Kuzul

One week in, no wonder the Oriole on Baltimore’s cap and the Dodgers are smiling so big…

1. The Yasiel Puig Experience, Year 4

Seven games, two triples, one homer, four RBI and an 1.154 OPS into a new year, Yasiel Puig is supercharged and making up for lost time.

Is this real, or is it a mirage?

Andrew Friedman, Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations, votes for the former.

When we spoke at the club’s Arizona complex in late spring, Friedman told Bleacher Report that Puig was doing “incredibly well” and that new manager Dave Roberts and the coaching staff were doing “a great job creating a relationship” with Puig and everybody else.

But what really had Friedman optimistic was a Puig interview he read from the Caribbean World Series over the winter.

“He said he wanted to be a better teammate, he just wasn’t sure how,” Friedman said. “It showed a level of vulnerability to me.

“We’ve never questioned his work ethic.”

It does get tired, placing every one of Puig’s moves under a microscope and evaluating his every action daily and in real time.

At 25, he still hasn’t shown the maturity and understanding that the Dodgers hoped to see by now.

But what’s new this year as Friedman and his regime begin their second season is this: Maybe it is the Dodgers now who finally have a better understanding.

“We as an industry, in my opinion, have failed our Cuban players,” Friedman told Bleacher Report. “We sign them for big money and rush them to the big leagues.

“It’s different over there. The preparation. When guys show up [to the ballpark]. The expectations.”

He’s right. When expensive free agents sign from Japan, they get translators from day one. When Latin players and Cubans land in the majors, they’re on their own.

That’s changed this year. To its credit under commissioner Rob Manfred, beginning this season MLB has ordered that Spanish-speaking translators be around full-time for Latin players. Including, yes, the Cuban players.

It seems so elementary, yet like so many things in baseball, it was slow to change.

Where Puig is concerned, Friedman and his assistants took on a lot in their debut season in Los Angeles last summer. Learned a lot along the way, too.

“Last year, obviously you’re mired in what’s going on within your own clubhouse, the 25 guys,” Friedman said. “That said, observing and [having] various conversations with Puig kind of helped enlighten us a little bit, the assumptions that we as an industry have made along the way. And it’s allowed us to evaluate our process with our minor league players and make some changes on the front end to help educate our guys to the uniqueness that is Major League Baseball.”

Chief among them: Because of the significant culture change these players undergo, it helps to assume nothing.

That point was driven home when Friedman read of Puig’s plaintive cry from the Caribbean this winter about wanting to become a better teammate but not knowing how. This came during another tumultuous period in which, among other things, his own teammates were critical of him in a Bleacher Report story.

To Friedman, Puig’s desire to be a better teammate “manifested” itself this spring.

“He’s asking questions and trying to figure out things that are important,” Friedman said. “But at the same time, we’re trying to balance that with not fundamentally changing any of our guys. We want them to be the unique individuals that they are and not strip that individuality.

“But there are certain constructs within the environment of a team that are important.”

Finding that balance continues to be a tricky proposition, and it is one of the most important challenges facing Roberts as he begins his managerial career.

Because of hamstring injuries, Puig only played in 79 games last summer, and his swing was so rusty come October that former manager Don Mattingly benched him during the playoffs.

As 2016 launches, the Dodgers must find a way not to have themselves and Puig in that position again.

2. New Analytics, Orioles Style

From afterthought to undefeated in the first week, what is the Baltimore Orioles’ secret?

For one thing, third baseman Manny Machado, who has the tools to win an MVP award one day, did a pretty good imitation of an MVP in his club’s first five games. He batted .429/.455/.905 with three homers, completely camouflaging the fact that All-Star center fielder Adam Jones missed three consecutive games with sore ribs.

But the chief reason why the Orioles’ 5-0 start (entering Monday) matched the best in club history (since 1954) is that Baltimore starting pitchers ranked second in the majors with a 2.28 ERA over the season’s first week. Chris Tillman, Yovani Gallardo, Ubaldo Jimenez and even Vance Worley all positioned the O’s to win against Minnesota and Tampa Bay.

Meanwhile, Rule 5 pick Joey Rickard started in the outfield on Opening Day, and the last O’s Rule 5 pick to do that? According to STATS LLC, it was none other than Jose Bautista in 2004. Yes, that Joey Bats.

Manager Buck Showalter praised the club’s defense and fundamentals out of the gate, specifically Chris Davis’ productive outs and Mark Trumbo’s extra work in right field.

“We kid around,” Showalter told the Baltimore media, including MASN’s Roch Kubatko, regarding productive outs. “We call them POFOs: Productive Outs for Orioles.

“It’s a new analytics, Orioles-style, I guess.”

3. The Neighborhood: Not So Friendly Anymore

Second baseman Joe Panik and the San Francisco Giants learned quickly last week that the old swipe-your-foot-near-second-base is no longer good enough while turning a double play.

The Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros each suffered losses last week that were directly attributable to the new slide rules at second base.

In the case of the Blue Jays, a sliding Jose Bautista reached out and grabbed the leg of Tampa Bay second baseman Logan Forsythe and was called on it.

In the case of the Astros, Colby Rasmus was called out for interference on a slide in Milwaukee.

That this new rule would create trouble was more predictable than a run at your neighborhood pizza place on a Friday night.

The two most controversial parts: the elimination of the neighborhood play, which has infielders like San Francisco’s Brandon Crawford up in arms, and the “hold your base” part of it that got Rasmus. When sliding into second, runners cannot slide past the bag, even if they start their slide late. If they do, they’re out.

Astros manager A.J. Hinch begrudgingly agreed that umpires had correctly interpreted the rule last week, but he didn’t exactly sound enamored with it:

Managers from the Cubs’ Joe Maddon to the Diamondbacks’ Chip Hale don’t understand why the hold-your-base part of the rule is there, calling for common-sense interpretations when a runner innocently starts his slide late.

Where we’re headed, surely, is toward some subtle adjustments to the rule, much like two years ago when a rule change created confusion on the transfer part of a catch. Suddenly, sure outs after a fielder caught a pop fly were becoming hits when the fielder dropped the ball attempting to transfer it from his glove to his hand when throwing the ball.

One manager with significant input into the rules committee, however, will not lobby for the return of the “neighborhood play” anytime soon.

“If you’re limiting what a player can do by sliding into the bag, there’s no reason to give an advantage to the infielder,” Angels skipper Mike Scioscia said. “It takes a guy who is really proficient at turning the double play and gives a guy who is not proficient at it at all leeway to play at a comparable level.

“You’re neutralizing the effectiveness of the rule, especially now when a runner can’t slide into the fielder.

“I’m glad you have to keep your foot on the bag. It’s baseball.”

4. The Ghost of the No-Hitter

No question, it was deflating when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts removed rookie starter Ross Stripling with one out in the eighth and a no-hitter still intact in San Francisco on Friday night.

It also was the absolute correct move.

No matter how much the tar-and-feathers crowd disagreed on Twitter and other various forms of social media and social talk show radio.

Stripling, 26, had Tommy John ligament transfer surgery two years ago, had never pitched above the Double-A level and started just 14 games last summer.

Friday night in San Francisco, Roberts pulled him at the 100-pitch mark. The velocity on his fastball had dipped a bit; he had issued walks in both the seventh and eighth innings and admitted after the game that he was tired.

He needed five more outs to obtain the no-no. So, realistically, he would have had to run his pitch count up to at least the 120-130 range even had he gotten it.

Sure, it well might have been a once-in-a-lifetime chance. But it’s not like Roberts lifted him just one or two outs away.

Say what you will, but the best validation came to Roberts in the hotel lobby the next day when Stripling’s father approached him.

Roberts told reporters, via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register:

He came up to me and was really kind of emotional and just thanked me from him and his wife for looking out for his son.

When you have a father and a mother who know their kid’s story and what he’s endured to get here, they enjoy that moment more than anyone. For him to say thank you for taking care of my son’s future and our family and I’ll have him and his mom’s support forever – for me, I felt good about it regardless, but to get the parent’s stamp of approval is always a good thing.

Stripling, by the way, was teammates with St. Louis starter Michael Wacha at Texas A&M.

5. Of Managers and Dresses

Interesting response from Toronto skipper John Gibbons when he said “the world needs to lighten up a little bit” the other day.

This was in response to the reaction he elicited a day earlier, after Jose Bautista was called out at second under the new slide rule. Then, he had said, “Maybe we’ll come out and wear dresses tomorrow. Maybe that’s what everyone’s looking for.”

Predictably, Gibbons was slammed for being a sexist Blue Jay.

“It doesn’t offend my mother, my daughter, my wife, who have a great understanding of life,” Gibbons said.

What Gibbons and the slow-starting Blue Jays need right now is a great understanding of how to beat the Yankees and Red Sox this week.

6. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Trevor Story: Rockies hoping for a long Story, not a short Story, as kid shortstop leaps out of the gate with seven home runs in club’s first six games.

2. Bumpus Jones: Only man in history to throw a no-hitter in his first MLB start, with the Cincinnati Reds in 1892. Still standing tall after Dodgers hook Ross Stripling.

3. Second base: New slide rules give second base its moment of glory and cause teenage couples throughout the land to hastily re-evaluate what it means, exactly, in the modern era, to get to second base, third base…

4. Starlin Castro: A Star(lin) is Born in the Bronx as Castro posts 1.326 OPS in first five games as a Yankee.

5. Jackie Robinson Day: It’s this Friday, and we repeat one of the most meaningful things he or anyone else has ever said: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

7. Boys Will Be Boys

Mike Trout and Garrett Richards have a long history together in the Angels organization.

They were roommates at Class A Cedar Rapids and Rancho Cucamonga, Double-A Arkansas and Triple-A Salt Lake, and Richards tells of the days when Trout would seek out a Domino’s pizza joint in whichever city they were in. And of his ability to devour 24 Buffalo wings in about 10 minutes.

Now, add this tremendous April Fools’ prank to their shared history (with the help of YouTube pranksters Jesse and Jeana of Prank Academy):

8. Chatter

• New York, New York: The Mets and Yankees have two of the top three strikeout-to-walk ratios in the majors heading into the season’s second week. Mets pitchers have produced a 6.14-1 ratio, while Yankees pitchers are at 6.38-1.

• Cubs manager Joe Maddon is predicting a big year for Jon Lester. “His delivery,” Maddon says. “I don’t think there was a moment last year that I thought his delivery was as smooth as it was this spring. His cutter was as good in camp as it was anytime last season. And I think he’s more comfortable not having the weight of the world on his shoulders [now that he’s in his second season in the organization].”

• Tough sledding ahead: The Cleveland Indians had three games postponed in the season’s first week. Shoehorning all those makeup games in will present significant challenges later this summer.

• Minnesota’s 0-6 start was the worst in team history.

• Confusion patrol: The Cubs on Monday acquired left-hander Giovanni Soto from the Cleveland Indians for cash. The Cubs also once employed a catcher named Geovany Soto. Uh-huh.

• Arizona’s Jean Segura last week became only the eighth player in history to collect a leadoff home run and inside-the-park homer in the same game, according to STATS LLC.

• So after the Padres started the season by failing to score in their first 30 innings, a major league record, they started this week ranked eighth in the majors with 32 runs scored. Of course.

9. How to Use a Bench

On Friday, in St. Louis’ 7-4 win over Atlanta:

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Day

A few years ago, I spent a day in Bakersfield, California, when the Blaze were the Class A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds and Ken Griffey Sr. was their manager. Now, the Blaze are affiliated with the Seattle Mariners and still play in Sam Lynn Ballpark, where start times graduate during the summer from 7:15 p.m. to 7:30 to 7:45 because the ballpark was built the wrong way, facing west, which makes it precarious for hitters as the sun sets directly into their eyes. So, they must adjust as the summer moves along.

The little ballpark was built on the site of an oval horse racing track, which contributed to why it was built the wrong way. Anyway, just a few miles up the road is Merle Haggard Drive, where today they’re in mourning after the Country Music Hall of Famer died last week at 79.

Haggard followed in the footsteps of Buck Owens before him to give us what became known as the “Bakersfield Sound,” and Haggard’s death follows that of Glenn Frey, David Bowie and Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire in what has been a tough year for music.

“Cowboys and outlaws, right guys and southpaws,

“Good dogs and all kinds of cats

“Dirt roads and white lines and all kinds of stop signs,

“But I stand right here where I’m at,

“‘Cause I wear my own kind of hat.”

 —Merle Haggard, “My Own Kind of Hat”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

One year ago this spring, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Co. had no idea where the keys to the batting cage were.

OK, so that’s an old joke. But it’s a good one: Veteran tells rookie, “Go get me the keys to the batting cage.” So the wide-eyed rookie dutifully bounds off to find them.

There are no keys to the batting cage.

Get it?

The young Chicago Cubs get it. They get most things. They did when they won 97 games last year and raced all the way to the National League Championship Series. And they certainly do now.

What was supposed to have been a learning-curve year last summer instead became an advanced-degree season. Now battle-tested and roaring with confidence as they break the seal on a season that brings their best chance in decades at a World Series title, their experiences in 2015 will only make them sharper.

During spring training last year, no matter how many snakes he sent slithering by depositing home run balls all across the Arizona desert, Bryant still knew he was headed to Triple-A Iowa to begin the season. For business reasons.

“Everybody knew,” Bryant said toward the end of spring camp. “Everybody talked about it.

“This year, I can just relax and go play. You know where you’re going to be. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

This time last year, Russell was checking out the amenities in Des Moines while preparing for Triple-A, too.

“I didn’t even think about trying to make the team,” Russell said. “I was just trying to make sure all the Cubs guys saw me and make them think they could use me down the road.”

“Down the road” for Russell came late April last year, when the big league club summoned him to Chicago and installed him as the second baseman. Then, on Aug. 7, manager Joe Maddon moved him to shortstop for good and flipped Starlin Castro over to second base.

The Cubs never looked back.

There was no lost year. There was no sacrificed summer during a development phase.

And now, they’re so much better for it.   

“Oh, they’re much more comfortable, they’re much more relaxed, they feel like they belong here,” Maddon said. “They have a whole different focus, literally.

“You look at their eyes, their eyes can actually focus now as opposed to being glazed over with what’s going to happen now, what’s going to happen next, how do I do this sort of thing?

“That’s pretty obvious to me, the fact that that one year of experience makes all the difference in the world.”

It doesn’t guarantee a ticker-tape parade this fall.

But it absolutely makes a loose and confident team even more dangerous. 

“Playing all those tight games down the stretch last year, it definitely helped,” outfielder Kyle Schwarber said. “And I’m definitely more comfortable. I built a relationship with all of these guys. I still had the same goal in the spring as I did last season: go out and get better and prepare for the season.”

