Better, a little bit better.

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

Today, Bob Klapisch pens (okay, probably "keyboards") a story for ESPN.com entitled Injuries make AL East a three-team race. It's a typically good read from the solid-if-unspectacular Klapisch, sort of the Michael Young of ESPN's roster of Web writers.

As the title might suggest, his major point of discussion is captured in the final sentence of the second graf: "Considering Josh Towers is 1-8, it's a semi-miracle that Toronto has stayed close to the Red Sox and Yankees, maybe because everyone else in the East has lost important chess pieces, as well."

Now, this isn't about Towers, of course. But it does raise an interesting question ...

If you missed the earlier Cincinnati Reds preview a while back, in it we used the greatness of Baseball-Reference.com and their "most comparable players" list for each individual projected at the time (so long, Wily Mo) to be headed for the MLB roster in 2006.

We'll do the same thing here, with a few minor revisions, for the Jays' vaunted neighbor in Gotham, the 26-time World Champion New York Yankees, to see what we can learn about pinstriped prospects in the forthcoming campaign.

But first, a quick look back at how we did in projecting the last two seasons for the New Yorkers ...

Changes galore. Front office shenanigans. An unhappy Manny Ramirez. In other words, a typical Bosox off-season. The Batters Box roster met over a virtual beer or two in early March to talk about the Beantowners.

Yes, they're going to finish fourth again.

And now, at last, we have arrived at the AL East. We shall begin by looking at the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The D'Rays have never had a good season, and don't expect that to change in 2006.

Now that I think of it, the Devil Rays have rarely had a good month.

How did the Blue Jays compare to their division rivals in scoring and preventing runs? Click on “more” and find out.

Reports indicate the Yankees have traded A-Ball Staten Island hurler Justin "I'm Not Dave" Berg to the Cubs for former two-time All-Star OF Matt Lawton.

A few questions ...

But the years went by and the rock just died
Suzie went and left us for some foreign guy
Long nights crying by the record machine
dreaming of my Chevy and my old blue jeans

And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?

Not in the sunshine or the distance between
The cigarettes we burn
The books we claim to read

They're never too far
away from men who made the grade
out in a world of their own
They'll never come down
until the battle's lost or made

What I want
I want now
and it's a whole lot more
than 'anyhow'

Prevention is better than cure
Bad apples affecting the pure
You'll gather your senses I'm sure