Baseball – Woodie Fryman, Anthony Rizzo, Jeremy Guthrie, Dave Nilsson

Woodie Fryman (b. 1940) was a reliable pitcher as a starter and then a reliever for several teams in a long career that spanned from the 1960s to 1980s.  He was a two-time All Star (1968 and 1976) and is a member of the Montreal Expos Hall of Fame. fairandunbalancedblog  

Anthony Rizzo, Cubs: With the Cubs completely changing the identity of the organization, the young slugger will have plenty of opportunity to impress. And please, take the random at-bats from his 2011 major league promotion with a grain of salt. Rizzo may need time to mature as a hitter, but the tools are there for him to be a great hitter in both fantasy and real life baseball. For a guy just entering his age-22 season, he’s done a lot more than other first base prospects at this stage of their career. In shallower keeper leagues, now would be a fine time to jump on him, as you will find few other first basemen his age with this type of tools and opportunity. Rizzo has the most upside of this group, with a great chance to get consistent playing time, but be ready for some ups and downs. http://www.minorleaguerundown.com/2012/02/06/top-10-fantasy-prospects-at-first-base-for-2012/

In the past five seasons, Jeremy Guthrie has absorbed 65 Oriole losses. In other words, 17% of the time they played “Hard Day’s Night” as the stadium cleared out, an L was going next to Guthrie’s name on the score sheet. In those five seasons, there have been well over 100 pitchers-of-record in Baltimore. For perspective, loss-machine Daniel Cabrera did not account for as many defeats (59) in his five-year reign as Oriole whipping boy. Nobody has taken the brunt of this era of Baltimore baseball harder than Jeremy Guthrie http://baltimoresportsreport.com/jeremy-guthrie-workhorse-of-a-pointless-era-in-oriole-baseball-24932.html

Dave Nilsson is Australia’s number-one batting hero. In 1992, he became the second big-leaguer trained Down Under; through the end of the 2011 season, 25 more of his countrymen had followed him. That group started with Australia’s best-remembered pitcher, Graeme Lloyd. Nilsson and Lloyd formed the first all-Aussie battery in the majors with the Milwaukee Brewers on April 14, 1993.The sample of Aussie batsmen is quite small: eight out of 27 major-leaguers. So far only two have come to the plate 1,000 times or more in the majors: Nilsson and the man who preceded him, Craig Shipley. http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/531676ce-0