Welcome to the Gigantic Sox and Dawgs 2011 MLB preview. Over the next week you will get a team by team look at its key players, new faces, their potential MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year candidates, their possible starting lineup and rotation as well as a quick summary.

One of the changes from last year was a reader suggestion of naming a MVP candidate and Cy Young candidate for each team no matter what their predicted team outcome was. The point being that sometimes guys on bad teams with the award. And to back that up the last two AL Cy Young winners were Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals and Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners, both on teams who finished well into the basement in their division.

This preview was sculpted over a nearly seven week period in the off season with some mild tweaking as we went along prior to publication. It comes from a culmination of reading so many baseball magazines, periodicals, articles and websites that in some cases I may know a team better that its own management.

I hope you enjoy this look at the upcoming season. I know everyone will not agree with me and that's fine put it in the comments. But I can assure you I'll most likely have an argument for each and every objection you could possibly raise. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun compiling this preview and starting today we will take a look at the National League West. The rest of the schedule follows with a different division being profiled each day and the final day will bring you my winners, my award selections and a list of managers who have a lot to prove in 2011 if they want to be on the bench in 2012. Tomorrow you will get the American League West preview followed by the NL Central, AL Central, NL East and AL East.

To continue reading, click on the read more button below if you're on the home page.

Starting on Sunday and running every day for the week at 6 a.m., Steve will be bringing you his MLB Preview.

Over the next week you will get a team by team look at its key players, new faces, their potential MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year candidates, their possible starting lineup and rotation as well as a quick summary.

So please be on the lookout for that. And feel free to leave us comments when they start.

With the St. Louis Cardinals and first baseman Albert Pujols unable to make a deal before the contract negotiation deadline of noon today, it appears each party is willing to see where this goes.  The Cardinals, who are refusing to listen to trade offers for Pujols, have to be sweating a bit.  I would bet if you asked a diehard Cards fan how they felt right now, you might just have to call EMS for a cardiac emergency.

Pujols, on the other hand, while he may really want to stay in St. Louis and is quite possibly a little unnerved that nothing got done on an extension, is in the cat birds seat.  At this time he has all the leverage.  In the next 300 days you will not go one day without a sports related entity mentioning Albert Pujols and his contract expiring at years end.  The games best player is about to get paid.  It's just a matter of who is willing to meet the demands of the three-time NL MVP.

With that in mind here are the teams I feel are best suited to make a run at Pujols next off season.  For Cardinals fans it's going to be the longest 300 days of their lives.  Remember no one has ruled out Pujols getting that extension done behind the scenes or even testing the free agent market and returning to St. Louis.  But you have to admit if you are a fan of any one of these teams, other than the Cards, you have to be wondering what if this guy came to my team.

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From Jon Heyman of SI.com on New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain: "not saying jobas fat, but he looks like he may have swallowed one of the clubhouse kids".

Graphic by Ian.

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As Boston Red Sox fans, we all remember the days of "Manny being Manny" (video 1, video 2, video 3). Well it didn't take long for Manny Ramirez to have his first "Manny being Manny" moment in Tampa Bay.

From Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times:

Manny Ramirez was dressed casually and looked relaxed when he arrived at Tampa airport Sunday night.

He was pleasant enough as photographer Kathleen Flynn and I approached him as he stepped off the tram after flying in from Phoenix, and actually asked if I was there to pick him up. When I told him I'd seen a limo driver waiting for him downstairs, he laughed and said he didn't need a limo, that was just a "humble" guy.

I'm pretty sure that this will only be the first of many "Manny being Manny" moments this season with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Photo credit: Kathleen Flynn - St. Petersburg Times

When Johnny Damon left the Boston Red Sox in 2005, he was seen as a traitor for going to the New York Yankees. So when the Yankees came to town nine times in his time there, he was booed to no end by the Fenway Faithful.

When Damon came to town with the Detroit Tigers in 2010, the Fenway Faithful never got a chance to do anything good or bad towards Damon because he was out with an injury. And since they only came once last year, there was nothing that could be done.

But you can be darn sure that when Damon comes to Fenway Park in 2011 he'll be booed once again. And on top of it all, the Fenway Faithful can get some extra booing in towards Manny Ramirez.

The reason why both of them will get the good ol' visitors/enemies routine is the fact that both of them have agreed to one-year deals with the Tampa Bay Rays according to Jon Heyman of SI.com. Heyman reports that Damon will get $5.25 million plus another $750K in attendance bonuses (good luck with that as they only drew just over 23,000 fans last year and that's because the team was actually relevant). Manny will get $2 million which is usually what he carries around as pocket change.

Both deals are subject to them passing physicals.

Nothing like signing a few Red Sox rejects to help your team. Good luck with that Tampa Bay, especially Manny.

Photo credits: AP Photo (Ramirez), Getty Images (Damon)

With baseball carefully tucked away for a few more weeks and the San Francisco Giants and their fans still basking in the glow of their first title in 56 years. I thought what a better time than now to see how I did with my 2010 predictions.  Everyone makes them; very few are willing to re-live them. By the way I had the Giants 4th in the NL West.  What do I know?

