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Stealing a theme from Dave van Dyck of the Chicago Tribune, do you think this years team is better than the 2005 team. As I read the article the teams seem alot closer than I originally thought. I still like the starting pitchers and I would have to go with 2005. However, I do like Quentin/Cabera/Ramirez combo better for the every day players.

Offense
The replacements: LF, Carlos Quentin for Scott Podsednik; CF, Nick Swisher for Aaron Rowand; SS, Orlando Cabrera for Juan Uribe; 2B, Alexei Ramirez for Tadahito Iguchi; DH, Jim Thome for Carl Everett/Frank Thomas.

The statistics in 2008 (compared with final 2005): First in home runs (fourth), seventh in batting average (12), fourth in runs (ninth), sixth in on-base percentage (11th).

Pitching
The replacements: Javier Vazquez for Freddy Garcia, Gavin Floyd for Jon Garland, John Danks for Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez; LH Matt Thornton for Neal Cotts, RH Scott Linebrink for Cliff Politte, closer Bobby Jenks for Shingo Takatsu (and later Dustin Hermanson and Jenks).

The statistics: First in team ERA (second).

Difference though, is a lot of the other teams have gotten much better since then as well. It all depends on how our pitching holds up. Our pitching that year was out of this world and even when Dustin Hermanson went down(who was dominant before he did go down), we had Jenks step up. If Jenks goes down, we have no one. And even when Jenks is healthy, he doesn't blow anyone away anymore which I think weakens his game.