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Might keep the starters fresh too. That's the big problem with it. They really need to get Redman some innings Saturday. Assuming Redman starts game 3 in the NLDS on Friday October 3, that would be almost 11 days between starts. He's one of those pitchers that says he doesn't do well when he's too strong. So we'll probably need to give Redman 5 innings on Saturday regardless and he shouldn't come in in relief. Maybe they can treat it like a spring training game - Redman for 5 innings, Looper for 2, for 2. I think we should skip Willis on Sunday no matter what. That would make him available as a situational lefty in relief in Game 1 and he'd still be able to start in Game 4 on Saturday. All this is hypothetical in case we clinch, of course. I don't want to put the jinx on. I'll leave that to Nielsosky and Wild Card.

If we clinch today or tomorrow, and we haven't been able to work Looper into a game, maybe we should give him the start Saturday. Let him go out there with absolutely no pressure for 2 innings and just throw. Then in the 3rd inning, put in whoever we had planned to start, whether it be Helling or Tejera or Bump. If we get lucky, maybe we can get Looper an at-bat; he seems to like hitting. Way back when, the Mets did this a couple of times with Tug McGraw when he would struggle just to give him enough batters to work out problems.

Jonny, here's your preseason predictions from the mlb board. They're not bad at all. The specifics are naturally off in spots but the end result is pretty close: Marlins finish with 95 wins, win tight NL East race. Get past first round, but lose in NLCS to Astros in 6. One of the pre-season favorites in the NL East, the Braves, Mets, and Phillies, finish in last place. My money is on the Mets, but could be Braves as Hampton's struggles from ST roll on into regular season 1st half. Some suspect Loria is an evil genius... Burnett has injury problems all year and is off and on the DL. Pitches well, but cant stay healthy. Penny proves he is an elite pitcher, finishing strong in the second half. 20 game winner and our #1 for this season. Beckett rises to the occasion and is healthy all season, blister free, and wins 15 games. He has over 200K's. Pavano and Redman are both solid, win 10+ games and Pavano comes close to a no-hitter. Lee breaks 30+ HR plateau, misses all-star team because of excellent 1st half from Thome. Finishes with 100+ K's though. Lowell spends time on DL, we dont see Cabrera this season and Mike does play well .290 21HR when he does play. Encarnacion just misses all-star game, but comes up with great season 30HR, 30+SB, .280+AVG. Hollandsworth plays 140+ games, has very good season .300+ 25HR 15+SB. Castillo has terrible season, bats .260 and plays less than 120 games. Never quite in shape throughout season due to hip surgery, spends time on DL. Hooper is called up, but splits time with Mordecai. Pierre picks up slack, finishes with 50+ SB and bats around .290. Excellent defense, but does not win gold glove. Becomes our lead off hitter. Bullpen is one of the best in the league, Looper is lights out the whole season, emerges as next Nen. Pudge is healthy all season, wins NL MVP. .330 36HR 120RBI. Al Martin and Brian Banks both put up big numbers off the bench. Either Redmond or Castro is traded to get more pitching for the playoff push.

I was thinking that maybe we could go with a 3-man rotation for the division series, and a 4-man rotation for the rest of the playoffs. Just a thought because both Redman and Willis pitch well against lefty's. Lefty's are batting .201 against Redman and .202 against Willis. If Jack does decide to go with a 3-man rotation for the NLDS it could fill a much needed void. I feel that the Giants are the best team in the NL and we've got to do everything possible to put our best effort forward. Wouldn't that mean Beckett would have to go on 3-days rest? I don't know if he can do that. Stamina and pacing aren't Beckett's strong points.

That's true, but it would still be nice to have a lefty in the pen just for matchups, I'm not saying it's essential I'm just saying that it is a weakness. I agree - it's a glaring weakness. But I don't know if it's worth starting Pavano over Willis or Redman in Game 4 of the NLDS just to get a lefty in the bullpen.

Lefties don't bother Bonds. He's actually hit lefties a little better than righties this year. Last year too. He doesn't walk as much against lefties, probably because they think they have a prayer of getting him out.

