at the bar of a fairly posh Taipei lounge when a man he doesn't know approaches and sits down on the stool to his left. The man has a disarming smile and immediately buys another round. He wishes a pleasant evening and asks if Rhinos has been here before. After more small talk (lots of cute university girls come here during the week when school's in session), the man solicits a seemingly-innocent favor: would Rhinos pass along a message to his friends, letting them know he has matters to attend to and won't be able to join them? Rhinos agrees, they amicably part ways, and some ten minutes later the message is delivered. Rhinos' friend finally shows up, over dinner they laugh about the strangeness of transmitting a vague message to unknown men in a nightclub and all is quickly forgotten. Flash forward 10 days to the morning of October 26 and scenes of authorities raiding the Brother Elephants' dorm plastered across 24-hour news networks with the all-too-familiar cry of Match Fixing appended to the chyron. Unlike with previous, similar Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) scandals (see: 1996; 1997; 1999; 2005, and just the year before), this one left Rhinos trembling. One of the men he had met that night (just before the start of the Taiwan Series) seemed familiar. Others in the bar turned to look at him before quickly re-joining their tables with wide grins and fast talk. Was this man... Had he just...
The world may never truly know what transpired over rounds of Taiwan Beer and kaoliang that fateful October night some six years back. For his part, Rhinos isn't speaking on the matter, refusing to ID photos, name names or explain his team's CPBL reference, but one can only wonder if it's not more than coincidence that the year Rhinos joins the Defectors disgraced relief pitcher Tsao Chin-hui (previously blocked from joining the mighty Adelaide Bite of the Australian Baseball League) is again knocking on the majors' door (he has just been promoted to the Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate despite allowing 4 runs in 5 IP for AA-Tulsa).
Big League Chew
The three 2015 expansion managers have doubly benefitted from the league's contraction to 16 teams, with greater access to prime ML talent both in the drafts as well as on the first day of free agency. As a result, Rhinos has an offense led by Giancarlo Stanton (when your home runs register on the Richter scale and the usually-constraining Major League offices allow you to have a monogrammed face guard you're a BFD), Buster Posey (the best catcher in the sport by several fathoms) and Billy Hamilton (he just stole two bases--standing up--while I was writing this parenthetical aside). Inversely, no manner of contraction is going to help build first-year pitching depth. At post time (a mere 20 days into the season...) Rhinos only has eight active Yahoo pitchers (which isn't going to fly come May Day). One of those is the Curious Case of ̶B̶e̶n̶j̶a̶m̶i̶n̶ ̶B̶u̶t̶t̶o̶n̶ Masahiro Tanaka's UCL. He's seemed to figure things out after an uneven first two starts of the year, but I'm not sure the man himself knows how long he'll be able to stay healthy going forward. Another member of this abbreviated staff is Carlos Carrasco, who has been abusing opposing lineups since last August 10, starts where he gets drilled in the face by comebackers excluded. In his last 10 starts of 2014, he went 5-3 with a 1.30 ERA and 7+ K in 8 of his last 9 outings. The rest of the staff is illegal-for-models-in-France thin though Jimmy Nelson is managing to keep his head above water on the Milwaukee Titanics.
E-I-E-I-O
The "five men enter, three men leave" offseason contraction plan has also helped to boost Rhinos' minor league affiliate. While a polarizing figure in the prospect community (which, funny enough, is not a euphemism for NAMBLA) after missing most of last season due to concussion and wrist problems, Byron Buxton is generally expected to beast once he makes it to Minneapolis. I won't use the term 'five-tool' because that label is duplicitous and thrown around as carelessly as 'like' at a high school house party. I mean, you know, right? I digress. In addition to the BB gun out in center, Tyler Glasnow is a flamethrower who has a shot at terrorizing major league hitters in a few years (partly because he throws 150 MPH and partly because he has as much of an idea where the ball's going as you or I, as evidenced by his 4.1 BB/9 rate in 124 2014 High-A innings). There is also a young Norse god cooling his heels in Sin City, eating Twitter trolls' lunch while waiting for a rotation spot to come open in Flushing; rehabbing big name SP Jeff Hoffman and Jameson Taillon as well as the likely #1 pick in the upcoming draft (Lake Mary High School SS Brendan Rodgers).
Prediction
Adding to a total lack of major-league pitching, when roughly 27% of your roster is riding the pine (24 total players, 7 extra batters) every day it's difficult--nay, impossible--to consistently win matchups and stay in the top half of the standings. Even with a full complement of pitchers and fewer batting points left on the bench, there is more likely to be success long-term than short- for this club. While the Harris might not be as tough as the Shadow in 2015, it will be still be an uphill battle just to avoid finishing in the cellar. While not an automatic 'W' for opponents, Carnac foresees 90-plus losses and a very high pick in the lotto draft come next year.
