By David Gibb

Baseball season is upon us. Technically. Sort of.

Two official games have been played in Japan, and while there are still exhibitions remaining (even for the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox, the teams who have already played games that count), I declare it safe to write my “Spring Surprises” column.

Surprise Number One: The Brewers’ release of Claudio Vargas

Nobody has ever accused Vargas of being lights-out, but he is an adequate starter at the back end of any rotation. His 4.95 career ERA isn’t pretty, but in 2007 he struck out 7.17 batters per nine innings, a solid figure, and he does a good job keeping the ball in the park (1.54 homers allowed per nine innings), which is key in Miller Park.

The thing that makes Vargas’ release truly puzzling is Chris Capuano’s injury. Depending on what the doctors find when they open his elbow, the lefty may be due for his second ulnar collateral ligament replacement — known on the streets as Tommy John surgery — and would certainly miss the entire season if he underwent the procedure.

The injury history of staff ace Ben Sheets also makes Vargas’ release curious. Sheets hasn’t pitched 200 innings since 2004, and his strikeouts per nine innings have continued to fall since the same year. Clearly Sheets is injury-prone and his inability to stay healthy has at least somewhat diminished the electric stuff that got him to the majors. Between Capuano’s injury and Sheets’ history, it’s hard to believe that the Brewers are cutting capable pitchers with major league experience.

The Brewers are taking a calculated risk here, and if 25-year-old lefty Manny Parra pans out in the Show, it will look like the right move. However, any more injuries to the starting rotation or any prolonged ineffectiveness by Parra will have the Brewers organization desperately looking for exactly the kind of pitcher they have thrown away in Claudio Vargas

Surprise Number Two: Jarrod Saltalamacchia will begin the season in the minors

When Texas sent Mark Teixeira to Atlanta, they expected an impact bat who was nearly ready for the major leagues in Salty. After coming over from the Braves, the rookie catcher’s OPS dropped 23 points, and his already-questionable defense became even more exposed, as he went from throwing out 23 percent of attempted base stealers in Atlanta to a weak 16 percent in Arlington. However, most observers simply chalked up the drop off to increased scouting on the rookie, and it was widely believed in baseball circles over the winter that Saltalamacchia would start for the Rangers.

Not so. He won’t even be on the opening day roster. Gerald Laird, with his .627 OPS and .224 batting average in 2007 (in all fairness, it was an off year: his career numbers are a robust .246 average with a .674 OPS), will be behind the dish for the Rangers on opening day. Saltalamacchia will play every day for the Oklahoma RedHawks [sic] of the Pacific Coast League.

A lot of people wonder what Salty has left to prove in the minors. While he has never played in Triple-A before, it is hard to imagine that a player who has already put together 308 at-bats at the highest level with offensive success deserves requires more minor league seasoning.

This strategy almost makes sense is if the Rangers are simply putting Laird on display, banking that he has a strong first half. That would enable them to trade him to a contender (I am going out on a limb by suggesting that Texas will not be a postseason contender) and then install Saltalamacchia as his long-term replacement.

Another possibility is that Saltalamacchia will re-emerge from the minors as a polished first baseman (where he has appeared in 39 major league games versus 44 at catcher). At first, Salty would compete with Ben Broussard and Jason Botts for playing time, but it is unlikely that he will unseat Broussard, as he is one of the few lefty regulars on a very right-handed Texas team.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia may not be a polished big leaguer, playing to his full potential yet, but given the fact that the Rangers haven’t been to the playoffs since 1999, it’s curious that they don’t want to see the man who may be the future of their franchise at the major league level.

Surprise Number Three: Kyle Lohse signed a one-year, 4.25 million dollar contract with the St. Louis Cardinals

Lohse was supposed to get paid this winter. He was supposed to get a deal comparable to the one Adam Eaton signed last year (3 years, 25.75 million dollars and a mutual option for 2010). He was represented by the most powerful agent in the business, Scott Boras, the man best known for getting his clients ridiculous deals. Despite all expectations, Lohse wound up a relative bargain for the Cardinals late in spring training.

The Cardinals were desperate for pitching, and yet they picked up Lohse for next to nothing, seemingly undermining the out-of-control free agent pitching market of the last two years. Carlos Silva, whose career ERA is only half a run better than Lohse’s (4.31 versus 4.82) signed a contract which guaranteed him 48 million dollars over 4 years only a few months before Lohse tucked his tail between his legs and accepted St. Louis’ lowball offer.

Lohse’s dilemma transitions nicely into…

Surprise Number Four: The Suspiciously Quiet Free Agent Market

This winter, Scott Boras, one of the most powerful and well-paid men in the history of baseball to be neither a player nor an owner, was rather publicly undressed, failing to produce as he had in the past. His highest profile client Alex Rodriguez went behind his back to sign a deal with the Yankees himself, his longtime client Kenny Rogers announced in a very public manner that he had chosen to relieve Boras of his duties as his agent, and he failed to produce the monster contract that he constantly insisted Kyle Lohse would sign. This series of unfortunately events befalling Boras could mean that the players and owners alike have finally tired of his self-aggrandizing schtick. Or, it could mean collusion.

While not the elephant in the room, collusion is the horde of rats in the fancy hotel: a few people near the top probably know about it, but they want to keep it as quiet as possible. Of course, don’t expect an investigation into collusion while Bud Selig, the mastermind of the mid-80s collusion scandal, is commissioner.

Conspiracy theories aside, there are 1,798 home runs out there on the free agent market, and the scary thing is that figure only counts the numbers of Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, and Sammy Sosa, all of whom will probably remain teamless as the march toward opening day approaches. At this point, it appears that these sluggers may have to sit out until June or July, when a few teams decide that one extra bat might give them the final push into the playoffs.

All in all, it has been an interesting offseason. Major League Baseball and its owners seemed to establish a new philosophy as the winter passed.

Teams made a concerted effort to give chances to younger, inexperienced, or otherwise cheaper players rather than shell out the big bucks to aging prima donnas. It’s easy for us as writers and fans to sit back and applaud this strategy, but only time will tell if will work.