The good, the bad, and the extraneous:
- My THT column takes a closer look at "average". It's all well and good for a player to be average, but it's not so nice if he only plays 120 games and Chris Barnwell fills in for him the other 40.
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Junior Spivey signed a minor league contract with the White Sox. Once an all-star, now...an International League all-star.
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This is a really interesting article about "effective wildness." The author measures it as HBP/BB. In other words, if you're hitting a lot of guys but not walking many guys, you have good control but you're mean. (Or something like that.) Oddly enough, Dave Bush was the MLB leader for each of the last two seasons. Any thoughts as to why that might be? The author and I have been bouncing ideas back and forth about it, but haven't come up with anything satisfying.
- Rox Girl thinks we secretly wish Corey Koskie would go away. Of course, we might get our wish.
- Adam continues his tour of the '07 Brewers with a starting rotation preview. My favorite tidbit:
"It's hard to find a starting rotation as stable and as set as ours is right now," said Brewers left-hander Chris Capuano, who made the 2006 National League All-Star team. "You never know how things will shake out with injuries, but if everyone stays healthy, we've got as good a rotation as you'll find."
It's a generic player-quote, to be sure, but it's spot on.