It's time to start looking at fast starts

The first month of the season has gotten away from me.
It has been a busy time -- with hockey and basketball coverage, the Final Four, my wedding and by my count so far five Rangers games and eight RoughRiders.
I've had an unusual Friday and Saturday off from any pro sports coverage -- though I did watch parts of the Stars and Rangers games, and the end of Blues-Blackhawks last night after a lengthy nap.
I'll be back at it Sunday with Stars playoff game six, Monday with Mavericks playoff game four, Tuesday with possibly high school softball playoffs and Wednesday with Rangers-Athletics.
Sunday also will be the end of Week 4 of the 26-week major league season.
My rule of thumb for fantasy baseball is not to make major moves until the season is five weeks old, so now is the time for me to be thinking about some possible moves.
My teams, by the way, are scuffling in the middle of the pack in all three leagues. I expect to have more specifics for you Monday after I've compiled the Week 4 stats.
After five weeks, I believe there is enough information to make informed decisions about which veterans might be losing it, which rookies are more than a flash in the pan and which players may have physical ailments that are holding them back and could cost them playing time.
If you go to mlb.com these days, you can find information encouraging you to vote for the All-Star starters. To me, it's too early to do something like that.
Remember the outrage last year when Dodgers OF Yasiel Puig wasn't on the All-Star team? Aside from the fact that about 50 players per league get on the team either from the original selections or as fill-ins for guys who beg out of the game, Puig really didn't belong in the game because his incredibly hot start was just that: a hot start. Small sample size, you know.
His 2014 start, dotted with the kind of inconsistent play and punctuality that seems to bother managers, Puig is batting .263. He has hit three home runs and stolen one base, but that's hardly All-Star caliber.
Here's another guy whose career seems to be going in the opposite direction: Rangers LHP Martin Perez.
I've been seeing him pitch for the last five seasons, mostly in the minors. During that time, Perez has shown flashes of competence, if not brilliance, but mostly inconsistency. That's inconsistent not just from game to game but often from inning to inning.
My opinion of Perez changed with his shutout of the White Sox April 18. It was an easy 12-0 victory, but it was also the first American League shutout or even complete game this season and the kind of game when his concentration might have lapsed in the past. He was economical with his pitches, and he threw ground ball after ground ball.
The AL's next shutout came five days later, when Perez pitched another three-hitter in Oakland. That stretched his winning streak to his last four starts and his scoreless streak to 26 innings. It was a fairly tense 3-0 win; the type of game when in the past one bad inning could have blown up a well pitched game.
Perez has matured, at a time when Texas needed him to shore up an injury-depleted rotation.
Now RHP Colby Lewis is back, if not in mid-season form. LHP Matt Harrison is scheduled for his first start this weekend. I saw him being brilliant in eight scoreless innings in his final rehab start for Double-A Frisco. Granted, it was against Texas League batters, but Harrison's approach was impeccable. In another couple of months, LHP Derek Holland will have recovered from his knee surgery. And until now, this paragraph hasn't included the Rangers' ace, RHP Yu Darvish.
Now, here's a preview of the kinds of things I'll be looking for in evaluating players at the five-week mark.
I look for batters with the best walk:strikeout ratios. The five major league batters with the most walks so far all have walked more often than they have struck out -- Blue Jays OF Jose Bautista 27:18 (or 1.50), Pirates OF Andrew McCutchen 21:16, Indians 3B/C Carlos Santana 20:19, Athletics SS Jed Lowrie 19:10 (1.90) and Reds 1B Joey Votto 19:18.
Three of those are no surprise. Lowrie started fast last season, but faded; he also could be a relatively low-investment shortstop, say if Rockies SS Troy Tulowitzki is injured again. Expect Santana's ratio to decrease. He's batting .133, so his team will expect him to be more aggressive to raise that average. He can't help you much now, but keep in mind that if he begins hitting he also will exercise pretty good strike-zone judgment.
Next in line in walks are Tulowitzki himself at 17:11, and Twins SS Brian Dozier with 17 walks but 24 strikeouts. Dozier impressed me last season as a much better player than I expected until I saw him. He has improbable statistics this year: six stolen bases and seven homers, but a mere nine RBI and a .222 average. He's a player likely to do worse if his team plays well. If Minnesota becomes a contender, pitchers would work him more closely, respecting his power, instead of giving him fastballs to hit in blowouts.
I've also looked at my pitching leading indicators. It's clear that pitchers' K:W ratios are out of whack because of small sample sizes. The leaders are Phillies LHP Cliff Lee 19.00, Yankees RHP Masahiro Tanaka 17.50, Giants RHP Tim Hudson 12.50, Mariners RHP Feliz Hernandez 10.75 and Rays LHP David Price 10.00. If any of them finish the season with ratios even half as high, they would be having an exceptional year. But the early returns indicate that the Yanks and Giants made good off-season signings.
The leaders in opponents' batting average are mixed between top pitchers and likely pretenders: Reds RHP Johnny Cueto .140, Braves RHP Aaron Harang .143, Phillies LHP Cole Hamels .151, somebody's RHP Garrett Richards .155 and Cardinals RHP Adam Wainwright .165.
At the opposite end are mostly some surprising pitchers: Twins RHP Ricky Nolasco .347, Reds RHP Homer Bailey .345, Orioles LHP Wei-chin Chen .330, Twins RHP Kevin Correia .327 and Giants LHP Madison Bumgarner .314. In the next few weeks, expect to see at least two among Nolasco, Bailey, Chen and Bumgarner to go on the disabled list.
The low-end K:W pitchers are Astros RHP Scott Feldman 1.00, White Sox LHP John Danks 1.08, Phillies RHP A.J. Burnett and Twins RHP Kyle Gibson 1.18 and Orioles RHP Ubaldo Jimenez 1.24. Most of them have seen better days than they'll have this season. Gibson is off to a good start he might not be able to maintain with such a low ratio.

