Baseball

2010 Top 50 Twins Prospects | No. 9 | Rene Tosoni

Home runs have been ingrained in baseball. We watch balls fly out of yards at high rates and multiple times per game. The balls have been made tighter, the fences built closer, and the bats lighters. All have combined for home runs to be an important part of a club's success. What also plays a factor is one's park. We saw how Yankee Stadium launched balls out into the seats at an eye-popping rate in 2009. That goes us thinking about which parks are the easiest and the hardest to hit a ball out of.

Another Oscar night filled with people who are completely useless to society explaining their thoughts and ideals to it while holding a golden naked man has passed, but the quest for a different trophy has begun.

And I, another useless person to society, would like to explain my thoughts and ideas of what each team needs to do to hold the Commissioner's Trophy at the end of the 2010 MLB season.

With spring training beginning, now is the perfect time to get your arguing shoes laced up for another year of baseball.

And what better way to prepare one's arguing than with some predictions that w

According to Yahoo! Sports, All-Star closer Francisco Rodriguez returned to New York Mets camp on Monday after being hampered by conjunctivitis for more than two weeks.

Rodriguez had been told to stay away from the team until the pink eye cleared, but the contagious infection took longer than expected to improve.

He was sick when he reported to New York’s spring facility, but his eye went undiagnosed until just before full-squad workouts began on Feb. 25.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: FANTASY BASEBALL INSIDERS

One common myth about spring training is that it actually matters. Now don’t get me wrong, the live game action provides valuable experience for young prospects and is useful to players as they battle back from injury. Even the grizzled veterans need time each spring to get back into the groove.

“If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in the baseball game.”

Players who live by this Ricky Henderson quote play the game like nobody else.

Players who live by this quote hustle every play of the game like it’s the only one they’ll ever make.

And that’s why I love players who play the game that way.

Joe Nathan has a torn ulnar collateral ligament.

At best, it’s partially torn, and he’ll be able to avoid surgery and pitch through the pain this season, albeit with a seriously diminished skill-set due to the injury.

For anyone who enjoys watching young players develop and stars bloom in the majors, Pittsburgh is the place to be the next few years. An organization that seemed hell bent on losing and destroying talent for almost two decades now has something it has not had in many years.

Young talent...and lots of it.

From Low A to the Majors, the Pirates have young players worth watching.

Let's meet five of those players and take a look at what we can expect from them in 2010.

Begin Slideshow

First base is stacked with sluggers, there's no arguing that. But not all sluggers are created equal. From Barton to Youkilis, there's quite a difference in the caliber of play one gathers from the position. By my admittedly fuzzy research, there are at the very least 4 tiers of players at the position.

Begin Slideshow

After finishing their first year in Washington with a .500 record, fans and players alike hoped the Nationals would have a breakout season in 2006.

The key was to get off to a fast start.

It didn’t happen.