Buffalo Wild Wings was my favorite restaurant in Jackson when I was in college.  So I was pretty peeved that the one in Nashville is roughly 20 miles from my apartment.  I got that craving today, though, and like Harold and Kumar, nothing would satisfy my craving except for… well, buffalo wings in my case.  Of course, it had to be an adventure… driving that far in rush hour traffic, then having to figure out exactly where the place was, then coming back home.  Oh yeah, Nashville drivers are terrible, which made it even more of an adventure.

Oh, that’s right, the Rockies played today.

It’s hard to read anything into the first game of the season, much less the first exhibition game.  Still, 12-4 is promising.  12 runs with the benefit of just one home run is even more promising.  Brad Hawpe going 3-for-3 with two doubles, including at least one off a lefty?  That’s just amazing.  Then again, since Jon Garland admitted in a postgame interview that he was throwing straight fastballs… yeah, I guess there’s a caveat to everything.

Plus there was the enjoyment that while the fans in Tucson were sitting outside in 50 degree weather, it was 70 degrees in Nashville.  Good times.  Lucky me, the high in Tucson on Saturday is supposed to be 71 — getting up to 81 on Tuesday.  This is great.

The trip is so close, I can almost feel the March Arizona sun.  The early weather forecast is looking spectacular: highs in the 70s for my stay there, with virtually no chance of rain.

I’m leaving after class on Friday and will drive all night to make it to Tucson in time for the game on Saturday afternoon, which may wind up being one of the dumber ideas I’ve ever had, but that’s all just speculation right now.  The plan right now is to stay five days in Tucson, taking in five Rockies games during that time.  (Side note: the main advantage to driving, as opposed to flying, when going on vacation is flexibility.  If I don’t feel like sticking around for day five, well, I don’t have to hang around and wait for a flight.  It also means that if I want to stay an extra day, I’m perfectly free to do that as well.)  I may also check out some other games while I’m in the area.  Like I said… totally flexible.

The great thing about going so early during spring training is that cuts will not have been made yet, so I’ll be able to see some of the young guys who may not be around later.  It’s also a distinct advantage to going early in the month than later, when the weather here in Nashville will probably have warmed up and my attention span will be shorted by Vanderbilt’s likely invitation to the NCAA tournament.

It’s going to be a fun time.  I’d much rather spend my spring break in Arizona catching some baseball than at some beach somewhere.  I’ll have a full report from Arizona each day I’m there.

The countdown is at four.  Four days until the first "real" game, the first box score to pore over, the first … ah, I’m getting sentimental here.  Although going over to Hawkins Field yesterday to check out Vanderbilt was fun.  If you haven’t seen David Price pitch, you’re missing out.  (Don’t worry; you’ll get your chance soon enough.)  If the Devil Rays don’t take him with the #1 overall pick, something is seriously wrong.  Bonus demands aside, this guy is the consensus top player available in this year’s draft, and after seeing him pitch I have to say I agree.  Tall lefty, effortless delivery, throws pretty hard — what’s not to like?  He does have some control problems, but then a lot of young pitchers do.  He also has the ability to dominate even when he doesn’t have his best stuff.  Yeah, I wish he’d fall down to the Rockies at #7, but if he falls that far it’s only because of bonus demands and the Monforts probably wouldn’t take him if he fell in their lap.  Anyways, even when you consider bonus demands, he’s probably not dropping past the Cubs at #3.

College baseball aside, there are more Todd Helton rumors.  I’m not going to elaborate much, as usual, but trading Helton for Manny Ramirez would probably quash any fan sentiment that this is a salary dump.  On the other hand, Manny’s defense in left makes Matt Holliday look good by comparison, and we don’t have a DH.  The obvious move would be to put Manny at first — as much as I like Joe Koshansky, he’s probably not going to have Manny Ramirez’s offensive production in 2007.

