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Well, it was only Georgia Tech. Chipper and Mondesi homered. In the outfield competition, Jordan DHed and was 1-2 with a double; Langerhans played left and was also 1-2 with a double, driving in a run and scoring.
If you take away Jordon from the lineup today against GT, I think we may be heading into the season with a batting order of:
Furcal, Giles, Chipper, Andruw, Estrada, Mondesi, LaRouche/Franco, Langerhans/Jordan.
I refuse to believe Jordan will bat third whether he plays full-time or part-time.
I found that to be very curious. No way Jordan hits 3rd. right? I need to be comforted on this.
Yeah, that’s right. We no-hit college teams. The Marlins lose to them.
Also, Andruw stole a base. Odd.
I’m sure Bobby’s just experimenting with the lineup. Didn’t Jordan bat third or fourth the first time around? I keep thinking he batted after Chipper.
He batted 4th or 5th usually. I believe the Big Cat hit 4th when he was healthy.
Kinda funny about the Marlins, but I heard an interesting stat about the Hurricanes ballplayers. 25% of them have gone on to play professional baseball over the past 10 years. Not all made the majors, but that’s still an incredible stat. On the down side, some of them took a pay cut when they went to the pros.
My thoughts for the division for this season:
1. Braves
2. Mets
3. Phillies
4. Marlins
5. Les Nationals
The Mets still lack pitching and Piazza is the catcher, The Phillies are even worse than last year pitching-wise, the Marlins are pretenders and the Nationals are, well, the Nationals.
Andruw will compete for the MVP, Mondesi will hit .300 with over 30 homers, and they could have an offensive output equal to 2003, but with pitching to go along with it this year. They have a pitcher of the caliber they haven’t had in a few years, and if Smoltz stays healthy, they have the pitching to get through the post-season.
Wow, those are some serious predictions. I would absolutely love to see you be right about Andruw and Mondesi, but I wonder why you think that. Is something sticking out to you that we don’t see? I sorta agree about the offensive output being equal to 2003 because we honestly just need a couple people to overachieve to get there, whereas the 2003 team had a ton of people overachieving.
off the subject: if u take the bottom 5 teams salary and combine them, u will still have less than the yankees. that is truly amazing! how are that should mean the yankees should have to win 5 times as many games as the brewers. wouldn’t that be a way to look at things.
Well, if Chipper is 100%, Mondesi comes anywhere close to his potential (which he could in Atlanta), Giles doesn’t run into someone, and Andruw is as serious as it looks, it shouldn’t be a problem. He had a stolen base and made a tough catch, not bad for the 1st spring training game.
I agree with you about Andruw and Mondesi. I think Andruw is coming up on a contract year next year and he knows that if he needs to step it up if he expects the kind of cash he’s been getting, and Mondesi, well, this is his last chance to prove that he still has it, and he knows that if he has a decent year, he’ll be able to make a little bit of cash before he has to retire.
As for your division predictions…I think you’ve lost your mind putting the Marlins fourth. Like us, they have a lot of “ifs”, but if Burnett & Beckett stay healthy they could have a pretty scary rotation, not to mention that, with the addition of Delgado, their offense is probably only second to the Yankees and the Redsox. Even if we stay healthy and Smoltz returns to his old form, we won’t beat out the Marlins by more than five or six games.
If those who played well last year keep it up, those who didn’t bounce back, and we don’t have any injuries, we should have a good season! Of course, this describes 80% of all ML teams, but who cares.
We’re up 8-2 on the Dodgers as I write this. Jordan and ‘Druw hit bombs off Jeff Weaver.
off the subject: if u take the bottom 5 teams salary and combine them, u will still have less than the yankees. that is truly amazing! how are that should mean the yankees should have to win 5 times as many games as the brewers. wouldn’t that be a way to look at things.
sorry take the “how are” out. forgot to edit
Delgado is really the only guy they added to the offense, which finished 23rd in the league in runs scored. Pitching-wise, they added Leiter and Alfonseca, so I don’t see the logic on the offensive end. The Mets upgraded much more and the Phillies are playing in a hitter’s park. Come back to me at the end of the season. They only finished 4 games over .500 last year and they had the 2nd record in their division vs. the division.
I’m with bwar on this one. The Marlins are being way overrated by a lot of writers this year. If the Phillies can ever have a relatively injury free year we’ll be in trouble.