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Exciting Expos expect to contend
Posted: Wednesday April 26, 2000 06:47 PM
To send a question to Tom Verducci's Mailbag, click here. Staring you in the face the moment you set foot in the Montreal Expos clubhouse is a message in foot-high letters painted across a bright yellow wall: Why Not Us? Why Not Now? Most years an intruder would have no trouble laying out a thesis-length response to the questions, starting with a lack of proven talent and ending many pages later with apathetic fan support. One month into this season, however, the intended rhetorical element to the questions rings true. The Expos won 10 of their first 18 games to position themselves as one of baseball's early surprise teams. That leads to another question: Can they keep it up? Depends on whom you ask. Should you canvass the people inside the Montreal clubhouse, you'd quickly become a believer. And that's one reason the Expos seem to have some staying power. They believe they are a good team and, with new owner Jeffrey Loria actually spending money, they know they won't be packed up and shipped off to Northern Virginia. (Well, for the time being, anyway.) "This team is a whole lot better than people think," leftfielder Rondell White said. "It's not that we talk about contending, it's just that there is a confidence in here that wasn't here in the past. Guys believe in the talent in this room. I'm telling you, we're going to play well above .500 ball this year, well above .500." Any team that can play .500 ball through five months has the chance of playing meaningful games in September. "There's always that thought," Loria said. "But there's also the chance we'll play meaningful games in October." Sacré bleu! Remember, we're talking about a team that hasn't finished within 22 games of first place over the past three seasons and is coming off a 94-loss season. It's also a club with only four players who have more than four years of major league service: White, pitcher Graeme Lloyd (who's on the DL), and bench players Lenny Webster and Mike Mordecai. But here's why the Expos are the best bet to be this year's sleeper team: pitchers Carl Pavano, Dustin Hermanson and Javier Vazquez are healthy and throwing great. Above all, Montreal has the most dangerous hitter in baseball, Vladimir Guerrero. "That's the big thing," White said. "We've got the stallion. And we're going to ride that stallion as far as we can." Guerrero isn't as polished a hitter as Alex Rodriguez, Larry Walker, Nomar Garciaparra and some of the other acknowledged top guns in baseball. But he is the most dangerous hitter because nobody in baseball can do more damage with more different pitches than Guerrero. Juan Gonzalez and Pudge Rodriguez come closest to having the plate coverage that Guerrero has, but Gonzalez whiffs twice as often as Guerrero (last season Guerrero struck out 62 times compared to Gonzalez's 105 in 16 fewer games) and Pudge doesn't have the same kind of power. Mark this down: Guerrero will have the same kind of breakout season Sammy Sosa did in 1998. That's not to say Guerrero will smash 66 dingers (though that's not entirely out of the question), but rather that he will command the fascination of all of baseball. People will wait, as they did for Sosa, for the air to come out of his season, but it won't happen. Remember, Sosa helped carry an questionable Cubs team into the postseason that year and won the MVP award for it. The Brewers discovered last weekend how difficult it is to deal with Guerrero. Whenever he comes to bat with men on base the game slows down. Conferences on the mound are almost mandatory, especially because teams are stumped about how to pitch to him. For instance, catcher Tyler Houston visited the mound twice April 22 with Guerrero at bat. Each time Guerrero promptly bashed a home run. Milwaukee seemed shell-shocked by the blasts. Neither Houston nor pitcher Jimmy Haynes could remember what they discussed in their conference. And manager Davey Lopes was lost in his own fog. Someone asked Lopes why he pitched to Guerrero with first base open and two outs in the sixth inning of a tie game. "First base wasn't open," Lopes barked. Uh, actually, it was. "No it wasn't," Lopes insisted. After a few more clumsy moments passed, Lopes relented. Yes, now he remembered. First base was open. "Lee Stevens was hitting .500 against Jimmy Haynes," Lopes then reasoned. It wasn't a good enough reason, and by Sunday Lopes all but admitted his mistake. He walked Guerrero with first base occupied -- runners were on first and third in the fourth inning and the Brewers trailed, 4-3. Montreal scored twice more and went on to win, 6-4. Guerrero is like a young Ken Griffey Jr., whose ignorance of pitchers was legendary. Sometimes Griffey didn't know if the opposing pitcher listed that day was lefthanded or righthanded. Similarly, Guerrero takes an uncluttered mind to the plate. His plan is "See ball, hit ball" -- and almost nothing else. With that approach, Guerrero actually has outpaced what Griffey did at a similar point in his career. Consider this comparison after the first 436 games of each player's career:
