NL West

On Wednesday, the Giants inked reliever Jeremy Affeldt to a two-year, $9.5 million extension, according to USA Today baseball writer Bob Nightengale .

On paper, it makes sense.

At this point in spring training the players have settled into their routines.

Starting pitchers are stretching themselves out to five to seven innings, building arm strength as they make their final push to Opening Day.

This is usually the time when position players try to quickly get their work in, hopefully overcome any bad habits, and most importantly, avoid injury.

The last thing a player or the team wants is to lose someone to injury just over a week before the end of spring training.

I was recently approached by Tom Reese from HotStove.com who asked if I would be interested in a series he was doing. Each week he would ask one question to bloggers who cover a team. We would respond with a four or five sentence response. Tom would consolidate all of the answers and post them to his site.

It is an interesting concept and one I have had a lot of fun with over the past few weeks. The questions are usually thought provoking and make you stop to think. This week’s question was a prime example.

There is no doubt that a National Football League fantasy season is fun. Major League Baseball's storied infatuation with statistics and the length of its season just happen to make the diamond's make-believe game infinitely better.

I mention this because I'm of the camp that believes our resultant addiction to fantasy baseball skews some current observations of the game.

One example appears to be the growing import of Spring Training numbers.

Joe Beimel waited and waited for a major league contract offer, but couldn’t find one. Instead, he signed a minor league deal with a team he is pretty familiar with.

Beimel signed a minor league deal with the Colorado Rockies yesterday. Beimel will make $850,000 if he makes the Rockies’ roster and he can earn another $350,000 in incentives.

Perhaps the most amusing topic of discussion this spring as position players fight for roster spots is a stipulation of Ronnie Belliard's agreement with the Dodgers and manager Joe Torre: Lose weight, gain a roster spot.

That's right. The Dodgers want Belliard—just not as much of him.

As the 2009 season came to a close, no one was more prominent of an influence in the Dodgers' playoff run than Ronnie Belliard.

This is a series of posts leading up to the season preview which will be posted sometime next week.

This post will look at the No. 1 and 2 starters for each team in the NL West (other than the Giants, since these posts will concentrate more on what the Giants will be facing in 2010 in various categories).

One thing to note about these posts is that I'm not looking specifically at the No. 1 and 2 pitchers in the rotation according to MLB.com depth charts.

It only seems like Buster Posey has become the center of the San Francisco Giants' universe.

No. No. Wait...

Given that Posey's the top prospect in the organization and that he's hitting the devil out of the ball in spring training, the Giants' universe is spinning around the guy.

How about we talk about a team that rarely gets some love on The Ghost of Moonlight Graham: the San Diego Padres. I am going to take it a step further. I am gonna talk about the Padres and not even mention Adrian Gonzalez or any trade talk surrounding him.

Here are some of the things going on at Padres’ camp this spring.

Jon Garland has a “cranky” shoulder

Thought to be the possible fourth outfielder on the Yankee bench to start the season, Rule 5 draft pick Jamie Hoffmann struggled in Spring Training, to say the least.

Hoffmann was returned to the Dodgers today, after being taken as the first overall pick in the Rule 5 Draft in December. Hoffmann hit just .130 (3-22) as a Yankee this spring. The Yankees traded RP Brian Bruney and $25,000 to the Nationals for the first pick in the draft.