Baseball

Trying to make accurate predictions in sports is nearly impossible. Nobody really knows how the season is going to play out no matter how well informed.

Injuries, slumps and surges are going to happen to every player on every team and even the most well educated fans and analysts won’t be able to predict more than a handful of outcomes.

This, after all, is why we love sports. We simply don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s where all the excitement comes from.

The San Francisco Giants head into the 2010 season with what is expected to be a healthy Edgar Renteria. After battling injuries nearly all season last year, the second year Giants shortstop appears to be eager to move on.

In fact, at the first day of camp he told reporters how disappointed he was with his performance last season. He told them, "I feel embarrassed for last year because I could not do my things on the field. They signed me to improve this team. I felt real embarrassed for the fans and the organization."

Knowing GM Ken Williams as most fans do by now, he doesn't always make it easy to be a White Sox fan, but he does make it interesting. Another one of these moments could be happening as we speak. Within the past two days, MLB.com has reported that the White Sox could be the leaders for acquiring the services of Johnny Damon.

For the past 137 days, 20 hours, and 32 minutes I have been waiting for exactly this moment. The 2009 offseason is now officially over. We can stop thinking about a lost season where the Diamondbacks lost 97 games.

We can forget about all the shattered expectations. We can put behind us the injuries to Conor Jackson and Brandon Webb. We can erase the memories of Chris Young’s dismal season, and blot out the thoughts of Bob Melvin being fired.

We’ve seen a ton of these this winter. It seems like every Yankee blog out there has their own. We’ve even toyed with the idea of releasing one here at BBD (having not seen most of these players play ourselves we’ve decided to let others handle it).

Few teams in Major League baseball enter Spring Training dealing with both sky-high expectations and lingering scrutiny . But after an off-season makeover eschewing thump for pitching and defense, the Boston Red Sox begin their quest to return to the top of the Major League mountain with plenty of uncertainty. Do they have enough to overtake the Yankees?

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Part 1 of a 5 Part Series

The AL West is an interesting division this year.

There are four good and well-run teams. The longtime division power (LA) seems to be on the decline, while the other three teams (Texas, Oakland, and Seattle) seem to be rising.

I'll be doing a series of predictions about the division, but the first one up is team records, from fourth to first.

I project the division to be EXTREMELY tight, and the tiniest of changes can certainly skew things.

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According to Jordan Bastian of MLB.com, the man who hit the final homer in original Yankee Stadium history, Jose Molina, has signed a one-year, $400,000 deal with the Blue Jays with a 2011 team option worth $1.2 million.

The Yankees acquired Molina back in 2007 when they traded minor leaguer Jeff Kennard for him near the July deadline.

Molina played well enough down the stretch in 2007—in 29 games he had a 101 OPS+—to earn himself a two-year, $4 million deal.

It’s a move that New York Mets’ manager Jerry Manuel has been contemplating now for the last two years. Does he move shortstop Jose Reyes from the leadoff spot to the No. 3 hole in the lineup?