So, I'm reading Baseball America's Prospect Hot Sheet today, like I (and I'm sure most of you) do every Friday, and as I'm scrolling down looking at each player's writeup, I see that Mets 1B prospect Ike Davis is #10.  Then I look at his picture -- Ike Davis is a white guy?!?

Like really, really white...

Ever since the Mets drafted him, I had just assumed Ike Davis was black. Why did I do that?  Was it just because his name was Ike??  Did I just figure that Ike is always a black man's name because of Ike Turner???  Does this make me a racist????

Has anybody else ever found themselves in a similar situation with a player -- thinking he was one race, when he actually turned out to be another?!?

http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/redsinsider/2008/03/bruce-on-bruce.asp

Dusty sure doesn't waste time, does he?  Instead of giving Bruce a legit shot -- the Reds go out and get retread Corey Patterson, giving Bruce about a 0% chance of breaking camp with the team.

Bruce is universally considered to be the top prospect in baseball -- what more does he have to prove in AAA?

So, will Bruce be able to overcome Dusty's long and storied track-record of destroying prospects, not to mention Bailey, Votto, and Cuerto?  I feel bad for Reds fans...

From Rotoworld:

The Phillies announced that they've hired Chuck LaMar as their Director of Professional Scouting.

"The Bobby Abreu-for-Kevin Stocker deal finally pays off for Chucky, as this has to be the Phillies' way of saying thanks. ... There really is a lot of potential for upside here. Doing the opposite of what LaMar recommends in every instance might finally get the Phillies over the hump."

OK, I'm in one hell of a dogfight in my NL-only Roto league and I need every last point I can get and Chris Iannetta is simply killing me.

With his .191 average with no power, Iannetta is sinking me faster than Omar Minaya will make a big panic trade for the Mets this season.

But I don't want to cut a young catcher who plays at Coors Field -- even if it's behind Yorvit freakin' Torrealba.

So should I cut bait and pick up another better possible backup C (like say Ramon Castro) or stick with Iannetta(who John gave a B+ in this year's book) and hope for the best?

Day after day we argue about prospects, who's hot, who's not, who's over-rated or under-rated, but it seems to me that nobody is held accountable for the predictions they make or has their "expertise" questioned.

Now granted, people have favorites (any Yankee pitching prospect) or an unusal hatred towards particular players (Francouer, Milledge...etc), but over and over again I see "experts" making statements about players, which in historical context look simply absurd.

And yet, they are never called on it.

I'll use BP for example -- Nate Silver wrote this about the Josh Beckett trade:

"Hanley Ramirez, in my eyes and in the eyes of a lot of my colleagues at BP, has always been more a product of the Red Sox Nation hype machine than a legitimate star in the making."

Whoops.

Rob Neyer claimed at the end of the 2004 season that Jose Reyes was one of the worst players in baseball and needed another season at AAA.

Double-Whoops.

BP treated BA's ranking of Jeff Francouer over Andy Marte when they were both in the Braves system to be the height of sheer silliness.

Bet the Indians would disagree.

Yet when more "scout-orientated" sites like BA touted guys like Hanley or Reyes or Francouer, they were mocked and ridiculed by the more 'sabermetric-enlightened' sites and message boards.  Where's the, "sorry, our bad?"

And this just doesn't happen with minor leaguers -- at the time BP called the Tigers signing of Magglio Ordonez one of the worst contracts of all-time.

All he's going to do is win the AL MVP this year.

I don't mean to pick on BP, but their book, which everybody gobbles up with glee every year has all their success stories (and there are several) pasted on the front cover, yet nobody seems to remind people of the times they were wildly, wildly wrong.

Well, he's a minor leaguer now, so pfft...

Does the addition of the Rocket get the Yankees back to the Promised Land?

He's going to be 45 and is now pitching in most likely the most loaded offensive divison in baseball.

And as a side-note -- how much is Yankee payroll now?

And how do the Red Sox counterattack -- sign Nolan Ryan to be their closer after Papelbon's shoulder finally lands him on the DL?

I hope Clemens and Steinbrenner fall flat on their faces...

Well, Francoeur did it again tonight hitting a home run, a triple and throwing out another runner from the OF, yet the guys over at Baseball Prospectus are calling Francoeur a "fluke", comparing him to Shane Spencer and saying "he's not actually ready to stick in the major leagues."

Ususally this kind of sabermetric stat-head player-hating is only reserved against Jose Reyes and Alfonso Soriano...  Is Francoeur's success threatening to bring down the entire sabermetric revolution??

So, I guess my question is -- how many more awesome nights does Francoeur have to have before the stat-heads remove their eyes from their spreadsheets long enough to see what a great player he is???

This was in the Chicago Tribune today:

Will Garciaparra automatically return as the starting shortstop when he's done with his minor-league rehab stint?

"Nothing is automatic," manager Dusty Baker said. "We'll have to see how Nomar is doing. Neifi says he realized when he came here that he came here as a utility guy. But he hasn't remained a utility guy with what he has done."

I'm serious -- that's NOT A JOKE!!!

So I put it to all of you -- has Dusty Baker gone totally insane or not?  I mean, what's next the Cubs trade for Manny Ramirez and Dusty refuses to play Manny over Todd Hollandsworth because "Holly is such a gamer?"