Baseball

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.

On Sept. 13, 2008, Rodriguez broke Bobby Thigpen's saves record for a single season with 58. The following day, I jumped onto YouTube to watch a video of the record-breaking moment and couldn't help but look at some of the comments people had written.

Many of the comments were along the lines of, "K-Rod is the best closer in Major League Baseball." As a huge Joe Nathan fan, I was a little ticked off. I rattled in my head a number of players who I thought were better, such as: Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, Mariano Rivera, Brad Lidge, and Joakim Soria.

When will the MLB finally realize that the WBC is a joke and they should no longer use MLB players? Many superstars pass on playing in the tourney, and don't want to risk getting hurt.

It comes right smack dab in the middle of spring training. The time most MLB players are worried about making their team's 25 man roster.

The only ones who take it seriously are the country's who don't have MLB. Teams like Cuba, Korea and others. Japan also takes it to heart even with their 130 game pro season.

Only 21 days left until Opening Day, Cubs fans. With the seemingly never-ending spring training in full bloom in sunny Arizona, now is a good time to examine the potential roster for the 25-man club that will go north with the team.

Today, let's take a look at the pitchers, since there is a little more uncertainty there than with the position players.

The Fifth Starter's Competition Is All But Over

The Counselor is IN:

Here are my fantasy rankings for Catcher in the American League.

This list was made after extensive research into the stats I believed to be the most important when it came to pitchers. I took a list of close to 200 candidates and looked at their career totals in Wins, ERA, WHIP, Saves, and Strikeouts. I then ranked each player in each of those categories. After that I looked at what they averaged in those stats per year. This ensures that we are looking at quality along with quantity. Next I weighted each stat accordingly, because lets face it, a save isn't as important as a win.

Well, they're here—the carrots at the end of the stick, the Three Gorillas in the American League East.

The Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox look like enormous, rampaging beasts who will run roughshod through the rest of Major League Baseball while recovering from titanic clashes with each other.

Baseball rarely shakes down according to specs, but it's really tough to see how the mere mortals of the MLB world can deal with these guys on a daily basis.  Even if you make every effort to see the gaps in armor and soft underbellies.

Alright, everybody, just calm down a bit. I've been reading posts on some web sites such as ESPN.com saying how "embarrassed" the USA should be because we got defeated 11-1 in the World Baseball Classic on Saturday.

And to that I reply with a great big, resounding YAWN.

Mercy me. Regardless of whether you enjoy the WBC or not, and I admit it has grown on me somewhat, you need to understand one basic fact.

The results are basically meaningless.

That's right. And the reason is two-fold.

The World Baseball Classic seems to be trudging into the championship rounds with a mixed level of enthusiasm. This week, teams from Puerto Rico, USA, Mexico, Cuba, Japan, Korea, Venezuela, and the Netherlands stagger to the finish line playing before thousands of fans disguised as empty seats.

Stories about the classic are all too abundant as writers speak of the event's unpopularity, while MLB officials try to spin the event as a rousing success in bringing a global sport to the globe.

Team Puerto Rico absolutely destroyed the star-packed Team USA with a score of 11-1 Saturday evening in Miami.

The game actually ended as a result of the Mercy Rule, which I personally found a bit amusing. The Mercy Rule occurs when a game ends early when one team has a very large and presumably insurmountable lead over the other team. In the case of the WBC, the rule is 10 runs.