The last regular season Q&A

Today is Dejan's last Q&A if the regular season. The first question deals with next year's line, Dejan's sense being that keeping Freddy Sanchez a starter makes the lineup too similar to this year's sad version, that Craig Wilson is next year's right fielder, and that we need left-handed insurance at first base. I'm only inclined to agree with one of these sentiments. I'd first argue that Freddy Sanchez at third next year wouldn't necessarily mean the lineup is the same as this year. Why? First off, look at the improvement Freddy's shown over the course of the season. As much as we talk about Eldred, Doumit, Duffy, McLouth, etc. needed time in the majors to adjust, Freddy only came into this season with 69 big-league at-bats and was coming off a couple injury filled years. His numbers (average, OBG, and SLG) in the minors were much, much better than what he's done this year (go here and scroll down). A Freddy Sanchez that hits .315 and gets on base 35-40% of the time while slugging in the mid-to- low fours would certainly be an upgrade over the Freddy we've seen most of this year and I don't think it's out of the question. As for Eldred, apparently everyone has forgotten his struggles at Lynchburg, Altoona, and Indy as he was called up there. The adjustment time may be longer in the Majors, but we can all agree that we certainly thought he'd struggle more than he has since his call up. If he plays fall ball and winter ball, which I believe he's slated to do, I think he'll be more than ready to be our every day first baseman after a Spring Training with the big boys.

There is more in the Q&A (Jason Bay has now out-homered Bobby Abreu 32-24 on the season, heh heh heh, Mark Redman will almost definitely be back in the rotation next year, blah blah blah) including the new name for the "North Side Notches" portion of the notebook ("Buried Treasure" beat out two vastly superior Bob Prince-based entrants, "Bloop and a Blast" and "Hidden Vigorish" because of Dejan's refusal to live in the past, I'd argue that honoring the Gunner is different than living in the past, but to each his own, maybe when Andy Van Slyke sues me I'll change the name here to "Hidden Vigorish").