First of all, I meant to mention this if no one else did and I don't see it at least as a diary, but Daniels was on with the 9-12 show on 103.3 yesterday, and one thing in particular jumped out to me that I really liked hearing him say, because it once again showed that he's honest about what he has and isn't kidding himself or others. Floyd asked him a question about whether his offense would really be that great this year and whether the pitching could be the best they've had, and he mentioned that while the offense has been pretty good the last few years, it hasn't been anything great since the late 90's. It's been maybe a little above average (and he wasn't even taking park considerations into account becuase he used total runs as evidence) while the pitching has typtically been below average.

He said that what he expects from this team is a somewhat above average pitching staff and an average offense. While that's not earth shattering, I think it answers some questions in terms of their expectations for guys, their approach over the winter, and how much they're kidding themselves about the offense, both this year and in recent ones.

Along those lines but in a totally different vein, I was thinking about Rupe and trying to convince myself that he could be a decent 5th starter right away. I haven't convinced myself yet, and I thought about Daniels' repeated statement that they really didn't want to have two first time starters in the lineup as part of their reasoning for considering Cruz a frontrunner for a job but stacking several guys between Botts and one. And he even mentioned the fact that Kinsler and Laird are somewhat unproven. I think that using Kinsler as any sort of reasoning to keep a young guy out of the lineup is a cop-out, so I'm not even going to consider him. And to be completely honest, I think he's probably sugar-coating an answer that if he were completely candid would be that they just don't think that Botts is that good.

Laird has about a year's worth of experience, but it doesn't seem likely that he's going to be a well below average catcher at this point. Meanwhile, I think most agree that Tejeda is a question mark, although someone most of us are hopeful about. McCarthy might be roughly equivalent to Laird in terms of experience and likelihood of doing a decent job, and Tejeda may be roughly comparable to Cruz, although maybe a little more likely to establish himself.

What I'm getting at is that he is not comfortable with more than one unproven guy out of nine in the lineup, but he is comfortable with Tejeda and, say, Rupe, or two-fifths of his rotation being unproven, or let's say questionable. Since we all seem to accept Tejeda as a #4 and someone like Rupe or Loe as #5 (I mean I haven't seen really anyone complain about that), does that say something about all of our attitudes toward the commitment you have to make to have a successful rotation? In other words, would people who are used to following teams who pitch well have expected something more like three veteran guys, McCarthy as a four (at least in terms of experience, probably the third vet would be behind him in the rotation) and Tejeda at five, with guys like Rupe and Loe nice insurance policies but not guys who they'd ever expect in an opening day rotation, given their current history?

Are our expectations out of whack because of all of the poor pitching and shallow rotations we've witnessed over the years?