Assuming Todd doesn’t get traded (a valid assumption), what’s the difference between last year’s Rockies squad and this year’s?  Not a whole lot.  The Rockies didn’t put together a massive overhaul in the offseason, which is actually a pretty good idea.  You see, hitters usually hit their peak around age 27-30.  Matt Holliday, Garrett Atkins, and Brad Hawpe will all be 27 this season, and we can assume that means they’re going to improve over last year.

Perhaps the biggest criticism of last year’s team was that they couldn’t come through in the clutch.  That helps explain how the Rockies finished tied for second in the league in batting average, but just fifth in runs scored.  It’s fun to pore over the stats at Baseball Reference for all of this.

Brad Hawpe was probably the biggest culprit, as he hit just .255 with runners in scoring position.  He hit four homers in those situations, compared to 15 with nobody on base.  Matt Holliday was similarly culpable; though he hit .281 with RISP, he slugged just .444 — compared to .638 with nobody on and .664 with a runner on first.  Garrett Atkins, though, actually hit better with RISP (.341/.425/.599, versus .319/.388/.539 with nobody on), a large reason why he led the team in RBI despite hitting fewer homers than Holliday.  (Atkins’ line of .571/.500/1.000 with the bases loaded, by the way, is the definition of "clutch" — though to be fair, 14 AB is a very small sample size.)  And Todd Helton was almost ridiculously better in clutch situations — .347/.482/.579 with RISP, .275/.364/.396 with the bases empty.

I think it’s very important in this respect that the Rockies use a lineup to maximize their strengths (or just pretend this is all just luck.)  Bat Helton third, Atkins fourth — if the guys ahead of them are getting on base, they’ll get plenty of RBI opportunities.  Then, bat Holliday fifth and Hawpe sixth.  Why?  Helton and Atkins are good on-base guys, in addition to having some power.  They can do things with the bat to get runners home even if they’re not hitting homers.  If they can drive in a couple of runs, maybe that will take some of the pressure off Holliday and Hawpe — and they’ll hit better, too.

As for the top two spots in the order — Taveras is basically penciled into the leadoff spot because of his speed.  If I had the choice, I’d bat Iannetta second.  While the second spot in the order isn’t the best place to bat a rookie catcher, consider that Iannetta has proven himself to be a good contact hitter at every level so far.  Even though he struggled a bit in his brief major league time, he still posted a pretty good .370 OBP and didn’t strike out that much.  Plus, I think I trust him more in the 2-spot than Matsui.  With the "lumber" behind him, he’ll see pitches to hit as well.

Will it happen?  Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.

One countdown is over, another is on the way.  A few more, actually.

First spring training game (Rockies vs. White Sox): 9 days
Tom’s spring training vacation: 11 days
Opening Day: 42 days

Six weeks until Opening Day.  For all the hype about pitchers and catchers reporting, ultimately it’s pretty uneventful.  We get a few blurbs about the team here and there from the official site, but mostly it’s just more waiting until we actually have some games and box scores to pore over.  Like this one.  It’s surprising to me to know that Josh Fogg and BK Kim are not assured spots at the back end of the rotation, considering how much the Rockies will be paying both this season.  Fogg is owed $3.625 million; Kim is owed $2.5 million.  That’s a lot of money for a couple of guys who will be, at best, back-end starters, or possibly bullpen guys or trade bait.  Trust me, the Rockies aren’t going to be paying them that much money to pitch for the Sky Sox this season, so expect them to be traded if Hirsh, Lawrence, Buchholz, Jimenez, or somebody else works their way into the rotation with a good spring.

