Today at THT

What to read while trying to get your mind around the fact that a guy who makes more than $25 million a year casually uses the term “loosey-goosey.” Yes, the rich are different than you and me:

Done with the position-by-position thing, Treder lists the ten best right-handed batting, left-handed throwing players in Major League history. I won’t give away #1 on the list, but man does he stand head and shoulders above the other nine.

Dan McLaughlin (a/k/a the Baseball Crank) has part two of his series on the best catchers in the post-1920 period, this time focusing on guys with shorter peaks. As with the BR-TL guys, it’s somewhat surprising to see how quickly you get into more or less ordinary players as you go down the list. I mean, there simply haven’t been a ton of truly, truly outstanding catchers, at least in the terms in which we normally think of superstar baseball players. This, by the way, only makes me more upset that Crash Davis never got a real shot despite his obvious ability to work with pitchers and considerable pop.

Josh Kalk examines pitch sequencing. You won’t be surprised to learn that there’s an advantage to having a plan when you take the mound.

Finally, over at Fantasy Focus, Paul Singman talks replacement level. If you have trouble identifying replacement level for yourself, just look at the Padres lineup this year and you’ll have a good idea what it replacement level truly is.

In closing, I’d just like to say how sorry I am for what happened back in December when I fist came to THT. Back then it was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naive, and I wanted to prove to everyone that, you know, I was worth, you know — and being one of the greatest bloggers of all time. When I arrived at THT, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day. And I did take a banned substance — Mrs. Shyster doesn’t allow Red Bull in the house, but I drank it anyway.

And, you know, for that I’m very sorry and deeply regretful. And although it was the blogging culture back then, you know, I’m just sorry. I’m sorry for that time. I’m sorry to reader. It wasn’t until then that I ever thought about energy drinks of any kind.