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One of my favorite pastimes is reading the blogs of Giants fans and seeing them search for the slightest shred of optimism in the upcoming season.  Check out the McCovey Chronicles for a good laugh, as the blog encourages the front office to look into a trade for the Rays’ Ben Zobrist.  I’m sorry, who?  The guy batted a whopping .155 in 97 plate appearances last year.  You can almost smell the desperation if that’s the best SF can do for their bench, with no shortstops with legitimate MLB experience, as the McCovey Chronicles accurately notes (seriously though, this is an entertaining blog).  Call me sadistic, but I’m looking forward to watching the boys in blue whoop up on the Giants all season long, and then reading the SF blogs as they look for a silver lining.

A sign of things to come in the regular season?  Perhaps.  It’s hard to read anything into the tea leaves for the first Grapefruit League game of the year, but according to our pal Ken Gurnick over at MLB.com, “Torre has made no secret that he likes the speed of Pierre, the likely Opening Day starter in left field, atop the lineup.”  Hmm.  While I do love Pierre’s speed, leaving Either on the bench just makes no sense at all.

Blue Notes: Single game tickets for the 2008 season go on sale on Saturday, March 1st.  Check it out.  Looks like the Dodgers are also giving discounts up to 70% on Opening Night tickets.  Not sure they really need to, as from what I hear, the challenge is keeping people going to the ball parks for the entire Opening Week, not necessarily the first game.

Jayson Werth was once considered one of the promising “kids” in the Dodgers’ farm system. After seven years in the minors and wrist surgery in 2006, the former Dodger signed with the Phillies. He played solid ball and is in the mix to be a starter in 2008. The Philadelphia Daily News reports that Charlie Manuel thinks Werth has 30 HR potential and is one of the keys to their upcoming season as the team looks to replace Aaron Rowand’s power. I’m not sure about that, but we’ll certainly be rooting for Jason to have a breakthrough season.

I know, I know. It just seems odd, doesn’t it? Nice guy Orel Hershiser just doesn’t seem to be the type of guy to bluff and challenge the world’s top poker pros, but that’s exactly what he will be doing at the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship. NBC has announced that the tournament will once again take place at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas from February 29 through March 2, 2008. This just seems to be something that you’d see Jeff Kent doing.

But apparently his “Bulldog” nickname fits his poker personality as well! Check out this great blog post from a guy recounting his experiences with Orel at a 1-2 NL game. Just reading this makes all of us at dodgerfan.net salivate in anticipation of a back and forth trash-talking match with Phil Hellmuth at the end of the month.

One key question that needs to be answered during spring training is who the Dodgers will entrust with the third base position at the beginning of the season.

Much speculation has been floating out there about who Torre’s choice might be. Will he go with Garciaparra, whose 11 years of MLB experience (plus a stint last year at third for the Dodgers) certainly makes him a contender or will he lean towards rookie Andy LaRoche?

The answer was very noncomittal when the boss was pressed. “Nomar’s experience will certainly play into this thing,” said Torre. “There are going to be tough decisions here, and when you have a lot of young players, they can’t all play. In a way, it’s a good problem to have. In another way, you’re dealing with people’s lives, so it becomes a little more of a sensitive issue. Only so many people can make the club, and only so many people can play at one time.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s (LaRoche’s) job to lose. Nomar, with his experience, we’ll have to see how he best helps our club and go from there.”

Garciaparra’s strong bat may actually hurt him in the race for a starting position at third, as Torre may decide that Nomar’s pinch hitting abilities would be a better strategic play for the team. During the last two seasons, Garciaparra batted .370 with runners in scoring position. Then again, the Dodgers were able to land former SF Giant Mark Sweeney for one-year deal and he led the majors with 24 pinch hits last season.

One possibility - a “job share” of sorts whereby LaRoche starts most games and Garciaparra comes in as a pinch-hitter when the opportunity presents itself (but typically earlier than most pinch hitting situations late in the game due to Garciaparra’s ability to cover third effectively). Executing this strategy frequently enough would enable Nomar to stay fresh at either first or third while giving the Dodgers some additional flexibility to leverage opportunities where the bases are loaded and a power hitter could significantly impact the game. Until the lineups are firmed up, however, it’s difficult to see how this would play out as optimal situations to utilize Nomar may mean someone other than LaRoche being asked to ride the pine and some shuffling of the positions…