With the previous HJC banished to the archives, it’s time for a new thread. Points to ponder:

Juan Gonzalez starting at DH because his arm wasn’t “in game shape” according to manager Tony Pena. The injury causing him to miss the second half the 2003 season was to his calf...

Brandon Inge as a center fielder...

Jack Wilson as a #2 hitter...

Mike Lowell’s perpetually inflamed right elbow...

The Phillies’ record if Eric Milton stays healthy and effective...

Rob Neyer’s equivocal assessment of the Toronto Blue Jays...

Someone other than Mike Moffatt making an 80's music reference.

Of the 27 predictors tracked by Diamond Mind Baseball (including 25 media outlets/prognosticators, and also the previous year's standings and current season's spring training standings), only four outperformed the Vegas over/under line in 2003. Of those four - Diamond Mind simulations, the Los Angeles Times, Baseball America and Baseball Digest - only Diamond Mind and the Times have consistently bested the House over the past three seasons.

What do the sportsbooks have on the over/under menu this year? This is, of course, for predictive value and conversation stimulation only; the Box does not endorse gambling.

A little bit more than you could ever say.

Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth from White Sox supporters, the 2004 White Sox should be as good as the 2003 Sox. The departure of Bartolo Colon and Carl Everett will be offset by better seasons from Paul Konerko, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Lee, Joe Crede and Mark Buehrle.

Before spring training games start tomorrow I decided to look back to "The Good Old Days".

It has recently come to my attention that I’m the second-oldest member of the Batter’s Box roster. It has been quite a shock to my system to think of myself in those terms. At age 47, I do not consider myself old. My father is old; I am not.

The Houston Astros might be the best franchise never to win a World Series. That should change this year.

Yes, that’s high, out-on-a-limb praise, but as Lou Brock once said, show me a man who’s afraid to look bad and I’ll show you a man you can beat every time. As my track record of predictions has clearly established, I have absolutely no fear of looking bad, repeatedly so in fact. All the same, the 2004 Astros have the look of a team that’s geared for a championship run. They need do only three things to achieve greatness: win the season series with the Cubs, fire their manager in May, and bench their incumbent centerfielder in June.

Everybody shooting from the hip, Everybody wants their Jays news.

Colby Cosh put a recent day off to good use and produced a new kind of baseball graph. It shows all the pitchers from last year who qualified for the ERA title and charts their strikeouts, walks and home runs (the 'Three True Outcomes' and the founding components of DIPS). Colby's graph plots k/ip on the y-axis, bb/ip on the x-axis and then uses dot-size to represent home runs allowed.

Some folks on the Red Sox Nation forum have taken the idea a step forward and have plotted career graphs for the Red Sox starters.

This is a very interesting project and offers the data in a form that is more intuitive than tables of data.

It's over. Over the last dozen years, the Braves have enjoyed the most sustained run of excellence in the post-Messersmith era. They've had as good a twelve-year run as any team, of any era, has ever had. And now is the time to appreciate it, because it's over.

-- Baseball Prospectus 2003

For twelve years, various people have predicted that this is the year that the Braves' run of division titles will come to an end. Some of these predictions have been based on accounting; others have been grounded in intuition. They've been made in newspapers, in private conversations, in baseball annuals, in blogs, and in every other sort of forum. And they've all been wrong. (Except in 1994, when the Braves were let off the hook by the strike, but we can't really count that.) Which makes it difficult to say that 2004 is the year in which they'll falter. However, the chorus of voices making that claim is an awful lot louder right now than it's ever been before; sometimes those who understand history are still doomed to repeat it.

We'll leave the T.V. and the radio behind and see what the papers are saying about the Jays.

Every new problem brings a stranger inside, but what do the newspapers bring?

First, beat longshot odds/
Then, beat three excellent clubs/
Shockingly, World Champs!

Our 2004 Preview series now turns to the improbable kingfish of 2003, the Florida Marlins.

Warning: Contained herein is very likely more information about the Diamondbacks than you'd ever want to know. In other words (as Sting once sang): "Too much information running through my brain; too much information driving me insane". Enter at your own risk.

Here's the latest Jays news on a quiet Sunday.

The Batter's Box Fantasy League closed its offseason trading window on the 28th. 15 BBFL owners combined to consummate ten trades. Five owners declined to partake in the festivities.

So who went where?