MLB Bullets Heads To Spring Training

I've saved several dozen links over the past two days. Here's the best of them. I'm not all that impressed with them at the moment, but then again, I wasn't all that impressed with the San Francisco Giants or the Kansas City Royals last season, and those two teams turned out OK. So maybe today I'll surprise myself again.

Do we have games today? Oh, it's tomorrow. Well, I guess I'll have something to support the case of  tomorrow being a better day than today.

• Jonah Keri did a ranking of all 30 teams heading into spring training. The Cubs made the top ten.
• The Phillies were last. Their fans are already giving up on 2015.
• Will Leitch looks at the teams most likely to win (or lose) 100 games.
• Alex Skillin lists some "forgotten" offseason transactions that could end up being huge this year.
• Billy Bean, MLB's "Ambassador for Inclusion," went to Mets camp to speak to the team. He also put on a Mets uniform (at the invitation of GM Sandy Alderson) and worked out with the team. (He declined Alderson's offer to play in a spring training game.) Alderson said Bean's role in baseball is personal to him because of the shabby way the Oakland Athletics, his former team, treated Glenn Burke.
• Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy said he was open to Bean's message while making it clear he wasn't actually open to anything Bean had to say.
• Deadspin takes apart Murphy's comments, as you kind of knew they would.
• Staying with the Mets, David Wright told top prospect Noah Syndergaard not to eat lunch during an intrasquad game.
• Curt Schilling took to Twitter as a proud dad about his daughter's softball career. The response he got was beyond disgusting.
• At least one of the pigs (and honestly, that's an insult to pigs) who responded to Schilling worked for the Yankees. Or at least, he used to work for the Yankees as he was fired for his comments.
• Craig Calcaterra looks at the different fates of two former minor league teammates, John Baker and Jeremy Brown, of Moneyball fame. Baker also responds to Calcaterra's comments.
• Former AL batting champion Alex Johnson has died. Johnson's problems led MLB to treat mental and emotional illnesses as they would other illnesses.
• Also passing away was former Mets and Orioles utility player Jeff McKnight. He was only 52.
• Dayn Perry has an appreciation of the late Minnie Minoso.
• Mike Sweeney was named to the Royals Hall of Fame.
• The Dodgers may not have a place on the 25-man roster for Alex Guerrero. But because of a clause in his contract, he can't be sent down to the minors without his permission and he doesn't want to go.
• Dave Cameron looks at the problems with Guerrero's contract. On top of the "no minors" clause, if he's traded he has the right to opt out of the rest of his contract at the end of the year and become a free agent.
• Manager Don Mattingly says Jimmy Rollins will be the Dodgers leadoff hitter this season.
• Good decision or bad decision, Dodgers fans in Southern California who don't have Time-Warner Cable won't be able to see for themselves again this year.
• Mike Trout says he intentionally kept a low profile this winter.
• The Twins are trying to lock up Brian Dozier to a long-term extension.
• Sam Miller examines how risky are such extensions to the teams. They aren't slam dunks, apparently.
• The Red Sox, for now at least, are saying they don't need Cole Hamels.
• Pirates first baseman Corey Hart injured himself on a hot tub. So he immediately got back in the hot tub to go back in time two minutes to warn himself to be more careful. Hart didn't believe his future self and cut his foot up again anyway.
• Masahiro Tanaka says his injury last season was because of poor mechanics and that the problem should be fixed for this year.
• Ken Rosenthal thinks the Astros (yes, the Astros) have too many good players this spring. Good news for Fresno, I guess.
• Joba Chamberlain said his son influenced him to re-sign with the Tigers.
• There are pitches that can get Giancarlo Stanton out, but it's not easy.
• Here's a story on Rays prospect Andrew Bellatti and how the widow of a man he killed in a driving accident has forgiven him.
• Grant Brisbee argues that Juan Pierre was probably a better player than you remember.
• This is a fantasy article, but it's helpful for non-fantasy fans too. Tristan Cockcraft explains WAR, FIP, xFIP and several other advanced stats that you may be unclear on.
• Jack Moore has a nice history of origins of the symbiotic relationship between the business of baseball and sports journalism.
• New Athletics DH Billy Butler wanted Josh Reddick's number 16. All Reddick asked for was a new XBox.
• I would absolutely buy one of these robes. Well, not one that said "Kyle Lohse" on it, but presumably a Cubs one.
• And finally, Patrick Dubuque tries to determine was Charlie Brown really that bad of a manager or did he just not have the players to succeed? You have to question any manager who bats a beagle cleanup, but in fairness, the beagle was the best player on the team.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. The Cubs will play!