Thursday Morning Dump

Here are your relevant links for this, the 2nd off-day in four days because the MLB schedule is stupid.

*SI's Jay Jaffe knocks it out about the approach Luhnow is taking to this team, and how it's totally the right one.

*Billy Beane, on the Astros: "I think they're going to be a great franchise, because they've got revenues, they have smart people running things . . . My guess is, once they get there, they're going to be there for a long time."

*The Astros are on pace to strike out 2322 times (Justin Maxwell is still on pace for 108 triples, so you shove that "on pace" crap up your tail pipe). Porter said "Tuesday was about (Darvish), and Wednesday was about (the Astros)."

*DirecTV: "If the Astros and Comcast will agree to make the channel available only to those customers who want to pay for it or make it more reasonable for all of our customers, we can have an agreement completed very soon." 

*CSN Houston is reaching out to Louisiana fans to help get them on the air. 

*Alan Ashby is in trouble over his comments after Darvish lost his no-hitter in which he said, "That'll force a guy to learn some of the language." Ashby sort of apologized, which is for the best.

*Regardless of what happened with Marwin Gonzalez, Ron Washington would have taken Darvish out after the #9 spot came up. Even if it meant pulling him from a no-hitter.

*Pittsburgh is thankful for Wandy (6.2IP, 2H/0ER, 6K:1BB), as is Oakland for Jed Lowrie (3x3, BB, 3RBI) and Nate Freiman, who singled in his first MLB AB (2x3, RBI).

*Corpus Christi 2013 preview by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

*Also, check out minor-league previews from the Crawfish Boxes (Oklahoma City, Corpus, Lancaster, and Quad Cities) and What The Heck, Bobby (Oklahoma City, Corpus).

*This will take you to yesterday's Ripped Foul podcast hosted by our boy John Wessling, in which I am your special guest. We talk Darvish, Luhnow, the minors, Ed Wade, and I mumble my way through draft talk.

Monday Morning Link Dump

Here's your Monday Morning Link Dump - most of which don't deal with how much we hate Carlos Lee.

John Royal: Carlos Lee did the thing he's best at. He did absolutely nothing.

Garrett Gould was flattered by the Astros' interest.

Modesto's manager wasn't real happy with Nick Tropeano's strike zone last night. And the travel was tough.

Ron Washington defends the fact that he will manage seven (potentially eight) Rangers next Tuesday night in Kansas City.
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Old links, newly relevant:

Greg Lucas (April 2012): Lee is in actuality a happy go lucky guy who plays the percentages. He knows how fast he has to run to get to a ball and make a play. He knows when false hustle is just to make him look good, but really not productive. The problem is that when he measures his running effort it appears to be lack of hustle.

Sean Pendergast (July 2010): At this point, I don't know what Astros fans are more angry about, Carlos -- the fact that you're just a big, fat punch line, or the fact that you don't even really seem to care. I get the whole "waking up happy to be alive every day" thing, but for $19 million per year, the fans would like a bat broken over a knee just once. Maybe some cursing or a chokeslam of Ed Wade. Something. Anything. Hell, Shawn Chacon was only in Houston for about twelve minutes, and he at least gave us that!

Astros County's Connie Mack ballot

You're probably thinking, "Okay, yeah, the Crawfish Boxes had a Manager of the Year post this morning. Way to gravy train it, Astros County." And we could see how you would think that. However, it's not true. I mean, yes, the Crawfish Boxes did have an identical post this morning, but there's a different story to why we're doing it today. As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, we are to vote on major awards, and the deadline for the Manager of the Year voting is tomorrow. So, in the absence of any real Astros news from the last 24 hours, we'll take this opportunity to put our votes forward today.

Each ballot must have three names, so you'll see the voting and rationale below. Quick disclaimer: This award is ridiculous. We hate it. Our old friend Anonymous can write in telling us how stupid we are and make a good case.

American League

3rd Place: Terry Francona - Boston

Francona dealt with an astounding number of injuries throughout the season, and while the Red Sox were never really in the hunt for a playoff spot - thanks to their divisional competition - their 89-73 record was quite impressive.

2nd Place: Ron Gardenhire - Minnesota

The Twins did what the Twins do, and that's win the AL Central and go to the playoffs with a fairly low payroll.

1st Place: Ron Washington - Texas

Not 15 months ago Ron Washington was snorting coke after a game. Now he's managing the Rangers in the playoffs for the first time this decade, having destroyed AL West competition! No team won their division by a wider margin than the Rangers' nine-ame cushion.




National League

3rd Place: Dusty Baker - Cincinnati

Basically everybody put the Magic Number for the Cardinals at 162 from Opening Day. So when the Reds got swept by the Cardinals in August, but finished the month 19-8, anyway, it showed their resilience. With the mixture of veterans and youth, and the emergence of Joey Votto as a superstar, Baker stood at the helm.

2nd Place: Bobby Cox - Atlanta

Cox will likely get votes based on his Last Season, and all that, but it's pretty well-deserved. The Braves went toe-to-toe with the Phillies all season, and still made the playoffs despite losing Chipper Jones (in Houston. Sorry, Larry Wayne) and a number of others to injury.

1st Place: Bud Black - San Diego

This is a team that was paying its players $2.13/hour + tips, and if it hadn't been for a 10-game losing streak late in the season, would be in the playoffs getting the crap kicked out of them by the Phillies. Bud Black took a team of Adrian Gonzalez, Heath Bell, and 23 Other Guys from a 75-87 record to the brink of the postseason.