That’s essentially the excitement of spring training.  There are relatively few players who are set in stone, absolutely guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster regardless of their performance in spring training (barring injury, of course.)  Aaron Cook and Jeff Francis are set in stone in the rotation and, depending on who you want to believe, so is Rodrigo Lopez… but that’s only if you assume that Rodrigo’s struggles in 2006 were merely the result of bad luck/not meshing well with Leo Mazzone and not some other, bigger problem.  You can count on Brian Fuentes being the closer and LaTroy Hawkins being the setup man.  Jeremy Affeldt probably has a spot in the bullpen as well.  I’d add Manny Corpas to that list, but he’s so young and the bullpen situation so crowded that I wouldn’t want to take my chances if I were him.  Ramon Ramirez was pretty solid for much of 2006, but his minor league numbers suggest that it may have been a fluke.  Tom Martin could still be a decent LOOGY, but with Affeldt down in the ‘pen he’s certainly expendable.  And then you’ve got all the various wild cards who could work their way into the bullpen: Darren Clarke, a huge (6’8", 235) righty with a big fastball; Denny Bautista, who also possesses good stuff but hasn’t figured out how to use it; Ryan Speier, working his way back from injury; Eric DuBose and Mike Gallo, a couple of seasoned lefties signed to minor-league deals; Josh Newman, a young lefty who’s had great strikeout numbers in the minors; Danny Graves and Dave Veres, two older guys trying to make a comeback.  And then you’ve got the losers in the rotation derby, several of whom could be moved to the bullpen instead (most prominently Buchholz; it seems a foregone conclusion that he’s going to be moved down to the ‘pen.)  I didn’t even mention Oscar Rivera, a lefty who tore up the Mexican League last year and could find a spot either in the rotation or the bullpen.  Others, like Jimenez, Juan Morillo, Franklin Morales, and Greg Reynolds, are highly-regarded prospects who will get a look at spring training but aren’t likely to make the big club (except, perhaps, for Jimenez, but even he still has some things to work on.)

The lineup is somewhat more settled.  Assuming he’s not traded, Todd Helton is certain to man first, Garrett Atkins at third, Matt Holliday in left, and some combination of Brad Hawpe and Jeff Baker in right.  For all the grumbling about Hawpe… here’s a guy who hit .303 on the road, including 16 of his 22 homers, and we’re complaining about him?  The only really legit beefs I have with him are that he doesn’t hit lefties well — which is why we have Baker — and that he faded a bit down the stretch.  In the case of the latter, it was pretty unrealistic to expect him to keep up his .362/.439/.670 line from April for the entire season.  But he was pretty consistent otherwise, never hitting below .260 for a month, and he draws a fair number of walks (more than Holliday.)  Brad actually seems to be in line with his minor league numbers, moreso than Holliday, who seemed to come out of nowhere in 2004.

The issues, though, are up the middle.  I’ve been harping on Willy Taveras the entire offseason, and I just don’t think he’s a long-term solution in center (not that I think Sullivan is.)  Maybe Salazar or Spilborghs can take the job?  At second, we’ve got Matsui and Carroll, neither of whom are that appealing — Matsui was good down the stretch, but he was just plain awful in New York; Carroll was good last season, but it was completely out of line with his career to that point.  Troy Tulowitzki and Chris Iannetta seem primed to take the starting jobs at shortstop and catcher, respectively, but are they ready?

It should be an interesting spring.  I’m excited to make the road trip to Tucson (though the warm weather Nashville is expected to have this week is cooling my excitement a bit) and to get a good look at these guys.  There are a bunch of positional battles going on that nobody is talking about.  Let’s see how everything plays out.

The Rockies’ pitchers and catchers report to camp tomorrow, so today I present my final foray for probably the next eight months into the world outside of baseball.

-Tim Hardaway is an idiot.  Seriously.  The worst of it is that, according to John Amaechi, Tim’s "thoughts" about *********** have apparently given other people the green light to make similar comments.

At least the NBA is on the right side of this, as they’ve suspended Hardaway from any league-related functions (or something like that; what exactly can they suspend an ex-NBA player from?)  But the sad part is that Hardaway only said publicly what, from all indications, probably gets said privately in the locker room all the time.  No, I’m not suggesting that every professional athlete is homophobic on Tim Hardaway levels, but having been around high school and college athletes, I can tell you that it’s a good number of them.  It’s just something about the entire culture.

