Friday. Links. Friday Links. Get it?

• Three thoughts (Inside the Padres). Quoth Grady Fuson, as related by Tom Krasovic: “I told Will Venable: ‘You’re going to end up being a better big leaguer than you were a minor leaguer. I hardly every say that (about a player), but I believe it. I do.” Yeah, I’ve kind of reached the same conclusion.
• 5 arms eye one slot in Padres’ rotation (U-T). Mat Latos, Wade LeBlanc, Cesar Ramos, Tim Stauffer, and Sean Gallagher are competing for that last spot. Latos has the highest upside, LeBlanc is ready now, Stauffer and Gallagher are out of options (Gallagher is also a bullpen candidate), and Ramos isn’t very good.
• SABR Day in America – Recap (Padres Trail). Hey, look, a new Padres blog. Woo-hoo!
• Interview With Madfriars.com Denis Savage and John Conniff: Part 1 (Friar Forecast). Good prospect talk. Be sure to catch Part 2 and Part 3 as well.
• Padres’ Headley happy to be back at third (MLB.com). Quoth Chase Headley: “I feel like I’m at the point now where I have seen what’s out there, I have faced a good portion of the guys in the big leagues and I think the team is counting on me to step up and be a big producer in the lineup. I also think going back to the infield is going to be beneficial. You want to be where you’re going to be the best player.”
• Improving pitcher projections (Hardball Times). Fascinating stuff from John R. Mayne. I need to read this more thoroughly.
• Eck: He’s got it (U-T). I wish I’d seen Chris Jenkins’ article on David Eckstein before writing my own piece. Money quote from Eckstein: “You can’t be happy just to be here. Play mean. Don’t just be happy with your four at-bats. You’ve got a job to do. You show up, you play as hard as you can. Understand the game. Be at the right spot. If you’re not playing in the game, watch and learn from the game and try to get better in every facet of the game. Deserve to be out there.” Sing it to me, brother. [h/t Gaslamp Ball]
• What Puts Fans In the Seats? (Baseball Analysts). Good stuff from Sky Andrecheck. Much of this is covered in Vince Gennaro’s excellent Diamond Dollar$. From the article: “Adding all of the expected attendance increases over 10 years shows that the new park boosts attendance by about 4.5 million visitors. No wonder Selig and company have been so obsessed about building new ballparks.”
• Physicist writes a better formula to predict baseball success (Science Daily). Sure, why not. [h/t SABR-L]
• MLB Gameday BIP Location (Katron.org). Coolest. Thing. Ever… This week. [h/t The Book]
• THT’s Top 100 Prospects (Hardball Times). Matt Hagen delivers the goods. Donavan Tate at #9 overall seems a bit premature to me. Jaff Decker at #33 makes more sense. I hope Matt is right about Tate. The Padres could use a superstar right about now.
• Quick FAN Standings (Fangraphs). David Appelman has the Padres winning 79 games this year, which sounds eminently plausible to me.
• Forsythe buzz (Inside the Padres). Kras informs us that third base prospect “Logan Forsythe is getting a look at second base.” The Pades, it should be noted, don’t have a real good track record in that department; see, e.g., Sean Burroughs and Jake Gautreau (extenuating circumstances in the latter case, but still). Maybe Forsythe will be different. It can’t hurt to try. [h/t Gaslamp Ball]
• Padres postscript: 3/4/10 (Who’s your Padre?). Hey, the Padres played a game. Corey tells us all about it.

LynchMob has been busy this week and so gets a special section:

• Music connects Trucks family (MLB.com). Peter Gammons talks about former big-league pitcher Virgil Trucks and his nephew’s son, guitar virtuouso Derek Trucks (most famous for playing with the Allman Brothers, although I prefer some of his other stuff, e.g., “Greensleeves” with McCoy Tyner..
• Bill James ranks Felix as top young talent in baseball (Mariners blog). This does not paint a flattering picture of the Padres. As LynchMob notes: “I’m interested to watch his list evolve as the Padres advance a rash of 19-year-olds from low-A ball this year to the Padres in 2013… with plenty of talent in between.”
• Bullpen Gospels: Getting The Call (Baseball America). Friend of Ducksnorts Dirk Hayhurst reflects on his call-up to the big leagues: “I watched Portland pass from the back of a cab as I made my way to the airport. Yet it was not the trees or the buildings I beheld; rather, I was looking at my life, a film of memories projected on the world as it went by.”

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