AL East

Any real fan of the Toronto Blue Jays knows that this year is going to be a long one. The first year of a rebuild always is.

As spring training comes closer to the end and the roster cuts keep piling up, it becomes clearer that the Jays are looking thin.

The Yankees have yet to make an official announcement, but according to Joel Sherman of the NY Post , in the next couple of days they will announce that the winner of the 5th spot in the rotation will be Phil Hughes :

As Yankee bloggers we all bow down to River Ave Blues and they had another great couple of articles over the past two days going over Brian Cashman’s best and worst trades as the Yankees GM.

The Yankees are expected to announce this morning that Curtis Granderson will indeed become their starting center fielder and will not play much left field, if at all, according to Joel Sherman of the NY Post.

Granderson roamed center field in all his years with the Detroit Tigers, but there was speculation that the Yankees would move him to left field after general manager Brian Cashman made the claim that Brett Gardner might be the best defensive center fielder in all of baseball.

In case you missed it, the biggest news of the morning is the Yankees decision to waive Chad Gaudin, thus eliminating him from the fifth starter competition and probably from the team altogether.

Here are some other news items of note:

According to Ed Price of Fan House, the Yankees have placed right handed pitcher Chad Gaudin on waivers. There are four scenarios that can happen now and only one involves him pitching with the Yankees in 2010.

Thought to be the possible fourth outfielder on the Yankee bench to start the season, Rule 5 draft pick Jamie Hoffmann struggled in Spring Training, to say the least.

Hoffmann was returned to the Dodgers today, after being taken as the first overall pick in the Rule 5 Draft in December. Hoffmann hit just .130 (3-22) as a Yankee this spring. The Yankees traded RP Brian Bruney and $25,000 to the Nationals for the first pick in the draft.

While questions regarding Tim Wakefield's age and Daisuke Matsuzaka's durability continue to swirl around the Boston Red Sox during the middle stages of spring training, new acquisition John Lackey has quietly gone about his business.

Putting up goose eggs.

Lackey arrived to much fanfare but has managed to slide into the background during a spring training where the hot topics have included a perceived lack of punch on the offensive side and the battle for the back end of the rotation.

A baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint.

Seven months from now, the Boston Red Sox will realize the truth in that cliché as they watch the MLB postseason from home.

At times, the Sox will look unstoppable this season—just like they did last year. But in the end, Boston will not make the playoffs.

When it comes to spring training and statistics I am a non-believer. I am obsessed with watching the games, but it is more to get a feel for the players involved and it hardly ever matters to me who won, who lost, or if the players do really well or really poorly. Sure, part of me cringes a little bit if someone has a horrible day, but in the end I realize it is spring and this doesn’t really count (this lead was stolen from example A ).