-Will the NFL’s dominance of the sports world end any time soon? This article on ESPN.com seems to think so.  At least, not dominating at the levels they have been in recent years.  The Super Bowl tends to be boring to unwatchable (as do most NFL games, come to think of it.)  And then there’s that whole steroid thing.  Why does baseball have all sorts of problems because of its players being supposedly on juice, while the NFL doesn’t?  Let’s have a look at the numbers.

Barry Bonds: 6’2", 228 pounds (listed weight)
Shawne Merriman: 6’4", 272 pounds, with the ability to move that Bonds lost a long time ago.

Okay… so you’ve got Merriman, who is significantly larger than Bonds.  Bonds has never actually tested positive for steroids (as far as we know.)  Let me repeat that: Barry Bonds has never actually tested positive for steroids.  Shawne Merriman has.  In fact, Shawne Merriman was suspended for a few games this season for testing positive for steroids.

What’s the big deal, you ask?  Bonds is essentially being blackballed right now, and there are a bunch of people who are angry that he might potentially break Hank Aaron’s record, because of something he may or may not have done.  Odds are he has done some sort of performance-enhancing drugs, but we don’t have any proof.  To be fair, it’s the same situation as the guy who comes into work with that glazed-over look in his eyes, where you know he’s been doing something, but you can’t prove it.  But still, we, the sports viewers, have no proof that Barry Bonds has ever taken steroids, other than the "seeing eye" test that tells us that players don’t get that big, that fast.

Merriman, on the other hand, we know has done steroids.  And guess what?  He might be the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year this year.  What kind of message does that send to aspiring football players?  That the only way to be player of the year in the NFL is to do steroids?  Why doesn’t the media have the same sort of anger about this as they do about Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa "supposedly" having done steroids?  (And let’s not get into the fact that for much of the period in question, baseball didn’t really have a steroid policy.  Never mind that some of the drugs these guys were accused of using were stuff that the average person could go into GNC and get themselves, without any sort of prescription or anything.  Who can really blame them?)

And just who is the NFL trying to be with their well-publicized warning to an Indianapolis church that their Super Bowl party was in violation of some copyright law and thus was illegal?  Who exactly are they trying to please?  Certainly not their fans.

-Home prices have taken a record dive.  Sorry to you homeowners out there, but I feel no sympathy for you.  This is what happens when you have rising housing prices that are based not on a strong economy, but rather on low interest rates and all sorts of new loans that have allowed a lot of people to buy houses they can’t really afford.

I really could talk all day about this (though I’m not going to; this isn’t the forum.)  There are loans out there that allow a person to buy a house with no down payment and pay none of the principal for the first few years.  So basically, you’re not buying a house; you’re paying a bank interest to crash at their pad.  Nobody saw this as a problem?

I understand people who claim that they have their "wealth" tied up in their house.  Actually, I don’t.  What are you going to do, sell your house and go live in a cave somewhere?  The only thing that happens if the price of your home appreciates is that you can sell it for more when you sell your house… which you will then spend on a different house.  I really don’t have any sympathy.  As someone who currently rents, but might buy a house in a few years, I’d like to be able to pay a reasonable price for it.

That’s all I have.  Three rants totally unrelated to baseball.  (Well, one totally unrelated, a couple sorta related.)  Back tomorrow with the usual Rockies banter.

Baseball is the one sport that gets derided for having "no parity."  Compared to football, we’re told, baseball is dominated by a small number of big-market clubs, while the NFL shares the wealth to the point that any team can realistically hope to win a Super Bowl.

Guess what?  The evidence says that’s not so.

