Here are Monday's links of interest:
Dave Allen discusses the success Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw had with his slider on Thursday night against the Giants. According to PITCHf/x, Kershaw was throwing his slider harder than last year, and having success with it against right handed batters. He concludes that if Kershaw can perfect this pitch, he can improve his success vs RH batters.
Fangraph's Dave Cameron also wrote about Clayton Kershaw's performance on Thursday night and theorizes that if he can continue to dominate RH batters like he did that night, he will be in the discussion about the best pitches in baseball.
Minor League Ball's John Sickels gives readers his Ten Rookie Predictions forr 2011 where he discusses Brandon Belt, Aroldis Chapman, Aaron Crow, Tim Collins, Kyle Drabek, Danny Espinosa, Freddie Freeman, Jeremy Hellickson, Jesus Montero, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka.
I am not sure if everyone knows this yet, but with the introduction of Baseball Nation, Minor League Ball's John Sickels will be highlighting his Minor League Ball Prospect of the Day on a daily basis, and his latest one, as of Friday April 1st, he discusses Brandon Belt of the San Francisco Giants.
John Sickels provides his thoughts on Blue Jays outfielder Travis Snider in this Post-Hype Analysis article over at Minor League Ball. Many Fake Teams readers have asked about Snider, so I thought this article would be helpful to fantasy owners.
Scott Pianowski from Rotoarcade discusses why you should be watching the Astro's closer situation as Wilton Lopez could be the 9th inning reliever in short order.