Thursday, February 4, 2016

Thursday Morning Hot Links

*Lots of links yesterday about tanking because of Buster Olney's and Jayson Stark's hand-wringing. They all pretty much agree that it doesn't make any sense to spend $100m on a 65-win team when you can spend $50m on a 60-win team. Included in those links: our own Not Hank Aaron, CRPerry from the Crawfish Boxes, Dayn Perry, and the ever-valuable Grant Brisbee.

*Here's FanGraphs on how MLB's 40-Man Rosters were created, with a good look at the Astros.

*Moar FanGraphs: The Case for Doug Fister

*The Astros used 13 starting pitchers in 2015, and have one of the best "back-up plans" in baseball.

*The Astros have lost the 6th-most fans in pro sports in the last decade. Plenty of caveats, though...

*The Astros had six Urban Youth Academy grads sign letters of intent yesterday.

*MLB.com posted its Top 100 Prospect List yesterday. On it:
#22: Alex Bregman
#40: A.J. Reed
#41: Francis Martes
#74: Kyle Tucker
#75: Daz Cameron