Yes! It's finally February! By the end of the month, we'll be watching the Diamondbacks take the field in reality, rather than just in our dreams, or on our console screens. Fanfest is a week tomorrow, pitchers and catchers report shortly after that, and then... Mind you, at the time of writing, we'll have to chip the ice off Kirk Gibson before starting him. For this is not the Arizona I signed up for. Any typos in what follows, are largely the result of producing this edition of SnakeBytes while wearing mittens.
If you want more D-backs chat, Fox Sports Arizona's Jack Magruder, Joe Borowski and Daron Sutton will be having their latest D-backs Talkback live on the FSAZ website at noon today. Presuming they can dig themselves out of the snow-drifts. And are we up for a Superbowl GDT on Sunday? Or, perhaps likelier, a Superbowl commercial GDT....
Very Diamondbacks news
- [AZCentral] Diamondbacks back off idea of using humidor this year - "The decision hasn't been made, but we have not focused on it this off-season," Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall said. "With time running out, it doesn't make sense to do it this off-season."
- [dbacks.com] D-backs looking to reach contract agreement with Kelly Johnson - Sometime Wednesday or Thursday, the D-backs will reach out to the agent for second baseman Kelly Johnson... "We haven't had any dialogue since the numbers were filed," D-backs general manager Kevin Towers said.
- Jarrod Parker's New UCL - Dan, a.k.a. IHSB, has a new personal blog. His first post has updated his prospects list, and uses the word "plethora". I just would like to know if he knows what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has no idea what it means to have a plethora.
Fairly Diamondbacks news
- [True Blue LA] 2011 NL West Offseason Review: Arizona Diamondbacks - "Will 2011 bring brighter fortunes in the desert?" asks Eric. Perhaps wisely, he avoids coming to any particular answers on the question...
- [FanGraphs] Fixing the Diamondbacks Bullpen - "I’m confident that the Diamondbacks will finish with a middle of the pack bullpen in 2011. Combined with a decent starting staff and a budding offense, they figure to finish with more than 65 wins in 2011." Here's to that.
- [montgomery-herald.com] Hard work a priority in Bradley’s life - The Major Leagues is the goal. And Arizona's second-round pick in 2010, J.R. Bradley. says he won't stop toiling, even when he gets there...
- [Sporting News] Offseason moves: Ranking the NL West teams - Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who worked with Towers in San Diego, offers a bit of advice for any Diamondbacks reliever or starter: "They better throw strikes, or they won't last long."
Utterly non-Diamondbacks news
- [Yahoo] Strasburg tries to quit chewing tobacco after Gwynn's diagnosis - A good call. I'm still surprised that chewing tobacco exists in the game today- hopefully Gwynn can help discourage other players from making the same mistake. Appropriately, today is World Cancer Day.
- [Slate] Egyptian uprising FAQ - "Some Egyptian protesters are carrying baseball bats, according to various reports. Is baseball popular in Egypt?" It's sometimes amusing what you get, when you search Google News for "baseball"...
- [Yahoo!] Baseball providing example of labor peace? - "Inside the offices at Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, they are watching the NFL’s labor implosion with the same sort of morbid fascination they evoked 16 years ago. Although no baseball official cares to say it and rub a rival sport’s face in the dirt, they’re all thinking it: How can you be so very stupid?"
- [The New Yorker] Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World - "The most interesting thing about the man who plays the Most Interesting Man in the World, in those TV ads for Dos Equis beer, is that he is interesting, too."