Sussex General Grades

Sussex Draft Review | Season Notes | General Grades

Note Grade
Offense Last in almost all categories except middle of the pack in walks.  Waiting for the 3 run homer doesn't work with no homers being hit.  Early injuries to Palmeiro and constant injuries to Sheffield hurt the middle of the lineup.  Things picked up to respectable when Millar was moved into the everyday lineup at 3B -- 5.4 r/g in last quarter.  Franchise continues horrid stolen base pct. D
Defense Generally middle of pack.  Infield Ok - 26 (5,9,8,4) grade about 60% of the time.  Last in DPs, although lack of baserunners contributed to that.  OF half good, half not.  Ichiro/Vizquel should've been defensive gems but both struggled, Ichiro saved runs with his arm numerous times -- 31 assists #2 in league.  Catching was only fair; 7th in stln base % and PB.  Offensive woes caused giving up on defensive excellence inserting Millar 3B-3, Sheff OF-1, Barrett C 7+0. B
Pitching 1st in league in HR, hits, 2nd in BB, OBA, ERA & QS.  Starters were led by Pettitte & Padilla who finished in the top 5 in a number of categories.  None of bottom 3 starters reached 140 innings. Miller had a strong stretch that lowered his ERA to 3.6 -- with a memorable 91 game score vs. Pedro -- and Schmidt & Lidle each had their moments -- consecutive wins vs. VanWyck/Shady for Lidle, 3 strong low hit outings for Schmidt.  Super Sub Woody Williams was strong in 3 starts -- 2 wins against VanWyck. B+
Bullpen 3.14 ERA in 630+ innings, 1.1hr/9 and 3 bb/9 for the group. Dotel & Bradford worked well in long relief; among the leaders in IR%, Hammond mixed in-and-out of "closer" role, and had a 14 appearance shutout streak in mid-season.  Rhodes & Issy most effective versus the non-long ball clubs where they were excellent.  White was a useless selection with a few good outings. Rivera with limited games was effective but seldom used.  Mixed and matched fairly well and didn't get beat in the pen too often. A-
GM - draft First 4 picks all A or A- grades for season, so it couldn't have been too bad. Pettitte, Palmeiro, Bradford all very strong picks.  Padilla, LuGo, Myers, Vizquel, Todd Walker all picked at the right time and key to the club makeup.  Rhodes picked too early for a middle of the pen guy, too strongly lefthanded lineup, no CF and limited bench due to platoons were all significant issues. B-
GM - inseason Lack of awareness at 40 games caused no help to coming to horrible offense from drops/adds, and cost Rivera for a hitter instead of seldom used White.  Sheff - Ichiro changed the team dynamic to more balanced L/R, batting ave/secondary ave lineup.  Millar lifted the entire offense causing the benching of the useless Rolen, and added big hits often in the final 72 games. B
Managing Handled pitching staff effectively; maximizing Pettitte's short innings, Hammond & Dotel, although lack of "big game" killer instinct probably doomed late playoff charge.  Cobbled together lineup from all lefties, including awkward platoons for CF, 2B, C, and fought through multiple injuries all year.  Tried hit and run as way to work past DP, poor steal grades, and walk, walk, no 3 run homer issue to create offense.  Installed Millar into lineup full time to help offense and gambled with OF D to create runs. B
Overall Drafted a team with many shortcomings on offense & the bench, and too strong of a focus on pitching. The pitching and a couple of trades kept the record from -6/-12 most of the year, and closed very strong (26-16) to sniff the playoffs and almost reach .500. C+