MLB

Alex Rodriguez's ongoing battle against Major League Baseball has taken another bizarre turn, as the suspended slugger has dropped his lawsuit against the league and player's union.

From Jim Baumbach of Newsday:

Veteran MLB pitcher Bronson Arroyo has reportedly agreed to a contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal was first to break the news:

Source: Arroyo agrees with #DBacks.

The New York Yankees have invested a great deal of money in Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. And on Friday, Feb. 7, general manager Brian Cashman explained why.

The Milwaukee Brewers have reportedly reached an agreement with Francisco Rodriguez on a one-year contract. The relief pitcher previously pitched with the organization for parts of the last three seasons.

Human beard Jonny Gomes decided a lifetime of memories wasn't enough to savor his 2013 World Series triumph, so he went out and got a massive tattoo to commemorate the moment. 

In most years, the free-agent market would be barren in early February. Roster upgrades would be difficult to find, leaving general managers scouring for low-risk, high-reward options to augment their respective rosters.

This year is different.

Top prospects like Francisco Lindor and Trevor Bauer tend to grab headlines as we inch closer and closer to spring training. However, this season, the Indians have invited an intriguing group of "sleeper" prospects worth monitoring this spring.

Before we begin, it'd benefit the group to set out the parameters of how this group was compiled.

While there are still several intriguing free agents on the market as spring training approaches, many teams are looking to make last-minute improvements prior to the 2014 MLB season via trades. Luckily, some talented players are potentially on the block.

Baseball, it's often said, is a series of individual battles disguised as a team game.

The showdowns between pitcher and batter are the very essence of the sport, and even those one-on-ones can be broken down further, into pitch-by-pitch challenges. Baseball, then, really is roughly two to three hundred challenges spread out over about six dozen showdowns, all within a single game.

Every now and then, a surprise player takes MLB by storm to lead the league in a major category seemingly out of the blue.

Such was the case in 2013, when slugging Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis exploded for an MLB-best 53 homers and 138 RBI. But as we look ahead to 2014, we can expect a lot of the same from the usual suspects.