Baseball

On March 3, Major League Baseball announced an additional Wild Card team from each league will be added to the playoff field this October.

Michael Pineda made his first start for the New York Yankees against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Yes, it is only spring training and not a regular season game in New York, but he was impressive nonetheless.

Almost nobody questioned Pineda's pure stuff, but there have been questions about his mental status because of his big move to New York.

The 2012 MLB season is getting closer, and teams are currently seeing which prospects have the stuff to make it to the big leagues at some point this season, and which prospects still need to improve on a particular area before being promoted.

The New York Yankees are no exception. Although most of their 25-man roster is likely set, there are still a number of prospects who have the potential to find their way onto the major league roster at some this year.

The term "worst signings" leaves a lot of wiggle room for interpretation, I know. Does it mean player x was a bad signing because he's not a good player, or is he a good player that a team paid too much for? Or was he a player with a good track record on a particular team or in a particular ballpark that may not translate as well to his new location?

By a show of hands, how many of you have really heard of Donald Lutz prior to seeing this article?

If everyone is totally honest, I bet there are very few people with their hands raised right now.

Lutz is a 23-year-old prospect in the Reds' minor league organization who's showing signs of a bright future. Lutz was born in Watertown, NY, but signed as an international free agent from Germany in 2007. Since then, Lutz has played in the minors.

In 2011, the Arizona Diamondbacks had their big breakout year. Their right-fielder also had his big breakout year in 2011 and looks poised to build on the season in which he finished 4th in the NL MVP voting. Justin Upton has finally put together the season that Diamondback fans have been waiting for since he was called up to the majors at the ripe age of 19. The 2012 season seems to be shaping into the "perfect storm" for the Dbacks superstar.

Last year, among all the messes that the Dodgers organization was dealing with, one of them was their closer. 

The Dodgers opened the season with Broxton, who failed badly.  Then they tried several replacements like Kenley Jansen and others.  When Jansen hit the DL, they brought up Javy Guerra, and the rest is history. 

The past five seasons have been unkind to the Oakland Athletics. The team has been stuck in no man’s land as getting just 80 wins has proven to be a difficult task. Oakland has missed the playoffs for five straight years. Their best season in that stretch came in 2010 when the team finished at .500 with 81 wins.

While first base is generally considered among the deepest in all of fantasy sports, things have gotten even better with a recent influx of youngsters at the position.  Among those who have burst onto the scene is the Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt, who made the jump from Double-A to the Majors as a 23 year old (he turned 24 in September) and posted the following line:

Heading into the 2012 season there are very few reasons to be excited if you’re an Orioles fan. But to be clear, there are still things to be excited about. 

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