On a heads-up by bauxite timpinder, bluejays.com says center fielder Vernon Wells has pulled his left hamstring and is expected to miss at least a month.  Yes, it is the same hamstring he pulled last season.

UPDATE - The Associated Press says Wells is now expected to miss two weeks with the worst-case scenario being he'll have to DH on Opening Day.

Thirty-six guys come to camp fighting for approximately thirty spots throughout the organization.  Where will they all go?  I hope you don't expect me to know.

While scouring the greatness that is BaseballReference.com for something entirely unrelated to this story, I noticed a really striking thing about a team I haven't thought about at all in three decades -- the 1977-79 Atlanta Braves. Seriously, can you, with confidence, name a single member of those teams? Of course you can -- at the time, former Jay Phil Niekro hadn't even reached his 40th birthday.

But Niekro was truly remarkable those three years, compared to the rest of his Atlanta pitching mates. Nothing agsinst those guys -- there were some other names you'll know, like Dick Ruthven, Andy Messersmith, and for about 20 minutes, even Jim Bouton. But Knucksie, still only about two-thirds down the path toward his 300th career win, and a decade off his brief foray into Toronto baseball, was truly exceptional. Read on and see if you can think of anyone else who's done something similar.

Many moves to note around the majors, some involving familiar big names, if not players of impact (any more) ...

• At the top of the list, old friend Orlando Hudson is now a Dodger.
• Joe Crede switches AL Central addresses, moving from Chicago to Minneapolis to take on the Twins hot corner.
• Recovering frontline starter -- and Anna Benson boytoy -- Kris Benson moves to the Pitchers' Purgatory in Arlington, Texas as an NRI with the Rangers.
• Nomar to the A's?

Any thoughts on these or other moves? What else is going on?

TGIF.  Friday is the end of the working week and it must be time for us to look at the cornerstones, the third basemen.

The venerable Sporting News, which has become a better magazine recently with its move to a more feature-oriented bi-weekly publication schedule, has in its latest issue its annual MLB preview, including "Offseason Grades" for each big league club. Just four major league teams received a "D" -- the Twins, Astros, Padres and Pirates -- for their offseason work. There were all sorts of Bs, a few C's, some A's -- even an A+ for the Yankees.

Oh wait,. There was one "F" ... ladies and gentlemen, your Toronto Blue Jays!

Here's the entire Jays preview, brief but pointed ...

In today's news, as most of you have probably already heard, Ken Griffey Jr. has elected to re-sign with his original club, the Seattle Mariners.

No links here to the many (many, many) news stories, or the love-fest published by the Seatlle Post-Intelligencer. Just a question for today -- a Question of the Day, if you will -- how's this gonna work out? For Da Kid? For the M's?

Feel free to link to any of those many, many stories yourself, of course, with your considered (or snide and funny) commentary attached, of course.

If today is Thursday then it is middle-infield day in our organizational look-ahead to the 2009 season.

We continue on our tour around the bases though the spring training lens.  Today the first basemen take centre stage.

Yesterday we looked at the 200 players coming to Florida for spring training and we promised a position by position look at the rosters.  Today we start with the catchers.

Spring training is here at last and finally we can try to forget about steroids and perjury and the impact of the economy on team budgets.  2009 is the year of Obama and the Jays battle cry should be "yes we can".  If Obama can deliver the improbable then why not the Jays?  On a more practical note this spring training sees about 200 Jays players arrive in Florida ready to battle for about 150 roster spots on six teams from the big leaguers to the extended spring training team.  Over the next week and a half we will look at each position and assess the depth of the Jays system.

Now that we got this Valentine's Day crap out of the way, let's get on with something that'll warm our hearts - Jays pitchers and catchers have reported to Dunedin!  Boo-yah!!  

Welcome to Year Seven of the Batter's Box Fantasy League.

Update:  Existing owners last chance. If you want to play this year let me know by the end of the weekend (Sun 22nd) or I'll be giving your slot to a new owner.

Number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9, number 9
Industrial output ... Financial imbalance
Thrusting it between his shoulder blades

• from Revolution Number Nine by the Beatles

Ted Williams. Reggie Jackson. Minnie Minoso. Enos Slaughter. Bill Mazeroski. Roger Maris. What do these men all have in common? (No, this isn't a trivia thread, sorry.) Simply -- they are the only men in baseball history to have had the uniform #9 retired by a big league ballclub.

Now, "9" is a magic number in baseball. Nine innings in a game. Nine players on the field defensively -- and nine in the lineup, pre-DH. You get the idea. So in a reverse twist on Dan McIlroy's excellent "Lobby of Numbers" series, let's see what kind of roster we can build strictly of players who wore the uniform #9. (I'm going to need some help here!) ...

Got to thinking - what should we expect in the Jays rotation and bullpen in 2009?  We have been assuming Cito will go with a 7 man bullpen but will he push for a 6 man?