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We're all happy baseball officially started yesterday, but unless you like to watch pitchers take fielding practice there isn't much happening these first few days. All 38 pitchers and catchers reported for workouts today, with 13 of the 21 position players also showing their faces according to Mark Topkin. He provides some pictures from the workouts which you can find here. You'll notice Jose Molina is featured a lot in the photos, once first bumping Matt Bush and another giving some tips to Jeff "The Big Nyquil" Niemann. He was brought in for what he can do behind the plate and if today is any indication he's already showing off those skills.

Now, if only there were actual games to report on, then it'd really be exciting.

• On MLB.com Bill Chastain gives a rundown of the Matt Moore story, recapping how the kid from nowhere New Mexico rises to the top of baseball's prospect leader boards. He buries the lede in not talking about Moore's place in the rotation until the 18th paragraph since the piece is titled "Moore in mix, but may not land spot in rotation." With the extension he signed I don't see any way the team can justify keeping him in the minors. There are no arbitration games to play and he's currently better than either Wade Davis or Jeff Niemann. Speaking of Moore and the rotation, Steve had a nice write up of the situation on FanGraphs.
• Joe Maddon always gives some sort of motivational speech on the first day of workouts. His message this year? Keep the momentum going from 2011. From mlb.com:

"We've created a lot of offseason momentum," Maddon said. "... With that, I really would like to see a high-energy Spring Training. I think if we just go through the motions, it's going to diminish our chances of getting off to a good start. I think if we get after it, we have a good chance for a good start, which I think is really important."

A better start than 0-6 would be nice.

• Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of the classic Simpsons' episode "Homer At The Bat" and over at Erik Malinowski has a beautiful write up at Deadspin of what went in to making the episode. If, like me, you're a huge Simpsons nerd then you'll absolutely love it. Of course, that episode also spawned the greatest song ever created from a television show, the immortal "We're Talkin Softball." I dare you to not hum that the rest of the day. Go ahead, try.
• Boston finally received compensation from Chicago for in exchange for Theo Epstein in the form of reliever Chris Carpenter. The 26-year-old averages 95mph on his fastballs but comes with control issues. The deal also includes a player to be named later. All told, not a terrible haul for the Red Sox.

So as it turns out, yesterday was something of a tease. The Rays' pitchers and catchers reported, but very little baseballs actually got thrown around; the biggest news of the day was that Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman held a midday press conference. Physicals were done and such, and the Rays set themselves up to have their first workout with all their pitchers and catchers today.

John Gregg will be at spring training camp over the next handful of days, and he'll be passing along some of his observations and notes both here and at Rays Digest. If you don't already, check out RD and follow along throughout the day. They already have an interesting piece up on Tim Beckham and his 2012 hopes.

And if you missed it yesterday, the other "news" right now is that Wade Davis is seemingly reluctant to move to the bullpen. Obviously we'll see how things play out over Spring Training, and at the end of the day, he's a professional and will have to adjust if the Rays decide to use him there. It's something to keep in the back of the mind, though.

• The Yankees signed Raul Ibanez yesterday to a one year, $1.1 million deal (could reach $4 million with incentives). Ibanez's strength is in his power, so he should improve the Yankees' lineup against right-handed pitchers, especially in Yankee Stadium.
• Manny-bay is back! Except this time, Manny's taking his talents to the Bay Area, signing a minor-league deal with the Oakland A's. Hey, why not? The A's could use some extra oomph in their lineup, and Manny comes cheap right now.
• BetOnline has released their over/under lines for team win totals, and the Rays come in tied with the Red Sox at 87.5 wins. Both teams are considerably behind the Yankees (93 wins). Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I believe this is a considerably higher rating than the Rays were given last season (mid to low 80s?).
• Maddon: "[The Rays are] very capable of going back to the World Series."
• I can't believe I forgot to highlight this aggregated prospect list over at Rays Prospects. I'm interested to see what it looks like now with Kevin Goldstein's rankings, especially considering Goldstein was a bit more pessimistic on some players.
• Yossi Feins takes a retrospective look at all the moves the Rays made this off-season. Warning: it's a slideshow, but I think it works well for this format. And he hits upon each move in some depth, so it's a good refresher -- especially about some of the things that happened multiple months ago at this point.