Sure, the Yankees dominate baseball.  Of course, that’s why the Yankees haven’t won the World Series since 2000, a number that the football fans seem to forget all the time.  In fact, in the past seven years, baseball has had seven different World Champions.  Football can’t say that, what with the Patriots claiming three of the last seven Super Bowls.  (Then again, NFL fans say that dynasties are good for the game, which goes completely against "parity" arguments.  Why do they get it both ways?)  In fact, none of the other major pro sports can say that.  The NHL comes close, with six different teams winning the Stanley Cup in that period.  The NBA has had just four different teams win its championship.

Okay — that’s a small sample, and you could argue that it just happens to work out in baseball’s favor.  In that same seven-year period, eleven different teams have made a World Series appearance, as only the Cardinals and Yankees have made multiple appearances.  Here, the NFL does beat baseball (just barely), as twelve different teams have appeared in the Super Bowl (only the Patriots have appeared more than once.)  Just eight NBA teams have made Finals appearances, with the Lakers, Spurs, Nets, and Pistons all having multiple appearances.  The NHL has had ten different teams appear in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Let’s extend things even further.  Sixteen different teams have made LCS appearances in the last seven years — that’s more than half the teams in baseball.  The NFL slightly beats baseball out — seventeen teams have made appearances in the championship game in the past seven years.  But since the NFL has two more teams, that’s actually a slightly smaller percentage of the league than baseball.  (The AFC has less parity than the NFC — just six AFC teams have made appearances, compared to ten NFC teams.  Not only the Patriots but also the Colts, Steelers, and Raiders have made multiple appearances.)  Fifteen NBA teams have made appearances in the Conference Finals.  The NHL does beat baseball, with eighteen teams making Conference Finals appearances in the last seven years.

The stat that people most like to recite, though — and the one that hurts baseball — is the number of teams that have made the playoffs.  Over the last seven years, 27 of the 30 NBA teams have made playoff appearances, 28 of 30 NHL teams have, and 28 of 32 NFL teams have.  Compare that with baseball’s number: just 19 teams have made playoff appearances over that period.

However, that stat is flawed.  Baseball takes only eight teams in its playoffs, compared to 12 in the NFL and 16 in the NBA and NHL.  What if baseball had a 16-team playoff?  If baseball had a sixteen-team playoff, it would have a similar figure: 27 of the 30 teams in baseball have managed to have one of the eight best records in their league sometime in the last seven years.  Yes, even the Rockies, who had the NL’s eighth-best record back in 2000.  Only the Pirates, Devil Rays, and Orioles would still not have made a playoff appearances if baseball had the mega-playoffs of the other major sports.

So if a friend of yours ever tells you that baseball has no parity, just look to all of this.  The evidence, if it doesn’t necessarily show that baseball has more parity than the other three leagues, it at least is on the same level.

More stats for thought…

Franchises that have never made a playoff appearance: MLB-1 (Devil Rays); NFL-1 (Texans); NBA-1 (Bobcats); NHL-2 (Thrashers, Blue Jackets).  All are relatively recent expansion franchises.
Franchises that have never made a finals appearance: MLB-5; NFL-6; NBA-8; NHL-7
Franchises that have never won a championship: MLB-8; NFL-15; NBA-14; NHL-14
Number of franchises that have won a championship since 1980: MLB-18; NFL-14; NBA-8; NHL-12

Have we been having fun in the offseason?  Uh, probably not.  I guess it’s nice if you have other things to worry about than baseball, but otherwise, Thursday, when pitchers and catchers report, is probably a great day for you.  It means baseball is (almost) here again.

Why am I looking forward to going to Tucson in just under three weeks?  Well, aside from the obvious (you know, baseball), there’s the fact that, oh, it’s 69 degrees there right now as opposed to 44 in Nashville, with several days in the 30s expect this week.  And there’s the road trip part.  I’ve got my tickets and the hotel reservation, so we’re good to go.  And, of course, Coors Effect will be updating all during that time (March 3-7.)  It’s a great way to spend a spring break.  Better than the beach, for sure.

