All grades are EXTREMELY PRELIMINARY and subject to change. Don't get too worried about exact rankings at this point, especially once you get beyond the Top 10. Grade C+/C guys are pretty interchangeable depending on what you want to emphasize. Complete reports on these and over 1,000 other players will be in the 2010 Baseball Prospect Book, now available for pre-order, shipping on February 2nd!

Sports bars everywhere showed the game. Any why not? Local ratings for Thursday's game were more than 10 times as high as those for the Padre game that was on simultaneously

Chris Volstad's season of ups and downs sunk to a new low Friday in Florida's 9-5 loss. He was optioned to Class AAA New Orleans after allowing six runs in 1 2/3 innings, the shortest start of his career

Adrian Gonzalez moved from Tijuana to San Diego in the fifth grade, and shortly after his family settled into a house in the South Bay suburb of Chula Vista, they built a batting cage in the backyard. It was 80 feet long, 14 feet wide, 14 feet high. David Gonzalez, Adrian's father, made sure to place the pitching machine precisely 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate. "It could throw 95 miles an hour," David said. "It was just like what they had in the pros." Two major leaguers -- Adrian and his older brother Edgar, both of whom now play for the hometown Padres -- were basically raised in that cage.

When the boys moved out, David and his wife sold the house, but stayed in the area. Two years ago, Adrian was back in Chula Vista when he was approached by a man who claimed to have bought his childhood home. The man's name was Andy Rios and he explained that his son, also named Andy, was now hitting every day in the same backyard batting cage. "He told me that if I was ever around, I should stop by," Gonzalez said.

No. 3 overall pick Donavan Tate has been sighted in San Diego, amid reports that a deal with the Padres is imminent.

Former UNC baseball player and current football starting cornerback Kendric Burney indicated that he would be surprised if Tate was on the sidelines for North Carolina’s season opener against The Citadel on Sept. 5.

"I actually just got off the phone with him right before camp," Burney said. "I’ll probably talk to him later on right before we go to practice. He said he would be down here tomorrow. But every guy has to make his decision, and I wish him the best both ways. But I definitely don’t think he’ll be coming to school."

Some tidbits about Josh Geer's homer-allowing binge: He's allowed at least one homer in 16 of 17 starts. He's served up 27 homers in 102.2 innings, which works out to a rate of 2.4 homers per nine innings that ranks as the fourth-highest in baseball history among pitchers with at least 100 innings.

An NL official said not to believe that San Diego closer Heath Bell is only available at an exorbitant price. "I think the Padres realize that this is the moment when you can get your best deal for (Bell). He gets expensive next year, and there is no reason to have an expensive closer on a bad team."

The Yankees are among the teams that have been interested in Bell. The addition of Bell would allow the Yanks to more comfortably move either Alfredo Aceves and/or Phil Hughes into the rotation if an injury struck the Yanks' suddenly thin rotation.

Parkview Field was designed to be a ballpark to watch a game and visit with friends and loved ones — but not necessarily in that order. For us, that’s a good thing. TinCaps owner Jason Freier puts an emphasis on the ballpark as a community gathering spot, and that goal was superbly realized by architect Populous (formerly HOK Sport). In year where Populous opened multiple ballparks — including the overrated Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, and the underrated Goodyear Ballpark — Parkview Field is clearly the best of the lot

The front office that insisted that hitting coach Wally Joyner was a problem last summer and replaced him with Jim Lefebvre has discovered maybe Joyner wasn't a problem. Some hitters -- not all -- have tuned out Lefebvre. Some never tuned in, because they associated him with Alderson and Fuson.