2004 Futures

[BleedDodgerBlue]

New to board, been cappin bases my whole life. A friend of mine steered me in the direction of this site. Hope I can contribute on a daily basis. I run a service, but won't mention the name here. Not looking for clients, just thought you should know. Don't ask Jack for my e-mail, I won't be giving it out and am not a tout. These are all my personal plays and I play each one of them. Hope to make some cyber friends and make people some money in the process. To all the bashers from the get go, go somewhere else. If you don't like what I have to say then stay away. If I hit a skid then fade away. I'm just too old and been around too long to deal with petty people.

On to the good stuff. A hello and a best wishes to everyone on board and I hope we can all have a profitable season.

2004 total wins:

Arizona Diamondbacks under 83 regular season wins
($1200/$1000)
The entire national league west has a look to it this year that reminds me of the NL central in the past. All the teams have tinkered enough with their lineups and in the off-season that save Colorado, if any of the other teams won it wouldn't surprise me. I don't think any team will win 90 games in the division. All the teams are pretty average and none can legitimately expect to win the NL. Although it is baseball and anything can happen. The Dbacks starting rotation loses Schilling who had an average year last year, but his leadership will be missed. Johnson and Webb if healthy can lead this team, but after that there is a huge dropoff. The 3-5 starters will be Dessens, Reynolds, and a mix and match of Gosling, Good, and Fossum. Who knows who will win it and who cares. Mantei is in the tailspin of his career and I wouldn't count on him to save more than 30. Their offense doesn't impress me. Sexson was a nice acquisition. Finley is good for 22 or so, and Louis Gonzalez is off the roids and back to earth after 2 years ago. Hillenbrand is good, but I'm not sure Alomar was the answer at 2nd. Will take him a while to get used to the NL. This team is okay and might be able to win 83 in the NL east, but the west has too many teams that are similar and it would take a lot for them to eclipse this. I also don't see this team skyrocketing over 83 by any means, so if worse comes to worse I should be able to hedge this toward the end if I had to.

Chicago White Sox over 82.5 regular season wins
($1150/$1000)
Sox won 86 games last year, but really tanked toward the end. I think Guillen will add new life to these veteran players. The players hated Manuel no matter what was said in public. Him leaving is exactly what this team needed. Frank Thomas to LA isn't gonna happen, so he is gonna stay. The Sox have a weird pitching staff to know what to expect from. Loaiza came out of nowhere last year to be a cy young contender. Buerhle tanked last year. Koch was the most overpayed closer in baseball per result. I think all of that reverses itself this year. I think Koch gets his act together, Loaiza should drop off a bit, but I'm expecting Buerlhe to return to 2 years ago form. He definitely has the stuff for it. This Takatsu guy from Japan might fool some teams. He's got great stuff so far in workouts, and the first time through some teams he should shine. Marte is a good setup pitcher and at times can close if Koch implodes again. The offense is good with Big hurt and Mags. If Konerko ever gets his head out of his ass after last year this team will put up big numbers. Every scout will tell you when on that Konerko has the best swing in baseball for a righty. Not sure what happened last year, and as a dodger fan, i was made they gave him to the Reds a few years back. Crede is a great young player at 3rd whos numbers are constantly improving. Should be a breakout year for him. Center field is the teams biggest question mark. Willie Harris is penciled in but he is truly bad. Fast yes, but cannot hit a tee-ball. Batting a career .215 and if you take away bunt singles, i guarantee you he isn't anywhere near .180 The team will put up some runs and their pitching should keep them above .500 at the end. Minnesota is the only other legit shot in this division. KC should have a down year and Cleveland and Detroit are just awful. If the Sox can handle the Tigers which they did NOT do last year, they can get to 83 wins.

Cincinatti Reds under 72.5 regular season wins. 2x
($2400/$2000)
My biggest future bet of the year. In one word this team is awful. It wouldn't surprise me to see this team finish with a worse record than the tigers and quite possibly the worst in baseball. This has to be the worst starting 5 in all of baseball hands down. Acevedo, Harang, Haynes, and Wilson are a disgrace to baseball and why we should think about de-expansion. Lidle is a decent pickup only because coming from the AL he might have success the first few times around. They are playing in the Coors Field of the midwest and they are throwing these 5 guys out there to get it done. GFL. Chris Reitsma should get most of the save opportunities if they are ever leading after 8, and hes got a 4.5 lifetime ERA with 12 career saves and gave up 14 home runs in 84 innings last year. Ken Griffey is a huge question mark as he is constantly hurt since his seattle days. You cannot count on him for anything. Dunn and Kearns got some pop, but they strike out more than blondes go down. Barry Larkin is taking metamucil in the dugout as opposed to creatin and aside from Castro this team has ZERO speed. Somebody give me any reason they think this team can compete against the big 3 in their division the cardinals, cubs and stros. You can't. They are a truly awful team and I would take this bet all the way down to 65 games. This team could easily lose 100, but I'm sure of one thing, they wont win 73.

