Michael Brantley made his big-league debut last September filling in for the injured Grady Sizemore in center field, but now that Sizemore is healthy the Indians are thinking about starting Brantley alongside him in left field.

Here's manager Manny Acta:

What he did in September gives him a leg up on the position. That being said, we all know he's 22 and we're still not going to be handing out jobs because we all have to do what's best for the Indians and for the kid himself.

His primary competition? Scrap-heap veterans Austin Kearns and Shelley Duncan, plus lesser prospects Trevor Crowe and Jordan Brown. In other words, if the Indians are open to Brantley being ready for the majors at age 23 his odds of claiming the gig--or at least two-thirds of the gig, in a lefty-righty platoon with Kearns or Duncan--are pretty strong.

And if Brantley fares well right away his presence will likely result in Sizemore moving from the leadoff spot to the middle of the order, because Brantley is a low-power speedster with a .387 on-base percentage and more walks than strikeouts in the minors. Baseball Think Factory projects Brantley to hit .282/.348/.360 as a rookie, while the Rotoworld Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide has him at .267/.337/.344.

FOX's Jay Glazer reports that Mike Shanahan is interviewing Bill Romanowski to be the Redskins' new strength and conditioning coach. I repeat: a man who took the "cream" and the "clear" just like Barry Bonds did is poised to be the STRENGTH and CONDITIONING coach for an NFL team.

In light of the bruising Mark McGwire has taken from FOX's Ken Rosenthal and others, FOX's Glazer will no doubt likewise demand that Romo not be given the job:

shanny at it again: he's interviewing Bill Romanowski for strength & cond coach. while controvertial, who knows this stuff better than him?

I'm not a fan of the NFL, but at least NFL commentators aren't deluded about the purity of the game they cover.

Last week the A's acquired Willy Taveras in a trade with the Reds only to designate him for assignment literally minutes later, so it comes as no surprise that they outright released him today after failing to find a taker for even a fraction of his $4 million salary.

Taveras is now free to sign anywhere and at any price, so after five seasons of inexplicably starting every day and leading off expect him to land a bench gig at the minimum salary with a team that likes outfielders who run fast and make tons of outs. He offers excellent speed and a very good glove in center field, but has hit just .246 with a putrid .293 on-base percentage and punchless .291 slugging percentage in 235 games over the past two seasons.

Jon Weisman of the newly-relocated Dodger Thoughts sat down with Dodgers' owner Frank McCourt for an extended interview recently. Most of it was spent talking about how, despite doing things like not offering Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf arbitration, the Dodgers are all about winning and not cost-cutting these days. But with responses like these, McCourt doesn't do a lot to put the questions to rest:

"I, by the way, can see both sides of this debate, very, very clearly. To me this is one really good baseball debate, in terms of 'Do you or don't you.' I think, like I was saying before, what would have happened (if we had offered arbitration), maybe Randy Wolf knows, but I don't. And I don't think the downside would have been bad for the organization, because he's a good pitcher and a good guy, but I think that the judgment was made that we (could) do even better for the club."

That's the baseball equivalent of starting a book report with "This book raised many important questions that are very important to consider . . ." without really ever getting to what those questions really are.  What's the upside, Frank?  How does not getting picks for Randy Wolf make the team better? How does going into the season with question marks in the rotation make the team better?  I'm willing to believe that there was a real competitive reason, as opposed to a purely financial reason for not offering arbitration to these guys, but I've still not heard what it is.

Weisman makes an excellent observation later in the interview: that McCourt seems really good at talking about the smallest of baseball-side details when he wants to, but then he gets vague and defers to the Colletti and others when the questions get hard.  Maybe this is simply a means of not throwing specific people under the bus on controversial decisions. Maybe the real answers would cut against the whole "this divorce is not harming the Dodgers in the field" campaign the Dodgers have been running for a few weeks.  It's really hard to say.

If I were a Dodgers fan, however, nothing McCourt has to say here does anything to alleviate my concerns about the team going forward.

Scot Shields was perhaps the elite setup man of the aughts (we really need a better name for 2000-2009), posting a 2.98 ERA from 2002-2008 while averaging around 90 innings per season, but ended the decade on a low note with an injury wrecked 2009 campaign and is now unlikely to be ready for spring training.