Add three key new pieces in outfielder Jason Heyward, super-utilityman Ben Zobrist and starter John Lackey, and the Cubs unquestionably are better on paper.

In the clubhouse, it appears that way, too. Coming off his historical Cy Young season, Jake Arrieta was filthy on opening night in Anaheim, chopping through Albert Pujols and Mike Trout like a weed whacker through brush.

This spring, Arrieta worked hard to mentor some of the Cubs’ young pitchers, such as Pierce Johnson. After so much talk about a losing culture in Wrigley Field over the years, this is how that turns around.

“That’s the kind of stuff that matters,” Maddon said. “And hopefully it’s going to make us really good for years to come.”

The manager talks about his “lead bulls” paving the way, the battle-tested veterans who know the ropes. But on Chicago’s North Side, some of the young players are becoming lead bulls far more quickly than expected.

These Cubs are deeper, and each of the young players who was a “prospect” at this time last year is seasoned beyond what might have been reasonably expected at this point. Club president Theo Epstein last spring fretted that this group was being so hyped that maybe it wouldn’t be afforded that quiet growing period that, say, the Kansas City Royals‘ nucleus had.

So far, it hasn’t seemed to matter.

Having Bryant and Schwarber housed in nearby lockers has made it easier for Russell. And having Russell and Bryant in the same clubhouse has made it easier for Schwarber. On and on it goes.

“Whenever you’ve got young guys in the clubhouse, it makes it easier [to develop],” Russell said. “I played with KB in the Arizona Fall League, and at Triple-A.

“He’s a good dude all the way around. He’s very humble, and he likes to have fun.”

Said Maddon: “Just roll back the clock to a year ago, all that controversy over KB making the team or not making the team. Addison, we had Starlin at shortstop and other options at second base. Although, we hadn’t even played him at second base so we had to give him that opportunity to know that he could.

“There were so many things that were different about last year at this time compared to where we’re at right now. All positive, obviously, that guys got the experience necessary to go into their second year. And they feel like they belong here.

“I think a lot of guys last year, I don’t want to say they were in survival, like Stage 2, but they just didn’t absolutely know that they belonged here, even though we knew that they did. They had to find that out for themselves. So once a player finds out for himself that I belong here, I can do this, an entirely different level of confidence arrives.”

Even for a veteran like starter Jon Lester, in your second year in a place—job, school, whatever—you become far more comfortable.

“Knowing me better, knowing everybody else around you better, that matters,” Maddon said.

“I’ve been in their shoes, where I had a good first season,” said Heyward, who signed in Chicago for $184 million over eight years to chase a World Series title with the Cubs. “You don’t have anything to sit on [in that first season], you have no numbers.

“They’re trying to become the best version of themselves they can be.”

Bryant slammed 26 homers and knocked in 99 runners in 151 games last season. Russell cracked 13 homers with a .307 on-base percentage. Schwarber crunched 16 homers in only 69 games and then ripped five more in nine postseason outings. Outfielder Jorge Soler, also a rookie last season, produced a .324 on-base percentage and 47 RBI in 101 games.

One season in, how real are those numbers? How dependable? Are they high? Low? What?

“I’m more comfortable this year,” Soler said, smiling.

All of these Cubs are.

“Definitely, a year ago, I was in spring training for the learning experience,” Schwarber said. “And I got experience. That was my goal last spring.

“My goal this spring was: I want to stay on this team. I don’t ever want to go back to the minors. I want to help this team win.”

Like Heyward said, they’re all working hard to produce the best version of themselves.

“KB is as comfortable here as he was at the University of San Diego,” Maddon said, referring to Bryant’s baseball home before the Cubs made him the second overall pick of the 2013 draft. “Addy’s as comfortable right now as he was in Pensacola (Russell’s hometown in Florida). Schwarber, it’s just like he’s back at Indiana (the Cubs picked him fourth overall in the 2014 draft out of the University of Indiana).

“I’m certain they’re that confident and comfortable as they were when they were coming from that level of strength, regarding their performance and their status in the game at that point. They were the best college players, they were the best high school players, I think they’re back there in a professional level in the major leagues right now.”

The first two games in Anaheim, it sure looked like it. Their eyes were no longer glazed over. Not even close.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

I struggle with predictions the way some folks battle bad hair days and others wrestle with Snapchat.

In 2005, I picked the Chicago White Sox to finish last in the AL Central.

Of course, they won their first World Series in 88 years that summer.

So every year about this time, my daughter’s godfather, a diehard White Sox fan going back to the days of the late, great Walt (No-Neck) Williams and Steve Dahl and Disco Demolition Night, checks in to beg me to pick his team last again.

I do what I can.

So here we are again, leaning into another summer, the smell of lemonade and hot dogs already irresistible.

But first, can we talk? Since I know what’s coming from all of you who are about to be furious over the fact that I’m not heaping as much praise on your team as you think it deserves, I’ll just come right out and admit it.

I despise your team. I really do.

Whoever your team is, its colors are ugly and the sight of its uniforms makes me physically ill. The manager stinks. And the nickname, ugh. I don’t like birds, I don’t like animals and I don’t like fish.

(Are there any other nicknames out there, or does that cover it? Ah, the Giants…I’ve had a thing against them since Jack and the Beanstalk. The Brewers…I don’t like beer. The Dodgers…what is this, 1950? Trolleys are so yesterday. The Padres…I still get nightmares from the way those mean nuns knocked me around in grade school).

So whatever you do, make sure you disregard the mere fact that it is impossible to pick all 30 teams first and to scoot them all into the playoffs. This is personal (he said with sarcasm as thick as maple syrup dripping all over the fluffy flapjacks of a delicious new season)…

1. AL East

This division is more competitive than a Starbucks line at 7 a.m.…

Red Sox: Think David Price’s dominance, not Pablo Sandoval’s waistline. Think Craig Kimbrel, Koji Uehara, Junichi Tazawa and a souped-up bullpen, not Hanley Ramirez as the fly in the tomato bisque that is left field. (Besides, he’s taken to first base this year like clams to chowder!) Boston is back in business.

Blue Jays: Tough call, first or second here. Love Marcus Stroman and the possibilities he brings to this team. But he’s got enormous shoes to fill because Toronto minus David Price makes the Blue Jays less attractive than they were in the second half of last season. Even with Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and this thumper lineup.

Yankees: They’re sneaky young in a couple of key spots with shortstop Didi Gregorius, new second baseman Starlin Castro and starter Luis Severino. Michael Pineda is the difference-maker: If he dominates, so, too, will the Yankees.

Rays: Chris Archer could win a Cy Young (though I pick someone else below), and center fielder Kevin Kiermaier can track down fly balls from Tampa Bay across the Gulf of Mexico over to Louisiana. Not sure where the runs are going to come from the way Evan Longoria has hit the wall over the past couple of years.

Orioles: It’s going to be Home Run Derby every night with this crew. If only the rotation could match the thunder of Manny Machado, Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Mark Trumbo and Pedro Alvarez. Truthfully, this division is so close everyone should stay in the race well into August.

2. AL Central

This division is more competitive than a Starbucks line at 8 a.m.…

Royals: The PECOTA projection system says they will win 76 games. Ha ha ha ha! That’s funny! PECOTA predicted 72 wins last year (h/t Edge Vegas) and Kansas City won the World Series. Funnier! Except…I picked them third last year. That’s not so funny, and I ain’t making that mistake again. I don’t see much slowdown in Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon and Co. This organization is running at peak form. And manager Ned Yost is a lot craftier than many believe.

Twins: Why not? Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano are ready for prime time. Ervin Santana is here for a full season, not just the second half. There is a lot to like here, and manager Paul Molitor’s attention to detail was something those freshly scrubbed twins shaking hands across the Mississippi River could be proud of.

Tigers: You get the feeling that these are the last roars of a proud, tough club before night settles in. Jordan Zimmermann is here instead of David Price and Max Scherzer, but the same old (and older) Justin Verlander remains the key to the rotation. Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez wage war with Father Time while newcomer Justin Upton backs them, and new closer Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez will make manager Brad Ausmus much smarter this year.

Indians: If outfielder Michael Brantley is back at full strength by May, I may revise these predictions and bump Cleveland way higher. That’s how much he means to the Indians, who open the season with a Brantley-less outfield. Rookie center fielder Tyler Naquin had an intriguing spring. We know these guys can pitch. Trevor Bauer couldn’t even crack the rotation. Might Corey Kluber win another Cy Young?

White Sox: They’re much better than a last-place team. But a couple of things: First, there’s what I wrote above regarding ’05 (and thus, wink, wink, the reason for picking them last). And, this division is so close that you can make a case for each of the five teams to finish first, including Chicago. Love the additions of Todd Frazier, Alex Avila and, yes, Jimmy Rollins. But can they prove to ace Chris Sale that the loss of Drake LaRoche isn’t going to be a key factor?

3. AL West

Don’t mess with Texas…

Astros: Like the Cubs, Houston arrived a year ahead of schedule in 2015. And like the Cubs, the Astros again are loaded. Carlos Correa is going to become a breakout star this year. Big key behind Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh: the state of Lance McCullers’ sore shoulder. He will open on the DL, and the Astros need him ASAP. Doug Fister will be a Comeback Player of the Year candidate, and closer Ken Giles is a key addition.

Rangers: Great example of how one July trade deadline can sometimes set you up for the next year, too. Adding Cole Hamels last summer not only won the Rangers the division in ’15, it positioned them to barbecue most everyone else again in ’16, especially once Yu Darvish returns from Tommy John surgery midseason. This spring the Rangers loved Ian Desmond’s bat and leadership ability—might he become the most underrated free-agent signing of the winter?

Mariners: Full disclosure: I wrenched my back leaping off the Seattle bandwagon so quickly after the M’s went splat last year. Now, new general manager Jerry Dipoto has overhauled this roster extensively. Whether new manager Scott Servais can keep this thing from capsizing depends on a return to form by Robinson Cano and a rotation that could benefit from Wade Miley’s heavy lifting and Taijuan Walker’s finally emerging as a star.

Angels: Jered Weaver couldn’t break a Rally Monkey mug with his fastball right now, C.J. Wilson is out indefinitely and maybe Tyler Skaggs (Tommy John surgery) will return by May. And the rotation looks great compared to left field, where Craig Gentry and Daniel Nava combined for one home run last year. Mike Trout may sue for nonsupport by year’s end.

Athletics: The A’s didn’t catch the ball this spring, didn’t pitch particularly well and generally gave no reason to believe. You wonder whether Sonny Gray will be the next star shipped out of town. Remember two years ago when Oakland had baseball’s best record at the All-Star break? Yeah, seems like 22 years ago.

4. AL Wild Cards

“T” it up now, Toronto-Texas…

Blue Jays: Absolutely cannot wait to see another Jose Bautista bat flip come October. Can you?

Rangers: They’re not chanting “boo!” They’re chanting “Yu!” Darvish’s return will boost Jeff Banister’s club.

5. NL East

The Haves and the Have-Nots, split comes right after the Marlins…

Mets: The only thing that will stop them is if ace Matt Harvey cannot learn to pee properly. Assuming he empties his bladder as frequently as he should and the blood clots don’t return, look out. And Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz and Bartolo Colon get help when Zack Wheeler returns from Tommy John surgery midseason. Maybe Yoenis Cespedes will ferry Wheeler to his first start in the Batmobile.

Nationals: “In Dusty We Trusty,” the T-shirts once read. Maybe they’ll pop up again, because new manager Dusty Baker will have a positive influence on this bunch. And if Jayson Werth, Anthony Rendon, Ryan Zimmerman, Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg can stay off the disabled list, all the better. You’ll know things are going much better for this team when September arrives and Jonathan Papelbon’s hands are not wrapped around Harper’s neck.

Marlins: They have one of the best sluggers in the game in Giancarlo Stanton. They have one of the best aces in the game in Jose Fernandez. From there, anything is possible. Good for new manager Don Mattingly landing in a spot where he has more freedom to work. Now, get to work, Dee Gordon!

Phillies: Let’s all sit back and watch starters Aaron Nola and Vincent Velasquez develop, as well as second baseman Cesar Hernandez. The Phillies’ last run in the NL East is long since over, even if Ryan Howard continues to hang around. But young talent abounds after they finally—and smartly—dealt Cole Hamels, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Co.

Braves: As they take a final lap around Turner Field before it meets the wrecking ball, at least you can close your eyes and dream of a day when Dansby Swanson and others lead Atlanta back to respectability. Sorry, not this year.

6. NL Central

The Haves and Have-Nots, Part II, split right after the Pirates…

Cubs: Reminder: This team won 97 games last year and still finished third in the division. Public service announcement: Having added outfielder Jason Heyward, super-utilityman Ben Zobrist and starter John Lackey, they’re even better this year. Don’t forget to rub the Harry Caray statue on the way out of Wrigley Field for luck.

Cardinals: You have to be a blockhead not to pick St. Louis first every year, right? Ahem. That’s what I usually tell myself. So while being fitted for a square cap, I do make the argument that Adam Wainwright (who missed most of last year to injury) and Mike Leake (signed as a free agent) are better in the rotation this year than John Lackey (signed with the Cubs) and Lance Lynn (out for the season with Tommy John surgery) were last year. So hang tight—this is going to be fun.

Pirates: Please, can somebody get the poor Buccos past the wild-card round and deeper into October? Great city, great park, great talent here. I’ll take my chances against anybody with Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco in my outfield. The key could be Jon Niese in the rotation behind Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano—and Pittsburgh’s great pitching coach, Ray Searage.

Brewers: Closer Will Smith injured a knee this spring while standing on one foot attempting to take off his shoes. Flamingos everywhere are laughing. And it’s probably all downhill from there for the Brew Crew.

Reds: Cincinnati used a rookie to start on the mound in each of its final 64 games last summer. On the bright side, the bullpen still contains one of the game’s best names, Jumbo Diaz.

7. NL West

In which the Dodgers’ streak of winning this division for three consecutive years comes to an end…

Giants: Pitching is where San Francisco has built its reputation, and expect Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija both to flourish with pitching coach Dave Righetti and manager Bruce Bochy at their side (and Madison Bumgarner, too! You thought I’d forget?). But the key here will be Denard Span, whose 2015 was wrecked by injury. Span is the leadoff man and center fielder who will make the Giants go.

Diamondbacks: Is there anything worse than a catastrophic injury at the end of spring training? Godspeed, A.J. Pollock. I like this Arizona team and was all set to pick it first until Pollock fractured his elbow. Now Paul Goldschmidt is looking for a new tag-team partner. Socrates Brito?

