61-101, Chart

….in part because I think the system is in better shape. What options did we have at first base immediately after the ’08 season? Lahair. On the middle infield? Just Triunfel, who had come off a campaign in High Desert where he had hit eight home runs. In center field? You had Jeremy Reed, unless you thought Saunders could play there, or that Halman was somehow going to improve upon his terrible plate discipline (#1 prospect!). Ibanez was leaving and no one was going to take his place. After Felix we had hopes of Bedard, but a smallish time frame in which we could do anything with him. Carlos Silva, Miguel Batista and Jarrod Washburn were still consuming a fair amount of our payroll. Morrow figured in there too, I suppose. But all of our pitching prospects had just finished the Midwest League and were two or three years away.

Now? We have Smoak. We have Ackley. We have Nick Franklin somewhere down the line. While we don’t have King Awesome at third, or anything close, we’re not lacking for internal options at the moment. Guti has center. Condor, perhaps has left. Moore at least has age on his side, which is more than Burke had, though we all rooted for him, certainly. Pineda is capable of following Felix, the bullpen is young and improving, and the back end of the rotation is serviceable and cheap. Various others could contribute in the near-term as well. And after next season, both Jack Wilson and Milton Bradley come off the books, which gives us some financial maneuvering room to do things again.

The expectations for this year were the killer, but the team is in a far better place than it was heading into that offseason. We don’t know what exactly is going to happen from hear out, but we’re probably going to get something interesting for Aardsma, and cutting bait with a few of the players on the current roster will give us some room to make minor improvements where we can. What those might be is up in that air, particularly since we don’t look like a great destination at the moment, but we could also see Zduriencik take a few chances on guys in the hopes that they’ll be able to do something with us for years to come. That’s not so bad.