Opinion

As the month of February is upon us, baseball season gets a step closer to returning.

In a few short weeks, pitchers and catchers will be reporting for teams in Florida and Arizona.

In Tampa, the Yankees will begin their 2011 season with a few question marks, mostly residing in their starting rotation.

They wanted Cliff Lee, but lost out on him when he returned to the Phillies in perhaps the biggest surprise move of the winter.

The Yankees have been scrambling and searching all winter for a Plan B.

Before I get started, a tip of the cap from all of us in Red Sox nation to Theo Epstein, our maverick genius, our watchful protector, our Dark Kni-...never mind. But I stand in awe of what the 37 year old son of Brookline, MA has accomplished.

For the services of Adrian Gonzalez, he still managed to keep Jose Iglesias and our draft picks. Under the cover of darkness, he locked up one of the most complete outfielders in the game and disrupted the Yankee-Lee negotiations with his free hand.

There has been no lack of chatter about the Philadelphia Phillies' rotation this offseason. After adding Cliff Lee to a staff that already included Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels, the anticipation for Opening Day in the city of Philadelphia became all that more unbearable. While that certainly is true—the Phillies have the league's best rotation—we must read between the lines as well.

New York Mets' general manager Sandy Alderson conducted an interview today to address various topics, most important of all being recent financial struggles.

Alderson claims this offseason was all part of the plan. It was, and always had been, to skim the market for low risk, low money players to test out on the roster.

"We made it very clear that an area of focus to improve our team this offseason was our outfield. And it became very clear to us that we were going to fill that position with a right-handed bat, somebody that could play defense as well as somebody that could help us offensively and acquire somebody with tremendous leadership ability. With that being said, I am delighted to announce that we've signed Jeff Francoeur as our latest addition to the 2011 Kansas City Royals."

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

New York Mets fans have been begging for Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez to be shipped out of Queens for a while now.  Both aging players have two of the worst contracts in the league, clearly not living up to their worth, and it will be almost impossible for the Mets to find a team that would take them in a trade.  That leaves the Mets with one option: cut both players.

The Chicago Cubs have already traded for starting pitcher Matt Garza and traded away starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny this winter, and it seems very possible that that will be enough for GM Jim Hendry. There is relatively little else Chicago could do at this point, with the key free agents off the market and the team unlikely to leapfrog the Brewers and Reds into the top spot in a rational prognosticator's picture of the 2011 NL Central division.

While Joe Mauer and Brian McCann rate as the best-known offensive catchers in baseball, Geovany Soto was the best hitter in the league at that position in 2010.

Though he got only 387 plate appearances due to a mixture of injuries and managerial stupidity, Soto logged a career-best .890 OPS and socked 17 home runs.

It would have appeared that the Chicago White Sox had parted ways with pitcher Freddy Garcia after the 2010 season.  However, a return to the south side may still be in the cards for the veteran right-hander.

If a report from SI.com is accurate, the White Sox may be looking to bring Garcia back into the fold.