Dodgers: Just in time for their new airline sponsorship deal, perhaps Emirates can fly in some help for their already battered rotation. Ross Stripling, who has never pitched above Double-A and started only 14 games last season in the minors while coming back from Tommy John surgery, is the fifth starter while Brett Anderson, Brandon McCarthy, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Mike Bolsinger heal. Good luck, new manager Dave Roberts.

Padres: Tyson Ross, James Shields and Andrew Cashner can be a good front of the rotation, but this club is stuck with the wrong Upton (Melvin Jr. stays, Justin signed with the Tigers and Kate was unavailable), and middle-of-the-order questions surround Matt Kemp. Wil Myers theoretically has healthy wrists again. But general manager A.J. Preller has been downgraded from Rock Star GM to Elevator Music GM.

Rockies: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Rockies? One good month (September, 2007) in 23 seasons of existence. Jim Tracy once left $1.4 million on the table not to manage Colorado in 2013. At least Nolan Arenado is worth watching.

8. NL Wild Cards

Rewrite! Get me rewrite!

Diamondbacks: (Still thinking of a pithy comment; was prepared to go forward with Giants in this slot until Pollock’s injury.)

Nationals: Pssst, look who’s developing a trend of making the playoffs in even years (2012, 2014). It isn’t winning the World Series in even years like the Giants, but it’s a start.

9. World Series

Party at the Billy Goat Tavern!

Cubs over Astros: Aw, let’s everybody step up and pet the bear cubs that manager Joe Maddon brought to spring training one day. And the Cubs get to name the cubs, too! How about one of them gets named “World Series” and the other “Champion”? Youth plays big in today’s game, and the Cubs and Astros are dressed for October: They have layers of it.

10. MVPs

Fresh faces with game…

Carlos Correa, Astros: In just 99 games last season, this developed-beyond-his-years kid made a significant mark. It’s not easy to pick against Mike Trout in this race, but Correa has the talent, the makeup and plays a key position (shortstop). And at 21, he makes Trout (24) seem old!

Paul Goldschmidt, Diamondbacks: With better pitching, the Diamondbacks will be in playoff contention. And with that, everybody will take note of Goldschmidt, who is every bit the cornerstone of the Arizona franchise that Albert Pujols was in St. Louis in 2005-06.

11. Cy Youngs

The last time a Blue Jay won the award, it was Roy Halladay in 2003. The last Met to win, R.A. Dickey in 2012…

Marcus Stroman, Blue Jays: We saw his work ethic last year when he was supposed to miss the entire season with a knee injury. We saw his talent when he gave Toronto a late-season and postseason boost. I love this kid. The only question is his workload: Will the Blue Jays limit his innings to the point where other Cy Young candidates will have too big of a workload advantage over him?

Noah Syndergaard, Mets: Last year it was all about Jacob deGrom during the Mets’ October charge. In 2013, when he started for the NL in the All-Star Game, it was all about Matt Harvey. Welcome to the big stage, Thor.

12. Rookies of the Year

Other acceptable answers: Nationals right-hander Lucas Giolito, Dodgers lefty Julio Urias, Rangers third baseman Joey Gallo, Mets lefty Steven Matz, Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Dodgers righty Kenta Maeda, Twins designated hitter Byung Ho Park…

Byron Buxton, Twins: Don’t be fooled by last year’s sluggish splashdown. Buxton was injured quickly, and Minnesota GM Terry Ryan says he rushed Buxton to the majors because the team was playing so well. He’ll be ready for the big stage in 2016.

Corey Seager, Dodgers: Workin’ on his night moves just in time for Vin Scully’s farewell season.

13. Managers of the Year

Spoiler alert: Both of my picks for Manager of the Year last season, San Diego’s Bud Black and Seattle’s Lloyd McClendon, were fired. So good luck to…

A.J. Hinch, Astros: Hinch easily could have won this award last year, but Texas’ Jeff Banister plucked it from him at the last minute, just like the Rangers sneaked up on the Astros. This year, it will be different.

Chip Hale, Diamondbacks: Poor Hale already has as big a challenge as any manager faces on Opening Day, having to work to massage over the tremendous void left by A.J. Pollock’s injury. Tough, but Hale and his team can figure it out.

14. First Manager Fired

Awww…

Bryan Price, Reds: Poor guy, the Price is not right in Cincinnati this year. And it won’t be for the next few years for the rebuilding Reds. Eventually, he’ll land in the discard pile, too.

15. First Name Player Traded

This isn’t going to end well in Boston…

Pablo Sandoval, Red Sox: Burp! It just…buuuurp!…didn’t work out…buuuuuurrrrrrp! Anybody got a new scale? Crash!

16. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

The first Tigers Grapefruit League game every year was must-listen because Hall of Fame radio man Ernie Harwell would open the broadcast by reciting the “Voice of the Turtle.” It was as sure a sign of spring as spotting the first robin. So, in a nod to Ernie and spring (you can listen here)…

“For, lo, the winter is past

“The rain is over and gone

“The flowers appear on the Earth

“The time of the singing of birds is come

“And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Here he comes, straight into 2016, streaming like water out of a faucet. Carlos Correa doesn’t so much step into the picture as he pours forth, with force, both on time and ahead of his time.

Here he stands, perched on the ledge of his first full season, ready to take flight and lead the Houston Astros skyward once again. Take a good look; there is an excellent chance that these are the last few moments in the baseball world before he becomes a household name.

He is a young man, 21, with the wisdom of an old man.

He is a rangy shortstop and middle-of-the-order hitter with the crossover dribble of an NBA superstar making his move toward that point where talent meets branding.

He is the sort of savior, both of his organization and of his game, whom fans and teammates alike include in their prayers.

“I might get into trouble for saying this,” Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, 25, says. “But already he is one of the best shortstops I’ve ever played with.

“I just ask God to give him some good health. If he stays healthy, he is going to be the biggest star in baseball very soon.”

So far, Correa has played in only 99 regular-season games.

Yet, you will see him this summer in the middle of things, as the Astros, the American League’s version of the Chicago Cubs, look to finish their rebuild with a flourish and drive deeper into October than they did last year.

Notably, you also will see him soon in sneaker and apparel advertisements. Yes, along the path Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James once blazed, here comes Correa. He signed a five-year endorsement contract with Adidas this winter that has been described as a “huge, record-setting” deal. The campaign will be unveiled in early April. The company also signed the Chicago Cubs’ Kris Bryant.

Until now, MLB mostly has been to high-profile shoe company deals what Mountain Dew is to Napa Valley.

“It really means a lot to me because Adidas only worked in basketball and now is coming strong in baseball,” Correa said last month during a wide-ranging conversation with Bleacher Report. “It’s because I’m a bilingual guy who wants to show that us Latin players can get things done, show the world that coming from Latin America we can learn English, we can succeed, we can play good baseball, we can do commercials, we can do all the stuff that people in America do every day.

“I want to be able to be an example for Latin guys coming up. Learn English. It’s not only about baseball. It’s what’s outside of the sport, too, that can help you get paid. At end of the day, it’s our job. We’re a brand. You’ve got to be able to sell yourself the right way.”

The right way. Correa has been studying and thinking about this concept, as he sees it, since he was a little boy in Puerto Rico idolizing the late Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente. It is as if Correa’s career as a major leaguer is a vocation, something he was called to, like a young man to the priesthood.   

He devoured the Clemente discussions when he was in school back home. During physical education classes, in particular, he said, teachers would talk about Clemente and the impact he made in his community. In middle school, he did a report on Clemente.

“I had to go through his whole biography and give an oral speech about his life,” Correa said. “It was just fun to go out and look for information and read his biography and get to know him a little better.”

What shocked him was the date on which Clemente died in a plane crash, New Year’s Eve 1972. That here was a guy not out ringing in the New Year, but out attempting to deliver supplies to Nicaragua after a massive earthquake ravaged that country. 

“He paved the way for us Latin American players to be able to play at this level and show people we can play the game and be good at it,” Correa said.

“For me, it really means a lot because if not for him, I would not be here.”

For a kid who debuted last June 8 when he was just 20, this is all heady stuff. And it certainly isn’t every precocious prodigy with prodigious game who could get away with some of this chutzpah without being razzed right out of the clubhouse by seen-it-all veterans.

But this kid, no matter his age, is one of those people who changes a room when he walks into it.

“He’s definitely mature beyond his years,” Dallas Keuchel, Correa’s teammate and last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner, said. “He’s a younger player who younger players can look up to.

“And, as an athlete, no matter if you’re the most confident player in the world, you have to have an on/off switch. He definitely has the right amount of on and off.”

Said reliever Luke Gregerson: “He’s geared for one thing, and that’s baseball.”

It is from that that everything else emanates. The first overall pick in the 2012 draft (the Minnesota Twins took outfielder Byron Buxton second), Correa reminds his manager, A.J. Hinch, and others of a young Alex Rodriguez because of his lanky build (6’4″) and combination of ranginess and power at shortstop.

In those 99 games last year, Correa batted .279/.345/.512 with 22 homers, 68 RBI and 14 steals in 432 plate appearances.

He batted third for Houston last October, from the Astros’ 3-0 win over New York in Yankee Stadium in last fall’s AL Wild Card Game through the thrilling five-game division series with Kansas City.

“It’s a lot for someone to handle,” said Hinch, speaking of everything going on for a guy who just turned 21 in September. “He has an uncanny knack for focusing on baseball when he needs to. He’s a special talent, but talent only gets you so far. He knows the amount of work he has to get in.”

And that includes the wise-beyond-his-years idea that learning English would only increase his options.

“When I was in third grade, I told my dad I wanted to learn English because I didn’t want a translator to translate for [me],” said the man who already was planning on playing big league baseball by then. “Sometimes, you say things and it doesn’t come out right way through a translator.

“For me, it’s very important, that what I’m telling you right now comes out the right way, the way I want to say it. If you write it, it’s because I said it, not because a translator told you.”

To pay for those English lessons, Correa said his dad added another construction job. He worked three jobs a day, and Correa started learning English in the fourth grade. That is a big reason why now, he said, he has “great” contracts with Topps and Adidas.

“I know how things work,” Correa said. “If I want to get paid with a contract like Adidas, I’ve got to look clean all the time. I’ve got to be professional. I’ve got to dress well. I’ve got to play good and I’ve got to look good.

“These are all the things that make you a good brand, and people want to buy that brand. I feel like all this work with my PR guys and work I put in inside and outside ballpark has helped me get this deal.

“I want show Latin players all around the world that it can get done, these big deals that American guys are getting, because you were willing to pay the price. Sacrifice the parties to take English classes. Stuff like that. For me, that’s very important.”

His world is opening up rapidly. After Correa rhapsodized about Clemente upon winning the Rookie of the Year award last November, Hollywood producer and writer Thomas Tull invited the shortstop to his Los Angeles home to look over his baseball memorabilia collection and to talk.

Tull’s Legendary Pictures has acquired the rights to Clemente’s life story, and part of the visit last winter included an invitation to appear in a bit part of the film. Correa does not yet know which role he will play, but he is excited about the idea.

“On the field, there are many talented players in this league right now, but not all of them have been able to do what he did off the field and help people,” said Correa, who purchased a home for his parents upon signing with the Astros so his father could retire. “In Puerto Rico, he would go to schools, talk to kids, make sure they knew what it takes to be successful and help others. And he’d go to Nicaragua, take food with him for the people who didn’t have anything to eat. He would give clothes to the homeless people back home.

“All that stuff he did, he was involved with the community. He was seen by the community, interacted with the community, and that’s pretty special. Not many players do that. Players get caught up in being famous and all this talent that God gave them, and they don’t want to do anything with their community. They just want to sit back home and enjoy their money, stuff like that.

“Roberto Clemente used his money to help others, to enjoy people, to be able to make an impact on society.”

Trace a line from Clemente forward, and that’s why Correa holds open workouts at home in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico, all winter long. Locals and visitors know he will be at the local stadium about 15 minutes outside of Ponce working on his fielding and hitting from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., five nights a week. And they show up, he said, often by the hundreds. Many of them have watched Correa grow up, having seen him play ball since he was around nine or 10 years old.

“I don’t do it because I have to do it. I do it because I love to do it,” said Correa, who signs autographs after these workouts until the last fan leaves happy. “I love interacting with kids and helping them out. My practices are open to the public so they can go out there and see how I work out and get ready for a season and try to get better every single day. So they can see that and apply it to themselves.”

“He’s a guy with huge talent who knows how to handle himself in the right way,” Carlos Beltran, Yankees outfielder and a fellow Puerto Rican, said. “It’s good to see at a very young age he’s capable of doing both.

“Fans really love him.”

At home over the winter, Correa visits schools and gives speeches. He hosts a charity golf tournament and works to find time for other charities, too.

“For me, to be able to do that is really gratifying,” he said. “It’s better than hitting a home run, for real. It’s about helping others.

“I will never forget where I grew up, where I come from. That’s why every year when the season is over, I go back home, talk to my people, bring batting gloves and bats and give them to kids whose parents can’t afford that stuff. It’s a poor community. That’s where I still live.

“I don’t need a big mansion to make me feel better. What makes me feel better is helping society, helping others. I feel like if it was only about ourselves, God would never give us a family. We would just be born from the dirt like a plant or something like that, because we only care about ourselves.”

For the next six months, those whom Correa will spend the majority of his time caring about are the other men in the Houston Astros clubhouse. As Hinch’s team looks to build on the surprising momentum of 2015 and deliver Houston its first World Series title, Correa will push hard, just like Clemente did, spurred on by some special moments last October that crystallized everything for him.

He was in New York during the Mets-Kansas City World Series on the night baseball presented Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen with its annual Roberto Clemente Award. Over the years, Correa has become friendly with Vera Clemente, Roberto’s widow, and her children. Roberto Jr. happens to live in Houston, of all places, and he and Correa have dinner a couple of times a year.

Anyway, after the pregame Clemente award presentation, Correa retired to a Citi Field suite with the Clemente family.

There, touched by the greatness of his idol’s descendants and with baseball’s grandest stage in front of him, he was mesmerized.

“Every single second that went by, I was thinking about me being out there playing on that field,” Correa said. “Great atmosphere, fans screaming, on their feet every time you go to hit. It is very special.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Once more around the block with David Ortiz, then the retirement papers take effect after the 2016 season and it’s off to Legendville. What a ride it’s been, fabulous and funny, dramatic and dynamic.

The Minnesota Twins acquired him in September 1996, literally as a player to be named later for third baseman Dave Hollins.

