Everyone had seen Castillo, Church and Schneider in 2008. No one could expect that Delgado couldn’t be an injury risk or that Murphy was going to be a sure thing in LF.

No one could have reasonably expected that Beltran or Reyes would suffer the injuries that they did but everyone was aware of how poor our backups were and how bereft of talent we were in Buffalo (or New Orleans)

No one could have considered it to be a foregone conclusion that Parnell would be lights out in the 7th inning and with an injured JJ Putz expected to pitch the 8th, Green a downgrade from Smith and a bunch of unknowns and castoffs filling up the rest of the pen to be sure things. Feliciano himself was the only bright spot in the pen other than K-Rod and K-Rod was a season long high wire act.

The bench and AAA depth was Cora, Sheffield, Omir Santos, Reed, Sullivan, Pagan, Castro, Valdez, A. Hernandez, A. Reyes, Marlon Anderson, Nick Evans. Basically a mixed bag.

From a talent standpoint our starting rotation was very lite. Bullpen only included two guys. 2B, RF, LF and C could not possibly have been considered anything less than highly questionable. 1B, CF, SS and 3B considered a lock but a team is much more than that plus 1 great and 6 suspect starting pitchers and a great LOOGY and closer.

Six very talented players and eighteen question marks does not make for a great team.