Though the return of actual baseball is always a welcomed relief from the dredges of winter, it's hard to get too jacked up for these games when the majority of the guys playing have numbers in the 90s and are on the chopping block between a plane ride to Charlotte or Birmingham.
All of this could be yours... If you fail.That being said, there have certainly been a few things to capture the irrational sense of optimism this time of year nurtures (unless, of course, your team is already fighting in the dugout)... Juan Pierre is a workout machine and batting .500! Mark Buehrle, Gavin Floyd, and Edwin Jackson all didn't allow any hits in their 1st start!
That doesn't mean everything we learn in the early days of March is uninteresting. Take Dayan Viciedo, who turned some heads in Tuesday's game against Milwaukee by playing right field like a Major League right fielder, taking proper routes to balls and showing off his arm, nailing a runner at 3rd on a single to right. This is a critical step in the development of Dayan, who is now entering the third year of a four-year, $10 million contract that to this point has produced a total of 106 Major League plate appearances with very mixed results. Though Viciedo has played the outfield before in Cuba, he was a 3B and 1B in his two seasons in the Sox farm system, but has been essentially shut out from moving up the corporate ladder by Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn, and Brent Morel.
Though Baseball-Reference.com's contract section states Viciedo will remain under the Sox's control until the 2015 season, I'm not entirely sure how these weird international contracts always work, and since Dayan has switched agents from the Sox-friendly Jaime Torres to Jerry Reinsdorf''s Personal Satan, Scott Boras, I'm sure if there's a way out of this deal after it expires in 2012, he'll find it.
Still, the Viciedo to RF storyline is one of the more intriguing of the 1st week of the Spring season. Since the Sox obviously feel confident enough in the near-future of their corner infielders (sidenote: Also possible Viciedo was just too terrible defensively to justify any more playing time there) what does that say about their future plans at the corner outfield positions? Pierre is entering his contract year and Kenny Williams purportedly spent a chunk of the winter trying to move Carlos Quentin for pitching help.
That doesn't mean everything we learn in the early days of March is uninteresting. Take Dayan Viciedo, who turned some heads in Tuesday's game against Milwaukee by playing right field like a Major League right fielder, taking proper routes to balls and showing off his arm, nailing a runner at 3rd on a single to right. This is a critical step in the development of Dayan, who is now entering the third year of a four-year, $10 million contract that to this point has produced a total of 106 Major League plate appearances with very mixed results. Though Viciedo has played the outfield before in Cuba, he was a 3B and 1B in his two seasons in the Sox farm system, but has been essentially shut out from moving up the corporate ladder by Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn, and Brent Morel.
Though Baseball-Reference.com's contract section states Viciedo will remain under the Sox's control until the 2015 season, I'm not entirely sure how these weird international contracts always work, and since Dayan has switched agents from the Sox-friendly Jaime Torres to Jerry Reinsdorf''s Personal Satan, Scott Boras, I'm sure if there's a way out of this deal after it expires in 2012, he'll find it.
Still, the Viciedo to RF storyline is one of the more intriguing of the 1st week of the Spring season. Since the Sox obviously feel confident enough in the near-future of their corner infielders (sidenote: Also possible Viciedo was just too terrible defensively to justify any more playing time there) what does that say about their future plans at the corner outfield positions? Pierre is entering his contract year and Kenny Williams purportedly spent a chunk of the winter trying to move Carlos Quentin for pitching help.
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