Hope to hear from you guys and hope we all can win some money.

 

[TheItalianguy]

welcome

this is my first year betting on baseball. I'll look forward to your plays, maybe i can understand something about the game.

 

[RexBudler]

nice writeups and good luck this season Dodger.......Welcome aboard.....Im ready to get this season going

 

[bjfinste]

Think you're dead-on about the Reds. That rotation is frighteningly bad, esp. in that park. Going to be a long, long year for Cincy fans.

 

[Davoso]

Have been looking at the win totals and the under for AZ jumped out at me. I'm liking the under as I agree their lineup is nothing special and losing Schilling and Unit being one year older should mean less wins then last year when they had 84.

Not a big fan of these since your $$ is tied up so long but I will probably take a shot on this one.

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

Welcome Dodger Blue....from a fellow Dodger fan going back to the Lee Lacy days. I can't wait to unload on baseball this year. Good to know I won't be the only lowly Dodger fan in here. Can't wait to follow their perrenial anemic offence again and huck shit around the inside of my cell.
God Bless the firing of Dan Evans....what a pitiful, pathetic excuse for a GM.

 

[Patternseeker]

welcome dodgerblue.
nice write ups. being a little long of tooth, i remember the days when the big red machine battled the dodgerblue!!

but i think you are dead on about the redlegs.

 

[BleedDodgerBlue]

Well Manson, its in all reallity going to be a long year for the dodger faithful. They are talented enough still with the arms to keep them in the race til september with what I consider a real down division this year, butthey will falter away like always. Most people except us don't realize this team hasn't even won a playoff game since 1988. Truly painful. Granted not cubs and red sox pain, but still pain enough. My favorite team was the Landreaux, Guerrero, Baker, Garvey, Lopes, Cey, Yeager teams with fatty himself in the dugout. I do like Tracey though and hope he can keep him together. Who knows how Gagne will react after losing arbitration. Could be a real long year. We go as he goes. And yes, getting rid of Evans was a long time coming.
Pattern, the big red machine days were fun, I'm just hoping they are worse than last year even which looking at that staff shouldn't be that difficult.

 

[Marra]

Nice writeups bleed-

One tidbit on the Sox...Aaron Rowand is penciled in to start in CF, with Willie Harris at 2B. Rowand is a nice little player that plays his ass off and hit a ton the 2nd half of last year. I think he hit .404 over the last 20 games or something like that.

Harris I am also afraid of. He has tremendous speed, probably one of the fastest players in the majors. But you can't steal first. He has great range and is a pretty good glove man. If he can't handle it, Juan Uribe will fill in, who the Sox are very high on. If there is one thing the Sox are good at, it is picking scraps up and turning them into good players- Marte, Wunsch, Gordon, Loaiza, Valentin, etc.

The Royals pitching staff is definitely in the lower 5 in all of major league baseball. They played over there heads last year, and should be a scrappy team, but I don't see more than 75 wins.

The Twins have had the White Sox # over the past few years, but I think that is going to change with Guillen in charge. You are absolutely right, the players didn't like Manuel. And Manuel was a horrible manager. The Twins pitching is not impresive (especially the bullpen, which lost Guardado and Hawkins, their main guys.) They are going to be tough team that should stay around for a while, but the White Sox are better on paper and will finally prove it.

The Indians have a boatload of young talent that is going to suprise some people this year. They are going to be better than expected, just don't have the horses.

One last thing on the Sox. The Sox are never big players in free agency. KW likes to trade, especially midseason (See Alomar/Everett). If the Sox are playing well, you can bet KW will go out and get some players, making the over 82.5 wins a lot stronger.

 

[JT]

Dodgers have some good talent now in the minors but might take a year or two for impact. Need Green healthy, Beltre to finally live up to the hype and Gagne not to pout. Bullpen should still be great even with Quantrill leaving. Edwin Jackson will be alot better then people think. Still, I am not getting my hopes up. If they can trade for a offensive outfielder like Beltran or Ordonez then I might get excited.

