Tuesday Links

Like Kevin Youkilis last night, these links probably contain at least one error, even if it wasn't scored that way.

Apparently Marcus Thames wasn't starting last night just because the Yankees were in Fenway. Brian Hoch reports that the righty is a "near-lock" to see time against lefties. So Thames track record matters when it comes to facing lefties, but Curtis Granderson's doesn't? And Gardner doesn't even get a fair shake? Got that? No? Me neither.

Over at Pending Pinstripes, Matt was one of eight writers who answered a bunch of questions on Yankees prospects. Here are parts One, Two, Three and Four of the octagonal table.

Greg from PP also gathered up the links to his top 30 Yankee prospect profiles.

More from the farm: here is Mike from RAB's Minor League Primer, wherein he posts and discusses the rosters for each level of the minors.

Ross from NYY Stadium Insider did an excellent two part series analyzing the resale market for Yankees tickets this year. Well worth checking out if you are planning on picking up tickets online.

Want to hear some Sawx fans whining about the umpiring last night? Probably not, but here's the link anyway.

The Yankees are checking in at 3-1 to win the World Series right now with the Sox and Phillies next best at 6-1. Any takers?

It turns out that Joba really admires John Smoltz. The former dominant starter and reliever told the youngin' to treat everything like a one inning game, regardless of his role.

Via Craig at NBC, here is evidence that people have been complaining about the pace of play at baseball games since at least 1905. The only thing is, back then, 2:20 was apparently too slow.

Write something misguided about the Tampa Bay Rays and Jonah Keri just might write 4,000 words telling you how wrong you are. You've been warned.

Do you think if we told Joe Morgan that Hal McCoy was listening to the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, he would stop talking?

Sky Andrecheck over at Baseball Analysts looked a how experts make predictions about baseball and developed a model that explains how it might be rational for people to pick teams that aren't actually the favorites. It was similar to what I started talking about here, except it goes about 10 times deeper.

Over at the Hardball Times, Geoff Young did something right up our alley by combining music and baseball. He watched the Yanks/Sox game last night on mute with Radiohead's OK Computer playing instead of the announcers. The results can be found here.

Walkoff Walk compiled a guide to the stadium grub that is new for the '10 season. Nothing new at Yankee Stadium but plenty to check out around the league.

Balls too slippery? Rub some mud on 'em.

Here is a professional poker player talking about how Major League Baseball is "complete garbage" and "totally, and insanely boring to me". He adds:

Teams like Tampa Bay occasionally have a miracle year with a cast of young players, but guess what happens when their contracts are up? They end up in Boston or New York.

Exactly. Like, you know... that awesome player who went from Tampa to the Yankees that one time. Cleveland would have probably been a better example.

Daniel Negraneau is fantastic card player and he makes some fair points, but I don't really care about what someone who is admittedly not a fan of the game thinks about what is wrong with it.

That's it for now. We'll be back with the preview for tonight's game in a little bit.