True, but had one short-season guy drive in 78, two huge signing mistakes by Dayton Moore drive in 87, a major bust of a 1st round draft choice drive in 87, and Billy, as his OBP tanked, driving in 95. That’s room for optimism.

On homers, had one 23, one 20, two 19s and an 18. We’ll miss GMDM’s huge mistake, the Melk Man, but Moose might come close to the old school production numbers, and several years younger.

“You lose Melky, add no one,”

Melky lost 1.9 bWAR from his defense, so his 2.9 bWar won’t be impossible to replace by a plus defender with plus speed who has already gotten his feet wet in the majors after a couple of good AAA campaigns. +1 dWAR, a little better than Alex, plus half again the offense of Escobar matches Melky’s production. And I think we’ll all agree that Perez is an upgrade over Treanor, Hosmer over Kila, Gio may be Aviles, Esky will at least stay Shortstop Jesus, Moose is an upgrade over Betemit, Sanchez an upgrade over Francis, Paulino over Davies, and Duffy likely an upgrade over SOS/Mazarro. We still have Hoch and Chen, Gordon and Frenchy, and Billy from the starters from last year and Cain and Gio are probably the only questions. We’ll see, but it looks like a major improvement over the 2011 team that won 71 games. I doubt we’ll win 96, but 81 or above seems reasonable. We’re in a good spot, I think.

This team last year didn’t have one guy drive in 100 and the team lead in HR’s was 23. You lose Melky, add no one, and you gain the experience of the youth getting stronger and better. I don’t see that producing high enough to counter the rotations potential woes.

Kansas City beat Anaheim in the game I mentioned when that great ace Ervin Santana threw strike three past the catcher and Frenchy beat the throw to first. An inning or two later, Aaron Crow, the kid that the negative nancys had been rending their garments over because of the previous year in the minors, blew three fastballs by Tori Hunter and made him look like a Little Leaguer. The problem with history is you only see it when it’s over, and even then it is filtered and ignores much. As KC is following the Tampa Bay blueprint, I’ve been looking at their progression from futility to success. Makes me more optimistic than others might be.

“No it still wouldn’t but it would make it alot easier on the young offense, the ability to even have a bench, and a bullpen.”

We’ll have a fine offense, defense, and ‘pen, so will only need five starting pitchers averaging a 4.50 ERA to pretty much break even. I think our offense will be able to handle that challenge.

You must go to games thinking you are gonna win the Sonic Slam Inning.

Which is why I wonder why we should pay the expenses of going to Anaheim and facing that dominant rotation rather than just staying in Surprise and forfeiting the games.

“The rotation isn’t close to there yet.”

And won’t be for a couple of more years. Had we signed Jackson and Oswalt the rotation still wouldn’t match up well against Weaver, Wilson, and Hardin. Of course, Tampa Bay’s rotation sucked in ’06 and ’07, but they showed up for the games in ’08. Just foolish, I guess.

There is not one rotation candidate that shouldn’t come into camp thinking they could be the ace or at least break the 5. Because they, like Dave Eiland, and even Rex Hudler in the booth, had nowhere else to go. And are you really knocking Philadelphia for their rotation and spending last year? They made the playoffs, they have revenue from the World Series the year before, and they are in great shape for 2012. It’s not a bad place to be. Raise the bar above 4th place.