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Diamondbacks at Dodgers, 1:05 p.m.
Jimmy Rollins, SS
Justin Turner, 1B
Adrian Gonzalez, DH
Howie Kendrick, 2B
Andre Ethier, LF
Juan Uribe, 3B
Chris Heisey RF
A.J. Ellis, C
Kike Hernandez, CF
Carl Crawford, LF
(Chris Anderson, P)

By Jon Weisman

We’re down to the final fortnight before Opening Day. Starting to feel it?

Here’s a big set of links from this morning and the weekend …

  • Alex Guerrero is not only making a case for a reserve role in 2015 but a starting role in 2016, as Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles points out.
  • Guerrero’s roster spot could come at the immediate expense of Kike Hernandez (though, if the Dodgers keep an extra position player, perhaps not). Ken Gurnick writes at MLB.com about Hernandez, who has homered in three straight games.
  • Hernandez, who starts again today, has been a busy guy. He leads the Dodgers in Cactus League play in defensive innings with 74, and should tie or pass Joc Pederson — who has a scheduled off day today — for the lead in plate appearances. Pederson has 42 plate appearances, Hernandez 40.
  • Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson are each pitching in minor-league games for their next turns in the Dodger rotation — McCarthy today (in part because the Dodgers are facing opening-week opponent Arizona), Anderson on Tuesday (an off day for the big-league club).
  • Don Mattingly told reporters the Dodgers will have a bullpen game Wednesday, with Clayton Kershaw pitching again Thursday, working on five days’ rest after his last tooth-rattling start.
  • Chris Hatcher, who got rocked a bit Sunday, retiring one of five batters, gets a chance for redemption with his first back-to-back appearance of Spring Training today, pitching behind McCarthy in the minor-league game. Joel Peralta, who turns 39 today, is also doing making his first consecutive-days gambit.
  • The Dodgers have the ninth-best collection of MLB talent at catcher, writes Mike Petriello of Fangraphs, which kicked off its annual position rankings today.
  • Don Newcombe is at Camelback Ranch this week and will throw out the first pitch before Friday’s sold-out game against the Giants.
  • Aaron Miller, the Dodgers’ 2009 first-round draft pick who attempted to convert from pitching to the outfield, has retired at 27, reports Gurnick. We included Miller, who had an .826 OPS for Single-A Rancho Cucamonga last year, in our May 2014 Dodger Insider magazine story about Dodger minor-leaguers making position switches.
  • In case you need a refresher, Dustin Nosler of Dodgers Digest charts where the major national prospect rankings placed the Dodgers’ up-and-comers.
  • A lengthy roster of the talent at Dodger minor-league camp was posted by Eric Stephen at True Blue L.A.
  • Bookmark this one: Official MLB historian John Thorn has a timeline of baseball integration dating back to 1820 at Our Game, starting with the slave Henry Rosecranse Columbus Jr. playing baseball in Kingston, New York.
  • A keen analysis of how well pitchers do (or don’t) recover from Tommy John surgery is provided by Jon Roegele at the Hardball Times. “The most recent data suggest that one out of two major league pitchers who has Tommy John surgery will throw fewer than 100 innings the rest of his big league career,” Roegele concludes.
  • Fangraphs has tweaked the way it calculates Wins Above Replacement, taking into account such factors as ability to avoid double plays and advancement on wild pitches and passed balls.
  • Let’s get promotional. Promotional …