It all starts tomorrow, and Blue Jays fans are filled with an optimism not seen around these parts since... oh, about two years ago.

On Friday the Jays offense was subject to the detailed analysis of the Bauxites. Today it is the turn of the pitching and defense. Tomorrow we will feature our predictions for the Jays in 2006.

Test your prognostication skills in the 2006 Batter's Box Predictions Contest!

2003 Winner: Lucas (me)
2004 Winner: Simon
2005 Loser: Me again, because I forgot to tabulate last year’s results. I intend to have them by Tuesday when Toronto’s season begins.

On to The Contest!

Over the last four weeks you have read previews for 29 major league teams. This is number 30, a three volume effort. Today the roster will discuss the offense. On Monday we will dissect the pitching and defense, and on Tuesday, opening day, we will share our season predictions. On to the offense.

Here's a look at the 2006 Blue Jays. Enjoy.

The Toronto Star's JABS site (Just Another Blog on Sports) is featuring a multi-part baseball bloggers' roundtable. Da Box contributed three panelists to the brain trust: Aaron, Magpie, and Pistol.

The link to the roundtable can be found here.

Opening Day is not that far away, people!

1. The updated Jays salary spreadsheet

2. An updated version of the baseball Reference Firefox plugin

So... getting excited yet?

Well, why not. I'm beginning to feel it. There will be much to watch out for.

After Bill James stopped publishing his annual abstracts in 1988, sabermetric analysis of baseball was rarely found in book form for a decade or more. Sure, there were annual publications from Stats Inc., but in the main, the genre did not take off. The last few years have seen a renaissance of sabermetric book publishing with the Hardball Times and Baseball Prospectus annuals, the new Fielding Bible from John Dewan, and now "The Book- Playing the Percentages in Baseball" by Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin.

It's a simple game - will a team win more than or less than a certain number of games. Rosterites took a look at the lines and chimed in with predictions and comments.

Like many things in life, this started off as one idea, and ended up somewhere else entirely.

Is this the year? The Braves have won fourteen straight division titles and they are about to start chasing number fifteen. They have survived the loss of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Javy Lopez, Gary Sheffield and now Rafael Furcal is gone. But this off-season has brought a new concern, the loss of Leo Mazzone. Could his departure be the tipping point that ends the Braves run? The Braves players and management are confident about their prospects for 2006 but this could finally be the year when the streak ends.

Prior to the offseason we had a free agent prediction contest here at Da Box.

After tallying up the results the winner is Wildrose!

Baseball Withdrawal Syndrome, written about here by Gerry, is a terrible affliction with which we here at Batter's Box are all too familiar. The cures, sadly, tend to wear thin and provide only temporary relief. I have flirted with all manner of substitute addictions in my attempts to find one that will stick: academics, hockey, politics, the Olympics, literature, the NBA, Jack Bauer, theatre, Cuban rum... nothing worked. What do Americans do to prevent the rabies-like, Trainspotting-style withdrawal lunacy that I am on the brink of confronting? How do they stave off the November, December, January, February and March madness? By staring the beast down and - much like naming your new dog after your old girlfriend - calling the cure March Madness!

Here at Superfluous U, you will be brought up to date on the favourite Baseball Withdrawal Syndrome cure of our glamourous, colourful and honourable neighbours to the south: college hoops. Not only that, this is the primer specifically for Jays fans and other Canadians.

Believe it or not, the answer is "yes, sort of." Many times we have heard from new members (and even occasionally from someone affiliated with the Blue Jays) wondering what the official "code of conduct" is or was or will be or (insert "to be" tense of your choice here).

And Batter's Box not only has an official "code of conduct" ("What are the ground rules?") published as part of the site's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page, there's also a Privacy Policy on the good ol' Legal page. And yet, believe it or not, Da Box has never made a big deal out of pointing to these pages because 99.64 percent of the time, there is no reason to.

So why bring this up now? Precisely because ..