So what to look for in the three weeks preceding?  Not a whole lot, I’m afraid.  The Rockies are basically done on the wheeling-and-dealing front; Todd Helton is unlikely to be dealt since he’s said he won’t waive his no-trade clause.  All there is to look forward to now is the games.  February 28, Rockies vs. White Sox, Tucson Electric Park.  That’s just 17 days, folks.

And after a month away, now back to your regularly scheduled Rockies programming.

Anybody who follows my blog, Purple Row, Bad Altitude, Up in the Rockies, or any other of the numerous Rockies-themed blogs out there knows that being a Rockies fan is a frustrating experience.  You’ve got the highs, and the lows.  Lots and lots of lows, in fact.

The futility has been mind-boggling.  Since the NL West expanded to five teams in 1998, the Rockies have not finished better than fourth.  They’ve never won the division, they’ve had just four winning seasons in fourteen years of existence, and had two exceptionally futile years in 2004 and 2005 before reverting to merely mediocre in 2006.

Meanwhile, pore over the various sportswriters and baseball blogs written by non-Rockies fans, and you’ll see all sorts of goofy suggestions for what the franchise must do to succeed.  One person thinks the Rockies must eschew the standard five-man rotation and go with a six-man rotation.  Another person will say that the Rockies should go to a four-man rotation, have each starter pitch something like three innings, and then have a very strong bullpen to win games.  Yeah, try convincing a starting pitcher to come to Coors Field when he’ll never get a win because he’s only going three innings every time out.  Others suggest that the Rockies need to forget about building a pitching staff and just put together a lineup that will bludgeon opponents to death.

The real problem, though, is that the Rockies haven’t been that talented.  Sure, the Coors Effect made Rockies hitters look great statistically, but they reverted to mere mortals when they left Coors Field.  Worse than mortals, in fact.  Never mind that while Coors Field was inflating the stats of Rockies hitters, it was also doing the same to any opposing hitter who ventured to Coors.  Then came the humidor, which could mean the Rockies could put together a decent pitching staff, but try telling it to all the baseball purists who hate the idea of weighing down the balls so that Coors Field plays remotely like a sea-level ballpark.  Then again, baseball purists hate the idea of Colorado having a baseball team, period.

So what’s in store for 2007?  Well, The Sporting News slapped the Rockies in the face by not only picking them last in the West, but also pegging them 28th in MLB in their preseason power rankings, behind the Royals and the Pirates.  We’re not worse than the Royals and the Pirates!  Come on!  At least TSN had the common sense to slot us ahead of the Devil Rays and Nationals.

Street and Smith’s, on the other hand, has us second in the West.  Second… you’re kidding, right?  I’d like that to happen, but will it?

All right… on to what I think of this year’s team.  The Rockies had four solid hitters last season to go with four distinct holes in the lineup.  Only one of those was addressed in the offseason, and that’s only if you assume Willy Taveras is going to be an improvement over Cory Sullivan, which I’m not sure about.  At catcher and short, the Rockies are counting on Chris Iannetta and Troy Tulowitzki, respectively, to do better than the players who reportedly manned those positions last season (the combination of Danny Ardoin, Yorvit Torrealba, and Miguel Ojeda, and Clint Barmes at short.)  Second base wasn’t the black hole last season that the other three positions were, but something had to be done unless you thought Jamey Carroll was going to hit .300/.377/.404 again.  If you don’t, we give you Kaz Matsui.  Matsui hit .345/.392/.504 for the Rockies last season, but that was in just 113 AB.  For his MLB career, it’s more like .266/.318/.379, so unless you really believe that "New York media" stuff, Matsui probably isn’t a long-term solution, either.  Of course, the Rockies had every reason to believe that Jayson Nix would be holding down the fort at second by now, but after a lights-out 2003 he’s done nothing the last three years.