Finally! The long, cold winter is over! Well, not really, but even if it may still be mid-February, we at least know that down in Port Charlotte, the Tampa Bay Rays have started Spring Training. Today is truly a glorious day.

There aren't any pictures in the queue yet from the Rays' camp --- C'MON GETTY, GET ON IT! -- but we'll be sure to post some later today as they become available. There's not much else we can do at this point beyond looking at photos of ST and oo-ing and ahh-ing at baseballs being thrown around, but for me, that's enough right now.

Other news and notes this morning:

• How was Fan Fest? I'm interested to hear people's thoughts. It always seems like a great time, even though I can never go.
• The Pirates and Yankees finally completed their rumored Burnett trade on Friday, leaving the Yankees open to sign Raul Ibanez this morning. Neither development is unexpected, but I don't like the idea of Ibanez's power in Yankee Stadium. That's not going to be particularly fun to face.
• Tim Wakefield retired on Friday, inspiring Joe Poz to pen a lengthy blog post on him (and knuckleballers in general). I love knucklers, which is likely the main reason I overpaid for R.A. Dickey in a fantasy draft last night.
• Kevin Goldstein released his top 20 prospects list for the Rays, and he seems a little more pessimistic on the system than others. Although pessimistic isn't the exact right word -- he has tempered expectations about the system once you look behind Matt Moore. I can't necessarily disagree with his logic, but I suppose I have a large amount of faith (possibly too much faith) in the Rays' player development program. They have plenty of players with a number of tools, so even though their are question marks everywhere, I really like the system's depth right now.
  
  Also, Goldstein envisions Brandon Guyer as a fourth outfielder, and I don't know if I can get behind that.
• This is another BPro post behind a paywall, but R.J. Anderson previewed the AL East with Jason Collette. It's a fun read and I definitely recommend it if you have a BPro subscription.
• Brian Cashman shared some thoughts about the Wild Card this weekend, and in the course of advocating the new Wild Card system, he dropped a subtle dig at the Rays: "We conceded the division two years ago cause of the previous setup. [...] I'm not taking away from Tampa Bay's eastern division title, but we didn't try to win the division."
  
  Okay, calling that a "dig" is too strong. It's true, isn't it? We all knew that the Yanks were trying to get ready for the playoffs, and honestly, the same can be said of the Rays. Both teams glided into the playoffs without any real effort, and neither team seemed to actively want to win the division. So in my mind, this doesn't cheapen the 2010 division crown, and it is yet another reason to change the Wild Card format.

I can't claim to have watched Gary Carter play -- I'm a bit too young for that -- but it's always a sad day when baseball loses one of its legends. Carter passed away last night at the age of 57, around nine months after being diagnosed with multiple brain tumors.

There are multiple obituaries and takes on Carter out there right now, and I'm finding myself overwhelmed by some of the stories. He was The Kid, the perennial fan favorite that busted his butt even during Spring Training and never had a smile far from his face. He was a devoted family-man -- a classy, wholesome player that set himself apart by his actions on and off the field. Reading all these stories about him, I'm sad that I never got to enjoy following him.

The baseball world keeps spinning, though, and there are some other articles to pass along today as well. Enjoy:

• The A.J. Burnett-Pirates deal might finally be completed over the next day or so. From the recent rumors, it sounds all but completed, with the Pirates taking on $13 million in salary and sending over two non-roster players to the Yanks.
• No Rays appeared on the "Best Curveballs of 2011" list -- although I'd argue that Matt Moore would have show up there if he had pitched more -- but there was one Rays pitcher that made the Worst Pitches list: Wade Davis. His changeup was quite ineffective last year.
• I'm late on this news, but as you probably saw in the recent FanShot by Vin, the Rays have turned D.J. Kitty into a full-fledged mascot (h/t to Rays Index for finding this first). It sounds like D.J. Kitty will make his (her?) first appearance at Fan Fest this weekend.
• If you're ever confused by some of the arcane statistics we toss around here on a daily basis, Amanda Rykoff put together a sabermetric primer over at espnW. It's well worth the read.
• As a sign of how slow the news cycle has been recently, the story about Johnny Damon's quest for 3,000 hits just won't die. Dave Allen took a look over at FanGraphs and found that Damon did expand his zone last season and swing at more pitches, and Joe Posnanski put together a thoughtful piece on how 3,000 hits would impact Damon's Hall of Fame chances. I don't think Damon deserves to be in even with that milestone, but...well, that's certainly going to make for an interesting debate.

