Curious about the Elias Sports Bureau rankings? Eddie Bajek reverse-engineered the rankings and his findings are here, scroll down the page to see the different positions. Of interest to us:
- Rod Barajas is a type B.
- Jason Bay is an A
- Carl Crawford, surprisingly to me, would be a B.
- Also surprising to me, if he were a free agent Vernon Wells would be an A, but Alex Rios wouldn't be A or B.
- No surprise to us lucky ones that get to watch him, but Marco Scutaro is easily an A, in fact he ranks 5th among all American Leaguers in the 2B, 3B, SS group, ahead of Evan Longoria and just behind Dustin Pedroia.
- Chone Figgins is an A, just at the dividing line.
- Aaron Hill would be a B, but then he didn't play much last year.
- Roy Halladay ranks second in the AL to C.C. Sabathia among AL Pitchers.
If you are interested in the rules for free agent compensation, MLB Trade Rumors has a short primer on the subject.
I didn't mention this when it came out, but the Jays moved up a spot in Beyond the Boxscore's Power Rankings. We moved from 8th to 7th best team in baseball. Unfortunately, the top 3 teams are the top 3 teams in our division.
If you like Ozzie Guillen quotes, SBNation.com has good ones from yesterday.
I don't often read Ken Rosenthal, but apparently he is trying to pick a fight with Sabermetricians and bloggers over who should be the AL MVP. Now the overwhelming choice among those that study baseball is Joe Mauer (of course), but Rosenthal, for whatever reason, thinks he should he should argue. Crashburn Alley takes a look at the 'debate' here. It is very funny read. Personally as soon as someone takes uses the 'bloggers in their basements' line, I think they automatically lose any respect I might have given their opinion.