2012 Predictions, Thoughts?

[funclown]

Any thoughts on this season?


I usually wait til 1/3 of the season is gone before I make bold predictions (I'm a little slow so I need a bit of sample size), but since Pat stopped making really cool Capsules be nice to see some of the new guys thoughts about they're team, league, ect.


I'll just stick with Pawtucket for this one:

Gone is 1B- Jon Montalvo.
Up if C/DH- Pat Howell

Spring Training roster battles: RF/LF- Ron Harward & Sent down MR Todd Rabb


Pawtucket basically kept things internal this offseason only signing some minor league guys. Is it cuz were that good? Not really the case, just no one seemed to fit our roster besides Estes (who was way to expense). Also we are keeping an eye on some really important arbitration cases coming next season as well. CF Mason/ SP Donovan / C Piekarski and possible P Talley (I think he falls short) Once we lock those guys up and get just a little more revenue increase we can be a bit flagrant with our spending.

We let Jon Montalvo go and seems everytime we trade or release a power hitting 1B we miss the playoffs. Good news is he really was only a DH for us with Tom Smith having the better glove. Newcomer Howell will be there as well, to play 1B/C/DH. We like his flexibility though defensively he really doesn't do anything really well. Walking into this season with 6 OFers to start the season. This is partly due to a 4 game set with LA coming up as Lefty Ron Harward made it hard to ignore his spring. He's only 24 and my scout likes his ratings splits against righties so we'll give him a few weeks to see if the light has come on. SS spot seems to be getting long in the tooth, but they can still field nicely and the way we figure it someone has to bat 8th or 9th.

Pitching wise going back to the 5/ 6 starter hybrid we used in 2010 even at the cost of giving up a few more runs thru the season. Some of our pitchers racked high innings last season and thats just not normal Pawtucket baseball. Talley seemed to be at the edge by the end of the season and had back to back series minor injuries. Want to keep him under 200. SP Mcdade will pitch in the ACE spot with Lemus right behind him at 2. The bottom of the rotation should be solid and will even throw Lefty Simpson once or twice if we see a matchup we like. The front 3 bullpen guys are the same (Fajardo, Franco, Lovera) and we can mix and match them in the front of our pen. Once note: Its been a few years and eventually these guys end up pissy wanting to be the "main man". Already Franco is unhappy about his role. We just have to see what happens.

Expectations: Not going to sit here and talk about how we can't compete against anyone, I think we can. However, still say this is the most competitive division in the BLB and has been for sometime. Missing the playoffs entirely can actually happen, but even if this happens think we set this team up long term well.(Sorry guys no blowups for awhile) I set a goal to make it to the DL Championship during runs and will set that again this season. (95-99 wins) It should be win a championship every year, but I'm a realist. Strange things happens in this game and we have 24 owners with the same goal.

[Pat]

Writing one today you big baby.

[funclown]

Writing one today you big baby.

UMD writes some good ones also, but he already did the off season versions.

Its hard while I'm at work do this and when I get home I'm banished to the IPAD which SUCKS writing anything.

[umd]

We exported. Some tough decisions and a big backup hole in CF (again) as Godinez bangs his head every year.

I like this team a lot, but I expect OOTP to punish me for dealing English and Manning with someone getting catastrophically injured or imploding unexpectedly.

We extend Edgar Castillo - one of my favorite BLB players.

I won't change the Coma image until next season because I'm superstitious.

[Jistic]

Wait so now you're not quitting? Did you quit at quitting? Typical.

[Z]

Wait so now you're not quitting? Did you quit at quitting? Typical.

You shut your mouth when you're talking to my clown!

[umd]

Wait so now you're not quitting? Did you quit at quitting? Typical.

Back off the clown. He's still recovering from his moment. Let's go back to picking on Carlos he's feeling better.

[Sharkn20]

Great read man!

[Carlos]

Back off the clown. He's still recovering from his moment. Let's go back to picking on Carlos he's feeling better.

I've had enough attacks for one lifetime!

[Carlos]

Denver BC

New uniforms and logo for a team going back to its core.

I'm not going to do some ESPN-esque write up. This here is my comic sans letter to the BLB.

We sucked last year. It was a disappointment. Sure, we got some nice contributions from McPherson (finishing third in SS voting) and Tom Wright. But everywhere else, I felt the team played worse.

One of our biggest weaknesses last year was depth. Yeah yeah, everyone wants to say defense and pitching, but that's obvious. Let's get to the core of it here. We could not beat lefties. We did in 2010 after not doing so in 2009, but last year was a catastrophe. I relied too much on my lefties and their natural ability to hit and they all mostly struggled against lefties. Also my genius plan to have a lefty platoon with a lefty at first base went as well as you would expect (this was actually out of necessity when Banuelos suddenly became available and I knew I needed to do anything to bring an under-25 high potential player to Denver).

