Baseball

The Cincinnati Reds are prepping their Goodyear, Ariz. practice facility for another season of spring training, and five non-roster invitees are looking to carve out their path to the team's 25-man roster.

Some 25 years after he retired from the game, I saw the Great One enter a baseball locker room and like an apparition, dissolve and disappear behind a shuttered door. When he reemerged—looking nearly the same as he did when he threw his last pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1966—Sandy Koufax glided resplendently onto a baseball field, his iconic number 32 majestically emblazoned on his back, like righteous wings.

In November 2012, we witnessed the Atlanta Braves do something they have shied away from for a while. They signed outfielder B.J. Upton to a five-year deal worth $75.25 million. The sum of the deal put Upton in special company.

The Atlanta Braves begin spring training games three weeks from Wednesday.

At this time last year, Evan Gattis was a non-roster invitee in spring training who made his way onto the 25-man roster on Opening Day.

Other non-roster invitees who made it to Atlanta at some point during the season included Todd Cunningham, Joey Terdoslavich and Alex Wood.

Position players for the Kansas City Royals have a spring training report date of February 19. The current build of the Royals roster might not be intact when it's time to report to Surprise, Arizona though. Slugger Billy Butler could be headed toward a new destination as Kansas City looks to beef up its pitching without overpaying in free agency.

Behold a pale horse, the Pittsburgh Pirates are serious contenders for the World Series in 2014.

2014 is an even year, so the San Francisco Giants have to win the World Series. Right?

Not exactly, but San Francisco does have the pieces in place to make a playoff run if all goes well. Several players in particular will be important in making 2014 a season to remember, unlike 2013.

Criteria:

With nearly a decade gone since the Montreal Expos relocated and granted D.C. and its metropolitan area residents the gift of a professional baseball team for the third time in Major League Baseball history, the Washington Nationals have long-buried the ineptitude of their geographical predecessors.

Taking a temperature reading in the dead of winter is never fun, but with February officially underway and spring training just around the corner, it won't be long before everything starts to thaw and eventually warm up in Major League Baseball.

February can be a rough time to be a big-name MLB free agent. In fact, it can be a rough time to be any kind of free agent.

There are still plenty of teams searching for that one final piece. The problem, of course, is that by this point in the offseason nearly every club has long since surpassed its respective budget.