Shields had knee surgery about eight months ago, but has not been cleared to throw off a mound yet and Angels pitchers report to camp next Wednesday. He's still hoping to be ready for Opening Day, but that seems unlikely given that Shields is 35, logged just 18 innings last season before being shut down, and has yet to get back on a mound eight months later.

I don't know how quickly I'll get on a mound. We'll probably have to take it slow. We've got a whole month and a half or two months to get ready. I know my body. It's close to being 100 percent, and we've still got two months.

Shields may still believe that he can be ready for Opening Day, but the Angels' lack of confidence in him returning to form was shown by overpaying Fernando Rodney with a two-year, $11 million deal despite already having Kevin Jepsen around as a potential setup man for Brian Fuentes. Even if he's healthy, Shields figures to begin the season working middle relief.

And you thought he was scary with a bat.

I'll stop writing stuff like that when dudes stop writing stuff like this:

Halladay's departure leaves Romero, who went 13-9 as a rookie, as the most experienced healthy starting pitcher on the roster, and the 25-year-old is tackling the new challenge the way Halladay would.

By training like a maniac.

In addition to his throwing sessions, Romero worked out at Athletes' Performance in suburban Carson, Calif., putting in two-hour sessions four days a week, and fine-tuning for the grind that begins with spring training in two weeks.

"I feel I'm ready to tackle a 200-plus inning season," said Romero, who logged 178 innings last year.

Maybe I don't understand the journalism biz, but if I was an editor and my beat guy brought me a "Professional Athlete trains hard before the season" story I'd be tempted to spike that in the name of all dog-bites-man stories that have ever been spiked.

"Bring me a story about some outfielder who developed a Cheetos addiction over the winter," I'd yell as I chomped on my cigar, J. Jonah Jameson-style,  "and if he doesn't want to be famous, I'll make him infamous!"

There was a brief moment a couple years ago when a not-insignificant number of people believed that Lenny Dykstra was a financial genius capable of picking winning stocks like some sort of baseball Rainman.

Real Sports on HBO did a relatively fawning profile piece focused on Dykstra's lavish lifestyle, Jim Cramer famously called him a "legend" in the investment world, and his various businesses thrived.

Eventually he declared bankruptcy, lost his $17.5 million home, was sued approximately a gazillion times, and auctioned off his World Series ring. And now Dykstra has a new website called "Nails Investments" where he offers stock picks and one-on-one advice for a monthly fee.

All of which got me thinking about where "Lenny Dykstra on investing" ranks on the list of "people giving advice about things." For instance, near the top of the list would probably be stuff like "Albert Pujols on hitting a baseball" or "Derek Jeter on attracting women." Near the bottom of the list would be things like "Aaron Gleeman on dieting" or "Craig Calcaterra on hair styles."

My challenge to you, the Circling the Bases/Hardball Talk reader, is to come up with some things that would actually rank below "Lenny Dykstra on investing." Winner gets exactly zero dollars, which is more than you'd probably make listening to his advice. Have at it ...

Add Mets' pitcher Mike Pelfrey to the list of this offseason's biggest losers:

One week until Fat Tuesday, but Mike Pelfrey won't be participating. The Mets pitcher is prepared to arrive in camp next week some 25 pounds lighter than last season and believes that will propel him to new heights after a disappointing 2009.

"I was pretty upset with not only how the team played, but with how I played last year, knowing that's not me," Pelfrey told The Post yesterday. "I had a lost year. I had a terrible year."

A couple of years ago someone -- I can't remember who -- did an analysis of how guys did in the seasons after "best shape of his life" articles appeared about him during the spring.  I seem to recall that there actually was an uptick in performance among the newly-dedicated, albeit not a dramatic one.  Enough to make me want to go back and see how Carlos Zambrano, Bobby Jenks, Geovany Soto and Pelfrey did this season come October.  Someone remind me, OK?

