Lunch Time Link Dump

• I'm pretty sure I've addressed this before, but Mandy Housenick from The Morning Call is probably the laziest, and most unfounded Phillies beat reporter out there. She frequently criticizes star players as a way of stirring the pot and almost always has no facts (or occasionally fabricated ones) to back her opinions. Earlier this week was nothing different when Housenick and Marcus Hayes were on Daily News Live and had the gall to come out and say that "you're not losing anything by playing Wilson Valdez at second base over Chase Utley." Crashburn Alley does a great job at breaking it down with a nice video mashup, but I don't think I need to bring up statistics like WAR or UZR to show you how asinine that statement is. How do people like them get paid to cover baseball while I sit here and blog about it for free?

 

• Ever want to stick your hand inside Chase Utley? Sicko. Well, now you can, thanks to these completely ambiguous and maybe even slightly racist puppets and stuffed creatures. Seriously, cover the names for a second and tell me that the Ryan Howard plush doll doesn't look more like Ben Francisco and the Chase Utley 7" plush doesn't look more like Brett Myers than anyone capable of playing 2nd Base. Still though, these dolls are officially licensed and they're cheaper than the stuffed goods you can get on the 2nd floor of the Majestic Clubhouse Store so if you don't mind your kids thinking all white people look the same, go for it! 

 

• I found a neat little daily fantasy game on FanGraphs while reading through some twitter posts this morning. Just grab six players for the day under a salary cap and see how well you score. It's free to play, so if anyone wants in, I'll gladly set up a little daily group.

• Did you know that the Marlins new manager is old? It's true, 80 full years to be exact. What would possess a guy like that to come out of retirement is beyond me unless he has some sense of debt owed to help the Marlins out for the rest of the season. With a team full of guys that could easily be his great grandchildren, you can expect a lot of age gap jokes like the one Logan Morrison tweeted last night:

• With Interleague play in full swing, the yearly argument erupts once again: DH or no DH? It's a subject that splits baseball fans pretty much right down the middle depending on whether or not their team plays in the AL or the NL. Personally, I like the idea of having a pitcher pitch because it adds an extra challenge to the game that NL managers have to work around. That little caveat leads to some of baseball's greatest nuances; the sac bunt, the double switch, the pitcher actually getting a hit, etc. But then again, I'd probably pissed if my team strolled into an NL park and my best hitter was riding the pine because he's completely useless with a glove on his hand and my pitcher hasn't swung a bat since little league. Fans of the AL love the added offense and the lack of an "automatic out" at the bottom of the lineup. Fans of the NL love the purity of having every player on the field play two way ball.

• Lastly, this is too weird not to share...