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First, you're right it is premature. But playing along, I would bet Lowell will be ready, in which case Conine is the DH. If by chance, Lowell isn't ready, I'd go with Castro as the DH. Or maybe a Castro/Hollandsworth DH platoon. I don't think it's a sure thing that Banks makes the postseason roster.

At the beginning of the season, how many people thought we'd be talking about eliminating St. Louis in a game? St. Louis was eliminated from the Wild Card Saturday. They can't catch both us and the Phillies.

IMO I really think we are a better team than the Giants but a poorly coached team. Spurrier needs to do something about all these penalties if he can't do it then he needs to go. When you're done with Spurrier, can we have him back in Gainesville please?

Personally, I'm more scared of the Cubs right now. Take a look at their cake schedule (CIN & PIT). Even if the Cubs win out, they may not matter to us. If they win out, they'll almost certainly pass the Astros and take the Central. The Astros schedule is not near as cushy as the Cubs - 7 at home against SF and Milwaukee. While the Astros are good at home, SF is an excellent road team and Milwaukee isn't a complete pushover. The Cubs/Astros and Dodgers are a worry, but if we can get to 90 wins, we'll probably take the Wild Card. 89 wins may even do it, or get us into a 1-game playoff.

While our magic number over Montreal and St. Louis is 2, they've both been eliminated from the Wild Card race. Since the Phillies and us both have 85 wins now, and since we play 3 games against Philly, either us or the Phillies will get at least 87 wins. The most the Expos and Cards can win is 86 games. They can catch either us or Philly, but not both. Same thing with Arizona - the best they can do is tie. We need to get to 90 wins, with 2 of the wins against Philly. That would eliminate everybody except the Cubs/Astros and the Dodgers and they'd have to win out just to tie.

Ok, I know that you are going to have a lot of criticism for this post, but I'm going to say that I think we should give Dontrelle Willis a day off in the Phillies series. Who do we start instead? Helling? Tejera? Or do you want to push everybody up a day and have them go on 3 days rest. Pavano and Redman look a little shaky as it is - I don't think we should be pushing them up. And like Ramp said, Beckett has probably never pitched on 3 days rest. The best scenario would be for us to clinch the Wild Card before the last game or so. If we could clinch on Friday against the Mets, then we could start whoever we want on Saturday and Sunday to get our rotation in order for the playoffs.

I didn't think the Marlins could trade Castillo. He's a free agent. Why would the Cubs or Cards give us players when they could just sign him anyway? Why would Castillo sign with us just to be immediately traded? There are no sign-and-trades in baseball. Sometimes a team will try to extend somebody's contract before agreeing to a trade but that only happens if there's time left on the existing contract. That's not the case with Castillo.

Jacksonville at Indianapolis - Indianapolis Kansas City at Houston - Kansas City Minnesota at Detroit - Minnesota New Orleans at Tennessee - Tennessee N.Y. Jets at New England - New England Pittsburgh at Cincinnati - Pittsburgh Tampa Bay at Atlanta - Tampa Bay Green Bay at Arizona - Green Bay N.Y. Giants at Washington - Washington St. Louis at Seattle - Seattle Baltimore at San Diego - Baltimore Cleveland at San Francisco - San Francisco Buffalo at Miami - Miami Oakland at Denver - Denver 11-3

I'm not 100% sure about this, but isn't the magic number (Phillies Wins + Phillies Games Left) - (Marlins Wins + 1) (82 + 12) - (83 + 1) (94) - (84) 10? Nope. It should be (Phillies Wins + Phillies Games Left) - Marlins Wins + 1 (82+12) - 83 + 1 94 - 83 + 1 = 12

12 over Philadelphia 12 over the Dodgers 10 over the Cubs 7 over the Diamondbacks 6 over the Cards 5 over the Expos

