The Blue Workhorse

Every season there are a handful of players that come out of no where to surprise us and become instant stars. We touched on some players who jumped out to incredible starts after the first couple of weeks of the baseball season.

However, there are also a handful of players that play no where near what was expected of them. At the midway point of the season and in lieu of the recent trend of teams demoting established players (Phillies’ starter Brett Myers, Indians’ closer Joe Borowski, and young Braves’ slugger Jeff Francouer — even though Francouer has scored 40 runs, hit 8 HR, and driven in 41 RBI), we examine those players who have failed to meet expectations and would be well deserving of a demotion:

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For the past two seasons, there have been concerns about a couple of the most known and dominant closers in the game. Last season, it was New York Yankees’ stopper Mariano Rivera after he got off to a rough start. This season the troubles are in the other league, on the other coast as Trevor Hoffman, the man who enters to “Hell’s Bells,” has left without the lead, or a save, already twice in the early stages this season.

After week one of the MLB season, there have been several teams, including the Padres, that have already run into bullpen issues, particularly on Opening Day, so we decided to examine each of the 30 major league teams bullpen performances thus far and see which teams should really be concerned with their bullpen.

Opening Day is one of the most glorious days in sports, despite the fact that MLB tried to ruin it by having an opening series in Japan and then by having a one game series (yea, that’s not even possible Major League Baseball - a series means multiple) in Washington.

Now that all the teams and players have each put on the uniform for the first official games of the season, and to honor the first true day of the MLB schedule, we make initial observations on every team about what we saw on Opening Day after watching some games and examining boxscores:

“Fuk-a-dome-e….Fuk-a-dome-e….Fuk-a-dome-e…”

It was the sound of the Cubs’ faithful on a cool and windy Opening Day at Wrigley Field in the ninth inning when the Cubs had runners on first and second trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth.

And Kosuke Fukudome delivered.

The Chicago Cubs came out of nowhere to win the division last year after finishing in the cellar in 2006 (yes, even worse than the Pittsburgh Pirates). This year, which will mark the 100th anniversary of their last World Series title, with the addition of Japanese superstar Kosuke Fukudome, the Cubs will again look to take the division crown and try to end the curse of the billy goat. Standing in the way of the Cubbies will be the Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, and possibly the St. Louis Cardinals.

Your NL Central previews with last year’s records, key additions, key losses, projected starting lineup, projected rotation, overall outlook, fantasy impact players, and our prediction for this season: