Friday Afternoon Linkapalooza: 5/24/13

It went from high 70s in Wisconsin on Wednesday to mid-50s yesterday.  When I woke up this morning and left my apartment to head to work there was frost on my windshield.  Not just a little that comes off with a quick flick of the windshield wipers either, I'm talking a solid layer of frost worthy of a multiple-minute defrosting session.  I had to defrost my fucking windshield the day before Memorial Day weekend.  So glad I'm getting the hell out of this state for the weekend.  Now onto the links!

- On Monday, Martin Riggs of NoMaas checked Brett Gardner's swing/whiff trends against the fastball to see if it made sense as an explanation for his slow-ish start.

- Chris Mitchell of Pinstripe Pundits identified a few MiL hitters who are having good offensive seasons, since that seems to be the exception to the rule for most of the top positional prospects.

- On Tuesday, Dan Barbarisi of the WSJ had a cool profile piece on Travis Hafner and his unique gameday routine as a strict DH.  To me it actually sounds better than shagging flies.

- Chad Jennings of LoHud had Phil Hughes' thoughts on his recent struggles and problems with his fastball command.  Good to see Phil start to turn that around last time out.

- El duque of It Is High... lamented the eventual return of all the injured superstars and worried about how the team might be impacted if/when they get hurt again and the current guys aren't around to replace them.

- On Wednesday, SG of RLYW pointed out the Yankees' AL last place ranking in P/PA this season.  As something that's been a Yankee offensive staple forever, this is not good to see for a team this offensively weak.

- William Juliano of The Captain's Blog noticed a trend in strikeout rates and looked into whether it's the pitchers or hitters who are the leading cause.

- On Thursday, Mike Axisa of RAB looked back at the Yankees' 2008 draft and what could have been if they were able to sign their top pick.  This year's draft is only a few weeks away and Mike is easily the best source out there for pre-draft scouting reports on possible Yankee targets.

- Mike Eder of IIATMS/TYA examined David Adams' career MiL contact rates to try to predict what kind of Major League hitter he'll be moving forward.

- Andrew Mearns of Pinstriped Bible commented on how high Mo has set the bar for future Yankee closers and how impossible it's going to be for D-Rob or anybody else to reach it.

- Andrew Ball of Beyond The Boxscore had a little fun with projections and looked at what kind of performance Mo would turn in if he was converted to a starter.

- On Friday, Daniel Burch of The Greedy Pinstripes broke down the 1996 and 2013 Yankee teams to see if the comparisons being made between the 2 are accurate.

This week's jam is "1Train" from the new A$ap Rocky album.  It features pretty much every new rapper worth a damn who's come out in the last year or so and they all pretty much lay down some fire with their respective verses.  Gimme this over 2 Chainz 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.



Enjoy your long weekends, everybody.