The Ghost of Christmas Future

[JayThomas]

Here is a thought experiment to give us something to chew on besides the glorious taste of a great victory on opening day.

We all know about the 11 pending free agents. Today we did pretty good against a very good pitcher without the two biggest anticipated FA losses (Chris Davis and Matt Wieters).

So under some simple assumptions, how do you project next year's opening day lineup to look compared to today's?

I'm assuming that most of the FA will not be retained, including Chris and Matt. I'll say that we do retain somebody, and my somebody includes Steve Pearce. So here's what the future opening day lineup looks like to me:

Alejandro De Aza - LF Alvarez (plays right with Snider to left), Urrutia, or *Reimold*

Manny Machado - 3B Machado - 3B

Adam Jones - CF Jones - CF

Steve Pearce - 1B Pearce - 1B, Walker, Parmalee

Travis Snider - RF Snider - RF

Delmon Young - DH Walker, *Paredes*, Parmalee, Urrutia

Ryan Flaherty - SS Hardy, Cabrera, Flaherty

Jonathan Schoop - 2B Schoop - 2B

Caleb Joseph - C Joseph - C

* If we retain them *

My point is that next year's opening day lineup won't drop off much if at all from this year's opening day lineup even if we lose almost everyone to free agency. There are only 2 positions that we need to replace if we resign Pearce; De Aza and Young, and neither of those seems to be a big hole to fill.

By the way, if we assume that Hunter and O'Day are also gone, we have Steve Johnson, Mike Wright, etc. ready in the wings.

(And) that's without the $50M - ish of payroll that they'll have to utilize.

I have huge hopes for this season (I project 1st place), but I also have high hopes for continued success starting with opening day 2016.

[FanAddict]

I'm cool with it. I expect the the pitching impact to offset whatever drop in offensive production we see, at least over the next few years.

Still waiting on that 4/20M extension for Pearce.