Reno Aces Outlook 2010 and Beyond

The Reno Aces have began the 2010 TBA campaign as expected with an 11-20 mark early in the season. The offense is performing as expected and the pitching is performing woefully as expected. Reno picked up potential future aces in the 2010 entry draft in Mat Latos and Brian Matusz. Both were hit hard in their first starts of the season but Matusz came back with a stellar performance in his second start. On offense, David Wright is ignoring his Strat card and performing at pre 2010 levels as he has 7 homers in his first 120 at bats.

The outlook for beyond 2010 for this team offensively looks fantastic, the pitching is still a little suspect going forward though. The good news is that there should be plenty of ammunition to trade for some solid starters.

The Good News:

Jayson Werth, recently picked up, has 15 doubles and 5 homeruns in real life. He is batting about .350 currently as well. David Wright has returned to form with a solid .280 batting average and 7 homeruns. His strikeout ratio is still troublesome though. Kevin Youkilis gets on base no matter what. He has 5 homers also and is near the league lead in OBP. Youngster Ian Desmond is playing solid shortstop and getting ab's. His average is a little low, but hopefully will come around. Orlando Hudson is off to another fantastic start as well. Josh Hamilton appears to be beyond his injury woes and has 5 taters as well as a .280 batting average early this season. Brian Matusz has lowered his ERA below 4.00 and that is with three starts against the Yankees.

The Okay News:

Jay Bruce, who started slowly, has picked up his batting average and his power numbers going into May and is about .240 with 4 homers. Mat Latos is getting innings but needs to learn how to keep the ball in the park. James Shields is pitching fantastic but has similar problems to Latos. His last start was impressive though.

The Bad News:

Gil Meche and David Hernandez have no idea how to pitch. Neither does Ramon Ramirez and David Robertson. Jeremy Guthrie figured out how to keep the ball in Camden Yards, but can't keep opponents from scoring. Kelly Shoppach has spent the majority of the season on the DL. Alex Avila can't get enough playing time to get over .200; however, his two homer game the other day gives me hope. Daniel Murphy hasn't seen a pitch yet this season.

The Makes Me Feel Better News:

Cliff Lee, Jorge De La Rosa and Yunel Escobar have all spent time on the DL early this year.

The Makes Me Feel Really Better News:

Jason Heyward is playing like a veteran with rookie quirks, Stephen Strasburg is most likely going to get 100 innings in the Majors this year; I don't need either of them. If I have the opportunity I could trade that pick and pick up more beneficial options for 2011. Of course, if I had the option of picking either of those fellows, I might just keep them anyways.