Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Previews are coming, previews are coming!

Previews are coming, previews are coming!

We've tried a variety of pre-season preview formats here on Batter's Box over the past few years, some with each team getting its own thread, some division-by-division, some all written by members of The Roster, others involving "guest" previews, some by invitation and other by volunteers.

This year? The answer is (Z) All of the Above.

Beginning later this week ...

... every team in our "home" division, the AL East, will get an in-depth preview by one or more members of the Batter's Box Roster. Those previews will, of course, be fodder for comments, debate and criticism from Bauxites Around the Baseball Universe.

We will also have a preview/open-ended discussion about each of the other five MLB divisions, inviting you Bauxites to take the lead, react, predict, etc. And yes, we will have at least one of our annual Prediction Threads (whether or not that becomes a "Prediction Contest" is yet TBD.) So here's the planned schedule so far; you Bauxites Around the Baseball Universe are invited to volunteer to join/assist/coup d'etat those discussion leaders and "thread owners," as we move ahead toward the Holiest of All Holidays, Opening Day.

To wit ...

March 23: NL West (John Northey AND Braden Hunt)
March 24: NL Central (Niall O'Donohoe)
March 25: NL East (Dave Rutt)
March 26: AL West (Gerry McDonald)
March 27: AL Central (Gwyn Price)
March 28: Orioles (Braden Hunt)
March 29: Rays (Gwyn Price)
March 30: Red Sox (Dave Rutt)
March 31: Yankees (Mick Doherty)
April 1: Toronto Blue Jays (Dan McIlroy; everyone)
April 2: Annual standings/awards prediction thread (Dave Rutt; everyone)
April 3: Free-for-all, open forum, wacky predictions (Everyone)
April 4: First game of regular season, NYY @ BOS (No thread planned)
April 5: TOR @ TEX (Game Thread TBD)

Note #1: Fellow rosterites, sorry if I missed an e-mail from you volunteering for one of these spaces -- go ahead, log in and add your name to the schedule as you wish!

Note #2: These conversation-starter threads may vary wildly, ranging from short to in-depth -- for instance, I have not yet decided if on March 31 I will do an in-depth position-by-position look at the Boys from the Bronx, or if I will just post the equivalent of "So ... how 'bout them Yankees?" All the discussion leaders will make their own determinations about the depth of their previews; your threaded comments can be as detailed or off-the-cuff as you like, of course, too -- as always!

Anyone else who wants to sign up to help out -- there are no available "empty spots" per se -- bring it on! Contact the roster member(s) listed as owning that spot and let them know how you want to contribute.

Most importantly ... everyone ... EVERYONE ... be ready to contribute your thoughts, predictions and SWAGs to each thread as it is posted each day. Are you ready for some baseball?

Posted by Mick Doherty on Sunday, March 21 2010 @ 09:43 PM EDT.

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binnister - Sunday, March 21 2010 @ 10:32 PM EDT (#212587) #

April 4: First game of regular season, NYY @ BOS (No thread planned)

I just wanted to ask: Why not?

Doesn't every game of the year (or, at least, every series) deserve it's own thread?

Mick Doherty - Sunday, March 21 2010 @ 10:38 PM EDT (#212588) #

binn, I see what you mean, but we have traditionally only done threads for games involving Toronto, special games (All-Star, etc.) and the post-season. It's possible someone may toss up a thread for NYY-BOS, but none is currently planned.

ayjackson - Sunday, March 21 2010 @ 10:57 PM EDT (#212590) #

I've taken a look at the April schedule, and I can't see us losing before the Tampa series. Would a 16 - 0 start set some kind of record?

: )

I'll be here all season with objective analysis.

ayjackson - Sunday, March 21 2010 @ 11:03 PM EDT (#212591) #

My question for Northey/Hunt is do the Rockies have a spare CFer lying around?

binnister - Monday, March 22 2010 @ 11:55 AM EDT (#212595) #

binn, I see what you mean, but we have traditionally only done threads for games involving Toronto, special games (All-Star, etc.) and the post-season. It's possible someone may toss up a thread for NYY-BOS, but none is currently planned.

I'm glad you did, because I sure didn't.

Somehow, even after quoting it and highlighting it, I missed the point that this was a Yankee-Redsox game...which didn't really have anything (directly) to do with the Blue Jays. This mis-read made me think that 'Batter's Box' was just going to cherry-pick the BJ games this year and only put up thread when they felt like it.....so, I'm very glad to hear that the fine tradition of creating Game Day threads for all the Blue Jays games will continue (albeit with egg on my face).

Although, in an effort to partially remove the aforementioned poultry embryo's, I'd be all for a thread being created for the first episode of 'The Clash of the Titan's'.

jgadfly - Tuesday, March 23 2010 @ 02:17 PM EDT (#212623) #

Any scuttlebutt out of the minor league camp on how D'Arnaud, Marisnick, Jackson, Eiland, Wilson, Ahrens, Alvarez, et al are doing ?

Gerry - Tuesday, March 23 2010 @ 02:25 PM EDT (#212625) #

Minor league games only started a few days ago so we have no reports yet about how players have looked in their first few games. minor league spring training is no different from major league spring training, everyone looks great and is in great shape.

I will be at minor league spring training in the second half of next week and will report back on how things are going at the end of the spring training games.

jgadfly - Tuesday, March 23 2010 @ 09:31 PM EDT (#212640) #

Great ! Thanks Gerry ... I really look forward to your farm system updates.

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