The blog will be going dark for a few days as I head to Florida (minus the laptop) for a quick Spring Training tour.

O’s/Twins Tuesday afternoon in Ft. Lauderdale

BoSox/Jays Wednesday afternoon in Ft. Myers

Braves/Tigers Thursday night in Orlando.

I’ll return with a Spring Training report, many many pictures, and what I hope will not be sunburn.

Alas, my George Mason Patriots will be playing their first round NCAA game Thursday night at 9:50 when we were planning on driving back to Lauderdale from Orlando. A slight change of plans is in the works. I’d quote Dana Jacobsen right about now, but that just wouldn’t be couth. Suffice it to say, Notre Dame sucks!

GO MASON!

Kenny Doyle has an extensive write-up at Dugout Central in which he challenges the thinking at Baseball Prospectus that Yunel Escobar will probably be nothing more than a utility player by year’s end.

While it’s highly unlikely that Escobar can sustain his excellence from last year (.326/.385/.451), I think it’s also unlikely that we see a drop-off that will find him on the bench by August. According to Baseball Prospectus 2008:

Now that Edgar Renteria is gone, the shortstop job belongs to Escobar, but it’s not clear that he’s good enough to hold it…..
Brent Lillibridge could pass him by August

That’s not necessarily a forecast I can dismiss but just watching Escobar play last year, he was pretty adept at moving runners. In 111 AB with runners on, he swatted 10 doubles, a homer and 11 walks for a .397 OBP. There’s no doubt his aggressive nature at the plate and the effect of pitchers having never faced him before contributed to many of his more remarkable stats last year. And while he had good range in the field, he also had a tendency to rush throws and try to make throws he should have just held onto. All indications from Braves camp are that Yunel is willing to adjust, learn and do what it’s going to take to remain a viable player. Whether he has the ability to translate that into success is the million dollar question.

Doyle sums up:

If he remains aggressive as a hitter, you should expect more of 2007. Pitchers will most likely make an adjustment and start trying to prey on his aggression, just as they’ve done with Jeff Francoeur and Andruw Jones. But that adjustment will most likely be counteracted if Escobar hits second in front of Chipper Jones and Mark Teixeira. Pitchers will be afraid to risk wasting too much time messing with Escobar and possibly walking an aggressive hitter when they have Chipper and Tex coming up next.

And I think that will help him more than anything this year. KJ will be getting on base in front of him and Chipper will be batting behind him, two of the more patient hitters on the team. While that may have an effect on how is he viewed statistically, there couldn’t be a better spot in this lineup for him than the 2-hole. Yunel will be given every chance to play and succeed but knowing that highly touted ‘Lil Bridge is waiting in the wings should keep him motivated as well.

Personally, I’m no prognosticator nor can I crunch the numbers to prove much, but I think we’re going to see yet another solid season from Escobar. His defense is good enough so if he can keep getting on base and moving runners over (which is all the offense really needs from him), I don’t see him landing on the bench by year’s end.

Well, the Braves are back and I guess I am too.

Since I last posted, I’ve really grown to envy most every blogger working today. Even the blogs full of moronic dribblings have gained my respect just for the commitment to putting up some new content daily. While that may sound easy, stupid, worthless or just pathetic, it’s definitely not easy - and those with the real talent and drive see to it that it doesn’t become any of the last three; for themselves or their readers/commenters. So bloggers, I salute you. Even if I can’t keep up with my own blog.

Once again, this stupid blog will speak for all of about four weeks on all things Atlanta Braves, music, movies, television, books, politics and anything else I use to wile my time away. I might also try writing this go-around instead of just inserting trite little one-liners [fat hope---ed.] and linking to other people’s posts full of much richer content than my own. I guess that might mean taking this thing seriously but I still haven’t decided if I want to do that. On INTERNET, people who take themselves too seriously die a quick death. So it’s a delicate balance.

I’m not sure what you, the reader, should expect of the blog this time but I know my own expectations are not so guttural as they’ve been in the past. That’s gotta count for something, right? But for any of you five “regular” readers I’ve had in the past, this goes out to you:

YES WE CAN!

There, don’t you just feel the hope?

I thought so.

But by god, it’s Spring! Baseball is back, the golf courses are a rich green, the days are longer and I’m sitting inside typing furiously on the laptop. MMMM, life!

So Dave Mustaine got me thinking. I haven’t written about any music on this here blog. So I decided to throw up some YouTube videos of what I consider to be the top songs of the last year. Well, the top songs that I discovered last year, that is. Some of these are older than a year, some of them have been released within the past year and others have just been released in 2007. But this is my year and if I haven’t heard a song, it’s new to me. Also, a couple of the videos may not be official videos, they may be live, or they may be some crappy/sappy fan tribute video that YouTube is so famous for.

So without further ado, my favorite songs of my last year of music:

John Frusciante - Omission

TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun