Seattle Sanguine Season Preview

After an offseason where management blasted the entire roster, the Seattle Sanguine went through a striking makeover. A team that was nearly devoid of talent in the lineup and even worse off in the rotation shuffled some chairs around on the deck of the Titanic, and managed to actually put together a roster that could be competitive this year.

One reason that the qualifier "almost" was used in reference to devoid of talent, was probably perennial MOP candidate Vincent Olivares. Even in Seattle, Olivares is a lock for 40 HR and 100 RBI, and most likely will have an OPS of over 1.000 for his career.

Most of the rest of the lineup was put together for the roles they will be able to fill, except for two players -- Dustin Brown and Germany Heving. Brown was called up from the AA squad, as he was certainly ready to play, and his promotion allowed for the dealing of some other promising prospects (more on that later). Heving was probably the steal of free agency, a legitimate 5-hole hitter that signed for just a hair under five million per year for the next three. Though Heving's durability is a little low, with limited spring training at bats, he still should be good for between 120 and 130 games. with Olivares, Heving and Brown, the offense should be in good hands, and produce enough runs to power the Sanguine to some wins.

The pitching staff, which was set to be one of if not the league's worst has become something of a strength through promotion and mostly trades. The two aces of thhe staff will be David Barrios and Luther Rivera. Barrios came over shortly before the end of FA, and is locked up for the ridiculously low rate of 2 million per season, making him probably the best starting pitching value to change hands this offseason. Rivera was a gift in AAA, but has low health. And that's all that I'm going to say about that to avoid any jinxing.....

The bullpen is not that good. Not much that can be said in all honesty. There's help on the horizon, and some players that will improve that currently are there, but for the most part, we're hoping for the starters to throw in the neighborhood of 1100 innings to reduce the need for the 'pen to be out there much at all.

Projected record: 82-80, and if the offense and bullpen are better than I think they are, we could actually be better than that.