• Chris Jaffe, who sometimes interviews real no-names, sort of breaks some news with Bill James: "You've got a new book coming out -- Baseball's Gold Mine. What's that going to be about? ... You've got a new website you're coming out with as well, Bill James Online. What will be the nature of that site -- a think tank for research analysis, a blog, a reference site, something else? Will you be the only contributor or will there be others?"
• Speaking of new books, an upcoming book about the
Bucky Dent game leads to a general discussion about
the single greatest games. I've read through the candidates, including some interesting possibilities posted by readers, and now I'm more confused than ever.
• Rich Lederer furthers the discussion -- begun by Patrick Sullivan and advanced by my friend Mark Armour -- of
measuring hitters' performance by plate appearances rather than at-bats. So simple, a caveman could do it ... as we should have been doing it for all these years.
• Dayn Perry offers his
worst (projected) everyday players at every position, and I'm going to argue with one of them: According to Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA projections, Kansas City's
Mark Teahen won't be anything like the worst right fielder. Mostly because he looks good, statistically at least, with the glove (and arm). Worth mentioning: Three-fourths of Perry's infield is comprised of old Giants.
• Remember last week when I bought five shares of minor league pitcher
Randy Newsom's future earnings? My money has been refunded, as those pesky
MLB and SEC humbugs put the kibosh on Newsom's scheme. Seems like maybe they should have done their homework
before offering shares and taking money, but maybe the whole thing was just designed to grab some publicity. If so,
it certainly worked.
• As Mark Herrmann writes,
last Sunday was Opening Day ... for
Strat-O-Matic fans in Glen Head, N.Y.
Joe Sheehan was there, too, which I suppose is just one more good thing about living in the
Tri-State area. Not so many years ago, I was unemployed and hungry. There was an upside, though: I had plenty of time for Strat-O-Matic, and I still remember all those evenings of rolling dice and looking up results with great fondness. Granted, my memories are colored by time. And being hungry's no fun.
• How quickly can things change? Three seasons ago,
Bartolo Colon won the Cy Young Award as the American League's best pitcher (which he wasn't, but he did win 21 games and you know how those things work). Josh Kalk
analyzes Colon, predicts a 4.40 ERA this season ... and after two lost seasons that's a
good thing.
• Over at Bless You Boys, Ian Casselberry makes a compelling case that if you're going to extend a young(ish) player for five years, it would be
hard to do better than
Curtis Granderson. What I want to know is, did
ESPN.com give him a similar bump? Today I'm flying to Connecticut for a rare visit to the
mothership, where I'll ask someone who would know. (By the way, if you've got any ideas for making this page better, now's the time to speak up. And no fair asking me to write better.)
• I've been a Woody Allen fan since 1970, when I was five years old. Why? Because of "
Hot Dog," a short-lived TV show that showed how everyday stuff is made (or was made, back when we still made stuff). The only thing that stuck with me over the years was Allen describing how neon signs work; he said there's a man under the sidewalk who blows on a tube that keeps the sign lit. Anyway, one of the other hosts was the great Jonathan Winters, and in
this clip he does a wonderful baseball bit.
Rob Neyer
