Spring Training Part Dos

Items:

1. Starting rotation named already - Baker, Liriano, Slowey, Perkins, Blackburn. This is reportedly to go RLRLR, which is fine, but you get the same lack of RRR bulge if you go Blackburn Perkins at 4 and 5, and I think Blackburn's likely to be the better of the two. For one thing, Game 163 performance. For another, Buescher made over 50% of his errors at 3B with Blackburn on the mound last year - I'm sure Nick hired the limo to pick up Crede at the Fort Myers airport. For a third, Perkins has two problems to overcome - he's only got two pitches and he's got an obvious fatigue issue after the fifth inning. I don't know if you can solve both of those in one offseason.

2. Isn't it nice that we've got 4 solid or brimming with potential guys for 3 spots in the outfield?

3. Apparently, Gardy's made noises about wanting an 11-man pitching roster, leaving the extra bench spot for a bat. If we don't get a Cruz deal done, I don't know if this is seriously possible. Although,

4. Boof needs surgery, so temporarily it certainly looks to be. That leaves us with a somewhat unimpressive bullpen without Cruz, though (beyond Nathan, of course). Getting another flamethrower would help. What would help more, though, would be to have the starters each go an extra 2 outs a game to save Guerrier and Crain from getting as fried as they got last year.