It's Groundhog Day, and you know what that means ... it's time for 2004 pre-season nominations for the Annual Batter's Box Joaquin Andujar Award. The player who will eventually be awarded the 2005 Andujar will be the epitome, in retrospect, of a low-risk, high-reward transaction. (If those two sentences sound Bill Murray-esque Groundhog Day familiar, well they should.)

Batter's Box authors and readers are invited to cast their ballots for the top five pre-season candidates for the 2004 Andujar. Points will be tabulated on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis and balloting will conclude, after a second round of reminders, near the end of Spring Training, at which time the pre-season list will be published.

To win an Andujar ...

Gitz asked me whether I thought Barry Zito, following his down year in 2004, was a good candidate for the "buy low, sell high" theory of player acquisition.

Some tidbits to start you off:

Thanks to Dilbert empathizer Jonny German, who clearly knows my prediliction for Personal Anagrams and Anagramatics, along with the ubiquitous "Baseball's Hall of Names" teams -- we have a mind-bending ...

Quirky Puzzle of the Day: What's the smallest collection of players you can name whose first and last names cover all the letters of the alphabet? (Full names and nicknames are fine.)

Example: For instance, Douglas Mientkiewicz and Xavier Nady are a nice start, leaving you hunting for a combination that covers b-f-g-p-q. So there's our first answer: Minky, Nady, Biff Pocoroba and Guillermo Quiroz. Thats four. Can anyone beat that? Bonus points to anyone who can at least tie the total of four while using Ed Ott as one of them.

And of course, keep those Make Your Own Roundup links and comments coming!

- King George of the Bronx doesn't want Derek and Alex to be friends any more. Write your own punchline.

- The Mets signed relievers Scott Stewart and Eric Junge and infielder Jed Hansen -- but really, Dave Stewart pitching, Carl Jung psychoanlyzing and Hansen singing "MMMets Bop" probably wouldn't do it for these guys.

- I'm ashamed to admit I got this nugget from the latest Jayson Stark I'm So Clever I Can Call Myself Useless column, but it's kinda cool given the variety of Ranges, Twins and Expos fans around here; see if you can answer before hitting the link: Who's the only player in history who has played for all three franchises to pass through Washington? (HINT: "Hello ... Jerry.")

This article, the second in a series, results from the joint efforts of Jonny German and Mike Green. It began with Mike's Hall watch series on shortstops and the search for more reliable objective measures of Barry Larkin's defence than were otherwise available. In the first piece, we attempted to evaluate Barry Larkin's efficiency in converting ground balls into outs. This time, we attempt the same thing for the double play ball, again using a play-by-play analysis.

It is time to plan the minor league rosters for 2005. When I asked Dick Scott how he allocated the players to the teams he acknowledged that he first places his top prospects and then fills around them. He also said that 90% of the decisions are made before the players report in the spring; so let's see how we would do it if it was our call.

Quick Hit QOTD: Who are the best players in the history of the game as teenagers? Note, this is more about how good they were when they were teens, not the 18-year-old who hits .240 with two steals in 150 AB and turns out to be Ty Cobb.

Make Your Own Roundup Appetizers:
- Barry Larkin leans toward retiring -- not going to be a "Red Jay," may be a rare (?) one-team Hall of Famer.
- Yankees expect healthy Giambi to play 1B, slugger may check in at 6'5", 175#.
- What rumours? Piazza marries way out of his league.
- WIth apologies to the Commodores, Jeff Nelson looks to cut a new record: "Three Times a Mariner".
- What else you got?

It's January, perhaps the worst month for baseball fans -- the Hot Stove filled with only dying embers, the thwack of ball into mitt when pitchers and catchers report still an interminably long way off. But how has January been for producing big league ballplayers? Well. not as bad as the name of this team -- in honour of the time of year described above, bot the talent level, meet the "January Blahs" -- might make you think.

We haven't really posted a "Question of the Day/Make Your Own Roundup" thread for this weekend, though some have joined in the fun of imagining the early 1990s without The Trade. Still, just about every single active thread has someone "breaking the news" of Sammy Sosa's move from Wrigley to Camden Yards. So here are the ...

Questions of the Weekend:
- Did the Cubs get enough in return for the future 600-homer guy?
- What will Sosa's final home run total and place on the home run list be?
- Will you, personally, be more likely to attend an Orioles/Jays game with Sammy in visitors brown?
- Does the deal do anything at all to the balance of power in the AL East?
- BONUS TRIVIA: What player who has appeared with the Cubs, Rangers and Orioles has the third-most career home runs behind Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, with 253?

Any reader of Alternate History fiction will tell you that even the smallest changed detail can result in, say, the Confederacy winning the U.S. Civil War or U.S. President John F. Kennedy's second term ending in a humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam in 1967. Whatever. In fact, we've found the following several paragraphs from the December 6, 1990 Toronto Alternate Planet and want to share it so Bauxites everywhere can fill in the blanks ... what happened in the ensuing 15 years?

Jays Back Out of Blockbuster Deal With Padres
December 5, 1990 (Reuters): Baseball's Annual Winter Meetings almost got a shot of adrenalin last night, but a rumoured deal between the Toronto Blue Jays and the San Diego Padres collapsed at the last minute.

It's 2:30 a.m., I'm exhausted and baseball seems very far away. It's only the last week of January and pitchers and catchers haven't even broken out the sandpaper and Neet's Foot Oil yet. But still ... sighhhhh ... we gotta have some sort of ...

Question of the Day: Who's your all-time favorite player, and why? Most surprising, creative -- but honest (e.g. don't go with Jim Abbott to win the "good guy" vote. We're all Simon Cowell-types here at Batter's Box) -- answer wins a Scooby snack.

Gentlemen, it is time. Time to throw our intellects, sweat and treasure into the pursuit of excellence. Fantasy excellence.

Yesterday's main thread erupted into a spontaneously comustible discussion regarding expanding the playoffs. This deserves its own discussion, people. So, first go read that thread to get caught up ,then come back here for the related ...

Question(s) of the Day: How should the MLB playoffs be structured? Open it up to eight teams per league? Add two teams and seed them 1-32, NCAA tournament style? A BCS-style playoff? Go back to two divisions per league, no Wild Card? Go back just to two leagues, no divisions, no Wild Card? What would work?

And ... try, try to answer this question objectively, not as a doom-saying Jay fan trying to figure out any possible way to get in the playoffs with NYY and BOS in the division.

It's time to cast Blue Jays '05: The Movie. Think about your favorite ballclub -- think about both what the individuals look like and how large of a role you believe they will play. And don't limit yourself to players -- who gets the coveted John Gibbons role? Who plays Tom Cheek? Spencer Fordin? Richard Griffin? Opposing players? And think about the athletic ability of the actors you want to cast -- can you really see Emilio Estevez as Frank Catalanotto, and is Will Smith affordable as Alexis Rios? Are those even good fits? That's right, it's today's ...

Queestion of the Day: Who gets what role in the medium-budget thriller Blue Jays '05 (working title only), sure to be a huge hit at the Toronto International Film Festival come 2006? What's the real title of the film going to end up being? Who writes the script? Got a director in mind? And most importantly -- fill out that cast!

This article results from the joint efforts of Jonny German and Mike Green. It began with Mike's Hall watch series on shortstops and the search for more reliable objective measures of Barry Larkin's defence than were otherwise available.

Barry Larkin had a reputation as a good but not great defender during his prime. We decided to check whether his reputation was well-earned by doing a play by play analysis of his defence during 1991, his age 27 season. For the piece, we have relied on information contained in the events files at retrosheet.org.This time we are looking at Larkin's ability to turn ground balls into outs.