Opinion

Listed below, are the points and counterpoints that Aaron Harang supporters and critics can have regarding his prospects for the upcoming season:

Point: Yes, something is wrong.

Counterpoint: No, Aaron Harang will be back to his former self in 2010.

P: Something is wrong with his mechanics.

CP: What is this based on?

P: Harang has been tinkering with his mechanics over the past few years. He needs to get back to what was working.

The Tigers were well on their way to the ALDS last year before a September collapse and an Alexi Casilla single ended their 2009 season and left them on the outside looking in, despite leading the AL Central race for much of the year.

Rarely does a player experience such extremes from one year to the next, but Phillies closer Brad Lidge has lived that way since coming to the team in a trade two years ago. 

Many times, the low man on the totem pole does not get recognition for the job he does for an organization.  Giants batting coach Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens is that man in their organization this spring.  The Giants are leading both leagues in wins with 17.

Did you hear? Sounds like Magglio Ordonez is going to have a big year.

Literally sounds like.

The audible feeling is that Maggs is going to look more like the Ordonez of 2006-07 than the impostor who wore his uniform for all but the final month of the 2009 season.

More than once this spring training Manager Jim Leyland and GM Dave Dombrowski have alluded to the sound that Ordonez’s bat is making when it connects with the baseball.

It appears the Chicago Cubs will carry a rookie, Tyler Colvin, as their fifth outfielder when the come north for the regular season. And to me, it might be a shame.

The Cubs have a lot of money tied up in their outfield. Between the albatross contracts of Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome, the corner outfield spots are pretty well locked up because of financial obligation.

Meanwhile, the Cubs brought in Marlon Byrd and Xavier Nady as free agents this winter to replace "Baseball's Kanye West," Milton Bradley. More money spent on veterans.

The Tigers have a pitching conundrum on their hands.

Two rotation spots remain for three players: Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis, and Nate Robertson. All three have had impressive moments in the spring, but all three carry scars of a couple seasons of ineffectiveness.

The question of which two to take has racked my brain the past two weeks, but I think Zac summed it up best a few days ago by saying:

Dan McCutchen has won the "fifth starter" job for the Pittsburgh Pirates beating out Kevin Hart. The FIRST fifth starter role, that is.

But if history holds, there will be plenty more "fifth starter" chances for people like Hart, and even Jeff Karstens.

Last year, according to FanGraph's Marc Hulet, only two teams, the Colorado Rockies and Chicago Cubs, had five full time starters who all pitched in 24 or more games.

There was something to be said for growing up in the 1960s and only being able to hear San Francisco Giants exhibition games on my transistor radio.

I felt all the hope of spring without actually seeing Jim Ray Hart butchering ground balls at third base or the parade of inadequate starting pitchers behind Juan Marichal.

When Street and Smith's baseball annual had the Giants picked to win the National League, I knew everything I needed to know about the club and the glorious summer that was surely ahead.

As we embark on another season in which the Kansas City Royals look to be competing for fourth place in the American League Central, there were only a few things that we Royals fans had to look forward to.