"Pitchers are pitching, batters are batting, fielders are fielding and managers are mouthing platitudes"...and the YanksBlog.com community is putting together projections again. I'll admit it, I completely ripped off THT 's Dave Studeman's opening line in his article about The Hardball Times 2007 Season Preview. I'm not that clever...and it thought it was the perfect encapsulation of what spring training is all about.

Anyway, we will be repeating what we did last year with community projections (albeit with a later start) and if you don't know what that means, here's a quick little recap. For each player presented, we'll give you his three year stat profile (and an quick outlook provided by yours truly) though as fans, you guys probably know the stat lines and profiles by heart. Based on all that, we'll be asking everyone to post your reasoned estimates/optimistic projections/wild guesses of each players batting/pitching line for 2007.

I think we had a good time doing this last year and that we all learned something in the process (I personally learned that I err on the side of extreme optimism when it comes to 42 year old power left-handers with a bad back). For those interested, this is how the projections lined up last year: hitters, starters and relievers and comparisons to the actual results.

We'll be posting at least one player a day and you will have until the beginning of the season to weigh in with your predictions. The basic premise is that the more predictions we get, the more realistic the community projection will be. I first saw the idea in use over at John Sickels' Minor League Baseball site and with Mr. Sickels' blessing, we've brought it over here.