Since we spent a Fanpost talking about allegations of sexual assault against Fredy Montero, I figure it's only fair that we give equal coverage to the fact that the King County prosecutor has found insufficient evidence to charge him.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has decided not to file criminal charges against Seattle Sounders soccer star Fredy Montero, citing insufficient evidence to support a claim by a 23-year-old Eastside woman that Montero had raped her.

Figured it was worth a mention, just to be fair to the kid and his repuation.

Kevin Goldstein's ranking of the top Mariners prospects is finally out. It's subscriber-only, but the top 10 is fair game (and visible to the nonpaying masses anyway), so here goes:

Five-Star Prospects
1. Greg Halman, CF
Four-Star Prospects
2. Phillippe Aumont, RHP
3. Michael Saunders, CF
4. Joshua Fields, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
5. Juan Ramirez, RHP
6. Carlos Triunfel, SS
7. Dennis Raben, RF
8. Adam Moore, C
9. Jharmidy De Jesus, 3B
Two-Star Prospects
10. Matt Tuiasosopo, 3B
11. Mario Martinez, 3B

He says pretty much what we know: Lots of risk, and a lot of potential reward. As we found out in the comments of KG's top 100 list, he's not super high on Triunfel. He has a lot of good things to say about him here, though. He mentions his contact ability and an arm that is an "absolute cannon that some graded as a pure 80 on the scouting scale." It looks like the big reason he has him in the three-star section is significant questions about Triunfel's power potential. I guess a lot of the scouts he talks to just don't see it.

And just to get everyone angry, I'll include this line from the Triunfel section:

Path to the Big Leagues: Adrian Beltre is in the last year of his contract, which should be cause for celebration for Seattle fans whether Triunfel makes it or not.

Dammit, Kevin.

The list of regulars who haven't created an off-topic thread is now one shorter. I win!

Today's topic of choice for me is: Why does 2K hate me? And why does it hate you?

Word is coming out that franchise mode in MLB 2K9 is broken. For example, in several simulations by some guy at Operation Sports (later in the thread), Tim Lincecum became a free agent after 2010 because the team couldn't afford to keep him. He's not a free agent until after 2013! Below-market-rate Cy Young winners are affordable to anyone. Except the Marlins, maybe.

This is the last straw for me, I think. After three years of putting up with this stuff and pretending that it's about to get better, I seriously think I'm going to go buy a PS3 after work and just get The Show.

What are you guys doing for your baseball gaming entertainment this year? Riding the 2K train to hell? Going back to MVP 05?

EDIT: It appears that 2K is aware of the glitch and it will be patched on Day One. Still kinda scary . . .

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I'm sure the video game chat gets annoying to those of you who don't care, so a million space pardons, but I'm freaking out right now. Feel free to strike up a 600-comment thread about music I've never heard of!

And CNN has a Q&A with Matt Groening about his future.

Oh, and actual baseball! Though that might be too on-topic.

Tuglett has been designated for assignment, says Geoff Baker. Obviously a few of those middle infielders were going to go away, but I was surprised to see it happen before spring training.

Also of note, Zduriencik grabbed Luis Pena off waivers from the Brewers, say LaRue and others. Sounds like he's got some control problems -- he walked nearly as many as he K'd in 49.1 innings at AAA last year -- but maybe Z and Co. think they can work with him. He's a big dude, and he can definitely miss some bats.

In the comments of a thread at Baseball Think Factory, Sean Forman has provided a link to a redesigned Baseball-Reference.com.

Since you were all so nice to offer me birthday wishes, I'll post the link to where we are testing out the redesign. THIS IS NOWHERE NEAR COMPLETED AND IS NOT UPDATED IN A MEANINGFUL WAY AND MANY MANY THINGS ARE BROKEN OR NOT COMPLETED, but anyways. ETA is spring training 2009.

It seems more user-friendly than the current B-R, and while it doesn't look like there's a beta version of the home page, It looks like things are going to be a little easier to find.

There's also some new information, including BABIP, K%, BB%, LD%, leverage numbers and a wealth of other cool stuff.

As an example, here's Pedro Martinez's page.

And yes, every player has Vlad Guerrero as his mugshot in this working version.

Mose Schrute and the rest of the gang at Fire Joe Morgan are calling it quits.

After 21 years, and almost 40 million posts (we'll have to check those numbers, but it's something like that), we have decided to bring FJM to an end.

Although we have not lost our borderline-sociopathic joy for meticulously criticizing bad sports journalism, the realities of our professional and personal lives make FJM a time/work luxury we can no longer afford.

I have to say that FJM was instrumental in my getting interested in sabermetrics, and it was amazing how funny a few people could be while writing essentially the same post every single time some sportswriter wrote something asinine.

Awesome work, guys.

(There's some chatter about this in the previous Zoinks! thread, but I figure it deserves its own thread in which we can cry.)

Jack Zduriencik has fired Bob Fontaine, according to Larry Stone.

