Links to remember

It’s been a long winter – it’s time to play ball again! I haven’t been posting this winter, but I have been reading. Here are a few links from this winter’s hot stove league that I’d like to remember:

• Dave Cameron of Fangraphs argues that the Nats’ trade for Denard Span was the best transaction of this off-season.
• Lots of writers provide their evaluations of the MLB teams, and many times the Nats have come out at or near the top. The Nats got an “A” on this report card from David Schoenfield of ESPN.com.
• In another article, Schoenfield asks if the Nationals could be a 105-win team this season. He concludes that it’s possible, as long as they meet five key conditions.
• Grant Brisbee of SB Nation asks, Are the Nationals as good as everyone says they are? Not surprisingly, his answer revolves around the question of how Bryce Harper develops as a player.
• Turning to more traditional research and analysis, Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs finds that Gio Gonzalez loves to face other pitchers—in fact, his entire increase in strikeout rate from 2011 to 2012 is accounted for by his 72% strikeout rate against opposing  pitchers in the NL.
• On a lighter note, after Michael Morse was traded to the Mariners, Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post‘s Sports Bog gave us this nice photographic retrospective of the Beast’s contributions to our collective memories of Nationals baseball.