Opinion

The ballot for the 2010 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame was announced on Friday, and 26 players will be waiting on the phone call to join the most elite group in baseball.

Success follows John McDonough wherever he goes.

McDonough, the current president of the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, previously spent a quarter of a century as a rising executive with the Cubs. During that space of time, McDonough's revolutionary ideas changed the entire face of the Cubs' franchise.

From 1983 to 2007, the North Siders had nine winning seasons, as many as they had previously compiled since 1940. They attained the post-season five times, as many as they had made since 1919. 

So in case you had not heard, the fellow nerds of baseball prospectus, beyond the box score, fangraphs, and the like really lost their ability to complain about their annual insane individual award vote.

Greinke won the AL Cy Young over Sabathia (in fact, Sabathia wasn't even No. 2), Mauer won the AL MVP over Teixeira, and all was right in the world.

In terms of baseball and its history defining the greatest hitter of all-time is an extremely difficult task. The reason for this is that there are two types of hitters: One is a contact hitter and the other is a power hitter.

For a contact hitter there goal is to get on base anyway possible whether it's taking a walk, using their speed to get on with a bunt, splitting the gaps for a double or triple, and occasionally a home run.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are rapidly approaching a breaking point within the front office. 

Yesterday, I detailed how Frank McCourt's diminishing bank account could have a pulverizing effect on the Dodgers' organization. 

Which brings me to Mark Cuban, the possible savior for the future of the club. 

I keep reading and hearing from both Cubs fans and the media alike that Jeff Baker is likely to be the starting second baseman for the Cubs in 2010. If that happens, I think it will be a mistake.

You see, Baker has never done anything outside of Coors Field. It would be a leap of faith by Cubs general manager Jim Hendry to expect Baker to post the same numbers over a full season as he did during his time with the team in 2009.

With things so quiet on the trade front, you have to assume that the winter meetings will start the momentum of the offseason going—someone will overpay for a reliever that had a career year or a position player that was great two years ago but has been injured since.  The question for us is, what will Jim Hendry do?

The off-season is a funny time for baseball fans, especially when your pro football team is not setting the world on fire.

Following last year's World Series win by the Philadelphia Phillies, one player stood out in my mind in the off-season: Chase Utley.

In their six-game loss to the New York Yankees last season, Utley again stood tall.

Crowd cheering, chest-pounding, fire-eating, kill your best starter, hide your momma, where's Obama, we ain't lying performance.

While some writers might think decent relievers are worthy of MVP votes, I tend to disagree. OK, to be fair, it was just one writer. Still, how anyone could think Jeremy Affeldt was the 10th most valuable player in the National League is something I find to be utterly ridiculous.

You have to wonder if Theo Epstein knew Toronto was going to sign Alex Gonzalez and just let it happen, or if he was blindsided by it?