And Coco Crisp Shall lead them (the KC Royals) into pennant contention in 2009.

You heard it here first. Coco Crisp, and the improved back end of the Royals Bullpen, shall lead the Royals into the American League Pennant Race. Coco will flourish with the Royals and put up similar numbers to when we was with the Indians, (but probably not as many home runs).

Coco Crisp will prove the difference maker time and time again with his centerfield defense and his ability to do good things with his bat. Even when Coco makes outs, he's usually moving a runner over, or at the very least, avoiding a double play and keeping the inning alive.

The Royals will probably be a minus run-differential team this year, but they should eeke out a ton of one run game victories and put themselves within striking distance in the American League Central, and Coco Crisp will be the sparkplug that makes it happen.

Coco will actually inspire his teammates with his defensive play in centerfield, and games that normally would have slipped away will suddenly be within reach, creating more chances for his young teammates to become stars themselves.

You read it here first, on Cooler-Heads.com.

World Baseball Classic Alternative Ideas and Suggestions.

Pitching in the World Baseball Classic seems to hurt a Major League Baseball players upcoming season. Stats have been revealed that shows 11 of the 12 pitchers who pitched in the WBC, would then have their MLB ERA increase over their prior year's MBL ERA.

WBC games are too early in the year and players are just not ready to play, yet if they play in the WBC, they are supposed to play one hundred percent.

I don't know if this would be an acceptable compromise, but what if the WBC were pushed back to the first week in April, and all of Major League baseball participated, and the games counted! The downside is ballplayers would not be playing for their own hometeam, but, in every other way, there is plenty of upside.

Perhaps when the final four teams are determined, Ballplayers could play the final weekend for their own country, provided their MLB team is still not in it.

WBC in April means ballplayers don't have to do double duty by playing in the WBC and then playing catch up with their own MLB team. Ballplayers aren't playing in the field or throwing any extra amount than any other year. MLB is paying the utmost respect to the rest of the world by saying the games count towards major league baseball standings.

The alignment of teams could be done so that the finals would feature one WBC team and one MLB team. There are a few scheduling nightmares to consider. How far a major league baseball team will last before exiting the WBC, and therefore, how do the teams that exit early begin play in MLB when the other teams are still playing in the WBC?

Another issue is does Major League Baseball really want all of its teams going all over the world, at the same time?

If that idea is too logistically hard to do, how about the champion and runner-up of the WBC doing an american tour and each MLB team plays them once in the month of April, and the games count towards the standings?

Well, I don't think anything has been resolved with this article. Just some ideas that might lead to other ideas.

Why Torre said more than he probably should have said about AROD and the Yankees.

Joe Torre always struck me as a players manager. Being a former player himself, Torre most likely earned the respect of his players by simply knowing the game. Torre also does not come off as a gossiper. So why did Torre gossip about AROD in his book?

The obvious first reason is, to sell books. But I think there is a second reason as well. Torre basically lost his job after two straight years of not making the A.L. Championship finals. Factor in the infamous 3-0 fall from ahead loss to the Red Sox a couple years earliera, and the ingredients were there for Torre to be removed by simply not giving him a "respectful" contract extension.

Where it gets ugly however is that AROD apparently commented about Torre after Torre's removal. I am speculating AROD speaking about Torre in a rather non complementary way just lit a fire under Torre. The one guy who has not done so well in the playoffs, AROD, is the LAST guy who should be talking about Torre's managerial skills. One could argue that if AROD had put up the same type of production in the playoffs that he regularly puts up during the season, Torre would still be manager of the Yankees.

If a manager is going to sell out a former player, doing it after that same former player has already sold out the manager is the one scenario where I can see it happening.

On the the other hand, Torre did burn his bridge back to New York should the yankees ever start flipping through managers the way they used to in the 80's and early 90's.