I've got my board certification exam on the 15th, and am supposed to be studying for it right now, so blogging will probably be a little on the light side between now and then.
In the meantime, here's some linkaliciousness...
The Brewers want to bring Francisco Cordero back. He's a free agent this offseason, and the pool of free agent relievers is pretty slim (really, the pool of free agent anything other than centerfielders is pretty slim), so Milwaukee is going to have to get pretty aggressive to keep him...I'm betting he walks, and gets a 4 year, $38 million deal.
John Dewan has the top and bottom 5 in plus/minus (fielding runs) for shortstops up, and your likely gold-glove winner (again) in 2007, Derek Jeter, was tied for the worse shortstop in baseball, with Hanley Ramirez. They both were at negative 33 runs.
Michael Young was at negative 15 runs...given that he was at 10.9 runs above average for his position, offensively, if Dewan's numbers are right, Young was a slightly below-average shortstop this year.
Richard Durrett lobbies for bringing the Electrician back as a long man/spot starter. Personally, I think Kam Loe is better suited for that job...and if you don't want to go with Loe, then grab a guy in the Rule 5 draft to fill that slot, or keep Mike Wood around for the first few months of the season before letting Eric Hurley get his feet wet in the majors in that role.
The Angels may have lost yesterday, but at least it afforded Bill Plaschke the opportunity to put an uppity whippersnapper in his place. Nevermind that the Angels couldn't score against Josh Beckett...John Lackey gets to be Plaschke's whipping boy...
Several years ago, on the ESPN message boards, someone came up with a stat called the TEA%, which stood for the Totally Erstad Awesomeness Percentage. Angels fans railed about the inability of those outside of Orange County to truly appreciate the awesomeness of Darin Erstad, because it could not be expressed in stats...so the TEA% was a way to try to translate that, with Erstad, of course, being the benchmark, with a TEA% of 100.
I think the TEA% should now refer to the Totally Eckstein Awesomeness Percentage. And Todd Jones is picking the Angels to win, because they have two -- TWO -- players who are like Eckstein. The Angels' team TEA% must be off the charts.
Steven Goldman chats about the playoff games today, and there are a couple of Rangers tidbits in there worth checking out.
Our friend John Barten has the final 2007 edition of the BTB Awards up, which you guys should check out.
And this is football related, rather than baseball related, but...you have to love a blog post that is tagged "big butts."