peter

Fantasy baseball advice for those who ask.

Buzz Bissinger Will Abuse You Into Civility

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Serious Business: Gawker reefers a Bob Costas joint. Will “Deadspin” Leitch does a great job of explaining why the blogosphere is different than the mainstream media, and why both need to exist, but Bob and Buzz and (to a lesser extent) Braylon aren’t really listening. Will is brilliant, we all know, but the issue here is really about what’s news and why it matters. And he makes the far better argument than the workaday Buzz and the hyperprivileged Bob. That they seem to see him as some sort of sports journalism Al Queda is entrancing. Which is why I ended up watching all of the 18:00 minute clip, despite the curse words by the mainstream guys. That’s not newspaper talk.

Frank Thomas Statistics

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Baseball-Reference.com

Tonight, the newly-minted Athletic Frank Thomas tripled for the first time since 2002. I think I might have blogged back then about how that triple was Thomas’s first since 1998 (when he had 2!), which were his first since 1994. Put it this way: Frank Thomas has not been a triples machine. Ever.

Does rejection make his heart beat harder? His legs pump faster? Gamecast only says the ball was hit to Vladdy, so I don’t know what miscue prompted it, but a triple is a triple. Go Frank.

Spikes Up: Fourth Annual Top 35 Prospects

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RotoRob

To be honest, prospect lists are suspect. I don’t know any minor league expert who has actually seen all the players he writes about. And to their credit, the best writers (I like Sickels and Callis, but when I listen to McCamey I’m charmed) let you know who they’ve seen and who’s bubbling up through some statistical filter.

Rob’s list is of interest because it seems unassailable in it’s intelligence. I’m pretty sure Rob would agree that these lists offer little real guidence for future performance. The interesting reason is why:

Because nobody knows. Or maybe it’s better said that we all know a little.