With the cracking open of a new calendar, the time has come to grab the bottle of Scope to wash away the bad taste that the end of 2007 left.
Any thoughts of just how dominant the World Series champion Boston Red Sox are were unfortunately replaced by the release of the Mitchell Report, which exposed some players who allegedly cheated their way to better performances using chemicals.
Where it goes from here is anyone's guess, but the subject of performance-enhancing drugs is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Not with the U.S. Congress gearing itself up for another round of hearings. Not with Jose Canseco getting ready to reveal more names in his next book as he continues to parlay his steroid use into more cash.
And certainly not with Roger Clemens professing his innocence to anyone who cares to listen. But I'm not going to reflect on the past. As the noted writer Bill Shakespeare once penned, what is done cannot be undone. So let's look forward as over the next six weeks players will start making their way to their spring training sites in Arizona and Florida to prepare for the 2008 Major League season.
No team enters this season with more optimism than the Detroit Tigers. They dealt the future for the now when they picked up Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis at the Florida Marlins' garage sale and now find themselves right in the thick of the pre-season playoff race. Their everyday lineup reminds me of the 1993 Blue Jays with an all-star in every slot and their starting rotation is as deep and talented as any in the game. But they will also have to deal with one of the top up-and-coming teams in division rival Cleveland. It says here that for the first time in recent memory, the Red Sox and Yankees will be supplanted by the Indians and Tigers as the best rivalry in baseball.
For the Blue Jays, the retooled Tigers have added another obstacle in their quest to return to the post-season for the first time in 15 years. General manager J.P. Ricciardi is gambling that a return to health is all that the Jays will need to achieve that goal.
The free-agent signing of David Eckstein represents the only acquisition of note and gives the team an everyday shortstop for the first time in the Ricciardi era, now set to begin its seventh season. Eckstein will also bat leadoff and will be expected to set the table for Vernon Wells, Frank Thomas and Troy Glaus, who will need to raise their production output back to their career levels if the Jays are to score the requisite runs to compete in the muscle-bound American League.
Something tells me, and it's just a hunch, that Ricciardi isn't finished moulding his roster for this season, but it probably won't go down until late in the spring. Standing pat is fine when you are happy with the look of your team and those around you do the same, but with the other teams in the pennant chase all adding key components, this may have been the worst time for the Jays to be content with what they have. Unfortunately, ownership isn't likely to offer up another $20 million or so in payroll money so what you see is what you'll likely get.
The other two teams atop the A.L. East - the Red Sox and Yankees - have had decidedly different off-seasons to date. The one thing they have in common is the chasing of pitcher Johan Santana, put on the block by the Twins as they tried to maximize his value a year before he can become a free agent.
Both have the prospects needed to entice the Twins to deal, so it's now up to new Minnesota GM Bill Smith to take the best deal. The Red Sox don't really need Santana - they have enough pitching to defend their title - but landing the lefty might keep him out of New York which always has to be considered. The Yankees, for the first time in more than a decade, find themselves in a state of flux with Joe Girardi taking over from Joe Torre in the dugout. It will be very interesting to see what effect the managerial change will have on this veteran team.
Another team that may yet take a run at Santana is the Angels, who have the money to take him on and the players available to make it happen. They have already added Gold Glove centre fielder Torii Hunter and solid starter Jon Garland to a team that finished first in the West for the third time in four years. Bagging Santana would make them the favourite in the American League.
Things are certainly lower key in the National League, where pitching and defence still rule the day. The Mets' collapse at the end of the season has forced them to deal some of their future to reclaim what they feel is rightly theirs. Their focus was to address their defence to help the pitching and with that in mind brought in Ryan Church and Brian Schneider at the cost of talented outfielder Lastings Milledge, whose act wore thin with the veterans in the Mets clubhouse. But they still need to replace Tom Glavine's spot in the rotation and fell short in their pursuit of Santana, Erik Bedard and Dan Haren.
Speaking of Haren, the Diamondbacks were able to wrestle him away from Oakland and his addition to the National League's most exciting young team makes them even better. They quietly won the most games in the senior circuit last season and appear poised for more of the same in '08. It will be interesting to see if they can hold off the Dodgers, who brought in Torre to take over an underachieving roster in Los Angeles. Can Torre repeat the magic that saw the Yankees make the playoffs in every year that he managed them? That remains to be seen, but it certainly has created a buzz in Chavez Ravine.
The best part about the off-season is that all teams are currently tied for first. And with spring training now sitting on the horizon thoughts about the game returning to the field, where it rightly belongs, can't help but warm you up on a cold January day.
