The Padres
Back from a weekend of public league h*ll and my annualgeek-fest family Opening Day Party (It’s a mandatory holiday in my mad world).
Free Public Leagues Update
Optioning myself to the minors for expert league incompetence
has me now in 14 leagues between the sites that offer them. I’ve made a concerted
effort to join as many different forms as possible, as well as not getting too crazy
with designing draft lists, pretty much drafting without them. I’m not intent
on winning but should be both competitive and active enough to remain unobtrusive.
Favorite quote of the weekend drafts – “I’d rather finish
last than own Bonds.”
Favorite quote from the Opening Day party – “I’m cheer’n for the Cubs
cuz they have five.” Bear Quon (age six) after the first inning of the
Cubs/Reds fiasco.
My favorite team this season– Going against all the experts,
I’m picking the Padres in the NL West, the division most likely to have at
least one player die of natural causes this season (hopefully that’s a bad joke
and nothing close to prophetic).
Why? Everybody is now picking the Giants. Huh? Closer Tim Worrell
at present, three outfielders who are old enough to have gone to high school
with me, an aging middle infield, three question marks in the rotation, a
bullpen only a mother could love, and one of the weakest farm systems in the
majors after Matt Cain and Merkin Valdez as real-deal upper types that could
contribute in 2006 (and Cain is one of the three question marks on the starting
staff for youth and inexperience, so he doesn’t really count.)
I like the Padres with their questionable starting staff
after Jake Peavy for personal taste and intrigue. Piazza could be a guy that
gets undervalued this year, I predict Khalil Greene makes his mark this season,
Adrian Gonzalez doesn’t yield the spot back to Ryan Klesko without a fight, and
Josh Barfield (mentioned often in this blog) hits well enough to garner a few
ROY votes. Scott Linebrink can close games if Trevor Hoffman succumbs to an
injury that has to be looming given his age, and maybe Chan Ho Park finally
becomes a sold major leaguer again as a setup man. And they’re a vastly
superior club in the minors than the Giants, and the Dodgers are more likely to
upset this off-the-wall prediction. But the
Dodgers are also old and injury-prone and I have no real love for them with
exception to their farm system, which is superior to either of these two but
behind the Diamondbacks in the division.
I’ll be posting something more substantive later in the day.
Just need to get the juices back into gear by babbling incoherently.
Dan Quon
Quon On Minor League Baseball 