Opinion

What I’m Reading

• Just imagine a Mauer-less Twinky-Town. Through means of a trade, no less. My head hurts already.

• So Jose Reyes’ thyroid is due to keep him out anywhere from two weeks to two months. Great diagnosis, Doc.

When Ichiro Suzuki entered the league back in '01 he was far from unknown, underappreciated, or underrated. In fact if anything for a guy who had never played a MLB game, there might have been a better argument he was overrated.

Since then Ichiro has slowly but steadily fallen out of the spotlight and has become virtually untalked about all around baseball.

My question is, why?

Call him what you will, for Jose Reyes goes by many names.

Jose the Nuisance: A pest in the eyes of the Phillies, Marlins, and beyond.  It seems that teams don't like to see Jose be Jose on the field or in the dugout and hold some sort of grudge against the New York Mets when their teams meet on the field.  Is it jealousy, envy?  We're not sure, but he sure isn't Armando Benitez's favorite player.

When Richard Henry "Dick" Pole was sacked from his post as the Cincinnati Reds' pitching coach and Bryan Price was brought in to replace him, it easily ranked as the team's biggest offseason move—well, maybe besides that signing of some 6'4" lefty kid from Cuba. 

It's a fine trait to be loyal.  But Reds' manager Dusty Baker has proven more than a few times of being loyal to a fault. 

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line I began enjoying Major League Baseball's offseason more than the regular season itself.  Something about being a Mets fan from November through March is encouraging.  At the start of every season the Mets are "the team to beat"...and then all of a sudden the season starts. 

Mets fans are constantly given a false sense of optimism and are cursed with an old New York tradition of "waiting 'til next year."

If Nate Robertson were a right-handed pitcher, he’d be as expendable as a finished bag of potato chips.

Robertson ought to thank the right-minded God who made him a lefty, because that’s what’s keeping him in the big leagues right now.

The Tigers say that, if worst comes to worst, they’d be happy to venture north with five righties in their starting rotation—if they are the five best, most capable starters.

That’s a bunch of bull excrement.

Before we get to Mr. Scruggs' comments during his "Newy and Richie" show on 105.3 FM in Dallas this morning, let me start by saying that I'm a big fan of Newy's and a loyal listener to his show.

That being said, I grew up as a San Diego Padre fan and lived in Southern California for almost eight years of my life. I spent a lot of Sunday afternoons at Petco Park watching the Padres and guys like Trevor Hoffman, Jake Peavy, and Adrian Gonzalez.

Just hours after the news about Jose Reyes' pending stint on the DL filtered down to the players at Tradition Field, it was business as usual as spring training continued in earnest.

There wasn't too much of note coming out of the 8-2 defeat to the Boston Red Sox.  But here are a few pieces of information to consider when you're looking to whet your appetite now that today's game with the Twins has been rained out.

Starting Pitching

Take yourself back to that fateful Thursday October night in 2006 when Flushing was the center of the baseball world, Shea Stadium was filled to capacity and the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals battled in the seventh and final game of the National League Championship Series.

Hector Noesi was signed by the Yankees out of the Dominican Republic in 2005 and debuted in the Gulf Coast League at 19-years-old in 2006. He promptly missed most the 2007 season after undergoing Tommy John Surgery.

Noesi is a guy who, due to his age and injuries, managed to stay away from the prospect radar before the 2009 season.

Looking at his 50 or so innings in 2008, it wouldn't have been far-fetched to predict greater success for Noesi in 2009. He was absolutely dominant in 2008, striking out over ten batters per nine innings while walking less than two.