VanceJergins

His bank account...and most likely his future bank account, begs to differ.

Your stubborn, rebel without a cause attitude is causing you to miss some real cinema magic.

Where the **** is Chet Steadman? Janitor from Scrubs was also the first baseman in that movie.

Dwight Who thought of this one? Anal fissures. Kevin Malone: That's a real thing. Dwight Schrute: Yeah, but no one here has it. Kevin Malone: Someone has it.

Translated: You are mom is not a drunk. Wow. Someone is drunk. Is it bad that I don't catch this anymore because so many people do it all the time? Uh oh, now I feel responsible for photoguy getting dumped on. Let me just add that I only mentioned it because I'm sure it was just a typo and that he does know the difference.

You think? I figure Soto will produce more than Barrett/Kendall did last year. You gotta figure Pie/Fukudome will be more productive than Jones/Floyd were for us last year as well. This is definitely a better lineup than last year, IMO. In addition, you really would think at least 1, if not 2 or all 3 of Lee, Ramirez, Soriano will have better years than last year. last year at rf, we got a line of .298/.375/.419, which is about what we'd expect from fukudome, except a little higher SLG. last year at cf, we got a line of .254/.305/.404, and while i'd like to think felix pie could outproduce that, there's a very good chance he'll also match that or do worse. soto should put up better numbers offensively as the catcher this season, i'll grant you that. i don't expect lee or soriano to improve on last years numbers, i expect them to decline a little bit or stay the same. ramirez should improve, but he's also a big injury risk. so yeah, i don't think we've improved all that much on offense, and i'd expect us to be league average again. I think Pie has a very good chance of doing better than that. Maybe not a whole lot better, but I doubt he does worse. I'd also expect Lee to hit for a little more power than last year. So I think we'll have improvements at CF, RF, 3B, SS (marginal), 1B, and C.

I thought this was going to be about my mom...I was going to be pissed. That would have been totally uncalled for. You're mom's not a drunk. Go take some pictures and leave the writing to the rest of us. I don't even think you've met my mom (but youR right, she's not). :clap:

I put the Cubs in the top 5 in the NL. I think the Phillies and maybe the Brewers will be better. I'm not all that impressed with the Mets offense. They have Wright, Reyes, and Beltran, but Delgado is regressing, Alou is old and won't stay healthy, Church isn't impressive for a RF, and then Castillo and Schneider are pretty weak. I'd rank the top 5 as: Phillies Brewers Cubs Rockies Mets

I thought this was going to be about my mom...I was going to be pissed. That would have been totally uncalled for.

To get really optimistic for 2009: Z Hill Wood Lilly Gallagher What if Hill keeps getting better? What about: Z Hill Wood Lilly Marmol

He looked good....against the Royals ST team.

Nassssty

Yeah, I really enjoy Brenly. I love it when people don't make more of themselves than they really are.

Don't do this to me Dempster...don't do this to me.

I think he did beat it. Sure looked like it

I don't knwo about that. I think Marquis is a better bet to be a decent pitcher and a better bet to be a train wreck.

There's no reason to think that Lieber won't be effective as a #5. Yeah, but they'll both probably be about #5 quality, and having 2 of those makes it ineffective.

Man...I don't want to get any sort of hope that Dempster and Lieber will be effective this year...but I can feel it rising.

Unless he can prove he's versatile enough to handle SS if needed. Lou mentioned on the broadcast yesterday, that Mike was going to play some SS in upcoming games. Fontenot's bat is better than Cedeno's. Also, right now both of our MI are RH, so having a LH compliment might be preferred. Cedeno has struggled at the plate recently, but I still see him as a better bat then Fontenot. He certainly has more upside then Fontenot. He has more upside but his upside has yet to show up in the major leagues. Not that Fontenot has shown a whole lot. But if neither have options available you have to keep the one w/ more upside. touche

Unless he can prove he's versatile enough to handle SS if needed. Lou mentioned on the broadcast yesterday, that Mike was going to play some SS in upcoming games. Fontenot's bat is better than Cedeno's. Also, right now both of our MI are RH, so having a LH compliment might be preferred. Cedeno has struggled at the plate recently, but I still see him as a better bat then Fontenot. He certainly has more upside then Fontenot. He has more upside but his upside has yet to show up in the major leagues. Not that Fontenot has shown a whole lot.

I've liked what I've seen from Pie the past 2 days. If he can adjust to the major leagues that would be a huge boost.

IU has no basketball IQ whatsoever. Don't pick IU to do anything in the tournament; perhaps one win. Man, I want to get back to recruiting Indiana-bred players. The Hoosiers have been a dumb team for at least the past five seasons. Yeah, I definitely don't see them getting past the 2nd round. They just seem to have so much worthless talent.

So what are the odds that Dempster actually does decent this year? 10%?

Dagnabit, I thought the game started at 2. Now I have another hour to kill at work, not doing work.

Not that I'm concerned mind you (every good player has 40-50 games per year where they don't look good) but I'm kind of curious how Soto continued to look good today. It was about as bad as you can get for him at the plate today. The one AB of his that I saw was a good AB even though he just popped it up. It is starting to bother me that you don't see him go the other way much, though. Pulls the ball quite a lot. A lot of hitters have great careers doing that, though. I would agree that he only seems to pull the ball, but I am hopeful that his good eye makes up for that. He has enough plate coverage to be able to pull all the outer half in well, and he is patient enough to take the pitches off of the plate. It's only the pitchers who can locate it right on the outside corner that will give him fits. Yeah, the popping up was the first at-bat. He then proceeded to strike out 3 straight times. Ha...I stopped paying close attention after the 4th or 5th inning so I only really saw Soto's first 2 AB's. I thought he looked really good in his 2nd. He drove the ball fould pretty good a couple times and took the count deep. Sounds like he didn't look so great the AB's I didn't pay attention to.