Opinion

On behalf of the ever-suffering Pittsburgh Pirates' deck crew, I'd like to offer a small proposal. This flagship has had some dreadful leadership in the past, but as the new skipper, let's not start out by making mistakes, alright?

Now that it's official that Daniel Murphy will start Opening Day, it gives the Mets three "homegrown" players on the field (homegrown defined as a player who played their first MLB game in a Mets uniform). This got me thinking about other Opening Day lineups

Major League Baseball is always filled with major questions to be answered.

2009 is no exception.

Here are a few of the biggest questions needing to be answered.

5. Will another team like the Tampa Bay Rays come out of nowhere to make the playoffs?

I give a team like the San Fransisco Giants a good shot at challenging for the NL West title.

They have a fantastic pitching staff.

If their offense shows even decent improvement, the Giants will be contenders sooner rather than later.

Alas, baseball is here!

With spring training drawing to a close this week, MLB's regular season is set to kick off. With spring in the air, there's a still a heap of snow in my town. The great American pastime is back!

A few weeks ago, it sounded as if the Texas Rangers were going to go with outfielder Frank Catalanotto, which meant that former Brave and Dodger Andruw Jones would be looking for a new team.

After that story first broke, Jones has apparently turned the corner and gotten his swing back because the Rangers have decided to keep the Gold Glove Award winning center fielder. This means that Catalanotto's days with the Rangers are officially over, according to a blog written by MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan.

The New York Yankees have been built around major free agent acquisitions and trades.  (How'd they get Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Hideki Matsui, and on and on?) However, the greatest Yankees in the past few years have been home-grown talents (Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly, Robinson Cano).

As the Red Sox have shown, baseball has become again a game where the young, home-grown players will help the team the best.

So, if baseball's changing, are the world's greatest team prepared for a change?

Probably not.

Yankees catcher and emotional leader Jorge Posada was very vocal in his beliefs regarding Joba Chamberlain's future.

Posada felt that Chamberlain belonged in the Yankee bullpen, regardless of the widely spread intrigue with transitioning him into a starting pitcher.

The folks at Right Off Russell sum up the Baltimore Orioles trade of Hayden Penn:

The Orioles made the move, in all likelihood, because they felt Penn had not pitched well enough to secure a bullpen spot and felt he would claimed by another team if he was waived. 

The Orioles were able to secure a middle infielder, who appears to be a younger upgrade over Chris Gomez, and can play both the SS and 2B positions. 

For any of you baseball movie buffs out there, you'll remember the very poorly made Bernie Mac film, Mr. 3000.

In the movie, Mac is an arrogant ballplayer who retires after getting his 3,000th hit, only to find out later that he actually only has 2,997 hits.

Because he does not have 3000 hits, Mac's character fails to get elected into the hall of fame, and as a result, he does everything possible to make a comeback and try to secure his place in history.

On Tuesday, Chicago Cubs' Manager Lou Piniella stated what most fans already knew: there were a couple veteran pitcher in jeopardy of losing their bullpen jobs to talented youngsters.

Chad Gaudin and Luis Vizcaino, both acquired in trades in the last 12 months, are on the bubble right now.

Gaudin, who came with Rich Harden in a trade deadline deal with Oakland last year, has struggled all spring. Vizcaino, who was acquired in what was widely regarded as a salary dump of starter Jason Marquis, has been less than impressive as well.