Today my sabermetric writing lies behind me rather than ahead, and I think I am about ready to say, “Farewell to Stats.”

For a whole generation of fans and fantasy players, stats have begun to outstrip story and that seems to me a sad thing. Even the unverifiable hogwash that passed for fact or informed opinion in baseball circles not so long ago seems today wistfully enticing, for its energy if nothing else.

– John Thorn, MLB Official Historian.

I don’t get it. Why does understanding the way we quantify baseball necessarily strip the sport of its good stories? I’ll amount that I find a good deal (but certainly not all) of the extremely stat-heavy baseball writing boring. But it seems lazy, to me, to turn to “unverifiable hogwash” just because it makes for a more enjoyable story.

I generally avoid mission statements, but on this site I try to write about the things that actually happen and matter in baseball, and present them in an entertaining fashion. It is a challenge and I don’t always succeed, I know. But I would rather strive for that ideal and fail — knowing that at the very least I’m not filling readers’ heads up with fallacious nonsense — than write pretty, fluffy stories attached to nothing substantive.

Is this a sabermetric blog? I’ve never called it that, but I’ve been accused of it on Twitter for sure. And I don’t really care one way or the other, because I’m not even sure what that means. The baseball writing on this site is informed by the way I watch baseball, which is in turn informed by the stats I sometimes look up on the Internet.

Is there a connection in the game today to Frank Shellenback? Yes there is! The most notable connection is Phil Regan, who had a fairly good spitball. Regan went on to become a manager, coach and pitching coach, including coaching on the 2000 U.S. Olympic baseball team, with pitchers Ryan Franklin, Roy Oswalt, Bobby Seay and Ben Sheets*.

* Tin foil hat time, folks.

In many ways we can point the rise and fall of the spitball to one person: Frank Shellenback, the Sinister Minister of the Spitball.

– Mat Kovach, The Hardball Times.

A good read from The Hardball Times about the history of the Major Leagues’ most reviled pitch. Kovach credits the resurgence of the spitball to Frank Shellenback, and — though he doesn’t say it outright — seems to suggest that as Shellenback’s legacy wanes, so does the spitball.

I wonder if spitballs, vaseline balls, snotballs, scuffed balls and doctored balls of all varieties are quickly becoming a thing of the past thanks to modern technology. It seems like with the number of HD cameras in stadiums now, a pitcher would need to be David Blaine to get away with it with any regularity. Of course, I guess some subtle sandpaper in the glove could still go unnoticed.

In sizing up the possibility of inking Longoria to a multi-year contract, Friedman seized on the practices he developed in his private equity days. When investing in a company, he had to assess not only that firm’s operations but also the quality and risk tolerance of management, the current trends within its industry, and the state of the broader economy. Likewise with a potential Longoria deal, Friedman had to consider a lot more than the quality of the player. The success of the Crawford contract and similar deals across baseball offered a sound precedent. The Rays’ revenue streams—outside of the estimated $70 million to $80 million a year they would pocket in revenue shared via MLB Advanced Media and other league-wide ventures, as well as from richer teams—remained tight. And then there was the matter of Longoria’s agent.

Paul Cohen, an agent for Los Angeles-based TWC Sports whose client list included Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano, Braves pitcher Tim Hudson, and Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, also repped Tulowitzki’s former Long Beach State teammate Longoria. After tearing up Double A for most of the 2007 season, Longoria’s numbers tailed off slightly in Triple A as he hit .269/.398/.490 with 29 strikeouts in 31 games. Cohen had just locked down a six-year, $31 million contract for Tulowitzki—the biggest contract of all time for a player with one-plus seasons of major league service time—with a $15 million club option at the end. Would his other high-profile Long Beach State Dirtbag client, Baseball America’s number-two prospect for 2008, be willing to consider an even longer deal, coming off zero seasons of service time?

– Jonah Keri, the Extra 2%. Via GQ.

GQ magazine presents an excerpt from Keri’s new book, which hits shelves today. It charts the way the Rays’ front office used Wall Street techniques to build a winner, and seems likely to become a must-read for baseball nerds. This excerpt lacks a heavy-handed locksmith analogy though.