Thoughts on Game 5

I’d like to say I saw the Giants coming a year ago.
It was in Scottsdale during spring training, and I was impressed with Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner and a number of young players I saw there. In fact, I saw enough from players such as Sandoval and Fred Lewis and Nate Schierholtz that I predicted San Francisco would have the majors’ most improved offense in 2009.
That turned out to be an oversight, even though Sandoval was one of the National League’s most exciting hitters last season.
Over a period of several years covering spring training in Arizona, I had chances to observe pitchers such as Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum on the field and to talk with them in the locker room. Cain caught me by surprise a few years back. He could pitch, but I had doubts about him because he was so clearly out of shape. Lincecum was pretty much what you see on TV – happy, smiling, bouncing around and leaving us shaking our heads trying to figure out how such a little guy could throw so hard without having his arm come out of its socket.
During the same span, I saw a lot of the Rangers in Arizona and for the last five years back home in Texas. Their arrival was easier to anticipate than the Giants’ youth movement because the Rangers had some spectacular prospects. Most notable were pitchers Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland. There were others – Elvis Andrus, Julio Borbon, Chris Davis, Justin Smoak, Mitch Moreland and a seeming tidal wave of pitching prospects that included Blake Beavan, Tanner Scheppers, Josh Lueke and Michael Kirkman.
My rule of thumb is that if half of the top prospects actually pan out, that’s a good track record. Clearly, and despite Holland’s control breakdown in World Series Game 2, Texas has done player development well.
GM Jon Daniels deserves whatever accolades come his way, and probably more. He traded away a passel of prospects – including Smoak, Beavan and Lueke – to obtain LHP Cliff Lee and C Bengie Molina and RF Jeff Francoeur. Texas also picked up 1B/3B Jorge Cantu and SS Cristian Guzman, whose impact was negligible. But for the most part, Daniels’ prospects-for-proven talent tack worked well.
Again, the Giants’ player moves were more subtle. But in the end, the additions GM Brian Sabean made were more important toward a short-term goal of winning the World Series. A goal that either general manager probably would admit was more dream than reality back in March and April.
Anyway, this year’s Giants picked up retreads and castoffs such as Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell and Cody Ross and Javier Lopez. Mixing those players with the prospects I saw in Arizona in March 2009 proved to be an inexpensive, and winning, combination.
It occurred to me that the Rangers’ trades and the Giants’ deals fell into the two categories I’ve found are successful in fantasy leagues. Those are the Big Deals, bringing in a superstar as represented by Lee, and the Small Moves, improving a team incrementally and with little cost. I won this year in a league I had no business winning because, needing stolen bases, I acquired Scott Podsednik. In a weak division, my team held on even though Podsednik barely played in September.
The Rangers also won in a weak division, but the Giants’ National League West was hardly weak. The Padres (and surprisingly the Rockies) had young starting pitching that could rival San Francisco’s.
In the end, despite the hitting heroics of Ross and Edgar Renteria, pitching won the 2010 World Series.
Casual baseball fans asked me if it was common for a team’s batters to fail as spectacularly as the Rangers’ had. Thinking back to their being swept at home in a four-game series by the Orioles and other offensive breakdowns, I replied that they had several stretches of games when they didn’t hit.
Then I threw out the answer, which was so obvious once it hit me in the face:
The Rangers were facing much better pitching on a consistent basis in the World Series.
While they were compiling the majors’ best team batting average against a steady diet of second-line starters from the Mariners and Angels, and even facing some marginal major league starters in the playoffs against the vaunted Yankees and Rays, the Giants were going to battle every day against top pitchers. Mat Latos, Ubaldo Jimenez, Jorge De La Rosa. In the NLCS, against Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. Far more daunting than a worn-out C.C. Sabathia, a not-quite-there Phil Hughes and an elderly Andy Pettitte.
As I’ve pointed out before, defense played a big role throughout the Giants’ run to their first World Series win since they shocked the invincible 1954 Indians (after all, they beat out the Yankees, the only interruption in their run of 9 pennants in 10 years).
The Rangers’ impatience and all-or-nothing swinging hurt them too.
Both teams had good pitchers, but the Giants’ were clearly better in this series. In a different series, Cliff Lee might win twice over Tim Lincecum.
But in the right now, the difference was a simple case of good pitching beating good (if somewhat flawed) hitting.

