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Today's links aren't letting a little thing like the utter lack of baseball news get in the way of having a good time ... Really nice memorial of recently departed Bill Lajoie from Lynn Henning. For you non-Insiders, Craig Calcaterra's got the ...

My blog has a new name -- SweetSpot -- and it's moved here!...

Last year, Kyle Farnsworth gave up 15 home runs in 60 innings. In his career, Farnsworth has allowed a .441 slugging percentage to left-handed hitters. Jim Thome is a left-handed hitter with 541 career home runs. Over the past three seasons, Chicag...

Ben Shpigel on what's up with Ryan Church: The more I think about it, the less I understand the motivation for tweaking Church the way the Mets have. When they acquired him from Washington, the Mets thought they got lucky, finding a talented defend...

I've been writing stuff like this for 13 years; now it's Eric Seidman's turn: This will not be a lengthy or detailed post discussing what sample sizes are or why they carry importance, but rather a personal plea for fans and readers, especially of ...

Russell Adams and Tim Marchman on the suddenly tenuous future of the baseball beat: But throughout the last century, baseball writers have stood above their sportswriting colleagues. When the National League needed a president in 1934, it hired for...

Alan Schwarz on the utility within baseball of computer simulations: Take the age-old question of how much difference a team's lineup order makes. This issue so vexed the former manager Billy Martin that he once literally picked his Detroit Tigers ...

On Monday, inspired by a reader, I threw out a challenge: Who are some players whose minor league performances gave us no idea of how good they would be in the majors? Commenters suggested Matt Holliday, Larry Walker, Hanley Ramirez, Chase Utley, Ge...

From the mailbag: Rob, With all the talk about Matt Wieters and today's note on Daniel Murphy, I was wondering who some of the biggest upside surprises were in the majors after not terribly impressive minor league action. I would guess the best pe...

Bruce Jenkins on the most interesting moments in Sunday night's game: It didn't take long for someone to make a ridiculous pitch-count move in the baseball season. Derek Lowe wasn't just retiring the Phillies last night, he was owning them. Cruisin...

ShysterBall, touching on an article about the first five years of Petco Park: More subjectively speaking, I have a brother who has lived in San Diego for about 12 years, and his impression is that, on balance, Petco has been a positive for both the...

No one has asked for them, but here are my predictions anyway: NL West 1. Dodgers 2. Diamondbacks (WC) 3. Rockies 4. Giants 5. Padres I had the Diamondbacks in first place until Manny re-upped with the Dodgers, but it's still going to be close...

Dave Cameron on what looks like a truly odd move: Even with the GM having resigned in disgrace and promises of a new organization going forward, the Nationals have managed to screw it up. Elijah Dukes, the best player on the team, is not in the lin...

Will Daniel Murphy justify the Mets' faith in him? Or will he revert to his minor league performance, which was decent but far from scintillating? Ted Berg on the latter: Of course, there are plenty of nattering nabobs who believe he will. In messa...

Good news! The Marlins have settled on their leadoff man! And he's fast! Bad news! The Marlins' leadoff man has a .300 career on-base percentage. ... Manager Fredi Gonzalez said on Friday that he plans to use Emilio Bonifacio as the leadoff hit...

Today's links come to you with -- as Jon Miller put it Sunday night -- my best New Year's wishes ... • Josh Wilker's hit the big time, and someday we'll be able to say we knew him (and here is Josh's reaction, wonderful as ever). &#82...