Joe Posnanski get sick in Beijing and still manages to pen a nice little piece comparing the 1969 Mets to this year’s Rays. That Mets’ team continues to be the inspiration for young “miracle” teams everywhere.

David Golebiewski applies the PITCHf/x lens to Craig Hansen and finds a straight fastball and an inconsistent slider. His conclusion? Hansen has a 20% chance of becoming the next Kyle Farnsworth.

Tim Marchman reviews how MVP candidates are typically chosen and concludes that Carlos Quentin and Justin Morneau are the only two legitimate candidates in the American League right now.

Aaron Gleeman recalls the time he went bananas over the Twins trading Bobby Kielty for Shannon Stewart. Hey, we can’t get them all right.

The Red Sox promoted Charlie Zink from Triple-A Pawtucket to replace Tim Wakefield in the rotation. Zink is starting tonight against the Rangers, and the Red Sox staked him to a 10-run lead in the bottom of the first. What is Zink’s repertoire? We can get a quick read on that from the first three […]

Jim from AZ Snakepit looks at the D-backs’ acquisition of Adam Dunn. On the face of it, this looks like an excellent deal for Arizona. Dunn’s bat helps off-set the Dodger acquisition of Manny Ramirez. They get a big bat to put in the middle of their line-up and all they had to give up […]

Sean Smith ranks the best players so far this year, using Win Above Replacement and THT’s defense rating system (Hat tip: Tango). One interesting note: when he switches to WPA instead of his own batting system, Josh Hamilton moves from seventh to first in the American League, while A-Rod drops from second to something over […]

It’s poetry day at Shysterball, where Craig has highlighted this lyrical poem by Jonathan Holden as well as Levi Stahl’s piece drawing parallels between baseball and poetry. Levi quotes Marianne Moore: Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting and baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either how it will go or what you will […]

Phil Birnbaum takes another look at the typical aging curve of a major league pitcher. I tend to believe his interpretation of the studies: that pitchers do generally improve as they age (up to a certain age), but the average aging curve of a major league pitcher drifts downward from the beginning of his career […]

In the bottom of the sixth inning in tonight’s matchup with the Cubs, Chris Carpenter exited the game following an erratic fastball to Jim Edmonds. After being attended to by the training staff, he pointed to the posterior aspect of his right shoulder and immediately exited the game. This could spell trouble for Carpenter’s 2008 […]