Top Baseball Sites these days

1. Fangraphs. I slagged them last April after 3-4 weeks of fairly pointless, small-sample-sized-based writing to kick off their era of having regular articles. Since then they have improved the statistics available on the site (at the time, already arguably the best) as well as their accessibility in countless ways. David Appelman has built a juggernaut.
2. Hardball Times. This site started a few months after I discovered serious internet baseball writing, and over the course of its five years of operation it has, to my mind, been the best source for baseball writing and statistics. It has blown Baseball Prospectus out of the water without really trying to (whereas I sense that Fangraphs is *trying* to blow Prospectus out of the water now, and is wildly successful in doing so).
3. Inside THE BOOK. I will admit I have only read a few threads on here in recent months because my time devoted to following baseball has almost entirely been from behind my uncluttered desk at work. But that's because this is a blog that requires focus and careful thought, and is the only baseball blog I have ever spend days/weeks going back to catch up on after a non-baseball period in my life. While I've got it down here at #3, the threads at Tango/MGL/AED's site are the engine that drive each of the others in my top four.
4. Statistically Speaking. The cast has changed a lot, as this blog may not have the resources to keep its talent beyond its pre-arb years. But the new additions are always very good, and this is a very consistent site to get saber-heavy analysis and research that offers something I hadn't thought about in every post.
5. Baseball Toaster. All-Baseball is a distant memory to many and simply unknown to most, but it once housed the best collection of baseball blogging talent ever seen. In the 2004-5 offseason, (aka the period when I was a bona fide baseball blogger and not a mere jotter of occasional anti-Collettisms) Wait til Next Year and Rich's Weekend Baseball Beat took off to become The Baseball Analysts (which continues going on strong, but the WTNY side has been taken up by others as Bryan Smith has gone on to gigs with Baseballs America and Prospectus). Bronx Banter, the Will Carroll Weblog, Dodger Thoughts, 2/3 of the Cub Reporter, Mike's Baseball Rants, and whatever the A's blog was called at the time moved to the Baseball Toaster. The fall-out for A-B was that it was sold to MVN a week before the Toaster debuted, and Ruzich's Cub Reporter and Transaction Guy were joined by the final month of the original Fourth Outfielder (some replacements were taken on after the proprieter left) and for a while housed Ducksnorts and some other good team blogs, including MVN owner Evan Brunell's Firebrand of the AL blog. The Baseball Toaster landscape has been altered pretty radically since then, with Ciepley out, Smart and Carminati rarely posting, Will Carroll and Scott Long at various times quitting and starting other blogs, and Bronx Banter seceding. However, Dodger Thoughts and Catfish Stew have soldiered on, and still remain essential baseball reading for me because of their amazing ability to capture the psychological, emotional side of being a fan at the same time that they offer objective baseball analysis that rarely suffers any significant flaws. I always find myself only slightly disagreeing with Jon or Ken, whereas most baseball blogs are full of analysis that is either merely obvious or obviously flawed/lacking. Catfish Stew is rarely updated, but that's part of the argument it makes about the organization it follows. Dodger Thoughts is always updated, without any doubt whatsoever, and always brings that edge of what it feels like to have this ridiculous organization in our lives, written in modestly outstanding prose. With totally different gross outputs, these blogs are both masters of economy. They are buttressed by three surprisingly similar blogs: the Catfish Stew-esque Bad Altitude; the very well-written Cardboard Gods, which mirrors the clear and resonant writing of Jon Weisman and always reminds me a bit of the great Repoz of Baseball Primer; and The Griddle, which combines the quirky pop culture touches, hyper-literate wordplay, and historical baseball whimsy leanings of the Toaster with the stupendously-researched touch of a librarian. The Toaster is, I suppose, more of a niche site now, but it is the perfect site for a devotee to keep going back to.

Honorable mention: Baseball Analysts, Walk Like a Sabermetrician, ESPN Blogs (Neyer and Law), Beyond the Box Score, MLB Trade Rumors (it has reached the critical mass where it seemingly covers everything, and it is more a comparative study of the rumors than a site for spreading them; just a solid place to keep track of transactions), On Baseball and the Reds.

UPDATE: Inexplicably omitted from the HM was Sean Smith (aka Rally aka Chone)'s www.baseballprojection.com and his blog, which are great!

Sorry y'all, I can't take your outlook anymore: Baseball Prospectus, Sabernomics. I read 538, though.

ADAM DUNN PLATOON

I advocated LA re-signing Manny Ramirez when asked to write something about the Dodgers offseason for DT, but I didn't offer any thoughts on the possibility of Adam Dunn. I have long liked Adam Dunn as a player but his defensive shortcomings are such that he's not a particularly good value. However, if Dunn were willing to accept a "platoon role," (which, by default, ALL left-handed batters should be willing to accept), his value increases greatly for any team capable of pairing him with a replacement-level right-handed-batting LF. Mr. Colletti, of course, has some bizarre anathema to RHB in the OF, which I have documented at this blog time and again. But while it *should have* been obvious to NC that starting Juan Pierre and Luis Gonzalez against LHP is a bad move, I suspect it will be even less obvious that using Adam Dunn against LHP is a bad move: you can look right at his statistics and say, "Hey, he's actually still a good hitter against southpaws - no need for a platoon!" BAD THINKING!!! The whole point about taking defense into account is not to add or subtract a player's defensive contributions from their entire value, but to use it contextually throughout the process of roster construction. Adam Dunn starting in LF against RHP is about as good as Manny Ramirez starting in LF against RHP; they are among the best hitters in baseball against RHP. But Manny is an elite hitter against LHP (being right-handed and all), whereas Dunn against LHP is merely around league average for LF's. Dunn's fielding means that he's essentially a replacement-level player on days with a southpaw on the mound, though few have the courage to make this claim (they'd rather throw out BS about Dunn hating baseball or striking out too much). If you take a RHB with an overall batting performance of .330 OBP and .410 SLG with average fielding in the corner, he will outperform Dunn if he's your starter on those days (and you still get to have Dunn on the bench).

My initial reaction to the Juan Pierre signing was that Colletti wasn't too far off but that he absolutely would not make the requisite moves to construct a roster where Pierre would be used in a way that would make him as valuable as his contract; I fear that an Adam Dunn signing would elicit the same response from me.

Los Angeles Payroll

The Dodgers owe it to their fans to have a high payroll in 2009 to accommodate the addition of star players (by projected performance, not reputation) through free agency. Last season LA donated a large chunk of their supply of quality up-and-coming players to franchises willing to pay the salaries of the players they were giving up. This was an effort to make a playoff run with a team in no particular position to think it would be successful in the playoffs (which is not to say they were in a particular position to be unsuccessful in the playoffs). The move amounted to a coalition of a win-now-or-likely-get-fired GM with a make-more-money-in-the-immediate-future ownership, neither caring particularly about how to account for the future value being given up. I hated the moves, although of course they looked much worse because of the myriad of failed Colletti-McCourt moves that they followed.

The Dodgers simply must fund a top-caliber team. McCourt is trading the franchise's capital for gains in the balance sheet (in essence, gains for his personal supply of capital); the burden is on him to return what has been taken from the fans by emptying those coffers.