Opinion

With April 1st and the start of the 2013 baseball season just a few short days away, the Philadelphia Phillies have checked off quite a few items on their offseason to-do list and are closer to figuring out what their roster will look like for the regular season.

The team took care of a few housekeeping items by naming Cole Hamels the Opening Day starter, and by demoting Darin Ruf, it got a few steps closer to figuring out the outfield situation.

On Friday night, Stanford ace Mark Appel beat Utah in front of a contingent of eagle-eyed scouts who were closely watching Appel in preparation for the 2013 MLB draft.

With just over a week separating us from Opening Day, we're seeing rosters start to take shape as teams make their cuts and send promising prospects off to their minor league assignments.

There are a great deal of teams that have the potential to make a run at a championship in 2013, but some other teams aren't quite so lucky.

If there’s one young hitter capable of making a successful jump from Double-A to the major leagues, it’s Oscar Taveras.

This is a preemptive article. I don't know when the next "What would George Steinbrenner do?" lamentation is going to come. Or why, for that matter.

What I do know is that we certainly haven't heard the end of these lamentations. I also know that the question itself is all wrong. It's not what The Boss would do.

If it became a movie, Cliff Lee's Philadelphia story would be a romantic comedy with scenes of brilliant light and unbearable darkness.

The first time the Phillies dealt for Lee, in 2009, the deal was viewed as "adding another top starter to join Cole Hamels," per ESPN.com.

This spring, the Seattle Mariners have been, dare I say, entertaining. 

As an organization, there are quite a few positive signs to point toward for the future, but what about this season?

With a mix of youth and experience, the team seems keen on taking a positive step forward toward competing in the American League West.  

The Yankees have officially brought back a former ace pitcher.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports and WFAN broke the news on Friday night that the Bombers will sign Chien-Ming Wang to a deal.

#yankees agree to terms w/ wang

It's on in Southern California. The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels have built themselves up into two of the biggest landmarks on the MLB landscape, and this looks like the year their rivalry could take the next step.

Or, to put it in Michael Bay terms, this could be the year when [bleep] gets real between the Dodgers and Angels.

[Explosions. Guitar solo. Bad reviews. Big box office showing anyway.]

Hearing the term "Four-A" player is supposed to be a nice way of saying that someone is a bust, but when you really stop to think about it, it actually comes off sounding worse. 

The term Four-A player has been used forever in Major League Baseball, as a simple way of talking about a prospect that could rake in Triple-A only to get called up to The Show and look like Tony Romo in a late-season game for the Dallas Cowboys.