This article results from the joint efforts of Jonny German and Mike Green. It began with Mike's Hall watch series on shortstops and the search for more reliable objective measures of Barry Larkin's defence than were otherwise available.

Barry Larkin had a reputation as a good but not great defender during his prime. We decided to check whether his reputation was well-earned by doing a play by play analysis of his defence during 1991, his age 27 season. For the piece, we have relied on information contained in the events files at retrosheet.org.This time we are looking at Larkin's ability to turn ground balls into outs.

Barry Larkin is perhaps the most anonymous great player of our time. That's not a selling point when the time comes for him to be considered for a ticket to Cooperstown. In 2004, he performed exactly how a great 40 year old shortstop should, providing below average but not horrible defence and hitting .289/.352/.419. Not that this performance affects his Hall chances one iota.

And see inside for a special Batter's Box Hall of Names challenge!

As promised in yesterday's main thread, it's time for another trip to Baseball's Hall of Names, courtesy of Batter's Box. This time, after scratching together recent All-Smith and All-Jones teams, we turn our attention to what is likely to be a much better team, but also likely to draw out the fourth-grade humour in people ... that's right, it's time for the All-Johnsons team.

There have been exactly 100 Johnsons to make it to the big leagues so far, if you're counting Johnson Fry, and non-player but Hall of famer Ban Johnson. There have also been nine Johnstons, but these were not included.

This team has arguably the best 1-2 righty-lefty punch possible in the history of the game at the front of its rotation, has eight All-Stars and two additional Hall of Famers on the squad -- it's clearly better than both the Jones and Smith teams -- and yet, it doesn't seem quite as powerful as one might have reasonably expected.

Can you help this team out?

The ESPN.com fantasy baseball "Experts" (Karabell, Cockcroft and Engel) have checked in with their pre-season 2005 Top 100 Rankings. The Blue Jays did ... not well.

Toronto's' best player, Vernon Wells, did not crack the top 100 (he was rated #81, #98 and unranked by the three experts), so his average score of 93.3 falls just barely outside the elite list, behind Mike Piazza's #100 ranking with a score of 93. Oh, wait, Hudson was ranked #30 overall ... no, wait, that's Tim Hudson, with O-Dawg nowhere to be found. Neither is Corey Koskie, for that matter. One Jay did crack the Top 100, but a guy I would personally never spend a high pick on bouncing back from injury -- Roy Halladay slides into the #81 slot (with scores of 71, 73 and 94 for an average of 79.3, tied with Jose Guillen, but eight points (and 10 places) behind Canadian boy wonder Justin Morneau. So here's today's ...

Question of the Day: Assuming that this very page will become THE fantasy baseball one-stop shop for pre-season Toronto Blue Jay advice, tell the gathering masses of fantasy players outside the Box door the answer to "Which Jays will surprise this season, from a fantasy baseball perspective?" You have Koskie hitting 45 homers or Wells stealing 93 bases? Let the world know what you think you know -- but be sure to present it in terms of fantasy ball, not "the real game" (and keep in mind that you don't want to give away your BBFL draft strategy!) ...

The Carlos Delgado Sweepstakes has finally ended, some six weeks after the Jays had to bow out. ESPN reports that Carlos will now be taking aim at the rightfield seats at the newly-renamed Dolphins Stadium; the deal is with the Florida Marlins for four years at $52 million, plus a vesting option. Considering the contract he ultimately signed, it would have taken one heck of a hometown discount for the Jays to have landed their all-time leading slugger this offseason.

I have released the 2005 forecasts for all 1800 players who played MLB last year. They are based on the Marcel the Monkey Forecasting System, which is the most basic forecasting system you should expect.

The 2005 Marcels

I would also hope that other forecasting systems are much better than this one. But, the jury is still out on that one. I've also left in the player ID that you can find on the Lahman database, which should make this much easier for you to link to that database, or to any other forecasting system. (Hint: if someone provides you with forecasts, ask for the playerid being added in. It makes it so much easier to do a quick comparison.)

Rosterfarian Jonny German points out that when the Tampa Devil Rays of Anaheim (oh, wait ...) recently signed the formerly great Roberto Alomar, Bauxite Matthew E. wrote an interesting piece at Baseball Think Factory showing that the D-Rays now boast an all ex-Jays team. That is, players who played for the Jays before they played for Tampa. And a pretty good one (see inside for the full lineup), at that. That leads us to today's ...

Quirky Puzzle of the Day: What other franchises can trot out an all-ex-Jays lineup? Who has the best collection?

Note that players do not have to be products of the Toronto farm system to qualify, but they do have to have played for the Jays before the team in question. Example: Joe Carter qualifies as an Oriole and Giant Ex-Jay, but not as a Cub or Indian Ex-Jay. There's more inside ... go to it!

As we learned in today's earlier thread, there's a a way-cool "frivolity" at BBREF that can tell you quickly every player who ever played for any combination of teams (for instance, the 65 men who have been in the service of both the Blue Jays and Expos).

So here it is ... the all-time Jay/Expo All-Star team. Forget Pedro, who was never a Jay, and Dalgado, who was never a 'Spo ... here's your all-time team of players who suited up for BOTH Canadian MLB teams.

