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From last Saturday through next Sunday is the best "week" in sports. The Final Four and the crowning of a new national champion -- Michigan State, my alma mater, has surprised everyone who doesn't follow the Big Ten. The NBA and NHL are finally playing meaningful games, at least ones that determine who gets into the playoffs and seedings for the postseason. The Masters starts on Thursday -- Go Tiger. And, of course, the baseball season begins.

Our Chicago White Sox will get a delayed start, with Monday's home opener being postponed already until Tuesday because of weather. Why don't they just schedule the early season games to minimize the weather problems? In the American League, Los Angeles, Oakland Seattle, and Texas are either warm weather cities or at least "warmer weather" cities, and Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Minnesota play in domes. In the National League, Atlanta, Florida, Arizona, L.A., San Diego, and San Francisco are better weather cities and Houston and Milwaukee can close the roof to play "indoors." Sure, those clubs would always have the advantage of opening at home, but so what? All the teams will be scheduled for 81 home games and 81 on the road. Is it better to have to sit through baseball in football weather? The Update doesn't think so, but that's just our own view. (We're not quite in midseason rant form yet, but we've had no spring training, so what did you expect?)

But open we will this week (Yoda has taken over as editor). So let's take a look at the club, player by player. Starting with the starters seems appropriate, so here goes:

• Mark Buehrle will take the mound on opening day for a record-tying seventh time. (Billy Pierce, who set the record, will throw out the first ball. I guess the First Fan was busy, so Pierce had to bail him out.) Buehrle will pitch on six days rest, which may help the stiff left arm he has been experiencing. After all we want to be able to count on Buehrle for another 200-inning season; his current streak of eight in a row leads the majors. Buehrle had his highest-ever ground ball rate last season -- always a plus in the homer friendly Cell -- and his best strikeout rate since 2004. If he can pick up where he left off -- 4-1, with a 2.29 ERA in his last six starts in 2008 -- Sox fans will be very happy with our No. 1 starter.
• Gavin Floyd won 17 games last year, and may have a hard time doing it again. For one thing, it's a little easier to win when your opposing pitcher is the other team's number four or five starter, rather than the second. Look for his run support to go down from the heady 5.9 runs/game he received last year. Also, Floyd needs to learn how to hold a runner on first. He permitted a major league-high 37 steals allowed -- it wasn't all A.J.' s fault. We like Floyd and hope that he comes close to what he did in2008, but won't be surprised if he takes a step back this season.
• John Danks, on the other hand, showed Sox fans a lot down the stretch. Who can forget his performance in the tiebreaker game with the Twins -- eight innings of two-hit ball -- or his win over the Rays in the playoffs (the only game yours truly was able to catch in person last season)? Why are we higher on Danks than Floyd? Aside from the fact that he'll have to face off against only the third best opposing hurler, we're not sure. Maybe it's the natural pessimism that comes from being a Sox fan combined with the fact that the team has signed Floyd to a four-year contract extension, but couldn't get Danks to agree to the same deal. Those things always seem to work out badly for the Good Guys, and we're just afraid that it will again. But, hey if we can't be optimistic before Opening Day, maybe we should start blogging about something else. (We know a lot of readers have already made that request, but too bad, we're going to keep on bloggin', so there.)
• Jose Contreras has recovered from his Achilles tendon injury faster than anyone expected and is slated to be number four in the rotation. There were encouraging reports, if not results during spring training, but this one is too tough to call. He's 37 years old (at least, that's what's reported) and his win totals, innings pitched, strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed, and ERA were all heading in the wrong direction even before last year. But Don Cooper seems pretty happy with what he saw in Arizona, so we're happy. And Contreras should benefit from dropping back in the rotation and facing the other teams' fourth best starters, just as Floyd and Danks will suffer.
• Bartolo Colon comes out of Arizona as the fifth starter for the Sox. This could be one of Kenny Williams's all-time steals or all-time screw-ups. Colon is recovering from elbow surgery and did not post impressive numbers in spring training. Again Cooper says he's satisfied with what he saw, but the stats were not encouraging. Clayton Richard may yet wind up in the rotation if Colon can't cut it, but let's hope that Bartolo has one more good season in him. Baseball Prospectus 2009, by the way, makes an interesting point about the Sox schedule and the number five pitcher slot. If you try to start Buehrle every fifth day, you end up with him getting 36 starts; Floyd and Danks get 35 each; Contreras picks up 32; but the team will need a fifth starter only 24 times. We bet Ozzie doesn't work it that way, but it's an intriguing idea. What's not intriguing is the notion of Contreras and Colon getting battered on consecutive days and overtaxing the bullpen. Maybe they should put Floyd or Danks between the two of them.

