I bet you even know what kind of beer he drank.

LOL no clue. I had to have my guide translate as people ranted. All I asked was, "Why isn't Encarnacion playing? I thought he was on this team," and it was all bets are off.

Hey, the kids got time, only been 7 years so far.

This is the year... for some reason.

Secretly spring always comes an I'm always hoping that guys like EE will break out, but I have to counter balance that with the realities of his career to date.

Either way he's just a small part of the puzzle, the offense should be very good even if we get standard EE production, if he breaks out then all the better.

Fact is, after 7 big league seasons I have to expect career averages to be repeated, I hope for more, but I leave it at that.

Yep-- it happened. I was at this game: http://espn.go.com/extra/baseball/domwl/boxscore?gameId=311203143&league=DOMWL

I spoke with many locals before the game, after and during. Being Caucasian and wearing a Blue Jays cap got me plenty of attention. I even met Moises Alou and Junior Felix there. My guide who sets up baseball trips for tourists also knows members of EE's family-- so he said. He seemed pretty sincere.

It won't happen. He may have a post-May OPS above .800 and that would be great. Expecting him to perform during the first 6-7 weeks of the season is fantastical. I wish him well and hope for the best but he's such a slow starter year-in-year-out.

Well I had actually heard prior to going to the DR that he wanted to try 2b. I wasn't floored when I heard it again down there. Either way, his club wanted him to play 1b exclusively.

Who knows? Those clubs in the Dominican don't care about what the MLB clubs want. They just want to win games, sell tickets and make money.