The Elias Sports Bureau player rankings for 2006 have been released. These rankings used to determine the compensation that will be awarded to a team who loses a player through free agency.

And now the pitchers.

Wildrose, with some thoughts on the home field advantage.

--

Part II, focusing on the fielders.

When we bring the discussion round to career wins by pitchers, we encounter a very serious question.

Where to set the bar?

The first of a multi-part series this week.

Todd Helton had an off-year in 2006, hitting half the homers that he hit (please forgive the alliteration) 2 or 3 years ago. Even at that, he is still a good hitter and a fine fielder. He is now 32, and at a career crossroads.

The season is done, and so for the long, cold winter you'll only be seeing a new photograph once a week.  It's not because I don't love you -- I sure do -- but because I don't have enough material to put up something daily all winter.  Plus, you know, I need to spend some time with my family.

Today we're featuring Kelly Shoppach, who did something in the batter's box that surprised me:

I'll admit that I was rooting for the Tigers, but there are not really any sour grapes involved here -- I found the World Series between Detroit and St. Louis to be downright boring.

What do they say about desperate times?  That they call for desperate measures or something like that.  So here's Tigers hitting coach Don Slaught, in the hopes that the Photo of the Day Mojo will then spread to all of those hitters that he coaches.

Yeah, I'm rootin' for the Tigers.

...not coffee, but left-field choice for the Tigers in Game 4 against Jeff Suppan.  So suggests Nate Silver.  According to the plan, a struggling Curtis Granderson would sit and Craig Monroe would move to centerfield.  For the second time this season, you get to step into Jim Leyland's shoes.  Which way would you go?

I promised to look at Alfonso Soriano's career next, but after sober second thought, it seemed to me that his mark will be made as a power-hitting #3 hitter rather than as a leadoff hitter. We really need another year or two to see how he does at it, before examining his Hall chances.

So, instead, I thought that I would take a look back at my Hall Watch series of 2 years ago to see how the players are doing. We will start with the catchers- Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Piazza, Jorge Posada, and Javy Lopez.

So yesterday's photo-mojo experiment failed badly when the game was rained out.  Will Alexis Gomez fare better in his Photo of the Day debut?

Here's an article by intrepid correspondent Callum Hughson. Imagine how much you'd like it if I had any idea how to format these things.

--

During a random trip to my local library I came across a recent baseball book by Toronto Sun columnist Bob Elliott, titled The Northern Game. I checked it out and gave it a read. The main point of interest for me was the appendix. Here, Elliott asked Canadian baseball experts from all over the nation for lists of the greatest provincial and national baseball players of all-time. Taking the honours at first base was a late 1800s ballplayer named Bill Phillips. Now I can’t tell you all that much about Phillips, other than he was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, that he began his career at 22 and that he played during some of the early tumultuous years of professional baseball. Like most modern Canadian baseball fans would, I scanned my brain to come up with another choice. The most logical was Justin Morneau. As we all know, Justin has had a very short major league career. But after sifting through the data, I came to the conclusion that even if Morneau retired today, he should still be considered the number one Canadian first baseman of all-time. Here’s how I came to that conclusion.

Ivan Rodriguez is mired in a pretty ugly slump at exactly the wrong time for the Detroit Tigers -- can the magical mojo of the Photo of the Day help him out?

Tonight will be the truest test of the POTD effect.  Here's a photograph of Pudge rounding third after hitting a home run against Toronto: