Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

It looks like rookie Geovany Soto will be the Opening Day starter for the Cubs. Two thoughts on this. First you have to wonder how having a rookie catcher will impact the effectiveness of the pitching staff. People who know praise catchers like Jason Varitek for their ability to handle pitchers and call games. I'm not sure how much stock I put into that but it will be an interesting situation to monitor especially since team ace Carlos Zambrano is a bit of a head strong player who could use some "handling". The second thing to mention is the fact that Soto seems VERY good with the bat. He had 26 HR and hit .353 in 110 games for Iowa last season. He could be an excellent fantasy baseball sleeper pick.... I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Matt Stairs. In the off-season Stairs coaches hockey for John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Maine. You know that has to resonate with Toronto GM JP Riccardi who when he was with the Oakland A's used to spend his off-seasons coaching high school basketball for Holy Name in Worcester, Mass... The experts are pegging the NL Central to be a two team race between the Cubs and Brewers (the Cubs are 10 to 11 favorites to win the NL Central while the Brewers odds are pegged at 9 to 5). The Brewers should be much better defensively this year. The three areas of concern I'd have for the Brewers are Eric Gagne as closer (first he blew-up in Boston and then he gets his name in the Mitchell Report); the starting pitching depth and finally the contract status of JJ Hardy. The team and Hardy have until February 18th to work out a deal before it goes to arbitration. Hardy is asking for $3 million and the team counters with a $2.4 million offer. I'm guessing that a deal is reached within the next week but you never know. If the Brewers let this go to arbitration the lingering bad feelings could be a cloud over the start of the season.