 

[Marra]

Edwin Jackson will be alot better then people think.

He's a top 10 prospect in baseball...I think he is getting some respect.

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

Yep. This kid throws some cheese. I think the loss of Quantrill will be felt however unless the other weasels can step up and fill his innings.
Is Ashby gone? Jesus Christ I hope so.
Same with Jordan, I never really felt like he "belonged" on this team. I'm looking for LA to finish 3rd behind SF and maybe SD, and somewhere near AZ, prob ahead of AZ

 

[Superbear]

Am I crazy to think that the Devil Rays can win 70 games this year? I live in Boston they are on TV alot here because of all the times the Red Sox play them and there does seem to be a slow and steady improvement in these "cellar dwellers".I also think that their pitching has improved.

 

[CHARLESMANSON]

God only know about the D-rays. Is 70 games the over/under for the year? Seems like a pretty accurate number to me. How many they win last year?

 

[Superbear]

they won 63 games

PROJECTED ROTATION


--RHP Victor Zambrano

--RHP Jeremi Gonzalez

--LHP Mark Hendrickson

--RHP Doug Waechter

--LHP Damian Moss

Filling out the rotation could end up the biggest question of camp as the Rays sort through a handful of Nos. 3-5 starters. Only RHPs Victor Zambrano and Jeremi Gonzalez are assured of spots based on their 2003 performance. RHP Doug Waechter and LHP Mark Hendrickson have the inside track for two others. From there, Damian Moss, Paul Abbott, John Halama, Dewon Brazelton and Rob Bell are competing for the final slots.

 

[pirate fan]

Kinda following up on your Reds prediction, I really like the over 67 on the Pirates. They aren't that bad and they have the Reds and Brewers in that division. Starting five will be adequate to good. The sore spot is the closer position. They picked up Jose Mesa who had an era of over 6 last year :shrug: I'm hoping they can find someone to shut the door. Offense is avg to below average at best. They have some young talent which could step up and I really feel they'll win more than 67 games this year. yahoo. Going for our 12th losing season in a row. Would someone please make a salary cap or do something to help the small market teams. I think A-Rod will make more than my whole team.:thefinger

 

[Sun Tzu]

Last year made it to Dodger Stadium for the first time and sat on 3rd base dugout. So my question - when are thye going to replace/fix that dump? I think the seat I sat in has been there since 1962.

 

[BleedDodgerBlue]

Well personally, I enjoy dodger stadium and as for watching a game would rate it in the top 3 stadiums but that's my personal opinion. But unfortunately, I kinda doubt dodger stadium will be around more than 3 years from now. Frank McCourt who bought the dodgers also bought dodger stadium and the surrounding land in the deal. And we know he is a real estate developer. And if you've ever been to dodger stadium you can imagine how much that land is worth and what condos or such would bring in a profit for him there. It's too bad nothing publicly has been said about it, but I know he wants to tear down the stadium and build condos there. I've heard he's been looking around the Staples Center for land for a new ballpark. All this I guess is hush hush, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that odds are Chavez isn't going to be around much longer when a real estate developer buys prime land.

 

[bigdad2]

pirate fan - first off the Union will NEVER agree to a salary cap so you can forget about that. Secondly, if you can think of a revised revenue sharing program that benefits the small market teams more than what they have now you will be ahead of the game. Third, MOST, I'm not saying all, of the owners of the small-market teams would rather pocket the money than put it back into their own team. It is not that they don't have the money because everyone knows it is there but they run their team AS A BUSINESS! They have a payroll figure for the year and stick to it. In my mind the only thing that makes sense is contraction. As for which teams that is a tough call but one in each league would be a start. Personally, I'd like to see both Canadian teams dissolved and go from there.

 

[pirate fan]

bigdad2 - I agree with your statements. I was just wishful thinking for the most part. Even if they set a salary cap, many teams couldn't afford to max it. The luxury tax helps but I don't think it will solve the problem. The yanks, bosox, dodgers, mets and so on will always have the cash to afford the premium guys and the small market teams will always be developing prospects till they can't afford them. The sal cap in the NFL works so well as there is so much parity. Most teams have a chance while in baseball the same few have had a chance the last decade. Contraction is neccessary I believe but as you say, Who? I hope it wouldn't be my pirates but every fan says that about their team. It would be a good time to lose the expos but we both know that won't happen. I don't know how to fix it, only that it needs to be.