"...check out new user "Brett". His name doesn't ring any bells for me, but he linked to his homepage:

DoubleSwitch

Dude previews all 30 teams himself! And then he tops it off by ranking 30 players at each position!"

All 30 teams? DUDE!

I thought that had to be investigated. After all, the Box is planning to preview all 30 teams as well. And, as Custer said one day in Montana: "Whoa. They got a lotta guys." And we'll get that done, don't worry. Eventually. Before the season starts. We promise.

We'd kinda like to know how one guy has done the same thing all by himself. And just how good a job could one solitary mortal possibly do, anyway?

Well, a pretty darn good one, as it happens. Doubleswitch is the work of one Brett Smith, who also turns out to be a Toronto baseball fan. He's put together a site full of all sorts of entertaining and informative stuff. (Yes! It's infotainment!) It's well worth your time to go check it for yourself.

And he's been online, without me knowing about it, for five years?

I feel shame. But I get over that pretty quick. Lots of practise, ya know?

First, a warning is in order. Brett is forecasting that Marcus Giles of the Braves will be your 2005 National League MVP. I like Giles a whole lot myself, but... no. Just not gonna happen. Now don't be alarmed by that. We're all entitled to one downright weird and whimsical judgement from time to time. And I really shouldn't give him too much grief about this one - I recently described Giles as "kind of a right-handed Joe Morgan." Gosh... if I'm right, he could be too...never mind.

He really does preview all 30 teams, in his way. He doesn't do a team analysis so much as a quick rundown of the lineup. What he provides are pithy little notes on each player in a team's starting lineup and their key pitchers. As seen in the following more or less random samples:

Juan Pierre: "... his caught stealings have also gone up three straight years; if he keeps getting thrown out, perhaps someone should advise him that Carlos can drive him in from first base just fine."

Jose Guillen: "The good news is that he is a .300 hitter with decent power; the bad news is that he has poor plate discipline, and he is nuts."

Jeff Kent: "When the season started, he had gotten off the bus at Cooperstown and was wandering around the neighbourhood. After a .289 average, 27 homers, 107 RBI and a game-winning shot in the NLCS, he's on the front lawn of the Hall of Fame; another good year, and he'll be knocking at the door."

The site features a nifty ballpark diagram, with seasons being used as seating section numbers - you click on a season, and he tells who he thinks should have been the MVP and Cy Young winners, and why. For every season.

Well, every season since 1900. The guy hasn't demonstrated any real expertise on 19th century baseball, at least not that I'm aware of at this stage. So there's a real weakness that he badly needs to work on.

There are numerous interesting essays; I'm in the midst of his lament on how players from the 1980s have been excluded from the Hall of Fame. I suspect this might be one of his pet hobby-horses, but he has some nice points to make. Did you know that 55 players who were active in 1928 are in the Hall of Fame? Whereas just 27 players active in 1980 are in the Hall now, and only six more have any chance at all of someday gaining entry? Which is obviously crazy, and it's something I didn't know.

Oh sure, I could have known. I could have worked it out for myself and all, but I didn't have to. And I'm happy as all get-out that someone else has: a) done the heavy lifting for me, and b) is sharing it with everyone.

Naturally, everyone at the Box is glad to hear of his approval of the mighty O-Drum ("it is amazing how one simple instrument can completely change the atmosphere of the stadium"). How can you not approve of the drum? I also like where he goes next with the subject:

There is one drawback to the drum: it is a constant reminder for fans that the game on the field is not played with any rhythm. Countless times, the drummer would slowly build to a crescendo, with the fans clapping or shouting in unison, and then... the pitcher steps off of the rubber to pick his nose or make a soft toss to first, or the batter decides he needs to step out and read the label on his bat. The crowd is repeatedly deflated without a pitch being thrown.
There are some people who think that baseball needs a clock to speed up the games. I might suggest that a drummer would do the job; once the drummer hits a specific rhythm, nobody can call time and the pitcher must throw home, and if the drummer ends the drum roll before the pitch is thrown it's an automatic ball.

That... would be cool. I'd like to see that.

So there you go. Let us all praise Mr Brett Smith. He's doing a wonderful job, and he's done a lot of hard work. I have a lot of respect for hard work, and I especially appreciate other people working hard. For me. That just never gets old.