Midnight In The Central

What an incredible day of baseball bloggery. So much content from so many great sites and so many talented writers. Let's dive in.

- Over at Southside Sox, Colintj wrote a piece entitled, "Sorry PECOTA, Edwin's For Real." The piece was thought provoking enough, but I disagree with a lot of the premises he seems to be making. Primarily that Edwin Jackson has somehow turned a corner. Did he throw harder with the White Sox? Sure. But we're walking about an 11 game sample size. And as always, Edwin was wildly inconsistent. In his first five starts he went 45K/8BB in 36.2 innings with a .546 OPS against. Incredible work, his best ever even. He then followed it up with 6 starts in which he went 32K/10BB in 38.2IP with a .770 OPS against. And take a look at the schedule he faced (team scoring rank in parentheses); 

BAL (13th)
CLEx2 (12th)
OAK (11th)
KCRx2 (10th)
DETx4 (8th)
BOS (2nd)

So in other words, for five games he was great against some really bad teams. For the next six, he was very much like his old self against some really bad teams.

The lens through which you choose to view Jackson will likely have a lot to do with your personal allegiances, but I've spent too many years trying to buy into Mr. Jackson only to be repeatedly let down to not take any fleeting improvements with anything less than a 10lb bag of salt. Hopefully I'm wrong and he has a great year for the South Siders.

- Also at Southside Sox, lead writer and editor Jim Margalus throws his hat into the ring and ponders whether Paul Konerko can repeat his success of 2010.

- Nick Nelson examines the Twins primary outfield backup plan, propsect Ben Revere.

- Lee Panas handicaps the Tigers opening day second base job, and has Scott Sizemore out in front.

- Over at Royals Authority, Nick Scott discusses the difficulties inherent in trying to replace the production of David DeJesus.

- North Dakota Twins fan has a pair of Twins-bullpen-related posts up. One asking the question of how cautious the team ought to be with Joe Nathan, and another pegging Pat Neshek as the key to the Twins 2011 bullpen.

- There are certain writers I mention a lot, and for good reason. One of them is Alan Ciammiachella and he finally finished up his rundown of the Top-50 Indians prospects. Alan's work is well written, insightful, and thorough.

Going through the process myself for the very first time, I can honestly say it's an incredible grind and those who undertake the process and devote as many words to each player as he does are very impressive writers.

- Not AL Central related at all, but here's a video of Marlins top prospect Logan Morrison taking BP in the Marlins new, but still far from finished stadium. Just from the existing architecture, it looks like it'll be beautiful. And oh the sweet sound of the crack of the bat.