This Week's Links (5/5-5/9)

14-22. Worst record in the AL. First baseman throwing his helmet at opposing pitchers. Fire McLaren!

"Charles Barkley Is a Dumbass."

Cliff Lee took the subway to Yankee Stadium before his start on Wednesday. He should just run for President at this point, really.

What would happen if you let a pitcher play CF? Oh, I see.

"Wait, let me get this straight, you proposed when it wasn’t even Felix day?"

Starting price for Super Bowl XLIII commercials: $3 million.

Congratulations to Brian Sabean, winner of the Worst GM tournament.

This Week's Links (4/21-4/25)

Cliff Lee's ERA+ currently sits at 1563. Update: Unfiltered:

"Since 1956, do you know how many pitchers had made three straight starts with 8+ innings, <=3 hits, <=1 walk, and 8+ strikeouts? Here's the list, which I have put in alphabetical order for your convenience:

Cliff Lee.

Here's that list again, sorted by last name:

Lee, Cliff."

Apparently, the key to a successful baseball team is figuring out which 42 games are the "important ones".

20 years ago, Crash Davis already understood BABiP.

Mets Geek interviews Tom Tango.

I understand it's a tough job, but you have to wonder what goes through the umpire's head on a call like this.

Two Posnanski interviews- Hardball Times, and Outs Per Swing (a Rays blog).

LeDunk.

I love this:

"If the problem is 'the heart of the order fails with runners in scoring position,' the solution isn't 'put fewer runners in scoring position.'"

This Week's Links (3/31-4/4)

Forgot about this one last week. Gary Thorne actually thinks Jose Canseco is the Yankees' first baseman. He manages to make Steve Phillips look competent in this clip.

I like Vegas Watch's pairing in the "Suckiest Sports Blog" tournament. I'm pretty confident this blog is worse than We Are The Postmen, and thus will advance.

Continuing the series, a look at how SEC basketball is shaping up in 2009.

And that happened.

The dimensions at the L.A. Coliseum were pretty nuts.

I really can't get enough of the Meat Hook.

Actually, Jeff Brantley, Edwin Encarnacion is quite clutch.

PTI pulled a pretty good April Fools joke. The high five could use some work though.

A very interesting Bill James Q&A over at Freakonomics. A sampling:

Q: Has looking at the numbers prevented you from actually just enjoying a summer day at the ballpark? Have we all forgotten the randomness of human ballplayers? By reducing players to just their numbers can we lose sight of the intangibles such as teamwork, friendships, and desire.

A: Does looking at pretty women prevent one from experiencing love? Life is complicated. Your efforts to compartmentalize it are lame and useless.

Find me someone who tells stories better than Joe Posnanski. Please.

Rehab has really changed Yao.

This Week's Links (3/24-3/28)

An article about yours truly in the Emory Wheel. Why they are asking a man who had Duke in the Final Four about how he picked his bracket, I do not know.

Joe Alexander had some amusing comments after WVU's win over Duke. This was probably funnier before the 81% FT shooter missed a vaguely important foul shot last night.

Posnanski has now incorporated video into his blog. And a pretty good one at that.

Dikembe Mutumbo explains how Isiah Thomas has been an inspiration to his career.

Voros McCracken met Brian Bannister.

FJM finally gets around to Plaschke's "eternal" Pierre column.

"DaJaun" Summers was on the cover of SI. Somebody got fired over this.

This Week's Links (3/17-3/21)

Here's the video of the end of the WKU-Drake game.

A great Posnanski post about his three favorite professional screw-ups.

Live-blogging a re-reading of Moneyball.

Hank Steinbrenner is ridiculous.

Bob Costas called up Leitch to clarify some things.

Silver details some of the additions to PECOTA.

Some MLB predictions from Braves Journal:

Worst token All-Star: Brian Wilson, Giants
Dusty Baker throws Homer Bailey under the bus: April 17
Dusty throws Joey Votto under the bus: May 22
Braves clinch: Saturday, Sept. 27, in Houston.
Last out: Brad Ausmus

The Nuggets played excellent defense in their 168-116 win last week.

This Week's Links (3/10-3/14)

Arkansas beat Vanderbilt!? Impossible.

SI's Luke Winn refers to this blog as "esteemed". Questionable, but appreciated.

This is what I was talking about in the live-blog. I can't do better than AA's title- "Digger Phelps Has No Idea What's Going On". That is even an understatement.