Two secrets, from a guy who was covering the Twins as a beat man in those days for the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press:

One, David Ortiz cries real tears. One of my most vivid memories, still, is March 29, 1999, when he was one of the last players cut by the Twins during spring training that year. Long before he became Big Papi, a disappointed and angry Ortiz disappeared into a back room of the spring clubhouse, alone, sobbing.

Two, David Ortiz has never changed. The jovial, outsized personality he is today, he was back then. Only difference is, though sometimes it seems the opposite, you don’t become a legend overnight…

A Player to be Named Later

David Hollins, Phillies scout, former first/third baseman 1990-2002: My kids and people back home bring it up. They think it’s funny that I was the guy traded for him. I’m amused by it.

A.J. Pierzynski, Braves catcher, Twins teammate 1998-2002: I played against him when he was with the Mariners in the [Class A] Midwest League. He was David Arias. I remember we traded for him and we got David Arias, but when he showed up in the spring he was David Ortiz. I was like, “Wait a minute! Did we trade for the wrong guy?”

David Ortiz, Red Sox DH: That is my mother’s last name, but thing is, they got it wrong from the get-go. And then I gotta fix it because they normally call you by your dad’s last name, but I’m David America Ortiz Arias. There was nothing wrong, but they started calling me David Arias instead of David Ortiz.

LaTroy Hawkins, former pitcher, Twins teammate 1997-2002: He got traded from Seattle and when he got [to Minnesota], we all went out to dinner. I guess he wanted to order a drink and the lady asked for an ID and he pulled out, like, five different IDs. It was like, “Dude, what are you trying to do?” He was like, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it.”

Jacque Jones, Nationals assistant hitting coach, Twins teammate 1999-2002: His English wasn’t very good, so some things he said were more funny than he meant them to be. I remember one night he fouled a ball off of his foot in the batter’s box. He’s jumping around, falls down and the trainer comes out. “Dude, what’s wrong? You OK?” And he says, “I fouled a ball off of my f–king finger!” And the trainer goes, “Finger?” And he says, “Yeah, yeah, my finger right here. My big finger.” The trainer says, “That’s your toe!” He comes back to the dugout, and everyone is cracking up. It was hilarious.

David Ortiz: I was a couple years in the country. For all of us coming from a different place, it’s a learning process. I remember when that happened I was just hurting. I didn’t know what to say. I was in pain. I used to let the ball get too deep [at the plate] and foul balls off of my feet all the time, off my toes. And at same time, I was learning how to speak the language. It was crazy, but it was funny.

A.J. Pierzynski: In A-ball, we used to take grounders at first base every day. We’d bet a Coke on who missed the most grounders. He would get so mad when he had to get me a Coke out of the fridge.

David Ortiz: [Laughing] That’s a lie. Once in a while, he would win. But he knows I’ve got the hands. It was fun. We have a great time.

After being cut that spring, once the tears dried, Ortiz spent almost all of 1999 at Triple-A Salt Lake. He wasn’t called back to the majors until that September…

Jacque Jones: I just remember him not being happy about it, him pressing and getting off to a slow start. He righted the ship and eventually went back up there. In 2000 he had a decent year [.282, 10 homers, 63 RBI] and then hit some homers the next couple of years [38 in ’01-’02 combined for the Twins], and then it was either sign him back for a couple of million, I guess it was at the time, or sign Doug Mientkiewicz and Matt LeCroy, and that’s what they did. Then he went to Boston, didn’t start off too hot and almost got released there. Seems like he’s been hot ever since.

David Ortiz: I knew I belonged in the big leagues. But you know how the Twins used to be. I think the way they used to make decisions was wrong, but you can’t complain to Tom Kelly about anything because he was the one who ran the show. It was a take-it-or-leave-it situation. I just went down to Triple-A and did what I was supposed to do.

Tom Kelly, Twins manager 1986-2001: He was green. Obviously, you knew he had power, that’s an understatement. But the biggest problem for David, the first few years here he got hurt. A hamate bone. A knee. He was having trouble getting some consistency going.

He used to get mad because I used to holler at him, “Left field!” It was always pull, pull, pull with him. And eventually, he figured all that out. But the day in Kansas City when he broke the hamate, he hit a home run as good as you can hit it. You go, “Oh my God.” Then he comes back and he was shaking his hand. He took his next at-bat and hit another home run. It was just monstrous. And then he was shaking his hand again, and the next at-bat he couldn’t swing. He was out for however long it was and started over again. He was just starting to get it, and then he got derailed again. 

Ortiz was part of a close group of core prospects in those years with the Twins, guys such as LaTroy Hawkins, Eddie Guardado, Corey Koskie, Doug Mientkiewicz, Matt Lawton and others who came of age together. They remain close today…

Eddie Guardado, former closer, Twins teammate 1997-2002: Me and Hawk [LaTroy Hawkins] were by our lockers in the Metrodome. You know how David has two left feet, right? He comes up one day and says, “You got any extra shoes I can wear? Mine are all messed up.” Spikes. I said, “I got a [protective] pitching toe on my spikes. What size are you, anyway?” And he says, “What size are you?” I go, “I’m a 10 ½ right now.” He goes, “Damn—I wear from nine to 11.” No wonder why he’s got two left knees! He wore any size.

Torii Hunter, former outfielder, Twins teammate 1997-2002: One of the funniest things was when Corey Koskie put peanut butter in his underwear during a game in spring training. David was messing with him all day, so Corey put peanut butter in his tighty-whities. David took a shower after the game, put his clothes on and he never knew there was peanut butter in there. There was ice in the pockets to distract him. He took five steps to the door and realized something’s not right. He turned around and started screaming. The whole team started laughing. I was in tears. David had to take it all off and take a shower again. He took it like a champ.

David Ortiz: [Laughing] Oh my God, I couldn’t believe they brought that in. Man, they used to do everything. We used to do a lot of crazy things. Corey Koskie. It was fun, man. We were kids.

The card games on the team bus and charters remain legendary…

Eddie Guardado: He was a cheater, dude. A cheater! You’re talking about big money in there. And we’re not making big money. So that was important. We watched him with the cards playing poker. David Ortiz always had his hand a certain way on the cards, and we used to watch him. I remember this clearly. One day I [wasn’t] even worried about what I was doing. He needed another card, the pot’s 300-some dollars or whatever it might have been. I’m watching, he says, “I need this card, I need this card.” He gets a queen from the bottom of the deck. I’m like, “Really?” We all called him out. We said, “You’re cheating, dude!” And he’s like, “Aw, you got me!”

LaTroy Hawkins: All those guys said they took a pay cut when he went to Boston.

Eddie Guardado: Absolutely. That put a dent in my pocket.

David Ortiz: [Still laughing] Well, I was a really bad card player, so that’s why I don’t play cards anymore. I quit playing cards, I would say, since I first got to Boston. Because I’m terrible. I’m not good at it. They were right about that.

Besides, his future was in long balls, not poker…

Tom Kelly: He kept working at first base, trying to be a total complete player. I always felt he was OK for a day or two over there. I don’t know if you wanted to live with it on a consistent basis. But he could go over there and pick you up for a day if you got stuck. We just couldn’t get that consistency from him. We had a hard time putting it together for a period of time.

David Ortiz: The way they did me over there I never understood what was going on. It seemed like they didn’t know what to do with me. In 2002, when they let me go, I hit 20 homers and had 75 RBI and I barely played. I got [412] at-bats. So they made the poor decision of releasing me. They didn’t even trade me. They didn’t even let me be a free agent after the season.

Terry Ryan, Twins general manager 1994-2007, 2011-present: I made a mistake. I certainly regret that we haven’t benefited from all that he can bring to a ballclub and to an organization, and I admire his career. I respect a lot of the things that he’s done with his wife and his family, the charities. It’ll be interesting to see as he goes through the schedule here how everyone responds to him because he’s one of the most popular guys, not only fan-wise but I think player-wise. He’s a lot like Kirby Puckett in that wherever he goes, people want to introduce themselves and talk.

Squeezed by roster and financial decisions, the Twins released Ortiz on Dec. 16, 2002. He was on the market for more than a month until the Red Sox signed him on Jan. 22, 2003…

David Ortiz: I got lucky that I bumped into Pedro Martinez in a restaurant in the Dominican Republic. We talked, he asked me how things were going and I said, “I just got released by Minnesota a couple of days ago.” And he was like, “What? They must be out of their mind. You’re the best hitter they’ve got. I’m going to call the Red Sox right now.” He called the Red Sox, and two days later the Red Sox hired me. The rest is history.

Theo Epstein, Cubs general manager; Red Sox GM 2002-11: I had been talking to Terry Ryan about the possibility of trading for him earlier in that offseason. They asked for a pretty good prospect, and it started to have the feel that maybe if he couldn’t trade him that David was going to end up on release waivers rather than getting tendered a contract. So I wasn’t surprised to see him on waivers.

We were just lucky, because that offseason one main focus for us was to add a couple of bats at the corner spots. We didn’t have any money to spend. We wanted to buy low on a number of players and let them fight it out. Through volume, we thought we’d get some quality players and add depth to the lineup. So we traded for Jeremy Giambi. We claimed Kevin Millar off of release waivers and signed him to a two-year deal to keep him from going to Japan. We signed Bill Mueller to a two-year contract coming off the broken knee. And David, I was talking to his agent all offseason.

We went through a complicated process to sign him. It involved Dave Jauss [currently on the Pittsburgh Pirates coaching staff], who was managing the Licey team in the Dominican and worked for us. We had Dave put him through a workout at first base when David was the best player on the legendary Escogido team. Those are the two big rivals down there. It would be the equivalent of Joe Girardi working out Dustin Pedroia or something.

And then Pedro Martinez called and lobbied for David and his character in the clubhouse. We finally were able to get something done in January, maybe a million and a quarter.

By no stretch of the imagination did we think we were getting Big Papi. We signed David Ortiz and we ended up getting Big Papi.

The Rise of Big Papi

David Ortiz: I think it was Jerry Remy [Red Sox TV analyst] who first called me “Big Papi” because I used to call everybody Papi because I’m bad at remembering people’s names.

Bronson Arroyo, Nationals pitcher, Red Sox teammate 2003-05: What I love about David is sometimes what you see with guys in the media and what you see personally is the opposite. David is a big teddy bear and always has been. That big laugh. He came to the park every day, he didn’t judge. Watching him turn into Big Papi was pretty amazing.

Doug Mientkiewicz, former first baseman 1998-2009; Twins teammate 1998-2002, Red Sox teammate ’04: His first year in Boston, he’s playing a spring training game [at the Twins complex]. We knew he was on the trip, we ran over during the game and stole his clothes and put a small convict suit in his locker, all orange. He came in our clubhouse wearing it, still wet from the shower, and gave that face: “Come on, man.” When he came in with the jumpsuit on, bright orange Fort Myers prison outfit, that was just priceless. He came over in shower shoes and wearing that because he knew we had his clothes. We cried laughing.

Theo Epstein: He got off to a slow start because we were mixing the rotation of the guys and he wasn’t playing every day through April and May. Giambi was playing a lot, Millar was playing, Bill Mueller was playing. At the end of April, David sent his agent to meet with me, saying he loves it here, he appreciates the opportunity, but he feels like he needs to play every day, so can you please trade him? I’ll never forget, it was in the players’ parking lot in Fenway Park. I told the agent, “Hey, we’re working on a trade that should free up playing time for David.” And we ended up trading Shea Hillenbrand to the Diamondbacks for Byung-Hyun Kim. That opened up a lot of DH at-bats for David.

The Sox traded Hillenbrand to Arizona on May 29, 2003. To that point in the season, Ortiz had two home runs…

Theo Epstein: The players in the clubhouse were calling him Juan Pierre [using the slap-hitting former Marlin to tease Ortiz and his paucity of power to that point]. That was his nickname. And then he hit [21 home runs] in the second half of the season and went into the postseason, and he was Big Papi from then on.

Tom Kelly: I think when he finally got to Boston and didn’t get signed until the spring, I think he probably realized that maybe I’ve got to do something or I’m going to be out of the game. Who knows? But he started hitting that Monster over there, started whacking it over that fence and off of that wall, boom, boom, and his whole game turned.

David Ortiz: My first year I was hitting behind Manny Ramirez. They were having a hard time finding someone to hit behind Manny, and I came in and hit really well. And then we almost go to the World Series, and the following year we won the World Series. [That] was when people really got to know me.

That 2004 World Series run, of course, one of the most dramatic in baseball history, was fueled by Boston’s stunning comeback in the ALCS. Down 3-0 to the New York Yankees, following Dave Roberts’ iconic stolen base in the ninth inning, Boston won Game 4 on Ortiz’s two-run, walk-off homer in the 12th inning. Then, in Game 5 in Boston, Ortiz battled Yankees reliever Esteban Loaiza in a 10-pitch at-bat that ended with another Big Papi walk-off hit, a single in the 14th inning…

Tim Wakefield, former pitcher, 1992-2011; Red Sox teammate 2003-11: That’s when David Ortiz became Big Papi. The amount of clutch hits he got in the ’04 postseason was incredible. We were all in survival mode. It was like you could feel the momentum switch to our favor. We were getting killed.

Doug Mientkiewicz: Craziness. He made Manny look mortal. Everything we needed to get done, he did. Seemed like every time we needed a big hit, he was up. Not taking anything away from Manny because he’s one of the best right-handed hitters ever to play. But he’s hitting singles and David’s hitting homers and doubles. I was on deck during the Loaiza at-bat, watching him foul balls off and foul balls off and finally fight one off to center. You kept thinking, “We can’t keep leaving it up to him. He can’t keep doing it every night.” And he did.

Larry Bowa, Phillies coach; Yankees coach 2006-07: I compare him to a Derek Jeter. Jeter wasn’t a home run hitter, but they weren’t afraid of the moment. They could have failed on Monday with the bases loaded, and on Tuesday they wanted to be up with the bases loaded.

Theo Epstein: What he did in the Yankees series was as transformative a performance as I think you can have in baseball over a couple of days. No one in baseball wins a game single-handedly—maybe a dominant starting pitcher on a single day—but we were so down and out and he was so feared in that lineup, yet they still couldn’t avoid him enough. We were so desperate for another breath. We just wanted to keep surviving, and it was David who kept delivering to give us that extra breath. It almost felt like we rode to New York single-handedly on his shoulders when we went back there for Game 6.

He was drained emotionally because he was carrying us so much. He’s very serious about hitting and about baseball. He takes things to heart, and that kind of responsibility of being the guy looked to come through for the big hit as a player relatively new in the spotlight, it took a toll on him. I remember he was drained by the time we got to New York, but he kept delivering time and time again, seemingly beyond belief.

