It's here. It's finally here. Baseball. It's not real baseball, per se, but it's baseball nonetheless.
DISCUSS THE GAME IN THE OVERFLOW
The Rockies and Troy Renck were good enough to tweet the Rockies' lineup for today.
CF Dexter Fowler
RF Seth Smith
LF Carlos Gonzalez
SS Troy Tulowitzki
3B Ian Stewart
1B Ty Wigginton
2B Jose Lopez
C Chris Iannetta
P Ubaldo Jimenez
It's a pretty decent look at what could be the Opening Day lineup this year, excepting Todd Helton. Helton could be the candidate for starting in the #5 hole, pushing everyone down a slot. I'm still not a giant fan of Helton in the 5, given a general lack of slugging at this stage of his career. Stewart is obviously who we'd like to see there, so this is a nifty look at the future.
Diamondbacks lineup past the jump
Arizona is throwing the following lineup at the Rockies:
2B Kelly Johnson
RF Gerardo Parra
SS Stephen Drew
CF Chris Young
3B Geoff Blum
LF Wily Mo Pena
1B Juan Miranda
C Henry Blanco
P Aaron Heilman
Maybe this will be the year that Stephen Drew is actually able to hit in a lineup slot other than leadoff. Maybe this will be the season that Aaron Heilman can finally claim - and hold - that coveted rotation slot
Then again maybe the Dbacks will win 64 games (22 of them against Colorado, undoubtedly) and everyone will fall on their faces (except for Drew and Young, and only against Colorado - hey, I'm just calling them like I sees them).
The player of the most interest for me is Wily Mo Pena.
Pena hasn't played in the majors since 2008, when he was absolutely awful with Washington (.205/.243/.267, and what's worst is the fact that he got 206PA to be awful in. But I suppose given Washington's situation in 2008, it wasn't really hurting anything. Pena, the former amateur signing from the Dominican Republic by the New York Mets, finally reached the majors in 2002 at the age of 20. After struggling his 2003 season (70 OPS+), Pena finally showed signs of success 2004-2005 (115, 105 OPS+, respectively) before being traded to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Bronson Arroyo. 2006 more or less paid off for Boston, as Pena hit .301/.349/.489 (110 OPS+) in part-time action. 2007, Pena only managed a 72 OPS+ with Boston before being traded to Washington for a PTBNL (eventually Chris Carter), where he rebounded to post a 124 OPS+ in 37 games. Past that, Pena fell apart (as evidenced by the line in the first sentence of this paragraph).
After 2009, Pena had two minor league stints: in 2009 with the Mets, and in 2010 with the Padres. He clearly hit well enough with the Padres' AAA club to give the Diamondbacks reason to take a look.