Tuesday, August 5, 2008

NY Patriots Season Preview

Season 3 brings hope for a possible playoff appearance for New York Patriot fans. Fans have been introduced to theirseason 3 ballclub and most like what they see. The Patriots struggled thru season 2 with an inability to hit for average.One of the few bright spots was William Maurer. Maurer led the club in hitting with a .294 batting average. The bad news isthat his average dropped off from season 1 of .330. When your best player has an off year and leads the club in hittingsomething has to change. And change it has. The Patriots went out and got 3 quality infielders off the free agent market.New Patriots Max Maxwell, Glen Lowe & Duffy Thielman have been brought in to put some pop into the batting order. Thefollowing is a breakdown by position of last years club and this years club.

1B Danys Galarraga remains at first for the Patriots. Danys had an of year in season 2 hitting .240 with 31 home runs. His home run out put was down considerbly from his season 1 total of 47. Patriot fans can live with his carear average of .240 but are expecting him to regain his season 1 power numbers.

2B Clint Governale was the Patriots 2B last season hitting .262 with 12 home runs. Duffy Thielman takes over at 2B thisseason. Despite only hitting .269 last season with 17 round trippers Patriot fans consider this an improvement and arehoping for improved production this year.

3B Max Maxwell takes over the hot corner duties from fan favorite William Maurer. This will enable Maurer to utilize hisrange in CF. Despite only hitting .260 with 17 homers Patriot fans are expecting this to be a big season for Max.

SS Ed Helton was a disapointment with both the glove and bat last season. He will be replaced by Glen Lowe. Patriot fanshope the brass new what they were doing when they brought in Glen. An obvious improvement with the glove fans arehoping Glen bounces back to season 1 form with the bat.

LF King Browning got most of the playing time in LF last year but this year he will be platooning with Nick Morgan. Neither has showed the ability to win the positionas of yet. It will remain a L/R platoon unless one of these guysgets hot.

CF William Maurer takes over the CF duties from now Philadelphia Citi Quaker Scooter Eldred. Patriot fans are excitedabout watching the graceful Maurer patrol the outfield. Maurer will probably be one of the slower CF's in the leaguebut not many will cover as much ground.

RF Jason Bullinger entertained the fans with the long ball the last 2 seasons but the fans were not amused with his highstrikeout ratio and his fielding antics. Jason was let go in the off season and the Patriots are giving Clint Governalea chance to win the position. Patriot brass are hoping to see Clint continue to get stronger with the stick.

C Another platoon will see Louie Cruz utilized for his bat and Damian Gentry utilized for his handling of the young arms.

SP1 Jerry Franco at 24 years old is coming off of a disapointing 5 - 18 rookie season. Patriot brass think good thingsare right around the corner.

SP2 Dennis Wanatabe will be starting his 3rd season in the bigs. Dennis showed considerable improvement in his secondseason and the Patriots think the 25 year old is ready to have a break out season.

SP3 Patriot fans are hoping Andrea Merrick bounces back from a devastating injury to his forearm in season 2. The clubshigh hopes for Andrea have been replaced with the optimism that he can regain his pre injury form.

SP4 Willard Yeager will start the season as the Patriots 4th starter. His results will determine if and when Barry Meadows& or Rudy O'Neil get the call up from AAA.

Pen Bull pen by commitee. Steve Elarton, Ronald Gold, George Mlicki, Emil Ugueto, Mark Wagner & Scott Wright will share thepen duties. If anyone gets hot than that will be the go to guy.

As spring always brings hope to baseball fans for their club, this year is no different for Patriot fans. Now the fans can onlysit and wait to see if their hopes for some post season baseball come to pass.

1 comment:

Moses Gunner said...

I strongly suggest ny one who enjoyed The Last Patriot to check out Epire of Lies. It's a great new spy thriller aboit a Christian looking for the last revelation of the Qur'an. You can Check out this review of it