Manny Ramirez

It's official—the 2011 Major League Baseball season is right around the corner. Don't believe me? Just ask the groundhog. Or maybe the fact that the next edition of Major League Baseball video games are primed for release will convince you. No?  Ok, the Super Bowl is over and so is another season of the National Football League. Pitchers and catchers have reported for Spring Training. Yes, the 2011 season is swiftly approaching.

The minute the final out was made in Game 5 of the ALDS at the Trop, Rays fans knew they had a long offseason ahead of them.

Some, like me, held out hope that they would be able to retain Carl Crawford or somebody, but that never happened; they even got rid of great players that they didn't have to.

“Athlete” and “in shape” are often thought of as going together. It's part of the requirement, right?

You can't be one without the other.

Unless, of course, you are a major league baseball player. Then being fat is okay.

Maybe it's part of the appeal millions of Americans still have to what was once the national pastime, but baseball is a sport that can be played by the short or tall, fast or slow and in-shape or out of shape.

Wait he still plays?

Like many baseball fans, I am guilty of saying this expression from time to time. It seems like more than any other major sport, baseball players still tend to have the ability to produce in the later stages of their careers.

Every team seems to have that one old hitter that you thought retired five seasons ago. Often times we poke fun at them, but it is not deserved.

Most championship caliber teams are guilty of having these kinds of players. There is a lot of value in having a hitter that has aged like fine wine.

Often, it is not the most talented player who ends up being the most valuable player for his respective team. A player making $1 million can be much more valuable than a player making $10 million if they produce similar results

A great example of this is Adrian Gonzalez of 2010. With the Padres, he was playing for a very low sum of money despite being among the league's best first basemen. While Albert Pujols may have out-produced Gonzalez in 2010, he was far more costly. Thus, Gonzalez was more valuable to his team than Pujols.

Beginning with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro we have seen that the Hall of Fame voters are not looking fondly on nominees that have their pasts tied to performance enhancing drugs.

Looking back to the stars that emerged in the late 1980's and through into the early 2000's, an alarming number of our favorite players were implicated in the steroids scandal.

Baseball saw some of the most hallowed and revered records in our national past time broken by the games modern athletes. Home run records fell, pitchers seemed ageless, and mediocre players became great.

For some fans, the American League East is a treacherous place. When baseball’s biggest super powers all swing their bats in the same division, it’s hard to gain any ground when you’re the little guy. 

Yes, I’m talking to you Baltimore.

But, thanks to our overactive sports imaginations and a little something called fantasy baseball, we can build our own big league monopoly, so let’s mine the AL East and construct a divisional behemoth that will strike fear into the hearts of fake teams everywhere.

The biggest off-season talk so far in the AL East has clearly been about the Red Sox big moves. Around the division, beyond Boston, the Yankees have made little improvement from last year, losing out on Cliff Lee, and signing Rafael Soriano, all while waiting on Andy Pettitte.

As of recent, the Yankees have been most active, in signing veteran pitchers Mark Prior, Bartolo Colon, and Freddy Garcia, all to minor league deals. According to sources, Pettitte has a $12M offer waiting for him, if he decides to return for another year.

A big market city, such as Boston, comes with big payrolls and even bigger expectations.

Year after year the front office, coaches and fans expect a certain level of excellence from their players. If they do not live up to their potential then it's the general manager's job to find someone who can.

It used to be that most players, especially stars, would start and finish their careers in the same uniform. However, since the introduction of free agency that is now rarely the case.

As Spring Training nears closer, baseball fever is beginning to run rampant. With only one week left in the NFL season, it's only a matter of time before people start looking south to Florida for hints at what's to come in the new season.

Over the next couple of months, I'll be breaking down a division each week before making my final predictions for how the season is going to turn out.

First up, the loaded AL East.

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