skyking162

As of today, I’m going to do the majority of my blogging for Beyond the Boxscore, which is part of the SBNation blog network. I’m excited about the move for a few reasons:

• There are three other writers over there right now, with the hope of adding one or two more for weekly columns. Not only will the other writers fill in the gaps when I inevitably go dark for a few days, but being part of a group should be more motivation for me to keep things rolling. I especially enjoy talking baseball with RJ, who runs a phenomenal Rays blog.
• The SBNation software is state of the art, and they have a full time tech team working on improvements. For users, that means nested comments, the ability to jump through new comments with simple keystrokes, front-page listings of posts with comments you haven’t read yet, avatars, signatures, and fan-generated side-bar posts. It’s like a blog and a discussion forum in one, put together in an intuitive way. Oh, and you can join any SBNation blog community with a single user-name — almost all MLB, NFL, and NBA teams are covered, with many other blogs for college sports, the NHL, soccer, and golf, and mixed martial arts.
• Beyond the Boxscore currently receives decent traffic, but the potential is there to make it a large, intelligent community. I look forward to helping mold the growth over the next year.

My first post will be up on Monday, and I’ll be sure to link to it. But if you haven’t been to BtB (as I’ll call it going forward) go have a look and maybe sign up for an account. And yes, the limes will be going with me.

Popularity: 48% [?]

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the three blogger round tables we’ve done so far (the Angels preview will be up later today) and I’d really like to make sure we have enough participants in order not to skip another team (like the Nationals yesterday). So, if you can contribute some thoughts on your favorite team on any of these three levels and don’t mind having someone edit/delete your words, send me an email.

1. Analysis that even a hardcore fan might learn something from.
2. Information that fans of other teams might not yet know.
3. Upscale fart jokes.

Here’s the preview schedule:

Date	Team	2007 HRs
3/1/2008	KCR	102
3/2/2008	MIN	118
3/3/2008	WAS	123
3/4/2008	LAA	123
3/5/2008	LAN	129
3/6/2008	SFG	131
3/7/2008	STL	141
3/8/2008	BAL	142
3/9/2008	PIT	148
3/10/2008	CHN	151
3/11/2008	SEA	153
3/12/2008	TOR	165
3/13/2008	BOS	166
3/14/2008	HOU	167
3/15/2008	ARI	171
3/16/2008	COL	171
3/17/2008	SDP	171
3/18/2008	OAK	171
3/19/2008	ATL	176
3/20/2008	DET	177
3/21/2008	NYN	177
3/22/2008	CLE	178
3/23/2008	TEX	179
3/24/2008	TBA	187
3/25/2008	CHA	190
3/26/2008	FLO	201
3/27/2008	NYA	201
3/28/2008	CIN	204
3/29/2008	PHI	213
3/30/2008	MIL	231

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’m teaming up with Nick the Greek to preview all 30 Major League teams in 30 Days, starting with the Royals and ending with the Brewers — it’s all about the homerun, baby.

We’ll make bold statements. We’ll bring in some team-specific bloggers for a daily round table discussion. And we’ll talk a lot about homeruns. I, of course, will play the role of stat geek, while Nick the Greek will pull stuff out of his ass. Should be a fun way to stay busy in March.

Here are links to all the 2008 team previews as I finish them:

AL East

BAL
BOS
NYY
TBR
TOR

AL Central

CHW
CLE
DET
KCR
MIN

AL West

LAA
OAK
SEA
TEX

NL East

ATL
FLO
NYM
PHI
WAS

NL Central

CHC
CIN
HOU
MIL
PIT
STL

NL West

ARI
COL
LAD
SDP
SFG

If you’d like to participate in a team round table, send me an email. Our posting schedule is below:

Date		Team	2007 HRs
3/1/2008	KCR	102
3/2/2008	MIN	118
3/3/2008	WAS	123
3/4/2008	LAA	123
3/5/2008	LAN	129
3/6/2008	SFG	131
3/7/2008	STL	141
3/8/2008	BAL	142
3/9/2008	PIT	148
3/10/2008	CHN	151
3/11/2008	SEA	153
3/12/2008	TOR	165
3/13/2008	BOS	166
3/14/2008	HOU	167
3/15/2008	ARI	171
3/16/2008	COL	171
3/17/2008	SDP	171
3/18/2008	OAK	171
3/19/2008	ATL	176
3/20/2008	DET	177
3/21/2008	NYN	177
3/22/2008	CLE	178
3/23/2008	TEX	179
3/24/2008	TBA	187
3/25/2008	CHA	190
3/26/2008	FLO	201
3/27/2008	NYA	201
3/28/2008	CIN	204
3/29/2008	PHI	213
3/30/2008	MIL	231

Popularity: 10% [?]

I’d like to expand my participation in fantasy baseball leagues this year. If you have a league with an opening or would like to help form a league that matches one of the descriptions below, send me an email or leave a comment. If you’re curious, I play fantasy for the glory, not the money.

In-Person Draft/Auction — I live in Rochester, NY and would travel a couple hours to draft in person.

Online Blogger League — I think it would be fun to be part of a league with intelligent fans of a number of different teams. This might also encourage some non-fantasy writing collaboration between blogs.

Expert Draft/Auction — Hey, you know, I’d love to be in ToutWars or LABR.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Forgive my self-indulgence for one post, but I’m going to do something I’ve always wanted to do. (Well, to be honest, I’d never thought of doing this before the opportunity arose, but it sounds like something I should have wanted to do.)

Ready? This me quoting Rob Neyer quoting me:

According to skyking162, the Brewers’ signing of Mike Cameron might be the best signing of this offseason. Why? Because that move alone makes them 40 runs better, defensively, than they were before they signed Cameron. How? Cameron replaces Bill Hall in center field (20-run improvement), Hall replaces Ryan Braun at third base (30-run improvement), and Braun replaces Gabe Gross in left field (10-run dropoff).

Cameron’s a pretty good hitter, too. Bottom line?

Including both offense and defense, the Brewers are between 4.0 and 5.5 wins better with Mike Cameron than without him. At $4 million per win, that’s worth between $16 and $22 million on the free agent market, all for only $7 million. We can’t give all that credit to Cameron (the Brewers technically could have moved Hall and Braun without signing Cameron), but acquiring a good center fielder forces the issue. It’s a great signing and the Brewers are now back to competing with the Cubs for first place in the NL Central.

Popularity: 9% [?]