Saturday, February 15, 2014

LVI Pre Draft Overview

Lehigh Valley heads into the doldrums of the pre-draft timeframe with dreams of capturing that elusive NASBL repeat title.  It will be an uphill battle since there are several teams that have legitimate championship aspirations.  Here is a look at the keepers for the 2014 IronPigs.

Pitching looks to be a relative strength for the team this season.  Anchored by 2nd year player Steven Strasburg (3.00 era, 9.39k/9), the IronPigs have quality pitching in spades.  Strasburg is followed in the rotation by Hisashi Iwakuma (14-6, 2.66 era), midseason pickup Zack Greinke (15-4, 2.63 era), Travis Wood (3.11 era) and Clay Buchholz (12-1, 1.74 era).  The bullpen is anchored by closer Koji Uehara (1.09 era, 21 sv), Joe Nathan (1.39 era, 43 sv) and future hall of fame candidate Mariano Rivera (2.11 era, 44 sv).

The position players are solid, but not spectacular, across the board with Albert Pujols (17 hr), Robinson Cano (27 hr), Ian Desmond (20 hr) and Evan Longoria (32 hr) in the infield.  The outfield is manned by Jayson Werth (25 hr), Alex Rios (42 sb), Nick Markakis and Craig Gentry (24 sb).  Billy Butler (374 obp) serves as primary DH.  Going with the "beer league softball defensive alignment", IronPig management decided that it is more important to have an additional outfielder playing short centerfield than it is to have a catcher behind home plate and have adjusted our keeper list accordingly. 

If the IronPig dream of going back to back is to come to fruition, it looks like pitching will have to carry the team in 2014.  Our hope is to scrape out a few runs per game and let the pitchers do the rest.  Time will tell.






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