THT Links: Underway

I’ve been getting some questions about the Preseason Book, so I thought I’d use this space to let you all know that we’re still working hard on it and based on what I’ve heard from Dave Studeman, who’s producing the book, it should be out soon, but not before the end of the week.

I also understand that we’ve still been having some intermittent site outages over the past week, and we are working to solve the problem by upgrading to the latest version of Expression Engine, a move that should also be completed in the forseeable future. We apologize for any inconvenience, and will work to bring the site up as soon as possible once an outage occurs.

Schilling Sharp in Opener – Curt Schilling and Matt Garza each pitched two scoreless innings to kick off the spring training season in a 4-4 tie between the Red Sox and the Twins. According to the Boston Globe, Schilling looks like a fat strike-tosser. David Wells, anyone?

The Bull Durham Rant – Articles like this one are why I decided to start the Links in the first place. See, I figure there’s a good chance that sooner or later you’d stumble upon something like the first entry anyway, but without us, you may let a gem like this one slip by. But I figured this would be more appropriate than emailing you all with “LOL TEH FUNNY!!11!!!11”

Jacob Luft of SI looks at famous baseball movie quotes and breaks down the Bull Durham rant over at Baseball Analysts.

Spring Graphing! – FanGraphs will be posting graphs and stats of all the players in spring training this season.

Giants, Cain Near Deal – Terms reportedly on the order of four years, $9.25 million for two pre-arbitration years and the first two years of arbitration, with an option on the fifth year. I guess this potentially represents a slight bargain, and might generate some goodwill, but I much prefer the Beane model, where you wait until after the second season and then buy out at least one year of free agency, since that year and the last year of arb are the ones that really kill you. Here the Giants are maybe saving three or four million if everything goes right, but have assumed a ton of risk for potentially very little return.

New Look – Dan Fox reports that Baseball Prospectus has changed its look, which is good, because the old one looked like it came from the late ’90s. (I know, I know, glass houses.) Seriously though, I think they’ve been doing a great job lately with BP Unfiltered, and this site redesign is another piece of that puzzle.

“Rock” Star – Back in the day, when I was working at a print newspaper, I used to love coming up with stupid puns for headlines, so I had to steal ESPN’s for this link. Journeyman pitcher Matt White might be sitting on $2 billion worth of, well, rocks. If he’s smart, he’ll build a quarry and get plus-two hammers.

That’s Some Bad Hat – Only baseball is so tradition bound that anyone would bother writing to bemoan the introduction of new hats.

Myers Open to Closing – The Phillies might annoint Brett Myers the closer if they can’t deal a starter before Opening Day because Adam Eaton needs time to get his fastball velocity up and Jon Lieber doesn’t field his position well. If this is a ploy to get more leverage on other teams, it’s probably backfiring terribly.

US Weekly – So, like, OMG, have you heard that Brad Penny has lost, like, 15 pounds? I really don’t mean to pick on True Blue LA, which does some good work, but the before and after pictures just made me laugh. Maybe it’s the fandom that’s inherent in both sports and celebrity watching that makes for unexpected similarities.

Mets Power Rankings – Eric Simon’s look at the Mets’ spring training battles. It’s so hard to get good icons, so I applaud him on that as well.

Today at THT

Luck, Leaps and Lapses – Matthew Carruth uses IPORT to compare players’ strikeout, walk and home run rates with their underlying ability to get swinging strikes and pound the strike zone.

Diamond Dollars Reviewed – David reviews Vince Gennaro’s new book on the business of baseball.

THT Links represents the best efforts of our editors in scouring the various tubes of the interweb for both relevant and irrelevant news items. If you have happened upon a story that we have overlooked or wish to give feedback of any sort, please notify us at THT Links.

Updated weekdays at noonish, ET.