Dusty Baker is going to ruin Joey Votto. It's not funny. Okay, maybe a little.

Bob Costas hates bloggers.

BPro Unfiltered headline: "Braves, Angels Have Most Heart". Scientific evidence follows.

Hasheem Thabeet is an excellent Scrabble player.

An interview with Ken Tremendous.

Posnanski's "Stats I Like".

A compilation of forecasted standings. I'm going to do something with all these when the picks for all the ESPN guys are posted.

This Week's Links (3/3-3/7)

UConn lost to Providence last night. I do not know why everyone is (was?) so high on them. Yes, Thabeet is a defensive force inside- they are first in the country in 2-point FG defense. But their perimeter defense is terrible. Their offense is okay- Price and Thabeet are very good, Adrien is solid, Robinson is athletic but uninspiring. Their undoing last night was 21 turnovers. Depends on the draw, of course, but I'd be shocked if they win more than two games in the tourney.

Favre Moses Kinsaul's parents are mean. Or maybe just dumb.

When something in the NBA catches my attention, you know it must be impressive: LeBron went absolutely nuts against the Knicks. This was after talking to Jay-Z in the middle of the game.

Posnanski has been doing some very amusing AL division previews: East, Central, West. Here's Oakland's:

To the Moneyball man go of all the spoils
The most famous GM on American soil
But this part ain’t funny
He’s still got no money
And a roster that’s filled with ex-Royals

The Indians are not on Sunday Night Baseball in the first half of the season. But at least we all get to enjoy the BBTN team of Ravech, Kruk, Steve, and EY. Remember when that show used to be insightful? That was a long time ago.

FJM's Junior has a great idea for the Mets' 2008 slogan:

How about a billboard that just shows Baseball Prospectus' playoff odds in real time? That would be a good slogan.

I'm serious.

Early Links

There was a ton of good stuff this week, so I'm going to split it up. There is no way I am going to do anything productive during the Notre Dame-Louisville game anyway.

"Statistical profiling" of true talent levels- including a comparison of the career paths of Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds.

In this corner, Joe Sheehan's "Sign Barry Bonds" column. Opposing it, Ken Rosenthal's "Bonds playing in '08 would be bad for baseball" piece.

NJIT did it. 0-29. Congratulations.

Miggy Cabrera has a very appropriate B-R sponsor.

How did Brandon Phillips hit 30 homers last year? Partially because 14 were "Just Enoughers".

This Week's Links (2/18-2/22)

The St. Louis under won, 39-14 (74%). Arizona is up now; we're going alphabetically the rest of the way.

Baseball Prospectus 2008 comes out on Monday. Probably the best $13.17 you'll spend this year. Unless Xavier (80:1 at BetUS) wins it all.

Very old, but this Russell Westbrook dunk against Cal was absolutely filthy.

Baseball Musings predicts how many R/G each team will score in '08. A commenter alertly notes, "Looks like another long year for Matt Cain."

STF interviews SI's Luke Winn.

Ozzie Guillen, being awesome:

‘’Then if you’re a nice guy, they are going to treat you the same way. [Expletive] it, be an ####### then. I would rather be an ####### winning than be a nice guy [expletive] losing. Give me an ####### who can win, don’t give me a nice guy who can [expletive] lose.’"

ESPN jumped the gun on the UAB-Memphis game. How does that happen? Is it really so difficult to wait two minutes?

Silver adjusts PECOTA for strength of schedule. Seattle's prediction descends even lower. 85 wins. Right.

With Leather was on the foxnews.com front page. Also from WL:

"Seriously, if I said that Raul Ibanez could run down a routine fly ball, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'd be lying."

Derek Jeter: a below average fielder!? Man, what are they smoking down at Penn?

This Week's Links (2/11-2/15)

Mr. I: "If there was ever a Douchebag Smurf, this is what he would've looked like."

Guesses on the lines for tomorrow's college basketball games.

More projected standings, this time using CHONE. 89 wins for the Rays?

Pomeroy:

Louisville probably won't win the Big East regular season title, but don't let that fool you. They're the best team in the conference.

A very flattering picture of Josh Beckett.

YouTube was forced to delete all the Berman videos. Deadspin wasn't.

