Very interesting times in White Sox camp right now where it looks like manager Ozzie Guillen and general manager Kenny Williams aren't on the best of terms. This conflict stems from a supposed website that Guillen was planning on launching this spring. From what Ozzie says it seems like Kenny drew the line and said that the website wasn't going to be okay.

Of course we know that Ozzie and Kenny had some words over Ozzie's twitter account last week, and now this website deal. Joe Cowley has the story over at the Sun-Times. These are the imporant parts

Considering the organization has approved an MLB Network reality show to film a behind-the-scenes show that will begin airing in July, as well as allowing Guillen to tweet 'til his heart's content - as long as it's not White Sox business - it would seem strange that they drew the line in the sand with an Ozzie Guillen website.

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2010 is going to be a long season for the Cubs. The team is particularly good at much of anything, and every one of the players who could be considered "stars" are major injury risks. It is going to be ugly, so I've decided that on top of rooting for the Cubs I need to find a second team to root for this season. This post is my search for that team.

My initial qualifications are simple- it has to be a team in the American League (so they don't actually have anything to do with the Cubs), it has to be a team that has a chance to actually make the playoffs (I'm not adopting some crap team), and the team can't be from the AL East (because I already adopted the Rays two years ago).With those rules let's start eliminating teams.

The White Sox can be the first team to go, I'll let Ken root for them. The Royals and Indians can go too because they suck. Also say goodbye to the A's out west. That leaves the Twins, Tigers, Rangers, Mariners, and Angels.

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Finally we get to the NL Central, you know the division that I actually care about. Last year I previewed the NL Central by calling it Know Your Victim. I was tempted to do the same this year, and then come up with something clever for the Cardinal, but decided against hit. We start at the bottom of the division, which once against means the Pirates.

Last year the Pirates went 62-99 and managed to trade away more of their good players in the name of rebuilding. This time though it seems like they might be making some progress. Not enough progress to be anything other than maybe a fifth place team (or perhaps invite themselves into the AL East) but player development should be interesting to watch this season.

Last year the Pirates did get the benefit of two young outfielders breaking out- Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones. McCutchen came up in May and never looked back, posting a .368 wOBA in center field. Jones flashed a ton of power while splitting time between first base and the outfield. He hit 21 homers in just 82 games last season, showing that perhaps he has 35 homer potential given a full season.

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This post features the Brewers, Reds and Pirates, and is a lot more exciting than part 1.

Pirates: Pedro Alvarez, 3B

Last year: 258 PA's in AA: .333/.419/.590/1.009

It's very unlikely that Alvarez breaks camp with the team with Andy LaRoche already at third. But LaRoche could find himself playing another position, not at all or for another team if he doesn't play well. LaRoche was one of the prizes the Pirates got for Bay so they aren't going to give up on him quickly, but Alvarez is their top prospect and projects to be a big time power bat.

It's no stretch to say the Pirates won't be in contention in July or August and that might be time for Alvarez to show what he can in the majors. I'm not sure whether the Pirates will be less likely to bring him up in order to manipulate his service time, but they didn't show much hesitation with Andrew McCutchen last year.

Brewers: Alcides Escobar, SS

Last year: 134 PA's in the bigs: .304/.333/.368/.70, 487 PA's in AAA: .298/.353/.409/.762

Escobar doesn't technically qualify as a rookie but screw it, he's getting the nod from me as a "youngster" to watch if nothing else. He already has a hot start in being a Cub killer as he reached base nearly half the time against them last year (9/20) and had a 1.029 OPS. Craig Counsell can mentor him in that department too, so that's no fun. Escobar was the reason the Brewers felt they could move J.J. Hardy and Baseball America does a much better job than I could explaining Escobar:

He's more ready to make take over as an everyday SS than Elvis Andrus was at the same time last year. His ceiling is lower, but his first season or two should be better.

He is #12 on their top 100 prospect list and obviously projects as an elite defender if he is comparable to Andrus. He can steal bases too and could be a giant shot in the arm hitting in front of Fielder and Braun. Getting on base looks like it is going to be the big hurdle for Escobar as he seems allergic to walks. He'll still bring that glove and speed though and should be exciting to watch.

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Photo from fOTOGLIF

I know we all already understand that Carlos Zambrano isn't an ace, but today proved it. In typical Zambrano fashion he couldn't keep his cool and managed to make a big jam worse. His meltdown occurred in the third inning of today's game when he allowed Pablo Sandoval to hit a grand slam. Not an ace.

Wait, you mean this was just the second start of Spring Training? I bet it will be hard to tell when you pick up your morning Sun-Times.

The Cubs lost to the Giants 5-1 today, that five run third innings being the obvious difference in the game. The Cubs did have a few highlights themselves though. First Xavier Nady made his first appearance of spring playing DH and going 1-2 with a single and a walk. Nady said he felt good, but he might not be able to play the outfield until June 1st.

Other hitting stars today were Ryan Theriot (3-3), Starlin Castro (2-2), and Aramis Ramirez (2-3 with RBI double). After Zambrano (remember NOT AN ACE) the Cubs pitchers only allowed one hit. John Grabow, Andrew Cashner, Thomas Diamond, Justin Berg, and John Gaub all had scoreless innings (Gaub and Cashner each walked one guy). Mike Parisi allowed one hit, but nothing else.

Finally a bit of bad news, Derrek Lee had to leave the game after fouling a ball off his foot. For those that care the Cubs are 3-3 now in ST games.