As for Pelfrey, I think he will bounce back, if not for the weight, than because he seemed a bit unlucky last year.  He gave up a lot of hits on balls in play, which is something that fluctuates. Also, the poor Mets infield defense victimizes him more than his teammates. That won't change too much in 2010 -- he still doesn't strike out a ton of guys and the Mets didn't upgrade the defense any -- but maybe a few more balls bounce in his favor.

And if he does bounce back we can chalk it up to the weight loss anyway because it'll make him feel good and encourage him to lay off the pie again next winter.

Buster Olney names what he thinks fits that bill anyway.  His list, in order: Red Sox, Yankees, White Sox, Angels, Cardinals.  He has the Phillies at 5a.

Yes, I'm a fanboy, but shouldn't the Braves crack the top five? Olney has them "in the conversation" and said he would have ranked them third if they hadn't traded Javier Vazquez.

Call me crazy, but while Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami aren't going to lift the Braves to the playoffs all by themselves, that's a solid, solid group. Top five in my mind anyway. I don't know, maybe Olney is docking them because Hudson is coming off an injury, but he's not docking Peavy and the White Sox, so who knows?

If I had to guess I'd say that this is just the latest example of the near criminal over-rating of Javier Vazquez we've seen ever since the trade went down (I think it was meant to offset the criminal underrating he received during the season).  Yes, the dude had an outstanding year -- easily his best season -- but would you be comfortable betting on him doing that well again? The Braves may not have gotten what they should have got for him, but that doesn't change the fact that they were at least trying to sell high.

Oh well. Just throw it on the pile of things we can argue about until people start throwing pitches in anger.

The Cubs are consolidating the luxury suites down the left field line in Wrigley Field and are turning the space into something of a mega-suite. Season tickets will be able to be purchased individually at the price of $300 a game instead of in lots of 12-15 like normal luxury suites, but the service and all of that will still be luxury-suite quality.

Seems strange to me.  My take on luxury suites is that they are first and foremost a business and networking tool for companies. "Bring Gladys and the kids to the game, and we'll discuss the big deal," don't you know.  Granted, baseball should never be watched in a suite and these sorts of people will be the first ones against the wall when the revolution comes, but I at least understand why they do it. Buying suite seats on an individual basis, on the other hand, just seems like a deeper kind of wrong.

So I clicked over to NBC Sports.com last night to see if any of you had added any other hot chick links in what I'll call the Drew Barrymore thread, and I was greeted with this ugly sight:

Not that NBC is alone in this.  The Manning = the 90s Braves meme was all over the place yesterday. Here it is. Here it is again. And look, here it is again. I'm sure it's in another dozen places.

I can't decide if Manning or the Braves should be more insulted by this phony, brain dead line of analysis.  If anything they should both team up and beat the hell out of whoever launched the meme in the first place (maybe the Bills and the Ohio State Buckeyes should join them). Oh, how trenchant! Of course any player or team that demonstrates only occasional greatness should be on the defensive and be made to be ashamed of itself.  Of course there is nothing worse in sports than to fall just short of a championship. Second place is first-loser, after all. They would have been better off simply giving up before the regular season began. Beats being a lousy stinkin' choker.

But I suppose I can't really blame the columnists who spew this stuff. The concept that almost, but not quite reaching the pinnacle evidences some character deficit is probably deeply ingrained in the American psyche. A myth that had to be created in order to protect the masses from the cold hard reality that random chance and dumb luck governs a hell of a lot more of our lives than any of us would care to admit.  The good and virtuous always prevail. The weak and flawed always lose. It's so much easier that way.

Blah.

The New York Post says that the Yankees aren't talking extension with Jeter, Rivera or Girardi.  This is not a surprise, really, as the Yankees have a pretty solid track record of not negotiating with their own free agents until their deals actually expire. Such an approach makes perfect sense for them, of course, because the one reason you try to lock up guys before they hit the market -- to keep from having to fight off higher bidders -- is not exactly a concern in New York.

Of course the Post does its damndest to try and make it an issue by slapping a quasi-inflammatory headline on the story and playing a breathless what-if game, but what else do you expect from the Post? The day they stop trying to make mountains out of molehills is the day I start worrying. But setting aside the timing and dramatics of it all, what do you do with these guys if you're the Yankees?