NL Spring Training previews from Sheehan: East, Central, West. On the Giants:

Winter grade: F
They took a 71-91 team and replaced its best position player with a guy coming off a career year who’s had two above-average seasons in his life. For $60 million. Good luck with that.
One move to make: Release half the roster. And the general manager.

Indeed.

Wednesday Links?

I don't have time to write much of anything (and there's not much of not to write about anyway, except maybe Purdue), so I figured I'd post some links from the past few days.

Excellent Sheehan chat last Friday. My favorite part (I know, it would be):

erbacaine (Milwaukee): Eric Gagne over/under 35 saves

Joe Sheehan: Under, and I'll take out a loan to make that bet.

erbacaine (Milwaukee): rickie weeks over/under 30 Homeruns

Joe Sheehan: Under, parlayed with Gagne's saves.

If you want to read 4800 words on the 2008 Kansas City Royals' lineup, Posnanski's got you covered.

Early 2008 projected standings. How are the Indians +220 to win the Central at VIP? That is nonsense.

Shyster reviews Leitch's God Save the Fan. Good book, I recommend it.

Will Carroll begins his Team Health Reports with the Indians. I think I would sign up for Carmona only missing a month mid-year right now.

Football Outsiders pegs the Giants' odds at winning the SB when the playoffs began at 143:1.

Vanderbilt beat Kentucky by 41. No, seriously.

I have been meaning to do a NCAAB futures post, but don't 35:1 and 100:1 seem high for Stanford and Purdue, respectively? (Both at Sportsbook.)

Looks like Indiana might be in some trouble.

This Week's Links (2/4-2/8)

Bob Knight stepped down.

The FJM guys reveal their identities; Ken Tremendous is a writer for "The Office".

The Giants are not going to score many runs this year.

The Rays actually sent David Pinto a letter asking him to stop using "Devil", and fining him for doing so.

Sheehan's AL Spring Training previews; East (subscriber-only), Central (free), West (free). He is not optimistic about the Tribe.

Giants fans express their feelings towards Tiki.

Rafael Betancourt really was incredible last year.

This Week's Links (1/28-2/1)

Breaking down some NHL futures odds, and some Super Bowl prop bets that are actually football related.

"Chris Berman Is Somewhat Perturbed With The Help". Very old, but worth watching.

Our old friend Marty Noble, at it again.

Larry Johnson advises a blogger on how to get rich.

Gasaway with a great analysis of conference play thus far. How is Duke still so underrated? (I understand the answer is that they don't have anyone taller than 6'8", but still- it's the Dookies!)

Scott Van Pelt is a funny dude.

Brian Bannister is an interesting dude.

Keith Law's Top 100 prospects. I miss the days of the Indians having a good farm system.

Lozo gets interviewed.

I thought this was pretty funny (Sheehan on the Twins, pre-Santana trade):

"You can win, in baseball, if you have a donut-hole construction—lots of middle, nothing on the outside. You cannot win as a donut."

This Week's Links (1/21-1/25)

This doesn't really belong in the links, but UCLA won @Oregon without Mbah a Moute or Mata-Real. That is impressive.

The Dave Lozo 2007 NFC Championship Live-Blog was quite a roller coaster.

Predictably, Carl is quite happy.

UNC-Asheville's Kenny George dunks without jumping. Really.

There is a 54.8% chance that NJIT goes 0-29.

"Royals leading Santana Race?"

I thought this was a good line:

"Seriously, I can’t figure Kenny Williams out. One moment I think he’s one of the more interesting, creative GMs out there, the next I feel like he’s channeling Steve Phillips."

Two from FJM: Woody Paige, and HatGuy. These need no further introduction.

The Indians extended "Senor Slo-Mo". I agree with this, I really like the $5MM 2010 club option.

Villanova is overrated. Agreed.

This Week's Links (1/14-1/18)

BBTF hands out some Gold Gloves.

Listen, Buster. Listen. He listened!

The Post not making much sense. Carl echoes the same thoughts, except Carl is joking.

Sheehan's '08 breakout candidates.

Duke or UNC?

Shaughnessy at it again.

Jack Morris for the HoF? In that case, how about Rob Nen?

Grant Wahl doesn't include UNC in his "Magic Eight". His reasoning behind this is questionable (see update).

This Week's Links (1/7-1/11)

Check out the Memphis write-up in Luke Winn's Power Rankings this week. Pretty cool.

" Jacobs Field, the home of the Indians since 1994, will now be called Progressive Field." Well that sucks.

