Right back in there again, toe-to-toe with the Yankees and Red Sox.

So, Orioles... how've you been this year? Haven't checked in with you since the preview I wrote last year. People were expecting a lot from you, maybe even a fourth-place finish in the East, ahead of those overrated Blue Jays.

Travis Snider has been send down to AAA, thus leaving LF to Eric Thames.

Edit: Dustin McGowan has a new 2 + 1 year deal - 2013/2014 guaranteed ($1.5 per year) plus an option year in 2015 at $4 mil.

Proving that great minds think alike, Niall and I both chose similar formats, as I’ll also be asking discrete questions about each of the AL West teams. Given that the AL West has four teams to the NL Central’s six, I'll ask and answer three for each team.

All five of these teams have a realistic shot at winning the division.

(No, that is not a misprint. Yes, I am picking the Mets.)

The National League Central is the home of the defending World Series Champions and two of the four teams that reached the playoffs in 2011.  Ergo, it's the best division in baseball! ;D  This preview will ask 12 probing queries and maybe provide some insight of what you can expect in 2012.

The AL Central is a perpetual division of mystery here on The Box; I don’t think anyone has ever come reasonably close to predicting an order of finish that was remotely correct. For this I mostly blame the White Sox, and all indications are they may mess it up again, as they seem intent on both rebuilding and contending at the same time. Still, this is a pretty exciting time for a division that’s been in the cellar for a while. The Tigers were a big player in the off-season, signing Prince Fielder. The Royals are starting to graduate players from what was very recently the Majors best farm system, and Cleveland has some high upside talent to go along with a few grizzled veterans. That just leaves the Twins, which may be for the best. Let’s take a look.

But they most likely won't.

A few day ago at Fangraphs, Paul Swydan made a convincing case why they should both stay over Ben Francisco. I'm going to add my support here.

The baseball season is just a couple of weeks away. And you know what that means... it's fantasy baseball season! The gang was joined by some fantasy friends (I mean real friends we play fantasy with, not friends we pretend to have, I swear) to discuss how playing fantasy sports changes us as fans. In part two, the long-awaited NL East Preview, recorded last week with Alex Obal in New York.

Subscribe here. Listen here.

The good ol' wild west. One never knows what to expect. Since 2002 we've seen the Padres win twice, Diamondbacks three times, Dodgers three times (+1 WC), and Giants twice (+1 WC) while the Rockies claimed the wild card twice. So who will pull it off this year and will the 2nd & 3rd placers get a wild card?

The Jays currently sit second in the American League spring training standings and second in all of baseball with an .846 winning percentage. There is no correlation between spring training success and regular season results, so instead we are left to ponder the scraps of information fed to us by media sources, while waiting for the regular season to begin.

A thread on BBTF about Chipper Jones got me to thinking about how long players stay with one team and has it changed drastically recently. So I figured, what the heck, lets check!

A very special "Live from New York" (it's Saturday night! (it actually was Saturday night (well, Saturday afternoon))) episode of the Boxcast this week featuring Da Box's Big Apple correspondent Alex Obal. Given the circumstances, Alex and I decided to chat about New York fandom and how it differs from being a fan in Toronto. In part 2 we took a cue from Matthew Elmsley and gave our predictions for who will get the playing time at left field and who will get the starts in 2012. Listen here.

The discussion was fruitful and free-flowing, so I'm going to save part 3 (NL East Preview) for next Monday so as not to burden listeners with a huge commitment. Also, we plan on going to a weekly schedule once the season starts so this is a good transition to that. Look for the Boxcast every Monday from now on!

Update: We're in the iTunes Store!

With the new playoff slot we're all dreaming big here. However, how bad is the playoff situation in Toronto with the Leafs & Raptors looking inept and the Jays being in the toughest division there is? Is this something that should be expected or is it a once in a generation thing?

Got to this sooner than I thought I would.