Coming down off a podcast high...

Link time!

Sam Miller is funny. You should know that already, but in case you don't I'm telling you now. Don't believe me? Are you thinking 'who is this guy to tell me what is and isn't funny?' OK, fair point, but allow me to retort. Read this wherein Mr. Miller attempts to prove, using large close-up pictures and graphs of the stock market, that Vernon Wells will have some kind of bounce-back year this season.

At Sox Prospects, Chris Mellon previews the season for two pitchers who could wind up being very important around these here parts before the 2012 season ends. Those pitchers are (almost forgot) Alex Wilson and Felix Doubront. And speaking of minor leaguers, the Providence Journal's Brian MacPherson looks at top pitching prospect Anthony Ranaudo in attempt to determine if he should start the year in AA or High A. Considering his performance in A ball last year, High A might make the most sense, but you have to admire the guy for pushing to start higher in the system.

Over at Fire Brand of the AL, Chip Buck takes a look at Mike Aviles and what he brings to the table as the starting shortstop for the Red Sox.

Over at Hardball Talk, Craig Calcaterra looks at MLB's new social media policy and find that, surprise!, it wasn't written by 80 year old men afraid of VHS tapes. This is a good thing.

If you're psyched about adding John Lannan to the Red Sox rotation at some point in the near future, The Score's Drew Fairservice advises you, on the Getting Blanked blog, to tone down those expectations. And speaking of the Getting Blanked blog, Darren Kritzer takes a look at the AL East as a whole.

In the grand tradition of self promotion, we at OTM wrote things that were posted elsewhere. I wrote about John Lackey and his newly understood predilection for peanut butter and pantlessness at Baseball Prospectus yesterday. OTM's own Marc Normandin asked can players pick it back up after a really awful season over at Baseball Nation. He could have been talking about Carl Crawford, but he wasn't. I think it's at least a little bit instructive on that point though, as is the case of Mike Lowell. And since we're really self promoting over here, how about one more: OTM's own Marc Normandin (Normandin of the Internet!) was on the fabulous Fan Graphs Audio podcast with the one and only Carson Cistulli yesterday. They talk Red Sox and the Hall of Very Good e-book project. It's definitely worth 40 minutes of your time and I don't even know what you do.

Finally, if you like the Marlins and you like Justin Bieber, then this video of Logan Morrison and Bryan Petersen attempting to learn and play one of his songs is right up your alley. But, if like me, you don't care for the Marlins one way or the other and if Justin Bieber was carried off by a swarm of mutant bees you wouldn't think twice, well then you should still definitely watch the video.