Cliff Lee

Las Vegas has posted its odds for the World Series winner, and to nobody's surprise, the Philadelphia Phillies are 3-1 favorites to win it all. Next come the New York Yankees at 5-1, the Boston Red Sox at 6-1 and the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants at 10-1. 

As MLB Spring Training approaches, predictions are being thrown around like snowballs in winter.

For the Phillies organization, losing a big offensive star in Jayson Werth was met with the arrival of pitching ace Cliff Lee.

When the opportunity arose for me to make some wild predictions of my own for the upcoming season, I couldn’t resist.

The following slideshow is my five wild predictions for the 2011 MLB season pertaining to the Philadelphia Phillies.

I know that it is way to early to be thinking about the 2012 season, as the 2011 season has not even started yet, or is it? Some teams as of right now know that they will not have a chance for the World Series, and some of those teams are probably already eying players who are due to hit the free agent market after the conclusion of the current season. It is wise for all teams to look at this point in time at the holes that may be left in their current roster after this season and see who will fit into that hole.

Like most people, as soon as the season ended, I made my free agent predictions for the top free agents from Cliff Lee, to Aubrey Huff.

My predictions are not wild, or bold, but were based on which teams needed key players, and which teams would retain some of these players.

Throughout the 2011 Off Season, we've seen big free agent acquisitions from teams we would never guess would be in the running, and some teams who seemed to have been hibernating through the Winter Meetings, and beyond that.

Spring Training is less than a month away and with that comes the start of many fantasy baseball leagues.  Owners, if your looking to put together that unstoppable team, don't stress about who are steals and who are busts.  Here is a preview of the top 100 fantasy players for the 2011 season.     

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Ever wonder how you could spend close to a quarter billion dollars on a baseball team (assuming of course that you are not the New York Yankees)?

Try filling your roster with these players and you would have an excellent start.

Here's a quick run down of the highest paid player at each position entering the 2011 season.

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Heading into the 2011 season, the Philadelphia Phillies are widely believed to be the favorite in the National League East, and maybe even the National League. 

However, to say that a team is without holes is unreasonable; in the case of the 2011 Phillies, there are indeed many questions that remain as they head to Clearwater to begin training.  On Friday, the Phillies packed up their trucks and sent the team's gear down I-95 to Florida.

Here are the top 17 questions that remain going into Spring Training.

The Phillies have pulled off some trades for some top pitching talent over the past few seasons. 

In 2008, the Phillies traded Josh Outman, Adrian Cardenas and one other to acquire Joe Blanton. 

In 2009, the Phillies traded Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald and Jason Knapp to acquire Cliff Lee. Then, in the offseason that year, the Phillies traded Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis D'Arnaud for Roy Halladay.  

During the 2010 season, the Phillies traded J.A. Happ, Anthony Gose and another player for Roy Oswalt.

The Philadelphia Phillies shocked the entire baseball world when they signed Cliff Lee last month to a $120 million contract. Ever since the fans in Philadelphia have been anxiously awaiting the start of the season. With the addition of Cliff Lee to their already-stellar rotation already consisting of Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels, the Phillies will be practically unstoppable and their opposition has the possibility of facing at least two of these four aces every series.

Now that the Cliff and Andy questions have both been answered and put to rest, the biggest immediate concern across Yankee Universe going into spring training appears to be the two big question marks in the back end of our starting rotation.

How crucial is the back end of the rotation to a successful season for us?

Not as much as some might think. Certainly not as crucial as a kevlar bullpen, which we now have.