One source said that Fontaine was called into a meeting with Zduriencik on Monday and informed that he was being dismissed. According to the source, "He didn't even have a chance to fight for his job."

Now we just need him to fire Bob Engle, find a high-level job for Lee Pelekoudas, and we'll be back in business!

Sigh.

I don't know a ton about the inner workings of the Mariners organization, but I know that if there were a list of people the team needed to get rid of, Fontaine would be damn near the last name on it.

Good luck in the future, Bob. You should be able to find a job no problem. Milwaukee could probably use some help.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the game and are planning to watch it later, I imagine this will have some spoilers in it.

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Mr. Steven Strasburg will take the mound in a few minutes to take on the Cubans. I can't seem to find it on TV, but NBC is streaming it -- with no commentary.

I've never seen the kid pitch, so I'm pumped as hell and ready to indulge in the Strasburg hype, which I have thus far avoided. Work be damned. Plus my girl just bought me some Pike Kilt Lifter online for my birthday (can't find it down here in Strasburgland), so I'm ready for some baseball.

Go Steven! Go USA! LOSE MARINERS!

I thought that I wouldn't give a shit about the Olympics this year, but after the amazing Opening Ceremonies and the equally amazing 4x100 swimming relay tonight, I figured a thread for the Olympics was in order.

I'm not really a "RAH, RAH, USA!" type of dude -- and I think the last time I cared about the Olympics was 1996 -- but I have to say that the first three days have been very fun. With the French swim team vowing to "smash" the U.S. squad, it was a blast to see the United States, as a rare underdog, pull off an upset in the 4x100 relay.

And I can't say it enough: If you missed the Opening Ceremonies, open up Azureus or whatever you use and go find it. It was truly incredible. And if you can find it in HD, even better. It was a spectacle.

WOO SPORTS!

P.S.: As much I'd love to talk politics, this is LL, so I'm declaring this thread a ZOMG NO POLITICS! zone. The mods obviously have the right to override that, but I'm playing it safe.

In his column today , Seattle Times columnist Jerry Brewer repeats a lot of the stuff we've been saying for years about Bavasi. And while he doesn't brag about it, he could have mentioned that he was virtually the only mainstream Seattle baseball writer to oppose the Bedard deal before it happened.

I like Brewer, and this piece further cements his awesomeness in my mind. I especially like that he's pushing for the M's to hire young, hire smart. "A Theo Epstein type," he urges.

He does make a few statements that make me facepalm, such as saying that Beltre "merely provides a slick glove"  and that Bedard "only wants to throw 100 pitches, then he feels his job is done." That last one might be accurate to a certain degree, but I still think it's a bit cheap. It's not Bedard's fault he's made of glass, and I think he's made it obvious that he wants to win. Just because the guy's not a great interview doesn't mean he's a "9 to 5er," as Brewer calls him.

But other than those qualms, it's a good column from a guy who has, in my opinion, come out of nowhere in the past year or so and has proved to be one of the most logical, reasonable sportswriters in the Puget Sound. For all the love we have given Geoff Baker for being a change of pace, for bucking the trend of local writers toeing the M's partly line, I think Brewer deserves a nod as well.

Finally, my favorite quote is from Mr. Bavasi, who reminds us one last time that while he not a good fit in the GM chair, he's a fucking stellar quote:

I asked Bavasi on Monday about Bedard's pitch-count threshold. After bouncing between defending and explaining Bedard, the axed GM — clearly exasperated — said I needed to ask the pitcher.

"You gotta ask him," Bavasi said. "You gotta ask him. Good luck. And he's gonna have some stupid answer, some dumbass answer."

Anyone watch the documentary on ESPN2? I recorded it on Tuesday but just watched it tonight, and I thought it was pretty good. I know next to nothing about Japanese baseball, so, for me, I found the attitudes of the players and the behavior of the fans to be the most interesting part of the film -- the pep rallies, the chanting, the banners, etc.

It was made by three NYU film students and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It seemed less corny than most ESPN productions, though it did have the obligatory "montage with kinda sad music" moments, but they weren't overdone.

It also focuses on Valentine's -- along with the whole Chiba Lotte Marines organization's -- efforts to create a farm system in Japan to try to strengthen the league and eventually help prevent the best players from leaving for the United States.

All in all, worth a viewing, I'd say.

If you're interested, here's the New York Times' take on the film .

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Also, Friday is Bike to Work Day. If you have a bike and live fairly close to your place of employment, jump on that shit! I try to ride three days a week, but with laziness and hangovers, it usually ends up being one or two. But yay Friday!

Nate Silver just posted the 2008 projected standings, and it's not pretty. (Subscription required, I believe.) The M's are projected to finish in last place, going 73-89. The culprit is no surprise: The M's are projected to score the fewest runs in baseball, except for -- of course -- the Giants. And the team as a whole is seen slugging under .400 -- again, better than only the Giants.

Here's a link to the Unfiltered post.

Also: I shall fill out my post by pointing out that this is my first diary, and I'm very, very proud of it. Basically, it's the first time I've gotten HTML links to work.