Opinion

Joe Mauer is a very good baseball player.

Being awarded the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award solidifies the obvious.

Despite missing the first month of the season due to a back injury, he put together a solid season while setting career highs in numerous categories. 

His numbers are not eye popping. They are solid numbers from a teammate, who led a club many wrote off once 2006 MVP Justin Morneau was shelved for the remainder of the season.

Clay Buchholz is the pride and joy of the Boston Red Sox’s farm system.

With a minor league record of 31-14 with a 2.42 ERA, a 1.00 WHIP, and a 4.05 K/BB ratio, it was clear that Buchholz was destined for glory even before he hurled a no-hitter in his second career Major League start.

The Red Sox think very highly of him—so highly, in fact, that GM Theo Epstein lost out on chances to acquire Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Adrian Gonzalez because of his unwillingness to part with Buchholz.

Geovany Soto entered the 2008 season as a player with a ton of upside potential, having made his presence felt in a 2007 cup of coffee (.389, 3 HR in 54 AB).  Having lived up to his potential, owners entered 2009 thinking that he was easily a top five catcher in all formats, taking him early in drafts to ensure they got production out of a position that generally doesn’t offer much.

Unfortunately, saying that he fell flat would be an understatement.  His season was a disaster, with inability and injury holding him to a line of:

As any Mets fan can tell you, the Amazins have several holes that need to be filled before taking the field in 2010.  A couple more starting pitchers, a first baseman, left fielder, catcher, setup man...phew.

Looking at the free agent market, most of these holes can be easily filled through signing the available players.  There's starting pitchers available such as John Lackey, Joel Pineiro, and Jason Marquis, left fielders such as Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, and catchers such as Bengie Molina and Yorvit Torrealba. 

What place will the Baltimore Orioles fall in 2010?  More than 80 wins could be a start. 

Of course there is room for optimism.  Every fan has that in the offseason.  Hoping there club can make the right moves to drive his or her home team to the playoffs.

The reality of the situation is that the Orioles haven’t had a winning record since the late '90s.  This discourages top tier free agents from coming to Baltimore. 

This Article Originally Appeared on Friar Forecast

Joe Mauer won his first career American League MVP in an almost unanimous decision today. 

Albert Pujols—barring some sort of disgusting error by the BBWAA—will win his second consecutive National League MVP trophy early tomorrow afternoon. 

Both players are phenomenal talents that played at the highest level throughout the season and were clearly the most valuable player in their respective league. 

Just take a look at the raw numbers for each player:

Pujols: .327/47/135/1.101 OPS

Mauer: .365/28/96/1.014 OPS

The free agency period is now upon us, so we have been hearing lots of talk about Type-A and Type-B free agents and draft pick compensation…and the discussion leaves some people wondering what is all means.

For those of you who think you need an abacus to figure it all out, let’s see if I can help simplify it a little bit for you.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say the Red Sox sign John Lackey…and let’s say they lose Jason Bay to the Mariners and sign Jermaine Dye to fill the void left when Bay leaves. The question begs: which teams would get what compensation, and why?

With rumors spreading and the off-season well under way, I felt it was time to discuss a few of potential moves for the Chicago Cubs.

The most talked about rumor of the off-season would likely be the possibility of bringing in current Detroit Tigers center-fielder, Curtis Granderson. The Tigers have expressed interest in dealing a few of their players in order to dump salary, and Granderson could definitely be one of those players.

So apparently the Dodgers are in the mix for an ace named Roy Halladay.

Bloggers, writers, panelists, and commentators across the country are all leaning towards a "no deal" mentality especially if it means trading Chad Billingsley or Clayton Kershaw.

Why?

POTENTIAL.

–adjective
1. possible, as opposed to actual: the potential uses of nuclear energy. 
2. capable of being or becoming: a potential danger to safety.

via www.Dictionary.com