Yeah, I was super excited about signing Bradley and thought between San Diego and Texas he had figured something out. Obviously didn't know he was such a complete scumbag instead of "just" a baseball psycho, but I was REALLY enthusiastic about the 2009 offense going in to the season. Fukudome was coming in to his second season and I really was expecting him to put it together; he ended up having his best season, but I was big on him become that vaunted Ichiro/Matsui middleground that everyone kept talking about. Soriano was theoretically still the Soriano who had kicked ass in 2007 and 2008. Soto had just been the RoY, and the heart of the lineup being Lee, Aramis, Bradley and him just sounded fantastic on paper. Hell, the starting pitching didn't even look all that bad, and the starters did pretty well outside of Harden not being the stud we hoped he could be. Then Soriano got hurt again and was terrible, Aramis missed a bunch of time, Bradley was a turd and Soto had a rough sophomore slump. The ended up basically winning what they were supposed to, pythag-wise, but I was really thinking they'd win at least 90 games.