Guerrero is so good he can carry a team for weeks at a time. The Expos, though, do have a good supporting cast. The starting pitching could be a strength. Pavano, Hermanson and Vazquez started the season a combined 6-1. Hideki Irabu can provide innings and the occasional dominating game that makes you think he's capable of winning big (he can't). Jeremy Powell, who has an hellacious curveball, and Mike Thurman, who recently began his minor league rehab from shoulder tendinitis, are fine at the back of the rotation. A closer with the talent of Ugueth Urbina means the Expos don't let too many wins get away. The offense is dynamic. Jose Vidro, a switch-hitting second baseman with pop who hits in the middle of the lineup (in the Robbie Alomar mold), is blossoming into an All-Star. White is healthy and running well. First baseman Stevens is an adequate lefthanded bat behind Guerrero, although Guerrero is so aggressive at the plate that protection isn't as important for him as it is for most hitters. This is not another good Montreal team likely to be split up before it has time to shine. The Expos have eight players who are signed to multi-year deals. They also have player control through 2004 on the contracts of Pavano, Vazquez, third baseman Michael Barrett and shortstop Orlando Cabrera. They control the contract of Vidro through 2003. Weaknesses? Rookie centerfielder Peter Bergeron has struggled as the leadoff batter (.197 average). If he continues to stumble, the Expos may have to give another rookie, Milton Bradley, a shot. Barrett has an outstanding stroke at the plate, but he's a liability in the field. The bullpen in front of Urbina is still in question. Felipe Alou has two solid options from the left side once Lloyd is healthy enough to join rubber-armed Steve Kline. The righthanded side of the pen still needs work. Alou loves the stuff and makeup of Scott Strickland, who started last season in A ball and finished it in the majors, but Miguel Batista and Anthony Telford (have been hit hard so far this season. Moreover, keep in mind that Montreal has played a cupcake of a schedule so far. After two rainouts in Philadelphia, they were to play all but five of their first 20 games at home. And of their first scheduled 37 games, all but three against the Giants were against teams with losing records from last year. The test for any team looking to establish itself as a contender is whether it can win on the road against good teams. That's why we have to reserve judgment on Montreal. Through July 2 it plays only nine road games against winning teams from last year. Meanwhile, fan support has picked up slightly. The Sunday game against Milwaukee, one of the worst drawing cards in the league, attracted a crowd of 14,410. That's more than the Expos drew for any day game last season with the exception of Opening Day and an interleague, intra-country game against Toronto. "I just wish more people would come out to see it," Loria said of his young team's rise. "There's no reason why we shouldn't be getting 20,000 or 30,000 a game. Hockey season is over [in Montreal]."
No Expos games are broadcast locally on television or radio in English. They do have a French-language radio contract in which the team paid to get the games on the air. "We did it as a gift to the fans," Loria said. Games also can be heard in English over the Internet through the team's Web site. Loria did have one offer for the team's radio and TV rights, but he rejected it because the fee was so low he thought it jeopardized any future business deals. The Expos would not have cleared even $1 million if they accepted the deal, which required them to pay for the broadcasts' production. It is that kind of apathy that has kept the team's long-term future in doubt, though for now the Expos would prefer to portray Loria as the man to keep them in Montreal. The truth is that the effort to generate funding for a new ballpark has produced few results. The team has floated designs of a new park, but it's not the kind of stadium to get anybody's juices flowing. It is a scaled-down project that isn't even pleasing to look at. Moreover, the Expos are beginning to believe that some sort of roofing system -- which is not included in the plans that have been made public -- should be mandatory in such a northern city. Milwaukee even has a roof on its new park, which is scheduled to open next year. Montreal will continue to be an interesting story this season for two very different reasons. On one hand you have the problem of a franchise with shaky financial and community support. On the other hand you have a team that is on the cusp of a surprise season. You get the feeling neither is going to go away. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci will contribute weekly Inside Baseball columns to CNNSI.com all season. To send a question to Verducci's Mailbag, click here. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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