crazybuckfan40;1118309; said:
Like the move of Affeldt to the pen...
It is looking more and more like...
Harang
Arroyo
Volquez
Cueto
Fogg/Belisle(whoever doesn't get it, is probably going to be the long guy in the pen)
Affeldt
Stanton
Cordero
Burton
Weathers
Coffey
C - Valentine, Bako/Hanigan
1b - Votto, Hatte
2b - Phillips
SS - Castro, Kepp
3b - EE
RF - Griffey
CF - Patterson, Hopper
LF - Dunn
That leaves room for one more and that will probably be Freel...
The only two I don't like are Castro and Stanton, and hopefully Bray can show off in AAA and if Stanton sucks he will be brought up...
And Gonzo can come back and allow us to send Castro packin...
The pro's:
2 new arms in the starting rotation to at least give us some hope
Youth at 1B to give us hope
corner OF, 2B and 3B are proven effective hitters
of those 4 2B is a plus defender and I still think 3B will be
The Con's:
Glaring holes at SS and C
CF-when you are picking between Freel,CPat and Hopper you have problems
The bullpen aside from our closer is still by and large pure crap
All that youth that gives us hope will initially take their lumps at the MLB level
Offense: we have 2 automatic outs at C and Castro with the CF platoon being a close 3rd. Add in the pitcher and any given night in April/May we will have 4 of our 9 lineup spots about as good with the bat as 4 random posters from here. Griff will make his scheduled DL trip, its just a question of when. Votto is young and will struggle. Can Phillips, Dunn and EE carry the offense all year? Dunno, but no one else can.
Defense: Holy hell are we going to suck (again). I'm sure all the pitching upgrades are thrilled with our C, SS, and corner OF defensive options. We still resemble a mens beer league softball team except now we don't hit as many HR's.
SP: Harang is a stud, Arroyo is MLB average but eats innings, the kids might be good some day but you just know they will struggle some at first. I'm particularly worried about the mid summer dead arm+Dusty Baker=end of promising young career formula we saw in Chicago.
BP: Proven closer and better than it has been lately but thats not saying a whole hell of a lot. Stanton and Coffey can go away anytime and it won't hurt my feelings a bit.
Overall the way we look right now I think .500 ball is the high end for this team but that just might be enough in the worst division in baseball. For the firs time in a long time the future does hold hope, lets just hope Dusty doesn't kill it before it can bloom.
