The second place Baltimore Orioles trundle into town having taken two out of three games off the Yankees. With the Red Sox and the Yankees holding up the standings it is opposite day, or week, in the AL East.

Whoa. More than 300 comments? Strike another match, go start anew...

It's time for a fresh thread, and I want to alert one and all to Nate Silver's modest proposal to fix that which is broken. That thing being baseball, of course, which has been broken by an endless procession of ordinary pitchers wandering out of the bullpen to throw as hard as they can for no more than one inning. The result has been tedium, historic numbers of strikeouts (seldom the most exciting thing that can happen on a baseball diamond), and a game awash in mediocrity. Your modern dugout manager has found a way to actually weaponize mediocrity, and roughly a third of each team's active roster consists of these... mediocrities.

Yes, I'm an Old Fogey. And this isn't what I signed up for. You?

It has been a long, tough, ornery winter. But baseball is back, the Blue Jays play their first game of the year today.

It is less than three weeks until pitchers and catchers report to the Jays spring training facility. With the last thread having over 300 responses, a new thread is warranted.

We need a new thread and Fangraphs published their ZiPS projections for the Jays today. It does not make for easy reading. There are no standouts on the team, before Vlad, and the projection for Lourdes Gurriel is very low.

It's winter, and they're not playing any games, so I don't pay much attention. (Raptors, folks! And, dare we say it... Leafs?) But stuff is happening, at the usual glacial place, and 300 plus comments is way too much to scroll through. Am I right?

The winter meetings have begun in Las Vegas. Many GM's will be gambling with their moves. Will it be a good gamble or a bad gamble. The Jays are looking to take a flutter on a free agent pitcher or two. Mike Fiers and Kendall Graveman are the latest two names to be forwarded to Ross Atkins phone.

The Hall of Fame ballot is here, so let the arguing commence. There are 15 holdovers and 20 new names.

All the games are now done so it's time to get all the houses in order. The Blue Jays started today with some roster shuffling. The Jays do have a roster crunch and have some tough decisions regarding who to add to the 40 man roster.

Willie McCovey died this week at the fairly ripe age of 80, and while he's rightfully remembered as one of the most fearsome hitters of his day, I'm incapable of thinking of old Stretch without reflecting on how the 1962 World Series ended.

Yup, its that time. Red Sox vs Dodgers for the first time since 1916 when the Dodgers were the Brooklyn Robins.

Boston vs Houston, LA vs Brewers. Brewers off to a good start in game 1 actually getting to Kershaw.