Baseball

Fantasy baseball drafts are happening in peak volume across the country this week and next, and in nine out of 10 of those drafts, Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay will be the first two pitchers off the board.

Lincecum and Halladay are the premier starting pitchers in the game, particularly for fantasy owners. They are durable, strike batters out in bunches and have great control.

Unfortunately, both Lincecum and Halladay will come off the board within the first round and a half of the majority of drafts.

The bullpen may be the biggest group of unsung heroes in recent years for the Rangers.

They haven’t had any big flashy names, but for the most part they have kept games close, and have been able to close them out when given the chance.

When considering the 2010 bullpen for the Rangers it is easiest to start with the givens.

Major League Baseball has a rich history of nicknames, but not all nicknames are created equally. The league is currently flooded with lazy, uninspired nicknames that are, more accurately, abbreviations that hold no real meaning.

Some, for instance A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez) and Arm-Ram (Aramis Ramirez) are better left without meaning. Both monikers are better suited to something you would find in the adult section of the video store. Other nicknames are stretches or just sound ridiculous. Jimmy "J-Roll" Rollins comes to mind.

The San Francisco Giants have a need for speed, and if starting center fielder Aaron Rowand doesn't improve his performance from the last two seasons, journeyman outfielder Andres Torres should be given a shot.

While the chances Torres succeeds long term are minimal, there have been similar stories written in sports.

Current NFL free agent quarterback Jake Delhomme is an example of an athlete who bounced around for awhile before becoming a star.

Ever since their first game on April 11, 1962, the New York Mets have been the quintessential underdog.  For the majority of the team's history, the organization has not been expected to win a lot of baseball games. 

Despite the losing trend that has haunted the Mets, they have always had—and continue to have—one of the most passionate fanbases in all of sports.

Yes, there have been periods of dominant New York Mets baseball in their 48-year history. 

While the news was far from as damaging as that of Jose Reyes and Joe Nathan, today we learned that Lance Berkman will have knee surgery—sidelining him for two to four weeks, according to Zachary Levine of the Houston Chronicle. (Click here for the full article.) 

The thing is, there’s no guarantee that he even misses Opening Day, so how far you drop him—if you do at all—depends entirely on your risk tolerance.

Major League Baseball’s think tank has come up with a new idea. That idea is the radical suggestion of floating realignment.

Basically, the idea is that a team can change what division it’s in based upon geography, payroll, and whether or not they’re “rebuilding.” Of course, in an effort to keep some sort of order with respect to geographic lines, no team could join a division more than two time zones outside of its own.

Anytime a baseball player who had a good career retires, the debate begins on whether or not they belong in the Hall of Fame. Most of the time, the answer is no, and the topic should not even be brought up. The Hall of Fame is for the best of the best, not the most popular.

But in the case of Nomar Garciaparra, I think the answer is yes.

When the question was first asked, my initial reaction was no. But looking at his stats, it is hard for me to leave him out.

Jermaine Dye hit 27 HR last season. That's tied for 37th most home runs among players in either league last year, one less than Joe Mauer and one more than Justin Upton. And he has no job.

Joe Pawlikowski did a good job breaking down why Dye doesn't have a job on FanGraphs . To recap for the lazy, he had a terrible second half and his defense is utter excrement.