AP Photo/Eric Risberg

Matt Cain went 13-12 in 2006, but is 15-30 over the past two seasons.

BIG THINGS AHEAD FOR CAIN

By Eric Young, ESPN

Every year a new player breaks out on the scene and shocks people with a big season. Sometimes you can see it coming because of a certain player's potential, which was the case with Evan Longoria last year. Sometimes it can be someone who comes completely out of nowhere, like Fausto Carmona two years ago.

My pick for this season's breakout star is San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain. The past few seasons he's put up some fantastic numbers, but he hasn't been able to do better than the 13-12 record he posted in 2006 because of poor run support and some of the normal vagaries of youth.

I expect this season to be different for two very big reasons. The first is he's going to get increased run support from an offense that should be better. Too often over the past two seasons -- a stretch in which Cain has a 15-30 record -- he's found himself on the losing end of games that he should've won because he hasn't had offensive support.

While this team didn't make the big move by landing Manny Ramirez, as some thought they should, they did make some small changes to their lineup (adding Edgar Renteria) that should result in increased run production for the pitching staff.

The second reason is the presence of the Big Unit. Randy Johnson can show young pitchers how to close out hitters and finish games. He also can show someone like Cain how to deal with a lack of run support since he had the same problem when he pitched with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

You can't quantify what it means for a young pitcher like Cain to have an older, successful pitcher there to guide him throughout the season.

Because of these two reasons, I expect Cain to not only have his first winning season, but to be in the running with his teammate Tim Lincecum for Cy Young honors.

Past Baseball Tonight Clubhouses: March 9 | March 8 | March 5 | March 4 | March 3

BEST OF THE BLOGS

Each day, ESPN.com's contributors offer a wide array of thoughts and analysis in their blogs. Rob Neyer weighs in on former pitcher, and fellow blogger, Curt Schilling and his thoughts about the pitching at the World Baseball Classic:

Curt Schilling on extracurricular baseball and what it might mean for pitchers:

After the 1998 season I had the honor of being asked to play for the MLB All Star team that traveled to Japan to take on their best. Every 2 years MLB sends a team there to showcase the game and its players.
Team was made up of some pretty incredible talent. Kendall, Javy Lopez, Giambi, Garciaparra, Manny, Garrett Andersion, Sosa, Delgado, Wagner, Leiter, Hoffman, Gordon and more. I think our starting lineup in game 1 had 300+ home runs … .
At the time I had no real idea, but it would prove to be the wrong decision. The team took the month of October off, and met in early November to work out and fly over.
--snip--
I said when we returned from Japan that I would never do it again. It was an awesome experience but I was as sore as I'd ever been (and ultimately wound up with a shoulder injury and was operated on, as were 3 other pitchers on the team) and I think the tour hurt my chances of being healthy immensely.
If I were, and I know I am not, a GM I would have some sort of protection in contracts prohibiting any pitchers on my 40 man roster from participating.

If the World Baseball Classic isn't a long-term success, it'll be due to one thing: not having the world's best pitchers available for the tournament. Let's assume for a moment that a dozen pitchers were along for that 1998 Japan trip, and that four of them really did have arm surgeries … 33 percent is a terribly high attrition rate.

For the rest of this entry from Rob Neyer's blog, click here.

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Keith Law breaks down 19-year-old White Sox prospect Dayan Viciedo:

Dayan Viciedo, the latest player to come through the Havana-South Side pipeline, does look like he's going to hit. His weight, position and even his age have all been questioned, but if the bat is there, those criticisms do become somewhat less important.

On the plus side, he has a great swing that should lead to hard contact and allow him to tap into his raw strength to generate power. In batting practice, he was shorter to the ball than he was in the game and, while he didn't show the advertised power, he sprayed the middle of the field with long line drives. On the minus side, he strides early and long and takes an enormous cut, so he ends up off-balance much of the time, and I can foresee him struggling to adjust to changing speeds. He's down about 20 pounds from when he signed but is still a thick 247 pounds, so questions about his body and position (he was the DH on Monday) remain unanswered.

• Speaking of unanswered questions, Aaron Poreda threw four innings but didn't show the solid second pitch that everyone in the scouts section wants to see. Poreda's fastball was, as usual, plus -- 90-94 mph with life and sink -- and he threw it for strikes, but his slider and change were both below average. He seemed to be working on the slider, throwing more of them than I'd ever seen him throw in a single outing. Based on the varying shapes of the pitch, I would guess that he is still looking for a comfortable grip and release point. The best sliders he threw had more depth than tilt, and he was guiding the pitch rather than just throwing it. His arm slot is still below three-quarters, although it looked higher than it was last fall, which, if true, gives him a better chance to turn his hand over on his changeup or get on top of a breaking ball.

For the rest of this entry from Keith Law's blog, click here.