Opinion

Managers matter, except when they don't.

Everyone in baseball can tell a story of a manager who turned around a team, from Sparky Anderson and later Jim Leyland with the Detroit Tigers to Buck Showalter with the Baltimore Orioles and Joe Maddon with first the Tampa Bay Rays and then the Chicago Cubs.

And, perhaps, Dusty Baker with the Washington Nationals.

Last year, the National League Central was a neck-and-neck-and-neck scramble. This year, it could turn into a one-horse race.

It's still early—in case you're not sick of that particular qualifier—but the Chicago Cubs are establishing themselves as the class of the division. 

After defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-1 Tuesday night behind ace Jake Arrieta, Chicago sits at 19-6, five games up on the Bucs and seven games ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals.

April flowers bring May showers, or something like that...

1. Yankees Feeling the Burn

Is this the summer the New York Yankees devolve into also-rans?

Everyone knew their current nine-game trip to Texas, Boston and Baltimore would be a Rawlings buster, but it's turned coyote ugly quick. They're like the varmint in that Whac-A-Mole game. Every time they pop their heads up, Travis Shaw or David Ortiz or Rougned Odor bludgeons their little pinstriped heads back into the ground.

It's never too early to start thinking about trades.

With the regular season's first month behind us and baseball's rumor mill well-rested after an offseason of activity, each passing week will see an increase in rumors and speculation surrounding some of the season's biggest potential trade targets.

No scientific survey is needed to know that every MLB team would love for its prospects to be ready at 20 years old. Just like anyone would rather dine at a restaurant with a Michelin star.

But neither figures to happen with frequency.

First off, let's get this out of the way: There will be no fat jokes.

Ears. You know something? Over seven or eight seasons of bouncing around the country’s bumpy roads on rattletrap minor league buses, a guy’s ears become pretty finely tuned.

And above all else over the past year, Jeremy Hazelbaker, the St. Louis Cardinals’ latest newly discovered gem, has listened and learned one thing.

From the ashes of every tragedy, something good can arise.

It's still too soon to call Pablo Sandoval's Boston Red Sox career a tragedy. But it's past time to call Travis Shaw something good.

Since being thrust into the spotlight by Sandoval's embarrassing benching and subsequent injury issues, Shaw has emerged from obscurity to become a budding star for Boston.

Entering play Sunday, the Los Angeles Dodgers were in a free fall.

They'd dropped six straight to the lowly Miami Marlins and punchless San Diego Padres. They'd slid a game below .500 and were looking less and less like big-spending, three-time defending division champs.

First impressions are far from everything. No MLB rookie should start writing his Hall of Fame speech after one impressive month.

Patience, however, is a difficult virtue to master early in the season, when successes and failures stand out like giant pimples. Combine the tendency to overreact to April numbers with human instinct to judge someone immediately, and neophytes are especially susceptible to spawning overzealous reactions.