Jeremy Guthrie - One look at Guthrie's splits from last season (and the rest of his pro career, if you want to get technical about it) leads you to believe that one game might actually mean something this time. As usual, Guthrie didn't strike anyone out, didn't walk anyone, and allowed a homer yesterday. He also, unfortunately, allowed eight other hits and a total of six runs in his 2008 debut. After last year's 3.70 ERA, we have him forecast for a 4.55 mark this year, and if pressed I'd take the over. He's not a terrible pitcher, but he's closer to that than the ace that last year's first half made him appear to be.
Dioner Navarro - Everybody has "their guys", guys that they (rationally or not) believe in more than the consensus. Navarro is one of mine. You don't see too many catchers break into the bigs at age 20, and even though he hasn't shown a tremendous amount of growth just yet, he has shown flashes of potential. The Rays really don't have any options behind him (Shawn Riggans), which puts him for the first time in a comfortable position for playing time on Opening Day. There's also the matter of his 291/340/504 line from two months of last season, two months that stretched from the ASB until he injured his wrist in early September. We see what we want to see for the most part, and to me that stretch verified what I've hoped for all along from Navarro. He did open the season 3-4 with a double, for whatever that's worth. I think Navarro will be in the top half of catchers this season, and at age 24 has even more room for growth going forward, but I'm a bit biased.
Eric Hinske - Hinske just found out he made the team three days ago, but on Opening Day he walked and homered for his new team, and you can easily squint and see a situation where Hinske ends up with 400-450 PA's platooning with Jonny Gomes as Cliff Floyd holds down the DH spot. That situation would give Hinske enough value to warrant a roster spot in deeper AL-only leagues, and possibly even in the deepest of mixed leagues as well. He isn't going to offer much in the way of AVG in all likelihood, but he has enough pop and plate discipline to approach average in the corner OF. That isn't much, but depth is always important over the long haul.
Jose Lopez - Lopez has been a first half player since he broke in as a full-time player two years ago (SLG 130 points higher before the break), so it's no surprise that he got off to a hot start last night against the Rangers, going 2-4 with a double and a pair of RBI's. Every last bit of the gains that he seems to make in the first half has disappeared in the second half the past two years, so even though he's only 24 I can't in good conscience forecast any sort of growth from him.....his plate discipline is just too, well, non-existent. Still, at a fairly thin position he isn't the worst guy to have, at least for the first half.
Jered Weaver - Weaver was solid if unspectacular in his Opening Day start against the Twins yesterday, going 6 1/3 while allowing eight hits, two walks, and three runs while fanning five. I am a bit concerned about the sharp drop in his strikeout rate during the second half last year (7.2 to 5.8), and as much as he looked like an ace when he first came up I think he's merely a solid mid-rotation starter. As Joe mentioned yesterday, as an extreme flyball pitcher (36% GB as a major leaguer) he really hasn't had HR/9 rates that were all that high, so I concur that we should expect that to increase this season. There are some extremely pessimistic projections for Weaver out there (mid-4 ERA's), and I certainly can see the reason for them.
