Keeping on with old guys, we now turn our gaze to Fred McGriff. Crime Dog was always the strong, silent type, and that might eventually be what keeps him out of the Hall. It certainly won’t be the merits of his cause.

HOUSTON -- Houston Astros free agent center fielder Carlos Beltran is seeking a 10-year contract, his agent told a television station on Thursday, according to ESPN reports.

In other news, as you've surely heard by now, it slipped the minds of the Arizona Diamondbacks to perform a background check on new manager Wally Backman before introducing the former Met 2B as their skipper.

UPDATE: D-Back-man No More: Arizona Cans Wally

Question of the Day: It's a two-parter. What's the worst long-term signing of the free agent era? And what's the worst managerial choice of your lifetime?

Over the past two days we’ve presented our assessments of the men paid to throw, catch, and hit baseballs down at the SkyDome in 2004. What of those designated to collect and guide the on-field talent? We graded them too, and here’s what we thought of the job they did.

For those who discovered Batter's Box during the season, you're probably not familiar with Hijack Central. Its purpose is to be a clearing house of the latest links, news, and rumours from around baseball. Rather than "hijacking" another thread, feel free to post whatever your heart desires here. When Hijack Central gets too full to manage, or it falls off the main page, it'll be replaced with a shiny new thread.

Of course, in keeping with tradition, this thread has a contest associated with it. Read on for details.

Back in the "real world" of baseball politics, two managerial moves were made in the last 24 hours, as Charlie Manuel will run the Phils and at long last, finally, the Mets' new skipper, Willie Randolph gets to embark on his nascent Hall of Fame managerial career. It's the Joe Torre arc -- even starting with the same team Torre did, though let's hope he has better luck.

Question of the Day: Who doesn't have a job managing that should? Who would make a good manager among current players or recent retirees, regardless of what you've heard of their potential interest in the field?

Yesterday we presented our report card for the Toronto pitching staff, v2004. Today, to use a term loosely, we turn our attention to the hitters.

As many of you will have noticed, Batter's Box is under attack by spammers seeking to use us to boost their search engine rankings. Their posts consist of a bunch of links and keywords, over and over and over again. In the last few days it has gone from an occassional annoyance to a constant deluge.

To attempt to combat this, we've had to ban a whole range of IP addresses, so if you've found yourself suddenly banned from posting you are simply a civillian casualty in what is increasingly becoming a war. But all is not lost: drop one of us roster members a line and we can see to it that your IP is unbanned as quickly as humanly possible.

Bush won, so Raffy goes first. Rafael Palmeiro had a typical age 39 season in 2004 for a great first baseman, going .258/.359/.436 and passed the 550 homer plateau. He has recently signed another 1 year contract with the Orioles and figures to collect his 3,000th hit in 2005. As far as I am concerned, he's a lock for the Hall of Fame.

2004 was a forgettable year for the Toronto Blue Jays and their fans, as the club floundered its way to 94 losses and the AL East cellar, a locale not visited by this club since 1997. With it all said and done, who were the culprits responsible for the mess? Who on the club turned in an individual performance not deserving of a Last Place label? The Batter’s Box roster has handed out grades for all of the good, the bad, and the ugly 2004 Jays, and over the next 3 days we’ll present these assessments.

Okay, just for the record: we know there's a big election going on in the U.S. today. But as per ongoing informal Batter's Box policy, we do not invite political commentary here unless it's the politics of signing Carlos Delgado. If you want to talk about Kerry or Bush, please keep it Jays-related or at least baseball-relevant.

Further point of clarification: we are not discouraging you from having or sharing an opinion; we just want to point out that this ain't the place for it. There are many, many Election Blogs out there, and we encourage you to visit one or more of them to vent or question or seek updates or even counsel.

Any politically-motivated posts to any thread today will be responded to with a link to this thread and genuine encouragement that you take your political commentary to a more appropriate arena.

If you really must -- you're seriously just about to burst -- post something on Da Box that is related to the U.S. Presidency, please consider contributing, on topic, of course, to yesterday's Baseball Hall of Names entry.

You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won't leave any trace
It's always the same

How do you assess the chances of a catcher who has the worst patch of his career by far at age 30-31 and immediately follows it up with the best 2 year patch of his career by far? Will the real Javy Lopez please stand up?

The Jays have announced that Vernon Wells has won a Gold Glove for 2004!

It may have been the unbelievable A-Rod robbery that cinched it for V-Dub, and I showed up late to Yankee Stadium that night. It's reason #2,424,391 that baseball should take priority over real life.

On behalf of the Batter's Box community, a hearty congratulation to Vernon Wells!

Over at The Hardball Times, "Studes" (Dave to the rest of us) has a look at batted ball types and other such goodies. He also has a sneak preview of the 2004 Hardball Times Baseball Annual, our forthcoming book which will be released next week.

The Annual will be packed chock-full of stats stuff you can't find elsewhere, of which this is a small sneak preview. It'll be a lot of fun.

Unless we find out what’s to blame
What a shame
And we won’t be together much longer
Unless we realize that we are the same