Opinion

Every MLB season, the All-Star break is viewed as the halfway point of the 162 games season. Even with still a lot of baseball to play, this is the time when a team’s reputation and attitude have been backed by enough play on the field.

At this point, there are the obvious observations that only a miracle could change, but there are many more what if’s than anything.

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.

Back in early December I wrote Part 1 of Anatomy of A Championship Team: A Guide To Building A Contender, which gave statistical proof that previous World Series Championship teams were built more around pitching than hitting.

On Wednesday, I was playing around on Twitter and I tweeted “If the #Orioles offer Vlad 1 yr and $2MM, can he really turn it down? Where else is he gonna sign?”

What is the going rate for a cerebral college pitcher with a continually developing arsenal, increasing strikeout rate, and a perennial winner?  How about a fourth round draft pick in the 2009 amateur draft by the New York Yankees.

Adam P. Warren is a 6'1", 200lb right hand pitcher from New Bern, NC.  He played his high school ball at New Bern High, where he earned the New Bern Journal's "Baseball Player of the Year" award.  An honor roll student, he graduated fifth in his class.

This winter was a cold one for the Tampa Bay Rays, there's no doubt about that. Losing the face of the franchise, the MLB saves leader, and one of the top two starting pitchers will make it that way for a team.

There's questions galore with this club coming into 2011, from wondering who will be in what role in the bullpen, to how players will be switched around in several different positions.

These, in my mind, our the top five questions, or concerns, for the Rays entering this spring.

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.

While the starting pitching market has dried up considerably at this point, there are a couple of interesting names still out there that are worth a second glance:

Justin Duchscherer and John Maine.

In my opinion, those guys are the two best options left, though I'll admit, their injury history does scare me. But both have had some success in their careers, which is why it might be worth it for the Orioles to take a chance on one of them. Not to mention they'd probably come cheap.

The job of an agent is simple; get the most money and guaranteed years for a client.  Today, the best at doing such a seemingly simple task is Scott Boras.  Although he has made it seem easy on occasion, it is very difficult to get a contract equal to a client's requested salary.  Boras has been able to exceed this requested value more often than not.  That's just the magic of Scott Boras.

Courtesy of Yankees 'n More

Texas Rangers' CEO Chuck Greenberg is trying his best to create some sort of rivalry with the New York Yankees, no doubt hoping to coattail his Rangers away from their insignificant perch upon the MLB landscape.