Justin Morneau's sole focus right now is on pushing the Minnesota Twins into the playoffs, but once his season comes to an end he's already got some items on his agenda.
Up high on the list is calling Ryan Dempster and Rich Harden, lobbying the Chicago Cubs starters to suit up for Canada at the World Baseball Classic next spring.
"Having Harden there healthy, hopefully he'll be a part of it, and having Dempster there should make a difference," Morneau, the first baseman from New Westminster, B.C., said in a recent interview.
"Last off-season I was getting on Dempster, making sure he was going to play this time, told him he should have played last time, giving him a hard time. We've all been talking about for a while, we're really looking forward to it."
The 2009 Classic is starting to come into focus for Baseball Canada after a busy summer that included five one-run losses at the Beijing Olympics and hosting the world junior championship in Edmonton.
Canada will play out of the Rogers Centre in Toronto in a first-round group with the United States, Venezuela and Italy. The first two teams with two losses are eliminated.
Preliminary planning is well underway -- a meeting in New York on Wednesday should give host countries details on roster sizes and other logistical issues -- and once a World Series champion is crowned, things will really kick into gear for the construction of Canada's roster.
"A good part of our roster is pretty easy -- it's not hard to figure out our major league guys and the fact that they're going to be there if they want to be there," said Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada's director of national teams. "From there it gets a little more challenging in terms of filling out our roster with minor-league guys on top of that.
"A lot of the focus will be trying to determine the pieces of the puzzle that would come outside of the major-league guys."
The '09 roster has the potential to be far better and deeper than the 2006 team that was 2-1 but failed to advance on run differential at the inaugural tournament, particularly if several players who missed the first one because of injury or club situations are able to suit up.
Topping that list would be Dempster, Harden, Brewers reliever Eric Gagne, Dodgers catcher Russ Martin and Royals third baseman Mark Teahen.
If healthy, all are expected to play this time.
Here are some possibilities for Canada around the horn:
-- C: Martin; Pete Laforest, free agent; Luke Carlin, San Diego; George Kottaras, Boston; Chris Robinson, Cubs minors; Max St. Pierre, Detroit minors.
-- 1B: Morneau; Joey Votto, Cincinnati; Scott Thorman, Atlanta minors.
-- 2B: Pete Orr, Washington; Stubby Clapp, Houston minors (coach).
-- SS: Danny Klassen, Houston minors; Chris Barnwell, Florida minors.
-- 3B: Teahen; Matt Rogelstad, Washington minors; Emerson Frostad, Texas minors.
-- LF: Jason Bay, Boston; Nick Weglarz, Cleveland minors.
-- CF: Mike Saunders, Seattle minors; Adam Stern, free agent.
-- RF: Matt Stairs, Philadelphia; Aaron Guiel, Yakult (Japan).
-- SP: Dempster; Harden; Jeff Francis, Colorado; Erik Bedard, Seattle; Shawn Hill, Washington; Scott Richmond, Toronto.
-- RP: Gagne; Jesse Crain, Minnesota; Rheal Cormier, free agent; Dave Davidson, Pittsburgh minors; R.J. Swindle, Philadelphia minors; Steve Green, Philadelphia minors.
To a man, the Canadians who played in the last tournament thoroughly enjoyed their experience and are eagerly awaiting the next one.
The main complaint they had was about the round-robin format. Canada, the United States and Mexico each finished 2-1, but the Canadians had the worst differential between runs for and runs against leading to their ouster.
"That was the biggest thing I didn't like," said Crain, the Toronto-born righty. "We should have made it to the second round last time and we didn't get to do it."
Added Morneau: "It was kind of tough for us. We'll go into the next one with a little different format, at home here in Toronto with hopefully the crowd on our side, having everybody healthy, it will make a big difference."
The last time Canada played just a pair of exhibition games -- losing to the Toronto Blue Jays, hammering a South Korean club team -- ahead of the tournament and some players felt like they needed more action.
This time teams are expecting more exhibition games and longer training camps to work out the early spring kinks. And better prepared players should mean a more entertaining tournament.
"The first couple of games in the spring are always tough. You haven't seen real live pitching in a long time so your timing is a little off," said Morneau. "I think we have a couple of extra games to get ready to start it up, it should be a lot of fun. The intensity was there, just like a playoff game in the big-leagues, it was perfect.
"That intensity will be there again, it should be entertaining."