DEEEEE-FENCE ... DEEEEE-FENCE ... DEEEEE-FENCE!
-- Pitsburgh Steeler fans tomorrow as Tom Brady picks apart their DEEEEE-FENCE.

On a similar note, and thanks to erstwhile Rosterite Mike Green for the suggestion, here is today's ...

Question of the Weekend: What is the Toronto all-time defnsive team? On a related note, what is the all-time all-MLB defensive team? And how would this team do in real competition, given a league-average pitching staff?

There was a brief discussion in yesterday's QOTD thread about the inimiatable Steve Goldman of the YES Network taking a shot at Alex Rios ("the next Sil Campusano"), leading Box GM Jordan Furlong to formulate today's ...

Question of the Day: Who was the most overhyped Jays rookie ever? And building on that, who were the most overhyped rookies, regardless of team, of all time? (Rule clarification: Reds and Tigers hyped by Sparky Anderson are not eligible for consideration. Sorry, Chris Pittaro.)

Today, self-described "avid Bauxite reader/poster" Marc provides us with a short essay and QOTD on a topic nobody in the entire city of Toronto has any opinions about at all. Nope, none. That's right, it's a fond editorial and question directed at the topic of "Rocket" Roger Clemens. Read on and post your thoughts, gentle Bauxites. Admit it -- Marc's headline alone makes you want to comment, right?

After yesterday's extended debate in which Bauxites were charged to pick the one pitcher to throw the one must-win game to save their pitiful little lives (the verdict: Pedro Martinez and Sandy Koufax, for the most part), you'd think you all would know better. But NOOoooo ... now you've gone and gotten yourselves into another situation where one baseball player needs to save your pitiful little life. Only this time, it's not one game ... it's one at-bat. Here's the situation in today's ...

Question of the Day: Your life depends on this game (again?) and you trail by one with two down in the bottom of the ninth. You have runners -- Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock, actually -- on second and third and you can pick one hitter, from any team, any era, to stride to the plate to take his whacks against a masterful Dennis Eckersley. A walk does you no good, as the only other hitter available to you is Bob Buhl. Who do you tell to grab a bat?

And, if you feel like it, add in what "striding to the plate music" you'd have blaring from the loudspeakers to inspire your one-hope-for-life pinch-hitter as he moved into the Polo Grounds batter's box. And finally, of course, please feel free to Make Your Own Roundup with links and other online paraphernalia.

This announcement comes, unrelated, but on the heels of yesterday's discussion about baseball video games:

Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association awarded exclusive rights to the league's fantasy games to Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the league-owned arm that controls MLB.com, for the next five years. Read the full story.

Also of note from the story: "Fantasy baseball is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. The concept was born in January 1980 when a group of media members convened at a restaurant in Manhattan called La Rotisserie Francaise. It was for this reason that the fantasy game was originally called 'rotisserie.'"

Any reaction(s) to the ruling or to the anniversary? What about to my HSO (Hot Sports Opinion) that sabermetrics could not exist as it does today (influentially rather than as an aberration) without fantasy baseball?

"

Okay, enough of this soft-tossing, rose-coloured glasses stuff about autographs when you were a kid and favourite Saturday Night Live characters. On to the hardcore stuff in today's ...

Question of the Day: Your life is on the line, and one baseball game will decide if you live or die. The team behind you is the 1992 Blue Jays; they're facing off with one of the great teams of all time, the Mantle-Maris-Berra-Howard-Skowron- Boyer-Kubek-Richardson 1961 Yankees, who send Whitey (25-4) Ford to the Exhibition Stadium mound. You, on the other hand, can choose any pitcher, at any age, from any team in any era to start the game of your life (literally) -- except Ford, of course. So you point to the bullpen, the gate opens, and who comes trotting out to take the ball for the first inning? Note: give more than just the name; give a reason you selected this one hurler for this one absolutely must-win game.

Oh, and if you hear any MYOR stuff, feel free to get your link on.

All the heroes and legends I knew as a child
Have fallen to idols of clay ...
- Styx, "Show Me the Way," © 1997

The recent Weekend Update thread included a couple of reminiscinces, including one from Bauxite GeoffAtMac, who met Jimmy Key in 1992, back when, as he put it, he "was a young lad of 10 years of age." (Yo, Geoff, that makes you what, 22? You're still a young lad. Hmph.); another was from from GregH, whose sons met Mr. Blue Jay, Ernie Whitt, quite recently. Which brings us to today's ...

Question of the Day: Did you ever meet a big league ballplayer when you were a young lad (or lass) of 10 or so? Who was it? What do you remember about the experience? (Ed. Note: this QOTD is not to be confused with the popular Batter's Box Personal Stories Of Brushes With Third-Rate Celebrity Contest from a few hundred threads ago. But third, fourth- and even tenth-rate ballplayers are just fine.)

And in the Make Your Own Roundup vein, we can start with reports that Carlos Delgado has an offer from the Marlins, Eric Munson may get Corey Koskie's old job in the Twin Cities, while former Jay and Expo leading men Raul Mondesi and Tony Armas found new homes -- or, in Armas' case, re-signed the lease on his old one. (Source for all these: ESPN.com, BBRRS = Dan Patrick's hair.) What else is going on out there?