Baseball America occasionally takes some criticism on the diaries here for their scouting and other issues BUT I'm going to praise them for what I guess can really only be described as customer service (despite the fact that I wasn't a subscriber until today).

I emailed Josh Leventhal earlier this week inquiring as to what hope if any might exist for baseball in my beloved Calfee Park in the 2008 season.  I expected MAYBE an update within about a month.  The same day he emailed me back saying he would check up on this and TODAY I got an email from him with a link to this blog posting on BA.com http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/business/?p=52#more-52

I know this is far from concrete but for fans of short season MiLB like myself any news is good news.

After the announcement that Andruw would not return to the Braves next season and seeing as how the Braves will be limited financially (even with Liberty increasing payroll, arbitration adjustments alone should take up most of that flexibility) it seems at least fairly likely that the CF job in ATL is Willie Harris' to lose.

My questions are, is there any way Willie can be a serviceable starter in CF or will he soon regress to his career averages, and as a prospect did Harris in any way indicate that he had potential to be a guy that hit for .300 average with a reasonably high OBP.

I had posted earlier about the possibility of Pulaski getting a team for the 2008 appy league season.  I had heard that the Nationals deal had fallen through and things seemed pretty hopeless, BUT this appeared in our local paper this week.

http://www.southwesttimes.com/news.php?id=817

Surely with three teams putting out feelers the situation seems much more optimistic.  I'm not sure if the article's reference to high school players indicates a general statement on the part of the economic development director OR if it's an indication that a team who typically selects a lot of high school players and/or has a large presence in the Dominican Republic/Venezuela is showing particular interest.  Regardless, for me at least this is good news

Just read a little bit about Koji Uehara and am curious as to where he falls on the Japanese pitcher spectrum.  Does he project as a starter or reliever?  I think he has closed this season in Japan but I've heard him mentioned as a rotation option for some teams.  Will he be another Kei Igawa type player or better?  If he's destined for the pen, can he be as effective as Saito or Okajima?

I am a long time Appy League fan and had to endure this season in Pulaski without a team after we were screwed over by the Blue Jays at the 11th hour.  

Around here we've heard rumors of a possible Nationals interest in playing in Pulaski for the 2008 season but have heard nothing concrete about this.  It would seem that they would leave their Vermont NYPL affiliate to join the Appy League.

Is there a Nats fan or anyone else that has information about this?  Or is there anyone that can tell me when we might start hearing about new player development contracts for next season?