Fan News

With all due respect to the Tampa Bay Rays, the two favorites are finally in the building—the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

I feel a little bad about doing this because it's one of the primary reasons people really hate these two franchises—they get all the hype no matter how recent and thunderous their failures.

Boston lost the American League East and the AL Championship Series to Tampa in 2008. New York failed to even qualify for the playoffs. Yet, here I am, touting both as the kings of the hill with no reason except offseason headlines.

It seems like everyone is making their picks for who wins the AL East. I'm going to take it one step further and look at both the AL and NL East, arguably baseball's best divisions.

Lets start in the National League. The East is a powerful division. Will the defending World Champion Phillies again take the top spot? Will the Mets suffer another late-season collapse? Can the Marlins overtake them both? Will the Nats actually look good this year?

Barring major injuries and some fluky miracle season, here are my picks for the NL East.

According to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, Bobby Crosby of the Oakland A’s has been playing third base since they signed shortstop Orlando Cabrera. A couple of teams, including the Yankees, have taken notice.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Shea Stadium. Let's welcome Bob Murphy to the microphone (Tim McCarver is up in the TV booth) to introduce the Irish Mets—a list of Mets who have at least Irish-sounding names. Feel free to hit comments to add suggestions, nitpick heritage, or bitch. Bob, take it away... (no, I'm not going to attempt to write in Murph-cadence).

According to John C. Rodriguez of the Sun Sentinel, the Florida Marlins have cut 24-year-old left handed pitcher Zach Kroenke, who they drafted in this offseason’s rule 5 draft, and returned him to the Yankees.

Yankee players Robinson Cano and Damaso Marte both participated in the World Baseball Classic and both came back with injuries.

I'm getting that Doom Doom feeling about Zoom Zoom again.

Joel Zumaya is feeling some more discomfort in his pitching shoulder. Again. And he's being held out of spring training competition. Again. And the Tigers' bullpen—specifically, who will pitch the seventh and eighth innings?—is back in flux. Again.

Sigh.

With the news that Julio Lugo is undergoing arthroscopic surgery tomorrow, the question becomes who is going to pick up the slack. Lugo may return in time for Opening Day...He could return a few days after...Or his injury could be worse than currently thought.

Either way, the backup infield job is now officially a competition. If healthy, Jed Lowrie and Lugo are the two victors...But who could the job fall to if Lugo can't make it back in time?

Let's look at the four candidates.