Today at THT

Things to read while realizing that, even in an economic downturn, some products have inelastic demand:

The intrepid THT writing staff will be previewing the 2009 season via a “five questions” format, and we begin things today with Matthew Carruth inquiring about the Seattle Mariners. My contribution to this series will be to ask a superfluous yet strangely vital sixth question. For the Mariners it’s this: when are they going to bring back the trident M logo? I miss it greatly.

Jeff Sackmann has already tried to measure the quality of play in NCAA Division 2 and Division III (consistency of numerals is overrated). Today it’s the NAIA. Quick answer: it’s a couple notches below that team Richard Pryor played for in “Brewster’s Millions,” but it’s a couple of notches above the 2008 Washington Nationals.

Evan Brunell runs down last week’s transactions. Esteban German had about as good a week as you can expect when you’re a player like Esteban German.

Finally, over at Fantasy Focus, Derek Carty spotlights Hanley Ramirez. Or as I like to call him: “the player I hope has a really bad 2009 because I neglected to pick him with the first pick in the expansion draft of my Scoresheet league even though I had the first pick and he was available, likely because I kept seeing the name “H. Ramirez” on the available players’ list and thought it was Horatio instead of Hanley.” Yeah, Josh Hamilton is no slouch, but now Edgar Renteria is my shortstop, and I can’t stop kicking myself.