Jonathan Papelbon, Nationals pitcher; Red Sox teammate, 2005-11: You hear all the stories about how clutch he was, you saw how clutch he was, and then I walk in and see him and my first reaction was, “Man, this dude don’t know how to dress. This dude is wearing fake jewelry.” I couldn’t believe it. So over the years, as I got to know him a little bit more, I helped him out with his style. I showed him how to be a little more of a baller. When you’re a baller on the field, you’ve gotta dress like a baller off the field. I’ll take credit for that.   

David Ortiz: [Laughing uproariously] That’s a lie. What a lying bastard. Hey, tell that clown that I was here way before him. That guy is like a brother to me. That’s my boy. But he’s always dropping jokes like that. I’ve always been clean.

Jonathan Papelbon: There wasn’t a dinner we went out to, there wasn’t a night when me and Ashley [Papelbon’s wife] and him and Tiffany [Ortiz’s wife] went out that he didn’t take care of dinner. He was someone who always took care of the younger guys. And it didn’t matter if it was a young guy trying to take his job. He always took care of the underdog. Through all of his charity work, through all of the things he’s done, he’s always taken care of the underdog.

In 2007, the Red Sox won again, sweeping the Colorado Rockies in the World Series as Papelbon’s Riverdance became the thing to do in Boston…

Jonathan Papelbon: I tried to teach him that Riverdance, but David don’t dance. He boogies, know what I mean? I tried to teach him a few things when I was there.

David Ortiz: Well, you don’t have to move much [when you boogie]. You don’t have to go crazy with your feet. You just move your hips.

Perhaps the only blemish on Ortiz’s career came in 2009, when a report leaked that he had failed a test for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, the year before new PED rules went into effect in the game. He called a press conference in New York and aggressively defended himself…

David Ortiz: I always looked at it as a setup, because you can just point fingers at someone without any proof. Here I am playing baseball and doing my thing and, what, 11, 12 years later negative comments come out. I’ve never gotten into trouble for anything.

You’re not going to make everyone happy. That’s basically the way I look at life in general. If you want to put attention to that, it’s up to you. If you want to put attention to things I have done in my career, especially in the steroid era when we all are getting drug-tested…there’s not one player who has had more drug tests than myself. And I’ve never failed one [since current rules were put in place in 2004]. … Everything today is based on how much money I can make. And yes, whoever [leaked] that, they probably got their piece of cake. But I’m proving you wrong. Bro, if you look at the real picture, what I have done in my career, looking at that issue where there was no reality involved with it, it’s up to you whether you want to believe that.

Terry Francona, Red Sox manager, 2004-11: I remember talking to him. I said, “Hey, tell me about this.” He walked me through it. I remember when he went to do the press conference in New York, I stood behind him. Because even though he speaks good English, it’s his second language, and that’s not an easy thing to do. I was proud of the way he stood up there. Things that are done behind closed doors, there’s a reason the doors are closed, but I have a lot of faith in David, and that’s never wavered. I had some questions for him and he answered them. Just things I wanted to ask him, and my faith in him never wavered.

From All-Star to Legend

In the Red Sox’s first game at Fenway Park after the Boston Marathon bombing (played Saturday, April 20, 2013), Ortiz gave an emotional speech to a sold-out crowd, punctuating his remarks by saying, “This is our f–king city.”

Clay Buchholz, Red Sox starter 2007-present: The best part about it was, it was on live television and for him to say a curse word like he said and to still feel as heartfelt as anything that has ever been said, it was pretty inspiring knowing that everybody understood what he was talking about and that’s the way he responded to it and that’s how he could express what he felt and how strongly he feels about the city of Boston. It gives me chills, still, thinking about it now.

(Warning: video contains profanity.)

David Ortiz: I was angry, and when you’re angry, anything can come out. When I was talking like that, I was speaking just like any other citizen. I guarantee you everybody on that field felt the same way. Because there’s no way, there’s no way when people are trying to help people you come in and boom, damage that. I was so angry. I didn’t plan on saying what I said. It just came out because that’s how I feel. They told me a couple of minutes before, we want you to go say something to the fans so they can feel supported. I was in Boston the whole time when that was happening. And I was angry. And the bad word comes out, and I still didn’t get any fine or suspension because that’s how everyone felt. There was a lot of tension, a lot of bad things running around. I guess I did the right thing.

Clay Buchholz: I actually pitched that game. I was warming up. I was listening to it. It was crazy, a pretty surreal moment given what went down and how it happened. Even being, in my mind, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, he’s about as down to earth as it gets.

Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox second baseman 2006-present: I just caught a first pitch and I couldn’t hear him because I was talking to some people. I didn’t find out what he said until after the game. He said what everyone was feeling, but people didn’t say that. A lot of people wouldn’t have the nerve to say that, but he did. That was pretty special.

John Farrell, Red Sox manager 2013-present: When someone is speaking to the magnitude and importance in their second language and you understand the importance of the moment, when you step back, only David Ortiz could say what he said. Without any FCC penalty or anything. He’s unique, and one of the very few superstar athletes that transcends all walks of life.

At the other end of a season that started with tragedy came another magical October. The Sox began the postseason by beating Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs, a series that saw a dust-up between Ortiz and then-Rays ace David Price that included Price’s postgame Twitter rant…

Jake Peavy, Red Sox teammate 2013-2014: David Price had our number that year, really gave it to us. In Game 2 of the ALDS, David [Ortiz] comes in dressed like he was getting ready to have dinner with the Pope. Some of the guys gave him a hard time about it: “It wasn’t travel day; we’re going to travel tomorrow.” David simply responds, “You guys think I’m dressed like this for travel? Come on. I’ve been in the league however many years.” “So what are you dressed like that for?” “My press conference,” he says. And he hit two home runs off of David Price, came in and put that suit on and [went to] the press conference looking very suave.

Then the Sox beat Detroit in the ALCS, ignited by Ortiz’s game-tying Game 2 grand slam that sent his former teammate Torii Hunter tumbling over the wall…

Torii Hunter: In those [pregame scouting] meetings, I was standing up saying, “Don’t pitch to David. He knows what’s coming. We know his history of clutch hits. If we can stay away from David Ortiz, we’ve got a good chance.” So for some reason, we had a guy throw the ball right down the middle. When he hit it, it was in the lights in right field. I sprinted to the wall with my head down, looked up and when I saw the ball, I saw it late. I jumped up and left my body exposed trying to make the catch. I knew I was in no-go zone. You can’t go after the ball after a certain point in Fenway Park or you’re going to go flipping over the wall. But I didn’t care. It’s the playoffs—I’ve gotta get to the World Series. I went over the wall, flipped, got a concussion, shoulder problems and it took me a year to recover. …

We’ve never talked about it. We’ve hung out several times since then and never brought it up. We don’t talk about it. We talk about life. He’s my boy. There’s more to it than just the game.

John Farrell: Off the field, that same postseason, [David] had a gathering in his home after every series. It was his way of opening up himself, wanting to take care of so many around him, and I think that’s the way he’s lived his life. He’s had such an impact on so many people, whether it’s here, in his home country in the Dominican, he’s thoughtful in trying to help so many of those around him.

Jake Peavy: I can vividly remember laying on a recliner in David Ortiz’s basement watching Tampa Bay beat out Cleveland [for the AL wild-card spot]. Jonny Gomes, bless him, [was] standing in front of that TV waving on Tampa Bay, like, “Bring it on.” The whole team was there. Wives, families, children. It just kept us together.

The Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals in six games in the World Series with Ortiz being named the MVP. He hit .688/.760/1.188 with two homers and six RBI and started at first base in all three games in St. Louis…

Mike Matheny, Cardinals manager 2012-present: He was as hot as any player we’ve seen. Reminded us of Carlos Beltran against us in 2004 when he was with Houston before he moved over to the Mets. One player can make that big a difference. We tried to figure out how to pitch around him, but we got into situations where we couldn’t and he made us pay.

Dustin Pedroia: Obviously, when he’s on a roll like that, you don’t talk offense with him. You just leave him alone. But I had to worry about him playing defense next to me. My job was to protect him, take care of him and take the pressure off of him there. He’s got great hands. He can play first.

Jake Peavy: In Game 4, he comes off the field playing first base and has a team meeting in the dugout. He realized we were playing maybe a little differently than we had. We were down two games to one at that time, and we were down in Game 4. It was the right spot, and he was the right man to do that. He was telling us to relax, quit pressing. The whole team was huddled up around him in the dugout. That doesn’t happen except in special moments.

Mike Matheny: Some guys get onto that bigger stage…it’s all a big stage here, but when he got to Boston, there’s a whole lot more attention that can come, and that either makes guys sink or swim. And he’s a guy that took off swimming.

David Ortiz: I believe in God. And he picked us at the right time to do the right thing. I believe in that. I believe you are here for a reason, you are committed to something and when that time comes, it’s your time to shine, to do the right thing, to get it done.

Papi Everlasting

Ortiz begins this, his final season, with 503 career homers (27th all-time, third among active players), 1,641 RBI (30th-all time, third among active players) and a .284/.378/.547 slash line. He is a nine-time All-Star and, in Boston’s 2013 mayoral race, finished third behind Marty Walsh and John R. Connolly by receiving the highest total of write-in votes…

David Ortiz: I never take for granted the way things went down [in Minnesota], because it was the base of what I am right now. I learned one thing in Minnesota, and it was you’ve gotta come in every day and give everything you have. I learned they didn’t hand things to no one. I keep that for myself, you know what I mean? There was a lot of positive that I learned and still put it in play today. And I developed lifelong friends.

[But] Boston has embraced me, and I really appreciate that. I feel sometimes like I came to the big leagues once I started playing in Boston.

Tim Wakefield: Oh my God. He’s the face of the franchise. And he has been for many, many years. Probably since he became Big Papi. He’s carried the torch well. He means as much as Tom Brady means to the city of Boston, what Larry Bird meant to the city of Boston. He is the elite of the elite athletes to ever step foot in the city of Boston. And he’s represented the city very well.

Joe Girardi, Yankees manager 2008-present: He’s been a great, great player for a long, long time, and I know there’s always talk about do you get rid of the DH. Do you keep the DH? Do you put it in both leagues? He’s the reason you need to have it. Because a player who has that type of impact on the game, you can get him out there every day when he gets older because he can DH. I think he’s been a good ambassador for the game. He loves the game, he loves to play, he loves to shine in the big moments and he has the ability to do that.

A.J. Pierzynski: He’s the one guy on the team who, when he hits, he talks constantly. He asks about your mom, your family, everything. He asks how they’re doing. Then he says mean things about them later in the game. He’s the one guy I look forward to seeing hit.

David Price, Red Sox pitcher; Rays pitcher 2008-14; Tigers pitcher 2014-15; Blue Jays pitcher 2015: My mom and dad, he’s one of their favorite players. Before [I signed in Boston], my dad was like, “You better not hit You Know Who.” I was like, “Dad, stop.” My mom said it, too. My dad called me before every start, [shot] me a message or [gave] me a call.

I remember in 2010 or 2011, we’re at Tropicana Field and my parents are standing there in the tunnel outside the clubhouses, and my dad talks to him and he gives my dad his cellphone number, says text me if you need anything. That blew my dad away. It brings my dad to tears. Big Papi is just a normal dude like anybody else. To me, that’s what is so special about him.

It became a running thing in the Price household over the next few years, and now, surely, Price’s father is happy to see his son on the same team as Big Papi.

As impressed as teammates are with Ortiz on the field, they are in awe of his charitable work away from the ballpark…

Tim Wakefield: I’ve been involved in most of his golf tournaments in the Dominican Republic and to see what he gives back. … It’s a party, but the serious side of it is he’s saving lives. He was head of getting it together with Massachusetts General Hospital to fix the degenerative heart problems of kids in the Dominican Republic. He’s saving kids’ lives. It’s amazing.

Dustin Pedroia: We went [to the Dominican Republic] in 2010. I went with Andre Ethier, whose son fell down some stairs and dislocated his elbow. I think he was four. We had to take him to the hospital. David got everything set up, arranged. Just the way he treats everybody. Doesn’t matter who you are.

Jake Peavy: He’s just got a spirit about him that’s larger than life. That whole Babe Ruth aura. It all hasn’t been roses. It’s been ups and down. But he has been a tremendous, tremendous ambassador for the game.

Reggie Jackson, Hall of Famer (1993): Here’s a guy who was well liked by everybody, who spoke for the team at times and said the things that the club needed said. Not necessarily what they wanted to hear but what needed to be said. I recognize him as a guy who was maybe the best clutch player of his era.

Paul Molitor, Twins manager 2015-present; Hall of Famer (2004): I think about a guy who, in one of the more historical organizations in our game, has a chance to leave the game as one of the most popular players in its long history. You talk about Carl Yastrzemski and some other people, but David Ortiz went to a Boston organization starved for championships and somehow over a period of 10 years put three World Series championships in the front office. And I don’t know how many of them they would have won without him.

Theo Epstein: He’s probably the single person most identifiable with this decade-plus run of success the Red Sox have had. He got there in ’03 when we got five outs from the World Series, and then he was right in the middle of it when we won it the next year, and he’s still there trucking along after all these years.

If the face of your franchise is a happy, smiling stud in the middle of your order for 10-plus years, that’s a really good thing to have. He’s really helped transform that franchise. He definitely did more for us than we did for him.

David Ortiz: I have made a lot of friends in the game. And additionally, I have touched a lot of souls, a lot of people in a good way. That’s how I would like to be remembered. As a person people feel comfortable around. Even being who I am.

I see a lot of athletes in a lot of sports where, when they are good, they act like it. Bro, you know, God gave you the gift to be good. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to act like Superman, or untouchable. I think that the more humble you keep it, the more people appreciate what you do and want to be around you. … That has been me since day one, since I played for the Minnesota Twins. Everybody in the clubhouse liked me, everybody in the clubhouse wanted to be around me. It’s still the same here. You can see how even the younger players come around and talk to me like we’ve been together for the past 20 years. That makes me feel good.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Know what? A cactus is more prickly than you think it is…

1. Zack Greinke Changes Face of NL West

A.J. Pollock, Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder, walked into a nearly deserted batting cage the other day and waited for the one player to finish his swings. It was Zack Greinke.

Mike Butcher, Arizona pitching coach, surveyed the dugout and noticed Greinke talking even more on the days he pitches than on the other days. He huddles frequently with his catcher to develop communication and strategy.

Chip Hale, Arizona manager, said there is an entirely different tone this spring than last for the Diamondbacks.

It is an air of confidence, the tone of a team that not only knows it is good, but also knows it has an identifiable ace who can carry it to the promised land.

