By Ryan A. Gold
Wahoo! Sports
a few odd minutes ago

There are some sad images floating around out there in the culture. Paul Simon sang about Fat Charlie the Archangel who was “sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon.” That’s pretty sad. There was Iron Eyes Cody crying over air pollution in the 70’s. Definitely sad. Hemmingway probably set the bar for sad with his famous six word short story: “For Sale: baby shoes, never used.” Now that’s sad. Along side these morose thoughts and appearances, I now submit SFsEmptyTrophyCase. Poor trophy case, sitting there like a fat kid in a tux waiting for a prom date who never shows. Sad indeed. Who among you counts themselves so cold hearted that they wouldn’t like to see that fat kid get laid? Well, what are the prospects for this year’s Casers to dust off a place for some new hardware?

Unfortunately, where sadness rests one often finds pain, and a number of key players may find themselves ailing. Russell Martin will start the season on the DL and recent history suggests he may be pretty well worn out. Joey Votto’s suffering is all on the inside. Hopefully he’ll have a season filled with hugs. Brian Roberts (bulging disk) can compare bad back notes with Derek Lee who went Goldilocks on a baby bear chair in the club house and tweaked himself. Truthfully Lee will probably be fine, but it really had to be mentioned. Grady Sizemore suffered through a long, injury hampered year and they will need him to find his pre-2009 form. Yaddy Molina has a strained oblique. Somewhere John Madden reminds us that in his day, they didn’t get oblique injuries because they’d never heard of an oblique.

Assuming a season of smiles, Votto, Longoria, Tulo and Sizemore provide a very solid foundation of multi-category players. There aren’t any offensive categories being punted and there are no real weaknesses here except maybe defensively. Playing Adam Dunn and his 16 errors as an outfielder may cost the category from time to time. Dunn makes a nice power compliment to speedier players like Spann and Gutierrez, though. Matsui might prove to be a late round bargain. Overall I would expect a slightly above average performance on the offensive side.

So far so good, right? The fat kid looks up and there are headlights coming his way. Could it be her? Alas, it’s just a dump truck filled with pitchers. Ok, so maybe dump truck is a little harsh. Compost bin? I fear the combination of NYC and Javy Vazquez. That personality on that team in that park don’t strike me as particularly auspicious. Dempster, Danks and Kuroda are nearly the same guy, and while they are nice to have players in the middle of their rotations, they don’t provide a ton of value in the game we play. Garza and Burnett are a tick above their stable mates here, but both are high WHIP guys with ERA’s not quite good enough to offset that weakness. There will be a lot of strikeouts here, but losses, WHIP and ERA will be tough categories week in and week out. As will saves, which seem to have been omitted. Saves is a category this year, right? Taking two hold guys will give The Case a regular shot on the flip side and both Rodney and Madson should get regular opportunities.

I’m a compassionate man and goodness knows I’ll root for this team to fill up the empty places in our hearts, but with my head I just can’t pick ’em. After all, this is spofo’s America and not every kid gets a trophy here.

Prediction: 8th-ish

Team:

Position Players

Russell Martin    (LAD – C)
Joey Votto    (Cin – 1B)
Brian Roberts    (Bal – 2B)
Evan Longoria    (TB – 3B)
Troy Tulowitzki    (Col – SS)
Grady Sizemore    (Cle – OF)
Denard Span    (Min – OF)
Franklin Gutiérrez    (Sea – OF)
Derrek Lee    (ChC – 1B)
Adam Dunn    (Was – 1B,OF)
Hideki Matsui    (LAA – Util)
Yadier Molina    (StL – C)
Austin Jackson    (Det – OF)

Pitchers

Javier Vázquez    (NYY – SP)
Ryan Dempster    (ChC – SP)
Fernando Rodney    (LAA – RP)
Ryan Madson    (Phi – RP)
John Danks    (CWS – SP)
Matt Garza    (TB – SP)
A.J. Burnett    (NYY – SP)
Hiroki Kuroda    (LAD – SP)

By Ryan A. Gold
Wahoo! Sports

“See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!”

Ezra Pound wrote these lines in a poem called “The Return” about a group of old warriors stumbling back home. Probably not the triumphant return affable owner M Max hopes to conjure with his team’s name, but the word return cuts in different directions marching backwards and forwards in time. Sometime the past returns to join us in the future but sometimes return speaks to a desire to take the present back to the past, back to halcyon days. Which way the return manifests itself will have a lot to do with how R2P fares this season.

