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On this week's VEB Monitor: The St. Louis Cardinals use (and in fact devote a great deal of R&D to) sabermetrics, despite sabermetrics being something only fake fans who don't even watch games and don't understand, man, enjoy; baseball cards crater in value; and David Freese doesn't hesitate to start a Twitter feud with a former Atlanta Brave.
(If you have a link you think would be of interest to VEB readers—yours or someone else's—and you're not selling anything, feel free to send me an e-mail. If you're a VEB regular who thinks collating a semi-regular link-dump sounds like a good time, also feel free to send me an e-mail.)
StanGraphs: Carlos, Don’t Let It Go To Your Head
At the perfectly named StanGraphs, a novel concept: For the first time in years the Baseball Heaven stuff seems to have actually worked on a veteran. But do the Cardinals really want Carlos Beltran back?
Baseball Nation: Requiem for the 00s: The Decline of Topps Baseball Cards
If you grew up reading Beckett Magazine like I did, it will be a very instructive experience to look up some of the cards you once lusted after on eBay. Baseball Nation has a great article about what's left of the baseball card industry, including a Rally Squirrel card cameo.
ESPN: How the Cardinals use sabermetrics
From ESPN, a really nice look at the way John Mozeliak and company use statistics. The best part is the article's ability to break away from the standard "someone is baseball is reading Bill James!" fascination and tell us specifically about the Cardinals' relationship with the publicly available stats we can see and the in-house ones we can't.
Elsewhere on the internet, David Freese delivers a brief treatise against momentum in sports(!) and cuts Peter Moylan deep:
In game momentum change I get it but year after year it works out and sometimes it doesn't work out. Simple. Momentum does not lead to vic!
— David Freese (@dfreese23) February 4, 2013
We were winning but I hear ya. RT @petermoylan: "@dfreese23: Just like rain delays. How quickly games can change. #lightsout"Infield fly
— David Freese (@dfreese23) February 4, 2013