Fouled-Off Bunts: Obligated To Post Something Edition

It's very rare that I post out of a feeling of obligation. Some days it's out of sheer habit, but it's not too often that I feel compelled to post something -- especially when there's nothing particularly umm.... compelling to post. And when that's the case, you get rambling introductions like this.

Here's the latest Nats Mailbag, where the banality of the questions is enough to drive a man to drink.

Usually when you read a preview of the team you follow closely, you can nitpick the hell out of it, since most writers only take a cursory glance at the team before they put fingers to keyboard. In the case of Beyond the Boxscore, that's not the case. This is a perfect snapshot of where the team is, and what the prospects for the upcoming year are. Most importantly, the author realizes that the crappy state of the team this year is by design and that it doesn't represent gross general-managerial incompetence.

Our friends at FireJoeMorgan bring the snark with the lowest of the low-hanging fruit: a Kevin Kennedy blog entry, this one on Ryan Zimmerman.

What happens when you mix partisan politics with baseball predictions? You get tortured lines (Geneva who?) like this: Washington (The difference between new Dems in House and Senate and the Nats? Only Nats are justified in calling for an early withdrawl.)

I much prefer to read that with a sexual connotation. It's, perhaps, just as funny and definitely as sensical.

I'm linking this basically only because of its photo of Kearns from the press conference last week. Doesn't it look like a hostage situation?

Ball-Wonk has returned from his 18-month fact-finding mission to Zaire. That he's emerging from his cocoon while Scooter Libby is on trial is almost certainly a coincidence.

Federal Baseball breaks out the ol' newspaper and looks at Frank Howard's new batting stance.

Take the Colts and the points.

Banks says he read that the team was interested in Stevie Trashcan (further cementing my belief that I was right to not renew my season tickets), but Bill Ladson, who's a real journalist and not one of us rumor-mongering bloggers says it ain't so, which fills me with an indescribable joy.

Last, but certainly not least, Nats 320 corners our man at the hot corner (The cuter I try to be, the lamer it is, huh?), Ryan Zimmerman for a whole bunch of questions and some answers. There's some interesting stuff in there, especially when it comes to adjustments and expectations, but, man, Zimmerman's player evaluation stinks. ;)