AL East

Earlier this week, it was reported that Travis Snider has sustained a rib-cage injury which has prevented him from participating in baseball-related activities.   

Blue Jays fans have been left wondering if he will be ready for the start of the season, especially as he often seems to be taking two steps forward but then one step back.

It’s that time of year again.

The fields are being cut, the dirt is getting watered, and the mounds are being built up and pounded down.

Spring Training 2011 is upon us, and along with it a whole new flood of young players, free agent signings, offseason trades, and, of course, the prognostication and prediction as to where each team and player will stack up against their peers.

The beauty of sports is the unknown. No matter what the spreads are or who has the better roster on paper, there is still that element of chance that keeps fans on the edge of their seats. 

Some players break out while others stumble, teams fall short of their expectations while others come out of nowhere. Trying to predict what will happen in 2011 is a crapshoot, but making a call and seeing it come to fruition is a thing of beauty. 

The 2011 MLB season is fast approaching and it is time to make some gut calls and bold predictions surrounding the AL East.

Hank Steinbrenner indirectly called out Yankees captain Derek Jeter and his newly constructed mansion on Monday.

Steinbrenner implied the team was not focused in 2010 and was hungover from its 2009 World Series championship, saying: “Some of the players are too busy building mansions and other things and not concentrating on winning.”

The key to the Yankees' success in 2011 will be their starting rotation.

Included in the rotation are a few young guns and seasoned veterans.

Ultimately, this combination will have to work for the Yanks to compete with the Red Sox in 2011.

The offseason plan failed, as waiting for Cliff Lee backfired, leaving the Yankees in shambles, not knowing where to turn.

A few minor signings on pitchers such as Mark Prior, Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon could be low-risk, high-reward signings.

Anyway, here is a look at the projected 2011 rotation.

The average salary of a major league player at the beginning of the 2010 season was $3,340,133.

A full 2010 World Series share for each winning San Francisco Giants' player was $317,631.29. A loser's full share was $246,279.55 for each Texas Rangers' player that received a full share.

As spring training gets underway in Florida and Arizona, we take one last look at the recent Major League Baseball offseason and how the various trades and acquisitions will affect the fantasy landscape for 2011.

A lot has been stated (and overstated) on the state of the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen.  The Rays lost nearly their entire bullpen in one off-season, and General Manager Andrew Friedman has run out of band-aids trying to patch a 'pen together for the 2011 season.  He's signed a couple of veterans, he's traded for some young arms, but the best and brightest hope to a successful bullpen in 2011 is squarely on the shoulders of someone who was already in-house.

Jake McGee.

One of the most exciting, positive "unknowns" about the 2011 Boston Red Sox is the combined impact Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury will have on the basepaths. 

Speculation has focused on the Sox' newly improved hitting lineup and its strong pitching rotation, but, relatively little attention has been given to just how extraordinary it is for a team to have two of the game's most prolific base stealers on the same side for nine innings.  

With Opening Day just over a month away, there is more excitement in the air in Baltimore about the upcoming baseball season than there has been in a long time.

Many factors contribute to that excitement, namely manager Buck Showalter. What he did the last two months of the 2010 season for the birds and what President of Baseball Operations Andy MacPhail achieved over the offseason provided for positivity coming into this season.