Opinion

Rickie Weeks is coming off the best season of his career in 2010. He's also entering his final year before hitting the free agent market after the 2011 season. With the team having traded top prospect and second baseman Brett Lawrie to the Blue Jays for Shaun Marcum, it's now more imperative than ever for them to sign Weeks to a long-term deal.

Roberto Alomar was overpaid by the New York Mets for his year and a half of service towards the end of his career, but I was happy to see him get the recognition he deserved with a spot in the Hall of Fame.

His career will always be defined by a select few by the spitting incident, and for those of you who think that is enough to keep him out of Cooperstown, I feel sorry for you.

Some fans will never overlook this transgression, using it as the basis of every argument they ever make about his wrongful inclusion.

The first week in January is one of baseball's most exciting time periods.

Sure, the regular season has been in hibernation for a few months, and a World Series champion has been crowned. The Hot Stove is cooling down quickly, with most big name free agents having already been signed to lucrative deals.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will have their work cut out for them in 2011. Fierce competition looms ahead, but not from the defending AL West Champion Texas Rangers or improved Oakland A's.

This season, the Angels' greatest challenge will be overtaking the Seattle Mariners—for third place in the division.

You want the Cliff’s Notes to Jack Morris’s pitching career? I’ll give them to you, boiled down to two games. And that’s out of 562—it doesn’t get more pared down than that.

It’s a cool Saturday in early April, 1984 in Chicago. The Tigers are off to a 3-0 start to their season. Maybe they could keep it up and get out of the gate fast; who knows?

On Wednesday afternoon, Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame class for 2011 was announced and, as anticipated, Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar amassed the number of votes necessary for their enshrinement in Cooperstown this summer. A Hall of Fame candidate must receive 75 percent of the vote from eligible Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) members to garner induction.

Free Agent third baseman Adrian Beltre is no longer a free agent, after signing a 6-year, $96 million deal with the Texas Rangers.

I'm sure this move is getting Rangers fans very excited.

If I were a Rangers fan, I'd be upset.

Think back four years ago.

No, not to the point when unemployment was still under 6%, the debt was under $10 trillion or the St. Louis Cardinals were reigning World Series Champions, but to the voting in January 2007.

Baseball writers, fans and historians all knew that it was going to be a unique day, when Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, two of the surest Hall of Famers anyone who had watched baseball between 1982 and 2001 ever saw, went into Cooperstown.

It’s always been a restrictive club. A player's got to earn his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, has to pay his dues.

Unanimous election is unheard of; even making it on the first ballot is a challenge.

Yet while many baseball purists and dignitaries alike laud the intricate web of unspoken guidelines that the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) adheres to, others worry that the Hall is becoming too restrictive, showing more respect for baseball historians than the fans.

New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman claimed 25-year-old Brian Schlitter, a relief pitcher, off waivers this week from the Chicago Cubs.
 
Schlitter made seven appearances out of the bullpen in 2010 for the Cubs. Over his eight innings of work, Schlitter posted a terrible 12.37 ERA, giving up 18 hits, 11 earned runs, allowed two home runs and walked five of the 48 batters he faced.