We may be in a dead time of the year for baseball news, but that certainly doesn't mean there's a dearth of cool articles to read. In fact, there were a number of articles yesterday that featured some interesting -- and new! -- sabermetric research. If you're into such things, don't waste a moment and check out these three pieces:

• Matt Swartz continued his series on the price of a Win, and he finished his piece with a chart of the $/WAR that teams have spent in every year going back to 1985. To me, it's fascinating to see how prices remained relatively stable through the '90s, but then started to skyrocket come the '00s. It also seems like that inflation is increasing faster and faster.
• Jeff Zimmerman looked at how intentional walks can screw up a player's perceived walk rate and patience. In short, players that see a boost in their intentional walk rate also typically receive a bump in their unintentional walk rate as pitchers will be more cautious around them and give them non-intentional walks. So when you see a player that boosted his walk rate dramatically, you should first stop and see if that's because the player has truly improved their plate discipline, or in large part because pitchers are being more cautious with them.
• Bill Petti has done some recent research on park factors affect a team's chance of winning, and he followed that work up by looking at how park factors and ERA estimators relate. Are certain ERA estimators more effective in hitter- or pitcher-friendly parks? Do ERA estimators that include batted ball profiles gain importance depending on the park? It's some interesting stuff, and will hopefully lead to even more research down the line.

And now, on to other baseball articles. If research bores you, there are still plenty of fun reads this morning:

• Jeremy Hellickson and James Shields have two of the best changeups in baseball? Color me shocked!
• Being a product of the '90s, I learned a bunch from this Baseball Nation article on the history of artificial turf. I never knew why AstroTurf was invented, but the story with the Astros makes a bunch of sense.
• The Padres are the most recent team to score a new TV deal, and they're set to rake in upwards of $30 million each year for the next 20 seasons. By the time the Rays are able to renegotiate their current deal, they're going to be well behind the times at this rate.
• It got announced yesterday that O's starter Zach Britton is still dealing with a shoulder injury that has lingered from the end of last season. While it's bad news -- and speaks poorly on the O's management of their young pitchers -- it's worth pointing out that their new GM has made some strides this year to fix that problem in the organization. Who knows if it'll pay off, but they're at least moving in the right direction.
• Carson Cistulli was gracious enough to have me on FanGraphs Audio yesterday, where I hopefully didn't make too big a fool of myself. We talked about a number of Rays-related topics, including Brandon Guyer, Matt Moore, Scott Kazmir, and (of course) Casey Fossum.

Now that Yoenis Cespedes is off the market, Roy Oswalt is essentially the Last Man Standing of the off-season. I'm not entirely sure where he expects to land at this point, but the latest rumor is that he's waiting for the Rangers to clear some payroll space and sign him. Uhh, I hate to break it to you Roy, but the Rangers have a pretty full rotation as is. I'm sure Oswalt will end up latching on somewhere, but it would certainly help if he stopped being so picky.

But anyway, on to the links:

• Ever wonder which pitcher has the best fastball in the game? There's a series running at FanGraphs this week, looking at the best pitches in baseball, and Carson Cistulli kicked things off by looking at the best fastballs. The first two pitchers aren't that big a surprise, but I certainly didn't anticipate #3.
• In the wake of the Yoenis Cespedes signing, R.J. Anderson wrote about Billy Beane's recent success (or more to the point, lack thereof) and tried to untangle if he's lost a step over the years (sub. required). And over at FanGraphs Audio, Brad broke down the deal with Cistulli.
• Rob Neyer put together a piece on the history of prospects ranked at #31 in their organization by Baseball America. Do these prospects ever amount to something, or are they completely irrelevant? The answer is about what you'd expect: there are some successes, but they are quite rare.
• Over at The Rays Way, Yossi Feins put together a piece looking at why Matt Moore has the potential to be even better than David Price. It's a good piece, including some Pitch F/x data, and it drives home how special this year's rotation could be.
• USF has had a rough couple weeks. First the news about Memphis coming to the Big East, and now Senator J.D. Alexander is trying to cut their entire school's budget state funding by 72%. I hope there's little chance the bill passes, but it's frustrating enough that this sort of proposal ever sees the light of day.

