Is it just me, or isn’t this story (which seems like it should be throwing huge sparks) wonderfully human and understanding? Mistakes were made, human beings talked to each other, did what they had to do, everyone understood, and they moved on. Nice.
peter
Ask Rotoman
Major League Baseball : Finding Future Fire
Looking for consistent cheap pitchers. Right! Impatient with Chris Reitsma. Right! The undrafted who may just make some heat this summer. Yes! Plus Julio Lugo, David Dellucci, and—for the impatient—Derek Lowe.
Alex Patton’s American Dream League Draft Sheet
Alex has posted his bid prices for the AL only 4×4 American Dream League as and Excel workbook, as a way to show how he distributes draft inflation in clumps rather than in proportion. Of perhaps even greater interest are his quicknotes about players and how things went in the draft. Alex is leading the ADL in the still nascent season by close to 30 points, so there may be something to all this. And they’re free.
While you’re there, if you’re looking for software to help organize and sort your upcoming draft, you’ll get a chance to buy Patton $ on Disk 2006.
Balls, Sticks, & Stuff:
A wide-ranging look at Jimmy Rollins before the streak started, and since, from a Philly-based blog that has a great style and actual activities (a reading group!). Okay, the reading group is tackling Mike Schmidt’s book this month.
Cleaning Up
MLB – Chicago Cubs/Cincinnati Reds Box Score Wednesday April 5, 2006 – Yahoo! Sports
It’s hard to argue with the results, but was that Rich Aurilia batting cleanup today?
A Nice New Blog
Trade rumors are usually worth the electrons their published with, but this new blog has a genial approach that suggests it will hold up as long as its author remains interested in being interesting. Worth adding to your feed, for now.
Dan Shaughnessy Watch
Notes on a Boston Globe Columnist
A blog dedicated to taking the gas out of Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy. If you’ve spent time reading the Red Sox sports pages, er, I mean the Globe sports pages, you’ve encountered Shaughnessy and almost certainly gasped. DS is a town crier for Red Sox Nation, but he also embodies some of the Stockholm Syndrome excesses the Red Sox provoked in recent years. Not anymore, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to mock him anyway.
Roll Your Own
Steve has written a script that takes any group of nine players and suggests the best lineup. In this year’s first Ask Rotoman column this year I took a look at the Mets lineup mainly to argue that they’d better off with Carlos Beltran leading off. Steve, based on 2005 stats, says Paul Lo Duca should be the choice. At least he explains his methodology, which for a mechanical process sure makes a good deal of sense.
Stats Geek
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh has an analytical sabermetric baseball columnist! Plus he writes well, thinks clearly about the game, and has a sense of humor. Excellent!
A Writer Discovered Fantasy Baseball in 1990
Dream teams – The Boston Globe
I could read roto reminisces all day long (and in fact on many days I do), and even this piece by Peter Keating didn’t get me to stop reading. But all sorts of red flags waved. This isn’t a lively or even very interesting history of roto, Keating relies on buckets of cliches to move the story along, and abandons his beknighted friends along the way. I mention it here because it’s proof that not all baseball writing pushes our receptive buttons, even if I could read it all day long.