I thought it was interesting that Rice's BA/OBP/SLG are nearly identical to his HoF comps; the difference comes in OPS+, where he's 13 points behind. No wonder the voters are having so much difficulty with him.

More Rice: Sheehan observes that people "feared" Rice because of his '75-'80 performance; he really wasn't that scary at all in the second half of his supposedly dominant stretch.

Last one: Shaughnessy explains to us that Rice was "capable of inducing an intentional walk when the bases are loaded," and a better hitter than Wade Boggs. I mean, I guess I am *capable* of running a marathon, but it's never, you know, *happened*.

Posnanski forces "Brilliant Reader Dan Gould" to eat his hat.

"Mike Downey discussed Goose Gossage's HOF legitimacy by citing his win total."

Keith Law is the Stephen A. Smith of baseball. I wonder how he feels about Cheese Doodles.

Boras, on Ankiel:

"You have a player whose contributions came first as a pitcher, then as a position player. The last player you’re really talking about is Babe Ruth.”

This Week's Links (12/31-1/4)

Hall of Fame edition, because there wasn't a whole lot else going on this week.

Looks like Gossage is in, while Blyleven, Rice, and Dawson all have a shot. Raines does not.

Dave Studeman's imaginary ballot.

OMDQ's imaginary ballot.

Heyman's ballot really was bad.

Jay Jaffe on this year's SP candidates (subscription only).

Posnanski on Morris, and the Pozcars results.

More on the Blyleven-Morris "comparison".

This Week's Links (12/24-12/28)

I finally purchased the new domain name that we voted on like two months ago. As you may have noticed, you are automatically redirected to vegaswatch.net when you type in the old URL. All the Blogspot stuff (bookmarks, RSS) should still work; please let me know if they don't.

Shyster with a hilarious post looking at his 1973 Topps set. He goes over about 70 of the cartoons on the backs of the cards. A few favorites:

"Steve does volunteer dentistry work." You can just do that?
"Dennis enjoys attending sporting events." Given his job, I would hope so.
"Ron loves New York for its fine knishes." First draft: "Ron is a Jew."
"Gary is a freeswing batter." In 1973 Maddox was a Vietnam vet and was already a supernatural centerfielder, yet Topps decided to comment on his .293 rookie on-base percentage. Nice.

Tracy Ringolsby:

"The biggest debates for me were Tim Raines, who obviously was overshadowed by Rickey Henderson, but also if you take Vince Coleman's five top years, I would say he outperformed Raines, too, and I don't see Coleman as a Hall of Famer."

In the comments, Tangotiger helpfully points out that Raines' five worst years were better than Coleman's five best.

The top 40 sports figures of 2007.

After a brief hiatus, one of my favorite college basketball blogs, Rush the Court, is back.

Looks like Gossage is going to be voted into the HoF this year.

Yes, I am going to link to Carl on a weekly basis. This week, his locks of the century. The analysis of the UGA-Hawaii game is absolutely stellar.

Posnanski relays an excellent Belichick story.

An interesting look at SLG% on different pitches in different locations.

This Week's Links (12/17-12/21)

Big Shot Levance.

ATHF's Carl breaks down the Mitchell Report. "How do you think Ted Williams fought all those Nazis, huh? Roids, pure and simple." (via Defensive Indifference)

How The Weakest Link relates to sports.

Pomeroy explains his individual stats, and looks at which teams have accumulated gaudy win totals against weak competition.

AA talks to Gus Johnson. This is one of my favorite calls ever.

STF interviews Basketball Prospectus' John Gasaway.

Another potential replacement for the BBWAA awards: The Pozcars.

This Week's Links (12/10-12/14)

I should probably link to MJD's Smorgasbord every week.

Doesn't it seem like Santana could be asking for more than this?

The entire list of BBWAA members.

Gasaway on the four super freshmen.

Two excellent Dugouts this week; Thome and Fukudome, and the "MeTrain".

Sheehan (with added Mr. Irrelevant link):

"The commission’s original work consists of passing along enough hearsay to keep a team of defense lawyers in business until the Rapture."

I had not realized Joba Chamberlain had a 1192 ERA+ least year. That is incredible.

Because they clearly don't have more important things to be thinking about, MLB bought FireKennyWilliams.com.

Deadspin:

"The World Pie Eating Championships have been canceled because the dog who was supposed to be guarding the pies instead ate them."