We’ll start the week off with the great Rob Neyer, arguing that Chris Volstad, who the Cubs acquired in the Carlos Zambrano trade, might be even better than Gio Gonzalez.  Neyer’s key argument?  The Sabermetrically friendly xFIP.

There is interesting analysis happening over at FanGraphs thanks to Josh Weinstock.  In a recent article he digs into the idea that baseball is essentially made up of small, relatively benign moments, and that the run expectancy (RE) of most pitches thrown is fairly low, with the exception of pitches hit for home runs.  From there, Weinstock unravels the disconnect between Command and the strike zone, when most home runs are hit off of pitches that are in the strike zone.  I may have just confused you, so click through, Weinstock is less confusing than me, I promise.

Tight race this week for the Video of the Week.  This collection of GIFs probably could have been the Video of the Week, but it wasn’t, so enjoy it now, and wait for something even more awesome to come.

Over at Getting Blanked, Matt Klaassen looks at the state of the Rockies franchise, and wonders what, if anything, they’re really doing this winter.  Are they rebuilding, reloading, or are they just making a bunch of moves independent of one another?  Clearly, Klaassen is Lost in the Rockies.

When I think of team building, I think of boring corporate training exercises where rich executives pretend to care about the people doing the grunt work in their office.  Parker Hageman, on the other hand, applies team building to a real team, the Minnesota Twins, and examines the way their new offseason acquisitions will perform at Target Field.  (more…)