San Francisco Giants Link Dump, 3/9

I got to take batting practice at home plate at Raley Field yesterday. It was super fun, and when I felt extremely proud of myself for hitting a medium fly ball to left, I remembered: professional baseball players are really good at baseball.

Baseball statistics: Spring forward
If you're like me, you're a smug jerk who likes to silently judge the uneducated masses of baseball fans based on their ignorant beliefs. Oh, you use RBIs to judge offensive worth? How quaint. Are you also excited for next week's new episode of Gunsmoke? I hear this is the one where Marshal Matt Dillon has to fight a real no-goodnik!

But even brilliant, enlightened, shockingly attractive Internet denizens like us have our blind spots. For example, the subject of this article is the mistaken belief that spring training stats don't matter. It turns out, they do! Well, a little, anyway. Because when you add in certain peripherals from Spring Training to ZiPS, they improve the projection. Now, does this mean you should go to Wall Street and short the entire Giants pitching staff based on Spring Training stats? No, because that entire notion is incoherent and I regret bringing it up. But if Justin Maxwell has a hot spring and the Giants bring him to San Francisco instead of Juan Perez, when you prepare to write a world-changing diatribe right here on McCovey Chronicles dot com, understand that the decision is probably a few percentage points better than you're giving it credit for.

Also, people say Gunsmoke was hella good.

In Search of the Winningest Logo
Can logos influence how well a team plays? The answer is obviously yes, because Baseball Prospectus is full of Serious People doing Serious Work, and they studied this issue, ergo it matters. That's even more true because I used Latin. Are any Giants logos in this article? You'll have to read it to find out, unless you finish reading this sentence, in which case you will learn that there are not. But at least they don't praise the Dodgers for being successful either. Of course, the Cardinals rank highly. How nice. We're all happy for them.

Moron USA Today Columnist Thinks The Cardinals Poop Vanilla Sprinkles
Sometimes I get ready to be all "The Cardinals aren't so bad anymore. In the playoffs, they beat the Dodgers and lose to the Giants. I appreciate that." And then I read one of these articles, and it's like "Oh, yeah. They are so bad anymore." Then I eat lunch or something. It's not really a life-changing revelation.

Dog teaches puppy to go down stairs
DID YOU SEE THE TITLE YEAH THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS AND IT'S ADORABLE AND IF YOUR HEART DOESN'T GROW THREE SIZES THEN YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT A FICTIONAL CHARACTER AND BULLY FOR YOU.