Baseball

Carlos Villanueva is in a very similar position to Manny Parra.

Both have the talent to be successful pitchers in the majors, but both are held back by either mental or physical roadblocks.

Part of Villanueva's problem has come from the rest of the pitching staff. He has bounced between the bullpen and starting rotation in each of his four seasons with the Brewers due to either injury orthe ineffectiveness of others.

While it is hard for us to disseminate reports that are speculative, it is still very noteworthy to keep abreast of them—considering just how much is going on right now in MLB.

Take, for instance, the report from The San Jose Mercury News .

It’s been just two days since the start of spring games, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some story lines already forming. Let’s take a look at a few stories from yesterday’s games that are certainly worth noting for fantasy owners:

Nice opening outing for Detroit's Jeremy Bonderman, striking out three over two shutout innings (he also allowed a hit and a walk). He started the game against Toronto, so he faced the likes of Aaron Hill, Adam Lind and Vernon Wells.

When you look at potentially filling your fantasy rotation out in the late rounds on draft day, WHIP is one of the categories you have to keep in mind. While strikeout potential is great, if the pitcher is capable of walking the ballpark and posting a WHIP of 1.35 or worse, he potentially will do more harm then good.

With that in mind, let’s look at five pitchers with the potential to contribute in WHIP and who are generally available after Round 18:

Mark Buehrle—Chicago White Sox

He was arguably the Braves’ best player last season, hitting .299 with 14 homers and 76 RBI, all the while playing solid defense.

In his first three seasons in the majors, he’s already proven to be a consistent force, posting a .301 career average.

As baseball fans and sabermetric gurus, we all believe that we can predict how a player will perform year in and year out. We spend hours of our precious time watching video and looking up stats. We know who is real and who isn't.

Once upon a time, in a Dodger era far, far away, lived one of the best closers in all of baseball history.  It was 84 consecutive saves until the "Game Over" Gagne beast was proved to be human.  

I've been a very well behaved boy for quite a while.  But this gave me a screaming headache.  From Samuelsen at the Freep...

Tigers don’t look like a playoff team to me

That’s exactly the title of an article that I’m sure all Tiger fans want to see on March frigging third. Bring on the doom and gloom!

Welcome to my predictions for the 2010 AL Silver Slugger Awards. The Silver Slugger Award is awarded annually to the best offensive player at each position in both the AL and the NL. The winners are comprised of voters who base their votes on the best in stat categories such as batting average, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage, homers, and runs batted in.

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The Yankees and the Pirates played their first exhibition games of the season this afternoon at Legends Field. It looked like a mismatch on paper even for a spring training game.

Not only are the Yankees stacked right now, but their minor league system looks much better than the Pirates. That's what happens when a team has many resources to work with.