Lunch Time Link Dump

 It's so nice to be on the home stretch of Spring Training. As I type this, the Phils are wrapping up their final Grapefruit League game and hopping a plane north where they'll face the Pirates for a couple of exhibition games. I have tickets for tomorrow night, so I'll be sure to give a full scouting report as to how Michael Stutes and Luis Castillo are looking! Tickets can be had for less than $1 each, haha!

• A ridiculous article I read over the weekend that seems to suggest Joey Votto held the Reds down last year. Okay, so it doesn't say that directly, but it does endlessly point out the fact that the Yankees had a better win percentage with Brett Gardner in the lineup than Derek Jeter, and that Josh Hamilton had a worse winning percentage than David Murphy and a whole host of his teammates. I think the article lacks any credibility at all and I really expect better from the NY Times. To Create a Winner, You Have to Find Winners? No, you just have to find good baseball players. All the stats in the world aren't going to convince me that Carlos Pena's .196 batting average and 158 strikeouts were somehow related to the fact that his team was 22 games over .500 with him in the lineup.

• The Jayson Werth Baseball card conspiracy. It's a little humorous, but also incredibly common. It's common knowledge that Topps has become lazy with their card styling. And they get away with it because of the stupid agreement between MLB and Topps that basically eliminates any competition in the collectible card Market.Upper Deck still produces cards through an agreement with the MLBPA, but they can't include any team or league logos. It's pretty much ruined baseball cards for me in the past few years. Give me the days of ridiculous baseball poses.

• Speaking of cards... While looking for examples of other crappy cards, I found a whole blog dedicated to funny cards. 1) Why were eyeglasses go ridiculous looking in the 80s-90s? 2) If you have a really ridiculous name like "Dick Harter," why don't you change it before going into a profession that is going to put your name all over thousands of pieces of cardboard?

• Courtesy of ThatBallsOuttaHere.com, I found another list that our great city of Philadelphia made it on: Angriest Cities. We come in at a disappointing #8 which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me... How can we be the worst city in the country, but not angry? St. Petersburg is full of miserable old retired people, Las Vegas is full of dejected gamblers, and Dallas just watched their tax dollars fund a billion dollar football stadium... so none of them should count! We were doing angry before it was cool!

• The Buck Showalter interview in Men's Journal that broke last week was fantastic. Not only did he do a great job as the O's manager down the stretch last season, but now he has the audacity to call out Derek Jeter for jumping away from inside pitches and Theo Epstein for just tossing buckets of money at free agents and acting as if he's a baseball genius in the process. Nice work, Buck. We might have a job for you in 2 years!

• A new Bill James book that I'm sure is way too complex for most of us to wrap our minds around, but worth a read anyway. From what I've read, it sounds like it's mostly a collection of writings otherwise available on his website for individual purchase.

• A list of some of the more anonymous starters of the past decade. Some of these guys career lines make me think I still have a chance at playing in the bigs... you know, if this whole blogging thing doesn't take off...

• A new batch of guys you should be following on Twitter:
• @mlbdepthcharts - Up to date depth chart and roster info for all baseball teams.
• @PeteOrrFacts - A series of ridiculous, mostly false, facts about the Phillies utility guy.
• @BestPhilsBlogs - A compendium of retweets from some of the best local Phillies blogs. If you don't want to follow everyone individually, this is the one you need.
• @MatthewBerryTMR - The Talented Mr. Roto from ESPN whose Podcast has been entertaining me since January.
• @SultanofStat - Another ESPN fantasy guy with some good tidbits of info.
• @petzrawr - Former contributor at TheFightins.com is just as entertaining on twitter.
• @closernews - Exactly what it says. Up to the minute info on all MLB closer situations.