Over the past three years, the pre-season New York Yankees previews have all forecast, incorrectly in each case as it turned out, a Bronx Bomber World Series trip.

Let's step back a little and ask a regular-season-level question of this ever-changing pinstriped ballclub. How do they stack up against the rest of the A.L. East? Getting into the playoffs is really the whole point of the regular season, and as the Red Sox, and more recently the seemingly overmatched Cardinals, have shown, once there, anything can happen.

So, do the Yankees "get there" in 2007 to see what happens?

Just a few days of spring training left. The starters seem to be in place now. The battle will be for the final couple bullpen spots.

Come and join us at the Harbour Sports Grille (Yonge and Lakeshore, a few minutes walk south of Union) on Monday - 12:45 onwards.  As Coach says - tell your boss you've got a Doctor's Appointment, and watch Surgeon General Halladay put on a clinic.

(Liam, our Designated Pinch-Hitter, would like to express his regrets for the delay in submitting his look at this year’s Rockies. Which was fine. Then he started asking if the Box would reimburse him for his Expenses…. We all had a good yuck about that. We’ll let him tell the rest of the tale.)

Better, a little bit better.

I'm totally late with this Oakland preview. I was originally going to write it up like... it's hard to explain. But it would have been funny if I could have made it work. Now, though, I'll just be happy if I can put the analysis together in some kind of coherent way.

I think Head said it best when he said, "QQQQQQQQ! Is having Billy Beane! Oakland Athletics or death!"

The following is not a preview so much as an attempt to start a conversation about Cleveland’s chances in 2006, in light of some different projection systems and expectations produced by the free market.

Last year in this space, I did a run-down of some of the available “investment” markets that pertained to the team and how various projection systems felt about the futures markets and propositions. This year, I will do the same.

The plot thickens?

Wait 'til next year.

The 2007 Tampa Devil Rays stand on the verge of accomplishing something unprecedented....

For all the (more than 240 now!) Hall of Names teams we've built here at Batter's Box, only upon noticing that the recent All-Born-on-St.-Patrick's-Day squad had an outfielder named Jimmie Hall did it finally occur to me that we might build a team of players named Hall. And as it turns out, if you search the greatness of BaseballReference.com for players named Hall, you find there have been 25 such major leaguers -- and that's a nice roster-friendly number, isn't it?

But actually, we'll have to expand our search just a bit, to include the 13 other players who had last/family names that started with "Hall" -- say, a pretty fair RHSP familiar to Blue Jay fans just became eligible -- as we take time to meet ....

I am now running Community Forecasts, and participation among hardcore fans is appreciated.  I've already taken an initial look at Redsox Fans' feelings on Pedroia, Papelbon, and their relievers:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/community_forecasts1/

As soon as I get 20 ballots for the Jays, I'll do likewise.

The Twins won 96 games in 2006 behind the pitching of Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano and Joe Nathan and the batting of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Can they do it again?

Earlier today in the ongoing Trivia Challenge thread, Bauxite Calig23 posed what he called a "St. Patrick's Day themed question," regarding Blue Jays born on this day. It made me realize, shame-facedly at that, that for all the holiday-themed Hall or Names all-birthday teams we have produced here at Batter's Box, we've never done one for St. Patrick's Day.

So, while we still have a few minutes left of March 17, here's a roster made up of the 36 big league players (through the 2006 season) born on March 17; it's a team that we can only Dublin ... er, a team that we can only dub ...

"Well, we're screwed now."
--White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, on PECOTA's projection of 72 wins for his team.