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Everyone at Batter's Box is shocked and depressed to learn of the untimely passing of John Brattain.

Season previews have been a popular staple here on Batter's Box for the past several years, and given that it's March 20, some Bauxites are starting to ask, "Hey, where the *&^% are the team-by-team season previews?"

Well, we're doing things a little differently this year, but it all starts on Monday. And we come to you now with an invitation to help. Updated (again) 3/30.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, O'Bauxite Nation!  Ireland - the home of Guinness Beer where an occasional pint will probably be consumed today.  Where U2, Padraig Harrington, and Pierce Brosnan hail from.  Where sports like hurling, gaelic football, rugby and soccer dominate the sports landscape.  Ireland is not known as a baseball power yet but the sport has been picking up momentum as detailed in the DVD "The Emerald Diamond".

Time for a little story-telling, debate and meanderings down memory lane. In another thread this week, there was some mention of Roy Halladay's dominant nature (oh hell, that's been true every week this site has existed, hasn't it?) with sidebar mentions of Steve Carlton's 1972 season and others of that ilk. Which got me to thinking -- and now, gets me to asking, all ye loyal readers and posters in Bauxite Nation -- what's the most dominant pitcher season you recall ever seeing?

For the record, now -- screw the "records," now. Nobody say anything about statistical dominance or best ERA+ or anything of that nature. No mentions of Christy Mathewson or Ed Walsh unless there are truly elderly Bauxites out there who actually saw Addie Joss and Pete Alexander pitch. For me, there are four names that come immediately to mind ...

On the heels of the release of Vegas' over/unders, I got to thinking: Bauxites are pretty smart, think you can out-predict the oddsmakers?

Update: contest entry closes Monday, so get your picks in!

Update 2: Contest closed! Thanks for all the entries everybody!

The good folks in Vegas have come out with the Win total Over/Unders for 2009.

The last stop on our minor league organization tour is with the relievers and there are a lot of them.  By my count there are at least 65 relievers in minor league camp plus a few more already assigned to extended spring training.  With smaller roster sizes in some minor league stops there are probably 40 jobs available plus I assume about 10 DL spots.  That's 50 places for 65+ guys.  The other change we see is a very large number of imports, whether by signing or claiming, that could fill the AAA and AA bullpens.  Where is the room for home grown guys like Sean Stidfole, Mike MacDonald, Zach Dials, Daryl Harang and Seth Overbey?

Now that we have all the position players allocated it is time to look at pitchers and there are a lot of them.  Today we will look at starting pitchers and tomorrow we will finish with relievers.

Thirty-six guys come to camp fighting for approximately thirty spots throughout the organization.  Where will they all go?  I hope you don't expect me to know.

TGIF.  Friday is the end of the working week and it must be time for us to look at the cornerstones, the third basemen.

The venerable Sporting News, which has become a better magazine recently with its move to a more feature-oriented bi-weekly publication schedule, has in its latest issue its annual MLB preview, including "Offseason Grades" for each big league club. Just four major league teams received a "D" -- the Twins, Astros, Padres and Pirates -- for their offseason work. There were all sorts of Bs, a few C's, some A's -- even an A+ for the Yankees.

Oh wait,. There was one "F" ... ladies and gentlemen, your Toronto Blue Jays!

Here's the entire Jays preview, brief but pointed ...

In today's news, as most of you have probably already heard, Ken Griffey Jr. has elected to re-sign with his original club, the Seattle Mariners.

No links here to the many (many, many) news stories, or the love-fest published by the Seatlle Post-Intelligencer. Just a question for today -- a Question of the Day, if you will -- how's this gonna work out? For Da Kid? For the M's?

Feel free to link to any of those many, many stories yourself, of course, with your considered (or snide and funny) commentary attached, of course.

If today is Thursday then it is middle-infield day in our organizational look-ahead to the 2009 season.