It's Only April

Well, as the season begins next week, here are a few thoughts about the preseason:

Of course, spring training means very little, but the Dodgers look awful. Billingsley looks worse than he should, groin injury or no, and Kershaw, Kuroda, Wolf and McDonald have more question marks than the Riddler's green tights. Their bullpen looks like crap. Offensively, Ethier, Furcal and Hudson don't seem themselves, but I'm not too worried. With Manny, they should be somewhat of an offensive force, providing Kemp, Ethier, Martin & Loney all hit. Still think it's a shame Blake DeWitt, whom I think is ready to be a star, will likely be sent to Triple A to get at bats. Casey Blake will play 3rd, make very few errors and hit a few dongs, while batting around .270, approach 85 RBI, but will strike out a ton with runners on base and have long streaks of futility. DeWitt, if given the chance, would do more, I think. So, how will the West be won? Well, the Giants have some great pitching. The key to the Giants, however, will be the bat of young corner infielder, Pablo Sandoval and left fielder, Fred Lewis. Even if Sandoval has an Evan Longoria-type year, and even with Lincecum, Cain, et al on the mound, I don't see the weak-hitting Giants winning the division. But they can come close. The Dodgers needed to replace Derek Lowe's arm and they just didn't. Who knows? Their young pitching staff can end up making Ned Colletti look like Billy Beane and remind us of the young A's staff from a few years back, with Zito, Hudson, Mulder or they could be ... not as good. My gut tells me that, in spite of Manny signing and the Giants' fine pitching, the Snakes might well be the team to beat in that division. They definitely seem ready. With Webb and Haren, they still have the best 1-2 in the division, maybe the league. Lot riding on the bats of Justin Upton & Chris Young, the health of Eric Byrnes. I'll get back to you in a few days, as, this time of year, my feelings fluctuate like the Arizona desert breezes.

The WBC is thankfully over and congrats to the Asians. The Japanese outlasted the Koreans and the US went back to their training camps. No, the WBC shouldn't just be about the Americans winning it all, but we certainly can field a better team and I think we owe it to the world to play harder. Thus, the games must have more meaning and that's pretty hard to accomplish when there's a season coming up and so much money involved. I still say you play the games in indoor stadiums immediately after the Word Series, or, even better, every 4 years, you extend the All Star Break to 2 and a half weeks. You play the All Star game on Monday night and you send your WBC team off to play immediately thereafter. The players are in the middle of their season, so they're going to be at their best and they run the same risk of getting hurt that they run in March, except they should be in better shape in July. Also, there's no March Madness, NBA, NHL or NFL to distract fans from the event. So what if the Word Series extends to the 2nd week of November? It's only every 4 years. To me, it's a no-brainer.