The core of this team consists of a number of key veterans and if they show up this season on wobbling legs like Pound’s returning vets, it might be a long season. Go back five, maybe even ten years, and a roster featuring the likes of Chipper, Tejada, Damon, Furcal, Hoffman and Hudson might look pretty formidable. All have the potential to produce useful seasons but health and diminished production will be something to watch. These guys will have to bring some of that old magic back with them into 2010 if this team is going to compete.

Return can be read yet another way, as a trip back home, and the hometown is well represented for R2P. Hey, if you’re not entirely sure which way to draft, there’s nothing wrong with getting guys you want to root for anyway. McCann, Chipper, McClouth, Cabrera, and Hudson will all suit up for the squad and you have to wonder if M Max has been informed that Furcal is no longer a Brave. You also have to wonder how he’ll feel if super rookie Jason Heyward breaks out for somebody else’s side this year.

Ryan Howard will lead the offense, well complimented by an underrated Brandon Phillips. Granderson could approach 30/30, but his BA has to be a concern. There are batting average risks in other places too, with four likely starters who hit below .270 last year. The OPS outlook is similarly dicey and with all the veteran players, there doesn’t seem to be any high ceiling guys to come to the rescue with break out seasons. This looks like a middle of the pack team offensively with steals being a possible bright spot, especially if Rajai Davis swipes the 80 bags that Rickey Henderson is predicting for him.

One return that could really benefit this team would be a return to form for Jake Peavy, who seems healthy, happy and ready to deal for the White Sox. Changing parks from Petco to the Chicago launching pad won’t help, nor will changing leagues, but Peavy will compete. If he does put together a strong season he’ll combine with two front of the rotation studs in Halladay and Johnson to present a tough pitching match up for anybody.

Given the middling offense, you’d like to see the pitching staff rounded out by a slightly stronger bullpen. We probably shouldn’t read too much into Papelbon’s year end struggles, but he doesn’t seem quite the sure thing he did at this time last year. Hoffman keeps on doing it, but you just have to wonder if he has another year in him. Some health concerns and a homer friendly park might be ready to catch up with him. Fuentes is just flat out Earl Weaver smoking in the dugout scary. Sherrill will provide some holds.

‘Return’ has a partner in this team’s name and ‘prominence’ carries it’s own double meaning. In one sense prominence means a leading position, the head of the pack. But it can also simply mean a place of attention, as in “prominent in our thoughts.” While M Max and his fans will hope for the former, they may have to content themselves with the later meaning as baseball returns to prominence in our thoughts and keeps us company through the long hot summer.

Prediction: Outside shot at the playoffs with a few breaks

Team:

Position Players

Brian McCann (Atl – C)
Mark DeRosa (SF – 1B,3B,OF)
Brandon Phillips (Cin – 2B)
Chipper Jones (Atl – 3B)
Miguel Tejada (Bal – SS)
Johnny Damon (Det – OF)
Melky Cabrera (Atl – OF)
Curtis Granderson (NYY – OF)
Rajai Davis (Oak – OF)
Ryan Howard (Phi – 1B)
Rafael Furcal (LAD – SS)
Nate McLouth (Atl – OF)
Ryan Doumit (Pit – C)

Pitching

Roy Halladay (Phi – SP)
Josh Johnson (Fla – SP)
Jonathan Papelbon (Bos – RP)
Brian Fuentes (LAA – RP)
Jake Peavy (CWS – SP)
Trevor Hoffman (Mil – RP)
George Sherrill (LAD – RP)
Tim Hudson (Atl – SP)

Yes, it is that time of year when stat geeks and baseball addicted individuals become those rabid OCD sports page and injury report readers.

I play in one league every year, we lose 1 or 2 players each year, but we have a core of about 9 players who have been in the league for several years, which is always important.

One of these core members goes by the moniker of “Tuttle”, which personally reminds me of the character Norman Tuttle from Street Hawk, the short lived television show from the 1980’s.

Tuttle is a smart individual with a sense of humor that almost has no rival, and every year he does a great job of taking a look at everyones’ team and does a season preview. I have chosen to log them all here this year instead of allowing them to drift off into the abyss of Yahoo by sometime in July… there will be 12 posts with the descriptions…