Those four were balanced out somewhat by four at least competent Major League hitters.  There’s Todd Helton, long the face of the franchise, who’s had two consecutive years of decline.  In 2005, you could sort of blame it on having no protection in the lineup, but that wasn’t an issue in 2006 when Garrett Atkins and Matt Holliday were batting, respectively, .329/.409/.556 and .326/.387/.586 behind him.  Still, the .302/.404/.476 Todd posted in 2006?  Thank you, sir, may I have another?  Then there’s Brad Hawpe, who was somewhat inconsistent but still wound up at .293/.383/.515 for the season, and he’s got a cannon in right field.

So the key for the offense is to get contributions out of the four places they didn’t get much last season.  At catcher and short, if Iannetta and Tulo do anything close to what they did in the minors, that won’t be a problem.  Center and second?  Well, let’s just say that it’s easier to carry two offensive zeroes than four.

Off the bench, there are some nice options.  Luis Gonzalez is out as super-utilityman, but if Matsui’s the second baseman Carroll will assume that role this year.  Clint Barmes is still hanging around, and Omar Quintanilla will probably be hanging around at AAA.  The Rockies have Torrealba and Javy Lopez as insurance in case Iannetta isn’t ready to be the everyday catcher.  Jeff Baker has power and will probably platoon with Hawpe in right, as well as providing a right-handed bat off the bench and spelling Holliday from time to time.  The fifth outfielder will be somebody from among Ryan Spilborghs, Jeff Salazar, Sully, and Alexis Gomez.  Since the Rockies won’t have a lefty bat off the bench, you can probably bet on it not being Spilborghs, but the other three aren’t bad options.

The pitching?  That may not be so good.  Cook and Francis at the top of the rotation are pretty good, but after that it’s iffy.  I’d like to believe Rodrigo Lopez is better than his 5.90 ERA from last season, but in any case the Rockies are apparently going to sink or swim with him as the third starter.  There are no shortage of candidates for the last two rotation spots.  There are known mediocrities (BK Kim, Josh Fogg, Brian Lawrence) as well as sort-of-unknown quantities who could be good, but could also stink up the joint (Ubaldo Jimenez, Jason Hirsh, Taylor Buchholz, Juan Morillo, Denny Bautista.)  Scratch Morillo and Bautista, who are apparently being moved to the bullpen this season (and, probably, the AAA bullpen.)  Jimenez should be good but isn’t ready yet, and Buchholz is apparently bullpen-bound as well.  My guess is Kim and Fogg, which, quite frankly, is an idea that I do not like.

The bullpen’s anchored by Brian Fuentes, who’s decent, but I wouldn’t put him in the same category as Mariano Rivera by any stretch.  Jose Mesa is gone, so newly-acquired LaTroy Hawkins moves into the eighth-inning role (did the Rockies have some reason for going after guys who pitched for the Orioles last year?)  Manny Corpas should be good, while I’m not as sure about Ramon Ramirez.  And, you’ve got the token lefty specialists in Jeremy Affeldt and Tom Martin.  Not good, but not really that bad either.

What do I think?  I’d say the second-place finish Street and Smith’s has us pegged for is a reasonable goal, and that would probably save Clint Hurdle’s job (not that I’m rooting for that.)  Fourth place is more likely, and we may be destined for the cellar again.  Finishing below .500 this season will probably lead to some offseason shakeup.

I’m out.

Seriously, did this team look like a World Series team last September?

Definitely not.  Sure, the Cardinals have the best hitter in the game in Albert Pujols, and one of the game’s best pitchers in Chris Carpenter, but little in the last month of the regular season suggested that the Cardinals were going to end their 24-year championship drought.  The team backed into the playoffs with an 83-78 record, thanks to nobody else in the Central being any good, and then… won the World Series?

That was unexpected.  But it was certainly a nice way to break in a new stadium.

