Here’s some outstanding work that’s been thrown out on the web recently. Some Tiger related, some not.
Studes did a pretty balanced look at the John Smoltz/Doyle Alexander trade at Hardball Times. The 1987 Tigers took part in my second favorite (and it’s by a narrow margin) season ever, and Alexander’s run after the trade helped boost the Tigers into the playoffs.
A couple of weeks ago I did a brief piece on Tommy Bridges. John Brattain (again Hardball Times) went a few steps better and did a very detailed bio of the former Tigers pitcher.
Baseball Analysts got out of the gate running, and Richard Lederer did an excellent series of columns on various, for lack of a better word, sports analysts favorite players.
More old news, but prospect guru John Sickels has started his own blog (affiliated with Sportsblog, Inc.). If you like his writing, he puts out an excellent book every year.
No signings. No trade rumors. The most exciting news this week has been Dean Palmer getting a shot at spring training, and that’s hardly news. Most people come here for Tigers news, and there really isn’t any, so here’s some excellent reading suggestions for you.
I know this isn’t baseball, but the Detroit Lions Blog has an excellent interview with author Michael Cambridge. Great historical stuff for the football fans out there.
The Hardball Times has had two great columns come out the past couple of days. John Brattain takes a look at the 1960s, and Studes takes a good hard look at last year’s relief pitchers.
Billfer analyzes the Tigers Defense Independent Pitching Statistics.
Blade wrote his rebuttal to my column on Dan Petry. If you couldn’t find it when you read about Dan, you can check it out now. He also did a piece earlier in the week on the Red’s All Decade team of the 1880s (no, that’s not a typo).
Finally, there’s been some changes in how the league is going to approach performance enhancing drug testing, and the best place for any kind of updates is Only Baseball Matters.