Not much has happened in the world of baseball over the past few days. The Yankees have continued to talk with the Pirates about trading A.J. Burnett, and the Marlins have made an offer to Yoenis Cespedes. That's about it. And unless something radical and unforeseen happens, we could be in for a long last week before Spring Training.

Burnett will get dealt by the Yanks; they have too much incentive to offload his contract that I can't see this deal getting permanently held up by quibbles over how much money to eat. And eventually, Yoenis Cespedes will sign with a team...at this point, likely the Marlins. The Cubs have reportedly dropped out of the running, and without them, there are few teams ready to jump into the fray and offer him significant money. Maybe the Nationals make a play, after losing out on Prince Fielder? Only time will tell, and sadly, it's one of the juiciest story-lines to follow right now.

• If you're looking for a morning dose of amusement and entertainment, be sure to check out this article by Jeff Sullivan: 2011 In Extreme Home Runs. Sullivan highlights some of the weirdest pitches to be hit for homers last season -- the highest pitch, lowest pitch, most inside, outside, etc. -- and the videos and gifs are a ton of fun. Right now, any glimpse of baseball being played is a good glimpse.
• Joe Poz recently threw together an unofficial study on how players age, and as with most everything written by Joe, it's worth a read. There are many ways to prove that batting Chone Figgins at lead-off would be rather nuts, and while I'd have focused on his declining walk rate, this works too.
• After there was such an uproar after Buster Posey was injured last season, I feel like I haven't heard a word said about him or his recovery. Maybe that's because I live on the East Coast? Because Posey fell off the radar of the national media? I'm not exactly sure, but from recent reports, he's well enough to be hoping to play Opening Day.
• Can you imagine a time before sports scores were available instantaneously via your phone, the internet, the radio, and/or your TV? Yeah, me neither.

The Rays started loading up the truck for Spring Training yesterday, effectively signalling the end of the off-season and the beginning of the slow march to the regular season. As if to drive home the point, Andrew Friedman made an appearance on WDAE 620 last night, and some of his answered made it sound as though the team is already looking ahead and has stopped actively shopping for a final few parts.

Marc Topkin has a full list of the various things Friedman said, but here are some of the especially interesting bits:

* They targeted a few catchers they felt would have fit in well but those deals didn't work out and while they are "a little uncomfortable" pairing veteran Jose Molina with an inexperienced partner, either Jose Lobaton or Robinson Chirinos, they feel they will be better overall behind the plate in 2012 than 2011.

* He feels the bullpen has "a lot more depth" than last year, and could see one-two "really good arms" being sent to AAA.

* The competition between shortstop candidates Reid Brignac and Sean Rodriguez has already started in winter workouts and is "going to be a lot of fun to watch.''

So yes, congrats to Sternfan and everyone else that was convinced the Rays were looking for another catcher to pair with Molina. It didn't work out, but it does sound like the Rays tried.

As for the final two points, there were a handful of articles written yesterday about those very topics. Brad wrote about the Brignac/S-Rod shortstop competition over at SBN Tampa Bay, looking at various projections for the two of them. And over at FanGraphs, I wrote about how moving Wade Davis to the bullpen actually makes a ton of sense considering his major-league body of work. Davis to the 'pen would mean that someone like Brandon Gomes or Jake McGee would start the season in Triple-A, but those are the breaks. As Friedman noted, the Rays have a ton of bullpen depth right now.

Oh, and over at Baseball Prospectus, Max Marchi discussed Jose Molina's value and all the different ways he can contribute to the Rays. Should I be scared or impressed that the saber-sphere somehow anticipated Friedman's comments? Weird.

• There were a ton of great articles published yesterday at FanGraphs. Eno Sarris discussed how various colleges are applying sabermetrics concepts (or, more to the point, aren't), and Dave Cameron wondered if we're putting too much of an emphasis on potential when constructing prospect lists.
• Also, Brad re-defined sabermetrics and attempted to list out which teams are the best and worst at applying it in full. It's a nuanced take on sabermetrics, and I couldn't agree more with his definition.
• Over at BPro, they uncovered an old article from Nate Silver about how having two baseball teams in the same market affects how many fans each team draws. Anyone out there interested in doing a similar study, but looking at how other non-baseball teams affect matters?