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.