It's late and I don't have the time to respond to your entire post position by position at the moment, however I will say that the first thing I noticed was your omission of Nick Johnson. You may not see him as a factor but I do, we'll see how it pans out soon enough I guess.

What I like this year is that we have so much depth, even our depth has depth. And I'm not just talking one-dimensional-I-can-only-use-my-glove-and-my-last-name-is-Izturis-type depth.

We now have a collection of young hungry guys with onbase or slugging talent, like Antonelli and Miller, as well as Nick Johnson. And a lot more starting pitchers. To me, having all this crazy depth bodes very well.

Counting on Nick Johnson is just not practical. I'd rather count on Chris Davis, frankly. You know as well as I do that the DL should probably be re-named in his honor, but here's his injury history:

2000 – Strained muscle in his right hand checking his swing. Out entire season .

2002 – Bone bruise in left wrist occurred during a caught line drive. Out 24 games .

2003 – Stress fracture in his third metacarpal bone in his right band. Out 61 games .

2004 – Lumbar strain. Out 46 games . Returned, fractured right cheekbone. Out remainder of season from August 20th on .

2005 – Suffered right heel contusion trying to avoid a tag. Out 24 games .

2006 – Fractured right femur in a collision on September 23. Out remainder of season and entire 2007 season .

2008 – Injured right wrist tendon sheath swinging a bat on May 13. Out remainder of the season .

2009 – Strained right hamstring. Out 15 games .

2010 - Wrist injury May 7 limited him to 24 games with the Yankees. Out remainder of the season.

2011 - Signed as FA with Cleveland and played 2 games at AA and 53 at AAA, where he hit .201/.316/.332 with 6 HRs, 13 RBI, 26 BB and 52 Ks.

"Something must be wrong with me because, aside from starting pitching, I feel pretty good about the 2012 Orioles."

That's funny, because midway through last year and aside from starting pitching, I felt pretty good about the 2011 Orioles. We were #4 in the AL in homeruns, thank you Mark Reynolds, and we coulda' been a contenda"! The only starter that I had great confidence in is now gone and he is replaced by any one of 20 or so pitchers, many with a lot to prove in the AL East, leading the pack is a guy who would likely have been #2 behind Guts this year, Tommy Hunter. Seems to me that with the trade, we downgraded in the one area that we needed to upgrade, starting pitching. Telling Tommy to go out there and try to win 20 games or to pitch 200+ innings just so we can come close to .500 is a lot for any pitcher to handle, I hope Tommy is up for the challenge.

Well we definitely need pitching depth as Chen threw 5 innings in his debut and did not look very impressive at all.

This of course is not reality but was in my dream last night for whatever reason.

Agree with all of that... AND I like the bullpen. I love Buck. The farm system has some talent and rumors are PA may want to sell. Good times.

Now, about those 17 starting rotation candidates...

"Chen threw 5 innings in his debut and did not look very impressive at all. This of course is not reality but was in my dream last night for whatever reason."

__ Fascinating coincidence. You had a troubling dream about our pitcher, Chen, and I had a worrisome dream about my daughter, Chan. I'd trade dreams. But the sun rose this morning and everything's okay. :)