Daily Links - Thursday Morning Edition

Making fun of people is on hiatus today so we now present your regularly scheduled Daily Links.

Link time!

Sox Prospects Mike Andrews, writing at ESPN Boston, has ten story lines to follow regarding the Red Sox minor league season. The Sox system isn't stacked at the upper levels, a fact we all became intimately familiar with last September when there was little help to be had, but for a fan of prospects the Red Sox system offers much to get excited about. Following players as they make the jump to elite prospect is one of the more exciting things a fan can do, and the Sox offer that in spades this season. As for me, I can't wait to see the Sox develop some starting pitching depth, so I'll be paying extra attention to Anthony Ranaudo and Matt Barnes to see if they can take a leap or two forward.

Speaking of the minor leagues, Ben took a look at a few guys the Red Sox snapped up to stash in AAA who could impact the Sox next season here at OTM yesterday.

At Baseball Nation, Jon Bois ran down the 50 Greatest GIFs of 2011, with choice commentary of course. There is just so, so much good stuff in there it's hard to pick a favorite. From Daniel Sedin getting punched in the face about twelve times by the Bruins' Brad Marchand (and because it's a GIF this goes on indefinitely) and doing absolutely nothing about it, to the guy at the Winter Meetings falling into the fountain, to the unmanned run-away golf cart which ran people over in the middle of Texas Stadium during a Cowboys game, to... well, just read the damn thing.

I haven't seen the movie Moneyball, but I've read the book like twelve times. I've also seen the trailer. That's more than enough to follow this excellent send-up over on our sister site, Halos Heaven. It's called Moneyblog and it's not only well done, but it's funny. (Bloggy, you're gonna LOVE IT (or maybe you won't). (Nah, you will.))

Over at the OC Register, Sam Miller discovered something amazing which shows conclusively that the Angels will soon sign Daniel Bard, Manny Ramirez, and Allen Iverson. Conclusively. Yep.

At Fire Brand of the AL, they've named their 2012 Fire Brand of the Year. Chip Buck has all the details.

The Score's Drew Fairservice has your Roy Oswalt Buyer's Guide, complete with Pitch f/x data, heat maps, and injury concerns. Oswalt scares the heck out of me for some reason, but on a one year deal I could stomach just about any dollar figure. The scary part is committing multiple years to a player who not only has had serious injuries, but has exhibited diminished velocity and, probably not unrelated, a shrinking strikeout rate. This isn't to say Oswalt can't be a good signing or a good pitcher, but those factors are also the likely reasons the pitcher doesn't yet have a new home this off season.

On the national beat, Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports wrote a column in the form of a memo to his boss begging to be put on the Marlins beat for next season. Why? Well, now that they have Carlos Zambrano in the fold, there is a better than fair chance for a bunch of the crazy to go down. My best guess: someone is going to get eaten.

Finally, this isn't Red Sox related, hell it isn't even baseball related, but it's on an SB Nation blog and, company man that I am, I thought I'd highlight some of the great work being done in our network. Also, it's hilarious because it's true. See, what happened was, after the NHL Winter Classic, some (probably drunk) Philadelphia Flyers fans saw some (probably drunk) New York Rangers fans at Geno's Steaks, a cheesesteak place in (probably drunk) South Philadelphia. The (at that point probably drunk) Flyers had just lost said Winter Classic and so those (probably drunk) Flyers fans were in no mood to, you know, see people. The predictable happened and there was a fight. Then some (probably drunk) guy went on Facebook and... well, you really should just read it.