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Sandy - Raleigh's picture

Great layout of stats.
The .313/.400 offense and .317/.395 defense is very telling, painting a picture of a team that was legitimately producing at a .500 team rate.  While it doesn't answer the "why", (the team is "good?" at not wasting runs in lost causes?), it paints a much rosier picture of where the actual production baseline for 2010 might be.
That said, the 2010 baseline is so blury at this point, there is little point in spending too much time fretting about it.  As of today, the following positions are "open", (could change) for 2010:
1B, 3B, SS, LF, DH --- SP3, SP4, SP5 -- (several relievers)
It's guaranteed that LF and SS are going to be massively different than the PT of the players from 2009.  If you're returning 89% or maybe even 78%, you might be able to do a decent projection beginning with the current season.  But, if you're swapping out more than half your starting lineup, beginning projections based on the previous year's performance is a fool's errand.
My thinking is little changed from the beginning of 2009.  I felt Z made a couple of nice moves to undo what immediate damage he could.  I don't see any horrible mistakes at this point.  But, I definitely would not "plan" on Seattle being a playoff hopeful in 2010, because they're gonna be replacing 55% of their regulars, and 60% (or 80%) of the rotation, the odds of rolling Yahtzee is extremely small.  (Z came up empty on Cedeno and Wlad, and didn't exactly get breakthru performances from ANY of the starting pitchers he acquired).
Give Z another year to get a couple of good guys for the future, (breakthru by Carp or Johnson or Moore or Saunders, maybe), perhaps another couple of FA undervalued bounceback type players ... come 2011, instead of needing 8 for 8 "wins" with new bodies, (needed for 2010), perhaps he only need to go 3 of 4 with his building program to get where he wants.
 
 

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