Games start tomorrow, so a lot of decisions being made on finalization of rosters today...
- The Athletics made a couple of roster moves today. OF Coco Crisp will start the season on the disabled list after breaking his pinkie finger last night sliding into 2nd base. Hopefully he'll be back in short order.
- The other big move that the Athletics made was announcing that Eric Chavez would be the team's starting designated hitter, and designated Jack Cust for assignment. All this time, we were all kind of under the assumption that Jake Fox could be the odd-man out on the Athletics bench, but apparently it was Cust instead. Chavez could be interesting in AL-only leagues, especially since he's still eligible at 3B. Lots of risk, but there's some power upside here even still.
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Angels starter Scott Kazmir will also start the season on the disabled list. Not the news that the Angels wanted to hear.
- I'm not sure whether this is good news or bad, but Mike Jacobs will start the season as the Mets' starting 1B, and will be batting cleanup between David Wright and Jason Bay. He will platoon with Fernando Tatis, but as they noted in the article, the team will face nothing but righties in the first series, so Jacobs will start those games.
- Not sure if we covered it when it was announced, but rookie Ian Desmond was named the starting shortstop for the Nationals. For NL-only leagues and keepers only at this point, but if he can keep this job all season I could see double-digit steals and homers as a possibility. He also qualifies at 2B for some leagues, as he started 5 games there last season.
- Rockies starting pitcher Jeff Francis will start the season on the disabled list, and Greg Smith will take his spot while there. Francis was already an NL-only play really, and this doesn't really help matters much.