Wednesday Morning Links

Well, jeez, I guess we need to find Nellie Cruz a drug dealer who sells better shit. For 1.3 WAR, I'd be asking for my money back.

The Miami New Times kicked over an anthill yesterday, and if you haven't read the story you can find it here. Unfortunately, media do what media do, so the Twitter-friendly meme describing this situation is that Cruz is a client of the "East Coast BALCO" which may or may not be an accurate descriptor.

The New Times story specifically references spreadsheets and handwritten records and ledgers (oh, when will these ne'er-do-wells learn, did none of them watch The Untouchables?), so I imagine that in due time we will learn if Cruz did indeed partake of the forbidden fruit. But it's worth noting that Vic Conte trafficked in snake oil as well as what were apparently true performance enhancers, and it's entirely possible that Anthony Bosch and his Biogenesis anti-aging clinic were not above such behavior, either.

Let's kick off the recriminations with Anthony Andro, who says that the ledgers indicate Nelson Cruz paid $4,000.00 to Bosch in July and that Bosch's notes discuss traveling to Arlington and starting a treatment program in April of 2012.

Jeff Wilson says that Bosch nicknamed Cruz "Mohamad" in his records, though someone should tell Bosch that giving his clients obfuscating nicknames is pointless if the spreadsheets also include their real names.

T.R. Sullivan, who thoughtfully includes a "Who, me?" picture of Nelson Cruz, nevertheless convinced me of Cruz's guilt by reminding me that somehow Cruz stayed off the disabled list all of last year.

Kevin Sherrington says that Cruz has blown up the Rangers' outfield plans for 2013, though (as Adam pointed out yesterday) any Ranger outfield plan that didn't account for the significant possibility that Cruz would miss a fair chunk of the season wasn't much of a plan, steroid allegations or no steroid allegations.

The DMN has got a fever, and the only cure is articles that include the words "Nelson" and "Cruz," so they SEO'd the hell out of their sports section in a manner that makes Cruz responsible for more hits than he's had since 2010. Zing! Evan Grant quotes Alex Rodriguez and Gio Gonzalez denying any relationship with Bosch in terms that wouldn't appear to display any fear of future contradiction. If what you want is histrionics, Gerry Fraley says that Cruz could face a 50 game suspension and the DMN asks notable baseball projections experts, the DMN commenters, if the Rangers can make the playoffs without Cruz. And finally, my favorite low effort link whoring technique, a slideshow on Cruz's career.

Richard Durrett looks at the potential ripple effects of the Cruz brouhaha, and the ripples are pretty depressing (Olt in the outfield, Bourn, etc) except when they're borderline delusional (Stanton!).

If you want to read something non-Nellie Cruz related, the metro newspapers say to go screw yourself because your random Google-search hits don't pay their bills. Then they went back to sneaking "Scarlett Johansson leaked photos" into all of their page tags.

Inspired by David Murphy and the triumph of small sample sizes over a full career of futility, Mitch Moreland hopes to improve his performance against lefties.

Want some Ballpark seats? Well, for $375 you can buy some. Probably put them in your servants' quarters or something, with your manservant Kevin Mench.

Mitch Moreland and Craig Gentry are going into 2013 hoping to focus on the things they can control.

Durrett starts looking forward to Spring Training by wondering if the starting first base job will slip through Mitch Moreland's fingers.

Also: Leaked Scarlet Johanson pictures, Nelson Cruz Nelson Cruz, Melissa McCarthy sex tape. Thanks, that is all.