Hochevar to the bullpen. There is a God!!!!!!

So I've heard a few casual fans around my neck of the woods talk about how the Giants are being disrespected because people have the Dodgers as favorites for the division, or because Washington is the favorite in the NL, with perhaps Cincinnati or St. Louis even ahead of the Giants.

Am I wrong for not buying it? I think those other teams probably SHOULD be ranked higher than the Giants. Tons of questions in the rotation, the offense still isn't a juggernaut by any means...

Should I be giving my own team a little more credit?

In the NL I think the favorites are Washington, Cincy and LA, but each division has a second strong contender in ATL, StL and San Fran. Should be a fun season and the wild card race is going to be brutal.

I don't get it when people get upset because people aren't picking their team as the best team in their predictions. It is not like it has any impact on what happens on the field. Be happy if your team is good and who gives a shit if Buster Olney thinks your team is going to win the NL West?

Carlos Gomez gets an extension to stay in Milwaukee. 4 years, around $27 million

Normally, yes. The argument here is that the Giants have won the World Series two of the last three years.

I know he's had trouble with runners in scoring position in the past, but I wonder if he would make a decent closer. Pitch one inning, balls to the wall, as hard as he can.

yeah, how else do you explain Jeremy Guthrie getting a 3 year deal and Dayton Moore remaining gainfully employed.

Glad the WBC gets to showcase the joke that is Angel Hernandez. This guys strike zone is ridiculous.

Damn you Kimbrel!!!

What exciting baseball!

USA down to their final three outs, down a run. Adam Jones, Victorino, and Rollins due up...

Jones works the count full, then JC Romero K's him. One down.

Victorino gets pwned on 3 pitches. All comes down to J-Roll

And that's it. Puerto Rico advances. USA may win a World Cup before they win a WBC. Just kidding....kinda..

Does anyone know if McCutchon was invited. Rather him than Victorino and probably Jones too.

USA just isnt a baseball country i guess

This just in: MLB owners just as much of a group of scumbags as NFL owners.

MLB owners want to abolish pensions of personnel, sources say - ESPN New York

They tried to keep it under wraps that they were going to be holding a vote to scrap pensions for people other than big league uniform wearers in May. In an era of multi billion dollar local TV Contracts (over many years, yes), this is penny-pinching idiocy.

I would imagine most would still have retirement or as former players, still have a pension, no?

..Major League Baseball owners, despite boasting $8 billion in annual revenue and climbing, are moving toward eliminating the pension plans of all personnel not wearing big league uniforms, sources told ESPNNewYork.com....

The potential impact of eliminating the pension plan would affect much of the MLB family: front-office executives, trainers, minor league staff and scouts. Some of those personnel, particularly on the minor league level and in amateur scouting, make less than $40,000 a year and rely on pensions in retirement.

Yeah, he just has a mean sense of humor: "Hah! Have him non-tendered in the offseason so the money can be spent on a 2B? Bah! No, we'll make sure Moore still thinks he has value but only enough to make him a $4.5M middle reliever!"

Here's the thing about Hochevar: he's got good stuff. It's the million dollar arm, ten cent head problem. He's never going to be anything but bad for the Royals. But with the right pitching coach, I think he could be a serviceable middle to back of the rotation guy for a few years. But he badly needs a change of scenery and mentality. Or he could never figure it out

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We'll see. I think the bullpen may be a good change for him. Come out and throw a couple innings balls-to-the-wall rather than trying to ease into several innings. Pretty big wake up call for him that his honeymoon period is quickly closing. He's going to be lucky to make $2M going forward if he doesn't show progress this year.

Since he melts into a puddle of crap any time there's a runner on, sending him into clean innings is his only real role. I expect he'll pitch well and replace Chen when he gets injured, melt down (again), and be released when Duffy is ready to come back from TJ surgery.

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Rumor is Aroldis Chapman is going back to closing, although Dusty and Walt Jocketty are denying any decision has been made.

Either way, I still kinda hate the Jonathan Broxton contract. But especially if Chapman ends up as a closer again.

Sounds good. :)

I had Chapman set as one of my starters on my fantasy team, and I also have Axford, Romo and Grilli on my team (as well as Jansen in a "he could end up as a closer" situation). I really don't need Chapman to go to the pen. :/

There's no harm in trying him for a month or two. If it doesn't work send him back to the pen, but if it does work he could be Randy Johnson.

I heard Chapman wants to close. Whic is weird, because I thought he said last year he wanted to start.

