DLD 3/31/09

Stuff to read through while you delay writing your dissertation…

Tigers release Gary Sheffield.

When Sheffield arrived at the Tigers’ clubhouse Tuesday, he knew something was up.

“People were looking at me funny,” he said.

Teammates or staff?

“Staff,” he said.

That’s because teammates didn’t know yet that Sheffield was about to be released.

When asked if he was stunned after it happened, Sheffield said, “I’m not stunned. But you don’t really know what to feel or what to call it.”

The Tigers will eat a delicious $14 MM.

Make sure you are well protected from the Conficker worm.

Security researchers are racing to head off an Internet worm that is scheduled to phone home for instructions Wednesday, possibly to cause widespread damage.

Researchers who have studied Conficker call it one of the most complex pieces of malicious code they’ve seen.
Known as Conficker or Downadup, the worm has been sitting dormant inside the 10 million to 12 million Windows PCs it has managed to infect all over the world since it emerged in November.

Obviously never spent time with the inner-workings of PECOTA.
World Series hero Cole Hamels will be out to start the season:

Hamels threw 65 pitches in a minor league spring training game Monday and allowed 10 hits and three runs in four innings. He walked one and struck out five.

“He was fine,” Dubee said. “I’m not looking at [how many] base hits he gave up or anything. His command is not there. That’s for sure.”

Dubee said he asked Hamels to throw more fastballs than he normally would and reported that his fastball was clocked at 85-88 miles per hour. In previous starts this spring, Hamels had raised concerns by topping out in the lower 80s.

So that’s Hamels, Lackey, Duchscherer…and, yet, my understanding is that Rich Harden is ready to go.  Speaking of pitchers, THT looks at Nick Adenhart of the dreaded Slegna:

• No swinging third strikes
• Fell behind often—1.6:1 ratio of 1-0 to 0-1 counts
• Barely ventured over the inside half against left-handed hitters
• Batters swung at only 35 percent of his curveballs when they were in the strike zone
• Other than that, he fooled no one—the swing rate on his pitches out of the zone (15 percent) was half the league average
• Even Adenhart’s change-up is below average in terms of missing bats (20 percent whiff rate, which is a good 10 points lower than league average for change-ups)

I wanna be…YOUR LINK DUMPER!  Why don’t you call my screen name?