We are about 15 days away from Spring Training so its that time of year that we start looking at position battles and health of players. These are some of the questions that should be affecting the NL East this season in terms of Spring Training position battles and overall questions for the season:
1. Luis Castillo is the Mets second basemen. Who will his back up be? Will it be the young Ruben Gotay, or will we see a return Valetine?
2. The Braves say Mike Hampton is back to full health? How effective will he be?
3. With the McPherson signing, who will be the starting 3B for the Marlins?
4. The Mets have their old setup man in Sanchez back. Will he be effective? Will Heilman go back to mop-up? Will they platoon?
5. Now with Lugo and Strokes, will they actually get a spot in the pen? Will they beat out Schowenwies? What about Sosa?
6. Where will Pelfry play? (minors or majors)
7. Will the 2006 or 2007 Delgado show up to play this year?
8. With Victorino not platooning this year, how will he hold up in terms of stanima? What about their right field?
Over the next two weeks I will be attempting to answer these questions and add more. If you have some, please post or send them to me: eteich@umd.edu
So close to Spring