I think you have to treat Girardi like a cog. Sure, if he manages another nice no-drama year and the Yankees make a good showing of it you offer him another year or two in the interests of consistency. But I've not seen anyone argue that the difference between success or failure in Yankeeland is whatever managerial genius Girardi possesses.  Is he really telling Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez anything they don't already know about how to play baseball? He's Ralph Houk to Joe Torre's Casey Stengel, isn't he? Some people may argue that having him as a lame duck manager is a distraction. I think that locking him up for multiple years would create a much larger distraction later when the team wants to fire him.

Rivera is a toughie.  He's still awesome. He's the best ever at what he does. He's also 40, though, and while we all want to see him pitch forever, he won't.  If he's still dominant this year I think you're obligated to give him a contract with some risk attached (i.e. multiple years), knowing that you may eat most of it, because how do you say no to a legend who's still got it?  Likewise, if the wheels fall off in 2010 it's not going to be too terribly hard to say "Look Mo, we love you, but this is probably it."  The real hard thing is going to be if he falters this season but is still generally OK. Like, if he becomes Bobby Jenks or Chad Qualls or someone like that. Superficially he'll still look like an elite closer, but in reality he won't be worth that kind of commitment.  Such a dynamic could make for a very, very thorny fall and winter.

Jeter is kind of a no-brainer. He's going to get a big fat contract that pays him just as much if not a little more than the $21 million he makes now over fewer years. Everyone will know the moment it's signed that the back end of it is going to be ugly and no one will really care because he's Derek Jeter.  If a situation presents itself in which he's making $22-25 million and can't hit his weight, he and the team will get creative and turn his money into some lifetime contract, he'll retire and become the greatest ambassador the Yankees ever had.  The details aren't important. What's important is that both the Yankees and Jeter have zero desire to see the Captain in any other uniform, and no matter how it's dealt with, it won't happen.

Ultimately there will be an inverse relationship between the amount of ink that is spilled over these three guys' contract status and how difficult the Yankees' decisions with respect to these guys ultimately will be.  We'll hear about Jeter's contract all season, but that gets done quickly. There will likewise be tons of hand-wringing "lame duck" articles regarding Girardi, but his deal (or termination) will only take about ten minutes more consideration than Jeter's thing.

It's Rivera's situation that I'm planning on watching the closest, because if things break just wrong, it could be royal pain for the Yankees and Rivera and a total field day for the Post.

My dad gave me one dollar bill 'Cause I'm his smartest son, and I swapped it for two shiny quarters 'cause two is more than one.  And then I took the quarters and traded them to Lou for three dimes -- I guess he don't know that three is more than two:

In an American League Central that features four more talented teams than the Royals, it's time to shake things up. Trade Zack Greinker and Joakim Soria

The Royals' two most popular and talented players, the trades would leave many fans disappointed. However, it could also leave the Royals' cupboard stacked with young talent and within five years, the Royals could be a prime-time contending team.

Even if we were to assume that the Royals should trade their best players for prospects -- which I wouldn't assume, but play along -- do you really want to trust Dayton Moore to be the one to turn them into prospect gold? I sure wouldn't.

Maybe you try to trade Soria -- that is, if you determine that doing something fun like turning him into a starter won't work -- but if the Royals can't at least pretend to build around Zack Greinke they should just pack it in and merge with the Cardinals or something.

The wall was sixteen feet high last year. Now it's going to be eight feet, says Adam Rubin of the Daily News. David Wright is probably happy. Johan Santana is probably sad.  And so it goes.

But here's a question: what are the Mets going to do for their other 81 games? After all, they were last in road home runs too. And as Rubin notes, more homers were hit per game in Citi Field than in Atlanta, San Diego, Los Angeles and St. Louis. Visitors hit more homers in Citi Field in 2009 than they did in Shea Stadium in 2008.

The Mets' real problem last year was not their field. It was the can't-hit-a-lick lineup they sent out there most days.  A lineup that was pressed into service due to a multitude of injuries. A lineup which everyone concedes was a worst case scenario.  A lineup, in other words, whose performance should not be the basis on which a team makes fundamental decisions about the configuration of their park.

But then again these are the Mets, and making sound, reasoned decisions just isn't their bag, baby.