Close your eyes, lean your head back and allow yourself to drift back to the precious, early years of your childhood.

Your mother suddenly enters the picture and unleashes that shrill voice all moms can produce like a velociraptor's shriek: Don't play with fire!

For some reason, though, we all did it anyway. At least in a few harmless cases before learning one of the essential lessons of adolescence.

And it seems that on a grander scale, the York Revolution has also learned to stop burning itself over and over with the same mistakes.

Armed with a new manager (Andy Etchebarren) and a new director of player procurement (Michael Kirk), the Revs have adopted a completely new player-signing philosophy this offseason.

Gone are your Shea Hillenbrands, Pete Munros and P.J. Roses -- the guys with big-league experience and big-league baggage.

So far, in their place, are a couple of dependable knowns, a couple projects with upside and hopefully the beginnings of a clubhouse full of guys with something to prove.
Frankly, it's about time.

While the return of infielders Keoni DeRenne and Liu Rodriguez and the acquisition of longtime Atlantic League veteran Jose Herrera did not send any Revs' fans into cardiac arrest these past two weeks, these additions are part of the answer for York.

The Revs need consistency -- at least at a few crucial positions.

And guess what led the Revs to that abysmal 53-87 record last year?

That would be the

dependency on former big leaguers who were wildly inconsistent. Whether they were destined to be signed, leave for bigger money or just be utter disappointments.

Now it seems York has adopted a two-fold approach: 1) Bring back a few dependable players unlikely to be signed; 2) Gamble on a few projects who might just turn into something.

The latter would be where pitcher Edwin Walker and former Can-Am Player of the Year Scott Grimes fall in.

So while you probably won't be regaled by past tales of Rev players taking the mound at Fenway or running their fingers through the ivy at Wrigley in this paper anymore, you can hang your hat on something else.

At least the Revs have finally dismissed the foolhardy approach that has led to exactly two winning halves in the past three years.

At last, the Revolution has finally adhered to that valuable lesson: If you play with fire, you're going to get burned.

-- Jeffrey A. Johnson covers the Revs for The York Dispatch. He can be reached at jjohnson@yorkdispatch.com or 505-5406.