And here’s the thing: As Madison Bumgarner battles a sore right rib cage and sore left foot, and Matt Cain plays catch-up in San Francisco’s camp after removal of a cyst on his throwing arm, and as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rotation depth has taken a hit with Brett Anderson’s back injury and Hyun-Jin Ryu’s continued slow return from shoulder surgery, it is easy to see a shake-up in the NL West this summer.

“Our identity as a team developed last year,” Pollock told B/R early the other morning. “The exciting part about this year is we’re not searching for our identity anymore. We know what kind of team we’re going to be.”

Only Colorado scored more runs in the National League than Arizona last year, and the Diamondbacks led the majors through this week with a spring .317 batting average, a .373 on-base percentage, an .890 OPS, 144 runs scored, 230 hits and 375 total bases.   

“It seems like we score at least five runs a game and the pitching staff’s better than it was last year,” Greinke said. “All the good things that were going on are still going on, and the things that needed to be improved have been improved.”

Meanwhile, Arizona led the NL with 71 defensive runs saved in 2015. The D-backs have young, skilled players who can produce in the field, too.

“[Jean] Segura’s looked amazing, [Nick] Ahmed’s looked really good, [Chris] Owings has looked good, [Phil] Gosselin’s looked good,” Greinke said of the abundance of shortstops/second basemen general manager Dave Stewart has collected. “That’s more middle infielders than you probably need.

“You’ve got Paul Goldschmidt at first base, you’re not worried about anyone else playing there. [Welington] Castillo has been playing incredible; he looks really solid.”

Arizona is depending on Greinke, who signed a six-year, $206.5 million deal here after opting out of his Dodgers contract last winter, and Shelby Miller, acquired in a trade with Atlanta, to tie it all together.

Greinke is assimilating as quickly as he can, particularly with catchers Castillo and Tuffy Gosewisch.

“I haven’t had any trouble with that in the past,” he said of the learning curve with a new catcher. “It’s tough in spring training because some days you’re working on stuff and it’s tough for the catcher to get a feel for what you like to throw because you’re more working on pitches than you are going through your normal process to get guys out.”

He does not shake off catchers very often, although given the cerebral nature of Greinke’s approach, sometimes that changes.

“It probably depends on how my mind’s thinking that day,” he said. “Some days I would rather not think about it at all, focus on executing pitches. And other days my mind will be working more and I’ll shake off more.”

That’s the stuff Castillo and Gosewisch will learn as they go.

Butcher, who was the Los Angeles Angels’ pitching coach when Greinke was there for a brief stop during the second half of the 2012 season, said the ace made a change “for the better” with his front side when he was with the Dodgers. His glove side stands higher than it did a couple of years ago, and that’s part of what factored into his 19-3 season last summer with a phenomenal 1.66 ERA.

“Coming in before the season starts isn’t that challenging,” Greinke said. “When you get traded in the middle of the year, it was a little tougher, I thought. Because it’s the middle of the year, there’s game action right away, there’s different pitching coaches and scouting reports you have to get used to. That was a little trickier.

“But during the spring you have a lot of time to iron out those things.”

2. Old Legs, Big Bat and Albert Pujols

There was a time when Albert Pujols went out of his way to make sure people knew he preferred playing first base over serving as a designated hitter.

Now, at 36, coming off of his third injury in four seasons, Pujols is simply happy to have two good legs under him as the Los Angeles Angels look to put another disappointing season in the rearview mirror.

The slugger had surgery to relieve pain near the arch in his right foot following the 2015 season. He also suffered from plantar fasciitis through most of the 2013 season and underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee after the 2012 season.

So while C.J. Cron oils up the first base glove, Pujols steams forward ahead of schedule, looking very much like he will be in the Angels’ Opening Day lineup.

“As long as I’m in the frickin’ lineup, DH or first base, it doesn’t matter,” Pujols said.

He smashed two home runs in one inning against Milwaukee starter Wily Peralta the other day, and coming off a season in which he hit 40 homers with 95 RBI, and with six years and $165 million remaining on his contract, Pujols is still too focused on today to think much about retirement.

“I love what I do,” Pujols said. “I love being around my teammates. It’s entertaining. It’s fun.

“And I love to win.”

3. Panda’s Not Smiling Much Anymore

He took the money in Boston, but you wonder whether Pablo Sandoval’s future lies elsewhere. For both himself and the Red Sox, this might be a situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sandoval’s weight always is going to be an issue, and when I was in Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this spring, it was as if someone had clicked out the light in his eyes. He was more grim and less joyful than I’ve seen him in years, and at the time he told me he wasn’t speaking with the media.

Now, manager John Farrell hinted this week that Travis Shaw could start at third base in place of Sandoval.

This is a guy who thrived on having fun, and while the atmosphere in San Francisco was conducive to his carefree ways, the pressure of Boston is not. He seemed a perfect fit to play third base in Fenway Park for a couple of years and then replace David Ortiz as designated hitter, and maybe that can still happen when Ortiz retires after this season.

But reaching that point could be tough, and if Sandoval doesn’t fully commit to getting himself in better shape, it’s hard to see things working out there for him. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe had these interesting stats in his Sunday baseball notes column the other day:

There were 17 instances last season when Sandoval was on first base when a single was hit, and all 17 times he made it only as far as second base. There were seven times when Sandoval was on first when a double was hit, and six times he made it only to third, and he never scored. And in the 11 times he was on second when a single was hit, he scored just three times. His “extra base taken percentage” of 9 percent was half of David Ortiz’s. Dustin Pedroia was at 32 percent and Mookie Betts 44 percent.

4. Is It Me, or Are the Cubs Getting Hotter?

So funky Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon met with 11 of his “lead bulls” Sunday to determine some 2016 club rules.

Lead bulls?

Maddon-speak for team leaders.

And they came up with the best dress code ever.

“If you think you look hot, you wear it,” Maddon said. “That’s the dress code.”

Really, as you might have guessed, Maddon prefers things loose and free over tight and starched. Take, for example, shirts.

“The previous generation really frowns upon noncollared shirts, which I’ve never understood,” Maddon said. “They’ve always been in favor of the collared shirt, and that being more acceptable than the noncollared shirt.

“I’ve never understood that logic. For me, there’s no such thing as having to have a specific shirt on.”

Biggest topic of discussion? Whether the Cubs will wear shorts on the road.

“If you wore shorts on the road, I would never recognize that, so you’d get away with it,” Maddon says. “The $5,000 suit on the airplane ride makes no sense to me whatever. I don’t know who you’re trying to impress.”

5. Mr. President, Do You Have Time to Play?

Great Moments in Tweeting over the past few days from Tampa Bay Rays ace Chris Archer, whose team is playing a historic exhibition game in Cuba on Tuesday.

One that will be attended by president Barack Obama and wife Michelle Obama.

So Archer tweeted this to the president:

Left hanging with no response, Archer lobbed this tweet to the first lady:

So if Archer shows up at a state dinner anytime in the near future, you know where that groundwork was laid.

6. Talking Stick and Talking Johns

No spring complex is more beautiful and first-class than Talking Stick, shared by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.

Yet, apparently, nothing is perfect.

“They don’t have bathrooms in the bullpens,” Angels closer Huston Street told Bleacher Report the other day, alerting us to a story that had yet to break until now. “What are the odds of 12 grown men not having to urinate in a four-hour period when they’re hydrating?

“That’s an oversight. Bullpens always are an afterthought.

“We’re forever failed starters.”

7. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Child Care: The White Sox ask Adam LaRoche to “dial back” his son’s presence in the clubhouse and all hell breaks loose. Using orange baseballs during games wouldn’t be as bizarre as this story.

2. Cuba: Once again, baseball helps lead the way in bringing together countries and cultures. If only Kramer, with his love of Cuban cigars, could throw out the first pitch.

3. NCAA brackets: Might be the only thing that keeps some clubhouses going as the dog days of spring are in full force and Opening Day now is nearly close enough to reach out and touch. Quick, who has the Badgers?!

4. Bryce Harper: Smashes two home runs Sunday in Lakeland, Florida, and even old Detroit Tigers power hitter Willie Horton was genuflecting. OK, we can start the season now.

5. Jacoby Ellsbury dodges big injury: Thankfully for the New York Yankees and for his own sanity, X-rays revealed no damage when a pitch struck him in the wrist. Question is, can he stay in one piece for the summer? Ellsbury has played in more than 134 games only twice in the past five seasons. 

8. Suitable for Framing

During a discussion on his transition from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Arizona Diamondbacks, Zack Greinke had high praise for Yasmani Grandal, his old catcher in Hollywood.

Specifically, Grandal ranks high among the best pitch-framing catchers every season.

“I don’t even know what he did sometimes. I just noticed he would get calls,” Greinke said. “Even if it didn’t seem like he caught it that great, umpires loved calling strikes when he was catching. It was amazing. His talent’s also pretty impressive. He’s really good at it. It’s easy to see when you’re pitching to him that he’s good.”

On a staff without Greinke, and being that he’s currently recovering from left shoulder surgery, Grandal has his work cut out for him right now. He again figures to split time with A.J. Ellis behind the plate, and after ace Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers’ pitching is a little dinged up right now.

9. Chatter

• One more on pitch-framing: From his observations of San Diego since he’s been in the NL West, Greinke thinks former Padres manager Bud Black and executive A.J. Hinch, the old catcher now managing Houston, worked some magic with their receivers. “I think they did something there because a lot of their catchers have been really good over the years,” Greinke said. “And [Derek] Norris has improved a lot since he’s gone over there too, I think.”

• He was sick, and then rain wrecked his return to the Minnesota lineup Sunday, and now the race is on for the Twins to make sure Byron Buxton, their prized prospect, is ready for Opening Day. He was only 4-for-20 this spring heading into this week.

• At 35 and coming back from shoulder surgery, Angels left-hander C.J. Wilson is reinventing himself this spring, coming up with a new delivery and a different arm slot. “It’s a career adjustment to where he is physically right now,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. Wilson is expected to open the season on the disabled list.

• The Angels are worried about one-time ace Jered Weaver, whose velocity has been even lower this spring than it was last year. An MRI on his neck revealed no significant new damage, though he does have some degeneration. The hope is that with regular work in that area of his neck and shoulder he can still remain relatively productive.

• Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. has been in Seattle Mariners camp since Saturday. He says he hasn’t yet started writing his Hall of Fame speech. Of course, he’s got until July.

• When the New York Mets open the season in Kansas City, it will be the first time in history that the previous season’s World Series opponents open the following regular season against each other.

• Congratulations to statistics guru Bill Chuck, whose work I periodically reference, who is moving on to MLB Network.

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

What a cool thing, the Tampa Bay Rays playing the Cuban National Team on Tuesday in Cuba….

“Ceilin’ fan stirs the air

“Cigar smoke did swirl,

“A fragrance on the pillow case

“And he thinks about the girl

“Spillin’ wine wine and sharin’ good times

“She sure could make him smile.

“He pays her well but what the hell

“He’ll be movin’ in a little while

“Havana daydreamin’

“Oh he’ll be dreamin’ his life away”

— Jimmy Buffett, “Havana Daydreamin'”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

GLENDALE, Ariz. — What began as a quirky story about a boy and baseball has exploded into an ugly rift in the Chicago White Sox organization punctuated by ace Chris Sale’s saying the players were “bold-faced lied to” by club vice president Kenny Williams and demanding a meeting with owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

Reinsdorf, Williams and first baseman Adam LaRoche all issued statements by noon Friday amid the shattering of spring training calm by an angry clubhouse that appears on the verge of mutiny.

That open warfare has broken out over the constant presence of a 14-year-old boy—Adam’s son, Drake—ranks as one of the most bizarre spring training stories in memory.

That some White Sox players have requested the meeting with Reinsdorf and are openly hostile toward Williams leads to significant questions regarding the organization’s direction.

The only thing missing here Friday was the boy at the center of the storm, and his apparently now-retired father.

When I was here one day last week, Drake LaRoche was plopped down at the middle of a table in the clubhouse after the morning workout, in full uniform, shoveling forkfuls of salad into his mouth.

He couldn’t have looked more like a player had he been spitting tobacco juice.

On Friday, his little uniform, No. 25, was hanging in Sale’s locker in tribute.

That a boy should be a constant presence in his father’s workplace, in clubhouses and on team charter flights, is questionable on its own merit. This isn’t a daycare facility; the White Sox ranked as one of the game’s most disappointing teams last season, and they’re trying to prepare for a critical season now.

To allow the child of a player, or children of players, carte blanche around a club is absolutely preposterous.

Were promises broken?

LaRoche says that the Sox agreed when he signed a two-year, $26 million deal with them before the 2015 season that his son could hang around with him in the clubhouse. LaRoche went on to bat .207 with 12 home runs and 44 RBI over 127 games for the White Sox last year.

Williams told USA Today earlier this week that he simply asked LaRoche to “dial it back,” that Drake was still welcome but not 100 percent of the time.

LaRoche disputed that in a statement released on his Twitter account Friday morning, noting, “White Sox VP Ken Williams recently advised me to significantly scale back the time that my son spent in the clubhouse. Later, I was told not to bring him to the ballpark at all.”

So, where is the truth?

And this is what White Sox players pick a fight over?

As one player told Bleacher Report on Friday, you bet it is, because when the front office lies to players and those lies land in the clubhouse and divide it, that is a fight you must pick.

However, other sources told B/R that Williams did not act unilaterally, that some members of the organization privately complained about the constant presence of LaRoche’s son.

This answers the most obvious question: Why would Williams suddenly decide to set new rules for LaRoche now instead of at the beginning of camp? Other White Sox players in other years have complained about Williams’ penchant toward clubhouse meddling, but for him to suddenly, in mid-March, decide to interrupt the spring flow of the team makes zero sense.

In a statement issued Friday in response to Sale accusing him of lying, Williams said, “While I disagree with Chris’ assertions today, I certainly have always appreciated his passion.”

Williams did not make himself available to reporters.

LaRoche, after saying that Williams told him flat-out not to bring his son to the ballpark, said this in his statement: “Obviously, I expressed my displeasure toward this decision to alter the agreement we had reached before I signed with the White Sox.”

Meantime, as the internal White Sox wheels spun furiously, key figures from Reinsdorf to manager Robin Ventura conducted meetings attempting to keep things together and tamp down the flames.

“This is an internal issue,” Reinsdorf said in a statement. “And we are in the process of holding a number of discussions with players, staff and the front office…. I have instructed members of the organization not to talk about this issue and get our focus back on the field and winning baseball games.”

Ventura said he has spoken with LaRoche “quite a few times” in the past couple of days and admitted that the whole situation is “shocking.”

