No real surprises with the team to start the season.  Rolen and Ryan start the year on the DL and Buck Coats and Rule 5 pick Randy Wells benefit from that.

Joey Gathright is on the Royals and you know what that means!

The Arizona Diamondbacks surprised a lot of people with their first place finish in the NL West last year.  This season they should again be in good position to take the division over the Dodgers and the Padres.

Playing in New York, or in the New York minor league system, puts a different spin on a player's career right from the outset. It's almost impossible to arrive on the scene "quietly" -- though Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang and Melky Cabrera have done as fair an imitation of that as anyone recently. Uusally it's all magazine covers and impossibly early Hall of Fame projections (are you listening, Joba Chamberlain and Philip Hughes?) ...

And besides, the Yankees are better known for huge splashy freeagent signings and player acquisitions (heads up, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu). Hey, Andy Pettitte has even managed to fill both of those roles -- young farm system product and returning veteran hero -- in his career, before and after the train stop in Houston.

So what does all this have to do with previewing the 2008 season for the Yankees? Well, fans tend to split pretty black-and-white into "I love the Yankees" and "I hate the Yankees" (with very little in between), so let's change the face of the Great American Baseball Franchise & Dynasty-Maker and take a look at what we can learn about the team from the greatness of Sean Forman's BaseballReference.com ...

“I think we’ll have to play harder, execute better and stay focused for 162 games,” – New York Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado.

I thought for a while about what angle to take for my Baltimore Orioles preview. 

These guys are for real.

Time to put up or shut up:
http://www.tangotiger.net/clutch/

I'm looking for the guy you want with the game on the line, compared to his TEAMMATES, not necessarily compared to himself in non-clutch situations.

The other day, we had a "Reader Challenge" here on Da Box asking everyone to name their Top 10 Favorite Players. Dozens of individual ballplayers earned mention -- yes, you all love Doc Halladay -- with many people commenting on what a fun exercise it was.

This followup is spurred by a comment from Dave Till, who wrote that one of my own Top 10 favorites, Bill Gullickson, was solidly on his "all-time worst list." We both had legitimate and defensible reasons -- such is the greatness of "baseball favorite" discussions.

So let's try to build the opposite list -- um, not "the opposite of fun," but rather "the opposite of favorite" -- for each of us here. In other words, answer this question ...

Or so says Ken Rosenthal who has scooped all the local writers.

It isn’t his age that bothers him, but rather the fact that he is aging. Generally lauded for the strength of his ascent, Lance Veld is now at the supposed apex for a would-be politician – the point at which one is expected to break through and secure the long-sought victory. He has come close before, but as he has progressed through his prime years, the excitement of aspiration has given way to the discomfort of knowing that the window of opportunity is shrinking.

It's time to play.

The 2007 season was disappointing for the A's, they entered the season expecting to contend but injuries to key players caused them to fall short of expectations.  Rich Harden, Eric Chavez, Chad Gaudin, Bobby Crosby, Houston Street and Travis Buck each spent time in sick bay, many with significant injuries.  The A's are now in rebuilding mode and should not be a challenger in the 2008 AL West.

Despite the fact that Reed has had a better spring than Shannon Stewart, Stewart has won the job.

Ever since I was a kid, one of my favourite things to do has been to rank stuff using arbitrary statistics that I make up. It is in this spirit that I present you with the Batter's Box Bonanza.