The World Champion Phillies think they will be stronger with Raul Ibanez instead of Pat Burrell in left field. Spring Training is officially underway, and all is right with the world again. That means it’s time for us to step up our baseball coverage, starting with the completion of our free agent...

Links for Friday... The Rays signed three to minor league deals: Jason Childers , Jeremy Cummings , and Chris Richard . I chatted on the phone with Jesse Spector of the New York Daily News yesterday. ESPN's Keith Law suggests the best fits for the top five free agents. Dave Cameron thinks the Cardin...

I think I’ll have to call this the “I don’t believe what I just saw” game. Moehler pitched 6 innings - 73 pitches, 50 strikes, giving up 1 walk, 1 HBP, 4 hits, 1 HR, 3 K, 3R/2ER. Really he could have pitched longer, he did quite well in the 6th, but it was a tie game and the...

Brandon Backe brought his A game fer SHER. He gave up a 335′ pop-up into the Crawford Boxes, a double off the LF bullpen wall and 3 singles and a walk and 6 K over 7.1 innings. He threw 105 pitches, 72 strikes. Of those 72 strikes, 16 were looking, 16 were swinging, 19 were fouls, 15 were GO/F...

Roy Oswalt once again had a great deal of difficulty locating all of his pitches. He had a nice quick 1,2,3 first inning, but after that, oh Lord, he couldn’t get control of any pitch. The pitches that were in the strike zone were mid plate and up. The Phillies hit him all OVAH the field - dee...

Remember a few days back, when Hunter Pence went 0-5 with a sombrero, but hit a walk off homer in his last AB? Well, Carlos Lee looked B A D all day long, weak grounders, 2 Ks. And in the 7th inning, he looked like he might as well have been a little leaguer wildly swinging at 4 sliders after Manny ...

Thank goodness my Mama has a computer because I am going crazy without one of my own. At least I have a TV so I can watch the games… So anyway, Chris Sampson should have won his first game of the year. He pitched REALLY well and of the few times he left the ball up, 3 were fouled off, Michael...

Well, it IS just spring training and we ARE only talking small sample sizes, but let’s take a look…  It’s going to be interesting to see if Cooper is going to stick to his initial plan of batting Matsui second and Pence 6th, and it is going to be even MORE interesting to see where...

The other day I mentioned an old article at Ducksnorts that talked about a bunch of big leaguers I saw before they reached the Show. Well, I found another article with more players. Some highlights: [Mets infielder Ty] Wigginton, a second baseman, reminded me a bit of Braves prospect Marcus Giles, a...

I’ve noticed that there are hardly any cases that have to go to arbitration any more, which is a good thing. I always thought it was a very bad idea for a team to have to badmouth a player in front of him. Anyway, the Astros agreed to a 1 year 1.3 mill contract with Geoff Geary and a 4.135 mil...