The Cards, Astros and Cubs make it into this post, and I'll cover the other half of the division next.

Astros: Jason Castro, C

Last year: 243 PA's in A+: .309/.399/.517/.916, 268 PA's in AA: .293/.362/.385/.747

The Astros farm system is barren right now after years of trading prospects for veterans and signing stop-gap free agents that have cost them draft picks. I wanted to pick Bud Norris for this spot, but he threw too many innings last year to qualify as a rookie in 2010. That leaves Castro, the Astros top prospect and Baseball America's #53 prospect. J.R. Towles was a hot ticket prior to 2008, but he has struggled in the majors.

Castro is a non-roster invitee in Astros' camp, but the other catching options aren't great in Humberto Quintero and Kevin Cash. Castro's power ran away when he made the jump to the AA last season as his ISO dropped from .208 to .092. It doesn't seem he was overmatched completely because he struck out a lot less even though he walked a little bit less too. It doesn't take a genius to figure out he needs more time in the minors, but rookies and the Astros don't mix well this year.

In a perfect world, for the Astros, they'd have a power-armed rookie ready to join the bullpen. Losing Valverde not only helped my sanity by not having to hear that B.I.G. song, but it really hurt them. They added Brandon Lyon and Matt Lindstrom, but they still have a need there. Castro is what they have in the way of rookies, and if the team tanks he should get an opportunity to adjust to the majors and build for their future.

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Any time Bud Selig has something to do with anything it is bound to be stupid. He is going to be gone pretty soon, and it seems like he wants to leave us with one last bad thing before his reign of stupid is over. Selig and his "special committee for on-field matters" have begun investigating a MLB realignment strategy that you have to see to believe.

The proposal involves teams no longer being tied down to divisions, meaning they can change each season based on a number of factors. Those factors include geography, payroll, and interest in competing. That's right interest in competing. Basically if a team like the Royals has no interest in actually winning games in a given season they can elect to move to the AL East where extra games against the Red Sox and Yankees would boost income while losing just as many games.

The article I linked to there uses the Indians as the example of doing the same thing. They know they aren't winning anything this season, why not go to a division with more profitable and popular opponents. On the other side (again this example comes from the article) a team like the Rays can leave the AL East and dominate the AL Central.

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Today former Cubs and mostly former Red Sox Nomar Garciaparra is announcing his retirement from baseball. He's signing a one day contract with the Red Sox so that he can retire with the team he played his best baseball with. Nomar will be remembered of course for his time with the Red Sox when he was one of the best shortstops in baseball. Cubs fans will remember him as one of the bigger disappointments of the last decade.

The thing I will remember most about Nomar is how happy I was the day the Cubs were able to trade for him in 2004. He was still one of the best shortstops in the game and he was bringing his act to Chicago. That deal was supposed to but the Cubs lineup over the top and be the final piece in our championship run. Nomar also happened to be pretty injured when he got here, and his wrist was a constant problem down the stretch in 2004.

He was brought back for the 2005 season and hardly made it on the field. An ill fated step out of the batters box in St. Louis tore his groin muscle and more or less ended his Cubs career. In a way his time here is just about as typical of a Cub as you would expect- tons of hype and potential that never really panned out.

Nomar leaves baseball as one of the better players during his era, now of course odds are he was a bit aided, but still he was a great shortstop that was once considered in the same class as Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. He retires with a career OPS+ of 124 and .313 batting average, and 42.6 career WAR. Not too bad if you ask me.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

It seems like the Cubs are just addicted to making bad decisions. This time they are predictably overreacting to the Angel Guzman injury by looking at trading for veteran relief pitcher Jason Frasor. He's a name that has been floating around for a few weeks, but with Guzman getting hurt the rumors have started to get more frequent.

Last season Frasor had a bit of a career season with a 2.50 ERA, 1.4 WAR, and a 2.99 FIP all career bests. On one hand somebody doing that in the AL East is very impressive, on the other hand it is a classic Cub move to over pay for a relief pitcher coming off a career season.

I said yesterday I think it would be best to leave Frasor alone. The Cubs are bleeding out of their ears with replacement level type guys who aren't going to cost $2.8 million. Not to mention it probably costs a somewhat decent prospect to get Frasor back (I don't know if that means Kyler Burke or Chris Carpenter or something less). I'd rather not bother, not when so many other things are already going to go wrong.

I've seen the future, and it is all based on small sample sizes in meaningless spring baseball.

Randy Wells is going to be the best pitcher in baseball this season. His 5 innings of 1 hit ball in two starts this spring show he's a star in the making. The NL Cy Young is all but a given at this point.

The same can be said for Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster who won't have a blemish on their pitching lines this season.

Aramis Ramirez is probably done being good. His .143 average this spring has to concern fans that he might never even see the Mendoza line again. Add that with the fact that top prospect Josh Vitters is hitting a cool .500 and you know Ramirez's days are numbered.

The Cardinals need to be concerned about their starting rotation. Adam Wainwright's 18.00 ERA shows that he's probably going to struggle this season, same can be said for Chris Carpenter who has a 4.50 ERA.

Look for the Brewers to be major players in the Central again this season. The combined 0.00 ERA for Manny Parra and Chris Capuano show that they have easily caught the Cubs talent-wise already and are poised to battle the Cardinals for second place in the division for a long time.

got any more? put them in the comments.