roundup of items from around baseball:
if you ask the question "who should play third base - edwin encarnacion (career UZR/150 @ 3b: -11.5) or jose bautista (career UZR/150 @ 3b: -9.6)," won't any answer be wrong?
randy winn retired, with a career .284/.343/.416 line, after being released by the orioles.
in philly, luis castillo heads out, ex-card ronnie belliard heads in.
jim edmonds tells cincinnati what he really thinks of them.
$5.25M man, astros "closer" brandon lyon took but the first of many steps this season in proving why his contract was a preposterous one for a rebuilding team to take on, by blowing a two-run lead. at least our pseudo-closer is cheaper, so suck it, astros!
drew silva has a charming tribute to cardinals opening day.
the award for best pairing of story and photo goes to craig calcaterra. after seeing the accompanying photo, i could be convinced to ban chew nationwide, not just in baseball.
fangraphs has an interesting rundown of what the effect of losing matt holliday for a month (give or take two weeks) is. answer: not very much.
oh, in case you didn't know: matt holliday got appendicitis and had an appendectomy. he is out either till tuesday or august, depending on who you ask.
i see no transactions reported yet at the cards site, either moving matt to the DL or promoting someone to take his place. adron chambers is the only outfielder on the 40-man and not on the 25-man roster. bumping him up - especially after a fine spring - seems like a no-brainer.
the only drawback in promoting chambers is that our outfield would suddenly become 3 LH batters, one RH batter (craig), and berkman (who is functionally left-handed at the plate). considering that our RH minor league options (stavinoha and robinson) are neither on the 40-man, nor present any value, i would not concern myself with platoon splits and promote chambers.
there's already been plenty said about discarding the bits of the disappointing opener which were mostly dumb luck or happenstance, although elements of the game tended to reinforce my preexisting prejudices about the teams weaknesses (batista and the middle infield). i am not letting go of those, but one game hardly vindicates them.
jake westbrook takes the ball in a few hours. watch for the game thread.