It's Tribe Time Are You Excited???

Yes crazy wonderful people it's April so you knoqw what that means. Plenty of rain and Baseball is back. The Cleveland Indians open up in a few days. There are so many questions about this team I don't even know where to start. First off I wanna know are you all excited? I am but then again I'm not. I've learned not to get too gassed about the Tribe. So here are a few questions I have about the Wahoo Warriors.

Starting Rotation: It goes as follows right now Cliff Lee, Fausto Carmona, Carl Pavano, Scott Lewis and Anthony Reyes. The first 3 I know well. Cliff or General Lee as I call him, is the reigning Cy Young winner in the AL Fausto had a great 07 but 08 was littered with injuries. Pavano cashed in with the Yankees but barely pitched because he was injured his whole stint in NYC. The bottom 2 honestly I don't know about nut I hear that Reyes has potential to be lights out. If all else fails Aaron Laffey and Jeremy Sowers are in the Minors and have pitching experience.

Bullpen: Kerry Wood is the Closer Jensen Lewis is the righty set up man and raffy Perez is the lefty set up man. Add Joe Smith, Raffy Bentancourt, Masa Kobiayshi and Zach Jackson and you have a pretty decent bull pen if everyone is healthy.

Projected Starting Lineup:
1. CF Grady Sizemore
2. 3B Mark DeRosa
3. DH Travis Hafner
4. 1B Victor Martinez
5. SS Jhonny Peralta
6. RF Shin-Soo Choo
7. LF Ben Francisco
8. C Kelly Shoppach
9. 2B Asdrubal Cabrera


I like the outfield the infield is a little suspect because DeRosa hasn't palyed third reguarly in a while. You have good back ups. I like Jamey Carroll and Josh Barfield. Ryan Garko has to come out of his funk he seemed to be in last year he may see some time in the outfield this year. Dellucci is hurt again and Trevor Crowe is the fourth outfielder.

Overall: If they stay healthy and play the way they played in the second half they will contend. But I don't think they can make the playoffs without winning the Central. So No Cntral Division Pennant No Playoffs because the WIld Card Winner will come out of teh AL East.

Projected Record: 89-73