Baseball

For the Tampa Bay Rays, there is no tomorrow. The Rays head into the 2010 season having put together a terrific spring, winning a club record 20 grapefruit league games. Their winning percentage was best in the majors at .750 and they won seven of eight to enter the season with some momentum.

All that Spring success doesn't mean a hill of beans now, though, because in a few days, the bullets fly for real and the team embarks on a 162 game escapade to ruin Boston or New York's hopes of a ticker tape parade.

The 2010 Cincinnati Reds roster is set. Most of the the roster is not a surprise. We pretty much knew 20 out of the 25 guys going in. Today, the roster was announced.

This list focuses on the guys who surprisingly made the big club. With the possible exception of Mike Leake, these guys are not going to be the difference between a playoff team and a disappointment.

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Ryan Kalish grew up in Red Bank, N.J. In high school, he starred on the gridiron and the diamond.

He was offered a baseball scholarship from the University of Virginia and planned on attending, in part, because the Cavaliers baseball program agreed to let him play football.

He had decided he would go to college and play two sports if he was unable to secure a professional baseball contract on the terms he believed appropriate for his skills (he was seeking a $600K signing bonus).

The White Sox have made wholesale changes over the course of the last twelve months, acquiring RHP Jake Peavy, 3B Mark Teahen, and OFs Alex Rios, Juan Pierre, and Andruw Jones, while introducing 2B Gordon Beckham to his first big league action.

While the organization traded a couple of its better prospects in the Peavy deal, they managed to obtain a staff ace without gutting the minor league system.

The Twins are coming off a very successful 2009 campaign in which they finished in a first-place tie with the Detroit Tigers (86-76), and then won a one-game playoff to move into the postseason.

This year they will open their new, open-air stadium, Target Field (pictured), which is reportedly a hitter-friendly ballpark… that fact may cause havoc with the club’s hope of repeating as division champs.

The Detroit Tigers finished last year with a record of 86-76, tied for first place in the AL Central… but they failed to make the post-season when they lost Game No. 163 to the Minnesota Twins and sat home while the post-season got underway.

At the conclusion of the season, Tigers' GM Dave Dombrowski began the process of rebuilding his team from top to bottom. In a seven-player, three-team trade with the Diamondbacks and Yankees, Trader Dave sent CF Curtis Granderson to the Yankees and SP Edwin Jackson to the Diamondbacks.

Once again, there’s not a heckuva lot to like about what is going on in Kansas City.

The Royals' front office appears to be completely lacking in terms of a consistent philosophy on how it wants to build the ball club.

GM Dayton Moore acquired a couple of decent young players in the deal that sent Mark Teahan to Chicago—but otherwise, his moves appear to be ill-conceived and devoid of direction.

The Cleveland Indians finished last season with a 65-97 record, good for fourth place in the American League Central. While I expect marginal improvement this season, there are too many questions to suggest anything better than a last place finish for The Tribe in 2010.

As recently as 2008, the NL West was actually the laughing stock of major league baseball, chock full of mediocre (at best) teams.

What a difference a few years makes.

While the only thing anyone remembers is that they lost to the Phillies again, the Dodgers actually had the National League's best record last year.

They got off to a red-hot start, before cooling down a little down the stretch.

The 2010 Rays are being touted as the most talented team in team history. Players like Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, Jason Bartlett, and Carlos Pena head the list. But there are other players who are on the cusp of getting the same name recognition.

Here are five players who are about to shine this season.

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