So this year I've fixed it. I said that in 2010 and I was right. So I'm saying it again in 2012, funclown. I fixed it. Completely under appreciated but amazing hitter Rich Pena is now going to beat up on your lefties while he mans first base. This also allows Banuelos to continue playing against RHP only where he does things like murder guys born with a right handed deficiency. I guess you could call it serial murder. My expectation is we won't let up no matter which 1B is playing.

I return to the same formula at catcher. Hurting us a bit is that Brenizer lost some talent defensively. He's 32 with over 1,000 games at the crouch, so I can understand. It's his last year and D'Orio will back him up. But neither of them is McInturf bad back there. And if either of them doesn't hit, I'll just call up Zachary Sams and do what I did at 3B last season. If no one wants to hit, at least you won't be hitting against them when they take the field.

Speaking of 3B. Let's start with DeBenedetti. The story here is every Denver fan wants to burn his jersey. We once signed him to a 10-year $10 MM deal. What's the harm in that? Oh, well, when two years into it you realize the guy is never going to improve, then it sucks. You want him out and you realize it's going to cost you $8MM! Screw Tyler.

And then Tyler was available in free agency last year and he kind of improved just a bit to be a decent platoon guy out in Indy. So we signed him. And he was killing the ball. Then he did it again. He broke our stinkin' hearts by getting hurt for the rest of the season. Screw Tyler, man!

So we brought him back because we like kinky stuff and well, what the hell, his price is awesome. If he doesn't work out, he goes and Brewer/Dorval come back up. We can afford those low cost risks.

But the major difference is that we brought along a guy with a pretty good bat to play against RHP. Now, unlike the wonder that was Chet Reed in 2010, Tom Folger is right handed. However, he can hit righties and play some damn good defense. He's the kind of low impact bat I like. Hits balls into the gap allowing chances to score a batter on the hit or score on the next one, and has the gonads to tell people to put up or shut up. We were missing that last year.

You know Wilkinson and Eckstein. They once won DWIs in 2009 together. But injuries have slowed down one or the other and I think they've been getting robbed since. Both will likely combine for 50 SB and hit .300 and simultaneously shake their head at the outfield defense behind them.

Speaking of that outfield defense...it is pretty much the same but better. Jamie McPherson is phenomenal as a hitter, but, well, phenomenally bad as a fielder. His performance alone probably set records for us in Team ZR. But he's not out there anymore and that's trouble for everyone else because it also means he gets to play DH everyday. It's a bit unfair. He hits home runs, hits doubles and triples, hits for above average, steals bases and pretty much sleeps with every player's wife, including his own on occasion.

Pat Verba finally broke the 30 HR barrier in 2011 and if he stays healthy will continue to do things like <strikethrough>link removed</strikethrough>. He also plays a pretty good LF so he's going back there after spending 2011 in RF. That unfortunately means Tom Wright is in RF but he can't field anyway so what does it matter.

Then there's Colin Cash. He's basically an expensive defensive player. I prefer it. I'm happy with it. I know he can knock them out every now and then. When lefties start, we go with Hauge. Nothing too special but he's proven he can do some damage in short platoon spurts which is hard to find.

Henry Rodriques is the interesting piece for us. He's still going to play about 4 out of 6 games a week, but he's on the block if someone wants to give us someone like him that's right handed. There's like 2 guys in the league that fit the criteria and one of them is already on my team.

For pitching, we're waiting on some farm guys in Davis and Potter. They were amazing in Spring Training. We are also hoping that Robertson is as good as OSA thinks he is. My manager wants Robertson to be the second starter so I'll let it roll. As it stands, we basically go ground ball, fly ball, ground ball, fly ball, etc. in the rotation. The biggest addition for us is Travis Neal and a sixth starter. I didn't like how often guys pitched at the high 80s last year and it required me to make some adjustments during the season that I really couldn't afford to make. So rather than do that, I'm going to go all out with a six-man. Pat Steffan has shown some flashes and I think he's ready to shine. In the event that he can't, well there's Potter and Davis again.

Finally, Wil Perez is now officially our closer. Dave Weitz owned the job last year before getting hurt and missing the whole season. That forced us to find a replacement and we never really did until we made a big trade for Crook. He was great but too expensive and isn't back. So Perez takes over. He's left handed which nullify's anyone's advantage in our park, and he's 25 which I think is best. I like to let guys grow into their roles.

umd predicted we win 100 games. I don't know about that, but here's the thing: we won 101 in 2009, but I think my roster today is better than that one. So why do I think we will win less games? I just think the league is stronger. I think the Pilsner is stronger. Syracuse and Indianapolis aren't going to roll over this year. Dallas needed to fill some lost holes but those added pieces got them last year. They were still damn good in 2010 without those pieces.

The goal is the same: the division. I really do think this is the deepest team I've put together. We had a 23-5 spring. Either a sign of things to come or the ridiculousness of exhibition baseball.