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His selections: Roberto Alomar Jeff Bagwell Bert Blyleven Kevin Brown Barry Larkin Edgar Martinez Mark McGwire Tim Raines Alan Trammell Larry Walker The result impresses but the process is even better. Be sure to click through and read his thorough rationale for each candidate. Can you see why we're excited to have Davidoff write the Foreword for the 2011 Amazin' Avenue Annual?

Ken Davidoff of Newsday is one of the few proponents of sabermetrics in the mainstream media. Unsurprisingly, he produces some of the best content around. An excerpt from his column on Frankie: K-Rod has a 2.04 ERA in 16 appearances this season, and that and about $350 million will help you clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It's just not a very useful statistic for a reliever. Instead, you should delve into the exciting world of sophisticated baseball analysis and check out xFIP, which factors in walks, strikeouts and fly ball rate. Heading into Wednesday, Rodriguez carried an xFIP of 4.41. That reflects the high number of fly balls he surrenders - 56.4 percent of his batted balls, before Wednesday - and the expectation that 11 percent of those will be home runs.

This is the column the mainstream media has resisted writing. Per Davidoff: Contemplate whether you're giving your team its optimal chance to win with Manuel running the clubhouse, writing out the lineup card and making in-game, on-the-fly decisions. For based on what we've seen for the past baseball season and a half, I'm not sure how you come up with "Yes" as the answers to those questions. This isn't a fun column to write, because we media folk are mostly human, and Jerry Manuel comes off as an eminently likable man. Davidoff recognizes that Manuel's strong relationship with the media has earned him some goodwill. Imagine if Manuel had the personality of Joe Girardi or Willie Randolph. He would be the target of daily tabloid headlines calling for his head. A good read, click through for the full version.