Thoughts on Game 1

There were two very obvious warning signs during last night’s game.
1. When the Rangers came to bat in the top of the third leading 2-0, and all three batters hit fly balls for outs without seeing many pitches.
2. When the fifth inning came along and Cliff Lee had thrown about 30 pitches more than Tim Lincecum had.
The first of those sent the message that Rangers batters figured, “With Lee pitching, we have enough runs to win. We don’t have to work to score runs. Let’s just hit the ball as hard as we can.” That’s never a good approach, and even worse on the banks of McCovey Creek.
The second meant that regardless what was going to happen right then, Lee wouldn’t pitch as deep into the game as Lincecum would. It would become a game decided by the bullpens. As it turned out, the pitch count was an indicator of an even worse thing for Texas: The Rangers would lose the game with Lee before the game even got to the relievers.

FYI, this post will be more random thoughts than any coherent, cohesive narrative. I’ll be throwing out the thoughts and in some cases commenting and putting those in perspective.
 The Rangers’ first six lineup positions totaled four hits and five total bases. The 7-8-9 spots contributed seven hits and 10 total bases. That’s not a winning formula, either.
 I have no idea what the over/under was on this game, but if you bet it over, you won easily. In fact, I’m pretty sure you won before both starters were out of the game. I tried to find online a list of the highest-scoring games in World Series history, to no avail. I wouldn’t be surprised if 18 runs ranked among the 20 highest all-time.
 My World Series Preview Email talked about the grossly underrated impact of defense. Ron Washington certainly didn’t read it, or he wouldn’t have gone into a park with a big outfield with starters left to right of Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton and Vladimir Guerrero. Cruz is far better in right – where, if he wanders around under a fly ball into the right position he also can throw out a runner if his throw happens to be accurate. Hamilton is at least average, but not ideal in center field, and by far Texas’ best overall defensive outfielder. There was a time, such as when I saw Guerrero in Double-A a couple of decades ago, when he was a wonderment in right field. Now I wonder what he was doing out there.
 I didn’t watch the game on TV because I’m still on my Fox/Lone Star boycott. But I did “see” what was going on through MLB’s Gameday. That was useful for observing pitch counts and pitching patterns, but I have no idea whether some of those Giants doubles might have been outs or possibly singles with competent outfielders tracking them down. But there’s no mistaking that Guerrero wasn’t capable when he committed his two eighth-inning errors.
 There was a time when I might have dreamed about Freddy Sanchez’s hitting four doubles in a World Series game, but it’s pretty clear that would never happen in a Pirates uniform. Still, good for Freddy, an overlooked good player because of where he has played.
 Here’s a pet-peeve observation. The Rangers added Mark Lowe to their World Series roster. Whether he had struck out the side or pitched as badly as he did, I’d still feel the same way. Namely, that he shouldn’t have been allowed to be on a Rangers postseason roster. He was nowhere near the team before the Sept. 1 roster “deadline.” He pitched a few games after he came off the disabled list during the regular season’s last week. I heard that he had been pitching in the Arizona Instructional League after that, though I’m not sure whether that was the case. It used to be that players had to be on the active roster before Sept. 1 to be eligible for the – well, not playoffs, but World Series. Now it seems that the only requirement is to be somewhere on the 40-man roster, and the major league team can pick and choose from about 20 players for the last few postseason roster spots. Why is it that people now complain about having an expanded roster for September but don’t give a crap who plays in the World Series.
When I’m commissioner, the only players eligible for the postseason will be the 25 on the active roster at the end of Aug. 31, plus those few players on the disabled list then who had been active with the major league team when they were hurt.
Oh, a last point. There’s always overreaction after the World Series’ first game. It’s as if the losing team has no chance.
That attitude has some relevance if the home team loses the opener in a matchup that seems pretty even.
That isn’t the case here. The Rangers lost on the road, where they’re “supposed” to lose. If they win tonight, they’ll actually be ahead of the game – tied 1-1 with three games remaining at home, where they’re “supposed” to win.
I do understand that nearly everyone had Texas penciled, if not inked, in to win because Cliff Lee is “unbeatable” in the postseason and the Rangers were “supposed” to win whenever he pitches. However, he didn’t pitch very Cliffly. So it must be devastating that he lost, right?
Well, no, not really. During the regular season, he had a losing record with the Rangers. Sure, he was 7-0 in his career during the postseason, but could any reasonable person expect him NEVER to lose a postseason decision?
A more damaging sign for either team would be if its bullpen doesn’t pitch any better during the remainder of the series. Also, the Rangers can take heart in having some success against both Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson. Or was that an anomaly?
I lied. I still have one other point to make, and that is about Ian Kinsler’s infuriating nature. Both, or perhaps all three, of the sides to that nature showed up in Game 1.
First, there was the issue of his hitting the first pitch into an inning-ending double play with a run in, the bases loaded and one out in the top of the first. That’s a situation when a batter should be at his most selective, looking for that one pitch that is best for him to hit. Clearly, the best pitch wasn’t the one that Kinsler swung at without seeing any others.
Then in the sixth, he partially redeemed himself by working a walk with a 10-pitch at-bat. Even though the walk came with two out and no one on base, that was a good thing because it drove up Lincecum’a pitch count. It became a better thing when Texas managed to score two runs with two out and drive him from the game.
Finally, Kinsler undid that good on his next plate appearance, when he singled but thought first baseman Aubrey Huff had missed a throw. Ian started toward second base, and Huff tagged him out. That wasn’t an unusual play for Kinsler, a talented player who makes more bone-headed moves than even Nelson Cruz.

