[toanstrom]

the following is a transcript from CBL Radio

Chip: Welcome to "Around the Diamond" CBL Radio's weekly look at happenings around the league. I'm Chip Winterbean and with me as always is expert analyist Chuck Deerborn. Well Chuck I guess, since we were going to take a look at the year ahead in the Atlantic Confrence we might as well start with the piece that "Big Ben" Folsom wrote in today's Charlotte Observer.

Chuck: That certainly was quite a piece.

Chip: Now Folsow, who is one of my favorite writers says that, and I'm quoting now, "I think that the Carolina Hogs management deserves some credit this year, this is the first year in a while that we have boys playin' here that we can be not just proud of but truly go Hog Wild for. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that the Hogs young talent might wind up walking a way with the confrence title this year."
Now, Chuck, what do you think is there any credit to his argument, I mean Norfolk and Philadelphia arent exactly gonna set the league on fire, Baltimore is getting awful old, and Washington just won 88 games last year? Could Carolina do it? With as young of a club as they have?

Chuck: Well Chip, this is certainly a vastly different club than the team that won 68 last year, I guess the problem is that we dont really know if it is going to be much better. That's the problem with rookies, is that you dont really know what kind of an impact their going to have until they play everyday. And Carolina is going to have three playing every day, along with two guys in just their second full year. They are the youngest team in the league, and that could be a big problem.

Chip: But given the way that Greensboro (Carolina's AAA team) demolished the competion last year on route to a the AAA title, dont we have an idea. I mean isnt it pretty clear that both Dwayne Parker [90 B.Jackson] and John Easland [91 L.Parrish] are going to be big stars? Mario Costa Jr. [01 Jo. Cruz] looks even better than his dad and he's only 19! And last year's rookies, Kharey White [99 Pr.Wilson] and Will Brownstone [97 D.Easley] both had nice rookie years.

Chuck: Look, I'm not going to argue with a lot of that, Brownstone, who we all remember from his two sport days at Duke, is the real deal. He could be a perininal all-star if he can get his average up a little. The outfield is all very talented, Parker is one of the next great stars i think, and we havent even mentioned Chris Coryn [87 G.Brett] who is a legitimate star and just entering his prime. That being said while Parker and Easland both finished in the top five in AAA in homers last year they also ranked 1 and 2 in strikeouts so it reamains to be seen how they will adjust to major league pitching. The same goes for the rest of the group. Brownstone is the only one who has put up good bb/k ratio's at this point at thats a pretty good indicator of future success.

Chip: So are you saying that this rookie class isnt quite as good as its billing?

Chuck: No I'm just saying that there are a lot of questions to answer before we go annointing them the next dynasty. And one of those, which you might notice hasnt come up yet is pitching. Other than Johnny Corneilus [94 Andy Benes] and Dave Padgett [90 Jack Armstrong], who are both rookies, there isnt anyone on the pitching staff who is much better than a 3-star hurler. And other than Ilya Vishnevski [99 Billy Koch], who despite his impressive finish to last season, is still just a 22 year old with 28 innings of experience, the bullpen is pretty bad.

Chip: So you dont think that Carolina has a chance to win the confrence?

Chuck: Not unless almost everything goes their way, no.

Chip: So who will win it?

Chuck: I'd have to put my money on the Washington Nationals.

Chip: And I hope you'll tell us why right after these commercial messages.