I've heard from a few people that Athletics Nation is getting their site redesign/upgrade tomorrow (Tuesday, 2/12).

Woohoo!  I'm sick of this 2003 design...

LSB can't be that far behind. But, of course, at the pace they've been on for the past couple of months since the redesign was promised, one would think that Ben was doing the coding. I kid, I kid...sort of.

ab03's GreaseMonkey troll script probably won't work after the redesign is rolled out.  But at least he wasn't ready for that Constitutional Law exam he should have been studying for...heh

Update [2008-2-11 15:16:41 by RangerMoto]: Apparently, the A's Nation new site rollout is happening TODAY (2/11)

Update [2008-2-11 16:26:58 by RangerMoto]: A's Nation is currently down: http://www.athleticsnation.com

Update [2008-2-11 22:23:43 by RangerMoto]: As some of you have noted, A's Nation is back up. Everyone should go over there now to claim your new global SBNation ID and bind it to your current LoneStarBall accounts. It looks like they're restricting you from setting up a current username if it already exists on any of the SBNation blogs. That was smart of them.

Ooooh, and they have Open ID support!

Update [2008-2-11 22:38:48 by RangerMoto]: The site is back offline for maintenance. Wow, they need to get their shit together. I can understand a 5 hour downtime to roll out new changes (database scripts need to be run, files pushed out, everything verified, etc.). But then you take the site down again?

My initial reaction to the new site? "Jesus, this thing loads slow" Sure enough, YSlow reported that it took 8.4 seconds. Not cool. Seems pretty feature-rich though, which can be a great or a terrible thing.

Update [2008-2-11 22:48:7 by RangerMoto]: And back online. That's the last update I'll do. Looks like we'll be getting recommended diaries & comments. Woohoo!

Athletics Nation's interesting approach to censorship:

http://athleticsnation.com/storyonly/2008/2/8/111355/8376

Maybe ab03 should just introduce them to GreaseMonkey...
                        

Apparently someone posted a video on YouTube earlier today, which depicted Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez cockfighting each other.  Well, to be exact, it was their roosters doing the fighting...to the death.

Obviously, YT (instructed by their corporate overlords--Google) yanked the video soon after it went up, but a few people got screenshots beforehand: http://homerderby.com/archives/1828

I don't see this as being nearly as bad as dogfighting, but I'm not sure why I think that way. Maybe because a rooster will never fetch me a beer from the fridge?

Via MLB.com: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071214&content_id=2326595&vkey=hotstove2007&fe xt=.jsp

A's get 6 prospects from Arizona for Haren + 1 (Cust?) *Update [2007-12-14 18:40:36 by RangerMoto]: The 'plus one' is Connor Robertson*.

Also, the Diamondbacks get underperformers Qualls and Burke *Update [2007-12-14 18:40:36 by RangerMoto]: also Juan Gutierrez* from Houston in exchange for closer Valverde.      
     
     
     
     
     

This would appear to be the official aggregated list:

http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/mitchells-list/

A TON of ex-Giants & A's, which would be expected.  The names that jump out at me and made me point and laugh: Kevin Brown, Dykstra, Gagne, Ankiel, FP Santangelo, Stanton.

I was sort of hoping for a really big sleeper name like Ripken or Gwynn or Jeter or Sandberg.  But obviously exclusion from this list doesn't indicate innocence.

Chad Allen
Manny Alexander
Rick Ankiel
Mike Bell
David Bell
Gary Bennett Jr.
Marvin Bernard
Larry Bigbie
Barry Bonds
Kevin Brown
Paul Byrd
Ken Caminiti
Jose Canseco
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Lenny Dykstra
Bobby Estalella
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Giambi
Jeremi Giambi
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jason Grimsley
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Matt Herges
Phil Hiatt
Glenallen Hill
Darren Holmes
Todd Hundley
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Nook Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Gary Matthews Jr.
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
David Naulty
Denny Neagle
Jim Parque
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
John Rocker
F.P. Santangelo
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Randy Velarde
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Todd Williams
Jeff Williams
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun

Time to reunite him with his old project, Kevin Millwood!

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3060643

Thoughts? I know, I know. Not diary-worthy, but if Adam were to just enable Recommended Diaries, you could easily just not recommend it and the other great diaries would remain at the top. Just saying.       
        
        
       

Now that the playoffs are over for the Yank-shes and A-Rod didn't carry the team (a mere 4-15) like all the NY fans expected his salary to, where will he end up next year?

No, it's not official.  And I know there have been plenty of diaries on this very topic this season, but somebody had to start the offseason speculation and I sure as hell wasn't going to let that somebody be the Snarky 3000.

Poll on the right.

Poll

Where will ARod play in 2008?

11%

New York (AL) - He's opting out, don't vote for NY

15 votes

23%

Chicago (NL) - A chance to be THE hero for the lovables

31 votes

25%

Los Angeles (AL) - Moreno is ready to moneywhip

33 votes

10%

Texas - Sharky, this one's for you

14 votes

3%

Los Angeles (NL) - They'd do it just to spite the Angles

4 votes

14%

San Francisco - The Magowans have $$ to burn & seats to fill

19 votes

10%

Detroit - AJM's bizarre fantasy world destination

13 votes

0%

Other - Where? Tampa Bay? Kansas City?

1 votes

130 votes | Poll has closed

I've seen this linked around the intertubes and was wondering if anyone has a subscription so we could have some insight into how accurately PECOTA predicted the 2007 standings.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6035

Just a simple "yes, it predicted really freaking well" or "nah, they were about 50/50" would be fine.

Grant over at McCovey Chronicles has a fairly imaginative take on the whole Rick Ankiel "comeback" fiasco.

Ok, the format might be a tad hackish, but it kept me entertained for a few minutes.  Of course, the same can occasionally be said of a yarn strand...
        
        
    

Ok, I have all the evidence I need.

Sharky = Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney would be quaint if he weren't such a bigot

My favorite Sharky-esque quote:

My disinterest in baseball as a kid has lasted all my life. I'm still not interested in the game. I don't watch it on television or follow it in the newspaper. I know all about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but today's baseball stars are all guys named Rodriguez to me. They're apparently very good but they haven't caught my interest. I also think baseball needs some rules changes, too. For example, the player who starts the game as pitcher should have to play all nine innings without a substitution. A pitcher hardly ever plays more than a few innings and then the manager replaces him with someone who isn't as good. I think baseball managers dominate the games more than the players do and more than coaches do in other sports.

That quote was from Andy Rooney, not Sharky.  I had to reread the byline just to make sure.  The only thing missing was an incoherent rant about liberals and jail-bait.

The guy just rambles on and on and newspapers publish this drivel???  No wonder traditional media has an entire leg in the grave.

Update [2007-8-23 11:24:28 by RangerMoto]: Forgot to mention that I found this on FJM