We made it through Spring Training with only one injury of note: Sean Forbes strained an oblique and will be out through late April. He was questionable to make the team as the 5th starter anyway, and now that role will go to Jose Mendoza, who looked good in March after coming back from surgery to remove bone chips in his elbow.
A couple of notes: I've deadened the ball this year so offense will be down across the board, just to shake things up. Also we're still negotiating with Mike Barkley and as expected he's driven up his price with our last offer a little bit over $9M. After having to up our offer every 3-4 days early in March, he's gone quiet now for a couple of weeks so we'll see where things go.
One bit of housekeeping before we set the OD roster:
Briones looked good in ST but with Jon Harbour also coming back healthy there wasn't room for him on the roster so we parlayed him into Morales, a 2038 draftee who has a power lefty relief arm (70 stuff). Considering we got Briones for free off waivers, this was a good return.
The Opening Day roster:
C-McKee, Cordova
1B-Alexander
2B-S.Williams
SS-Baez
3B-Beckett
IF-Ruiz, Phillips
LF-Willis
CF-Gregory
RF-Leonard
OF-Mendez, Moyer
DH-Ruggles
SP-Romero, Jackson, Brockman, Willard, Mendoza
LR-J.Perez, Harbour
MR-Toombs, D.Anderson, Burgess
SU-Pretty, C.Williams
CL-Kawase
The big surprise here is that Tony Cordova is the backup catcher and Kevin Morley has been optioned to Durham after spending 3 years as our backup. That's because Cordova was out of options and Morley had one left. Morley's going to have every right to be pissed but I want to keep them both around since Mike McKee is a free agent at year's end.
The preseason predictions:
Looks reasonable to me although the Astros are projected to go 82-80 despite all they added as OOTP does not like their pitching. Note the lower HR totals among the leading hitters.