On the rosterbation front, Susan Slusser writes that Graham Godfrey is the front-runner for the fifth starter position.

Another Slusser update on the roster has Eric Sogard still in the mix to start at third, and Kila Ka'aihue still a possibility at first, with Slusser speculating that he might even be slightly ahead of Allen for that honor. Jane Lee, also writing about the corner infield spots, notes that Josh Donaldson has more innings in the field than anyone else in the Cactus League. I guess he needs them, though.

David Wishinsky likes that Balfour is the closer. Me too.

baseballgirl gives Chris Carter the Ben Grieve treatment, judging his psyche via his body language.

The A's have the fourth-best closer in the division per Anthony Andro. (This was written before Balfour was given the nod.) I'm not buying, especially since the argument boils down to "the 9th inning is different." I'm voting Jordan Walden #4, and I'm not sure how the other three shake out.

Joe Lemire's got one of those "got to root for him" profiles of Wes Timmons. (Don't take that the wrong way! It's good. I like when he's all "I don't know how people did this before Skype" even though he's played so long that there definitely wasn't Skype when he started out.)

Kevin Lai covers the A's in The Hardball Times's "Five questions" series, though it's more for non-A's fans who haven't been following the team as closely as you and I have.

Marc Hulet writes about conversion projects at FanGraphs, including our very own Sean Doolittle. It's just a list, though.

And in a real quick "me elsewhere," here's this. It's ESPN's new feature, "Triple Play," which will feature SweetSpot-affiliated bloggers, SweetSpot writers like David Schoenfield and Christina Kahrl, and writers from ESPN's army of smart baseball people. It's a daily thing that debuted yesterday. Today's has Andrew Marchand, the aforementioned Ms. Kahrl, and me with about 50 words apiece on three different questions relating to ESPN's Top 500 project (which you can also read about in and around that link). I'm still just amazed that my name and Kahrl's name appear with mere centimeters of each other. She's been a writing hero of mine going back ... geez, I don't know. A decade?

Anyway, check it out and keep checking back. There's currently a link to it on ESPN MLB's front page and I assume you'll be able to keep finding it that way.