Everybody involved, from players to executives, speaks highly of Drake LaRoche—who, incidentally, also had his own locker in the clubhouse and flew on the team’s charters.

“He’s a great kid. Heck, he’s probably more mature than most of the guys in there,” Ventura quipped.

Sale, who is well-known by those around the Sox to have a heated temper and a quick trigger, unloaded to a group of reporters on Friday morning in the clubhouse.

“Even the story that everyone is reading isn’t the issue,” Sale said. “We have a much bigger problem on our hands than Kenny coming in here and kicking out a kid.”

That issue is trust between the players and the suits upstairs, the ace said. Williams was contradictory, Sale said, coming to the players and blaming the coaches for complaining, then going to the coaches and blaming the players for complaining, and then finally telling the players that it was the owner who thought LaRoche’s son was hanging around too much.

“So we’re not exactly [sure] who it’s coming from, where it originated from,” Sale said.

He added: “There was no problem in here. We were rolling. We had a team coming together and new guys getting acquainted and playing well, no hiccups, nothing.

“We’re a steam engine going full steam ahead and he…derailed it.”

If the White Sox can be derailed by a disagreement over a teammate’s 14-year-old son, how in the name of Charles Comiskey can they be tough enough to handle the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers in the AL Central?

Cool as it surely is to hang out with major leaguers, wouldn’t it be healthy for Drake LaRoche to spend some time hanging out with kids his own age, too?

“Prior to signing with the White Sox, my first question to the club concerned my son’s ability to be a part of the team,” Adam LaRoche said in the statement. “After some due diligence on the club’s part, we reached an agreement.”

I’m sorry, but that is twisted. He’s barely a teenager. And he’s a part of a major league team? For LaRoche to negotiate that is not grounded in reality, and whatever terms the White Sox agreed to there—if, in fact, they did—are even more bizarre.

This is craziness.

What both sides need is a healthy dose of graham crackers and milk, and a good, long nap.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Flip your bat, pump your fist, shoot your imaginary arrow and come sit down with us for a few minutes as we investigate exactly how tired baseball is.

Like, take-a-two-hour-nap-each-afternoon tired?

Gulp-a-Red-Bull-or-two-a-day tired?

Enter-a-dance-competition tired?

“I do agree with what Bryce is saying,” Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Archie Bradley says. “Maybe his words were a little off. It’s not tired.

“I think if he could change that word, he would.”

“Just growing up watching the game on TV and being a part of it now, it’s changed,” Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant says. “You see guys wearing neon on their shoes and on their gloves, you see bat flips, things like that. I think there’s a time and place for it.”

So after Washington Nationals superstar and National League MVP Bryce Harper said what he did about pumping some enthusiasm into the game, I enthusiastically set off to visit a few of the game’s top young stars to seek their opinions.

Speaking to Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine, Harper endorsed Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez’s mound exuberance, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig’s on-field giddy-up and many, many other forms of in-game celebratory measures.

Next thing you knew, Goose Gossage was firing lightning bolts from Mt. Hall of Fame, decrying the excess exuberance he sees in today’s game.

Here’s the thing, full disclosure: I know Gossage. And I know Harper. They both have such a deep-rooted passion for this game, I guarantee you that if they met each other and sat down to discuss it, they would get along splendidly. Guarantee it.

So what do a handful of the game’s top young stars think? Essentially, this:

“Honestly, I don’t show very much emotion, but I have no problem with it either way,” Los Angeles Dodgers rookie shortstop Corey Seager says. “You want to respect the game, but the game is evolving.

“People are showing more emotion. There are scenarios to everything. Times to do it. Times not to do it.

“Does it bother me? No. But there are certain times it does. When you’re up by 10 runs, you don’t need to keep abusing it. If it’s a big moment in a game when excitement and adrenaline are going, that’s when it’s OK.”

Says Cubs shortstop Addison Russell: “I really don’t mind it. If you come through in a clutch situation, I think you have a right to have a celebratory moment. It’s not how you look at it from the outside. You’re the one who has to go through the pressure moment and when you do something, it’s like, Whew!”

Not everyone is on board, of course. Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout preached humility earlier this week.

“I don’t try to show anybody up,” Trout said, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. “Whatever somebody else does, that’s what they do.”

The world changes. People change. Things aren’t as stodgy anymore. The younger generation, generally speaking, is more accepting today.

Unwritten rules never have been easy to decode then or now (“It’s like walking on eggshells,” Arizona’s Bradley said), but the current reading of them veers more toward this:

If you’re celebrating yourself and your team in a big moment, cool.

If you’re celebrating to rub the other guy’s nose in something, or you’re doing it because you just schooled an opponent whom you dislike, not cool.

“I don’t mind some of the flair,” Bradley said. “You still give respect, but a little here and there isn’t bad.

“You don’t want to step on the toes of the guys who played the game before you did, but things evolve and change. There’s a process.

“I think one reason is technology. There are multiple platforms now. With social media, the game has changed. I definitely respect Harper for saying that stuff. He has a huge platform.”

No disrespect to the grumpy Goose, a personal favorite, but the only platform he’s accustomed to is whatever platform he stood on when his New York Yankees won the World Series in 1978.

Bradley, who is competing for a job in Arizona’s rotation this spring, said some of the most fun he’s had playing baseball came in the Arizona Fall League in 2014.

“We did some bush league, summer ball-ish, excessive celebrating,” he says of a team that also included Minnesota’s Byron Buxton, Colorado’s Trevor Story and Arizona’s Peter O’Brien. They would chant at opponents from the dugout and even rag on the left fielder from the bullpen.

“Our bullpen talked trash the whole game, and I still remember Darnell Sweeney [of the Philadelphia Phillies organization] in left field tipping his cap to us,” Bradley says. “The fans enjoyed it.”

Obviously, Bradley said, they carried it further than they ever would dare in a major league game, but “we were being free. We were having fun.”

It’s a man’s game, but it takes a little boy to play it, the old saying goes. And maybe we’re seeing more little boy break through in some of this, but fun is a good thing. Especially when baseball is criticized for being too slow and vanilla to hold its footing in today’s high-def world.

“It’s exciting for the fans, it brings excitement and energy to the crowd,” Seager says. “From that standpoint, it’s a positive.

“You want the fans to be excited. That’s why we play.”

Five months later, I can’t tell you how many times Jose Bautista’s bat flip during the playoffs last October has come up in clubhouses this spring. Most of the time, it’s been with amusement and chuckles.

“Obviously, you play a big playoff game like Bautista last year, it’s a really cool moment,” the Cubs’ Bryant said. “I don’t think any pitcher is going to get upset if you do that in that type of situation.

“Certain guys do it. I don’t. It helps certain guys play. I think that’s part of the appeal of the game; you never know what to expect, certain guys are going to celebrate, certain guys aren’t. I’ve never been that type of guy.”

Adds Bradley: “In the Bautista situation, I thought if ever there was a time to flip a bat, it was then. That game was insane. You look at how Toronto reacted, people will remember that for the rest of their lives.”

Conversely, we sure seem to be seeing more fist pumps from pitchers after key outs than ever before. Ever so slowly, even hitters are accepting it.

“I think if something happens to my teammates and it bothers my teammate, then it’s going to bother me too,” Bryant says. “I’m going to have his back whatever it is.

“But if a pitcher is doing that, more fuel to the fire next time. You won’t see any reaction out of me. That’s not the way I’ve ever done things. I’ve been the calm player, go out there and keep everything internally. That’s the way I do it.”

Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson took a wider-lens view. “You look at football, you look at basketball, there’s a lot more celebrating,” he says. “When someone does something well, they celebrate.

“They dance and shimmy in soccer. I played winter ball in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and when you struck out, the pitcher would showboat. When you hit a home run, the hitter would bat flip, pimp it. In that culture, people will accept it.”

It isn’t Pederson’s style, and he says he doesn’t agree or disagree with it.

“I’m not a judge of that,” he said.

Bottom line is, within reason, how can passion be a bad thing?

Why should it be a bad thing?

“I love the way Bryce plays the game,” says Bryant, who, like Harper, is a Las Vegas native who knows Harper’s family well. “It’s entertaining to watch. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, but that’s who he’s always been. It’s not like he’s changing who he is just because he’s a superstar in the big leagues.

“I watched him when he was eight years old and he had so much intensity playing this game. That’s what got him going. I think he played football too growing up, and he has some of that football player’s mentality. Some guys have it. I just played baseball growing up, so I never got into that whole side of things. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. And I don’t think Bryce ever takes it over the top either.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

TAMPA, Fla. — Pass the sunscreen, it’s getting hot here amid the palm trees…

1. The “Rebuild” Begins in New York

Not only is it the most mind-warping number of the winter, but guaranteed you will not find a statistic this summer that trumps it (sorry, meant that apolitically), either.

The Yankees spent zero dollars in free agency.

Nada. Nothing.

So while former Yankee hero Paul O’Neill spent his time supporting Donald Trump at an election night shindig last week in Jupiter, Florida, maybe you spent some time wondering when general manager Brian Cashman is going to make the Yankees great again.

Answer: Possibly this year, according to several of those wearing pinstripes.

“Aroldis Chapman the last two or three years was one of the highest-paid relievers in baseball,” Yankees bullpen ace Andrew Miller tells Bleacher Report. “That’s not exactly free.”

Neither is Chapman, who will begin the season serving a 30-game suspension under MLB‘s domestic violence policy.

But in adding the former Cincinnati closer, who will earn $11.325 million this year (minus what he’s docked for those 30 days) and second baseman Starlin Castro, who is guaranteed $38 million through 2020, the Yankees added two impact players, got younger and kick-started the closest thing to a rebuilding, or retooling, process you’ll probably ever see in the Bronx.

“I don’t think there’s any rebuilding or retooling with the Yankees,” Miller says. “You’d be wrong if you think anybody in this clubhouse has anything to do with that.

“It was a bittersweet feeling last year, the one-game playoff.”

Blink and you missed the Yankees in the “postseason” last October, as Houston’s Dallas Keuchel fired six scoreless innings and the Astros won 3-0.

Then came the winter of no David Price, no Yoenis Cespedes and no Zack Greinke.

“I think it’s one of those things where they do what makes sense for this team,” outfielder Brett Gardner says. “Guys on the big board made no sense.

“Starlin is 25, he’s already played in three All-Star Games, the kid has a lot of talent.”

As Gardner also points out, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran, a couple of heavyweights, are already taking Castro under their wing and teaching him a few things. To Gardner, Castro is reminiscent of another player whom the outfielder was a big fan of, former Yankee Alfonso Soriano.

“I’m really, really excited about him, and Chapman speaks for himself,” Gardner says. “There’s only one person in the world who throws 105 mph left-handed, and he’s the man.”

The Yankees last year ranked second in the American League in runs scored, and this year’s lineup should be similar. Mark Teixeira’s health is vital with Greg Bird already having been lost for the season.

The key, of course, is pitching. But when Chapman returns, with him, Miller and Dellin Betances lurking, the Yankees don’t need more innings than Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia can realistically give them.

“I think Aaron Hicks is going to help us out, too,” third baseman Chase Headley says. “Even though he’s a fourth outfielder, if someone goes down…

“The Yankees didn’t spend, but we certainly improved.”

How much? We’re about to find out.   

2. Easy Lies the Crown

Everybody wears rose-colored sunglasses at this time of year, and it’s always best to take the happy talk with a grain of salt (preferably, that grain of salt should come on a margarita glass in these warm and carefree spring training days).

But when you’re talking the defending champion Kansas City Royals, who, as manager Ned Yost reminds, came within 90 feet two years ago of entering this spring with back-to-back world championships, the optimism is warranted.

There is no reason the core group of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez, Alcides Escobar and Co. cannot continue improving, Yost says.

“They’ve gotten better and better every year, and none of them have reached their ceilings yet even though it’s been a few years,” Yost says. “It’s such a special group. They like to have fun, but they know when to get after it.

“They know when to get after it better than any group I’ve ever had.”

Cain finished third in AL MVP voting last year, hitting .307/.361/.477 with 16 homers, 72 RBI and 28 thefts. Somehow, he’s yet to win a Gold Glove, but that’s only a matter of time. Everyone knows he’s as good as it gets in center field.

How high is Cain’s ceiling?

“It’s very high,” Yost quips. “You might need a pair of binoculars to see it.”

3. It’s One of Those Years in San Francisco

It’s cute and all (and, frankly, more than a little tired, as Bryce Harper might say), this thing about the Giants winning only in even years.

Fact is I could cite Hunter Pence alone and make a case that every year is an odd year in San Francisco (he wrote lovingly).

Whatever year it is, one enormous key this summer in San Francisco is free-agent starter Jeff Samardzija’s return to form. The right-hander was delivered on a five-year, $90 million deal and is looking to re-establish himself following a rough season in 2015 that saw him go 11-13 with a 4.96 ERA for the Chicago White Sox.

“Every year is a new year,” he says. “As a baseball player, you don’t look in the past much unless you’re looking at film.”

In that regard, he might especially want to stay away from last August and September. After the Sox elected not to trade him to a contender last July, Samardzija answered by going 1-8 with a 9.24 ERA over his next nine starts.

“It didn’t end up numbers-wise the way I wanted,” he says, though he notes that he did throw 214 innings.

“The most frustrating thing last year was giving up a bunch of early runs and putting my team in too much of a hole to come back,” Samardzija says.

He denies that his impending free agency affected him, noting that to go out and try to find an extra gear in a given start “is ridiculous because usually there’s nothing more to find; you’re leaving it all out on the field.”

The prediction here is that Dave Righetti, San Francisco’s sensational pitching coach, will help Samardzija find both his old self and perhaps some new ground that he hasn’t yet been able to traverse in his career.

“Rags has been awesome,” he says. “We’re taking our time with each other. He’s got two new guys [Samardzija and Johnny Cueto] and we’re trying to get to know each other. He’s been great sort of standing back and evaluating as we go.

“You’ve got to have a foundation first.”

4. High Hopes in the Desert

We all know that recent history shows that teams winning the winter don’t exactly win the summer. Arizona is the next team up taking aim at changing that.

Zack Greinke made his third start of the spring Monday, Shelby Miller is expected to team with him to give the D-backs a strong one-two punch, and starter Robbie Ray has been outstanding so far.

Meantime, a couple of young outfielders, Socrates Brito and Peter O’Brien, are pushing Yasmany Tomas hard for an outfield spot.

“The last four days, I’d say Peter has really blossomed in front of us,” Arizona manager Chip Hale says. And with Brito and Tomas, “we’re going to have a whole lot of decisions to make in the outfield.”

