The Advanced Scout – Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout cries in his beer while analyzing the Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout – Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout gets ready for a Ron Swanson dinner and analyzes the Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout – Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout has a heavy heart as he analyzes the Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout – Baltimore Orioles

The Advanced Scout grabs a bag of peanuts and a cold one and analyzes the Baltimore Orioles.

Know Thy Enemy 2012: Baltimore Orioles

Who else were you expecting for us to pick to finish last in the American League East?

And the Season Begins…

And the season begins… There’s no doubt the bureaucrats “got it right” on this one – pairing the league’s biggest rivals in the 2010 MLB opener. All signs point to a classic, fit with a marquee pitching matchup, palpable hatred on both sides, and the two best teams from the past decade kicking off the new one. Josh Beckett takes the hill against C.C. Sabathia as the two AL East juggernaughts begin their annual battle for divisional supremacy. Get to your TV at 8:00 pm sharp – or 6 pm if you’re like me in the Mountain Time Zone – and prepare to watch baseball at its finest. Keys of the Game Starting Pitcher Coming off a strong spring, striking out 22 in 19.1 innings while walking just 5, Beckett certainly has the edge over Sabathia, who has looked sluggish in 18.2 IP thus far (15 K, 8 BB). Though spring stats are rarely an indication of long-term success, they are a good indicator of a hurler’s readiness at the season’s onset. If C.C. continues to struggle with his command, he could be in for a long night. Expect Beckett to be sharp as the team gets off to an early lead in the first few innings.

Injury concerns could sink Yankees in 2010

With Opening Night tomorrow pitting arguably Major League Baseball’s most heated rivalry and two best teams, the seemingly around-the-clock sports media coverage has dissected the match up from nearly all angles. One that has not gotten as much coverage as Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes in the rotation or the Red Sox run prevention, but could be the deciding factor after 162, is which team can keep their stars on the field and out of the trainer room.

Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus has a system that measures a player’s probability of spending time on the disabled list. It is color-coded -- red, yellow, or green -- with red being highest risk of injury. As Carroll states: “I don't try to predict the location of the injury or the severity. Instead, it's binary: either a player hits the DL at some point during the year, or he doesn't.”

AL East Sleepers: New York Yankees

For a team that won the 2009 league championship while standing atop the AL East leaderboards for much of the past decade, the team would seem, at first glance, bereft of sleepers. Not so, however, even for these ’09 defending champions. A favorite even at this early juncture in Spring Training, the club could get even better by the time the season rolls around. SP/RP Phil Hughes Hughes is – and for quite some time has been – one of the best young pitchers in affiliated baseball. It was not so long ago – three years to be exact – that Phil Hughes was the best pitching prospect in the game, edging out Cincinnati’s Homer Bailey for that honor. Though hamstring injuries and bouts of wildness slowed down his progress during the ’07 and ’08 campaigns, Hughes came back with a vengeance last season, reminding all bystanders why he was once such a highly touted prospect. Still just 23 years old, the Yankees owe it to Hughes and to themselves to give the hurler another shot at a full-time rotation gig. Worth 2.2 wins last season, that number could easily swell to four or five if he pitches up to his potential...

Is Casey Kotchman our best bet at first?

As comprised today, Boston has two choices when it comes to filling it's first/third hole: Slide Youkilis over to third and commit to Nick Johnson as first-baseman... or leave the window open for Beltre with the expectation that Kotchman ends up at first. The question is: Is Nick Johnson appreciably better than Casey Kotchman based on actual value? To me, it's a rather simple answer: No. Casey Kotchman is the better option than Nick Johnson.

Arbitration and it’s impact on the Red Sox

The arbitration tender deadline has come and gone, and unsurprisingly, many players were not tendered arbitration contracts they had the right to accept or reject. Also unsurprisingly, Boston offered arbitration to its two eligible players: Jason Bay and Billy Wagner. Let's run through the implications for offering arbitration to the two, and then take a look at players who's possible Boston future was impacted by their club's decision.