Garbage garbage garbage.
Link time!
When a new manager is hired, there's always a breaking in period. The players get to know what he likes, what he values, and what he thinks is important just as he gets to know the players, and their strengths and weaknesses. The same is also true of fans. After eight years of Terry Francona at the helm, just seeing Bobby Valentine in the dugout could be a confusing and traumatic thing. Fortunately, Tim Britton, cognizant of all this invented garbage, has undertaken to learn him some Valentine using the virtual pages of The Providence Journal to do so. Specifically, Mr. Britton spoke with Valentine recently and found out something interesting: Valentine doesn't believe in pitch counts. Not like he doesn't believe in [cover your eyes, kids] Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but Valentine believes that different pitchers have different endurance thresholds. I have to say, that kind of nuance and subtlety is going to go over really well with some of the screamers on talk radio. Of course, there's some intended irony to that statement, as media screamer was actually Valentine's past job.
OTM's own Cee Angi made her debut at The Platoon Advantage yesterday. She wrote about baseball card collecting. As a former card collector, I can remember the emotions of getting a new pack or a new card that you wanted. She does a great job of describing the feelings generated by card collecting, and the senses that are impacted by new cards or old favorites.
Over at Baseball Prospectus, John Perrotto provides some opinions from scouts on the four major remaining free agents, one of whom is Roy Oswalt. The article is behind the paywall, but I don't think I'm giving too much away to say the scout thinks there is a reason Oswalt hasn't signed yet and it isn't because of Oswalt's punctuality and it has nothing what so ever to do with his ability to create origami swans.
Fan Graphs' David Cameron has some interesting thoughts on top prospect ranking.
Troy Patterson at Fire Brand of the AL has the first in what I assume, based on the title, is a multi-part series on Pitch F/x data and You. Well, actually, it's Pitch F/x data and Daniel Bard, but you can imagine yourself as Bard if you like. Wow, you throw fast!
Rich Hill, now re-signed to a minor league deal with the Red Sox, is making progress after Tommy John surgery ruined his 2011. Well, OK, Tommy John surgery didn't ruin his year. Ye Olde Exploding Elbow did.
The Yankees are still trying to dump A.J. Burnett, now on the Pirates. I suppose if the Yankees can get out of paying, to pick a number out at random, $3 million of the $33 million owed Burnett over the next two seasons, then it's worth shipping him elsewhere, but demanding talent in return probably isn't going to help facilitate a deal. If the Yankees are willing to give him away with a cash box strapped to his ankle they may end up out from underneath some small portion of the deal. But, a 35 year old guy with an ERA+ in the 80s over his last two seasons and 375 innings probably isn't worth too much on the market. Probably. You know, unless Jim Bowden snags another GM job in the immediate future.
Finally, this may just be one of the strangest baseball cards ever produced.