We like the relievers:

• In fact, we love Bobby Jenks and were distraught when there was talk of trading him. He proved at the end of the year that he could still bring it and we remember how the bullpen struggled when he was out last July. Bad Bobby has given up only five homers over the last two years. During that same period, his WHIP (walks + hits/inning pitched) was below 1.0.
• Matt Thornton had a great season last year -- he kept his WHIP at 1.0 and his ERA was 2.67 -- and we expect more of the same from him in 2009.
• We don't like Octavio Dotel or D.J. Carrasco nearly as much as Kenny does. Nor did we like Mike McDougal much last year, but acknowledge that he had a great spring. Scott Linebring was terrific when healthy last season, so let's hope he can stay that way in 2009, but he didn't show much in spring training. Finally, Clayton Richard is slated for long relief now, but may plug into the rotation if the need arises. The former University of Michigan quarterback (another alma mater of yours truly) earned his roster spot out in Arizona and we're rooting for him.

Moving on to the position players:

• Well, DH isn't really a position, but let's start with Jim Thome anyway. Thome was remarkably durable last year, notching over 600 plate appearances. He showed he still had his power swing, parking 34 dingers in the seats and slugging over .500. His homer and RBI totals continued to decrease, as they had the year before, but The Update has a feeling that Thome's not done yet. That rocket he launched in the tiebreaker was a thing of beauty, and we're guessing there's more where that came from.
• We hated A.J. Pierzynski when he was on the Twins, but we love his spunk now. (On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which took place in Minneapolis, Lou Grant said to Mary Richards "Mary, you've got spunk.... I hate spunk.") We also love his ability to catch more than 130 games per year (at least until newcomer Tyler Flowers is ready to take over) and how he calls a game. What we don't like is his inability to throw out a base runner -- 18% last year. Maybe some of that has to be blamed on the pitching staff's inability to hold anyone on first, but a large chunk of it falls on A.J. Corky Miller won the backup job in spring training, but he's not the answer to any question we're asking.
• Paul Konerko had a terrible 2008, until the last two months of the season. Hopefully, that's indicative of something being left in Paulie's tank. Let's hope he'll return to his form of the prior three seasons, but if all we get from him is what he did after he came back from the DL, that'll be decent.
• Another Wolvernine, Chris Getz, won the second base job in a spirited competition in Arizona. His good spring followed up on his good year at Charlotte in 2008, where he batted .302 and had an on base percentage of .366. Not great, but decent. He'll need to get on if he's called on to replace either of the two players who will be splitting the leadoff position -- more on that in a minute -- but less so as the number two hitter where he's pencilled in for now. In essence, since the Missile is moving over from second to short, Getz must replace Orlando Cabrera, a hard task in the field and at the plate, but not so much in the clubhouse. At least, Oakland's signing of OC means the Sox will get extra draft picks for losing him as a free agent.
• Speaking of the Missile, Alexei Ramirez is set to shine. Mr. Grand Slam was a bona fide rookie of the year candidate last season, and should be more comfortable at the plate with a little more experience, and more comfortable at short, his natural position. Given the spectacular plays he pulled off at second, we can't wait to see what he comes up with this year. The next Little Looie? Maybe, but with power.
• Josh Fields hit 23 homers in about 100 games in 2007. Last year, he was injured and spent the season in AAA. With Joe Crede and Juan Uribe gone via free agency to the Twins and Giants, respectively, Fields will get the chance to shine. Joey Cora worked with Fields on his defense and he's supposed to have improved, but he's no Brooks Robinson. Worse, he's no Joe Crede, who was manning the position. As another former college QB, at least he can choose up touch football teams with Clayton Richard.
• Wison Betemit and Brent Lillibridge are the utility infielders. Betemit isn't much of a fielder, but the boy can hit left-handed pitching pretty well. We don't know much about Lillibridge, but there was some talk during the spring about his batting leadoff. Surprise us, you two.
• Carlos Quentin is recovered from his self-inflicted broken wrist. Nice way to wreck an MVP season. Well, maybe we're getting carried away. But The Update is looking for big things from Q after his 36 homer, 100 RBI, .394 on-base percentage, .571 slugging percentage in 2008. We're combing the dictionary now for new words that start with Q.
• Center field and leadoff went by default to the platoon of Dewayne Wise and Brian Anderson. Wise will face the righties and Anderson will try to continue to crush the lefties he faces -- all eight of his homers were off southpaws. Neither one is a prototypical leadoff hitter, but that's a hole that Kenny Williams just couldn't (some say wouldn't) fill. Jerry Owens bombed out and was actually put on waivers in order to reassign him to Charlotte. No other team wanted him, which tells you something. The only good thing about that groin pull is that it gave Q the chance he needed to shine.
• Jermaine Dye's 2008 was better than his respectable, but not as good as 2006 season, in 2007. Yes, he's 35, but he's been a late bloomer. The Update does not think the bloom is off the rose. We'd love a year close to what he put up in 2008, but acknowledge that Dye may not have that kind of season left in him. His 41 homers and 96 RBIs will be tough to match, but when it comes to Jermaine, we never say die, er Dye.

What does all that mean? Bottom line for us is the Sox will be in the hunt. We don't buy those projections that have the Good Guys finishing in fifth behind even the Royals. There's a lot to like here, especially if the young -- and old -- pitchers can produce. We agree with those that say there's not much to separate the top from the bottom in the Central and that 85 wins might take the division title. It's not hard to imagine the Sox winning 85 -- that's only four wins more than a .500 finish -- and despite the glass half empty analysis, we still look at the world through black, white, silver and gray glasses.