26-year old righty swinging Hunter Pence is a good baseball player but the Astros think he has the potential for much more. Pence played in 159 games for the Astros last season and he was 165 of 585 (.282 avg, .818 OPS) with 76 runs scored, 25 homers, 72 RBIs and 14 stolen bases. I think that Pence will have better numbers in 2010 for the Astros across the board. Pence made 5 errors in 157 games in RF for the Astros last season but he showed good range and he had an amazing 16 assists there as runners that challenged him often paid for it. Pence is a natural CF so having him in RF allows Michael Bourn to cheat towards left to help out Carlos Lee.

33-year old righty swinging Jason Michaels played in 3 error free games in RF last season but he showed poor range. Michaels will battle Corey Sullivan this spring for the right to backup Pence. 30-year old lefty swinging Corey Sullivan played in 2 games in RF for the Mets last season and he didn’t make any errors while showing slightly above average range.

PROJECTED GRADE FOR THE RF IN 2010: B