Baseball

The 2011 season can break one of two ways for the Washington Nationals. They can either take that final step towards a .500 season and use it as a conduit to future playoff contention or they can simply suck for a sixth consecutive year.

And which possibility becomes reality is dependent on who trots out to first base next Opening Day.

Rarely is it the case that one baseball player can change the entire fate of his division. But it could happen when a star player leaves one contender for another, as Crawford did, from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Boston Red Sox.

We can start by looking at the 2008 and 2010 Rays. In 2008, the team had a bunch of "stars", including Crawford, and a few superstars. But just about every everyday player was "league average" or better, except for Ben Zobrist (who has since become a star) and Willy Aybar, still a "utility" player.

Initially, when hearing a productive and established player such as Jayson Werth signed with the Washington Nationals, it was bewildering.

It's a few days before Christmas and so far, the Yankees have been relatively quiet in their off-season shopping.

So far, after missing out on Cliff Lee, the Yankees have brought in Russell Martin to be the starting catcher and Pedro Feliciano for the bullpen.

For the Yankees, that's an extremely quiet winter considering their deep pockets and myriad of resources.

Right now, though, it looks like the Yankees are attempting to bring back a familiar face to the lineup.

I could have sworn everyone was expecting Cliff Lee to go to the team that offered him the most money.  He was supposed to become the second highest-paid Yankee and the third most-overpaid Yankee.

Zack Greinke was supposed to be the consolation prize for the team that lost out on Cliff Lee. He was supposed to mesh well and find comfort with the young base in Texas.

The Yankees and Rangers were not longshots to meet again in October 2011.

But the road to October just got a bit rocky for these two teams.

Dec. 22, 2010

Twins ‘Cold’ During ‘Hot’ Season

by Andy Vanfossan

With 2010 coming to an end, now is a good time to look at the positives and negatives for the last month and a half of the free agent season.

Positives:

My buddy Vinnie over at Talking Giants Baseball contacted me and told me he would like me to do a guest blog entry about the Dodgers. He wants me to throw a preview at him. Well...he's not going to like what I'm about to write, because the Dodgers are coming back full force next year for a 100 win season and that NL West title.

As the baseball offseason continues, New York Mets fans become increasingly frustrated. They've watched every other team in the NL East make improvements. The Phillies added Cliff Lee, the Braves traded for Dan Uggla, the Nationals added Jayson Werth and the Marlins added good pieces in trades with Atlanta and Boston.

What have the Mets done so far?

They added a bullpen piece (D.J. Carrasco) and a backup catcher (Ronny Paulino).

I’ve seen lots of speculation about how effective Zack Greinke will be in the National League.

Consider this piece more of a memoir than anything else.  My childhood with the Phillies was always adventurous but often ugly.  The Phillies were constantly a losing team and never broke the bank to go out and sign any big-name free agents.  At the time, we knew they weren't the New York Yankees, nor were we asking them to be.  We just wanted to know that they had a desire to someday win.