As we know, teams that look sexy on paper at this time of year are not automatic winners in the summer. But beyond Greinke, Miller, Paul Goldschmidt, A.J. Pollock and more, Arizona’s depth is what is most impressive. Right now, Chris Owings is projected to start at second, with Nick Ahmed and Jean Segura battling for the shortstop job, but Owings can slide over to short if need be, too.

“I think we have three shortstops on this team who are above-average major league shortstops,” Hale says. “Owings, Segura, and Nick is a difference-maker.”

Says starter Archie Bradley: “From a team aspect, it’s awesome. You can feel the excitement in this club. Even in spring training games, there’s a different feeling.”

5. When Catchers Run Hard

In Cleveland’s camp, manager Terry Francona was raving about catcher Yan Gomes—not for a home run he hit the other day, but for nearly beating out a ground ball to shortstop.

“This is our catcher, and he runs like his pants are on fire,” Francona says. “If you’re ever going to give someone a pass [for not running hard], it would be your catcher.

“The way you run the bases sets a tone for how you play the game. Jason Kipnis is another one. You want it and expect it, and when it happens it’s really good. And it’s going to help us win a game. [Gomes] will run a guy into an error one day.”

6. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Bryce Harper and sleepy baseball: Tired sport needs more virtuoso individual performances with flair, says the Nationals outfielder. Old-timers rush to take their blood pressure medication.

2. Goose Gossage and old fire: After ripping Toronto outfielder Jose Bautista for the bat flip and Harper for being young and brash, the Yankees call the Hall of Famer into the principal’s office and threaten to enroll him in an etiquette class.

3. NCAA brackets: The most important moment of my school years might have been junior year of high school, when Brother Ronald LaLonde, yearbook moderator, ran an NCAA bracket pool. Talk about education opening up an entirely new world. Upset special!

4. Matt Harvey’s crazy velocity: His fastball was clocked at 97 mph in Port St. Lucie, Florida, the other day. Then, the stadium scoreboard clocked another fastball at 47. Conventional wisdom has a pitcher needing at least a 10 mph difference between his fastball and changeup to screw with a hitter’s timing, but that’s a little extreme, isn’t it? Or, maybe, ahem, the scoreboard is tired.

5. St. Patrick’s Day: In one of spring’s most charming traditions, green caps and bases are on deck. As opposed to the green rookies, who are beginning to be shipped back to minor league camps throughout the game.

7. Gray Is Good

Speaking at a Society for American Baseball Research Analytics Conference in Phoenix over the weekend, new Los Angeles Angels general manager Billy Eppler absolutely nailed it when discussing the analytics/scouting divide.

In fact, he spoke in Bryce Harper terms that everyone can understand.

“The analytics vs. scouting thing, it’s so tired,” Eppler said, per Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times. “It’s so East Coast-West Coast rap. Uncle. Uncle, you know what I mean?

“It’s almost like you have to be Republican or Democrat. Are you East Coast rap or West Coast? Are you for stats or are you for scouting? I don’t know. Can I really be in between? Because I am.

“It’s only black and white. Nobody wants gray, but gray’s the best. That’s what makes this game great. There is no absolute.”

8. Chatter

• Outfielder Jon Jay is bringing a little bit of that famous St. Louis Cardinals culture with him to San Diego. “His leadership qualities are off the charts,” new Padres manager Andy Green says. “Him and Manny Margot [the big outfield prospect San Diego acquired from Boston in the Craig Kimbrel trade] are joined at the hip.”

• Todd Frazier on his years with the Reds: “I had a blast in Cincinnati, but that time is over. It’s a new chapter in my life. I’m looking forward to it, man. I’ve been in Chicago when we played the Cubs, it’s exciting.”

• White Sox outfielder Adam Eaton says he is as strong as he’s ever been, though he lost some muscle mass in his back following nerve compression surgery in his left shoulder. The muscle is expected to regenerate in 12 to 16 months. “You look at my back and I have a huge dent in it,” he says.

• Yes, you can credit (or blame, depending on how things turn out) in part Jon Lester for delivering free-agent starter John Lackey to the Cubs. “It definitely was a big factor,” Lackey says of his old Boston buddy. “He was texting me this winter, recruiting me. It definitely had a bearing.”

• Padres bench coach Mark McGwire returned Monday after missing most of camp to tend to his ill wife in Southern California. San Diego has not said what’s ailing Stephanie McGwire.

9. Put Me In, Coach

No, No. 81 for the Cubs doesn’t stand a chance to make the team, so any fantasy players who might have been in attendance Saturday at the Cubs-White Sox, settle down.

But if he was evaluated on enthusiasm alone, the man wearing the high-numbered Cubs uniform could become the team’s cleanup hitter.

Mark Stein is his name, and he is the longtime manager for Max Weinberg, Bruce Springsteen’s drummer in the E Street Band. The seeds for his day in uniform actually started a couple of days earlier, when the Chicago resident and Cubs fan reached out to manager Joe Maddon and invited him to last Thursday night’s Phoenix concert as a special guest.

Maddon and his wife, Jaye, not only went to the show, but they went early and met Weinberg backstage, and even had their picture taken on stage at his drum kit (yes, very early, way before the show).

“It was great. They played for three-and-a-half hours, high energy, without even taking a break. Phenomenal,” says Maddon, who is a longtime Springsteen fan and, in return, invited Stein to spend a day at Cubs camp.

Though he didn’t get any action, Stein did get to take some dry swings in the batting cage just after the Cubs left the field. Maybe positioning himself to be a September call-up?

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

Jake Peavy’s Hero Jam, designed to “celebrate the service and honor of our U.S. military personnel,” was a rockin’ good time at Live Wire in Scottsdale on Sunday night. Proceeds went to the United Service Organizations’ Transition 360 Alliance, and Peavy was backed by a band of crack musicians, including Doug Pettibone, longtime guitarist for Lucinda Williams; Jimmy Hall, former lead singer of Wet Willie (“Keep on Smilin'”); and Coy Bowles, guitarist for the Zac Brown Band. Peter Gammons, the legendary baseball writer, even joined them on stage to play guitar and sing one song. Nice set list, too, including Peavy taking the vocals on this gem…

“Now me and my mate were back at the shack, we had Spike Jones on the box

“She said, ‘I can’t take the way he sings, but I love to hear him talk’

“Now that just gave my heart a throb, to the bottom of my feet

“And I swore as I took another pull, my Bessie can’t be beat

“Up on Cripple Creek she sends me

“If I spring a leak she mends me

“I don’t have to speak, she defends me

“A drunkard’s dream if I ever did see one”

— The Band, Up On Cripple Creek

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Look at them.

Far end of the New York Mets spring clubhouse, short row of lockers, crawling around like scorpions in a box. The most lethal rotation in the game, just waiting to sting someone.

There’s Matt Harvey, unleashed from last year’s innings limit. There’s Jacob deGrom, all hair and deception. At the locker next door, Noah Syndergaard, as if he isn’t dangerous enough already, is polishing the new weapon he started throwing in last fall’s World Series.

“Cutter, slider, depends on what day it is,” Syndergaard tells Bleacher Report.

End of the row, whiz kid Steven Matz, baby-faced assassin, all of 24, six whole regular-season starts on his resume. Next to him, Zack Wheeler, who didn’t even factor into last year’s runaway success story. The Tommy John rehab is entering its end stages, and Wheeler hopes to return to the rotation by July.

Yes, with a bit more growth, learning and depth, baseball’s best rotation will be even better in 2016.

“I don’t think we all reached our potential yet,” Wheeler says during an early-morning conversation. “We all throw hard so we can get away with certain things.

“But we can get better by throwing a slider here or front-hipping a two-seamer to a left-hander.

“It’s something I’ve learned from watching Bartolo [Colon], throwing a front-door slider to lefties.”

Ah, yes, Bartolo Colon. He’s back as Wise Old Sage, dispensing advice to these kids and continually leaving everyone wide-eyed with his straight-out, uptown funky repertoire of athleticism usually foreign to chubby, jolly men over 40.

“You can learn something from each guy,” Harvey, who turns 27 on March 27, says. “The core four or five of us, you can pick up something from each of them. Mechanically, I always watch them—and Bart, too.

“One thing I always pick up from Bart is the fun that he has. And how loose and relaxed he keeps it.”

Together, there are more reasons to believe in the Mets this spring than there are palm trees in Florida. And as far as whether this collection of kids can live up to what already are enormous expectations, the way they handled the Chicago Cubs and the World Series pressure in October is a pretty good indicator of how they will handle what’s just up ahead this summer.

“I think so,” pitching coach Dan Warthen tells B/R. “I think some people might believe these guys would come in overconfident, maybe a little bit lackadaisical, and it’s been just the opposite.

“Everybody has come in ready. They feel that they want to win the World Series, not just get there. They’ve got that year under their belt, they know how good they are, but they realize that the other teams are going to be expecting that and they’re working hard and expecting a lot more out of themselves than maybe even I do.”

Harvey, the Dark Knight, went 13-8 with a 2.71 ERA over 189.1 innings in 29 starts last season, slamming, at the end, into controversy over his workload following Tommy John surgery. By the time the postseason ended, he was at 216 innings, and this spring he thinks he’s left the restraints behind.

“I feel like last year I did a pretty good job at establishing my role in the rotation, establishing the confidence that [manager] Terry [Collins] has in me now, going out every fifth day and putting the team in position to win a ballgame,” Harvey says. “I feel like that was step one right there.

“Now it’s just being able to maintain the routine. Ever since I’ve gotten into professional baseball, the one thing everyone’s been harping on is, establish a routine. When things start to spiral out of control you can always go back to your routine and it will put you back on track.”

Considering this is a guy who already has started one All-Star Game (2013) and starred in one World Series, Harvey still appears like he’s just getting started.

“I think we’ll see [an] even better Matt Harvey this year,” Warthen says. “You’re going to see a full arm-strength guy, you’ll see a more explosive fastball on a regular basis and he’ll have his slider back.

“He didn’t have his slider for much of last year. And he didn’t have that second-gear fastball. I expect Harv to have a huge year.”

Score that slider as one more extra weapon for Harvey this year, just like Syndergaard’s cutter/slider (depending, as he says, on whether this is Thursday, Friday or whatever).

“I started toying with it last year, and then I started throwing it during the World Series,” Syndergaard, 23, says. “It helped me in Game 3. It’s a very unique grip. Dan showed it to me. It puts no pressure on the [finger] joints.

“It’s the same one Harvey and deGrom throw.”

Says Warthen: “This kid has come on in leaps and bounds. His confidence is at an all-time high, and it should be. Because not only does he have the great arm, but he locates extremely well and has four pitches he can throw for strikes.”

When deGrom starts, of course, the radar gun can take a breather. After Harvey and Syndergaard make it sizzle, along comes deGrom, who turns 28 in June, and his array of non-awesome individual pitches (fastball, curve, slider, sinker) that almost always add up to a whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts blockbuster.

“We’re going to protect him as much as we can, give him the extra days, because he still wore out a little bit in September, October last year, which is understandable,” Warthen says. “But we want to make sure, strength-wise, he stays solid all year long, keeps his arm in a good angle and works the ball in the bottom of the zone.”

Fact is, the Mets intend to protect each of their young starters every bit as much as they did last year, minus the 2015 six-man rotation. Make no mistake: If they need to spot-start someone to give everyone else an extra day of rest, that’s on the table again this year, too. But just like last year, Warthen, Collins and general manager Sandy Alderson will be watching for potential frays in the fabric and make subtle adjustments on the fly.

The first of those tweaks was visible this week, when Matz (Monday) and Co. made their first spring starts one week later than normal. This, of course, is related to all of the extra pitches last October and the continued aftercare for the three of them who already have undergone Tommy John surgeries (Harvey, deGrom, Matz).

It is a point of pride for Warthen that a Mets starter threw more than 110 pitches in a game only “seven or eight times last year, which was remarkable because they were going seven innings.”

The Mets will keep a sharp watch on pitches this year, hoping to limit each starter to 110 in a game and, more importantly, no more than 330 pitches over any three-start sequence.

“We’re already handling the spring differently,” Warthen says. “We’re starting these guys at later dates. We’ll probably cut back on [spring] innings, but they’ll still get their volumes up like they’re supposed to.

“We’ll discuss the rest of it. We have targets for each and every one of them. We’ll abide by our targets but still adjust with what it takes in September and October to make sure we’re all healthy.”

Last year’s late-comer, Matz, will get a formal unveiling in what should be his first full season. Crazy thing is, he made half as many postseason starts (three) as he did regular-season starts (six) in his debut last summer. In those six regular-season starts, he went 4-0 with a 2.27 ERA.

Those six starts were the third-fewest of all time for a man who started in that year’s World Series, according to Baseball Prospectus, trailing only Joe Black in 1952 (two) and Marty Bystrom in 1980 (five).

“I think it’s huge for anybody to experience that type of atmosphere,” Matz says of October, in which he started a National League Championship Series game against the Cubs and Game 4 of the World Series against Kansas City. “In that setting, I don’t care what happens.”

Time spent at Triple-A Las Vegas last summer maybe helped hasten his development, because the ball flies in the dry air and a pitcher must adapt and survive or end up on the desert floor as vulture food.

“I always liked pitching inside, but I took it to a new level there,” Matz says. “Owning the inside part of the plate. You’ve got to open up that outer half of the plate.”

Says Warthen: “He’s kind of the dark horse here. He’s healthy, he’s throwing free and easy, and all three pitches are working great right now. I’m very excited.”

Then there’s Wheeler, who turns 26 in May and should arrive along about midsummer like a rocket booster and launch this crew to even greater heights. He was last seen in 2014, going 11-11 with a 3.54 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP in 32 starts.

“His stuff might be as sneaky, and more electric, than any of them,” Warthen says. “Because his fastball’s got that ease, kind of that whippy deGrom-type that just gets on top of you. He’s got the great curveball, a changeup, and he’s a guy who I think is going to be more determined than ever.”

Wheeler, understandably, is excited about his return. “The first thing that comes to mind is, it’s going to be fun,” he says. “I was a fan watching these guys all last season, and it was fun watching them. To be able to be a part of it, it’s going to be so much more fun.

“And you get to go compete against them.”

As in, Harvey sets the tone one night, so let’s see what you’ve got, Syndergaard, tomorrow, and then Wheeler will step in and see whether he can upstage them.

Internal competition leads to an even higher level of external competition. Scorpions, out of the box. Look out.

“They’re all wonderful individuals,” Warthen says. “That’s the fun part. A lot of people should be envious of my job right now because they’re all great kids, they all want to learn, they all want to go out and work hard and they’re all great setters for the rest of the organization.

“The other people watch the way these guys work, and they understand what it takes to be in the big leagues.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com