In the AL East this was my prediction:

1. New York
2. Boston
3. Tampa Bay
4. Baltimore
5. Toronto

This was how they finished:

1. Tampa Bay
2. New York
3. Boston
4. Toronto
5. Baltimore

My predictions for AL Central:

1. Chicago
2. Minnesota
3. Detroit
4. Cleveland
5. Kansas City

This was how they finished:

1. Minnesota
2. Chicago
3. Detroit
4. Cleveland
5. Kansas City

To continue reading, click on the read more button below.

As a tried and true Boston Red Sox fan I want to go on the official record and say what the New York Yankees, particularly General Manager Brian Cashman and the Son of the Blowhard Hank Steinbrenner, are doing to Derek Jeter is totally blasphemous.

I will say this, Jeter's skills have and will deteriorate as will all ball players and maybe he isn't what he once was, but in the end the man is f'ing Derek Jeter.  1996 ROY, 11 times an All-Star, winner of 5 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Slugger awards. He has won the Hank Aaron Award twice and the Roberto Clemente Award once.  He has a career batting average of .314, which is 7th best among active players and 76th All-Time, he has 234 HR, 1135 RBI, has 152 HBP  and 323 stolen bases.  All that PLUS 5 World Series titles.  Yea he's 36 and he didn't have a great year but for Christ Sakes he's Derek Jeter! He's going to the Hall of Fame and he should have a monument in center field.

Jeter is now a free agent and the Yankees have offered him 3 years for $45 million.  In the real world that's great work if you can get it but for someone who is arguably the 5th Greatest Yankee behind Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle it isn't what he's truly worth as face of the franchise and in some cases the face of baseball the last 15 years. This is someone who the Yankees will trot out to every major event and old-timers day for the next 50 years; Jeter should mean more to them than the money.  Some players mean more to their team than any other team.  Case in point is Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek.  Good catcher, calls a great game, works well with the pitchers but what he brings and brought to the team mean more to Boston than any other franchise. Same with Jeter.

What is truly blasphemous about all this, is the way the Yankee brass is going about this so publicly.  Jeter's agent Casey Close made one innocuous comment about not understanding the teams stance and Cashman and Hank went off.  Cashman basically told Jeter that's the offer if you think you can do better go find it and we will talk. he basically encouraged him to test the market.  Steinbrenner said “As much as we want to keep everybody, we’ve already made these guys very, very rich, and I don’t feel we owe anybody anything monetarily.  Some of these players are wealthier than their bosses.”  They should be, especially Jeter.

If you're on the homepage, hit the read more button below to keep reading.

Josh Hamilton started out his career as the No. 1 pick in the 1999 MLB Draft by then Tampa Bay Devil Rays. During his minor league days, drugs took over his life. He was out of baseball from 2004 to 2006 as he got his life together.

He finally returned to the field in 2006 with the Devil Ray's NY/Penn League affiliate the Hudson Valley Renegades. He played 15 games there and was left of the 40-man roster. During the Rule 5 Draft in 2006, he was taken by the Chicago Cubs who were picking for the Cincinnati Reds.

He would make his debut for the Reds in 2007 where he played in 90 games, hitting .292 with 19 home runs and 47 RBIs with three stolen bases. He was traded in the offseason to the Texas Rangers, where he has played the last three seasons and helped lead the Rangers to the World Series in 2010.

Well now Hamilton's career has come full circle as he was named the 2010 American League MVP by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He received 22-of-28 first places votes to outdistance Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers who finished second. New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano was third.

He is the first member of the Rangers to win the award since Alex Rodriguez won it in 2003. During the 2010 regular season, Hamilton hit .359 with 32 home runs, 100 RBIs and had eight stolen bases. The 32 home runs tied his career-high set in 2008.

Boston Red Sox free agent third baseman Adrian Beltre finished ninth in the voting

A full look at the 2010 AL MVP voting totals can be found by clicking on the read more button below:

St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols had won the last two National League MVP awards and certainly put up the numbers in 2010 for a third straight. But the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) didn't feel that way.

Instead, they almost unanimously picked Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto as the 2010 NL MVP. Votto received 31-of-32 first places votes and easily outdistanced Pujols for the award. Carlos Gonzalez of the Colorado Rockies finished in third.

Those three players were at the top of the NL Triple Crown standings as Gonzalez won the batting title hitting .336 while Pujols led the NL in home runs with 42 and RBIs with 118.

On the season, Votto hit .324 (2nd in NL) with 37 home runs (3rd in NL) and 113 RBIs (3rd in NL). But more importantly, Votto helped the Reds to their first NL Central title in 1995.

Ironically enough, the last NL MVP from the Reds came in 1995 when Barry Larkin won it.

Next up in the awards from the BBWAA is the American League MVP which will be announced on Tuesday.

A full look at the NL MVP voting can be found by clicking on the read more button below.