Wieters' arrival a date to mark on your calendar

We saw last season what an influx of young talent can do to a solid team. Evan Longoria's arrival in Tampa Bay turned a solid team into a great one. David Price didn't hurt either, en route to the American League pennant. While the expectations should be slightly lower for the Baltimore Orioles this year, Matt Wieters' debut tonight is no less important for the future of the AL East.

The Joe Mauer comparisons are inevitable. The kid is a four-tool player (minus speed) who plays one of the most critical (and talent weak) positions in the sport. Expect Wieters, Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Brian Roberts to cause headaches as the pennant race heats up. The Orioles may not yet be in position to challenge for the title, but once the crop of young pitchers the O's are training in the minor leagues hit, the AL East will be completely up for grabs.

At no point in my baseball viewing career have I seen a division as stocked with talent as the East has the potential to be in two years. If the Rays can hold onto their players, and the Jays add a reliable power bat and an arm or two around Roy Halladay that they can truly rely on, the division could end up with any team that plays there for years. The competition promises tons of drama, and a lot of hurt feelings. Buckle your seatbelts. One Oriole jokingly called him the "switch-hitting Jesus."

But the first step towards this supreme East will occur tonight, when the 23-year-old switch-hitter steps in against Detroit for his first Major League at-bat. We'll all get to see what he can do over the next chunk of time. He hit .400 in spring training, but his competition is certainly going to raise a level here in the regular season.

Yankees in on Garcia

Apparently signing injury-prone former stars to low-cost deals is the trend of the falling economy.

ESPN.com is reporting that the Yankees are one of four teams competing for the services of Freddy Garcia, most recently of the Detroit Tigers, but a star with the Mariners earlier this decade.

He started three games late in the season with Motown, each for five innings, and had two good starts against the Chicago White Sox and Texas Rangers, allowing two hits in each. He also gave up five runs against the Kansas City Royals.

The Mets, White Sox and Rangers apparently have interest in him as well.

The ChiSox and Rangers must have liked what they saw in September, but Detroit is not thought to be interested in bringing Garcia back.

While the Yankees have long been enamored of Garcia, a cog in the trade that brought Randy Johnson to the Astros long ago, I can't see what he provides that Ben Sheets doesn't.

Garcia has been on the field substantially less than Sheets the last three years, making 47 total starts for the White Sox, Phillies and Tigers. He is 19-15 over that period with ERAs of 4.54, 5.90 and 4.20. And that's counting his fluky 17-9 record in 2006 over 33 starts. Sheets has made 72 starts over the same period, going 31-21 with ERAs of 3.82, 3.82, and 3.09.

The numbers don't add up. Sheets is available at an extraordinarily reasonable price for his talent level. If you want to scrape the bargain bin, he is the diamond in the rough.

UPDATE: The New York Mets have signed Freddy Garcia to a minor league contract for next season and he will compete for a spot at the back of their rotation.

It was reported earlier that the Yankees and Mets were the two finalists in the hunt for the 33-year-old righty reclamation project. Him, Santana, Mike Pelfrey and John Maine look pretty good if Garcia can show some resemblance to his old self in the spacious new ballpark in Queens.

Personally, I'm glad that the Yankees didn't sign him. I would rather see a gamble taken on Phil Hughes than on a 33-year-old. Let him take his lumps and learn how to pitch at the highest level if he has to. Just let him pitch. And Hughes ceiling, at this point, has to be higher than Garcia's. He is out of the 28-32 peak years, although not by much, but is also recovering from serious injuries. He isn't likely to be the guy he was before. And Hughes' ceiling may be higher than Garcia's anyway. He is still young.