NL West

The San Francisco Giants of 2010 were a great story. They had amazing pitching, solid hitting and a great cast of characters. You had the freak Tim Lincecum, the bearded Brian Wilson, the man whose contract is fun to rip nonstop, Barry Zito, and Kung Fu Panda himself, Pablo Sandoval.

Now, this cast of characters will have their own reality show. A trailer for the Giants' new reality show, "The Franchise", has been released, with a special preview of the show airing April 13 on Showtime.

The Dodgers addressed two issues in the offseason; pitching depth and power.

Los Angeles was 14th in the National League in home runs last season.  Grant it, Rod Barajas and Juan Uribe aren't sexy signings, but they add pop to the lineup.

The organization got pitching depth to put behind Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley with the re-signings of Ted Lilly and Hiroki Kuroda and the signing of Jon Garland.

After a three year stint in Dodger Blue, Joe Torre decided to hang it up.  Don Mattingly now takes over.

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The likelihood of Brian Wilson appearing on Opening Day at Chavez Ravine is doubtful after he was yanked from a bullpen session today.

Reports from ESPN are saying he felt a little discomfort and was told to stop.

Is this a setback?

Who are you asking?

According to Wilson, no, but then again this is Brian Wilson, and rarely do we see him stress publicly about anything, especially something as lowly as a strained oblique. It just doesn't fit his lumberjack persona.

Tim Lincecum was the king of aces during the Giants' 2010 postseason run. 

Going head to head with the best aces in the league, he was 4-1 with a 2.43 ERA over 37 innings.

Before the start of last season, the Diamondbacks were a trendy pick to make some noise in the NL West.  Then Brandon Webb's shoulder suffered a set-back and the season went down the toilet.

The bullpen was atrocious, the third worst in Major League history.  The organization decided to part with strikeout king Mark Reynolds to acquire bullpen help from Baltimore.

Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell—after the 2010 season, we feel like we know these guys.

We saw them hit. We watched them orchestrate a dramatic transformation of the Giants clubhouse with their veteran leadership. We know their sense of humor, and we rattle off tales of their college days together with autobiographical familiarity, as if we had tagged along for the shenanigans too.

By God, we even learned their underwear preferences over the course of the 2010 season.

To combat my ignorance the first time I played fantasy baseball, I did what anyone does when they need answers: consulted the Internet. This was 2005—the Industrial Age for the web—so fantasy commentary was just starting to percolate “back then”; it wasn’t as obvious where to go for information.

What I couldn’t get my head around was a concept I kept reading about—this concept of Value. Only experience could help answer questions like:  

With Opening Day only one week away and the list of injuries seemingly growing, fans across Dodgertown are left wondering if a door may open for one of several minor league prospects within the organization.

The track record of general manager Ned Colletti suggests that he much rather prefers middle-of-the-road veterans over the youngsters, however a handful of the farmhands have already shown positive value over the course of Cactus League play this spring.

As Spring training winds down, and Opening Day creeps closer, it is time to close the book on the Giants' World Championship 2010 season, and focus on the Giants' 2011 season.

No doubt it was a amazing season filled with many more highs than lows.

It featured the coming out parties for Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner. It saw Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain become practically immortal during the playoffs. And career resurrections for Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell helped bring the city of San Francisco its first championship since 1994 and the Giants their first ever by the Bay.

Buster Posey and the San Francisco Giants will head into the year looking to repeat as World Champions.

Before baseball season can start though, the NCAA Tournament will have to declare a winner. So why not make a mix of the two sports? After all, the best part of March Madness is watching the bracket come out for the first time on Selection Sunday.

If MLB were to adopt a ranking and selection process, here's how the bracket would look for the 2011 season.