Assume the hurricane is heading in and will hit Greater Philly around 5 PM on Thursday (a not totally unlikely scenario). Would MLB accelerate the Thu game to a double dip on Wednesday? That would certainly be preferable to having to make it up 9/29 and still have the possibility of tie-breaker games before Playoff Round One could start. I don't remember anything like that ever occuring. Maybe they could move it to Wednesday as a DH but I bet both teams would be very unhappy. Or maybe they could move it to a 12:00 noon start on Thursday. I don't think either will happen. If we try to play the game at night, we may have a tough time flying out to Atlanta. That could hurt us for the Friday game in Atlanta if we're exhausted. Maybe they would cancel the game early in the day on Thursday if they're convinced the weather will be terrible at night. I've seen that happen. Then we'd fly up to Philly on the 29th if it mattered to us and/or the Phillies.

If the Friday game gets rained out, Phils and Reds would make it up on Monday. Yep, you're absolutely right. I hadn't looked at the Reds schedule. My bad. It looks like no double-headers for the Phillies this week, unless they get rained out on Friday AND Saturday.

Would it force a doubleheader? The most likely rainout would occur on Thursday, wouldn't it? If we played the games Tuesday and Wednesday, and got rained out Thursday, wouldn't that mean a trip up to Philly to make up the game on Monday Sept 29 (assuming that game matters)? MLB wouldn't force the Phillies to make up their home game in Miami. That would be unfair. So I don't see a double-header with Philly, unless one of the games in Miami next week is rained out. But it is possible that the Phillies will have to play a double-header this weekend against the Reds if the Friday game is wiped out. That may be tough for their bullpen.

I would like to know when will that half game get out,when will it turn into a full game,does philly have a double header or something? It's just the opposite. They've played an extra game. They have next Monday off while we have a game.

Are there any reserves after the 25 play-off roster? Not that I know of but if somebody gets hurt in the playoffs, I think you can replace him after the series. I don't know if you can change your roster between rounds of the playoffs just for the hell of it.

Like Mike said, I'd rather have Conine and his playoff experience starting in the post-season than the 20-year-old that will get his chance later on in life. Cabrera has done pretty decent while he's been up here in the pennant race so I'd be willing to take a chance on him handling the pressure. I'd also rather have Conine coming off the bench. I don't know that Cabrera can contribute much off the bench. I think Castro's power off the bench is a MUST during the post-season. Nobody else on the bench can match him in that department, or the average department, as he is batting . 313 as well. I agree with that one. He's our best chance for a late-inning pinch-hit HR (other than Mordecai).

The starters (8): Rodriguez, Lee, Castillo, Gonzalez, Lowell, Cabrera, Pierre, Encarnacion The sure thing pitchers (8): Redman, Beckett, Willis, Penny, Pavano, Urbina, Looper, Tejera The reserve position players (6): Redmond, Conine, Andy Fox, Mordecai, Harris, Hollandsworth Rounding out the bullpen (3): Bump, Chad Fox, Helling On the sidelines (6): Banks, G.Williams, Neal, Olsen, Phelps, Castro I'd like to have Banks in there, but you can't have only 10 pitchers. No way, not in the playoffs. I think you have to have Castro. He's been our #1 right-handed PH and the best power threat off the bench, even with Conine. I think you can get away with 10 pitchers since either Redman, Willis, or Pavano will be in the bullpen anyway. If we've worked our way to Bump and Helling, we're probably in some trouble anyway.

why does it matter Arnie? not everyone wants to answer and none of us will have the right answer anyway I personally like this exercise. It's just a giant "What If" game. Isn't that what a lot of the threads on this board are about? We may not be this close for a while. I want to play all the what-if games I can and really enjoy being this close to the post season. None of us have the right answer on anything anyways. It's just throwing out opinions and guesses, usually uneducated in my case. But I agree with you that anybody who doesn't want to join in shouldn't be put down for it. Just like anybody who does join in shouldn't be told not to debate it (not that I've seen that in this thread). Funny how many guys who eagerly jump into a poll on how many times next year's clubhouse toilets flush suddenly have no opinion on a decision to be made in a few weeks. Relax, Arnie.