Strasburg, Storen sent down by Nationals

The Nationals’ future will remain in the future. They have sent their 2009 first-round-draft-pick right-handers, Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen, to their minor league camp. The expectation is that Strasburg would be in Washington by June and Storen at least by September.
The Dodgers demoted RHP James McDonald a day after he gave up six runs in 1 1/3 innings.
After saying the switch of 3B Chone Figgins to second base and 2B Jose Lopez to third was just an experiment, the Mariners played them both consistently at the new positions. Now the word is that the team will use Figgins at third and Lopez at second on occasion during the remaining exhibitions, but Seattle will almost certainly have Figgins in the middle of the infield and Lopez on the hot corner on Opening Day.
A bigger problem for the Mariners could be OF Milton Bradley. He has been ejected from his last two exhibition games for seemingly minor infractions. The question is whether his reputation has preceded him and put him on a short leash, or that there was more to the ejections than meets the eye and they’re a bad sign for the volatile player.
Game time:
The Padres again had RHP Mat Latos and LHP Wade LeBlanc starting in separate split-squad exhibition games. Again, they both pitched very well, almost identically. In a 4-1 victory over the White Sox, Latos lowered his ERA to 1.93 with a pitching line of 521105. The run came on a home run by OF/1B Andruw Jones. In a 5-1 victory over the Dodgers, LeBlanc lowered his ERA to 1.93 with a pitching line of 511113. The run came on a home run by 2B Ron Belliard after LeBlanc had thrown 4 2/3 hitless innings. San Diego will separate their days to pitch because it’s pretty clear that they’ll both make the season-opening rotation.
The day was full of outstanding pitching performances, with seven shutouts. Our Cy Young Award for the Day goes to Cubs RHP Carlos Zambrano, whose line was 530024 in a 4-0 win over the Royals.
In the other shutouts, RHP Felix Hernandez’s line was 520012 as the Mariners defeated the Diamondbacks 4-0 using home runs by OFs Franklin Gutierrez and Ryan Langerhans against RHP Dan Haren; RHP Tim Wakefield was in mid-season form with a line of 520023 in a 6-0 victory over the Orioles; RHP Todd Wellemeyer’s line of 540023 was plenty good enough in the Giants’ 6-0 win over the Reds that included 1B Aubrey Huff’s third homer; Twins LHP Francisco Liriano had a line of 330004 in a 6-0 victory over the Rays that could have been worse except for five Tampa Bay double plays including three involving 2B Sean Rodriguez and SS Reid Brignac; the pitcher who says, “Ni,” Tigers LHP Fu-Te Ni, used a line of 320001 to outpitch RHP Roy Halladay to help defeat the Phillies 3-0, and Brewers RHP Yovani Gallardo not only had a line of 540023, but also hit a homer for the only run in their 1-0 win over the Royals.
Athletics Ben Sheets lowered his ERA to 17.28 with a line of 431134 in a 7-4 victory over the Cubs.
The Indians used an eight-run second inning against RHP Jason Jennings to defeat another team of Athletics 12-4. Included was Cleveland DH Travis Hafner’s three-run homer, his second. He won’t be playing regular-season games in Arizona, but if he can have some offensive success that could make the Tribe’s offense pretty potent.
OF Cameron Maybin hit his first two homers, against Nationals RHPs Garrett Mock and Shairon Martis, and RHP Chris Volstad had a line of 561122 in the Marlins’ 5-3 win.
In the Dodgers’ 5-4 victory over the Rangers, RHP Ramon Ortiz’s ERA increased to 1.38 on a line of 452226. He was the winning pitcher in relief of RHP Josh Towers, over Rangers LHP Derek Holland.
The Rockies overcame the Angels 11-10 with five runs in the bottom of the ninth against RHP Juan Mateo and Nick Pugliese. Colorado 2B Eric Young cleared the bases with a triple. In a sloppy game, 2B Clint Barmes had three of the Rockies’ five errors.
The Cardinals defeated the Mets 6-5 on 2B Ruben Gotay’s homer in the bottom of the ninth against RHP Kiko Calero. St. Louis OF Colby Rasmus hit his third homer, a two-run shot against New York RHP John Maine, and Mets rookie 1B Ike Davis also had his third, against RHP Jason Motte.
The Blue Jays’ 7-6 win over the Braves had a last-inning rally typical of what we see in spring training. Toronto scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth, with Michael McDade hitting a game-winning double against RHP Jon Huber. Neither will have an impact in the majors or in fantasy baseball this season.
Injuries:
