Stearns can actually put together a 40 man roster unlike the previous dope who had a stars and scrubs roster with no depth whatsoever.
Peralta, Woodruff, and Burnes are all starting the season in the rotation. The order to start the season is Chacin, Peralta, Woodruff, Burnes, Davies. I would have preferred Anderson over Davies but I love this teams starting pitching depth. Hopefully Nelson joins the team mid April or so. The bullpen looks a little shaky without Jeffress and Knebel for awhile but Stearns has done an unbelievable job building this staff from top to bottom. Personally I want nothing to do with Kimbrel but if it's a one year deal I won't complain.
Anderson should be dealt in whatever deal they do to bolster the team. His value is a cheap innings eater that has upside. Which is valuable to a selling/rebuilding team
He got a bit roughed up but still a promising start for Burnes From McCalvey: ." Burnes’ slider is elite, but don’t forget the fastball Of Burnes’ 12 strikeouts, six came on his sensational slider and six on a fastball that topped out at 96.3 mph, according to Statcast, and featured a remarkable spin rate averaging 2,913 rpm that gives the pitch its rising effect. That’s a record since Statcast came online in 2015 for an outing in which a pitcher threw at least 25 four-seam fastballs. Anything north of 2,600 rpm is considered elite. The previous Statcast record was shared by Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, at 2,681 rpm."
Don't be surprised if Hiura is starting at second base by mid season with Shaw at first and Moustakas at third. Aguilar has been bad since the second half of last year and Thames sadly looks like a one month fluke.
He only got on base so far on a IBB. So far this year the pitcher spot has produced to the point it's going to take a while for him to catch up with them.
10 against STL 7 against LAD 7 against PHI 6 against CHC 6 against NYM 4 against COL 3 against ATL 43 out of first 54 games against playoff teams from last year and/or presumed contenders this year. However, June, July, and 1st half of August should allow them to get a bunch of wins.
That swing by Arcia was more promising than either of his home runs. Both of those were lucky bloops to right field that looked like was close to fouling it off. Seeing him barrel a ball and pull it is a good thing
Is there really much of a difference between Shaw and Mosutakas. I think Shaw is better defensively and he walks more but besides that they are very similar. This team desperately needs Hiura in the lineup at some point this year.
Shaw is approaching unplayable against lefties and I admittedly am biased in that it feels like a long time since he's hit at all.
I still like all 3 of the young starters but there are going to be growing pains with all of them. The bullpen is a huge concern since Hader is the only guy we can trust at all. We need Nelson to come back strong and maybe move Woodruff to the pen and hope that we can get contributions from guys like Zack Brown and Houser sometime this season.