Pitchers And Catchers Report

[Clapp]

I think this will be the opening day lineup:

Soriano
Fontenot
Lee
Bradley
Ramirez
Soto
Fukudome
Theriot
Dempster

I could definitely see Theriot staying at the #2 spot, but they keep talking about being more left-handed so it seems unlikely to me that they'd toss two of the three lefties against righties at the bottom of the lineup. It would also be better for Lee as I'll explain.

I'll be surprised if they move him out of the #3 spot before the season starts. Aramis would be batting with runners on base a lot with the those four guys ahead of him, especially with Milton who walks a shit ton right ahead of him. I think Lee will work on getting the loft back in his swing a bit, but if his groundball rates look like last year's, do we really want him batting behind a guy that will be on first base a ton in Bradley? That was part of the problem last year, Lee had many more opportunities to hit into a DP than anybody in the league because Theriot almost always singled or walked(he did those <b>227 times</b> to be exact).

I'd start with the lineup I listed and see how it looks after the first few weeks. Again, with our shitty division, we can likely come out of the gates slowly and still be in good shape, so we can try a few things out. I'll be fine with however it looks though. We've got 8 very good hitters and we're going to score a ton of runs no matter how the lineup is assembled.