TangoTiger is doing a Scouting Report by the Fans for the Fans where you can judge a players performance in 7 specific fielding categories. Check it out if you are interested in helping out with this project. The only thing asked of the fan is that you only vote for players that you've seen play in at least 20 games over the last 2 years.

Baseball America released their2004 Top 100 Prospects list today. Joe Mauer is #1 overall. For you Orioles fans the highest rated Oriole is Adam Loewen at #13 overall. John Maine is the second Oriole at #54 overall. Denny Bautista, who aged two years a few days ago, is #59 overall.

Rob Neyer picks the Cleveland Indians as his deeper sleeper team for 2004 - a team that could make the playoffs. It definately isn't far fetched considering the AL Central is the weakest division in baseball and Cleveland has one of the most talented young teams in baseball.

Baseball Primer has listed the winners of the 2003 Primey Awards --"the ultimate awards for baseball analysis, research, and writing on the Internet." These are the sites that you need to be reading. Check it out.

Rob Neyer on the A-Rod, Soriano deal and how the Yankees payroll, as a percentage of MLB payroll, is really not much different than 25 years ago.

Here's an intersting article on psychological testing of prospects by the Baltimore Orioles from the Baltimore Sun.

Excellent Thread on valuation over at Mastersball.com - it's a must read for those of you interested in finding the best method to value your players for draft day.

Props from TMR

I wrote a response to a keeper question involving LIMA on the Talented Mr. Roto's new Yahoo group and got some props from him on my article. Here's what he said, "I've read the link below and it's a well written, more detailed explanation of LIMA - I recommend it if you are still unsure of the plan."

Thanks for the nice words TMR!

Beattie on the Belfry

This Q&A with O's GM Jim Beattie was the source of much discussion at Baseball Primer and on the Birds in the Belfry Message Board. Check it out for some insight on the O's that hasn't been reported in any of the papers.

My published works:

1) Winter League Wrap-up: Part 1 - CREATiVESPORTS 2004

2) Winter League Wrap-up: Part 2 - CREATiVESPORTS 2004

3) Minnesota Twins Year in Review - CREATiVESPORTS 2003

4) NFL Mock Draft - Fantasy Info Central 2003

5) LIMA Plan - Fantasy Info Central 2003

6) Player Updates - CREATiVESPORTS 2003-2004 (any post tagged with BP)

Hey, welcome to my new blog. For those of you that don't know, a golden sombrero is four strikeouts in one game by a batter.

A little about me:

I currently live in Washington DC and work for a nonprofit literacy organization. In my spare time I do some writing for the fantasy baseball site CREATiVESPORTS.com. I have two favorite teams - the Orioles and Twins. I grew up in Minnesota so I am still a fan of the team. I watch a lot of baseball and since I live in DC that means I watch a lot of O's games.

Hopefully I'll find enough time to post here to give some O's analysis in addition to whatever else I decide to post. I imagine that the links to the right will be of great use to those of you that are fantasy baseball fans. If you are looking for a place to talk fantasy baseball I suggest checking out Baseball Notebook, Mastersball or Fantasy Info Central. All three sites have pretty good message boards (layout and content).