Mariners LHP Cliff Lee could begin the season on the disabled list because of a lower abdominal strain. Whenever he is ready to pitch, he’s subject to a five-game suspension for throwing at Diamondbacks C Chris Snyder. Lee is appealing the suspension. If he isn’t in the rotation the first time around, LHP Jason Vargas and RHP Doug Fister both are expected to make the rotation. They have been fighting for the fifth starter’s job. Fister left today’s game after Reds 1B Joey Votto hit a line drive off the pitcher’s forearm. The injury has been diagnosed as a bruise.
The Rockies said RHP Huston Street has no structural damage in his sore shoulder. However, he is likely to begin the season on the disabled list, possibly on an injury-rehab assignment. In his absence, LHP Franklin Morales and RHP Manuel Corpas could be Colorado’s closers.
Orioles 2B Brian Roberts (herniated disk) has resumed baseball-related activities.
Giants 3B Pablo Sandoval is expected to be out two days after having five stitches in his right shin to close a cut resulting from a collision at home plate. 3B Ryan Rohlinger will fill in for Sandoval. The news isn’t as good for 2B Freddy Sanchez, recovering from shoulder surgery. He won’t play until late April or early May. Jose Uribe is likely to get most of the playing time at second, but San Francisco also will use LF Mark DeRosa in the infield while Sanchez is out.
Astros CF Michael Bourn is out because of a strained right oblique muscle. Playing in his place, OF Jason Bourgeois stole his fourth base and improved his batting average to .286 in an 8-6 win over the Yankees.
NCAA news and blues:
No, I’m not just bitter because the teams I picked are dropping like flies in the NCAA basketball tournament. I am disappointed in the subjectivity and bias toward big conferences and big programs by the selection committee. If Kansas truly was the No. 1 overall seed, then why did Duke get a road to the Final Four only slightly tougher than Syracuse’s December schedule?
As short as I can make this discussion, the tournament should take one of two paths. 1. Become a tournament of champions, with each conference sending the regular-season champion and the survivor of a post-season tournament excluding the champ to the dance. Who really needs the ninth-place team with a losing record in a major conference to help decide the winner? 2. Let everyone in, using the conference tournaments as preliminary rounds. The tournament champs plus the remaining teams in the losers’ bracket of a double-elimination format would advance. The whole thing would be double-elimination, so the conference tournament champs would have to lose twice to be out. The conference tournaments still would have meaning and produce a champion. The regular season couldn’t be more meaningless than it is now, and it would lead to seedings for the conference tournament.
Sample Scouting Report:
Mat Latos, RHP, Padres
Ht.: 6-5 Wt.: 210 T: R Age: 22 Inj. Risk: 10 Alt. Pos.: SP
{2010} Latos so thoroughly dominated low Class A ball last season, that San Diego jumped him to Double-A San Antonio. After he went 5-1 and made the Texas League All-Star game, they only place for him was to go straight to the majors. Latos made another 10 starts for the Padres before they shut him down in September. He throws a mid-90s fastball complemented by both a slider and a curve. The hulking, multi-tattooed Latos has the potential to become a staff ace in time. He should do just fine this year as well. Born: Dec. 9, 1987, Alexandria, Va. 2009: Padres, 51 IP, 4 W, 4.62 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 0 S, 39 SO.
Projection
IP: 133 W: 11 ERA: 3.92 WHIP: 1.27 S: 0 SO: 105 Value: $5
Wade LeBlanc, LHP, Padres
Ht.: 6-3 Wt.: 200 T: L Age: 25 Inj. Risk: 10 Alt. Pos.: SP
{2010} LeBlanc completely turned around his 2008 season last year. At Triple-A Portland, he had poorer results (4-9) than in ’08, when he won 11 games, but pitched much better (3.87 ERA and 1.16 WHIP). He was pitching well enough that the Padres called him up for nine starts, in which he turned around his 1-3 major league mark from 2008 by knocking more than four runs off his ERA and 89 points off his WHIP. He’s not likely to become an ace because his fastball barely reaches 90 mph. LeBlanc does have a sharp-breaking curve and a changeup not far on this side of Johan Santana’s. Born: Aug. 7, 1984, Lake Charles, La. 2009: Padres, 46 IP, 3 W, 3.69 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 0 S, 30 SO.
Projection
IP: 124 W: 8 ERA: 4.28 WHIP: 1.30 S: 0 SO: 88 Value: $2

