I’ve never fully understood the appeal of power rankings – a completely arbitrary list compiled by a bunch of random journalists that shows… uh… what exactly?  Which team is more powerful?  Well that’s a load of bullshit.  How can a Marlin be more powerful than an Astros?  An Astro can go to the fucking moon!  Who would you take in a fight?  A brew master or an angel?  I’m just saying…

Nevertheless – arbitrary lists pass for journalist gold these days, which means I’d be remiss not to jump on that gravy train and hit my Rick Reily-like weekly word requirement.  (BFD is a tough but fair master.)

1.  Gaza Hezballers:  This is my fantasy team.  They are in first place, 19pts ahead of second place.  This qualifies as an American History X curb stomping – and for that they get the inaugural top spot.  How are they so good?  Edinson Volquez, Brian McCann, Nate McClouth and Tim Lincecum – just to name a few.  Nothing like stroking your own ego…

2.  Peter Gammons: He may be the last vestige of good journalism over at tWWL, and while you can sense that Bristol has started to taint his soul – he is still the pinnacle of baseball journalism.  Plus he recovered from an aneurism and continues to write.  Plus he plays guitar and has a rock album.  Seriously, guy is a complete and total badass.

3.  Tampa Bay Devil Rays: How can you not be rooting for these guys?  The definition of a garbage franchise, they’re 1.5 games back of the Red Sox, are tied for the third best record and have the fourth best team ERA in the AL.  Think about that for a second.  The Devil Rays have solid pitching.  (Sidenote: Come back Hunsicker!  All is forgiven!  We’ve stuffed Drayton in a broom closet!  Please!)

4.  Vampire Weekend: A little on the poppy side, but it’s an unbelievably catchy album.  Just good music that puts me in a good mood.  Hard to argue with that.  Also, they ask the poignant question – “who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?”  Who indeed.

5.  Chipper Jones: You have no idea how hard this is for me.  The Atlanta Braves ruined more than a few baseball seasons for me, and Jones was right at the heart of that.  That being said – behind the 55 56 (epic fail!) game hit streak, I’m of the opinion the hardest thing for a hitter to pull off is a .400 avg.  Jones is hitting .420, 219 Abs into the season.  I know Big Puma is absolutely raking – but what Jones is doing is equally ridiculous.

I’m not a Reds fan.

I don’t dislike them, per se, though I did root for the A’s in the 1990 World Series (note: damn you, Billy Hatcher).  More accurately, I just don’t care for them one way or the other.  I like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Brandon Phillips, but I dislike Adam Dunn and Geoff Jenkins…it’s a wash.

That’s why I can say with no worry of you calling me a “homer” that Jay Bruce is completely fucking amazing.  Seriously, through 7 games (with the seventh still in progress), he has 3 HRs, 2 SBs, 7 RBIs, and is hitting .583.  (I don’t have his updated SLB/OBP, but they are other-worldly, too.)  He has also looked incredibly solid in CF and has shown a flair for the dramatic, scoring the winning run in extra innings one night and then hitting a walk-off HR the next.

Now, of course he’s not going to hit .500 for the season and, yes, pitchers will figure him out a bit the second time he faces each of them.  But, that said, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to project him for .320, 20 HR, 15 SB, and 80 RBIs.  Oh, and a ROY trophy.

I think I have a mancrush.

Fascinating post by Josh Kalk at The Hardball Times today talking about the aging curve of fastballs (and, wow, does this intro look like pingback spam or what?).

Even though he has plenty of necessary disclaimers on the data, for those of us who watch baseball, the trend shouldn’t be surprising.  What Josh has done is quantify that which we all kinda figured: pitchers throw harder sooner and slower later.  The peak at 29 and subsequent steep drop-off aren’t really surprising, either.  I mean, it just seemed like this happened.

It’ll be hard to fully quantify the aging curve drop-off, though.  As pitchers get older, they rack up tons of pitches on their arms.  As they get older, they become pitchers instead of just throwers.  One can put in a lesser effort versus the Patron Saint of Outs Neifi Perez than they can Lance Berkman.  What role does the weather play?  Situational pitching?  Number of pitches?

But what does it all mean?  Harder throwers tend to get more strikeouts.  Can this be used, for example, when you are up by two runs in the eighth, but the other team now has guys on 2nd and 3rd with no outs?  Wouldn’t this be an opportune time for a strikeout?  Can we use pitch counts along with the curve to better predict performance?  You gotta think Nate Silver, inventor of PECOTA, drooled on his keyboard when he saw this.

Being a geek, it’s fun to get geeky with information like this.  And it’s also fun to think about how much Joe Morgan’s head exploded when he saw this.

Why, who is this delightful young lady and the goofy looking dude behind her?

You know, I’m not normally wont to post junk like this.  I just think Hunter looks damn goofy in this pic

For more Terrie, click here.  And, I hope it’s common sense, but the link ain’t safe for work.  In fact, you might want some alone time after clicking the link.

h/t Deadspin.

St. Louis Cardinals (5-1) @ Houston Astros (2-5)

Round 1:

Todd Wellemeyer (1-0) 

v.

Wandy Rodriguez (0-0)

Well, it sure didn’t take long for all of us to jump into our first series match-up since we started this here thing we call WTP.  Luckily for me, I have the advantage of being able to gloat just a little as our teams sit at opposite ends of the NL Central standings going into tonight’s game.  5-1?!?  WOW!  What a start!  Yes, as I stated here, I truly believed that these Cardinals would fair much better than what most of the so-called experts were predicting–mainly because I believed that Rick Ankiel’s hitting from last year was no fluke, thought our middle infield would fair far better as a whole (y’all don’t realize the intense hatred I had for that little league “shortstop” we carried for far too long), still thought we had the best bullpen in the division, and really loved the way we competed and won game after game to close out Spring Training.  But this?!?  The best starting pitching in the league after Week 1?!?  Granted, it’s only Week 1 and the starters will eventually come back to earth, not to mention we had the luxury of opening our season at Busch II, but I certainly could not have dreamed of a better start to the ‘08 campaign. 

So, other than the phenomenal performances turned in by this makeshift rotation, who else has impressed?  Obviously, it’s Rick Ankiel.  This mancrush is just getting out of hand now.  The guy just continues to come up big in clutch situations, hit for power, and his success versus lefties is something that I didn’t see coming.  His outfield defense has even been far better than first advertised; his catch in the 8th inning yesterday was Jimmy Edmonds-esque (minus the bad first step).  Adam Kennedy, at least so far, looks much more like the guy that played in Anaheim, er, Los Angeles, er whateverthefuck (as opposed to the assclown that showed up last year).  Kyle McClellan, the local St. Louis product, is proving to have a lot of grit and guts coming out of the ‘pen as he offsets not having Russ Springer down there with Ryan Franklin setting up for Izzy.  And Brian Barton, the Rule 5 castaway from Matty’s Indians, has continued to hit and may have even bumped Skip Schumaker from the leadoff and starting outfield spot.  Hell, LaRussa even went with the same exact line-up yesterday that he used the day before!  All this Redbird talk and I didn’t even have to mention that Pujols guy.  Amazing stuff so far!

**Update: Troy Glaus is still a big flappin’ pussy, but at least he’s turned in some decent glove work the past two games. 

So, what’s up with those Stros besides injuries to Berkman and Wigginton, being completely owned by Derek Lee over the weekend, and Your Boy Roy giving up 21 hits in his first two starts?  The one-run losses have to be frustrating–looks like you guys have been in every game this year.  Any anal fissures updates?  Tejada is actually lookin’ good out there for ya.