NL East

Ah, what could have been.

The MLB's Rule Four Draft, better known as the First Year Player Draft, is not a simple process. Teams spend months preparing for the annual June draft, setting aside a budget, ranking a player's sign-ability and preparing alternatives in the event that their planned player is not available with their pick. If the draft were as simple as taking the best player available, imagine what baseball could look like today.

After years of having Dan Uggla hit home runs against its pitching staff, the Atlanta Braves decided to add the muscle-bound second baseman to their roster. In exchange for Uggla, the Braves sent utility infielder Omar Infante and relief pitcher Mike Dunn to the Marlins.

A big fuss has recently been made about the Wilpons statement that they might sell of around 25 percent of the New York Mets. Without getting into too many details, most of this has to do with the Bernie Madoff scandal.

Many people around baseball are making a big deal out of this.  That must be the result of a slow sports week in New York.  This should not ever be a top story.  In fact, the Steinbrenners only own 32.9 percent of the Yankees.

Last season, the Atlanta Braves became the envy of the league, when MLB.com named Jason Heyward as the top prospect in their annual listing of the Top Prospects in Major League Baseball.

In professional baseball, unlike the other major professional sports, twenty years is a benchmark of sorts for a career. 

Sure, a player can go to the Hall of Fame having played 18, 15, or even 10 seasons, but 20 seasons is generally held out as the symbol of full career as a major league baseball player.

As the title says, this is my second annual bucket list—Phillies style. I hate the redundancy of writing a totally self-explanatory title and then reaffirming the topic in my first sentence but with those darn search engines constantly looking for articles with relevance, I’m already at a disadvantage.

When it comes to blogging about baseball, I’m the master at having nothing relevant to say.

Jose Reyes is one of the most dynamic players in all of baseball.  His combination of speed and personality makes him one of the most exciting baseball players to watch. 

When healthy, Reyes is exciting to watch.  The problem is that he hasn't been 100 percent in a while.  Whenever a player like Reyes isn't 100 percent healthy, it definitely affects his playing ability.

Entering the 2011 season, the Mets are a team of low expectations and "what ifs." The fans don't think their team is going very far this season, but don't tell Jose Reyes that. Reyes says he has thoughts of MVP in his mind with spring training just 18 days away.

MLB Countdown Til Pitchers and Catchers Report: 17 Days

If you live in the Northeast corridor, this may very well mean that there are still 17 more shoveling days until Spring Training, but at least there's some end in sight to this misery.

I was pondering the following question: What is the correlation between earning the best record in your league (and in MLB) and: a) getting to the World Series and b) winning it all?

Bad teams don't become good ones because of can't-miss prospects like Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. First-round picks are expected to succeed at the major league level.

No, teams like the Washington Nationals must rely on late-round picks who have no business becoming major leaguers to fill the gaping holes in their roster. When that happens, fortunes change on a dime.

The Nationals need those kinds of players—players like J.P. Ramirez.