First reports of actual spring training activity

The biggest news today as pitchers and catchers made their first official appearances on the playing fields for 12 major league teams came out of Goodyear, Ariz.

That's where Reds LHP Aroldis Chapman, a Cuban defector, said he wasn't throwing at top speed during his 35-pitch workout from a mound. Nevertheless, team officials said they were impressed. What would you expect them to say? They're not going to do anything to suggest that they wasted money on Chapman. Before we get too excited, let's see him against real major league batters.

Speaking of getting overly excited, what's with all the people talking about how wonderful the Mariners are? They'd still have to beat the Angels and the emerging Rangers. And now that Seattle's primary acquisition, LHP Cliff Lee, won't throw until next Wednesday, will there be more overreaction saying the Mariners now don't have a chance?

Meanwhile, don't put too much stock in a pitcher who usually is one of our favorites, Cubs LHP Ted Lilly. He's recovering from arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder, and now may need an MRI exam on his right knee.

Lilly is likely to do better than Nationals LHP Ross Detwiler, who will be out three months following surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right hip.

Pitchers and catchers from the teams that reported today -- with the exception of the Mets, who won't start workouts until Saturday -- will be on the field Friday for the first time.

Another six teams will have their pitchers and catchers reporting Friday.

And on March 2, we'll hear the first exhibition shouts of "Play ball!"