Young outfielder Tyler Colvin will make the Chicago Cubs' Opening Day roster if the team can find him sufficient playing time, according to manager Lou Piniella . Colvin, 24, would need to get somewhere in the neighborhood of two starts per week in order to justify keeping him on board, by Piniella's reckoning.

According to Marc Carig of The Star-Ledger, the Yankees have released righty Chad Gaudin just two days after they put him on waivers.

When the Padres let Trevor Hoffman leave their organization after the 2008 season, many felt it was the end of the line for one of the game's great closers.

The Dodgers showed mild interest in Hoffman, and it made sense for him to sign with a team so close to his home. Add to that the fact he'd be able to pitch against his former team, and it seemed all but certain he would wear Dodger blue.

However, the Brewers made a late push for the future Hall of Famer. They needed a replacement for Salomon Torres after he suddenly retired following the 2008 season.

At first glance, it looks like baseball and competitive balance run on parallel lines. There are the Yankees with their 27 World Championships and the Pittsburgh Pirates who have not had a winning season since 1992.

Those two franchises met in the epic 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski won it with a Game Seven ninth-inning home run. 1960 was during a run where the Yankees played in 14 out of 16 World Series.

Aroldis Chapman was forced to leave an exhibition game on Monday, March 22, versus the Colorado Rockies with what my best friend and mentor, Hal McCoy, described as, "a twinge in his back, or stiffness in his back, or tightness in his back."

Either way, the Cuban flame thrower has a sore back. 

The band Alkaline Trio once sang, "When you're only 23 it's not attractive to complain about your sore back."

For Reds' fans the news is less than "attractive"; in fact, it's just plain scary. 

The Twins new shortstop, J.J. Hardy, spent his entire professional career with the Milwaukee Brewers organization, including most of the past five seasons in the majors. He was an All-star in 2007, when he had career highs in almost every offensive category, including 26 home runs and 80 runs batted in.

He had a similar season in 2008, but slumped during the 2009 season, and was eventually sent to the minors. During last offseason, he was traded to the Twins for speedy outfielder Carlos Gomez.

With so much talk in Cubs' camp this spring training surrounding top prospect Starlin Castro, I decided to take a look back at so of the top rookie performances in team history.

I went back as far as 1947, which was the first year that the Rookie of the Year Award was handed out. I only looked at the stats that the player posted during their rookie season when ranking them.

The Yankees have yet to make an official announcement, but according to Joel Sherman of the NY Post , in the next couple of days they will announce that the winner of the 5th spot in the rotation will be Phil Hughes :

Like it's American League counterpart, the National League Central is considered to be much of a wide-open race. The one difference is they've got more of a legitimate favorite that could very well go deep into the playoffs.

The reason that they've got a favorite in St. Louis, yet can be considered wide-open is the pure fact that there is a lot of unknown for some teams. Even the Cardinals have their own questions.

At the beginning of the 2008 season, the bookmakers gave 250 to 1 against the Tampa Bay Rays winning the World Series that year. The Rays in fact failed to do so, but came a lot closer than almost anyone would have expected.

Going into the Fall Classics, the odds were 7 to 5 in their favor, which is to say that someone who had paid "$1" for the bet, could have cashed out for over $100 (instead of winning $250) before the final resolution.