Weekend Open Thread

Another week in the books means we’re another week closer to Spring Training. Pitchers and catchers report in one month and ten days according to the countdown in the sidebar. It can’t come soon enough. People are starting to get offseason cabin fever, it seems. Here are the weekend links:

• Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza are baseball’s two newest Hall of Famers, and, as Tyler Kepner explains, the two were almost teammates with the Mets. Griffey blocked a deal to the Mets before the he was traded to the Reds. So, instead, the Mets used the players they were going to send to the Mariners for Griffey to get Mike Hampton. Hampton helped them win the 2000 pennant, and when he left as a free agent, the compensation draft pick turned into David Wright. Neat story.
• I really enjoyed Corinne Landrey’s post on the best long plate appearances of 2015. At seven minutes and 47 seconds, the Andrew Miller-Troy Tulowitzki battle was the longest plate appearance of the season in terms of elapsed time. It was the highest leverage plate appearance of both their careers at 8.23 LI (!). It’s also kinda fun Clayton Kershaw (batter) had a 13-pitch at-bat against Madison Bumgarner, which ended with a ground out.
• Rather than link you off to some individual articles, I’m going to point you towards Longform.org’s favorite pieces of 2015. That way you can pick and choose what you want to read. There’s an overall top ten and then top fives within different categories. Lots of great stuff in there. Make sure you check it out.

Friday: Here is your open thread for the night. The Knicks, Nets, and Devils are all playing. There’s no college hoops though. Talk about those games, the links, or anything else right here.

Saturday: This is the open thread again. The NFL playoffs start today, so you’ve got the Chiefs vs. Texas (4pm ET on ABC and ESPN) and then the Steelers vs. Bengals (8pm ET on CBS). The Rangers and Islanders both played earlier today, though there is a bunch of college hoops on the schedule tonight. Have at it.

Sunday: Here’s the open thread one last time. I’m bumping this to the top of the site a little earlier than usual because of the NFL playoffs. The Seahawks and Vikings play first (1pm ET on NBC) and then there’s the Packers and Redskins later this afternoon (4:30pm ET on FOX). The Devils and Nets are playing, and there’s some college basketball action too. Go nuts.