Today and tomorrow are two of the lamest days of the sports year, so for now I’m just going to post a bunch of links to interesting things I’ve seen the last couple of days.
If we want to go back to the Justin Upton front, Nick Piecoro reports that Kevin Towers wants “Major League” players for Upton. It seems insane to me to trade a player like Upton and not ask for a team’s best prospects back in return, but I suppose you could use it as a glimmer of hope that the Pirates could pull off a trade for Upton without having to move Gerrit Cole or Jameson Taillon. More than likely, though, what it means is that the Pirates are just a bad fit for the D’Backs and it’s time to move our sights, as fans, elsewhere.
Ben Duronio at FanGraphs looks at James McDonald’s slider and how he’s used it to find success.
Russel Carleton, aka Pizza Cutter, returns to Baseball Prospectus with some words of wisdom for aspiring sabermetricians.
XKCD looks at what would happen to a pitch that traveled at the speed of light.
This picture, of McCutchen and Hanrahan exchanging a “Z” in the handshake line last night, is pretty much everything that’s right in the world of Pirate fans at the moment.
The Triple-A All-Star Game is tonight at 7:00, and I believe it’ll be televised on the MLB Network. Starling Marte and Rudy Owens are both on the International League squad.
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