As expected the Jays tendered contracts to all arbitration eligible players yesterday. But more interestingly Mike Rutsey reports that the Jays have an interest in free agent catcher Bengie Molina.

As the title might imply, this is a Spring Training thread. Not about the players, non-roster invites and positional battles, but about the actual activity itself. Readers with Florida experience are welcomed to join in with advice and anyone with questions about attending exhibition baseball is welcomed to pose them here -- odds are, someone can answer them!

So if you have questions about Spring Training in Dunedin (or other Florida locations), questions about the area or if you just want to know the best way to get there and simply enjoy baseball, read on.

Two months into the baseball off-season and I am starting to get restless, itchy, looking for my baseball fix. I am not talking about baseball in the big sense of the word, I am talking the game, on the field, seeing a nasty change-up, a beautifully turned double play, a runner turning a double into a triple, an Ichiro gun to third, a Rolen laser to first, Mariano mowing them down, you get the picture.

That's right, Nomar to the Dodgers, where he will apparently play first base.

Say, another pretty fair Cubbie shortstop moved over to 1B and turned it into a Hall of Fame plaque. Maybe Nomar will, too?

Which brings us to today's Question of the Day ....

According to CBS Sportsline.com Jarrod Washburn is close to signing with the Mariners for four years and between $36 and $38 million.

Christmas Day is just nine days off now, meaning most schools are closing down for a while following a week of exams, people at work are trying to finish spending (or finish justifying, depending on how well the employer's year went) the 2005 budget, and baseball fans are stuck in the midst of five months of what is collegially referred to as "the offseason."

The winter holidays are great in so many ways, but for baseball fans, frankly -- except for the Winter Meetings, which are already over -- they are a time of reflection and anticipation and ... ah, hell, a time of baseball-free boredom.

So maybe if we all close our eyes and hope real hard, St. Nicholas will bring us ...

The second player drafted under the J.P. Ricciardi regime was the first to reach The Show. With all due respect to other prospects who have been drafted and moved up and moved on, Dave Bush is the first of “Ricciardi’s own” that this Jays fan is pained to see gone. In a move that signals the organisational shift from rebuilding mode to the future is now, Dave Bush was dealt along with Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson to the Brewers for Lyle Overbay on December 8.

To get you started on making your own roundup of what's happening out there in Jays-land, here's a Geoff Baker piece that contains one hell of a promise from Shea Hillenbrand:

"I'm very confident that it's now going to allow me to become a player who can hit 30 home runs and drive in 100,'' Hillenbrand, the subject of widespread trade rumours, said yesterday in a telephone interview from his home in Arizona. "I've been in this game a certain number of years and I felt it was time to take things to the next level. You can quote me on that: I think I'm going to hit 30."

I've mentioned a few times that the Jays need to consolidate their roster. The Overbay move was a good example of this.

Yes, the weekend, which brought plenty of conversation and speculation here on Da Box, has passed into the netherworld of history.

And so ... Matt Morris to the Giants? Roger Clemens to the Red Sox??? Ricardo Rincon to the Cardinals, J.C. Romero to the Angels ... and Sidney Ponson to court in Baltimore.

What else is new? Should be new? And what d'ya think, anyway?

I'm in Vegas this week - the wifely person is on a business trip and I'm just tagging along as a tourist.

I just saw something you might find interesting.

I haven't heard anything new about... well, anything, but people are clamoring for a new general hot-stove thread.

And that's what this is.

"Hey, who's up for a Trivia Challenge?," reads the first line of an ancient (in the online world, May 17 of this year is "ancient") thread that has been getting some action here on Batter's Box recently.

So before we go much further and take a trivia thread over the span of a new year, it's time for (what I think is) Batters' Box Trivia Challenge #7!

It's too soon for another look at the current payroll projection ($78.7M, if you're dying to know), so let's instead turn our attention to how the current Toronto squad would line up against righties and lefties.

Over 300 posts in the Overbay trade thread and I don't even think anyone even brought up Overbay's splits once. How are we supposed to be 'stat geeks' if we don't go any further than OPS? I'll get the ball rolling.