REMINDER: Mark Your Calendars: RR 2009 Team Previews

[Note by Slyde, 03/04/09 6:04 PM EST ] I'm bumping this back up here as a reminder that these start next week!

It's about that time, Red Reporters.  Spring training is just around the corner, so it's about time to start writing the team previews for each NL team.  We've already got the teams assigned, so I just picked 3 weeks in March to assign the each division, and picked the teams at random.  Here's the schedule:

Monday, March 9: Houston Astros (Charlie Scrabbles)
Tuesday, March 10: Chicago Cubs (obc)
Wednesday, March 11: Milwaukee Brewers (ken)
Thursday, March 12: Pittsburgh Pirates (Gray)
Friday, March 13: St. Louis Cardinals (crolfer)

Monday, March 16: Florida Marlins (Cy Schourek)
Tuesday, March 17: Atlanta Braves (CamIam)
Wednesday, March 18: Washington Nationals (Brendanukkah)
Thursday, March 19: New York Mets (chesirecat)
Friday, March 20: Philadelphia Phillies (teb7)

Monday, March 23: Colorado Rockies (justin007000)
Tuesday, March 24: San Francisco Giants (Snake the Jake)
Wednesday, March 25: Arizona Diamondbacks (Lakeman)
Thursday, March 26: San Diego Padres (cesarhernandez)
Friday, March 27: Los Angeles Dodgers (Red Menace)

This is by no means set in stone, so if the day is a bad day for you, feel free to switch with someone else.  Also, if for some reason, you don't feel up to writing it, give us at least a week or so notice so we can find someone else to write yours.  I figure people will have things come up, so that's why I'm setting the schedule a month in advance to give everyone time to write their preview and take care of the ones that people aren't able to write. 

Now you may be asking, "what should be in my preview?"  Once again, we're looking for the answers to at least the following questions:

• What is the team's overall outlook for the 2009 season?
• Who are the key losses/additions to the team?
• What pitchers/hitters do the Reds not want to see?
• Who are the pitchers/hitters the Reds are looking forward to facing?
• Any rookies/prospects of interest we can expect to see this season?
• Any history of note between the two teams?
• Any former Reds?
• Any Bill Hall All Stars or Tomo Ohka All Stars?

If you're not familiar with Bill Hall All Stars and Tomo Ohka All Stars, check them out on the wiki.  The way you write it is pretty much up to you, as long as it answers the questions above and is easy to read.  You don't have to scrutinize every little detail of the organizations, just the stuff that would matter to a casual fan of the team or a Reds fan sizing up their opponent.  If you want to set those questions up and knock them down one by one, that's perfectly fine, or if you want to write it in longer paragraphs, that works too.  As long as it isn't one long sentence with no punctuation.

If you need tips on how to write it, feel free to ask in this thread, or refer a few of the ones posted before the 2007 season.  Here are links to ones by Daedalus, ken, teb7, and ken again.  Something like that would be great, but if you have a creative idea about how you want to do your preview, go ahead and try it. 

Another thing that may be helpful is to utilize the drafts feature of FanPosts, that way you can work on it throughout the month and keep it stored on here.  Just a suggestion.  Happy writing!

(Oh, and the final suggestion: Justin. Spellcheck. Use it.)