With the end of spring training, there were few players got the preverbal axe to make room for other players, and top prospects, to grab extra players to fill in for other players on the disabled list.

One big surprise is Jorge Cantu of the Tampa Bay DRays was optioned to AAA-Durham and the contract for Elijah Dukes was picked up from AAA. Cantu was a key member of the Mexican World Baseball Classic baseball last spring. After the WBC, he had a slow start, and had time on the DL, never came back to his 2005 form. This is another move to probably help him regain some confidence. He’s still a young player, only at the age of 25, so he’s got plenty of time to work his way back up to the big leagues.

Also, I had mentioned earlier that Todd Walker, formerly of the San Diego Padres was release due to his poor spring, and loosing his third base position to highly touted prospected, and project Rookie of the Year contender, Kevin Kouzmanoff. He signed a Minor League contract with the Oakland A’s, while Dan Johnson was put on the DL for three months while he’s nursing a hip…

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Man, I’ve had this thing written up for about 5 days now, I’m just know getting it published. How horrible is that? I had an extremely busy weekend, getting some shopping done, working and starting on some home projects, playing volleyball, and other various things. I wanted to get this out by Opening Day, and I basically have minus the one game played last night. I also wanted to get out my Carlos Zambrano prediction before it became a truth most likely this week or possibly next. Enjoy my predictions, and give me your thoughts.

I saw an article over on yahoo with some player related predictions, so I thought I’d throw my own predictions in the mix. You can view the article here. The article also included their predictions for the playoffs and The World Series. I’m going to wait for till after the first week of the season to give my full predications on that.

The darkhorse is a player who puts up the stats to be considered for the award but likely their team will take them out of the real running. Take a few years ago when Derrek Lee had his career year. He didn’t win…

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With the end of Spring Training closely approaching and teams trimming their roster down to 25 members for the regular season, there were quite a few surprising roster moves.

One of the biggest, but I suspected to happen, was the move the Cubs completed last night after their Cactus League Game. They sent one time Ace and 18 game winner Mark Prior down to the minors. Personally I think it’s a good move for the Cubs. Wade Miller, who was named the fifth starter last week, has had a really good spring, especially for a pitcher. The move to AAA for Prior will help him regain some confidence by pitching to minor league players that are major league ready or have major league experience. It’s not like he’ll be pitching to Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard. It will be good for him to keep on a pitching in a game every five days (assuming he doesn’t “hurt” himself). This should help him bring up his velocity, and help him with is command, which needs a huge boost.

In other surprising moves high touted prospect Matt Garza was optioned to the minors. I sort of figured he would be a shoe in for…

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I was just reading Sports Illustrated’s MLB Truth and Rumors section on their site (Found Here), and it’s saying that there is a little bit of buzz that BoSox are considering seeing if a Manny for Ichiro trade will work.

Here is the excerpt from the New York Post:

There is a lot of July talk again about the Red Sox trading Manny Ramirez, and the buzz becomes louder with Seattle considering moving free-agent-to-be Ichiro Suzuki.
– New York Post

Thinking about this trade, if I we’re in the Red Sox organization, I think it would be a no-brainer to try to get his trade to go through. It’s pretty obvious that the Mariners won’t resign him because either A) they can’t afford Ichiro, or B) they could get top notch prospects for him, or bring back another big name player. I think option A is the likely option. The Mariners haven’t have any real big money players in town, and their last big expenditures were flops in Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre. Although Ichiro is one of the better leadoffs in the league, I’m not sure they would invest huge money in him.

On the flipside for the Sox, you…

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I don’t see how people can still think that Pete Rose still needs to be barred from the Baseball Hall of Fame. In a recent ESPN article, it says that Rose bet on his team every night while he was the coach of the Reds from 1984 to 1989. Because of this betting he has been permanently been banned from the game of Major League Baseball and the Baseball Hall of Fame (in separate votes). He’s asked to be re-instated but has been denied.

Earlier this week on The Dan Patrick Show, the Former Charlie Hustle admitted that he bet on his team everyday, and not four days a week. He did this because “I love my team, I believe in my team. I did everything in my power every night to win that game.” He took his love and belief of his team a little too far by bringing them into his gambling addiction. Unlike “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who actually threw a games in the 1919 World Series, Rose never threw games. Like Rose, Jackson belongs on the same list of players that have “banned for life”. As he has said, that he did everything in his power to win…

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Many of the Major League teams started with their first round of cuts from their major league camp. A lot of players were reassigned to their perspective Minor League camps, with a few being assigned to their perspective Minor League Clubs. Unfortunately, with these first round of cuts, teams do release players. The biggest name to get the axe yesterday was Colorado’s Javy Lopez.

