Saturday Morning Hot Links

Good morning. I was outside in 32 degrees and sleet for four hours last night and I'll likely be dead by the time you read this. Pitchers and Catchers report in four days. We're now less than three weeks away from the first Grapefruit League game.

*First off: Happy Birthday to [Borat Voice] My Wife, the best Wife and Mom I ever could have asked for. Wish her a Happy Birthday, or I will prevent you from reading the Hot Links.

*Here's McTaggart's Spring Training preview. Luhnow:
Typically, teams that have been winning for four years like we have deplete their farm system to keep winning. We haven't done that, and we're not going to do that. We want to win for a long time. We want to win again soon, and I'm confident we have the talent to do it.

*Will Leitch tries to answer the AL West's most pressing questions, like, "Who is the Astros' 5th starter?" Also, check the 12-game division win prediction.

*Czech out Chandler Rome's piece on 2017 11th Round pick Brandon Bielak and his impending appearance in Big League Camp next week. Bielak threw 117IP between Buies Creek and Corpus with 131K:39BB and a 2.54 ERA / 1.15 WHIP. He has 173 strikeouts to 42 walks in 150.2IP over two professional seasons.

*Get your tickets for the Astros' Futures Weekend at Dell Diamond in beeyootiful Round Rock. 2:05pm on Sunday, March 31 where you can attend for anywhere from $7-$35.

*Peep AstrosFuture's post for the Crawfish Boxes on where the Astros' 2006 Top Prospects are now.

*No chance I return Frank's stare for this long. I would simply hang my head and apologize.

Never forget the Frank Robinson stare down, on this day, of remembering this great legend pic.twitter.com/SekADDAV38

— Baseball Bros (@BaseballBros) February 7, 2019

Don't miss Jack Dickey's piece on Frank Robinson in Sports Illustrated. Also: former Oriole Rick Vaughn on Robinson's softer side.

*Cleveland shortstop Francisco Lindor will miss basically all of Spring Training with a calf strain.

*The Spying investigation into my Beloved Leeds United will continue...

Later this morning 2nd-place Leeds will take on 5th-place Middlesbrough.

*Read the latest on the tragedy at Flamengo in Brazil.

*I once read that, if you want to be a great writer, you should write what you like to read. This is how I have 500 pages of notes for a potential book about Andrew Jackson's 1833 tour of the Northeast which, at some point, I will get around to writing. I like reading Very Weird Non-Fiction. So this is one of the weirdest non-fiction books I've ever read, and I highly recommend it.

*The Atlantic: How "Creed" forever changed the Rocky series.

*A Musical Selection: