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I guess, if I had my stuff together, I'd do some sort of season  preview. But my normal "load" now is only really one "big" post a week and then a secondary, more "bloggy" post, like this one. Still getting the hang of the nuances... The starting rotation series went a bit "bigger" at two posts a week, but I wanted to finish before the season started. Maybe I can talk Kyle and David G. into the three of us coordinating on something in the next few weeks.

I suppose I'm just out of sorts trying to recover emotionally from the Ross Gload trade.

In any case,  here are some last minute thoughts and links before the Braves and Phillies hit the field...

• Wieters fever, catch it! PECOTA was unbelievably aggressive in their projection of Matt Wieters as one of the best player in baseball, period, already. There's little reason to doubt he's a stud, but a catcher who's already one of the best hitters in baseball without having played in the majors at all? I highly recommend Colin Wyers' article on Wieters at The Hardball Times as an antidote to Wieters fever, first of all, but also for his helpful and easy to understand discussion of Prospectus' Davenport Translations and how they work (or in this case, perhaps "don't work."). Wyers is increasingly one of my favorite sabermetric guys writing out there. He explains and dissects very sophisticated stuff very clearly. See also the accompanying thread on The Book Blog. PECOTA is great, but it's going to be hard to look at it the same way again for me.
  
• Although I'm going to talk about the Royals from time-to-time, I'm going to try to avoid it. It seems like the two things that happen when writers who write about teams in general have to discuss their own team is that they become so cynical they get into a nasty relationship with that teams' fanbase or they become shills. Now, this doesn't happen to everyone. Joe Posnanski, America's Greatest Living Sportswriter (this is not up for discussion), for example does really well with this, I think...  I can't promise I won't talk about them at all, of course. Still, I got so sick of reading about the "Royals coudl be this years Rays," which is so stupid on a number of levels and obviously driven by old-timey sportswriters trying to call a "sleeper" (while missing exactly how those CHONE and PECOTA nerd-machines predicted the jump), that I started writing a piece about how, in many ways, the Royals were doing the opposite of the Rays plan. But I decided to drop it. I'll have plenty to complain about once the season starts, and this isn't a Royals blog... Yet.
• Still, for a fun Royals season preview, here's something that I think will be of interest to all fans of baseball talk in the intertubez: the (one night only!) return of Rob & Rany on the Royals. Say what you want about these guys, but it's always interesting, and together and separately they did (and continue to) turn people onto a more sophisticated way to think about baseball.
• Sean "CHONE/Rally" Smith added TotalZone defensive projections to his player pages. Look out, PECOTA. Seriously, can you believe this stuff is free? I'd better shut up before I blow it.
• Matt Wieters and David Price are both starting the season in the minors for obvious service time reasons. From the teams (and informed fans) perspective, this makes financial sense. But in a larger sense (if you are one of those nuts who think there are higher priorities than fielding a winning baseball team on a budget), on wonders. Rany Jazayerli brushes against the issue in the team context of Luke Hochevar being sent down in favor of Sidney Freaking Ponson, but Dave Cameron jumps on the issue of service time manipulation directly: "There are a lot of things in baseball that just don't live up to common sense, unfortunately. Having rules that discourage teams from putting their best players on the field should be near the top of the list of things to get fixed." What do you think?
• Good luck to everyone's teams (especially mine!) this season. I won't make any promises as to what I'll be posting, but I'll be here at least twice a week, maybe more until Kyle shuts me down. I'll start an occasional series on batting order optimization (and there, yes, I'll be starting with the Royals... you'll see why). Possible future posts might be on bullpen values, historical wins above replacement for pitchers, overrated/underrated "run producers," and maybe some more speculative stuff. If you have any requests, let me know... no promises, and I'm still getting a hang of this, but I'll see what I can do or where I can direct you. Seems like I should end with a link to a cheesy YouTube video or something, but... three dots...