If the regular season match-ups between the Rangers and the Angels are anything like last night's spring training game, they are going to be immensely entertaining.

Scout on Cubs: They could build a monster | CSN Chicago

I want to believe. Not expecting much from 2013, but really hoping that the Theo rebuilding plan is going to transpire the way all the ESPN Insider authors expect.

Halladay supposedly showing Jaime Moyer-like velocity.

Shoot me now.

Not sure where to put this but I'll ask here.

First fantasy baseball draft coming up in a few hours. Never done one live.

Are there any tips for a baseball draft that I should know beforehand?

Offense the first four to five rounds, don't draft pitchers over 31 years of age, and go for pitchers with k/bb ratios of at least 2 to 1 with homers per 9 of less than 1. You can pick up a lot of great young pitchers that way. Don't worry about saves too much either.

So the Angels finally got a sucker to take Vernon Wells off their hands. I don't see what Wells offers the Yankees or anyone for that matter. Certainly not worth $13 million over 2 years. He's not even worth $1 million over 12 years. Don't understand that one at all.

Play SS to start the season? ;)

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I'm thinking Wash, Atl, Cincy, SF, LA in NL with Cincy winning the pennant. All I got in AL is Det and Angels.

Thanks. I don't think it was a total dumpster fire, but shit started going real fast and I got kind of confused lol.

My bench was filled out just by complete sleepers. Probably should have thought that out better.

http://i.imgur.com/VygBkXs.png

Roto league:

R, H, HR, SB, OBP, SLG
IP, SV, K, ERA, WHIP, QS

Brewers are signing Kyle Lohse, aka Jeff Suppan v2.0

It will improve the rotation this year at least (which isn't saying a whole lot)

I don't really understand that signing but whatever

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I guess he counts little against next years tax. Our heroes are supposedly paying 12m this year and 1m next.

Well, from the perspective of right now, the Brewer rotation was shaping up to be pretty bad behind Gallardo. This will help right now. And comparing Lohse to Suppan is not fair to Lohse because he is definitely better than Suppan. I'm just not sure the rest of the pitching will be good enough to contend even with Lohse (The offense is a playoff caliber offense).

My biggest thing is losing that first round pick AND having Lohse around for three years, starting at age 34.

I'd still only put the Brewers around 80 wins right now and it'll take a lot of good fortune for this pitching staff to get them into the playoffs.

I don't know about the dollars/years but for this season I think it's a good move for them. Takes a little pressure off the younger guys in the rotation and surely makes the staff better. Still don't think it's gonna be enough but at least they're trying.

http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1298453

Basically Wells earns up to a 2m luxury tax credit next year. If he can juice it up enough to be average, I like it.

Watched the Royals win their 22nd spring training game last night on TV. It's a franchise record. When you've had as bad of a run as our team has had, this is pretty exciting. Hell, Luke even looked good out of the bullpen, striking out a couple batters in the 9th to finish it off.

Ready for opening day to see if it the success continues into the regular season.

BREAKING NEWS: Brewers sign Yuniesky Betancourt.

Now I can finally say that a playoff berth is within grasp.

So he's now gone from KC to MIL to KC to MIL over the last 4 seasons.

Did either of these teams really see enough to want to bring him back for a 2nd go around?

Thankfully at this point it's just a right-handed bat off the bench that can play three infield positions. The problem is that the Brewers brought in Betancourt because that means Alex Gonzalez will probably be getting the bulk of the playing time at first base while Corey Hart is down. Gonzalez makes a decent shortstop offensively where the bar is set much lower, but that kind of offense doesn't cut it at first base.

If Gonzalez is the plan at first base (which I disagree with, something better has to be out there), that left Donnie Murphy (career line of .205/.270/.373) as the utility man. I guess Yuni's career .266/.292/.392 line is a little more palatable than Murphy, but not by much.

Thankfully, Jean Segura is looking like he'll make a fine shortstop. So long as Ron Roenicke doesn't get some stick up his ass about Yuni having some low sample success against certain pitchers and throwing him in the lineup over Segura more than he should.

Johnathan Sanchez is supposedly the pirates #4 starter. This is probably not going to end well. Plus we kept Brandon Inge.

Do not get me started on Yuni

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I know one already has its own thread but two awesome bits of baseball news (that I couldn't resist putting next to each other):

Tim McCarver to step down from Fox after season - Yahoo! Sports

Lehigh Valley IronPigs' ballpark to feature interactive urinal game - ESPN

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