With the regular season just 9 days away we thought we’d give another quick preview of our daily pick-up column: The Shallow & The Deep.

The Shallow

Fred Lewis – Outfield (LF/CF)

Last season “Fast Freddy” Lewis swiped 21 bags while playing 133 games with the San Francisco Giants. He also hit a respectable .282 avg. – and banged out 9 homeruns in 468 AB’s before prematurely ending his breakout campaign with a bad case of bunions. Ouch. Lewis is not a power hitter by any stretch – but he should bat towards the top of an improving Giants line-up – and could easily elapse his production numbers from 2008 if he remains healthy all year. If you can spare the lack of big homer pop – Fred makes for a sweet 4th outfielder in most leagues.

Bonus: Lewis is also a serious triples threat! If you play in a league that counts triples as a stat - the lanky lefty hits the gaps of AT&T Park with fair regularity, and so it wouldn’t be out of the question if he slid his cool Oakley Radar Path shades into third plenty of times during ’09! Especially now that he’ll be doing so without them nagging bunions!

The Deep

Justin Masterson - Starting/Relief Pitcher

Depending on the health of Big Bad Brad Penny, the Boston Red Sox may start the year with the likeable Justin Masterson in the bullpen. A seemingly improved Clay Buchholz remains in the mix for the Bostonians rotation as well.

But really - No matter how the Opening Day pitching line-up looks – we think the tall righty with the ‘Eckersley like’ delivery will carve his way into the Red Sox rotation sooner than later. Seriously, does anyone feel for a second that Brad Penny, Tim Wakefield and Josh Beckett will cruise through 2009 injury free? We wouldn’t take that bet. But we would bet on Masterson capitalizing on his 2008 audition, and feel he’ll take to the hill to start games in Beantown during the ’09 season.

Bonus: Hey Mon - Did you know Justin was born in Kingston, Jamaica? Maybe he’ll lose the bic, and grow some Marley dreads? Let’s hope not. Jon Papelbon might mistake him for another “clubhouse cancer!”

Watch Justin Masterson mow down Jose Tabata in a Minor League Game. If you listen closely you can hear Tabata’s 43 year old wife in the stands selling infants!

“Popcorn! Peanuts!…Babies!”

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 12:09 am and is filed under Outfield, Pitchers, Sleepers, The Shallow & The Deep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.