Bay Area Baseball

Emmanuel “Manny” Burriss as he now seems to want to be called, has won the Giants starting second baseman job. Fan favorite Kevin Frandsen will start the season at AAA Fresno. Burriss, who came up last season as a rookie, is the faster player and is also a switch hitter. He hit .357 in spring training and .283 last season in 240 at bats.

He projects as a .280-300 hitter with minimal power and above average speed. He probably doesn’t have much value outside of a deep NL only league, but he could provide 30 steals or so. His speed indicates that he is actually capable of more than that, but San Francisco is not a running team both in philosophically and physically - with the number of slow players they have who clog up the bases.

Also reassigned were C Buster Posey, 1B/OF John Bowker, Positionless Jesus Guzman and Reliever Osiris Matos.

Twins catcher Joe Mauer will start the season on the DL

ESPN reports that the Reds have an interest in Gary Sheffield Sheff would be a backup 1B/OF as well as a late inning pinch hitter.

Andruw Jones has made the Rangers squad. Frank Catalanotto didn’t.

As predicted (by Tiffany) on the podcast, 20 year old Rick Porcello has made the Tigers rotation.

Jake Peavy rebounded nicely with a 0.00 ERA after getting lit up in the WBC.

Former #1 overall draft pick Matt Bush was released again, this time by Toronto.

Seattle and my #3 fantasy outfielder Ichiro Suzuki is going to miss the start of the season with a bleeding ulcer, according to Yahoo! Sports. Doctors say that the ulcer is no longer bleeding but this has to be a concern for an aging player like Ichiro.

The slim right fielder showed that he was still a force in the WBC but missed the last three spring training games with fatigue. He keeps himself in great shape and should rehab accordingly. His baserunning agressiveness may go down with this problem if it persists, but he is still a top option for a fantasy outfielder.