The offense is mostly intact from last season, for good or bad.  Adam Kennedy was signed in the offseason to replace the combination of Ronnie Belliard, Hector Luna, and Aaron Miles (yes, that Aaron Miles) that manned second last year.  Other than that, same old Cardinals offense.  There’s Pujols, and there’s Scott Rolen, who’s been bothered by injuries the last two years.  Jim Edmonds is clearly in decline but is still a pretty good hitter.  Chris Duncan has a ton of power (.589 SLG) but looks lost in left field; he’s a natural first baseman, but Pujols ain’t relinquishing that post any time soon.  Juan Encarnacion is a solid hitter for average and power, but his inability to take a walk means that he has a pretty bad OBP.  David Eckstein hits for no power but isn’t a bad guy to have around.  Yadier Molina hit just .216 last season before being a playoff hero.  Did the Cardinals really win the World Series with this lineup?

The pitching, other than Carpenter, was a problem last year, and strangely it’s gotten bad to the point that the Cards are actually considering using Braden Looper as a starter.  Yes, you are reading that correctly.  On the other hand, losing Jason Marquis and his 6.02 ERA can only be a positive, and moving Adam Wainwright to the rotation makes it even better.  Jeff Suppan and Jeff Weaver are also gone.  In are Anthony Reyes, who struggled in the regular season before putting it together in the playoffs, and Kip Wells.  Kip Wells?  The fifth rotation spot will either go to Looper, Brad Thompson, or Ryan Franklin.  This doesn’t look at all like the rotation of a playoff team.

Then again, the Central is bad enough that the Cardinals could once again sneak into the playoffs.  The Astros are similar to the Cardinals — built around one hitter and one pitcher — and while the Cubs added a bunch of players in the offseason, they’re still, you know, the Cubs.  That’s the only reason this could be a playoff team, as on the merits alone this has the looks of a middling NL team.

Projected 2007 Finish: 1st, NL Central

Projected Starting Lineup

Eckstein ss
Duncan lf
Pujols 1b
Rolen 3b
Edmonds cf
Encarnacion rf
Kennedy 2b
Molina c

Projected Starting Rotation

Chris Carpenter
Adam Wainwright
Anthony Reyes
Kip Wells
Braden Looper

Projected 2007 Record: 87-75

Can you believe that since the advent of the Wild Card era, the Dodgers have won the NL West just twice?  You’d think that with so many obvious advantages, the Dodgers would dominate the division.  Instead, they’ve been something of a mess lately.  Former Giants assistant GM Ned Colletti seems to be taking the same approach that essentially wrecked that franchise, squandering several prospects in questionable trades last season.  Still, there’s plenty of talent left on the farm — but much of it is blocked.

No Dodger hit more than 20 homers last season, and with J.D. Drew out of town and Nomar Garciaparra and Jeff Kent on the downswing of their careers, as well as several prospects who probably could hit homers being blocked, don’t expect any player to hit a ton of homers this year either.  Seriously, Ned, why in the world do you need 39-year-old Luis Gonzalez when Matt Kemp could probably do just as well, if not better?  And why pay $44 million to Juan Pierre?

There are a few good, young hitters in the lineup: Russell Martin, Wilson Betemit, and Andre Ethier.  But the Dodgers’ lineup, despite having a ridiculous amount of talent down on the farm, is starting to resemble the Giants’ a bit.  Except without Barry Bonds.  That’s not good.

At least the pitching is good.  Brad Penny, Jason Schmidt, and Derek Lowe comprise a very good front three, and while Randy Wolf is coming off a couple of injury-plagued seasons, if he’s healthy he should be pretty good.  The Dodgers aren’t short on options in the fifth spot; Chad Billingsley had a 3.80 ERA last season, and at 22 he should improve.

The pitching is enough for me to make this my pick to win the division.  But the offense… how good will that be?

Projected 2007 Finish: 1st, NL West

Projected Starting Lineup

Pierre cf
Furcal ss
Garciaparra 1b
Kent 2b
Gonzalez lf
Martin c
Ethier rf
Betemit 3b

Projected Starting Rotation

Brad Penny
Jason Schmidt
Derek Lowe
Randy Wolf (L)
Chad Billingsley

Projected 2007 Record: 89-73