The team has publicly said that they wanted to release him early enough in Spring Training to where he could get on with another team. Javy in return has publicly said that he prefers not to become a DH for an American League Team.

Unfortunately, I think that’s all he’s going to be able to get. It’s very doubtful he’ll be able to find a starting catching job at this point in his career. Ever since his two career years in Atlanta, where he was able to sign the big money contract with Baltimore, his catching numbers has continually gone down each year. He’s throwing out less batters, and he’s allowing quite a few pass balls for what innings he plays. His playing time has gone way down over the past few years, too. Baltimore picked up Ramon…

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According to Ron Washington, the new first year coach of the Texas Rangers, Sammy Sosa will have no problem making the team has a DH and a backup outfielder barring a complete turn around in his play. This makes me happy to see Sosa taking his “comeback” really seriously. From reports that I’ve read he’s in the best shape of his life, and he’s cut down a lot of weight. At the time of this entry he is currently has five hits in 12 at-bats, of which two are home runs. This gives him a .416 batting average. This isn’t too bad for “shaking off the cobwebs” for not playing for 19 months in the majors. His batting is only going to be getting better. I haven’t heard how is fielding has been, or if he has even been on the field in a game situation yet.

While it still remains to be unseen if he was actually a ‘roid user during the big home run race between him and Mark McGwire back in 1998. I am a firm believer that “Big Mac” is/was a steroid user, I’m still not quite sure if Sosa is/was one at the time. I think…

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Last season Marlin rookie pitching standout Josh Johnson found out the other day that he will be missing the first two months of the season with an irritated ulnar nerve in his elbow. He and the team are thankful that it isn’t more serious and he’ll only be a few months behind.

This is a bad start for new Marlin manager Fredi Gonzalez. You never want to have one of your start pitchers hurt at the beginning of the season, although it’s better than having your pitcher hurt during the playoff race. The Marlins have a good set of young arms that will be able to fill in for the hurt pitcher. Wes Obermueller, Sergio Mitre, and Chris George have the most experience of the group of hopefuls to take his spot, but with different teams. Obermueller has made almost 40 starts from 2003-2005 with the Brewers. Mitre was up and down with the Cubs the same years mostly working in long relief but has made about 20 starts over the years. Finally, George with the Royals has had a 14-20 record with an ERA over 6 from 2001-2004, but has not been on a major league roster the last two…

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Jon Lester pitched his first inning of baseball since being diagnosised with anaplastic large cell lymphoma last in the season last year. Lester as a bright spot in the Sox’s rotation last year after being called up last June. This man finished up his last cancer treatment only two weeks ago. He went through six sessions of chemotherapy. After his fifth treatment, a cat scan showed there was no cancer left in him. He begun throwing shortly there after. He even reported to training camp two weeks even before pitchers and catchers were to report.

To me this show what Jon Lester is really made of. To comeback and pitch in a “real game” situation so soon after going through cancer treatments, is a major achievement in somebodies life, as well as show just how much character they are made of.

This may only have been a ‘B’ game, but Lester cruised through his inning, just needing 8 pitches to retire his three batters, all with ground outs. The good thing for Lester, is the rotation is pretty much set with the addition of Matsusaka, a healthy Schilling, and Papelbon moving into the rotation. This means he will not need to be rushed…

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I got to check out my first Spring Training game yesterday afternoon, albeit on television. The Cubs were playing the White Sox in Mesa, Arizona in HoHoKam Park. In front of a sellout crowd of about 13,000 people, there were a few brights spots in the Cubs team even though loosing 13-2. The White Sox are showing that they’re continuing to mash the ball much as they did last season. They pitched really well to. It looks like the White Sox are going to be right in the thick of things again in the AL Central.

Rich Hill pitched really well yesterday for his first time on the hill this spring. He only made the one mistake to Paul Konerko (Happy Birthday Paul today by the way) that got mashed over the left field wall. He struck out 3 in his two innings of work, including the first two batters that he saw. Hopefully Hill can continue his great pitching from the end of last season.

Alfonso Soriano, who is starting his 8 year $136 million contract with the Cubs this season, ended up the day 3 for 3 with one of the Cubs two RBIs. Derrek Lee had the other with…

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