By the time you read this, the start of the MLB season will most likely have been and gone and the Dodgers will be underway with a series against the Central Division’s most likely whipping boys, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It has been an off-season of little change at Chavez Ravine, with only one position player named in the likely starting line-up not there at the end of 2009, and Blake DeWitt is hardly a player Dodgers fans are not accustomed to already.
Russell Martin may well have missed Opening Day too, but Brad Ausmus has an MLB resume as long as your arm and a knack for calling a great game, which no doubt first-up starter Vicente Padilla would have appreciated.
The only real surprise as far as MLB Tips are concerned comes at the back end of the rotation where the battle to win the No 5 starter role went to knuckleballer Charlie Haeger, who beat out the likes of Eric Stults, Russ Ortiz and Ramon Ortiz to take the ball every five days when necessary.
James McDonald went into Spring Training as the likely favourite to win the role, but he had an awful spring, and it becoming more and more obvious that he is likely to end up a situational reliever – he appears to wilt too much under pressure to become a top-line starter although I could be erring on the side of caution.
MLB Predictions suggest that The Dodgers should be a realistic contender in the NL West, but then again all five teams are mostly saying the same, with only the Padres looking like possible strugglers given their lack of pitching depth.
The one thing the Dodgers do have that others lack is a strong bench which could well come in really handy late in the season. Last year things were getting pretty tight by the end of the campaign and having old heads like Garret Anderson, Ronnie Belliard, Ausmus and company ready to come in when necessary is going to be vital for coach Joe Torre’s planning.
It is hard to predict just how much better both the Rockies and Giants will be with an extra year’s experience on fairly young shoulders, while the Diamondbacks will hope to have Brandon Webb around for much longer in 2010. It’s going to be an interesting year, that’s for sure.
