AL East

Six months ago, no one ever thought there would be a time in the near future where anyone but Roy Halladay would be starting on Opening Day.

Unfortunately, the Blue Jays will find themselves in that predicament on April 6 of next year when they decide who their Opening Day starter will be, and essentially who will be the new ace of the starting rotation.

So who will it be? As far as I'm concerned, the proverbial torch has been passed on to Shaun Marcum to steer this pitching staff in the right direction.

If you were listening very closely, you would've heard a determined cheer from a small group of San Francisco Giant fans when John Lackey signed with the Boston Red Sox.

When the 31-year-old right-hander decided to take the (most) money and run to the East Coast, the last hanging chad from that brutal 2002 World Series was clipped and the October cluster-fornication could be forgotten, once and for all.

There is much teeth-gnashing among Yankees fans as they mourn the departure of Hideki Matsui and probable loss of Johnny Damon .  Even here at the Bleacher Report, writers accuse management of penny-pinching at the expense of the team on the field .  These writers are wrong.  Brian Cashman's moves have made the 2010 Yankee

Sigh. I just finished watching the Red Sox press conference introducing Mike Cameron.

Charming. Charismatic. Humble. Relaxed. You got to see so many of the reasons why managers love Cameron, and what I had been hoping to see over at Clark and Addison sometime this winter.

That said, first off let me say that I was wrong. I didn't think it was possible for the Cubs to let Cameron pass them by. Somewhere, I suspect that Lou Piniella is still muttering things under his breath about it, and perhaps about Jim Hendry as well, but it's done. He ain't coming.

When the free agent season began, one of the hot names on the market was pitcher Mike Gonzalez. The left hander was one of the top relief pitchers in baseball last season and was a hot commodity on the market because of his ability to strike out hitters and his dominate stuff.