Yesterday, in my e-mailbox, I found my daily Newberg Report (archived at NewbergReport.com here) from one of the deans of independent Internet baseball journalists, Dallas lawyer Jamey Newberg.

You may have encountered Jamey here on Batter's Box previously -- he is a registered member, mostly for the purpose of sharing his Ranger Expertise -- like team previews in '07 and '08 -- here for the benefit of the majority of Bauxites, living in a whole 'nother country far, far away from the Lone Star State.

Me, I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint

It's Bob Dylan's birthday today. He's 67 years old. I'd say this should be a global holiday, and it already is in our northern land although I believe that's supposed to be in honour of Queen Victoria, or possibly my mother, who were also born on May 24.

Somehow, I'll tie this into baseball...

There is absolutely no end to the fun one can have with Retrosheet.

Sorry about the title. Oh well, sue me. Unless your name is Arthur C. Clarke.

In a follow-up to yesterday's post I decided to look at the strength of each AL division from 1994 (the first year of the 3-division setup) to present. Below the cut is the data.

This website was born at around the time the Blue Jays introduced new General Manager J.P. Ricciardi. Most of us remember the dark times of the Ash regime, particularly how the team spun its wheels with overpaid veterans and mostly disappointing young players. J.P.'s arrival from the Oakland Athletics front office lifted our hopes. We believed that J.P. would rebuild the organisation utilizing "sabermetric"-inspired ideas, as his mentor Billy Beane had done in Oakland. The immediate future would be a tough transition due to budget cuts, but the following years would be glorious.

Today's poll got me thinking about young outfields -- not individual outfielders, but entire outfields. So here's a question ... who had the very best?

Strict parameters: all three starters aged 25 or younger and at least two (preferably three) starting-quality backups under the age of 30.

Simple enough? I have done absolutely zero research on this, relying entirely on my memory, so am probably missing several obvious candidates. Anyway, my top candidate, as much as I hate to admit it, is easily ...

There's an old adage in sports that a team is never as good as it looks when it's winning and never as bad as it looks when it's losing.  Not, that I'm finding much comfort in that this morning.

Well, that sucks.

"He may be here in a few days."
- John Gibbons, before yesterday's game

Lind didn't start yesterday's game against Pawtucket. He delivered a pinch hit single in the 7th and was hit by a pitch in the 9th.

The Jays lose another close-ish game in Tampa as the Rays complete the three game sweep, running Toronto's losing streak to four. In, uh, more positive news, the Raptors won, so Toronto ended the night 1-1 against the state of Florida.

Adam Lind has a .987 OPS at Syracuse and appears to be perfectly healthy. He is hitting .355 with a .581 slugging percentage. The Blue Jays are struggling offensively and starting bench players at DH and the corner outfield positions. Why?

It used to be a big deal.

So the Jays release Frank Thomas over the weekend. Naturally, you'd think that would open up a spot for an excellent propsect, who already had a taste of the big leagues, is left handed on a RH heavy team, can play the OF so Stairs can DH more, and is hitting .379/.431/.621 in AAA.

I realize Lind had a stiff neck over the weekend but he's played 2 games now, going 4-8, and is seemingly good to go. What am I missing here? I expect he'll be called up, but I would have expected that yesterday too and the Jays don't always appear to be the most rational bunch.