Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The roster seems set, or is it?

So Cecil Cooper came out and said this is "basically" what the roster will look like on opening day:

1- Matsui
2- Bourn
3- Berkman
4- Lee
5- Tejada
6- Pence
7- Blum/Boone
8- Quintero


First, I gave "Q" the nod at C1 because obviously, he is the clear choice.

What I wanted to cover here is the "what if". What if Matsui gets hurt oh, 25 games in? Believe me it will probably happen. So who hits in the #1 spot once this takes place? Obviously we can't for sure say until the 25-man roster is set, however, as it wouldn't be any fun to not be a nerd and project on this stuff. My vote, Bourn. Yeah, people are going to say "well he sucked last year". YEAH, I KNOW. He has shown major strides in the offseason and I think Cooper's reasoning for putting him second in the lineup is to take a little pressure off him and let Matsui be the real deal.

So who hits second? Hunter Pence or (insert rookie who makes the cut) then you switch Erstad to 6th and move Pence to CF. I know most of the "critics" will say Erstad can't cover it all year and Pence doesn't play center the greatest but you forget Pence has speed and erstad is not too far removed from some gold gloves, one in OF and one at 1B.

The last "what if" is what if Blum/Boone can't hack it or one gets hurt? What about Tejada switching to the hot corner, or giving Manzella a shot? I don't think it is ridiculous for Tejada to switch, surely his arm can handle it with one day off a week. (one day off would actually boost his stats) and it couldn't be much worse for Manzella to be there as opposed to Boone.

What are your thoughts?

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