These aren’t your father’s San Diego Padres. In fact, they’re not your last girlfriend’s Padres. They’re not Bruce Bochy’s Padres, for the first time since 1994. This year they’re not Jake Peavy’s or Chris Young’s, no matter how much the hopes of this team may ride on those three right arms. Maybe they’re Trevor Hoffman’s Padres, but they’re always going to be his Padres until he retires. So, whose Padres are they in 2007?

[I am pleased to post Roster alumnus Craig Burley's Pittsburgh Pirates Preview. Take it away Craig...]

Last year, I began my Pirates preview as follows:

In about 2009, the tone of all Pirates previews will have changed. By that time, the tone will either have become noticeably more respectful or will have blown over the fine line between failure and utter despair. The Pirates have not made the playoffs or finished with a .500 record since Barry Bonds played for them.

The Pirates lost 95 games last year, something that they had done only one other time since 1992, when they last made the playoffs under Jim Leyland (and lost the NLCS on Francisco Cabrera's game-winning single in Game 7)...

To say, as many are, that the Pirates look like a team on the way up is not accurate. This is a team still just trying to halt, never mind reverse, terminal blood loss. The way up is the other way.

The 2005 Pirates committed the three cardinal sins of a baseball team. They were bad, colorless and unambitious. But in all three cases, it wasn't as bad as it might seem.

I could write exactly the same phrases this year, and be correct on nearly all accounts. The Pirates lost 95 games, the Pirates were bad, the Pirates were colorless, the Pirates were unambitious. The Pirates are a year closer to (and two years away from breaking) the Phillies' record for most consecutive seasons below .500.

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?