I was in a car accident on Monday and have been dealing with insurance and other fall out related to that since. In case anyone was wondering that's why there was no Daily Links on Monday, that is the reason. I may have hit my head in the accident (a truck ran through a stop sign and broadsided my car) and it's been kinda tough to keep thoughts in my head for extended periods of time since. The fact that the Red Sox have been destroying the Rangers in Texas has only succeeded in making me look in disbelief at the scoreboard over and over to be sure I'm not mis-reading it. It's been an odd week.
Nonetheless, link time!
SI.com's Cliff Corcoran updates us all on the AL MVP picture. Mr. Corcoran's stats don't reflect the last two days of ridiculous Red Sox offense, including a number of hits by the MVP candidates, but the general picture hasn't changed. You can expect Jose Bautista, Curtis Granderson, and then the triumvirate of Red Sox (Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez, and Dustin Pedroia), Ellsbury is making quite the case for himself and I'd be hard pressed to vote against him, but if you look at Bautista's stats I don't see how he isn't the most valuable player. I guess you can make the argument against Joey Bats, but it's probably going to involve a lot of hocus pokus and maybe a dove flying out of my ear. Not that I wouldn't buy that argument, by the way.
WEEI.com's Alex Speier has a great behind-the-music story on the chaos of signing day at Fenway Park. Even reading about it likely doesn't do justice to the stress and bedlam that accompanies the signing deadline, but Mr. Speier does a good job of taking us through the negotiations.
Prashanth Francis of Baseball Time In Arlington has a post up comparing the offenses of the Rangers with those of the Red Sox and Yankees. It's worth reading in it's entirety (which is why it's in this article) but the piece of information that stuck out to me was the Rangers reliance on balls in play as compared to the Red Sox and Yankees who are more walk (and strikeout) heavy. This could play to the Rangers disadvantage come playoff time and especially against the Red Sox who have a very good defensive team this season, because the Sox turn balls in play into outs at a higher rate than most teams.
Finally, if you like writing about baseball, just like reading about it, or like me, you like doing both, Patrick at Pitchers & Poets has a nice piece on why he writes about baseball.