Wednesday Morning Astros, etc. Round Up

So incase anybody missed it, but the Yankees put it to the Angels last night and A-Rod continued to brush the proverbial dirt off his shoulders as he demonstrates that his previous small sample size of post-season AB don't mean anything. I'm not really an A-Rod fan.  I respect him because he's insanely gifted at the game of baseball.  But other than that I don't really care.  However, his clinic in "this is why a sample of fifty AB's tells you nothing about my true talent level" has me all kinds of sabr-giddy.

Ok, enough with the gushing.

• Richard Justice delivers what is by far on of the most annoying of his articles I've read in sometime.  I think the quote I am about to give you will clue you in as to why:

Now we can look back on Lidge-for-Bourn and see it as the perfect trade because it helped both teams. Both teams got what they'd hoped to get. The Phillies got someone to take care of the ninth inning, and in the process got a championship out of it. The Astros got a dynamic presence at the top of the lineup. Trades don't turn out this way very often. Pretty cool, huh?

Perhaps more of the context of the article is necessary to get at the ire, but the obvious reason to be incensed are still there. First, Justice was definitely a vehement Ed Wade critic at points in 2008 and constantly cited this trade. Second, the "truths" which he holds in the body of the article are waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too much to claim about Michael Bourn. Third, his defense of Charlie Manuel made me chuckle because I don't think he ever felt that way about Garner when Brad Lidge was all a struggle.
• Zach Levine asks and then attempts to answer: was this the greatest year for first baseman...ever?
• JC Bradbury, the Baseball Economist, checks in again on the subject of clutch.  This time he's looking at the marginal effect of clutch pitching in varying situations.  I don't think he's keying in on the most definitive factors, but I keep getting excited that someone is trying to think outside the box on clutch studies.
• I'm sure some of you heard, saw, or were clued into the fact that Twittersphere was all ablaze as video of Mariano Rivera spitting on the ball during Tuesday's meeting with the Angels.  People got pretty huffy on Twitter, on YouTube, and I'm sure many, many other places.  Then BtB went ahead and took a calm, rational approach to the issue and hopefully you can use this quell the senseless debate if need be.
• There are a lot of NL-homer's in our ranks, and there's nothing wrong with that.  Jack Moore, of BtB, takes a look what just what the difference between a pitcher batting and a DH batting means for the two respective leagues.  The conclusion, I think, you'll find satisfactory.