The Team's Good Picks:
Catcher Jason Varitek was the team's best pick. Clearly Doug Mirabelli was not the answer behind the plate. To get a switch hitting catcher that is a leader is huge for a young team. He can also provide the lineup with some depth behind Kevin Youkilis, Austin Kearns, Adam Dunn, Hideki Matsui and Justin Morneau. Despite many strike outs, this team will put up some runs and getting an offensive catcher is a tremendous steal.
The Team's Bad PIcks:
Instead of going with the favorite pick of Reed Johnson, or even Youkilis, I will criticize the draft strategy. On a rebuilding team, at least should be rebuilding, select offensive players from other teams kills the potential to add pitching depth and youthful players. Management did not address the team's pitching depth. The three man rotation of Justin Verlander, John Maine, and Ted Lilly is good enough to compete in the Central? but Kei Igawa is not an answer in the 4 hole. Who knows who is going to be in the fifth role. The thing that is for sure, the long reliever may end up with the most innings pitched on this team.
Overall: D+
The lineup will be a force in the weak Central?. If by some miracle of BARB Black Mesa reaches the playoffs, the rotation of Verlander, Maine, and Lily could be dangerous. The closer is as close to a sure thing with John Papelbon. He is set up by Takashi Saito, Brian Fuentes and Gustavo Chacin, which is pretty good. Clearly the problem is depth and I look for this team to trade some of the hitting depth for some pitching. Perhaps Ronald could approach Nick for SS Rafael Furcal!
3 comments:
This team has talent, but lack of experience by the GM will hurt the club. Some very good trades could be done to re-build the team and make it competitive fast, but it will take some time till this team can compete with Yuma and Lexington... the GM must not be afraid to fire the gun on trades because otherwise this team isn't going anywhere.
Funny the GM that is trigger happy suggests that the new GM fire the gun...
ps Is that some reference to the minutemen?
I agree with this analysis. Lots of OF, but the pitching depth this club had at the beginning of last year's draft has been dissipated by trades (Jered Weaver, Jonathan Broxton), injury (Curt Schilling, John Patterson), age (Jamie Moyer) and some decisions that backfired (not protecting John Maine).
Black Mesa will probably have to go dumpster-diving into the free-agent pool to round out their staff.
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