Thanks for this..its a big help. Hope you don't mind me posting some notes here..I was going to create a new thread but seen you had this posted. Plus most of these notes are from those articles..so not sure this is adding anything helpful but I will post anyway. These are from a fantasy baseball site. Each short headline item is followed by a blurb from the site:
The Mariners will open the season with a lineup of: RF Ichiro, CF Randy Winn, 2B Bret Boone, LF Raul Ibanez, DH Edgar Martinez, 1B John Olerud, SS Rich Aurilia, C Dan Wilson, 3B Willie Bloomquist.
Manager Bob Melvin gave Bloomquist the nod over Jolbert Cabrera because Jamie Moyer tends to induce a lot of ground balls to third. Cabrera should see the greater share of the time while Scott Spiezio is out. Some of us would still like to see the Mariners experiment with a top of the order of Winn, Olerud, Ichiro, Boone, but that doesn't appear likely.
Relief pitcher Jeff Zimmerman will undergo surgery Wednesday in San Francisco to free a trapped nerve in his right forearm.
Zimmerman also may need to have some scar tissue removed around the area where he had Tommy John surgery in 2002. Doctors, however, can't do both procedures at the same time, so he may face another surgery in two weeks or so. As such, there's no timetable yet for a return.
John Patterson has won the No. 5 spot in the Montreal rotation.
He'll follow Livan Hernandez, Tomo Ohka, Zach Day, and Claudio Vargas, and is worth a flyer in deep NL-only leagues.
Orlando Cabrera will hit cleanup for the Expos until Nick Johnson returns.
After that, he'll move to No. 5. Jose Vidro will man the No. 2 slot this season. Cabrera will be one of the NL's top offensive middle infielders, but his stolen base totals figure to take a dive with his new spot in the batting order.
Manager Ozzie Guillen used Cliff Politte, Billy Koch and Damaso Marte in the ninth inning Monday and expects the trend to continue.
"I'm going to use the guys who have the best opportunity to win the game," Guillen said. "I hope my players understand that. I'm not the type of guy to stick with one hitter or one player." Did Guillen just establish a committee? The Sox may go that route until a clear candidate for closing duties emerges.
Marco Scutaro singled, walked and made a couple of nice plays at second base tonight in Oakland's win.
Scutaro is regarded as the weakest defender of the players in the mix for time at second base, but he showed fine range tonight. As long as he continues to play strong defense, he's the best option to start at second for the A's for the duration of Mark Ellis's absence.
Brian Lawrence, who had an 11.14 ERA in the exhibition season, limited the Dodgers to one run in five innings today.
Don't think that Lawrence's problems are over. He didn't really throw any better today, giving up eight hits and walking two batters in five innings. Fortunately for him, Los Angeles failed time and time again to drive in runs with men on base. The Dodger lineup had 15 hits and walked five times today, yet still only scored two runs, one of which came on a solo homer.
Hideo Nomo was tagged for seven runs over five innings in a loss to the Padres today.
Nomo just isn't going to be very good as long as he continues to top out in the mid-80s. It's worth hanging on to him to see if he'll come around, but don't expect much from him this month.
Kip Wells, who gave up 20 runs in 20 innings this spring, shut out the Phillies for six innings today.
Maybe Wells just needed to get out of Florida. He led the NL in home ERA last season, and he'll be tied for the league lead in the category after today.
Joe Borowski pitched a scoreless ninth today to record a save, but he looked shaky while doing it.
Borowski was throwing just 86 mph today, and he wasn't locating well at all, walking back-to-back batters with two outs. We're worried. If you are a Borowski owner without LaTroy Hawkins as a backup, do what you can to correct that problem.
D'Angelo Jimenez went 3-for-4 with a walk today as the Reds' leadoff man.
Manager Dave Miley gave some thought to using Ryan Freel as the leadoff hitter when he was in the lineup, but keeping Jimenez there is the right move. The second baseman had a .365 OBP after joining the Reds last year.
Larry Walker is back in Denver getting treatment for his strained groin muscle.
Walker is eligible to be activated Saturday, but the setback he experienced with the injury late in spring training has brought added caution. "He has to be 100 percent - no soreness at all - before we're going to let him hit," said trainer Tom Probst.
